Meeting of minds? Who knows. Lets just say that my grey Vancouver morning was marked by a refreshing encounter with a member of the reality based community. I am, in my professional work, a firm believer in subtexts and hidden meanings. I pursue them in the texts I read, to the amusement and annoyance of friends, who see in me a textual conspiracy-theorist. Theurgic scholarship with secret revealed meanings, they will shout. What can I respond to that, other that I am suspicious of writers' motives. There is no such thing as a clear statement. Have you ever courted another human being? You know what I am talking about. All that said, I like to take a statement by a person I meet for what it is. I like "honesty," even if I admire the techniques of obscurity that veil that honesty. Obscurity, as I see it in my work, is a tool that reveals meaning and offers safety. In a more modern context it is often (I will admit, not always) pretence or a game. I need none of the two right now. No code.

In my reading of Peter Brown's book on St Augustine the short discussion of his love travails reminded me of the following text

What is provided here is a translation of the single surviving fragment from a recently discovered, and up to this day unknown, medieval text book on the art of courtship. Philologists suggest that the title of this work was in fact Ars Amatoria, yet the present writer will call it “The rulebook of efficient courting” in an effort to avoid confusion with the famous poem by Ovid. The said manuscript (of parisian provenance) also records the first European reference to the oriental concept of the yin-yang forcing us to reassess our understanding of cultural exchanges in the high Middle Ages. As this is an unpublished text we believe that the reader is indeed privileged to find him/herself exposed to this antique wisdom. Footnotes have been kept to a minimum at an effort to allow seamless interaction with the medieval jewel. The reader will note that our fragment contains one extended and numbered paragraph covering the issue of hasty courtship.

Beginning of medieval text

1. The pitfalls of hasty courting: The desire for instant gratification will kill your chances of experiencing success in the courting ritual [i]. Success in a speeded up courting process indicates participation in human interaction, which is, in fact,
not courting but rather a mutual agreement on the exchange fluids. Courting is to be understood as a delicate dance that is undertaken between two people who harbor in their minds the idea of something more than carnal fulfillment (here we mean: in addition to carnal fulfillment, on top of it, not in transcendence of it) [ii].

Courting is then to be read as a yin-yang symbiosis, where the possibility of success is evenly matched with the possibility of failure. The little black eye in the rounded part of the white side of the whole is the measure of our capacity to read the opposite side and plan our action. It is clear then that our capacity is limited [iii]. Given this reality time is of the essence [iv]. The little eye can only be opened with better knowledge of the other. Better and deeper knowledge, as with everything in life from map-reading to cooking comes with time (or age, the relationship needs to age for knowledge to ensue) [v]. The idea that courting is an attempt at gratifying deeper personal needs makes it a process that may be undertaken ad infinitum by the more spiritually-minded, though ideally the people engaged in courting will understand that the eternal unconsumed courting leads to physical pain (known among medical circles of the university of Paris as – blue balls / les boules bleus – in the male specific version of the disease) [vi]. Thus patience a virtue, which many on this world are not known to possess, is of the essence in courting… [Here the fragment ends, to the disappointment of an eager academic crowd (vii)].

[i] Notice gentle reader the medieval author’s direct address of his readership evident in the use of “your” in the preceding sentence.

[ii] The author’s direct approach of the issue of carnal love is often a surprise to modern readers. It should, however, not be treated as such given the direct contact of people with sex from their very early years. In homes with one bed for a whole family it was hard to ignore the parental carnal-fest.

[iii] Scholarship is still at loss when trying to explain the importance of this emphasis on the white part of the yin-yang total. This emphasis on the yang, the brighter more, according to Chinese metaphysics, male component indicates for some readers the male-centric aspect of this medieval analysis.

[iv] Here language betrays the author’s metaphysical concerns. Time and essence in the same sentence perform a semantic courtship, which attempts to elevate the discussion to a more spiritual level even as direct hints of the carnality of courtship are left floating in the text.

[v] The discussion of depth is inherently sexist and highlights the male-centered perspective of the writer. Here knowledge is ultimately associated with penetration, which at the same time alludes to descent and through decent to the fall itself of humans, implicit in the fulfillment of a carnal relationship. At the same time knowledge is linked with age and experience making the art of love an art that is hierarchically structured and controlled by a crowd of elders.

[vi] The reference to Blue Balls is also one of the great recent discoveries in literature as it was previously assumed that the term was a 20th century invention, when in fact it seems that it first appears in a medieval Latin text.

(vii) This is to make a note on the sexualized nature of the modern writer’s language. The "academic crowd" is in his analysis presented as “eager,” in a manner that evidently sexualizes it and betrays the present reader’s view of academia as a massive horn-fest.

