Groan Redux

 If it seems like it's the end of March that is apparently a delusion, although it's clearly not warm enough to qualify as a fever dream.

Greed

 After brooding over the question for several weeks, this morning I went ahead and cancelled my Audible membership. On one level it was hard to do, because I have a long commute and books on tape and Great Courses help make the drive manageable. Essentially, I don't mind the drive as much if I feel that I'm learning something at the same time. I recently made the decision to stop ordering things from Amazon, although it has often made my life a lot easier because I could track down objects, especially books, which would have been difficult to acquire. However, simply because I can punch a button on my phone and have a book magically appear at my doorstep doesn't make the process an ethical one. And if I'm going to ween myself off of Amazon, it didn't make much sense of keep Audible. Bezos climbing into bed with the other oligarchs in their adulation of Trump made all of this an easier decision. There was a time when millionaires invested their money in building libraries, whereas now they alternate between creating vanity spaceships and overthrowing our democracy. I was asked for a reason why I was cancelling my Audible account, so I simply wrote: "Greed of Jeff Bezos."

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My good friend Kerry is a huge Ursula K. Le Guin fan and has suggested her books to me several times over the years. However, somehow I've never tackled them. I guess I'm not a big science fiction fan, although the science fiction I like I tend to like a lot. In the end I ended up reading Le Guin's The Dispossessed because Janet came across a Substack discussion of the novel, and she decided to set up a local book chat. She and I have been thinking a lot about community lately, even as we seriously plan to leave this one that we love. Her decision to set up the chat - and our decision to present as part of Vermont Public Philosophy Week - reflect our desire to be part of the community, but also to take part of something positive, as compared to just giving into the temptation to rail against the authoritarian takeover of America. As we say in Islam, small kindnesses are a foundational part of making a better world. Anyway, we've had some lovely conversations with our little community that showed up to read The Dispossessed, and we're already talking about selecting another book to keep the momentum going. In regards to the book, I liked it a lot, and ended up liking it more than the other members of the group.

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 It's bizarre to think that in my long life I had never managed to read all of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. To be fair, it's one of those works which gave us so many familiar passages that the average person would never even associated with the poem: "Water, water, everywhere,/Nor any drop to drink," or "A sadder and a wiser man/He rose the morrow morn," or "He prayeth best, who loveth best/All things both great and small," or "And till my ghastly tale is told,/This heart within my burns." Some classic works don't age well, but, especially in this horrible, heartless age, Coleridge's message continues to resonate.

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 I recently finished Paul Tillich's The Courage to Be. He was briefly discussed in Charles Mathewes's Great Courses lectures on Why Evil Exists. Tillich's The Courage to Be, which is his work designed for a popular audience - as compared to his three volume masterwork Systematic Theology - was still a challenging read. I listened to it on Audible, which made it harder to pause for a deeper reflection, obviously, but I did what I normally do in situation like that - I sometimes pull the car over and email myself a note about a certain chapter. Of course, trying to find a physical copy of The Courage to Be proved to more challenging that I figured, since the local library in Montpelier doesn't have one. However, I will track one down, because I would like to revisit this work in greater depth. Tillich discussed the role of anxiety in the development of the self, focusing on the Anxiety of Death (which he associated with the beginnings of Christianity), the Anxiety of Faith (which he associated with the beginnings of the Protestant Reformation), and the Anxiety of Meaninglessness (which he associates with the 20th century and beyond). Obviously, these are not purely chronological phenomena, and they can exist concurrently today. In response, he discussed the need to focus on the concept of Being, including coming to terms with Non-Being. This is the part of his argument that is going to require that I track down a physical copy of the book for a more sustained reflection and analysis. Tillich talked about reaching the God beyond God, that is, not the theistic God that is limited by our perceptions of essence and existence, and who turns us into a mere Object (in fact, Tillich proposes, I would say correctly, that placing God in a Subject/Object relationship with us is also insulting to God), and instead is existence. I found this notion really moving, even as I struggled to truly get my brain around it. Again, I need to track down a physical copy for serious study.

