Alias Talk

Marian and I are in the fortunate phase of life when our evenings are more or less free and we don't really have any interest in going anywhere. After thirty years of the salt mines by day and little league, ballet, school meetings, etc., by night -- we're tired -- and we have found, the television.

For whatever reason we prefer television series' to movies and have worked our way through every British BBC show, many American shows, and even some live-while-we-are-watching shows.

Lately, upon recommendation from my son, we have been watching the Alias series.

We're hooked.

If you haven't seen it, think 24 in a Lost plot. And a beautiful, female lead character instead of Jack Bauer. Jennifer Garner, Sydney, is good-looking and one tough motha.  Garner somehow pulls off the part as tough and vulnerable. Feminine -- but deadly if you're on the wrong side. It works for me because I can't handle the attractive, tough female who is not, well, feminine. She's both. I'm sounding like Oprah, sorry.

What Alias has that 24 doesn't have is a lasting romance that is a thread throughout the series, at least through year three. It's believable, and more or less wholesome. The one problem I had with Jack's girlfriends is that I knew that they would all end up dead because Jack was the "man of sorrows." And that they were always well endowed but kind of androgynous, too. I never really liked them. But with Garner -- you can't not like her.

She is the reluctant heroine who has found her home in the kindness of her father and her apparently loving but twisted mother -- and Vaughn, her once boyfriend, who at this point is married to Lauren, the wicked witch of the West. It's complex but satisfying.

As a whole, the acting is great. The strategy room scenes are a little stiff and over-orchestrated as they set the plot for that episode, but the comic figure of Mitchell, (think James Bond's "Q") is perfect.

Sloane is a tragic-hero of the modern sort, driven by love for his daughter, by fate via the Rombaldi prophecy, and by his own weakness for the "end-game." The Rombaldi thread gives Alias the Lost-like quality and keeps the viewer wanting the next episode.

It's a good show. Quentin Tarantino makes a couple cameos. He's great. Alias keeps the suspense up but backs off enough to give the viewer a break. For us it's got the right blend. The only part we do not like are the torture scenes, mild by today's standards, but more pain-infliction than we care to watch.

We're just starting year four, so no hints about the end, please.

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Ron Washington. Redemption.

We had just returned from our two year visit to Philadelphia when the news was breaking about Ron Washington, the manager of baseball's Texas Rangers.

I was surprised at the venom I was hearing on the radio talk shows by both callers and hosts. "Fire him... Baseball has to set an example.... He needs to pay for his actions." Phrases like this pretty much summarize the general opinion.

For those who do not follow sports gossip, Washington was on the dock for violating Major League Baseball's substance abuse policy. In a random drug test his came up positive. Washington's thirty years in baseball were about to get washed away through no one's fault but his own (his words). Ron Washington, not unlike many of us, couldn't handle success -- or maybe the pressure that comes with it.

The Texas Rangers hired Washington in 2006 after a bad few years with Buck Showwalter and a decade of pretty bad teams. Part of the frustration expressed on the talk shows was just being tired of losing. The Rangers had not made the playoffs and fans can put up with anything but a loser. The drug offense was a good excuse to get rid of a guy that was following in our losing tradition. That's the way the sports talk sounded to me.

But Rangers management didn't listen the masses. To their credit, Jon Daniels, general manager, and Nolan Ryan, team president, acted differently. They took Washington at his word when he offered a sincere apology -- and declined his request to resign. They stood by him and took a lot of newsroom heat for it. In their view, he deserved another chance. I respect them for facing down the crowd, because that is exactly what they did.

Now, after clinching the division title last Saturday, it seems keeping Washington was a good baseball decision, too.

I do not know if  Ron Washington is a great manager, I do not know how far he will lead this team in the playoffs, but I do know that when a man wants another chance we owe it to him not only to forgive, but to forget. Whether we win or lose. What happened last year is old news, it's time to be moving on.

And another thing: baseball is back. I mean real baseball, not the steroids version of 1990's baseball that turned an at-bat into a home-run derby and a pitch into a radar-gun contest. Steroids, or injecting artificial testosterone, was ruining this great game of skill, strategy, and finesse. But it's back and Ron Washington likes to play it the old-school way -- just seeing a suicide squeeze attempted by the Rangers is exciting, seeing it work makes me giddy.

Anyway, Give 'em hell Ron. Congratulations on your success. And thanks for bringing the great game back to Texas.
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See Tim Brown of Yahoo Sports for an excellent article on Ron Washington

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Food, Fast, and Lent.

The memory of Lent, for those of us raised Catholic in the 50's and 60's, is surrounded by a gray hue. Lent was to be endured, like the end of winter itself, before one reached the joy, sunshine, and candy of Easter. On Lent's first gray day, appropriately named Ash Wednesday, a commitment was made to give up some food-related snack. For the kids of my parish school, St. Mary Magdalen's, it meant giving up something sweet.

