I dined with no nobility, I mostly just dined

[gurdonark]

My wife headed out at noon to the gym, so I headed alone to the Indian buffet for lunch. I don't know why, but the Indian buffet has replaced the old Sunday family roast beef of my childhood. Somehow when I have a bit of tandoori and perhaps a lamb curry or two, I feel at home again. When I do the moral thing someday, and give up meat, I wonder if I will be able to find as much soul-saving virtue in potato dishes. I stopped by Half Priced Books afterwards and picked up three suitably heavy tomes: the autobio of Bertrand Russell, a book called "Truing Christianity" by a Canadian theologian, concerned with salvaging what theology is left after science and scholarship take away bits of the scriptural record, a huge Romain Rolland novel that looks like great fun ("Jean Christophe"). I liked Rolland's Gandhi book, so I'm eager to read this huge novel. I also believe in saving baby from the bathwater throwing sessions, so the theology book should be fun. I also picked up the cassette tape I need to complete my mixing.

I read a fair bit of the Russell autobio today. His family seemed connected to everybody famous in England in their time, filled with
unconventionality, publications and witty aphorisms. My grandfather on the one side, by contrast, was a telegraph operator for the railroad, and my grandfather on the other side was a district agent who travelled from town to town buying cross ties from little sawmills for a St. Louis concern. Russell accordingly seems like an oddly connected fellow, someone inside the great shop against which I would at best be able to peer into the window. Still and all, I had a rather happy childhood, and I wonder if Mr. Russell really did, quite. It's hard to say from the evidence of his autobio just what demons he faced down. He says in the preface that he was always driven by the search for love, the need for education and pity for human suffering. I worry that if I set out manifestoes like that in my own autobio (as, sadly, I seem over-wont to do lately in my journal), some recording angel will strike through some of my "great themes" and insert words like Pop Tarts, quiet walks, and science fiction.

I do not believe that I am at all more profound in my ideas than my favorite science fiction novels. I was thinking just today of the novel Dune, and the Bene Gesserit religion's test in the first book for whether someone achieved humanity. The Reverend Mother put Paul's hand in a box in which he would be subjected to unimaginable pain. If he pulled his hand from the box, he would be instantly killed. A "human being", the theory goes, will have sense enough to endure the torment, mind over matter. Oddly, in college, I experienced a variation on this experiment. I took Psych 101, which at my school was subtitled as "Available Guinea Pigs for Grad Student Studies". I signed up for several, but one was a game built loosely on the Bene Gesserit principle. A light traversed up a scale. The further up the scale it went, the more points one scored. One got chocolate for a winning score. The game was simple--if one was patient, the points ascended geometrically at the top of the scale. A bit of quick calculation, and I won the candy. The grad student explained that many folks nonetheless kept resetting the light,
taking the small but inadequate score, in search of the gratificatoin of immediate points. I don't know if I would make much of a Bene Gesserit witch, although that chant about how "I must not fear, Fear is the mindkiller" and how I'm supposed to let fear go through me and around me, is really cool. I also liked that Dune species the Tleilaxu, who set endless traps for other folks, but who always left one clear avenue of escape for the victim. This is far too complex for the way anything happens in my life, but the whole notion that I have at least one good means of escape appeals to me. I never get much past the third Dune book, though, and if I could ever get through the fourth one, where the guy turns into the giant sandworm, I might be a better person, capable of dining with greatness.

I fell asleep as "The Caine Mutiny" was beginning, even though I like Bogart and particularly like to see him play a "non-Bogart" role. Soon I will have to mow and weed eat, and before that I wish to get in a brief walk. My key challenge is not saving the world or commencing some grand novel, but instead finding a place that does not bore me, with nice trees, and yet still getting the weeds cut.

Comments

[marstokyo.livejournal.com]

happy little man? :-)

[jenny_evergreen]

Actually, (the longtime vegetarian says), when one peruses vegetarian cookbooks, one tends to find a lot of Indian cuisine based recipes, so if one likes that sort of thing, one is probably fairly well off in the non-meat-eating experience.
(Although I am living proof that one doesn't *have* to like that sort of thing to be a vegetarian. *chuckle*)

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Some men live lives of quiet satisfaction, or something like that.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

We do have a wonderfl South Indian buffet place near us, with extremely filling dishes without meat. I always like to eat veg, but I always come back to meat.

Re:

[marstokyo.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid I was quoting an *inside joke*--as one of Ben's little friends when he was about five or six had this charming habit of referring to certain people as a *happy little man*-- used to crack me up.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I'm glad it was an inside joke...I thought I'd missed another allusion.

[asphalteden.livejournal.com]

Eating Indian food seems to awaken something within me--a clear sense of well being, perhaps. I believe it to be the sauces; always a favorite with me.

And yet, I eat it infrequently. We need a good Indian buffet in my area.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

You know, it's funny...even when I am relatively virtuous, and skip the sauces altogether, just tandoori chicken, rice and salad still make me feel happy and fed. I'm so glad we have good Indian nearby.