In The Wild ... With Other Sublime Fish. Posted on 3 February 2010 | 1:34 pm
So I had a long protracted conversation while eating raw fish earlier today. And we talked about whales and sharks, and monkeys, and predation ... and intelligence. And intra-uterine cannibalism. Then I brought up the sublime. Friedrich's Monk at the Seashore. One man standing before the storm. Dylan, singing Shelter from the Storm, trading for a lethal does of salvation, Rothko's void, a terminal abyss we may all have stood before. It's a common theme in my early writings, man's tendency to isolate himself from the wilderness. The ocean in Friedrich's painting, is just beyond the monk, hence the sublimity of it, the storm is held at bay, which I submit, is quite delightful. Rothko's glimpses into the void remind us that we haven't fallen in, we haven't submitted to our desire. My early arguments for the void were sophisticated, quoting Foucault, Lyotard, even Carlos Fuentes, I wove a complicated treatise into the sublime, a treatise of fear. I had no idea then that knafeh even existed. Knafeh is effing sublime. Dante's gluttony. It is so exquisite, so rich, such a wilderness of joy that one might fall to it. As my friend Carol said, "I think I'll cry." Without help, I surely would have succumbed. It is a succubus. I should have died. So what's the point of all this? To discuss the merits of some other dessert? No. Our conversation was regarding the high intelligence of Orcas. I brought up the sublime in order to emphasize the idea that we believe ourselves to be separate from nature, to be separate from the animals, to be separate from the wilderness. We are capable of creating constructs to support our beliefs that we are spiritual, intelligent, philosophical beings, and therefore not animals. By "we," of course, I mean the "bright" people in the "West." We are not really in the wild. We are civilized. I ate a squid the other day, grilled, no less. Ika Shioyaki. I felt like an animal. We are clearly at or near the top of the food chain. Very few other animals would find us to be food. Crows. Vultures, sharks, coyote, polar bears, mountains lions, wolves perhaps. Orcas? I have trouble making sense of the natural order of things. I feel like an animal. Yet we, as a society, have separated ourselves from the animals. In doing this, we have explained so much. Our management of the animals, the wild lands, the landscape. Our justification of our own intellectual superiority. Our insistence into the management of all of the wild aspects of the earth. We explain our existence, our raison d'etre, as caretakers of this place, the Earth. Haven't we made a few presumptions? Sure, we should take of this place. But, are we sure we are right? I am in a wilderness, yet I am not an animal. Go figure.  Eating Right Posted on 27 January 2010 | 3:21 pm
So I went to the doctor a while ago ... who claimed I was pre-diabetic (fasting sugar > 100, me @103). ... and so on ... till Dr. Lorenzato recommended the Paleo diet. Let's review the Paleo diet ... cave-man food, fruits nuts, berries, the occasional cat, meat and fish, and wild meat or fish if you can get it, yeta, yeta, yeta, and no grains agricultural products. It's a grain free diet -- with little or no veggies.
"That's kinda radical," claims one of my friends, "you'll starve." My fitness guru was surprised, "You have a doctor recommending the Paleo diet? Where did you find him?" He's the son of one of my early mentors, and I accidentally picked him out of the phone book. Blah, blah, blah. I claim.
I love food. Since I stopped smoking and started to exercise, I eat. So much so, so aggressively, that some people hint that I might have a tapeworm. I'm typically famished. And people saying things like, "I had to stop and eat on the way so I could order some thing good, rather than the largest thing on the menu" do not surprise, nor do statements like, "That looks like it's about what you normally eat, maybe you should put more in there so the rest of us can eat." I would usually rather eat. Everything is better with butter.
I went to visit my friend, let's call her Rose, who was on a meat only diet. Sort of Paleo gone arctic. Atkins with a "NO." Yeah -- meat. The good, the bad, and the ugly. She looks healthier than I have ever known. Go meat.
So I have pushing my diet towards meat, ever inspired by this quote from Left for Dead by Beck Weathers, and by my cave-man friends:
"... Two interesting things happened the next day. A wolf ran out on the trail.
One of the Dani (New Guinea Tribesman) whipped out his bow. ... and dropped the
wolf in mid-stride....Then he and the rest of them fell on the animal and ate it
raw. ... They wolfed him down." "They wolfed him down." That's how I want to eat. It's how I do eat. It's pretty hard though. Order a chicken salad and it's filled with shitty white bread croutons, sugary dressing. Eat sushi and it plonked down on rice. It's a wide spread conspiracy to pack your body with cheap ugly calories, pasta. As Julia Childs' said, "It's starch." Intended to fill you up.
Despite all the failings, my failings, it's working, the Paleo diet. I am at 154 lbs and holding. My joints don't hurt. I feel good.Weekend in Paradise Posted on 21 January 2010 | 1:14 pm
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