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 As part of this year's goal of not only recording what I'm reading, but also giving myself more time to read. That includes, tackling books that I wouldn't normally consider. With that in mind, I just blew through Tana French's The Searcher. It's funny, I don't think of myself as someone who reads mystery or detective novels, but I've also read all of Arthur Conan Doyles's Sherlock Holmes short stories and novels (several times) and all of Craig Johnson's Longmire series and almost everything that James Ellroy has ever written. So, obviously, apparently I do read detective novels. On a lark I picked up Tana French's The Searcher when I was roaming around the Northshire bookstore in Manchester. I didn't realize that she had already written a number of novels, and was a quite successful author. All of this goes to show how we pigeon hole ourselves. As it turns out I enjoined the book quite a bit and blew through it very quickly, and might go back and read a couple of her earlier works. I didn't love the novel, but I liked it quite a bit, so now I have to decide whether to buy the next one of her novels or get it out of the library in Montpelier. I tend to always buy, mainly because I'd rather do what I can to support authors (even the successful ones). However, I'm also starting to consider a future overseas, and any book I read will be one I need to sort out. Anyway, I liked The Searcher and I can envision revisiting some of French's other works. 

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 OK, so it definitely seems to be cheating if you're recording the books that you read in the year, and include the Qur'an during Ramadan. So, I guess I'll have to give you that one. However, it is one of the books that I've read in 2025. As I've proposed several time on this blog, my favorite part of Ramadan is the extra time that we can devote to rereading and studying the Qur'an. I would argue that we focus too much attention on fasting, which I suspect is simply because it's easier to quantify. If we're so tired and hungry that we can't focus during our Quranic study, then it seems to me that we've allowed fasting to become the sort of distraction that we warn ourselves against. What amazes me every year is how I keep discovering new things as I work my way through my tattered  copy of Syed Nasr's The Study Quran. There is something beautiful - and necessary - about a consistent deep dive into a complex text. One morning this year I was reading one of Nasr's points (in his voluminous commentary) about praying, and I thought of something that I had never thought of before - or at least thought of something in a different way. It occurred to me the almost parallel similarity between the macro-world of our eternal spiritual life and the micro-world of our daily prayers. In my mind, it looked something like this:

             Death - - - - - - - - - - - - - Life - - - - - - - - - - - - Death

             Prayer - - - - - - -Time Between Prayer - - - - - - Prayer

In a monotheistic tradition where you only live one life, you almost need the time before and after life to make it all make sense. In Hinduism you just keep coming back until you work off your karmic shortcoming, so in the end, even if it may take thousands of lifetimes, everything will balance out and things will be fair and just. However, with one lifetime it almost certainly can't be fair and just, unless you take the much longer view of the time both after but also before you are alive. Essentially, you are with God during those times, and the time in-between, even if God is closer than your jugular vein (as we are told in the Qur'an), you're still not with God. As I was thinking about it that early morning, it seemed to me that the micro equivalent would be our daily time with prayer, with the time we are praying separated by the time where we are forced to go out into the crass and materialistic and decidedly non-spiritual world, before once again coming back into contact with the beautiful. Now, I don't even know if this makes any sense, and I'm still working my way through it. However, it spoke to me of the beauty of Ramadan, and, more generally, the necessity of carving off time for a deep dive into texts, whether the text is the Qur'an or The Book of Disquiet or the Meditations or the Iliad or Bleak House; there's always more time find. However, my joy was short-lived when I read the email from school celebrating the partnership that we're signing with an AI firm. More and more, it's clear that I don't fit in with the college to which I've given a quarter-century of my life.

High Pressure Marketing

 How are you going to get people to attend your Vermont Public Philosophy Week talk? Well, one obvious way is to schedule your talk before your far more popular wife's talk, which I've done. In addition, you'd of course want to include a notice on the local Calais Front Porch Forum. And, the truly savvy, would run off flyers to leave at the local grocery stores.

This displays some real technical sophistication.

 

Willow and Misty

 You know when you live in central Vermont when you know the names of the dogs of the guy who runs the dump transit station. One of the high points of the Calais weekly social scene is running into folks at the transit station on Saturday mornings. And, naturally, my favorite neighbors are Willow and Misty.

And, yes, I bring them treats.