A certain amount of pride was taken in putting aside for those 40 days something especially liked, something special. Conversation between friends on Ash Wednesday centered on comparing the difficulty of competing items like popcorn or chocolate. A particularly delicious choice, say ice cream, got a certain amount of cachet. But one had to temper the desire for good-standing with the long 40 days of deprivation.

I decided, on the first Lent that I can recall, to give up peanut brittle -- not sweets, not chocolate, just peanut brittle. Why, I do not know. I loved peanut brittle, I know that, and I guess being too specific in the sweets category would have eliminated Hershey Bars, jaw breakers, and ice cream. I saw no sense getting too carried away with this fasting thing. But I fasted those 40 days of Lent and made it all the way. My friends who gave up ice cream or some general category item rarely made it to Easter before giving in to temptation.

I'm sure my parents had a few good laughs over this, but the old nuns weren't as dumb as you think. In good years and bad for the rest of my life, Ash Wednesday begins this obligation of some self-denial.

What's the point? What good does the sacrifice do besides knocking off a few pounds?

I do not know for certain. I mean, I feel no better or worse at the end of Lent, than I did before.

But I remember, a few years ago, meeting a family in a hospital waiting room whose 21 year old daughter had contracted a staff infection. She was close to death in a room just yards away. The father, mother, sister and boyfriend took turns waiting -- around the clock, someone was always there. The sick girl was not conscious, the family was not noticeably praying, they had little reason to be there. But they were -- there. Probably without understanding all the reasons, they were, for certain, identifying with the suffering of one of their own.

Kind of like Lent.
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A Tribute to a Man of Music.

I knew Jack Kortegast for the 5 years he and his wife, Gaye, were Choir Directors for St. Mary's of the Assumption Church on Magnolia Street. Jack retired from the job when his health made him more or less house-bound about one year ago.

Mr. Jack Kortegast died on Monday.

I did not know Jack well or for long. I was an occasional, Sunday-only choir member, and more of a support member for my wife and son, but I remember when the Kortegast's came to St Mary's and announced that they were accepting volunteers for the new choir. My thirteen year old son, a fellow music lover, "joined up." My wife followed a few months later.

Jack had serious physical impairments even then. His voice was gravelly and faint after a bout of cancer. He had hearing difficulties and severe back and neck pain. But he knew and loved good music: Mozart, Bach, Faure. He knew music as an orchestral arranger, choir director, composer, and organist. I particularly remember his "Tenebrae" service where he combined poetry, hymns, and scripture.

On any given Thursday night, before I ferried my wife and son home from choir practice, I would walk into the half-darkened church, sit in a pew, and listen to the last couple hymns. I remember thinking that we ought to be paying for the privilege of singing in this place with these people.

Not that that little band of 15-on-a-good-day choir was winning national competitions. We weren't. But we loved and sang good music, because that was what Jack and Gaye did, and more often than not we were good and sometimes even very good. Besides that, we liked each other and liked singing together in that choir.

Jack and I both had voice problems and did not talk much, but conversation is not a requirement of friendship and respect. I can say for certain that he was a man who loved his craft and who bore his hardships quietly. I saw that . . . we all saw that. Jack had the humility that comes only from a certain amount of graciously accepted suffering.

Because of people like Jack and Gaye Kortegast my son is not a half-bad singer these days, and is doing what he is doing in no small part to the Kortegasts. Something, he and I will not forget. But most importantly to me, my music loving son saw a fellow music man do something he loved, every Sunday, in pain or not.

Like I say, I should have paid for the privilege.

Thank you, Mr. Kortegast. May God bless you, and may you rest in peace, eternally.
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Thank you to choir member, Ken Neill, for assistance and for sending to me the obituary from the Star Telegram. From that obituary:

. . . For over 25 years he served the parish of St. Mary the Virgin in Arlington. Most recently he served the parish of St. Mary of the Assumption in Fort Worth. Even though his health prevented him from playing during the last year of his life, he always maintained his passion for liturgy and music. His greatest talent was encouraging and enabling small choirs to sing the great music of the church. . .

A Day in the Life of City Dwellers.

I have just returned from an enjoyable two weeks in Texas, San Antonio and Fort Worth, to be exact. As I write this, I am living within view of City Hall, Center City, Philadelphia. My office is about a ten minute walk from our apartment. Here is the start of one city dweller's day.

