When an author is famous enough, they earn the right for the first editions of their books to be a little more opulent and Elizabeth Gilbert’s The Signature of All Things (TSOAT) is gorgeous. Since the book is set in the 18th and 19th centuries, the look of it is old fashioned, with unevenly cut, heavy ivory pages and a dust jacket printed to look like aged parchment. There are lovely colored illustrations of orchids on the end papers and the hardbound cover is a soothing green-tinged ivory with an olive colored spine, the author’s initials stamped in gold on the front. The feathery edges of the pages are soft and the book is very sensual, befitting some of the subject matter. My copy is even signed!
Continue reading “The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert”Category: Philosophy
Polishing the Mirror by Ram Dass
Over the last seven or eight months, the man I’m seeing and I made a pact to incorporate some spiritual growth activities into our couples life. We started meditating in the mornings, which we have been very diligent about, and have tried to read spiritual literature aloud to each other in the evenings, which we have been less diligent about. Somehow in the evenings, especially after many months of Covid-19 situational stress, we end up zoning out with an episode of Sons of Anarchy instead. Continue reading “Polishing the Mirror by Ram Dass”
A Long Strange Trip by Dennis McNally
A few weeks ago I found out that a man I’d lost touch with killed himself last spring. He’d been a magnificent influence on me in the early 1990s. We wrote for the same magazine, but his writing was many leagues beyond my work horse prose. Where he would wax romantic, I would wane maudlin, and he wasn’t afraid to tell me so. But he was kind. One late night in his office cluttered with rock specimens, empty bottles of great wines and hundreds of books, he let me recite “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” in its entirety. I was nervous, so he handed me a stress ball to squeeze. That’s a good friend. I’d forgotten his kindness. Continue reading “A Long Strange Trip by Dennis McNally”
Myths to Live By by Joseph Campbell
As I wrote in my unfinished report about Joseph Campbell’s Masks of God, I encountered Joseph Campbell (who I refer to as “the other JC”) in around 1987 after his death and after he had done the famous Powers of Myth interviews with Bill Moyers. Nothing makes me feel more like a water buffalo in a herd than trending with the rest of America after a PBS special. Continue reading “Myths to Live By by Joseph Campbell”
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain & The Last American Man by Elizabeth Gilbert
I read The Last American Man and Kitchen Confidential back to back, which wasn’t planned, it was just that I craved these biographical short books as transitional material after five volumes of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle. I tried to start My Struggle Volume Six, but my brain revolted. What I needed was an all-American male palate cleanser, make that two, and these books served the purpose well. Continue reading “Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain & The Last American Man by Elizabeth Gilbert”
On Nature, Lucretius
I haven’t read philosophy since my 20s. Without a classmates and a teacher to be accountable to, philosophy is just behind math, science and cook books on my snore setting. But a girlfriend wanted to read it so I agreed to temporarily form a book club of two and let my selfish guard down slightly. She better not flake out and not read it because it’s pretty fucking tedious. But gold mining is tedious too, and occasionally the odd nugget makes the process completely worthwhile. Continue reading “On Nature, Lucretius”
The Art of Travel, Alain de Botton
From the mat to the world–a break from yoga to plan a trip to NYC and get some de Botton civility.
I was thinking of going into some yoga-spiritual related books after the four yoga books I’ve just finished, such as Carl Jung’s Man and His Symbols, which was one of the first second-hand books I ever bought when I moved to San Francisco after college. Or Joseph Campbell, or Tom Robbins’ Jitterbug Perfume or Even Cowgirls Get the Blues or Still Life with Woodpecker, all of which influenced me so much in the late 1980s. But since I have a travel bug and am planning two or three trips (NYC next month, Jacksonville, Florida and for Thanksgiving, Kauai with high school girlfriends in February), I thought I’d better reread The Art of Travel. Continue reading “The Art of Travel, Alain de Botton”
The Selfish Book Club 