2025 Readings 26

 I've been listening to Craig Koester's Great Courses lectures on The Apocalypse: Controversies and Meaning in Western Civilization. Like most, although not all, of the Great Courses it's been fantastic. I chose it for a few reasons. I tend to listen to a lot of Great Courses on religious themes - or a bunch of podcasts on religion - and obviously books on religion, so this is not a surprising choice. Plus, this deep dive into the Apocalypse and the Book of Revelation was interesting to me because I think it impacted the Islamic view of the end times more than we realize or at least want to admit. Plus, I'm trying to understand the increasingly radical Christian base, who have an outsized influence on policy. It's not enough to simply ignore them or make fun of them. On some level I feel I have to understand where they're coming from, even if I dramatically disagree with them (which I do).  Essentially, is there something in their view of the Apocalypse and a general fascination with the Book of Revelation that explains their worldview - and is there something in that worldview that is revealed in the message of Trump and so many GOP politicians. One of the things that I got out of it, which I already knew quite clearly from readings too many Bart Ehrman books, is that we should not take the Book of Revelation as a predictor of the end times. I guess I always knew this, but once you get into the serious scholarship it is so astonishingly clear that it isn't about that at all - and, truthfully, if you, living today, think that someone living two thousand years ago was predicting the events of your own age, then that speaks more about your own vanity and self-absorption. Rather, the Book of Revelation, like the other Apocalypses that didn't make it into the New Testament, was a metaphoric reflection on the age that John (although not that John, just someone who took that an important name associated with early followers of Jesus, a common phenomenon at the time - which is also the case with the more famous Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John). Even the name Apocalypse simply means something like "disclosure" as compared to the end of the world meaning that we associate with it today (which makes me want to ask Francis Ford Coppola if that was his hidden meaning in entitling his Vietnam film). Consequently, on the one hand I was probably too willing to simply discount the Book of Revelation, but Koester did a wonderful job laying out the beauty of the metaphoric message, and that it was as much a call for justice as anything else, which would actually make it a great fit for Islam. The second half of the lengthy lecture series focused on the influence of the Book of Revelation over the centuries, which was also interesting and important. Anyway, highly recommended.

Stampeder

 The summer 2025 CFL Doubleheader of Excellence trip is coming together. The dates are chosen and the plane tickets are purchased: a Thursday Edmonton Elks game paired with a Saturday Calgary Stampeders game. We haven't purchased the tickets yet because individual tickets haven't gone on sale yet, or at least they weren't last week. That left the most important part of the process: purchasing appropriate CFL swag for the games. I mean, we don't want to look like visiting yokels (or proto-fascists) from south of the border. This was made more difficult was that the original plan was a Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Saskatchewan Roughriders doubleheader, which meant that I had already purchased excellent Blue Bombers and Roughriders jerseys. Oh well, they won't go bad, and they'll just wait patiently for that trip down the road (after this summer I'll have seen games at six of the nine CFL stadiums, so obviously I'll have to eventually complete the circuit). My Stampeders jersey arrived yesterday. My friend Kevin accuses me, quite rightly, of being irrational in love of the CFL and my pursuit of associated swag, but I was somewhat logical with my Stampeders purchase because I chose the jersey of the player who had just signed a free agent contract elsewhere, so I got it for half-off. In the end, any money I saved went back into the CFL coffers (much better them than the NFL) because of the challenge of purchasing an Edmonton Elks jersey (more on that later). Soon I'll have enough jerseys that when we live overseas I'll be able to wear a different one every day (and twice on selected days) and either pass as Canadian or earn the reputation as that odd expat who lives down the lane.

I also chose  this James Vaughters jersey because he is originally from Georgia (and played college football at Stanford), and it reminded me of my time teaching at GPC in Atlanta. He recently signed a free agent contract with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers (one of my four favorite CFL teams - truthfully, I should just say one of my nine favorite CFL teams). Over the years he's also had a cup of coffee with the New England Patriots, San Diego Chargers, Chicago Bears, Atlanta Falcons, and Pittsburgh Steelers - which, to me, makes him a classic CFL story.

Vermont Public Philosophy Week - 2025

 I'm presenting at this year's Vermont Public Philosophy Week, as I did last year. It's a program run by Tyler Doggett from UVM, which features talks around the state. It's a wonderful program, and Tyler does a great job bringing it all together, and I'm very happy to support his efforts. I love these community talks, and it's such a positive way to bring folks together to talk about ideas - and, well, it's also just a lot of fun. The entire lineup of talks can be found on their website: publicphilosophyweek.org

Saturday, 5 April, features a doubleheader here in Calais at the Adamant Community Club (1161 Martin Road).

1:00 p.m.

Gary Scudder

"Self Identity and Why Fernando Pessoa Was the Four Best Portuguese Poets"

What is the relationship between our concepts of Self and Identity? One of the most interesting ways to think about this question was provided by Fernando Pessoa, who produced over one-hundred "heteronyms," four of which might be the greatest poets in Portuguese history.

2:30 p.m.

Janet Pocorobba

"Co-ops and the American Myth of the Rugged Individualist"

A readings from a work-in-progress about the Adamant Cooperative Store, which in 2025 marks its 90th year. We'll discuss the realities and myths about community, isolation, and co-ops.

