harrumph! still crazy

thursday, august 02

Coffee, tea or...

I completely missed the opportunity to link to Malcolm Gladwell's Java Man, How caffeine created the modern world in a recent New Yorker (July 30, 2001). Gladwell reviews Bennett Alan Weinberg and Bonnie K. Bealer's new book "The World of Caffeine." Here's a good chunk dear to my heart:

Today, of course, the chief cultural distinction is between coffee and tea, which, according to a list drawn up by Weinberg and Bealer, have come to represent almost entirely opposite sensibilities:

Coffee Aspect		Tea Aspect
Male		Female
Boisterous		Decorous
Indulgence		Temperance
Hardheaded		Romantic
Topology		Geometry
Heidegger		Carnap
Beethoven		Mozart
Libertarian		Statist
Promiscuous		Pure

That the American Revolution began with the symbolic rejection of tea in Boston Harbor, in other words, makes perfect sense. Real revolutionaries would naturally prefer coffee. By contrast, the freedom fighters of Canada, a hundred years later, were most definitely tea drinkers. And where was Canada's autonomy won? Not on the blood-soaked fields of Lexington and Concord but in the genteel drawing rooms of Westminster, over a nice cup of Darjeeling and small, triangular cucumber sandwiches.

I'm curious about what the Diet Coke aspects might be. "Preserved" would be one of my choices. What with all this Aspartame floating through my body, I think I'll be able to do a Lenin, and look good for a very long time after I shuffle off this mortal coil.

Congratulations to Cat for the success of the recent Blogathon. It was my pleasure to sponsor Dave, Mena, Julie and Paul. Bravo!

Update: Das Boot is kaput! Gone. Cheryl tells me that it only takes five outstanding tickets to adorn your car with a boot or have it towed to the nether regions of our fair city. Five! Cheryl also tells me that you can sign up for Project 20. "If you cannot afford to pay your parking fines, you may be eligible to perform volunteer work by enrolling in 'Project 20,' a community service program to work off the parking fines" - Parking Tickets. Also, what to do if you're booted or towed in San Francisco.

Colin Talcroft, Pinhole Camera Self-portrait.

Yesterday? Das boot!

Recycle!

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