Going to Titan and Giving Thanks
A little early this time, but the quiver is full, so what the heck.
Dragonfly is headed for Titan.
Especially over the last five years photographing food has evolved from a niche hobby into a generational habit. Social media has elevated our diet choices from private quirks into a cornerstone of public identity.... As odd as it sounds, I do not see pornography in these images. I find prayer.
I believe these pictures are a new incarnation of an ancient instinct: the ritual of tableside grace. Derived from the Latin gratia for “thanks,” grace is a specific type of prayer given before or after a meal to express gratitude and to invoke a blessing. It is an exercise in devoting reverential attention to life’s bounty, and through this enriched attention, achieving an expanded sense of belonging.... The Catholic Catechism defines prayer as “the raising of one’s mind and heart to God.” Thus grace gives our gratitude wings that lift the mind from the necessities of the flesh toward the nourishments of the spirit. For many people, photographing their entrées fills the same social role as grace: a ritual of aspirational attention that elevates bodily sustenance into spiritual refreshment through the simple power of a genuine “thank you.”
Several years ago I posted an image of the syllabus for a course that W. H. Auden taught at the University of Michigan in 1941. (I posted it for the first time on my now-defunct Tumblr.) It went viral-ish, thanks in large part to some sites who re-posted it without crediting the source. But one very positive result of the notoriety was this: Some professors at the University of Oklahoma decided to offer the class. And students love it.
I wrote an alternative ending for The Lord of the Rings.
I also wrote about a scholarly mystery: It appears that a very prominent scholar of the ancient world, once associated with my own university, may have sold some ancient papyri that didn’t belong to him. Some people involved are trying to cast blame on him without being too direct in their accusations — and without implicating themselves — so a fog of obfuscation is right now being pumped over the whole affair. But I suspect that what was hidden will be revealed.
The town crier is letting you know about the Covent Garden Rent Ceremony:
STATUS BOARD
- Work: Back at work on The Book after an encouraging report from my editor Ginny Smith!
- Music: I am a person inordinately prone to earworms, and The Cure’s “A Letter to Elise” is an especially potent one right now. Only someone who looks and sounds like Robert Smith could get away with such naked and unfiltered emotion.
- Reading: For the first time since — I don’t know, maybe 1976? — I read Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven, and didn’t care for it at all. And I say that as someone who adores Le Guin. I felt that in this case the initial conceit ran away with the book.
- Food: Satisfying a Chick-fil-a craving. (A terrific line from The Good Place: “There's this chicken sandwich that if you eat it, it means you hate gay people. And it's delicious.”)
- Drink: Lots of crisp cold gin drinks now that summer has settled in, enhanced with a basil-lime syrup that my beloved makes. (Bring some sugar, with a little water, just to a boil, remove from heat, add a handful of basil leaves and two or three strips of lime peel, and steep for an hour. Strain and refrigerate. Great with a botanical gin like Hendricks and some club soda — not tonic water, that gets overwhelming with a highly flavored gin.)