Obviously, I'm the opening act. Get there early when there will be lots of empty seats! It's free to the public, and we (well, Tyler) will provide some treats. 

Artificial

 I don't know if it happens only to me or to everyone who, through civilization, has been born a second time. But for me, and perhaps for other people like me, it seems that what's artificial has become natural, and what's natural is now strange. Or rather, it's not that what's artificial has become natural; it's simply that what's natural has changed. I have no use for motor vehicles. I have no use for the products of science - telephones, telegraphs - which make life easy, not for its fanciful by-products - phonographs, radios - which make life amusing for those who are amused by such things.

None of that interests me, none of it appeals. But I love the Tagus because of the big city along its shore.

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, text 50

This week is my COR 204 class I lined up Craig Gillespie's wonderful film Lars and the Real Girl, a brief discussion of Karl Marx's ideas of alienation and reification, and readings like this from Pessoa. The students, at least in my Monday class, stared vapidly at me and went back to looking at their phones. At that moment I could only reflect, "Thank you for proving Marx and Pessoa correct, and for putting an exclamation mark on this evening's lesson plan."

On a happier note, I'll be returning to that big city on the banks of the Tagus in June to present at a conference.

A Thin Sheet of Glass

There's a thin sheet of glass between me and life. However clearly I see and understand life, I can't touch it.

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, text 80

This very Pessoan observation feels very true to me at the moment, and it's a decided change from how I've felt for the last fifteen years. It's one of the reasons why I was up for hours in the middle of the night last night, and why I've been haunting the cabin on too many nights lately. I suppose I could relate it to the passing of my father, although I think it's true more symbolically than emotionally. Simply put, we weren't that close to each other. We loved each other, but neither of us ever played a very big role in the other's life, and I'm sure I was just as guilty on that front as he was. So, I don't think I miss him the way my siblings miss him, and that, largely, eliminates the emotional side of my recent struggles. Symbolically, however, well, that's another story. It's an old chestnut, but when both your parents have passed the great wheel of life has spun, and you're next in the queue (and, by simple mathematic logic, if you're the oldest of your generation of siblings that is even more true). As I've proposed on this blog, doubtless far too many times, I'm not worried about dying. I don't waste one moment on any day fretting about my eternal fate - that's just not how I view God. The thought that there's a divine figure adding and subtracting figures from a spectral spreadsheet is both illogical, and I would argue an insult to God. Rather, I think my father's passing has made me think about life's transition points, and, obviously, since I just turned 65, I'm in the midst of one. I've been teaching for over forty years, and even if I weren't struggling with health issues - mainly my lingering and mysterious leg ailments (another visit to my long-suffering doctor yesterday gave me no hope for a medical solution) - I'd also have to admit that I'm just tired. If I'm honest with myself, I just don't think I love teaching anymore, or at least I don't love teaching as much as I used to; even that is conditional, however, mainly because I don't think anyone ever loved teaching as much as I did). You can do many jobs in the wide world quite effectively if you don't love them, but I'm not certain that teaching is one of them. But if I retire, then what? I've defined myself - and measured myself - by my identity as a teacher for over forty years. What am I on the other side?

Dinner with the Kids

 I can't imagine a phone call that would ever give me more joy than a random phone call from my asking if I want to get together. I've made this point before, but having an adult child who wants to spend time with you is an extraordinary gift. We met up at the Langdon Street Tavern for a burger, and when I left my heart was very full.

Too beautiful for their own good.

O Grande Gatsby

 Hopefully I'll be featuring this book again, because it's queued up for my list of readings for 2025 (of course, so it Saint Augustine's The City of God, so who knows if I'll get to all the works on my list). This is a gift from my truly wonderful wife. We've acquired a small collection of works in Portuguese, which are supposed to empower by work on Portuguese (which I've woefully punked on lately). Obviously, you don't have to be fluent in Portuguese to figure out that this is a translation of The Great Gatsby.  Over the years I've read Gatsby a couple times, at least, and I've never completely warmed to it (as all right-thinking individuals can attest, Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio is the greatest American novel) but maybe I wasn't in the place to appreciate it at those moments in time. Anyway, I'm definitely looking forward to a reread (or initial Portuguese reading).

I also wanted to revisit The Great Gatsby, or O Grande Gatsby, because my great friend Sheila Liming has a Great Courses talk on the Fitzgerald classic soon.

