Evening thoughts while sipping bourbon

It's a rare moment when I find that some of my disparate but related thoughts come together into a coherent understanding of an idea or aspect of life. I've been reading articles on the relationship between images and text. The first was a chapter from Roland Barthe's Image-Music-Text, and the second, which I've only just begun, a chapter from Norman Bryson's Word and Image: French Painting of the Ancien Regime. Bryson's subject is religious images and the way in which they are determined by the words to which they refer. At least for the moment (as I haven't finished the article), he asserts that religious images lack independance. I'm not sure that any image really ever has independance, but I know what he's getting at and there's no need to nit pick, not yet at least. But all of this is only of tangential relation to what I started off writing about. While reading Bryson's article, at some point after the first paragraph, I drifted off into thought.

My thoughts jumped back to about seven years ago when I was sixteen. I have a very distinct recollection of a conversation in a kitchen with a man about thirty-five years my senior. It was not so much a conversation as it was an exchange of information and opinion—there was no rapport established. Somehow old man came to know that I was buddhist (I may have mentioned it, though I'm not sure) and he responded something like this, "You know, when I was in Laos (or Vietnam, or...insert some south east Asian country), I encountered a lot of buddhist monks. They weren't very good people. I remember they used to just show up at people's houses and expect to be fed. The people hardly had enough to eat themselves, and the monks would just sort of extort food out of them by a tacit appeal to religious duty." I've made the remarks more explicit. For example, I don't think old man actually said "they weren't very good people", but I'm quite sure that's what was being communicated. I don't recall how I responded (I think I said little at all), but I've been thinking about it ever since, albeit not very often. Yes, I have been carrying this with me for seven years, but I've done so with good reason. Ill-conceived though it may have been, the criticism was not unfounded. At the level of denotation, it was perfectly valid, but it's connotation that buddhism is bankrupt and its followers silly was not, and it struck not only at my own beliefs—which were but nascent at the time—but at my family as well. Now, my own beliefs are a fickle thing. I will proclaim non-attachment, but in truth, I frequently experience an attack on my beliefs as on attack on me, because—understanding "beliefs" in the broadest possible sense—I am nothing other than the aggregate of my beliefs . "I" is simply the signifier to which the group of signs (or signifieds, depending how you want to think about this) that make up "me" is attached. Now I really can't remember what I was going to write about. Oh yeah, so, what have I finally, after seven years, decided might be the proper response?

People are not saved by religion, but by religious practice. Why, because at the heart of most religious practice (of all that I am aware) is some kind of discipline. Religious belief is important because it is what makes the practice of this disicpline enjoyable. Without belief, the practices of religion are simply an empty set of rules (which they may be anyways, but that's a different discussion), an orthodoxy that is as foreign and perhaps non-sensical as it is old. But religious practice—or discipline—coupled with genuine belief engenders a generally happy and productive life. Simple really, but important. It is really the discipline part that I think important. Because if the decline of the American empire is anything, it is the decline of discipline (I sound remarkably like Cato here). I'm going to keep talking about this, because, well, I will.

Some may remember a post I made a long while back about an essay competition for which entrants were to compose a piece on the "Power of Purpose". I ridiculed the idea at the time. The slogan still brings to mind one of my father's favourite responses, "gag me with a spoon". But it has a kernel of truth, which is to say it came out of a genuine insight into the nature of human experience. The power of purpose is precisely the power of discipline [at least in my world]. Purpose is nothing other than a clear understanding of and belief in what one is doing [I'm not sure about the belief part]. Maintaining this view, and the actions it requires (the hypothetical imperatives), is discipline. In this sense, discipline need not be religious. One could find such an approach to life and human experience in other ways. Science is an obvious example. Really, any sort of analytic self-reflexion that yields a sense of ideals, standards, beliefs, what have you, is probably what's important.

So why did this take me seven years? Well, it took me a long time to realise the discipline part. I could have said the part about religious practice seven years ago, but it wouldn't have meant all that much. I had yet to grasp the ngedong (tib. for, roughly "meaning beyond words" or "ultimate wisdom") of religious practice. I'm not saying I fully understand it now, but I've some inkling of insight that wasn't there before.

One last thought: "On belief" Strickly speaking, at an absolute level (as opposed relative) a buddhist of my type (some buddhists believe in mind, and I assume there are others who believe in other things) does not believe in anything, precisely because to believe is to make that thingexist, to enter into an artificial subject/object relationship. I'm inclined to say that belief is a useful tool, but ultimately empty....now I'm feeling confused again.

A beginning

I just purchased a Moleskin® notebook for myself. It is the "legendary notebook of Hemingway, Picasso, and Chatwin." I don't know who Chatwin is, perhaps I should.

[few minutes later]

I just googled (1) "Chatwin" and the only likely candidate I turned up was Bruce Chatwin, a travel writer of the late 20th century whose best known works, In Patagonia and The Songlines, I've never read. Anyways, I'm now going to unwrap my Moleskine® notebook. I've now unwrapped my Moleskine®, nothing much has changed. It came with nine stickers, each with the word "writing" at the top, in letters that gradually shrink in size as if I were looking at an eye testing chart in the doctor's office. There is apparently a history of Molesking® on the inner flap.

