START WITH MASALA, END WITH TARKA

The conversation touched upon pipe tobacco, Indian food, mediaeval history, Italian pasta, Chinese calligraphy, contemporary politics, and the iconography of the crucified god in ninth through eleventh century Western European religious art.
About the last of which I know very little, but I mentioned it in passing; my super-brilliant cousin wrote a classic treatise on the subject.

The young Midwestern fellow, after listening to an explanation, asked me if I ever felt that I knew too much.


I suspect he may have been diplomatically indicating that I was a fairly useless egghead. Or, leastways, a boring conversationalist.


Which is odd.
He did most of the talking.
I was merely controlling the discourse.


Wikipedia and the internet have giving me so much more to read now.
Maybe I should have waffled on about pop music instead.
That seems to be a common denominator.


Truth be told, though, that is not a subject about which I know a darned thing. Are Cool And The Gang still performing? Otis Redding?
Prince?
I haven't listened to the radio since I crashed my car back in the early eighties. Never bought a replacement, and as I live in San Francisco, there would be no place to park a vehicle in any case.

But the person I was dealing with was from the Mid West.
There are plenty of places to park there.
No wonder he's fond of pop.


He also confessed that he intensely disliked Indian food.


So, after describing pakora, kulcha, chappati, naan, achar, murgh makhni, gosht ka salan, sorpotel, sarson da saag aur makki di roti, sambar-idli, tayir sadam, badai, biryani, lauki lazeez, parotha, chole bhatura, dal ka tarka, masaladar karela, maans ki samosa, thechwan, bajji, kichri, dum aloo vindaloo, baingan bharta, paneer tikka masala, dhansak, wafer per eeda, kolmi no patio, pachadi, pulihara, upma, chukakura, malakura, totakura, thokku, ladu, jalebi, firni, falooda, kheer, gulab jamun, rasmalai, rasgullah, sandesh, sooji halwa, gajjar halwa, kasi halwa, boondi ka halwa, besani halwa, shalgam halwa, aam halwa, pista halwa and pista barfi, shalgam gosht, pongal, bise bele baath, uppam, masala dosa, dahi vada, dokla, sadhya puli inji, kozhi kuzhambu, padavalanga thoran, sabudane kichadi, kakkra, undiyu, kachori, kandhwi, malpua, sukhri, doodhpak, and achari paneer in very great and extensive detail, I wished him a pleasant evening, and bade him adieu.


Awfully green, those Midwestern dudes.
And boringly blasé, too.


Pappadam?



AFTERTHOUGHT

My Mid-Western conversationalist also stated authoritatively(!) that too much knowledge prevented art, over-analysis interfered with invention. Talent, he said, was evinced by not examining what had gone before. In his opinion I had no creativity at all, and was destined to never change the world. Indeed, I am the veritable vindaloo of useless information, a stew of random data.


He's a designer of user-interfaces. That's probably not strictly relevant, but it does show that he is creative and has changed the world.



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