I hope you now have a better appreciation of the middle ages...

Subdued state of concern and worry. Nothing to really do about it. No real prospect of agency appearing over the horizon any time soon. The question is how to keep living this merry life of mine knowing what I know? It all appears too serious to be true. I wish pressing the button did something, provided a solution, solved a problem.

Mogwai on the stereo, light pointed on my keyboard in a gentle variation of an interogation spot and time has come for some recreational reading on British Columbia's environmental disasters. See, all you people away from Canada may assume that just because Canadians can walk around the globe with little flags on their back-packs as a guarantee of safe passage, the country itself is similarly inoffensive in every respect. Well it seems that Canada has is sore spots and I am about to learn more about them. With that I turn to the right, deposit the computer on the little desklet and pick up the book. Lets flip a page...

Carpet patterns, I like them. They are warm, they are classy, they offer this very fresh and young place of mine a sense of a past. They offer history on which to erect the new, upstart IKEA design of cheep furniture. Meanwhile Momus keeps pipping out of the speakers. He is a good discovery. How does one miss a good musician? How does pleasant, apealing music totally fall through the cracks? No more writing for tonight. I have overindulged. Time of some cheese to temper the taste of beer and then some reading. Part of an effort to educate myself on local affairs. The author is called Brian Fawcett, the book: "the way things are in my hometown."

A domani

This is going to be a good test of sobriety. In fact this may not be a really representative posting as the accute sense of lack of absolte sobriety quite possibly leads to overediting and censorship. I am at home, after an interesting evening out. The previous post provides all the information you need regarding the café part of my evening (ok you may need more but you must ask the questions to get the answers). This post deals with the post caffeine segment of my evening. It essentilally records my move to the bar described in the previous post and the consumption of three pints of the local British Columbia IPA in the company of an American fellow coleague from the English department. How often do you arrive in a bar as a thirsty academic and take a sit next to a person in pretty much the same situation? My colleague proved to be a good drinking partner. I suspect that with proper negotiations he may be converted into a more regular Manhattan-sipping associate. Mind you, I was complaining in the previous post of the lack of real contact with the locals. I guess that now I am sowly changing the rules of the game by attampting to become a local of sorts. An expat with my own odd contacts, peculiarly local even as they are parts of an odd diaspora. In any case, the social component to the evening has come to some sort of a close. Back home I am listening to a Dead can Dance CD I purchased this afternooon. More later once I have more to write on Momus, the other CD I got from the talkative record-shop manager.

Not quite Ambrosia for sure, but a familiar space. I am located at Café Prado on Vancouver's Commercial drive. The feeling is different though you do have the sense that a lot of the people here are in fact students of some sort. Yet the absence of a campus nearby makes for a far looser feeling of belonging. You cannot assume that you can talk to someone simply because they are there. The common background cannot be taken for granted. The staff are really nice and their music is decent. I end up here a lot after work. Go home leave bag and take computer for some...editing or writing. Next step from here is having a beer at a bar a few doors down. It is the "Falconetti's Eastside Grill," it is as the name suggests Italian owned and serves a decent IPA and good pub food. Actually make that pretty good pub food. Their music is great and the people working there are also quite nice. Still the politeness is to some extent of the commercial variety (no pun intended). Have not yet broken into the circle of locals that would allow me to experience some more genuine social interaction. Well, give it time...

And I was complaining that nobody talks to anybody in this café. I was just chatted up by an older lady about some ultra modern trolley bus that went by. I never saw it. I would happily discuss this issue yet give me someone younger please. On a very different subject, I need to report that today I received word of the final scientific confirmation of the direct link between wild abusive language and getting back your lost apetite. The new research has been conducted in Greece and the specimen of the study duly obliged the scientific community by undergoing intense psychological trauma and loss of apetite only to test the hypothesis. Our man complemented his vulgar speech-act by finally breaking his fast and consuming a plate of pasta. Researchers advise that the work place is the ideal space for such experiments to be conducted.

