Stoic Bites 007 - Adventures of the Mind
Stoic Bites 007 - Adventures of the Mind
Rilke, Jazz, Fly Fishing & Shipwrecks
Another bite.
OK this is starting to sound like a diary, but at least I’m not sniping at Olympians or other juvenile current events. And I have to say, I think I’m pretty much over the Olympics. It’s not Paris’ fault, it’s the presentation. Still, they only rarely stupefy the equestrian events. We still have that Paris.
Tomorrow I’m going for my first fly fishing lesson. In my life I have caught one fish. It was in the morning of January 1, 1975 when USC edged out Ohio State at the Rose Bowl. I caught a two pound rainbow trout. I was using a Kastmaster with Zeke’s Floating Cheese at Lake Miramar as F4 Phantoms were flying by. I am in love with the idea of the world of things I will have to learn, reading the water, knowing the season, configuring the gear, recognizing what sort of creature I pull out of the stream. This will be a set of experiences I’m primed for, part of my next, my Pastoral Education.
So here are seven magnificent jazz albums I just love listening to:
Something magnificent has happened elsewhere, but the tales are told here. Lee Abbott told this tale. Excellent adventure.
Here’s Rilke:
Let us agree on one thing: the lid of a tin – of a sound tin, the rim of which has the same curvature as its own – this lid ought to have no other desire than to be on its tin; that ought to be the uttermost it could want, the ultimate satisfaction, the fulfilment of its every wish. There is something veritably ideal in being turned patiently and gently and resting evenly on the contraposed edge, feeling the grip of the rim, elastic and as sharp as your own rim is when you lie there alone. Ah, but how few lids there are that can still appreciate this. This nicely illustrates the confusion that contact with humankind has occasioned among things. Humankind, if we may very briefly compare them with these lids, fit on to their occupations most reluctantly, and with a bad grace. Partly because in their haste they have not hit upon the right one, partly because they have been put on crooked and in anger, partly because the corresponding rims are curved in different ways. Let's be honest about it: all they essentially think about is to jump down the moment they get the chance, roll and clatter about. Why else would we have all these so-called amusements, and the racket they make?
Rilke, Rainer Maria. The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) (pp. 117-118). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.