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Food
August 2002
I get up early. I wait for the light. I still trust the dawn more than I trust religion, more than I trust philosophy. Every morning the darkness disappears; morning never lets me down.
August 2002The Kitchen Table
A satisfying way to masturbate, a feeling of gratitude, a flying full-plate frisbee
August 2002
This Bastard Day
It is March 4, a Sunday, and the Northeastern United States is buttoning up for a gigantic snowstorm. Despite these dire weather predictions, in which I have little faith, I have journeyed to Pittsburgh with my wife and two young sons to visit Philip DeLucia, my oldest friend in the world, who is very ill.
July 2002
The Exegesis Of Eating
And thou shalt treat the food that touches thy lips with reverence, in recognition of the labors and traditions of thine ancestors, and in communion and fellowship with those to whom thou art tied with bonds of blood and love.
June 2002
The Disenchanted Kingdom
George Ritzer On The Disappearance Of Authentic American Culture
Efficiency leaves no room for enchantment. Anything that is magical or mysterious is apt to also be meandering and inefficient. Furthermore, enchanted systems are often complex and highly convoluted, having no obvious means to an end. And how do you quantify the enchanted? Since it cannot be readily calculated, it is ignored and quite often eliminated.
June 2002
Art Earthquake
“My front tires are so worn I can see the steel belts,” Michelle told me on the phone. “They could blow out any minute. Will you come with me to Kingston to fix them?”
May 2002
Amid Plenty
Anuradha Mittal On The True Cause Of World Hunger
The United Nations estimates that around 830 million people in the world do not have adequate access to food. Numbers, though, distance us from the real pain felt by the hungry. Hunger is a form of torture that takes away your ability to think, to perform normal physical actions, to be a rational human being. There are people in my own country, India, who for months have not had a full stomach, who have never had adequate nutrition. This sort of hunger causes some to resort to eating anything to numb the pain: cats, monkeys, even poisonous roots.
February 2002how i failed at farming (again)
If you have a strong stomach and can listen long enough without fainting or retching, you’ll find that farm-injury stories have an important underlying message: pay attention. Furthermore, when you think things are going well, pay extra attention.
January 2002
The Pleasures Of Eating
A significant part of the pleasure of eating is in one’s accurate consciousness of the lives and the world from which food comes. The pleasure of eating, then, may be the best available standard of our health. And this pleasure, I think, is pretty fully available to the urban consumer who will make the necessary effort.
January 2002
Sunbeams
January 2002I can reason down or deny everything, except this perpetual Belly; feed he must and will, and I cannot make him respectable.
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