Well, since Thanksgiving I have been thinking a lot about food--preparation, entertainment, purchasing. Now that the big Christmas week is here, I am getting stuff ready for my family and a few friends who will visit. Probably some of you are doing the same. So I want to recommend a wonderful book and website that might be of interest to you and you prepare those feasts.
At the bookstore where I work, I sometimes get advance readers copies of books that are about to be released. In October I picked up a book titled The Amateur Gourmet by Adam D. Roberts (New York: Bantam, 2007). Adam is a self-taught cook who left the practice of law in order to follow his heart right into the kitchen. He loves cooking, takes great delight in having his friends around and writes a warm and joyous prose (and, ironically, he was trained in law school!!!). As you can imagine, I read a good number of books in 2007, mostly ponderous theological, political and historical volumes. But I am naming Adam's book my selection for best book of 2007. The reason: His contagious enthusiasm moves the reader away from packaged or fast food to something very basic and essential: Cooking and eating well.
The good thing is that if you do not have access to his book, you can get to know him, his cooking, his partner and his friends through a fabulous website. Just go to: www.amateurgourmet.com and you can even sign up for his postings. Do it! And then try some of his cooking. Later this week, when my daughter Nelia spends time in Indianapolis from Washington, DC, I plan of baking with her his most recent offering on Red Velvet Cake.
So this is my final blog of the year. I am glad that I revived The Blue Ogee. Your readers comments, both public and private, have been much appreciated.
Have a good holiday and New Year.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Saturday, November 17, 2007
ONE THING AT A TIME
There she was in the bookstore staff break room: watching a DVD, talking to a friend on the phone, eating and reading a magazine--all at the same time! I watched this exercise in multitasking with utter amazement. How is it possible to be present to each task in such a situation? For sure, I was acutely aware of age. I am 64 and she is 21. Is my generation as comfortable with multi-tasking as her generation apparently is?
Even during the day, as a bookseller, I wear an earpiece and there are simultaneous conversations occurring on it while I am working with customers. Often I just yank it out because I have trouble doing more than one thing at a time.
Is this because I am a guy? I read somewhere that women are more prone to multitasking because of their multiple responsibilities in work and at home. That sounds plausible. But I am thinking that age is now more of a factor. Listen to the while doing homework. Watch TV while reading . . . . . .
It now seems that in America multi-tasking is the big thing. And yet, I am happiest and feel most inner harmony when I can give full focused concentrated attention to single tasks.
This becomes clear to me when I am involved in my other part time job as a cleaner of downtown residences. I love this work. The reasons are many. I can see a concrete difference in the looks of the house when I leave. I enjoy the people I clean for. Sometimes the activity of cleaning houses makes me feel cleaner.
The business of cleaning in silence involves working out strategies for reaching a goal (a beautiful polished and clean home). You can't do this by juggling three things at a time. It is only accomplished by one small task after another. Dust the baseboard. Polish the table. Disinfect the toilet. Vacuum the carpet . . . .the tasks are multiple but they cannot be done in groupings but only one after another.
So cleaning has taught me the wisdom and discipline of one thing after another. Of one thing at a time. This is how life works.
In silence I clean. I am present to single tasks aimed at a final goal. I take it one thing at a time.
You can't have it all at once.
Even during the day, as a bookseller, I wear an earpiece and there are simultaneous conversations occurring on it while I am working with customers. Often I just yank it out because I have trouble doing more than one thing at a time.
Is this because I am a guy? I read somewhere that women are more prone to multitasking because of their multiple responsibilities in work and at home. That sounds plausible. But I am thinking that age is now more of a factor. Listen to the while doing homework. Watch TV while reading . . . . . .
It now seems that in America multi-tasking is the big thing. And yet, I am happiest and feel most inner harmony when I can give full focused concentrated attention to single tasks.
This becomes clear to me when I am involved in my other part time job as a cleaner of downtown residences. I love this work. The reasons are many. I can see a concrete difference in the looks of the house when I leave. I enjoy the people I clean for. Sometimes the activity of cleaning houses makes me feel cleaner.
