To all of my two or three regular readers, sorry for not doing much blogging lately. I’ve been looking for a new apartment, and it’s been kicking my butt. Just too many real-world factors involved. Real estate — where the greediest and ugliest aspects of humankind manifest themselves. Arg. Hopefully I’ll settle on something before long, move in, and get on with life, somewhat the poorer for it. My old landlord helped me to save a few coins by keeping the rent low (in return for much angst), but he’s just about history (just sold the place).

So, instead of reading and studying and writing and thinking great thoughts, I’m all wrapped up in ads and phone calls and apartment viewings, and soon I’ll be writing checks and buying new furnishings and filling out multiple change of address forms. Oh, what joy. But then again, a guy like me can’t always live inside his head, even though I’d like to. Once in a while, real life forces me to get out there and scoop up some raw experience (and it is very raw). But hopefully, I’ll be back in my perch before long, a new perch at that, with bundles of newly gathered experience data to mull over and analyze. Yea, what the heck.

My beer supply was getting a bit low, so I stopped into a liquor store yesterday looking for a six-pack or two. The glory days of the mid-90’s are long gone, when microbrews had just invaded the scene and were pushing Bud and Miller and Coors back from their dominant position on the shelves. But despite their retreat, most stores here in northern NJ still keep a few micros in stock – there are obviously still a few beer drinkers out there with standards, people who won’t settle for malt-flavored water with plenty of advertisement.

So, I was looking over the refrigerator shelf where the micros still hold out, and I saw something new. Well, actually, that’s not so surprising. The liquor stores around here seem terribly anxious to replace a really well made microbrew (e.g., Shipyard) with some novelty brand that might catch the eye of the Bud crowd, e.g. Three Stooges beer. The new brand I saw yesterday was definitely a novelty item, something meant to sell you on concept and not necessarily on quality. It is called “He’brew Genesis Ale”. Yes, a Jewish Kosher microbrew. Brought to you by the Schmaltz Brewing Company. The label does the Jewish angle to the max. Aside from a drawing of a nerdy rabbi-looking guy with a flat hat and beard waving beer bottles over a synagogue, you have the following inscriptions: “the chosen beer”, “chutzpah never tasted so good”, and “to life! l’chaim!”. The logo is the star of David amidst wheat ears. And then there’s the credo, with elements from the Torah and the Passover table: “Why is this beer different from all other beers? In the beginning …”

Well, I hate the idea of getting suckered into buying a product based on advertising and image. I mean, what is there in all of this that indicates that I’m going to drink a good beer if I plunck down $8 for it? I turned away from the refrigerator door, but something called me back to it. I’m not a Jew, but there’s something about Jewishness and especially Jewish humor that tugs some of my strings. And there was something poetic about the conclusion of the label credo: “may HE’BREW join in the blessings of your lives”. Well, OK, I pluncked down my $8, hoping that I wasn’t being taken in too badly.

I had one with dinner tonight. So how is it? Well, turns out to be a microbrew after all, something much better than the watery lagers that define mainstream American beer tastes. It has a strong nose, an opaque body, a lacy head and a nice, round mouth feel to it. As to the taste, it’s a bit on the hoppy / bitter side, which is not really a bad thing. It reminds me of how the mainstream beers like Piels and Rheingold used to taste back in the early 60s. I was just a kid back then, but my parents used to let me take an occasional sip; I very well remember those bitter hops, the taste of beer before the early 70s when the MBA types started reformulating the traditional brewmaster techniques so as to maximize profits (add more water, less hops, and plenty of highly targeted advertising).

Yea, this is an old world beer, perhaps like what they drank in the ghettos of Berlin and Warsaw before the darkness of the early 20th Century descended. There is substance behind all of the hard sell, significance behind the schmaltz. As with Jewish culture in general. Perhaps I’ll open one up after sundown on April 5th.

Oh, one more thought that relates to Judaism, but also to Islam and to Christianity. The Atlantic had a review of novelist John Buchan, a Scotsman from the early part of the last Century. In one of his international adventure novels (Greenmantle), he was mulling over the fervor of Islamic fundamentalism, apparent even in 1916. He made a point that was bigger than any particular ayatollah, something that addresses the question of why the world’s most influential religions all originated in the Middle East:

“It is the austerity of the East that is its beauty and its terror … they want to live face to face with God without a screen of ritual and images and priestcraft.”