Bingo

 I snapped this picture that was hanging on the wall outside of my truly excellent friend Steve's office; consequently, I figured it had passed into the public domain. Obviously one of his students whipped it up as an homage to SW. This is a brilliant bit of parody, and hilarity, and I'm sure it gave Steve a great laugh.

Steve is, deservedly, completely loved by his students, which matches the love he has for them. He never gets the credit he deserves for being a truly gifted teacher.

False Sphinxes

 Let's act like sphinxes, however falsely, until we reach the point of no longer knowing who we are. For we are, in fact, false sphinxes, with no idea of what we are in reality. The only way to be in agreement with life is to disagree with ourselves. Absurdity is divine.

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, text 23

In my COR 204 class this week we're plunging into The Book of Disquiet, which I suspect the students will either love or it will break them. I'm not certain which one I'd prefer. By that I mean that while I would like my students to appreciate Pessoa (this is apparently one of my life goals) I think it might benefit them more to have their untroubled brains shattered, if only so that they can be put back together again. To be clear on this subject, I'm not really interested in putting them back together again: it is for others, hopefully themselves, to carry out that job. That said, they can't begin that process until they're broken down in the first place, which is essentially the point that I think Pessoa is making in the passage above. We can't connect or reconnect until we first disconnect.

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 Let me make an absolutely "duh" statement, at least for my generation, or at least my portion of my generation, that still loves reading: it's so lovely to give yourself over to reading, putting the bloody phone away, and simply immersing yourself in a great book. Janet and I just returned from a few days down in Manchester, VT, which was a great break. It was mainly designed to be a writing trip, and I did get some writing done (more on that later), but the trip was also designed to give us some unstructured time to get some serious reading done. Plus, naturally, we ended up going to the Northshire Bookstore every day. As I'm certain I've expressed previously, Northshire is the best bookstore in Vermont, by just about a million miles. Technically we were stopping by to hangout in the coffeeshop there and write, which we did, but we also knew full well that we'd end up buying more books, which, of course, we did. I Monday night I picked up James Kaplan's 3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool. I immediately delved into the 430 page book, and finished it last night. I guess it's not surprising that I would love it, considering that I absolutely love Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Bill Evans; essentially, I have solid jazz instincts, but not the most adventurous (I like the idea of Ornette Coleman and appreciate the role that he played in the evolution of jazz, but I'd prefer to not listen to him). Still, to blow through a book of that length, or at least a book of that length (I tend to read much longer books) that quickly, speaks to how good the book was but also about the mood I was in and the environment of our time in Manchester. It's so strange to think of a time when jazz was so central to American culture, and how sad it is that it possesses such a tiny and unappreciated niche today. A lot of the book, naturally, focused on the time around the recording of Kind of Blue, and that was fascinating, but it also went pretty far afield from that. It's so staggering to think that Kind of Blue was recorded in about five hours, and that the six artists who recorded it never played together as a group again. Or, it's amazing to think that Coltrane's A Love Supreme was recorded in less than four hours. Giants walked the earth then. Obviously, the book is highly recommended. On a side note: one of the last things that my Dad admitted to me was that he hated jazz, which, considering my love of it, I think I find more disconcerting than his love of the MAGA movement. 

An Escape Leading Outside of God

 But the horror that's destroying me today is less noble and more corrosive. It's a longing to be free of wanting to have thoughts, a desire to never have been anything, a conscious despair in every cell of my body and soul. It's the sudden feeling of being imprisoned in an infinite cell. Where can one think of fleeing, if the cell is everything?

And then I feel an overwhelming, absurd desire for a king of Satanism before Satan, a desire that one day - a day without time or substance - an escape leading outside of God will be discovered, and our deepest selves will somehow cease participating in being and non-being.

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, text 43

This may seem like an odd posting for Ramadan, but, actually, I think it makes perfect sense for how I approach the month. As I've said, too many times, I think we reduce a month that should be focusing on intense study and self-reflection, and turn it into a  competition about who can fast the most hours. It's not that the fasting isn't important, because it teaches us so many things, but if we don't tie it a period of exploration and questioning then I think we're cheapening the beauty of this time set aside from the more quotidian demands of the external world, focusing on what is quantifiable (hours fasted) as compared to what is harder to quantify (study and self-reflection). One of the things that I love about Pessoa is his internality, his quest to find beauty away from the crass, ugly, commercialism of the world that we're forced to live in. It's a world outside of God, at least our commodified vision of God in religion, and because of that it is fully inside of God, the transcendent God beyond being and non-being.

