HERMITIC DISAPPROVAL

Two buildings over there are workmen using chainsaws, a woodchipper, and a leaf blower. Which, for a person who dislikes loud noises, is problematic. Through the blinds I could see that they weren't wearing masks. Which is not so problematic for me, but if they do that a lot it may have bad results for them. Always wear masks when handling power equipment, as microscopic particles can get into the breathing aparatus and lead to problems.
Asbestos, for instance. Wildfire soot. And volcanic ash.
Or Covid 19 during a pandemic.


In the short term that's probably not as bad as the woman who used Gorilla Glue on her hair in lieu of fixative (look it up on the internet; Gorilla Glue is permanent). Or the vast amount of sheer functional illiteracy that grips a large part of this country and leads, directly, to manifestations of goombaism like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Louie Gohmert.
Plus "influencers", antivaxxers, and other dickwads.

But it's still bad.

Naturally I am smoking a pipe to soothe myself.

But this post is by no means about pipes or tobacco. The concept of triggering anti-smokers, health freaks, puritanical types in Marin, Berkeley, and San Francisco, or other pustulent droogkloten, is far from my mind.


Instead, for some reason, I am remembering my mother's attitudes about food, which unintentionally may have shaped my own gustatory preferences. She disapproved of herring, mushrooms, organ meats, and desserts. Herring is soulfood, mushrooms are divine, organ meat can be prepared in various wonderful ways, and dessert is a main course. She was disturbed by chili peppers, and believed they were bad for the stomach and caused ulcers.
The refrigerator right now has a veritable smörgåsbord of hot sauces and sambals.

Remarkably, on the subjects of chocolate, cheese, and Genever (mild Dutch firewater) we'd agree. But there may have been an element of self-justificatory rationalization on her part.


She would have approved of my apartment mate, who though Chinese ('all "civilized" people are of solid Protestant ancestry') keeps the pantry well-stocked with various cheeses. Cheese was possibly the only redeeming quality that the French may have had. And chocolate, of course, is both Dutch and Belgian, so they can't be all bad. Genever is Dutch, and might possibly be the only reason their country still exists.

She herself did not realize that she had all the attitudes and petty praeconceptions of 1930s America rock-solid in her subconscious, still influencing her views no matter how educated, openminded, and liberal, she was. That was not uncommon among people who had lived through the Depression and the War. An element of her own mother was still there. And, for her father, a military officer, she and my dad were veering suspiciously close to being communists.

She disapproved of communism.

I experimented with communism during my early twenties, reading sh*tloads of Lenin, plus Marx, Mao, and other tiefdenker. There are flaws in their gedankenwelt. But one can clearly see how the ideology that the Russian revolutionaries created made the transformation to brutal dictatorships possible and in fact inevitable.


I realize that I too have a streak of severe Protestant disapprovalism in me. There are many things that I find appalling. Fruity cocktails. Aromatic (candy flavoured) pipe tobaccos. Wilful ignorance. Starbucks. Bacon and Kraft cheese on everything. Texas. Doctrinaire vegetarianism and veganism. Fundamentalist religion. Republicanism. Consumer culture. New Age religions. Tattoos. Sexual profligacy. Marijuana. Twizzlers and marshmallows.
Cruelty to animals. Defective imagination, mixed dancing.
And a lack of a sense of humour.


Plus chainsaws, woodchippers, and leaf blowers.



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