Well, I’ll drink to that. But I’ll also keep on praying that the raw spirits emerging from the deserts of austerity can be channeled toward the waters of peace, and away from the wastelands of destruction and death.

I haven’t had much time this past week to think and write, because of some landlord problems. Looks like I’m gonna need some new digs. And that takes a lot of time and energy, energy that could otherwise go into thinking and writing. Oh well, that’s life. I guess you’ve gotta have a roof over your head before you can think and write.

One of my present landlord’s worst sins is his demand that I remove some of the books and magazines that I have piled up in my apartment. He’s the kind of guy that probably doesn’t have a lot of books in his place. Not exactly a book lover, this fellow. This is the last time that I live in an apartment in the same house with the owner. They’re little fascists about their precious little estates, always telling you not to do something or not liking the way that you dry your dishes or whatever. My landlord is now trying to sell the place (as he and his wife are tired of having tenants, and the values around here have skyrocketed lately because of the new train service to Manhattan). That has pushed him well into the tyrant zone. Time to go, especially since any new owner with any brains is gonna totally re-do this place, and thus kick us all out anyway.

Because of all this housing turmoil, I haven’t had much time to bring down any of the mini-brainstorms and mental associations that drift thru my head over the course of the week, which are the raw material for this blog. Therefore, I’ll have to reflect on some of the more raw, primal things of life for now. Like perfume. There are a lot of women, old and young, where I work. But rarely do any of them wear perfume (which is just as well). However, last Thursday, I noticed two of them wearing it. Two in one day!

The first woman was an older hen, a secretary whose been there for decades and decades. She had to leave early to go to the dentist that day. I guess that back in her time, going to the dentist was an occasion for a woman to spray on a bit of cologne or whatever. I guess that kind of thing was once a social requirement for a women; any formal occasion, including consulting a health professional, required a splash of scent. Well, the scent in question here was also quite an old one, something that reminded me of the flowery, sweet and cloying perfumes that my mother used to wear (for going to the dentist or whatever – maybe even the supermarket!). I never liked those scents; I had to open the windows in the car even if it was a cold winter day. And then if my dad lit up a cigarette (maybe as to drown out the smell of my mother’s perfume), it was totally disgusting. Burning tobacco and cloying flowers – no wonder I used to throw up so much when I was a kid!

The second woman was a bit younger, and was wearing something quite different. She was a clerk from the homicide unit, just bringing some paperwork over to the desk next to me. She wasn’t dressed up or anything, the usual slacks and pull-over shirts that clericals who handle a lot of files wear. But for whatever reason, she was wearing some new-generation perfume, something that starts out smelling like clean linen, and then mixes in a variety of citrus and herbal tones. As she passed me (I don’t know her, although I’ve seen her around), it was like, whoa, what’s this nasal symphony in the air? The woman in question was nothing to fall in love with, but her taste in perfume was to be commended (although you’ve still got to wonder about her judgement – why would she put on a splash just to walk over to the Administration Unit? We’re not like dentists or anything).

Hmm, glad to know that they’re now making more interesting kinds of perfumes than the ones that my mother wore (and the older secretary still wears). Although we don’t think about it too much, smells are still an important thing in the daily life of species homo sapiens. (As is having a roof over your head).

One of the biggest, if most basic, issues of philosophy is the relationship between goodness and truth. Both are generally desirable things (if in fact they can be called “things”; they’re not touchable, they’re both abstractions). Truth is supposed to be objective – if some proposition is true, it should be true for everyone, everywhere – whereby goodness is often subjective, judged by the needs of a particular person. What’s good for you may not be good for me. However, what’s true for you should be true for me too. Of course, the question then comes up as to what truth is. The statement that “John is everyone’s friend” may not be able to be classified as a “true statement”, because it could not practically be verified. The idea of “everyone” is too broad. How could you ever know if John is considered to be a friend by everyone currently living on the planet? You could limit the statement to “John is everyone’s friend on the football team”. Then you could test the statement, and if the whole team agrees that John is a friend, the statement enters the rank of “truth”. Otherwise it remains but an opinion, like “God is everyone’s friend”.