When I leave our apartment in the morning, around 8:15 a.m, I walk down a short hallway past three apartment doors, take a dozen steps to the elevator doors, press the down elevator button, and while waiting, don my jacket, look in the mirror, and straighten my tie. It takes about a minute for said elevator to get to me and since I live on the 11th floor, two from the top, seldom is anyone on the elevator going down. I hit the L for Lobby button and then stand and watch the art-deco style floor-number lights go from 11 to 10 and down to 1. It is an odd solitariness, that 20 seconds going down. I feel like I am in an old mobster movie.

I turn left as I depart the elevator, say good morning to the security guy, and grab my New York Times from the counter at his desk. When I open the building's exit door I walk onto a Walnut Street busy with pedestrians and traffic. Usually someone is running to catch a bus parked at the corner of 16th Street. The buses are busy and plentiful in the morning, stacked one behind another like bumper cars bumping the front bus to the next stop. I look down to see how close the bus tires are to the curb because it is amazing how close they get. All the inner city curbs are granite stone and not formed concrete.

I walk one block and turn right on 16th Street where there is a a stainless-steel, street-vendor stand whose proprietor is busy cooking breakfast sandwiches. The eggs, onions, sausage, bacon and bread rolls smell great. I have to be careful as I make that turn otherwise I will run into someone squeezing by the stand. Before I get one block on 16th I see the same street person sleeping on the sidewalk grill. Every morning. I have never seen his face, only the blankets and cardboard that cover him.

In a block I begin the criss-cross of a half-dozen streets until I get past Market to JFK. There are street traffic lights to observe and unwritten rules of when they are to be ignored. There is a rhythm to walking city streets and you would be wise to learn that rhythm. Pedestrian traffic flows similarly to automobiles, it bogs down in similar ways, and picks up just as cars do.

But that is a good segue to the next post . . . so . . .

To be continued . . .

The Human Condition

Last night I was standing in the parking lot of St. Mary of the Assumption Catholic Church doing my once-weekly security duty for the children's catechism classes when a man walking by stopped to talk. I guessed his age at about fifty. I also guessed him to be homeless or near so.

Soon into the conversation I learned that he had graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a degree in philosophy and that he had kept an active interest in the subject as an adult. He knew the major philosophical texts and their authors and spoke confidently about his views on them. We talked religion and philosophy for a while, and then, sadly, that he had spent sixteen years in the state penitentiary for drug use and sales and that he was currently living in a nearby abandoned grain silo. After a short, but serious and enjoyable conversation, he looked past me and asked in the way a man does when he is talking to himself, "Where did I go wrong?" It was a rhetorical question from a sober and haunted man.

We talked about life in general for a while longer and then he left as quietly as he came. As I stood there watching him walk away, I heard myself saying, "Where do any of us go wrong, my friend?" We all do, in some way and at some time, and some of us, repeatedly. There are those who recover sufficiently from mistakes, and others, like my parking lot friend, who do not.

While standing there I recalled the Pharisee who said, "Lord, thank you that I am not like the adulterer, extortioner or even this tax collector." A statement that needs little explanation for its obvious meaning but which reveals an inherent problem of the religious, and that is that faith moves a man to habituate himself to the good and to do good, but while doing so makes him susceptible to the greater sins of complacency, arrogance, or pride.  In the same parable, it was the humbled tax collector, unable to look up to heaven as he confessed his sins, who found pleasure in God's eyes, not the law-abiding Pharisee.

I liked the man I met on the street. I think his sins are not equal to the punishment he has received. I know that, practically speaking, he has to put the bottle down and accept responsibility if he is ever to be happy in this life. But I also know that all men are feeble and in of need God's grace and that this world has punished his sins more than mine, but probably, they are no worse.

I never saw him again, but I will remember his face, and believe that the final Judge of us all still honors the contrite.

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At the End of the Day . . .

May I make an appeal for term limits on certain phrases?

TV commentators are the source of much of my word related skin-crawling and the reason I have no heavy, throwable objects near my TV-watching chair. Remember, about 7 years ago, when all on-site journalists in Iraq were "embedded?" I lost a good television about a week into the war.

"It's in her DNA," I heard one newsman say just today, referring to Caroline Kennedy's New York Senate considerations. I liked the phrase 10 years ago, now -- find another biologic metaphor. Please.

"It is what it is," was made popular in Dallas by Bill Parcells when he referred to his team's won-loss record. I cringe every time I hear it. Maybe that's the reason he got fired.

I was out on "at the end of the day" by the end of the first day I heard it -- several times in one day.

Which is not to say that all colloquialisms are hackneyed. I can hear, "that dog won't hunt." everyday and not tire of it (well, not everyday). Texans are particularly adept at the enjoyable turn of phrase. "All hat and no cattle," and that sort of thing.

Which is not to say that they can't become hackneyed. I'm sure it was a Texan who first said, "if ain't broke don't fix it." And I have heard enough of that one.

