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Last weekend the parents and I drove to the Sinai peninsula to root around St. Catherine's Monastery, at the base of Mount Sinai, where Moses first foisted a jealous god on his tribe, one that took it personally if you snuck in a little devotion to Baal on the side.
Getting there was like driving at high speed through the set of Star Wars, with camels that make Wookie noises and Bedouins as extras. But the one word that crops up again and again to describe the landscape is "biblical". Coincidence, or...?
Dad and I climbed up to the top of Mount Sinai at night under the recent full moon, and saw the sunrise from the summit. We were not alone--about 500 pilgrims and tourists had the same bright idea, and at the top there was plenty of un-Judeo-Christian-Muslim jostling for prime viewing spots. But at least Moses is one thing all three major religions can agree on. Pity, then, that archeologists think if he ever did climb a mountain it was not anywhere near this one. But I am of little faith.
The monastery is something else. It houses perhaps the most impressive collection of Byzantine icons and manuscripts in the world, the result of an uninterrupted occupation by Greek Orthodox monks since the monastery was founded in 527 AD by Roman emperor Justinian. Last year, the monastery decided to open up a couple of rooms to the public, and instantly created one of the best small museums in the world. The Metropolitan Museum gladly did the curating.
I was allowed to see the library. One monk is in the process of digitally photographing every manuscript it owns, using ultra-high end equipment. It's all controlled by a G4 Apple Mac. Hallelujah.
Continue reading "Mostly Moses"
From Ha'aretz today. I think it's hilarious.
I made it to my parents.
I can't find the original results or the methodology behind this poll, and it sounds fishy too me, but the NYC Coalition For a Smoke-Free City is propping up mayor Bloomberg's plan to ban smoking in all bars with a poll that says 75% of New Yorkers would support the ban. But hold on: It sounds like the question was a vague one about banning smoking in the workplace? And was it explained that the group considers bars and restaurants workplaces (for waiters and bartenders), while many respondents probably think of those places as recreation-places? If I was asked if they should ban smoking in the workplace, I'd say of course. But if they asked me if they should ban smoking in bars, I'd disagree completely.
But let's say it's true that 75% of New Yorkers prefer to go out to smoke-free restaurants and bars. That would constitute a spectacular argument against the need for government controls on consenting adults pursuing a social vice: In the highly competitive New York bar and restaurant scene, owners would spontaneously decide to make their bars smokefree in order to attract this overwhelmingly non-smoking clientele. A smaller number of venues--say 25%--would continue to welcome smokers. Non-smoking waitstaff (about 75% of the total, say) would work in the non-smoking places, smoking waitstaff in the other places.
Why isn't this happening? Perhaps because the "poll" is a load of bollocks?
New York TImes Magazine's article on coincidence this past Sunday is a great exposition of why people believe in conspiracy theories. Or buy lottery tickets. Or believe in astrology. Most salient point: we may be hard-wired genetically to miscalculate probabilities. It is best (for our survival) to see too many connections than not to see any at all. A great read.
I'm always happy when surströmming articles happen. There is a new one in today's Wall Street Journal, though I am very disappointed with its complete failure to accurately convey the true horror that eating surströmming entails. Or watching someone eat it. Or being anywhere near an open can. People have been known to spontaneously projectile vomit at the sight of one of the bloated cans squirting out its disgusting brine and stench as it is opened.
I wish I had my scanner here so I could scan proof of my own surströmming horror tale. It began innocently enough when Joachim and I were shopping for food to take on his boat a few days before his wedding in Stockholm in 2000. I expressed an interest in surströmming so Joachim said he'd buy some if I promised to try it. I said yes, stupidly, and this moment of weakness was seized upon by him and John Uppington with glee. They bought a can then and there.
Later, when we moored the boat on an uninhabited island in the Stockholm archipelago, downwind from the city, it was time to open the can. Joachim had boiled some potatoes, added some sour cream, gave me the can opener and a can that had already doubled in size from the gases that had been escaping from the fermenting dead fish inside. Then they fled. They watched from upwind as I began to open the can. Horror! It exploded as I punctured it, with milky-white goo getting on my hands and clothes. But that was nothing compared to the stench; the assault on the senses was physical, like being hit by a bus. I recoiled instinctively before I was able to force myself to confront the surströmming with the intent of eating it.
