An old notebook.

Sometimes I run across an old notebook of mine and read something in it that makes me remember how bereft I was of blogging back before I realized I, too, could blog. Today, I ran across this, dated July 9, year unknown:

A man buys coffee and leaves before the barista devises the change. The barista hands the coins to me, and I say, "I'm sorry, I can't accept that."

An urn at the café is labeled "H₂O (i.e. water)." Are there people who don't get "H₂O" who understand "i.e."?

A man in an overcoat takes out a playing card and squeegees the sweat off his face with it.

There's also an entry for July 10th:

I got out volume 13 of the Encyclopedia Britannica (Accounting-Architecture) to find the name of a place in Antarctica (Adélie Coast) so I could finish today's crossword. Then, I started reading from the front of the book. "Aesthetics." Artistotle's answer to Plato, who thought the poets should be excluded from society because they excite dangerous emotions. A. said the experience is catharsis -- a purging -- whereby you experience but ultimately reject the dangerous feeling. No need to eject the poet when you can eject the feeling itself. It's better, really, because otherwise, those bad feelings might roil inside and destroy from within.

A few pages later, in "Alcohol and Drug Consumption," I read of the cult use of peyote, which also has a purging effect. I had wondered how one could feel spiritual toward an experience that entailed vomiting, but theory filled the gap there too: "Many psychedelic drugs produce nausea, and the consequent vomiting may be looked on as a purging of faults."

I picture Plato and Aristotle at a peyote ceremony, Plato taking the just-say-no position and Aristotle justifying his desire for visions (like his desire for emotion-stirring plays) with theorizing about its purging effects.

Perhaps the bulimics of the world need a theorist to counter their critics. Why not purge your way into a better life?

Maybe instead of blogging so much from the NYT, I should take up riffing on reference books.

Anyway, the same notebook had some sketches of people who were listening to a speech by Lawrence Walsh:





Just some miscellaneous things from the past.