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 And here's another reread (technically, re-listen) that I routinely revisit during Ramadan: Dr. Mark Muesse's Great Courses series on "Confucius, Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad." I'm afraid that too many of my co-religionists never delve into the religious thinkers and works of other faiths, which I suppose doesn't make us any different than folks in other religions, I guess. In Islam we are told repeatedly that we are Peoples of the Book with Jews and Christians, and thus I would argue that we really need to explore the holy texts and traditions of our two predecessors in the Abrahamic monotheistic tradition. this is, again in my mind, especially true since the Qur'an doesn't tell lengthy stories, but rather more routinely comments on earlier stories from Judaism and Christianity. You'd get something like, "Remember what We (that is, God) told Moses (or other earlier prophets) . . ." and then comments upon it, sometimes reaffirming that earlier revelation or commenting on it. If we're not familiar with those earlier stories - and tests - how are we supposed to understand the Quranic references and admonitions? I'd take it further than that, actually. We are told that God sends a messenger and a text to every people, and some Islamic thinkers would propose that this would also apply to thinkers such as the Buddha or maybe even Confucius. And even if we don't go that far, and only consider them as distinctive thinkers who are not part of a larger religious worldview, isn't it possible that they might have something important to say that would make us better people - and, in my mind, that's sort of the point of all this. Consequently, we really should study these thinkers as well. Is our faith so fragile that we can't expand our vision?

Endless

 Yes, I'm sure that if you simply looked at the calendar you could convince yourself that we were a third of the way through March here in Calais, Vermont.

Endless #YankeeHellhole

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 Lately I've been thinking about cutting myself off from all-things Amazon, as part of a larger process of eliminating aspects of my life that are either distracting or downright harmful. I guess this stretches back a couple years, when I first dropped off of Facebook and Instagram and Twitter - and I'm getting ready to take the same approach with YouTube. Like way too many Americans, I default to Amazon simply because it's so easy, although in my heart of hearts I know the harm it does to local businesses. That alone should have been enough to make me dump Amazon, or at least as much as I can do so. However, it wasn't until Bezos climbed in bed with Trump as part of the Oligarch Guild of Calamitous Intent that I decided enough was enough. Truthfully, if I were a better person I would have made this decision earlier - apparently simply destroying local towns and businesses wasn't enough to move my internal moral scale to outrage (which means I have a long way to go on the path to being a better person). I mainly use Amazon to order books, and I tend to not choose books that are on the shelves of my local bookstore. However, and here's why I need to call my own hypocrisy and laziness out for a public flogging, any local bookstore could order exactly the same books for me - I would just have to wait until the next day to call the bookstore and drop in on the way through town. All of this is my way of saying that I'm going to try and follow up on that resolution. It reminds me of a conversation that Janet and I had in Evora, Portugal a couple years ago. We had stopped in their branch of Livraria Bertrand, our favorite bookstore from Lisbon (which is the oldest bookstore in the world). We were talking to the nice gentleman who was helping us, and we ended up talking about our love of Portugal and bookstores and our frustration with the US. He told us, proudly, that Portugal didn't let Amazon into the country, for the reasons stated above. We were charmed by this fact, and it made us love Portugal all the more. However, it's actually only partially true, although it's true in all the ways that it could be true, if that makes any sense. There is no Amazon warehouse in Portugal, and the Portuguese don't want their to be, but it doesn't mean that you can't order from Amazon if you're living in Portugal. Apparently you'd order from one of their warehouses in a nearby European country, with your best/worst option being Spain, and it would still be delivered. So, I think Portugal is making the right decision, but I don't think they cold actually stop an Amazon delivery, so I don't think they could do more than that. How would you feasibly or legally stop a delivery? I'm still impressed by their rejection of Amazon. I remember when I lived in the UAE I ordered a copy of Murakami's 1Q84, back when it was just coming out, and, yes, they pulled it off, and my goal is to always take that approach and avoid the all too easy temptation to simply click on my Amazon app. 

However, this also made me think about those other aspects of the Evil Bezos Universe, such as Audible. With an hour drive each way to Burlington I live off books on tape and Great Courses, and I somehow don't begrudge the universe the drive if I'm learning something on the way. Now, if I'm going to be true to the better angel of my nature, I should just go ahead and dump Audible as well, right? Yes, I probably should. Our local library has books on tape, so, once again, there are other options that do not benefit the Super Rich and Evil, so I should just get over myself and go ahead and do it.

