Agenbite of Bookwit

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I find myself rereading books more often, sometimes by design, but more often by accident. For instance, I am reading the L.A. Central Library’s copy of Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s Writing Across the Landscape: Travel Journals 1960-2010. As I started reading it yesterday, I noticed the same light pencil marks I used to mark passages. “A kindred spirit,” was the first thought that crossed my mind. Then, when I loaded Goodreads.Com, I noticed that I wrote a review of the book in 2023. The stray marks were, in fact, mine. A kindred spirit, indeed!

Here are the books that I have reread so far this year, with the ones I have accidentally reread marked with an asterisk:

  • Lawrence Durrell: Balthazar, Mountolive, and Clea (the last three volumes of The Alexandria Quartet)
  • Lope de Vega: Fuente Ovejuna
  • Tom Bissell: Chasing the Sea: Lost Among the Ghosts of Empire in Central Asia *
  • Joseph Wood Krutch: The Desert Year *
  • César Aira: The Famous Magician *
  • Clifford D Simak: A Choice of Gods *
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret and the Good People of Montparnasse
  • Carlos Castaneda: Tales of Power

The funny thing is that I have enjoyed the rereads as much as the first-time reads, even when they were accidental.

I keep a log of 99+% of the books I have read since 1972. When I choose a book to read, I don’t always check the three data files—one a PDF and the other two Excel spreadsheets—which log all several thousand books I have read in the interval. Sometimes, I notice when rereading a book that I have somehow changed in some small or large particular.

For instance, I used to be a big fan of Jules Verne, even some of his lesser-known works. But when I reread From Earth to the Moon and Round the Moon a few years ago, I was disappointed. Perhaps I’ll reread 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea—my favorite among his works—to see how it plays now.

Restless Night

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Chinese Poet Du Fu (712-770)

Although the Chinese language is a formidable obstacle to understanding the poetry written in it, there are some Chinese poets whose thoughts nonetheless ring clear. Such is Du Fu (aka Tu Fu), who wrote some thirteen hundred years ago. The name of the poem in today’s blog is:

Restless Night

As bamboo chill drifts into the bedroom,
Moonlight fills every corner of our
Garden. Heavy dew beads and trickles.
Stars suddenly there, sparse, next aren’t.

Fireflies in dark flight flash. Waking
Waterbirds begin calling, one to another.
All things caught between shield and sword,
All grief empty, the clear night passes.

Touring with Manuel

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The Main Square of Acanceh, Yucatán … With Pyramid

During my magical first trip to Yucatán in November 1975, I decided to hire a guide. I could have gone to a fancier tour office, but I settled on Turistica Yucateca on a Mérida side street. I wish I could remember the name of the owner who didn’t speak a word of English, just as I didn’t speak a word of Spanish. No matter, if you want to communicate, you will; and you will be understood, more or less.

The señora at Turistics Yucateca set me up with an English-speaking guide named Manuel Quiñones Moreno who had access to a car for two days of travel. Instead of going at first to the big Maya sites such as Uxmal or Chichén Itzá, I decided to “start small” by spending some time at Dzibilchaltún on the first day and then going to Mayapan the next day.

After touring Dzibilchaltún, Manuel and I sat down at the entrance to the ruins and played chess. I lost two games in quick succession to Manuel and decided he was several levels better than me.

The next day we drove to Acanceh, where we ate lunch on the zócalo in view of the pretty church and a Mayan pyramid. Then we drove to the late Maya ruins at Mayapan, when much of the peninsula was under the control of a militaristic government which was still in existence when the Spanish arrived.

When I was last in Mérida, I inquired if Manuel Quiñones Moreno was still around. Apparently, he was; and he was still a tour guide a quarter of a century later, though now based in Uxmal. I tried to contact him there, but he was not available when I called.

Thai Town Adventure

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The Jitlada Restaurant in L.A.’s Thai Town

One of the things I love most about Los Angeles are all the nationalities with their delicious cuisine. Today, Martine, my brother Dan, and I drove to the Jitlada Restaurant in East Hollywood’s Thai Town. It’s located in a downmarket L-shaped streetcorner mall with obvious parking problems. I’d been to the restaurant twice before—each time having a memorable meal.

Third time’s a charm. My spicy jungle curry with catfish and eggplant was spicy enough to burn a hole in concrete, and my brother’s scallops with eggplant was superb. Because she can’t handle spicy, Martine had chicken satay and a mango smoothie. For desert we all had different coconut ice cream preparations.

A typical Jitlada Curry

You may think you’ve had Thai food before, but owner Jazz Singsanong’s Southern Thai cuisine is the real thing. Not for nothing does the Jitlada appear year after year in all the lists of the best restaurants in Los Angeles. It now even sports a mention from the Michelin Guide. It easily deserves sit and more.

There are two menus, a green one where you can specify how spicy you want your dish, and a white menu which is spicy whether you will or not. Irrespective of your food tolerances, you can have a supremely satisfying meal at Jitlada.

If you’re interested you should take a look at the menu.

Magyar Étel

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Daily writing prompt
Which food, when you eat it, instantly transports you to childhood?
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Since I was raised in a Hungarian family, I would have to say Magyar Étel (Hungarian Food), such as stuffed cabbage, stuffed peppers, cabbage noodles, kólbasz sausage, and an endless variety of fresh, delicious, homemade soups. And then there was the pastry ….

WEC: SB on Bateson

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A Very Influential Book Back Then

On June 15, I posted about the effect that the Whole Earth Catalog (WEC) series by Stewart Brand has had on me. And I promised that I would present a series of some of editor Brand’s more interesting comments. This is his take on Gregory Bateson’s Steps to an Ecology of Mind, which was first published in 1972. I had never read the book, but found it was influencing a number of my friends who were film historians and film critics. Now, I think I will find the book and read it.

Here is what SB (Stewart Brand) wrote about it:

Bateson has informed everything I’ve attempted since I read Steps in 1972. Through him I became convinced that much more of whole systems could be understood than I thought—that mysticism, mood, ignorance, and paradox could be rigorous, for instance, and that the most potent tool for grasping these essences—these influence nets—is cybernetics.

Bateson is responsible for a number of formal discoveries, most notably the “Double Bind” theory of schizophrenia. As an anthropologist he did pioneer work in New Guinea and (with Margaret Mead) in Bali. He participated in the Macy Foundation meetings that that founded the science of cybernetics but kept a healthy distance from computers. He has wandered thornily in and out of various disciplines—biology, ethnology,, linguistics, epistemology, psychotherapy—and left each of them altered with his passage.

The book chronicles the journey. It is a collection of his major papers, 1935-1971. In recommending the book I’ve learned to suggest that it be read backwards. Read the recent broad analyses of mind and ecology at the end of the book and then work back to see where the premises come from.

In my view Bateson’s special contribution to cybernetics is in exploring its second, more difficult realm (where the first is feedback, a process influencing itself, what Bateson calls “circuit,” and the second is the meta-realm of hierarchic levels, the domain of context, of paradox and abundant pathology, and of learning).

Strong medicine.