And as to goodness – can there be an absolute form of goodness, something that is good for every sentient observer? Or does all good depend on the characteristics of the observer, and thus generally varies based on that observer’s needs? Are there any objective goods, or is good inherently subjective?

I miss the days of college, when questions like these actually meant something. They got some interesting discussions going.Too bad that this kind of stuff just doesn’t matter too much in most everything you do after college. It would be a better world if it somehow did.

I enjoy those web sites that have lists of often-mistaken song lyrics. I’ve misinterpreted the lyrics to a whole bunch of songs in my life, often being corrected with great hubris by some know-it-all type. One of the classic misheard lines was in Credence Clearwater Revival’s “Bad Moon Risin”, where the refrain, “there’s a bad moon on the rise”, was often though to be “there’s a bathroom on the right”. Then there was that crazy line in REM’s “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight” that actually went “call me when you try to wake her”, but was heard in all sorts of ways, some having to do with Jamaica. My own favorite misinterpretation for that one was “come on in, tiebreaker” (imagine a baseball game with a guy on third threatening to steal … well, never mind).

I just discovered that I’ve been mishearing another line in a song for the past few months. Luckily I discovered the right line on a web site, before anyone had noticed my error. My latest blunder was Nickleback’s “You Remind Me of What I Really Am”, which I heard as “You Remind Me of What I’ve Never Had”.

Actually, though, I think that my incorrect title is more interesting than the right one. I recently started in on my “Great Minds of the Western Intellectual Tradition” CD’s, and I just got thru Plato. One of Plato’s more interesting developments of his key concept of “the forms” regards love. According to Plato, when you fall head-over-heals in love with someone, the excitement really stems from the fact that your soul is suddenly reminded of the perfect beauty and truth that it knew in a past life up in heaven, before it fell into our nasty world in order to become you. During the rush of affection and attention that happens in the early stages of love, your soul, which is homesick for the nicer world that it once lived in, believes for a short time that it is back amidst the perfect forms, and it gets all excited.

And gee, Aristotelian empiricist that I am, I thought it was all just hormones and other physical processes that developed through evolution to insure the reproduction and continuation of the species.

Well, maybe one could view it both ways. When you find someone whose looks and voice and personality and “soul” intrigues you and sets your heart racing and gets your internal chemistry flowing, your immediate reactions are a natural and scientifically explainable process. The chemical and hormonal reactions in your body alter the images in your mind, and filter out all the imperfections of reality for a while. But then there’s the soul, the mythical soul, which looks out on the world through your mind. In general, the soul does not get very excited about what it sees. Our world is not at all like where the soul came from. But then love comes along, and the picture inside the mind changes due to the magic of interpersonal chemistry. For just a little while, the soul sees something that looks a lot more like home. So it feels darn good about things. Unfortunately, the erotic chemistry doesn’t hold, the illusion fades, and the soul eventually gets back to its usual blah-ze state, just another day of quiet desperation.

(And what’s even worse is that most guys keep on pretending that sex is the ultimate thing in life and that they’re strong or rich enough to get it from their women whenever needed. Guys, once you hit your late 30s, put away the caveman pretenses and admit that sex never did fulfill what you really long for, and never will … and neither will money or power, for that matter.)

Well, this is an extremely mythical and unscientific interpretation of love and the human mind, and doesn’t have much practical value these days. And yet, I myself find a certain gut appeal to it. Even if not true, it’s an intriguing theory: the young women who caught my fancy many years ago were reminding me of something that I never had … not in this life anyway.

And given the way that love goes here in this rough-cut world, what they were reminding me of is something that I still haven’t had and probably never will. There is something compelling about the ideal of “perfect love”, even though we never realize it. Yea, if you want a really good example of what Plato meant by his “forms”, just think about your own longing for true love. That’s the mother of all the forms. So if you can suspend your disbelief for just a few moments, then indeed, let that longing remind you of what you’ve never had.