This is all a long and meandering way of introducing my latest "read," in this case a "reread", or more accurately a "relisten", to Martyn Oliver's wonderful Great Courses lectures on "Introduction to the Qur'an." I listen to them as part of my study every Ramadan. Like reading the Qur'an itself, I feel that I get something new every time. For instance, just yesterday it struck me a point that Professor Oliver was making about the use of metaphor in the Qur'an. I've always known, or at least have known since I began to study the Qur'an in more detail, that the book has more metaphor than people realize. For instance, one of the reasons why Surah 18 is one of my favorite chapters is simply because of the strong and sustained metaphoric underpinning. However, he makes the obvious point that every time the Qur'an references the face of God or the hand of God or the throne of God, God or Gabriel or Muhammad is clearly and routinely making use of metaphor. It just speaks to the complexity of the balancing act between the Qur'an as a literal or a metaphoric document, and how trying to separate out one section as metaphoric and another section as literal is more than a bit of a fool's errand, and says more about the person doing the arbitrary separating than it does about the document. And also, going back to one of my consistent points, you need to view it all as one larger whole and focus on several essential concepts, and not cherry pick specific points, especially if they're considered "literal," to back up your personal believes (and, sadly, biases).

Searching

 I know I've said this before, many times, but for me the absolute best part of Ramadan is the time that the month gives us to devote more time to study. Granted, that time is always available to us, but life always seems to have other plans. The solemnity of Ramadan helps to refocus us. It's a pity, again, as I too frequently lament, that we turn the entire month into a competition about who can fast more assiduously. Fasting is very important, obviously, but if we're doing that in isolation from devoting ourselves to a deeper dive into study the Qur'an and the Hadith and related writings then we're missing out on the essence of a transformative experience. What amazes me every year is that every time I reread the Qur'an I discover deeper and deeper meanings. Essentially, I perpetually ask myself, "How has this particular passage never jumped out at me before?" For example, this is the one that I found myself underlining and writing corresponding notes to myself in the margin: "Why should God punish you if you give thanks and believe? God is Thankful, Knowing." (4:147) When I'm asked to speaking about my faith I almost always end up pointing out that I simply can't understand why we're so determined to turn our perception of God, no matter what form it takes, into an angry, vengeful deity. The phrase I tagged above makes the point about as cleanly and simply as I can imagine - and, again, it makes me wonder why that line went unmarked the previous 124,000 times (typical number in Islam for "a whole bunch") times I read over that passage?

Blessings

 Last weekend my best, and oldest, friend, Jack, made his way up to Vermont for a visit. We were doing the math, and we've been friends for over fifty years (and that does my head in).  I often make the point that I'm blessed beyond what my meagre virtues can justify, and his extraordinary friendship is proof of that statement. Any words that I would try to fashion to explain what he means to me would pale in comparison to the depth of the love and appreciation I feel for having him in my life for all these years - and hopefully a few more.

Two distinguished gentlemen at Sarducci's in Montpelier. Or maybe it's a picture of us heckling the other Muppets on stage.

2025 Readings 22

 Last night I finished Olga Tokarczuk's The Empusium, my 22nd book of the New Year. It's also my second novel from Tokarczuk. We have a couple more lying around the house, but, truthfully, I'm not in any great hurry to jump into either of them. I appreciate her unique vision and the audacity of her choices, but I have to also say that I don't think I've cared about any character in either of the two novels I've read so far. It simply feels like (and, obviously, this could partially be a translation issue) there are major characters or themes that she simply hints at and never comes close to exploring. While there is a virtue in leaving room for the reader to bring their own experiences, emotions, and views into the reading process, the author can't provide so little that there's no there there. It didn't help that it was difficult to read this novel and not think of Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain, a novel that I love, and the ways that this story simply didn't stack up.  Having said all that, I have her Drive your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead lying in my reading queue, it's just not forcing its way to the top.

My Peerless Wife

 When Janet and I talk about moving overseas, which we talk about quite a bit, one of the reasons why we sometimes cite for not following through on that dream is how much we love our odd little community here in Vermont. However, we also had to be honest with ourselves and admit that, having said that, we haven't been engaged in the community as much as we should be. That may be something as simple as making an effort to shop more at the Adamant Coop as compared to Shaws's, or taking a more leading role in organizing things where we can get the community together. For example, we're both presenting as a part of Vermont Public Philosophy Week this year, and, in fact, we're arranging a doubleheader on Saturday 5 April, with me talking at 1:00 and Janet at 2:30 (obviously, more on this later). Mainly, I'm just taking advantage of Janet's popularity to get someone to come to my talk. Another example of this goal is that Janet set up a community book group to discuss Ursula K Le Guin's The Dispossessed. We held our first chat a couple of days ago, on a very frosty Sunday morning at the Maple Corners Community Center. It was a great chat, and we have two more coming up.