I've read the history. So, for about two hundred years, many (at least a handful) of western civilization's greatest artists and intellectuals have jotted down their "sketches and notes, ideas and emotions,...in this trustworthy...blah blah blah". Chatwin (who is/was indeed the travel writer I figured) continued this tradition, buying one hundred of the little notebooks before heading off on a great adventure. But Bruce Chatwin was not enough, the Moleskine® was in danger, demand was simply too weak. And so, in 1987, production—at the time consisting of a small family-run firm in Tours—was discontinued. "Le vrai moleskine n'est plus" said the owner a stationary shop to Chatwin as he attempted to replenish his stock for his next adventure. Today, thanks to Modo & Modo of Italy, the Moleskine® has returned. It even has an events section on the website. I think the Frenchman was almost right: In 1987 the moleskine was no more, but in 1998 it died.

I'm off to write a few sonnets with my Moleskine® as my muse. I'll let you know how they go, but don't hold your breath, I only have till Thursday to write them.

[This is a footnote, I don't know how to make superscript letters on the internet] 1. How long till to google makes it into the Oxford English Dictionary? I figure it will happen when the word ceases to refer to the act of performing an internet search using Google's search engine, and is generalised to refer to any internet search with the object of the to google being the item/person/idea searched for. The question is then, how long will this take? I say six years, if it is to happen at all. By the way, I no longer consider the Oxford English Dictionary the ultimate arbiter of English that I once did. I am now the ultimate arbiter of English. And you. And Winston Churchill.

Tightly wound the space between thumbs doesn't leave much for thought. Together fingers produce transcriptions of thought(s). It is not clear whether the thoughts are many or one. They flow together, not like one stream into another, but like the reflection of a face in a pool of water. Reverberations spread, invading the space of other faces, it is not clear where the thoughts would be without the face, without the reflection. Next door the reflection of light enlivens the day. Over here the formless shadows wander. Temptation towards definition, delineation. Thoughts do not stop for articles. Particles drifting in air, dust is visible in the evening light. Wind dying down, dust gently settles down, on the surface and reflections are obscured.

----

(I promise not to make this a habit.)

Having decided to take a brief break from chemistry, I decided to post something to the blog. I couldn't think of anything to write about that wouldn't keep me here much too long. Having just completed an automatic writing assignment for French class, I decided to do something similar. Beyond the automatic contraint, I also added a constraint of no proper nouns or pronouns, and sparse use of articles. I don't know why, I've probably been reading too much 20th century French literature.

Recent episodes in my life

You may have noticed that I've been reading some Proust. I started À la recherche du temps perdu over the weekend. In case your jaw was about to hit the floor, I am not reading all seven (or eight) volumes. I doubt we'll even make it through Du côté de chez Swann. A few weeks back, when I began reading Madame Bovary, I thought I'd entered literature's Elysian fields. It seems that my stay has been extended. Few other books have struck such a chord in my intellectually stained soul (stained with intellect that is). A list compiled off the cuff runs to only four books: One Hundred Years of Solitude, The House of Spirits, Madame Bovary, and Swann's Way (in order of reading). I might add L'Amour, la fantasia to that list, or perhaps Les Soleils des indépendances.
I just watched City of God. It was such a seductively told story that I barely noticed the cinematography, directing or editing. I liked the chicken in the opening scenes. Simpler metaphors are often better, and the chicken, chased through streets by a pack of children, was effective as a metaphor in large part thanks to its obvious referent. I also really enjoyed the history of the apartment scene. It is perhaps the best use of an off camera narrative that I have ever seen. I'm usually wary narrative intervention in that way, but it was so deftly combined with the onscreen images that I couldn't help but be impressed (Bresson be damned).
I must get back to Proust.

literary jouissance

Proust is (almost) better than sex.

The slow dance of wine and oxygen

Is no longer. Well, not quite. A recently released study, performed by Southcorp (owner of Penfold's and many other top Aus brands) and the Australian Wine Research Institute, found that oxygen is not a central component in the maturation of wine. The study, which was begun in 1997, involved "premium red wine" that was bottled with different closures (corks, synthetic corks, screw caps, etc) of varying permeability. Having not read the study, I don't know what sort of analysis was performed, but I imagine that samples were tested at least every year. In recent years, screw caps have become increasingly acceptable for white wines (or any wine meant to be drunk young), but the view that wine maturation is essentially a very slow oxidation has lead many to believe that screw caps should never replace corks for wines requiring bottle age. If this turns out to be false (as the study mostly concludes), we may see a much greater use of screw cap closures, which though lacking in romance, do not come with the risk of TCA taint (corkiness). Before accepting the study's findings, I'd like to see long term studies tracing the progession of wine over many years. Wines could be sampled every year from bottling to 30 yrs. Sampling should take the form of both chemical analysis and blind tasting (tasting multiple samples of each at the same time), with tasters selected from noted wine industry professionals or from those who've past the Master of Wine certification. All tasters should have to pass some sort of (friendly) blind tasting to take part. Perhaps not the most feasible study, but that's what I'd like to see. I'd like to see the study myself, but a bried search on the internet turned up nothing.