Another day out, another night in. It has been a while since I felt relaxed. I have been more or less content for a while, but relaxed? Not really. Right now, with Beth Orton in the background and orange juice on the side I feel I deserve it and I feel relaxed indeed. How is the feeling generated? Well, opinions clash on the hot topic, yet I will put my experience on the table for dissection. My day started early, at 6:45 I was up preparing for the trip to campus. It was a pleasure lecturing today. Yes it could have been more seamless, yet some parts of it were positively flowing. I could leave the podium and the notes and just present a narrative in a seamless manner. Why is it that this is possible in front of an audience and so much harder with a keyboard before me? I guess writing is not performance, and I will always veer towards performance.
(Picture to the right: Sunset Conversation by Elif Eren)
I guess that is the reason I like McMullen’s prose. It reads like conversation with an audience. It gets you in the know, it shares secrets and feels as if he can see your approval. In any case I felt I did a good job and my students regaled me with a good discussion section to make me feel even better about everything. I am not sure once again why it is that today they did better: maybe they started reading at last, maybe they just stopped being threatened by my immense physical and academic stature… maybe the material was really good, maybe all of the above. In any case it was all good, and it felt good doing it. Then I returned home, had time to have a siesta and moved to a café to edit the pope article for the New York magazine. Had a beer and a steak sandwich and then at home I finished all the work I have for Thursday. I practically just gained a day. Tomorrow can be real work on keeping abreast of the game, or research; hence relaxation.

I have been spending time writing odd texts and sending them to friends. A weird process of self-expression has been developing here. The motives behind the creativity (though the word may be too much to characterize this process) will remain hidden from the reader, if only because I wish to deny them to myself. This sounds mysterious and it has offered the reader of these lines absolutely nothing. It contained the sum total of "nul" intellectual nutrients and competed with vacuous TV sitcoms for prise of least useful way to spend your time. I hope you are not too annoyed for having read this. I guess I should be annoyed for still feeling that there is something to be gained from publishing this.

I am about to retire. My day is going to be over soon. It was good, spent in the conpany of the self and later in the day in the presence of a friend. Things have been achieved. I can safely say I have my lectures done for the week. I can also congratulate myself for having emailed more friends and worked on the task of keeping up with people. I wish I had a picture to post. I wish I could have recorded the interraction in the Italian deli. The very simple moment of being told ciao by the middle aged Italian owner who assumed she could say that to me having heard me talk of my machinetta. Always wanting to belong somewhere I guess. Today it was the need to be a Mediterranean expert on coffee. Tomorrow what? BTW blogs are navel gazing enterprises in so many ways.

So after years of trying to find ways to justify my line of work to the representatives of society asking me why it is that they had keep paying for my arcane and diletante intellectual pursuits, I, the perenial café frequenter, the lazy eternal student, found myself tasting the sweet savour of mild relevance. One papal pronouncement, one pontiffical lecture and suddenly I had something to say that people found semi-interesting. It all started with my students. Normally shy and in a close embrace with Morpheus, they suddenly had something to ask. They felt that maybe they were taking a course that offered more than lectures with pretty pictures. Then I read the papal lecture and at the invitation of a fellow academic, I published a comment on the pope's speech on the net. Interest was generated. I mean, let us not fool ourselves, interest was generated mostly among the tiny circle of people seeking arcane knowledge like mine, yet I tasted for a brief second the power of the sirens. Suddenly I was contacted by a fellow running a radio show out of New York and interested in interviewing me. The affable graduate student was now a professor and then somehow an authority on something. How to deal with this. Well gloating is one response, which is then followed by an intense desire to hide and avoid looking the self in the mirror. The Narcisistic tendencies present in everyone of us seeking to stand before classrooms were jumping up and down like teenage hormones. The desire for public contact had to be nipped in the bud. And it was. The sober me emerged and decided to impose a curfew on the Narcisist. At least that is what I tell myself...till FOX news calls and wishes to talk to me. Till that happens I am off hiking where conveniently I cannot be reached by phone and cannot be interviewed.

So, I am in a room full of music. I am alone on a Friday night feeling a bit paranoid about my latest acquisition. I spent 1500 Canadian dollars on a stereo system (amplifier, DVD player and Speakers) and I feel that before I insure them I should not leave the house in case they get stolen. I know I am paranoid, yet I guess I feel like their papa and they are young and in need of protection.

So here I sit with my little babies, listening to their crying which is certainly more melodious than whatever I have heard a baby belch out. If you detect a cynicism re babies you detect well, we are not going to discuss this now however. Among other things I purchased Johnny Cash's cover CD. He is brilliant.

So what did my day constitute of? Nothing impressive. I went downtown and spend time emailing, chatting on skype and then electronics shopping. Today is my weekend. Fridays will either be research days or simply days of rest. And today it was exactly that. Last night I was out at a Snow Patrol concert with a friend and today I have done little other than read news and communicate. So I will leave today at that and simply post a picture or two from my attempt to entertain two weeks ago ala Mrs Dalloway. Not much cooking expected this weekend. Just coffee in the morning and reading.

So I would also like to procure your help in writing a lecture about bishops in the Byzantine world. How do I convey sanctity to my students? I guess the next three days are going to be hell (well here's a saint's travail).