In Praise of Cheese

I wrote this poem today.

In Praise of Cheese

Because of you I will never be vegan
The ne plus ultra of dairy deliciousness
you’re part mold but you never get old

Cows and goats and sheep and yaks
Casein and vinegar and lemon juice
Rennett and wood smoke and protein galore
Calcium and phosphorous and curdled milk
But please, no head cheese for me!

Where you came from we may never know
Pliny the Elder attests to your antediluvian sophistication
Egyptian hierogylphs record your youth in pictures
One-eyed Polyphemus kept sheep and goats with you in mind
John Heywood claimed the Moon was made up of you

Fresh, or whey, or pasta filata
Soft or firm or hard or curd
Sharp or mild or medium
Soft-ripened or blue-veined or rind-encased
Salty or stinky or herb-enhanced
Creamy or crumbly or craggy

All of the above!

Spread on bread or bagels or crackers
with peppered salami and piquant red wine
everything goes better
with a little bit of you

Penicillium candida
Almond-encrusted Kaukauna cheeseballs
(a perennial holiday pleasure)
rock-hard as Gruyere, milk-soft as Brie
even sprayed out of an aerosol can

Some people claim that you cause autism or nightmares
while others insist you help them sleep

It ain’t easy bein’ cheesy
But life without it would make me queasy

Tyrosemiophilia: my new hobby
Let’s call roll!

American, Baby Swiss, Camembert
Danablu, Emlett, Feta, Gammelost
Havarti, Iberico, Jarlsberg, Kikorangi
Lairobell, Mascarpone, Neufchatel
Olivet, Parmigiano, Queso Fresco
O Romano, where forth art thou?
Stinking Bishop take a bath!
Taleggio, Ulloa, Valencay, Wigmore
Xynotyro, Yorkshire Blue, and Zanetti

Like gems rain down your lovely names
More cheese, please!

G. K. Chesterton claimed that poets have neglected you
So, you see I’ve done my best to make sure that’s not true

Eccentrics-only Dinner Party

"Our nation was founded by intellectuals."

This quote comes from an interesting little Wordpress essay I just found called The War on Intellectualism, by Julian Edney. I have known since junior high that appearing to be too smart or intellectual was, in our backward culture, a liability rather than an asset. I have been reading the autobiography of Leonard Woolf (husband of Virginia Woolf) and early on, speaking of his childhood, he asserts, “Then as now, intellectuals were despised.”

That's why my favorite TV character right now is Sheldon (played by Jim Parsons) on The Big Bang Theory. (Watching TV doesn't HAVE to make you stupider...you just have to moderate and be careful what you watch. For instance, stay away from Paris Hilton's New BFF.)

You might say, "You read too many books." And I might reply, "You should read more books." (US Magazine doesn't count!)

I want to help create a wave of "intellectual chic" to get people back to the critical-thinking, revolutionary, enlightened, intellectual roots from which this country grew. Whether that's still possible or not, I don't know...but I have to try. I don't want to settle for a dumbed-down world.

"Doing the research for this essay," Edney writes, "Has turned me into an appreciator of eccentrics, the difficult people not invited to dinner."

I would like to invite those people to dinner.

Literary pedigree

I can't decide whether I want to be the male Virginia Woolf, the 21st-century Edgar Allan Poe, or the gay Charles Bukowski. I guess all three blended together, with a side of my own special sauce. (Photo above is a pop-art portrait of Poe that I found online - unattributed to the artist.)

OK, San Francisco...

I've been on the fence, but I've made my decision - I am committing. You and I are officially going steady. I belong to YOU now. Hopefully for a good long time. I think it's the view from the living room of the house I just moved into (on the top of Mt. Davidson) that pushed me over the edge. I'll have to take some photos when I have a good camera again - it is truly mind-blowing! I have once again stumbled onto a miracle, it would seem. How quickly things change...

brain vs. body

My sense of being a character in my own novel has been particularly strong lately. I really think that, more than most people, I am separated physically and mentally. If I could be pure mind and no body, I think I would be perfectly happy. Physical gratifications - like eating a delicious meal when you've been very hungry - I would miss to a certain extent, but the pros would outweigh the cons. Whether this desire to be rid of the body is "good" or healthy, I'm not sure; but I do have a notion that it will make death easier, when that time comes.

Giant Monsters Attack!

Just back from a talk – very appropriately, in Japantown – called Giant Monsters Attack, part three in the TokyoScope Talk series (the next, on June 11^th, is themed “Sex”!) – it kicks off a week-long “Kaiju Shakedown” hosted at the same venue (1746 Polk), starting tomorrow night with a screening of “Godzilla vs. Gigan.” (Visit the VIZ Cinema web site for detailed info.) There was a panel of three hosts, including August Ragone, the author of a book on Eiji Tsuburaya, “Master of Monsters,” which I will have to read. It was a great talk. Not a huge crowd, but good-sized enough – 40 people or so spread through the theater – and good-natured, full of questions both jokey and earnest afterwards. (One guy asked, “Was Godzilla a chick?” ‘He’ did have a son, after all.)

Various clips were shown which were quite good, including soundless super-8-mm footage from one of the early kaiju films of the actor capering around in the Godzilla suit, apparently trying it out for flexibility, as well as the skillful Tokyo “factory women” painstakingly constructing the miniature sets destroyed in the films, gluing each tile and shingle and intricate piece one by one by hand. Also the clip from 70s TV series “Zone Fighter” in which Godzilla makes his first television appearance. One old guy sitting close to me watched every clip with a smile on his face and chuckled at 5-minute intervals throughout the entire program. Very amusing posters from international releases of the films – including very odd and misleading ones from Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany, and America – were shown as well, and newly remastered discs of the original Gamera (the giant flying turtle who was Godzilla’s chief rival in the 60s) were given away by raffle.

The presentation ranged from the birth of the G-film franchise in the 50s to the present day – a new Godzilla film is due to be released this spring! On the more philosophical topic of what Godzilla means or stands for and the difference between Japanese and American giant monster films, there was interesting talk of the Japanese spiritual tradition called Shinto, and the idea of Godzilla as a destructive deity or divine incarnation of nature such as the Hindu goddess Kali – dark and “evil,” in some ways, perhaps, but still a part of the “plan” of nature. This seems an interesting counterbalance to the oft-proposed idea that The Big G is a symbol of the atomic bomb, an unnatural and evil byproduct of humankind. A great talk, and I’m glad I went.

Also discussed was the way that Godzilla and his or her movies function as a "gateway drug" to Japanese (pop) culture, as they certainly have for me.

Overheard on the bus on the way out: a group of drunk German guys on the bus: one of them said, “In Chermany you can pee anywhere, you can’t do that in America, if the police see you, you pay a lot of money, and maybe you go to chail!”