TEXTUAL APPETITES

One gets used to the solitude, after a while it seems natural. Not, you understand, that it is desirable, but eventually it seems "standard".
Weekends are solitary. Time to read.

Years ago I would spend many hours a day browsing in the basement of City Lights Bookstore, but I now find that I do not like having too many people around while devouring someone else’s words. It interferes with the text.
Their ambulation in the corner of the eye distracts, as does their gerusimus at the edge of the ear.
I would like someone else around who was happy quietly studying.
A person pleased by comfortable company.
The warmth of a presence.


PERCH, ABOVE A DOWNTOWN CANYON

On weekends now I always go to the office. A little bit of work, a lot of internet browsing.
Spent several hours reading up on Thailand today. In great detail about their food, then a lot more about the history of the various Tai peoples, and some interesting stuff about honorifics and court languages.
Lanna Thai. Chiang Mai, the Mae Ping (‘Ping river’), which runs into the Maenam Chao Praya ('Grand Duke River', which flows through Bangkok (Krung Thep Maha Nakon), King Mangrai, the Mekong, the Tai Lue, Laos, Yunnan…..

Most scripts used to write the various Tai languages derive from the Old Khmer alphabet, a descendant of Pallava.
In turn, that led me to a re-review of Brahmi, from whence Mon (ancestral to Tai Tham script), Javanese, and of course Burmese et autres.
Unlike many languages in the area, Mon is not a tonal language, neither is its distant relative Khmer. Vietnamese, from an entirely different branch of the Austro-Asiatic language group, probably developed tonalism fairly late.
Whether Vietnamese belongs to the Mon-Khmer group, or is distantly related to Tai or even Indo-Malay, is as yet undetermined.

Most languages in South-East Asia have borrowed extensively from other languages, but bent the words to suit their tongues.

The same can be said of the food – much is borrowed, then bent to suit their tongues.
Whether I want it to or not, reading eventually leads to food.

And food tastes best shared.
Always.


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