I pass this building on the way home from work, and a few months ago I noticed this attempt to inform potential visitors where the front door is. You’d think that they’d have gotten out the dictionary, or would have asked somebody beforehand. But obviously these guys paint first and ask questions later. And as to their choice of color … whoever runs this building isn’t doing much for the enlightenment of our youth, either in terms of basic spelling or in terms of exterior decorating. Hey, I’ve made spelling errors myself, but I’m not ashamed to go back and correct them. But whoever runs this building is not in any more hurry to protect the mother tongue than they are to keep their building in shape. In a world of decay, language loses its sacredness and power. (Still, someone thought that this message was enough like a sentence to add a period at the end!)

First Impressions Count: Last night I went to the local supermarket and did my weekly food shopping. This is my Friday night routine (very exciting, yes, I know). I went to the “about 15 items or less” isle, as I had 16 items and all the other isles were crowded. Well, actually, I had passed one of the regular isles where someone was just finishing up with a huge family-size load, dogfood and everything. But I was moving pretty fast with my cart and I would have had to have made a quick stop and backup maneuver, so I figured I might as well continue on down to the small-purchase isles.

I put my stuff on the belt and waited for the guy ahead of me to get thru. Turned out that he was crippled or something, as he had one of those motorized shopping cards with a seat, something like a golf cart. For whatever reason, he was a special case; he had to ask the checkout lady something about almost every item before she rang it up. Then came his coupons, and of course he had to have a conference with her about that. Then he paid by credit card, which was another long production. But the checkout lady was pleasant and good natured about it all, so I figured what the heck, no need for me to add any angst to the situation. Finally he zoomed away in his motor cart and it was my turn for some attention.

Well, at least my groceries got some attention. For what ever reason, this youngish lady just didn’t seem to like me one bit. Her mood had changed 180 degrees when the old duffer left and I stepped up to the cash register. Didn’t look at me, didn’t say anything to me except to mumble the usual “paper or plastic”. She wouldn’t even listen to me when she got confused about one of my produce items – she would only talk to her bagger about it (she was confusing black plums with avocados – I guess she was having a bad day). Finally I paid and she gave me my change without even the pretense of a thank-you. Just more bad vibes to remember Miss Barbara by (their first names are printed on the receipt).

Funny about those things. It reinforces my conviction that people make strong judgements about other people based solely on their looks. Some people just hate you on first sight, right from the get go. And by the same token, some people seem to like you right from the start, even though you might have nothing at all in common with them. Perhaps you detest every idea that is sacred to them, and all that you believe in is pure heresy to them. Nonetheless, they’re going to like you. Who really knows why.

In the field of romance (today is Valentines Day, I realize), this is often known as “chemistry”. Romantic attractions between two people are largely a function of sexual desirability: i.e., physical signs of fecundity in a woman (large breasts to keep the bambinos well fed and wide hips to give them easy passage into the world), or strength and resolution in a man (tallness, big arms and shoulders, square facial features). But there’s still something more to it, something harder to explain. That’s the mystery of “chemistry”. And this IS largely a mystery, although I suspect that it has some deep subconscious reasons, e.g. some unrecognized similarity to a favorite uncle or someone who was good to you (yea, this IS Psych 101).

But it has occurred to me that my theory of subconscious attraction goes well beyond the field of sexual and romantic attraction. It applies between the two sexes even when romantic possibilities are nil, and it also applies between members of the same sex in terms of friendships and business affiliations (OK, I guess it would also apply in homosexual relationships). I’ve know guys that believe in what I do and have similar interests, but I just could never really get along with them. And I’ve had pretty good friends who turned out to have little in common with me, really. There’s some deep programming in everyone’s mind that tells them who they should feel good about, and who they should not feel good about, based pretty much on physical appearance (arguably other physical factors such as the tone of your voice and the way you move also come into play). It usually has little to do with common interests and beliefs, the things that you’d think should determine who you’d want to hang out with.

Of course, the best, most lasting friendships or relationships happen when you meet someone who looks the way you want them to look, and they also like what you like and laugh at what you laugh at and philosophize like you philosophize. I can’t say that I have very many people like that around me these days.