The business of cleaning in silence involves working out strategies for reaching a goal (a beautiful polished and clean home). You can't do this by juggling three things at a time. It is only accomplished by one small task after another. Dust the baseboard. Polish the table. Disinfect the toilet. Vacuum the carpet . . . .the tasks are multiple but they cannot be done in groupings but only one after another.
So cleaning has taught me the wisdom and discipline of one thing after another. Of one thing at a time. This is how life works.
In silence I clean. I am present to single tasks aimed at a final goal. I take it one thing at a time.
You can't have it all at once.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
WATERBOARD BUSH AND CHENEY
In the mid 1960's, I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Brazil. This was at the height of the American-sponsored military dictatorship in that country. During that period, many people who were opposed to the military simply disappeared and many others were detained without habeas corpus and experienced torture. This was not a secret. Everyone in Brazil and the world outside of Brazil knew what was up.
The ideological self justification of the military was anti-communism and the Cold War. They were fighting against radical terrorists who were threatening the order of things (meaning the very wealthy and landowning oligarchs).
Naive Peace Corps volunteer that I was, I believed that the U.S. supported the Brazilian military but that we ourselves would never practice torture on opponents. Of course, Brazilian slums in the state of Pernambuco were a long way from Viet Nam and it was way too easy just to remain ignorant of what our troops might be doing over there. So I was permitted a
smugness that more or less persisted in my mind until post 9/11 and the resulting huge flow of information on how our own government, in the name of another big ideological struggle, deals with detainees.
During the past several weeks, I have become very alarmed by pronouncements from government officials regarding torture. Calling waterboarding anything other than torture seems to me just to engage in games of opportunistic euphemisms. I was surprised, as were many other Americans, to learn that the candidate for attorney general of the United States (subsequently confirmed) stated that he didn't know whether or not waterboarding constituted torture. President Bush himself states that the U.S. simply does not practice torture but that we do waterboard. This week there were many media interviews of persons who have administered waterboarding to detainees and even our own soldiers. At least one of these persons stated that the method, sometimes euphemistically termed "simulated drowning" was in fact torture. He mentioned that it is a method that was used in the Inquisition.
My proposal is this: Since there are soldiers and other government officials dealing with waterboarding who must undergo the experience themselves and since the Bush administration asserts that this is not really torture, why not demonstrate the benign nature of it all by publicly undergoing the exercise. Yes, I invite Bush and Cheney to undergo waterboarding and then I will listen, maybe, to what the have to say. Since they consider it relatively harmless, they might consider it just another day's work, say, something like taking a flu shot as an example fo the American public.
Hey, George and Dick, what about it?
P.S. A final thought: It seems to me a very short jump from waterboarding foreign detainees for whatever reason and finding that this is an acceptable practice within the United States on Americans themselves. Just a pause for thought . . . . . . . .
The ideological self justification of the military was anti-communism and the Cold War. They were fighting against radical terrorists who were threatening the order of things (meaning the very wealthy and landowning oligarchs).
Naive Peace Corps volunteer that I was, I believed that the U.S. supported the Brazilian military but that we ourselves would never practice torture on opponents. Of course, Brazilian slums in the state of Pernambuco were a long way from Viet Nam and it was way too easy just to remain ignorant of what our troops might be doing over there. So I was permitted a
smugness that more or less persisted in my mind until post 9/11 and the resulting huge flow of information on how our own government, in the name of another big ideological struggle, deals with detainees.
During the past several weeks, I have become very alarmed by pronouncements from government officials regarding torture. Calling waterboarding anything other than torture seems to me just to engage in games of opportunistic euphemisms. I was surprised, as were many other Americans, to learn that the candidate for attorney general of the United States (subsequently confirmed) stated that he didn't know whether or not waterboarding constituted torture. President Bush himself states that the U.S. simply does not practice torture but that we do waterboard. This week there were many media interviews of persons who have administered waterboarding to detainees and even our own soldiers. At least one of these persons stated that the method, sometimes euphemistically termed "simulated drowning" was in fact torture. He mentioned that it is a method that was used in the Inquisition.