I snapped this picture as we were getting things set up. Janet had to pop in around 6:00 in the morning so that she could turn the head on (yes, it's Vermont). I just liked this picture, which I sent to my friend Jack with the comment, "Janet and her peers," which lead to his response, "Peerless." And hence the title of this post. She had to pay a nominal fee to rent the space, but getting the community together was, as they say, priceless.

It was an enthusiastic crowd and people made some great points, with the exception of me, naturally.

2025 Readings 21

 I just finished the Mother of Books (not to be confused with the Qur'an, also routinely known as the "Mother of Books," which, obviously, I'm also rereading at the moment). This Mother of Books is an example of a rare category, Gnostic Islamic literature. As you know, during Ramadan I always read, in addition to the Qur'an, a number of other related books, and this year is no exception. When you think of the Gnostics you, naturally, think of Christian works such as the Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of John or the Gospel of Mary, but there are a couple Islamic texts which somehow, through a cultural/intellectual sharing which is often still somewhat mysterious, reflect a Gnostic influence, an the Mother of Books is one of them. The work was written in the late eighth century in the town of Kufa, and comes, not surprisingly, out of the Shi'a tradition as compared to the Sunni. 

Some portions read very Gnostic, such as these lines which speak to the need to free humans from their body:

                              "Then the vacillators grieved

and said, 'Our lord, if only you command us, 

we will be washed and clean of sin, even 

in this, our present form.' The high lord said, 

'Atonement for such sin I won't accept 

as you are in your bodily form. Doubt hangs 

on you.' They answered him. 'What can we do 

to become pure again while in our bodies?'"

The answer is this case reads more "traditionally" Islamic, although, again, from a more Shi'a side of the fence:

"The high king said, 'You must fulfill my four 

conditions to exist closer to me.

The first is that in every each shape and form 

you see me, testify in all the tongues: 

Arabic, Farsi, Greeks, Hindi, Sindi, 

Georgian, Slavic, Syrian. And with decisions, 

prove that you are upright.

                            The second is 

you recognize the proper imams and holy 

and enlightened ones who know, and learn 

from them about my knowledge and my nature; 

witness the deity with their words and spirit.

"Third is that all of you must become brothers 

and sisters to each other, and not withhold 

your life or limb; give up possessions, wealth, 

and blood for our religion and believers.

Hold to religion and your worldly life 

in proper orders, and never choose the ways 

of evil and of violence - neither in public 

nor in your heart share food and sustenance 

or time with them. Witness the deity 

and spirit and be as friendly as you can, 

so fellowship is real because you testify. 

'Believers are brothers.' These three conditions 

are triple witness to the exalted kings: 

one to the prophets, one to right imams, 

and one to brothers and sisters who keep faith.

"The fourth is that you not live by profit 

and worldly fancy. Do not indulge desires. 

When you've fulfilled these three conditions I 

assign you, I will grant you one last pleasure: 

I'll pardon you and give you back eternal 

paradise. As it is written, 'But the believers 

who do what's right will go into gardens 

whose hollows are filled with flowing streams, and stay 

forever.' And elsewhere it says, 'He must 

behave with honor,' and elsewhere it reads, 

'those of good works.' If you keep my covenant, 

I also will. Be dutiful to me 

and I will do my duty toward you.'"

I'm not normally a huge fan of the Gnostics, although I find them interesting. Mainly, I think, they are all too often guilty of gilding the lily. You're adding a whole lot of extra complexity to something that, in its essential form, is already beautiful and profound.

2025 Readings 20

 I finished Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood yesterday morning, a book that I hadn't read in almost thirty-five years. I first read it early in my time at Georgia Perimeter College during the President's Retreat. It's a novel that I think is really good, although one that, because of the many, many racial epithets thrown around, is difficult to read today. It's strange to think that it was a book chosen by one of the professors at the retreat, and I don't remember there being any kickback at the time, and that probably says something bad about the time period. I can't imagine it being read in a similar situation today, at least not in a general meeting, although I could still see specialists reading it in a meeting. That said, I don't know if we actually benefit from simply tossing it aside without even trying to consider the contextual worlds involved, because, even considering the difficulties it presents, there's a lot more good here than bad.