And of course, there’s the opposite of this strange attraction, which I experienced yesterday at the supermarket check out. This is why match making and computer dating have generally been so unsuccessful. You can find a man and a woman who are both looking for love and are of similar age and circumstance and have similar values and interests. They’d probably agree on just about everything; but if the initial chemistry goes the wrong way between them, they won’t ever know that. Their conversation will never get beyond idle chatter. One or both of them will make up enough excuses to get back home rather quickly (and really too bad about those cases when one feels a mysterious attraction to the other, but the other feels a mysterious repulsion). That’s a good argument for dating services that rely heavily on photos and videos — you go in with some idea about the all-important chemistry factor.

This repulsion factor applies well beyond the world of romance; it explains a lot about what happens at job interviews. You may have the best qualifications for the job, but if the person who interviews you gets that mysterious, unexplainable bad feeling about your looks (even if you’re impeccibly dressed and just got a haircut!), they will find plenty of reasons to prefer the #2 or #3 candidate, who gave them a better feeling. (Or you may be interviewed by a team of people and everyone definitely likes you; but the big boss, who only spoke with you for 3 minutes, just didn’t like your looks and so you crash and burn — it’s happened to me!). It’s not an entirely rational procedure (so remember that the next time you get a rejection letter after an interview).

And obviously, it happens even at the supermarket checkout. But thank goodness the pendulum swings both ways. Most people at the checkout actually seem pretty neutral about me (which is consistent with my theory — the mysterious chemistry seems to apply to about half of all people; 25% get good vibes from your looks, 25% get bad vibes, and 50% don’t get strong signals one way or the other). But once in a while, I get someone at the checkout who says hello and maybe even has a friendly comment and gives me a nice thank you when I’m finished (and once in a great while it even happens to be a nice looking girl – that’s a night for humming a little tune on the way out to the car).

Well, too bad that I didn’t make that emergency shopping cart maneuver yesterday. I recognized the lady at the checkout that I was passing; she isn’t a cute young thing, but she’s always nice to me. Oh well, we shall see what happens next week.

Lately I’ve been reading Hans Kung’s rememberances of Vatican Two. For you non-Catholic types, Vatican 2 was the big Roman Catholic renewal conference held in Rome in the early 1960s. Kung was a young theologian at the time, and was assigned as an adviser to one of the old cardinals who attended. Being a Swiss-German theolgian, you wouldn’t expect may light-hearted memories on Kung’s part. And you’d be right.

However, Fr. Kung did share his memory of a coffee bar that the church people set up in a side chapel of St. Peter’s Basilica, the big church in Rome where the council meetings took place. A coffee bar was definitely a good idea, as most of the church bigwigs attending Vatican 2 were pretty stodgy, and the stuff they were talking about could put a jackhammer operator to sleep (just try reading a pronouncement by the Pope, old or new). Well, it was pretty slow at first. But eventually the Pope (the late, great John the 23rd) told everyone to lighten up, and the Council picked up momentum. Some good things eventually came out of it. But in the opening days, it was the same old “neoscholatic” / counter-reformation Catholic Church shaped by the Council of Trent from the 16th Century.

Kung recalls the nickname that the theologians gave their coffee klatch: Bar Jonas. OK, well, sounds cute, but why is this important? Because it was actually an attempt at humor: the church was named after Saint Peter, and the bible describes Peter as the son of Jonas, or in Hebrew, “bar Jonas”. So, they were having some fun with a double-entendre on the meaning of the word “bar”.

All right, that one won’t have too many of you rolling in the aisles. But remember, this was the grand hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church. Any attempt at humor at all amidst them was — and still is — a miracle, however lame the humor might be. Yes, this one deserves to be placed right up there with the most extreme Catholic miracle stories, e.g. young boys dropping their crutches and standing up, angels singing, statues of Mary that weep (in the desert, no less!), thousands of people seeing the sun dancing in the sky, etc.

As a P.S., I did a web search to see if any coffee houses out there are using the name. Didn’t see any. So, if anyone out there every decides to bring back the “Jesus” coffeehouse of the 60’s, I’ve got a great name for your place. Just make mine a decaff, OK? The leaded stuff keeps me up at night.