My proposal is this: Since there are soldiers and other government officials dealing with waterboarding who must undergo the experience themselves and since the Bush administration asserts that this is not really torture, why not demonstrate the benign nature of it all by publicly undergoing the exercise. Yes, I invite Bush and Cheney to undergo waterboarding and then I will listen, maybe, to what the have to say. Since they consider it relatively harmless, they might consider it just another day's work, say, something like taking a flu shot as an example fo the American public.
Hey, George and Dick, what about it?
P.S. A final thought: It seems to me a very short jump from waterboarding foreign detainees for whatever reason and finding that this is an acceptable practice within the United States on Americans themselves. Just a pause for thought . . . . . . . .
Sunday, October 28, 2007
A CRACKED WELCOME
When I moved to this 1920's home in Indianapolis' inner city and began fixing it up last year, I consciously wanted it to be a place of hospitality. So I hung a beautiful little ceramic plaque stating "Welcome" at the doorpost.
If I were asked if the idea of a hospitable home has worked, I would probably say "More or less." On the "more" side I have had some great dinners for family and friends. There have been several international visitors who have stayed here: one from Brazil and another from Germany. At some social events here people have met new acquaintances. One visitor said that when she came here, she always felt special.
On the "less" side of my response, the list is longer. Because the house is located in a neighborhood where crime does happen, I am very careful when I open the door after the doorbell rings. A friend asked to stay here for a week with his partner and I turned him down not because of space but because I felt too busy at the time. I spend more time imagining great social moments than in actually implementing them.
Sometimes it seems that my hospitality is more about how I want to understand myself than how I actually practice my relationships with others. How is it possible to practice a hospitable life when fear and busy-ness characterize our society and ourselves?
Being hospitable seems to me all about what happens also when I am away from this house, interacting with others. Is my body language welcoming? Do I listen? Do I "boundary" others outside of my space? How do I respond to persons who are definitely "other"--homeless, panhandlers, etc.?
A few months ago, I was trying to get into my mail box and knocked the "Welcome" plaque off its hook. It fell and cracked into two pieces. I took it into the house and managed to glue it together with Gorilla Glue. It is back on its hook now, a cracked, definitely imperfect "Welcome." It announces to all and to me that, yes, there is a welcome in this house on Tecumseh Street but it is less than perfect: for the time being, a cracked welcome.
If I were asked if the idea of a hospitable home has worked, I would probably say "More or less." On the "more" side I have had some great dinners for family and friends. There have been several international visitors who have stayed here: one from Brazil and another from Germany. At some social events here people have met new acquaintances. One visitor said that when she came here, she always felt special.
On the "less" side of my response, the list is longer. Because the house is located in a neighborhood where crime does happen, I am very careful when I open the door after the doorbell rings. A friend asked to stay here for a week with his partner and I turned him down not because of space but because I felt too busy at the time. I spend more time imagining great social moments than in actually implementing them.
Sometimes it seems that my hospitality is more about how I want to understand myself than how I actually practice my relationships with others. How is it possible to practice a hospitable life when fear and busy-ness characterize our society and ourselves?
Being hospitable seems to me all about what happens also when I am away from this house, interacting with others. Is my body language welcoming? Do I listen? Do I "boundary" others outside of my space? How do I respond to persons who are definitely "other"--homeless, panhandlers, etc.?
A few months ago, I was trying to get into my mail box and knocked the "Welcome" plaque off its hook. It fell and cracked into two pieces. I took it into the house and managed to glue it together with Gorilla Glue. It is back on its hook now, a cracked, definitely imperfect "Welcome." It announces to all and to me that, yes, there is a welcome in this house on Tecumseh Street but it is less than perfect: for the time being, a cracked welcome.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
.jpg)