corn on the kob
Months ago, I dropped the habit of using a coffee house as my default destination when I have nothing compelling on my calendar but still have the itch to get out of the house. It happened around the time Bentley's killed their evening hours. Bentley's was always my first pick of destinations, because of its nearness and atmosphere.
Lately I've wanted to resume my haunting of coffee houses, but my spot in town puts me in a dilemma, now that Bentley's is only open during the day: Should I drive a short distance to a coffee house that doesn't have much personality, or waste gas and time to drive a longer distance to a coffee house that I like? I've been opting for the former choice, which turned out to be a big mistake last night. I went to Cartel Coffee Lab after dinner, thinking I would get an herbal tea and a dessert to enjoy while I read for a while.
Strike one was that they were out of herbal tea. I asked if they had something like green tea (so that I wouldn't get too wired). They did, but they warned me that it was loose-leaf tea. I wasn't sure why they gave that warning until I got the tea. I assumed they would give me loose-leaf tea in a tea strainer or a one-cup filter. No. Strike two was that the tea leaves were floating freely in hot water--not really what I had in mind. (Is that Japanese style?) And then there was the third strike. I had glanced at their pastry case while I was ordering my tea and asked for a scone that I saw. Once I sat down with my awkward-to-drink tea, I bit into my scone. It tasted odd, but I didn't give it much thought, so I kept eating. But it soon started seeming really odd to me. There was something about the flavor that was not only unfamiliar but very wrong. That's when it occurred to me that I was probably eating some sort of bacon scone. I did my best to get the taste out of my mouth with my tea, but before long I felt like going home to brush my teeth.
The kicker was that this nasty scone and awkward green tea came to $6.75--a Los Angeles price in Tucson. Needless to say, I'll be crossing Cartel off my list permanently. The place is a bit pretentious anyway. This makes me miss Bentley's even more.
Years ago, before giving up on all religions and spiritual traditions entirely and declaring myself an agnostic, I took an interest in Taoism. One thing about Taoism that I found very odd was that there was an interest common among Taoists in extending their lives. Longevity was something pursued and cherished. I could never figure out the root of that obsession. I read two English translations of the Tao Te Ching and fumbled through one Spanish translation. I could find nothing in the Tao Te Ching that would nudge anyone toward that focus.
That enigma, I think, was my final straw. Every religion and spiritual tradition had something I found problematic in its texts or its practice or both. I liked the Tao Te Ching, but if Taoists just made up their own stuff out of the blue, what meaning did that identity have?
Earlier this month I finished Deepa Kumar's Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire. In it, she explains the root of why Western Islamophobes are so obsessed with finding evidence of the evilness of Islam by searching the Qur'an. She traces it back to the nineteenth century, when Orientalist scholars held that they could understand a civilization "through its languages and key texts." Virtually all other drivers of the civilization's social facts--its history, its neighboring influences, its economic system, and so forth--were ignored.
Textual evidence is some of the worst evidence. You can find something in the Qur'an about beating wives, and it will explain how Muslim men treat their wives about as well as the Tao Te Ching explains why Taoists want to extend their lives.
Lately I've wanted to resume my haunting of coffee houses, but my spot in town puts me in a dilemma, now that Bentley's is only open during the day: Should I drive a short distance to a coffee house that doesn't have much personality, or waste gas and time to drive a longer distance to a coffee house that I like? I've been opting for the former choice, which turned out to be a big mistake last night. I went to Cartel Coffee Lab after dinner, thinking I would get an herbal tea and a dessert to enjoy while I read for a while.
Strike one was that they were out of herbal tea. I asked if they had something like green tea (so that I wouldn't get too wired). They did, but they warned me that it was loose-leaf tea. I wasn't sure why they gave that warning until I got the tea. I assumed they would give me loose-leaf tea in a tea strainer or a one-cup filter. No. Strike two was that the tea leaves were floating freely in hot water--not really what I had in mind. (Is that Japanese style?) And then there was the third strike. I had glanced at their pastry case while I was ordering my tea and asked for a scone that I saw. Once I sat down with my awkward-to-drink tea, I bit into my scone. It tasted odd, but I didn't give it much thought, so I kept eating. But it soon started seeming really odd to me. There was something about the flavor that was not only unfamiliar but very wrong. That's when it occurred to me that I was probably eating some sort of bacon scone. I did my best to get the taste out of my mouth with my tea, but before long I felt like going home to brush my teeth.
The kicker was that this nasty scone and awkward green tea came to $6.75--a Los Angeles price in Tucson. Needless to say, I'll be crossing Cartel off my list permanently. The place is a bit pretentious anyway. This makes me miss Bentley's even more.
Years ago, before giving up on all religions and spiritual traditions entirely and declaring myself an agnostic, I took an interest in Taoism. One thing about Taoism that I found very odd was that there was an interest common among Taoists in extending their lives. Longevity was something pursued and cherished. I could never figure out the root of that obsession. I read two English translations of the Tao Te Ching and fumbled through one Spanish translation. I could find nothing in the Tao Te Ching that would nudge anyone toward that focus.
That enigma, I think, was my final straw. Every religion and spiritual tradition had something I found problematic in its texts or its practice or both. I liked the Tao Te Ching, but if Taoists just made up their own stuff out of the blue, what meaning did that identity have?
Earlier this month I finished Deepa Kumar's Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire. In it, she explains the root of why Western Islamophobes are so obsessed with finding evidence of the evilness of Islam by searching the Qur'an. She traces it back to the nineteenth century, when Orientalist scholars held that they could understand a civilization "through its languages and key texts." Virtually all other drivers of the civilization's social facts--its history, its neighboring influences, its economic system, and so forth--were ignored.
Textual evidence is some of the worst evidence. You can find something in the Qur'an about beating wives, and it will explain how Muslim men treat their wives about as well as the Tao Te Ching explains why Taoists want to extend their lives.