I don't remember the rest. My mind must have blacked out the experience. But according to Joachim and John, I did eat some bits of the surströmming. I still get flashes of memory of one particular fish's bloated translucent bladder wiggling in a Swedish late summer sunset.
Continue reading "Apocalypse Nöw"And now for something completely different: Tales of the Plush Cthulhu
God punishes Joe Eszterhas for Showgirls, although Joe is under the impression that his smoking is to blame, so he makes a deal with God and writes a New York Times opinion piece urging others to stop glamorizing cigarettes. If God is so worried about the risks we run if we smoke, why can't God just make smoking safe?
Meanwhile, National Rifle Association President and one-time Red Sea parter Charlton Heston may have Alzheimer's. Let's just hope he remembers the gun safety rules--or else we might have to take away his gun license.
It's a favorite conceit of mine that wherever I happen to live is the absolute coolest place in the world. For the past 6 years this place has been the East Village in New York City, or more precisely, the block of St. Marks Place between Avenue A and B [er, 1st Ave.--Ed.]. My block has everything you need for full-bore living--from Irish pub to Moroccan cafe to Italian restaurant to Korean sushi to experimental theatre to vegan bakery (ugh)...
So how does one move from such a place with the conviction that whatever is next will be the new coolest? You depend on Mayor Bloomberg. He's decided he's going to turn New York City into a Californian health spa, by pushing for a total ban on smoking in all bars and restaurants. He's been on something of a roll recently--raising cigarette prices to about $7.50, which has led to a 50% drop in cigarette sales, down to 16 million packs a month. That's not a 50% drop in consumption, though; most people now buy cigarettes in New Jersey or upstate New York, or on Indian reserves.
I don't smoke, of course. But St. Dymphnas without smoke is like alcohol-free beer. Cafe Pick-Me-Up without overflowing ashtrays is like rap without swearing. What's the point?
A week from now, I'll be on my way to Israel, there to visit friends and family, then a week or 2 in the Mediterranean before ending up in Stockholm September 18. They smoke there. Cool.
Continue reading "No wonder this rat is leaving the ship"I've always maintained that a belief in God is the result of a failure of the imagination: But in Simon Blackburn's review of John Polkinghorne's latest attempts to scientifically prove the existence of God, this argument is put a lot more articulately:
When we act and think, we are not conscious of the multitude of causes in the brain or outside it that make our acting and thinking possible. The illusion is to project that lack of awareness onto the universe: to think that instead of being unaware of causes, we are aware that there are no causes. Our own actions and thoughts then become little exemplars of divine self-sufficiency. If we can have minds and make thoughts, just like that, why can't God have a mind and make worlds, just like that?The whole article is worth reading. Continue reading "Searching for meaning II"It is a melancholy thought that so much of mankind's long affair with religion springs from an illusion infecting our conception of mind: the illusion that when we do not know what causes us to act and think, we know that nothing causes us to act and think. But it is only this illusion that sustains the argument from design, and it is only the argument from design that sustains belief in a self-sufficient divine agent.
I wanted to reserve a table for 8 for tonight at Suba. They wanted my phone number. Then they wanted my email. Why? To send me a form to fax back:
Suba's Cancellation Policy:What's next? $10 penalties if you don't finish your plate? An inspection of the toilet after your visit? A dungeon for bad tippers?
A credit card is needed to guarantee your reservation.You may cancel without charge up to 2 p.m. on the date of the reservation. If you do not cancel by 2 p.m. on the date of the reservation and/or are less than the reserved number by three or more people you will be charged $25 per missing person. Reservations must be honored within 30 min. of the reserved time, or you will be considered a "no show".
Please fax back this form to 212-982-3034
with a photocopy of both sides of your credit card.
And who still faxes these days?
So you weren't invited to the world premiere of Beaver Me First and Apartment 5E at the exclusive Two Boots Den of Cin? Watch their respective web versions. You'll need a broadband connection, though, if you don't particularly relish waiting a few hours for each movie.
Continue reading "Short shrift"