Final thought: everyone is entitled to one or two words or phrases, especially as one ages, that are hackneyed -- just don't overdo it.

Lists (and Knitting?)

Yesterday, I received a comment from another Fort Worth web logger. In the comment she mentioned her own weblog and, as is custom for bloggers, I went for a visit. It is a very well done blog on knitting called The Ravelled Sleave. http://theravelledsleave.blogspot.com/

Now as may be expected, I have never knitted, or done knitting, or been a knitter, or whatever it is one does with kneedles and yarn. My wife knits and I do find it an interesting hobby to observe. But more on knitting some other day.

Back to The Ravelled Sleave. Regardless of the theme, most bloggers write whatever is on their mind that day, and since the writer, Lynn, was cleaning her coffee table -- that day -- she decided to list everything on the table for her post.

I read the complete list, all 26 of them. There was nothing particularly unusual in the items on the table: magazines, receipts, notes, etc. But all lists are inherently interesting. And to take it a little further than I probably should, a list of insignificant items can be like a still-life painting of the every-day apple and pear, not that interesting, but the representation is enjoyable to observe. Likewise, a list of everyday items, when someone actually takes the time to write them down is an insight into the "other" that modern philosophers talk about. Okay, I'm getting weird, but it was like going through an old box in someone else's attic, and I enjoyed it.

Next, maybe I'll do a post on knitting.

(By the way, my wife tells me her favorite store was Jenning Street Yarns. http://www.jsyarns.com)

Dunkin Donuts vs. Starbucks. A Taste Test.

Those unfortunate souls without gainful employment who, having nothing better to do, read these blog posts, know that I have been saying for a long time that someone should and will pursue the Starbucks base of loyal coffee drinkers because:

A. the Starbucks thrill is gone. They just built too many of them.
B. Starbucks has over extended their in-store retail to a kind of Peter's Principle of retail, that is, companies will extend their product line until the dilution harms the base. (Think Apple in the late early 90's until Jobs came back).
C. The Starbucks' rigorous standards of quality became secondary to market share.
D. The new, improved, over-marketed, Pikes Place, is god-awful.

(I mention the above as a customer since day 1 in Fort Worth, and a regular customer still, when I can find a fresh cup of Sumatra.)

Dunkin' Donuts is one of the companies attempting to woo the Starbucks-type coffee drinker (as is McDonald's), and is now expanding west of the Mississippi, promoting their good coffee and less expensive coffee.

The text below is pulled from a Dunkin' Donuts press release. Interesting.

Dunkin’ Donuts or Starbucks?

Americans have made their coffee choice clear. An independent taste test of coffee drinkers across ten major U.S. markets shows a significant majority of participants preferred Dunkin’ Donuts coffee over Starbucks. A&G Research, Inc., under the counsel of claims test advisor Al Ossip, conducted the taste test . . . 476 adults, each of whom had consumed regular, hot brewed coffee within the past week, participated in this double-blind taste test. For the test, A&G Research used fresh packaged coffee purchased in each brand’s stores, tested each brand’s most popular flavor (Dunkin’ Donuts Original Blend versus Starbucks House Blend), brewed the coffee using equipment recommended by each brand and served it black. A&G says that the study results clearly indicate a preference for Dunkin’ Donuts:

Among all participants, 54.2% preferred Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, compared to 39.3% who chose Starbucks. 6.3% expressed no preference. Of those participants who did have a preference, 58% favored Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, versus 42% for Starbucks.

You'll love the website. www.DunkinBeatStarbucks.com. Very clever.

Shoes and Socks

Photo by Jthole / Flickr

First of all, it should be said that the average man likes a good pair of shoes as much as the average woman. We have a different relationship with shoes than women, but we still like them. Shoes to us are more companions, like old friends, than ornaments like earrings. We don't switch them about too much except for practical reasons, like work or basketball. A good pair of well worn shoes can no more be easily discarded than a friend who is old and worn. It's a question of loyalty. At least it is to me.

One night many years ago, after a few years of marriage, I asked she who must be obeyed the whereabouts of an old pair of slippers that I hadn't seen in a while. She said matter-of-factly that they were tattered and old and had been discarded. Why, I wondered silently, did that disqualify them from being worn? They fit, they were comfortable and I liked them.

I like looking at an old pair of good shoes sitting on the closet floor waiting to be called into service one more time. They look up at you like an old friend, with an old smile. And my generation is more laissez-faire towards shoes than my father's generation. I recall my father, every night, taking off his wing tips, inserting the sturdy, cedar shoetrees and shining them before putting them away. That my friends is true love. Which brings to mind that I and many other men enjoy a good shoeshine. It's partly that it is hard to get them that shiny ourselves but also afterwards we hop hop off the shoeshine bench with a kind of "now I'm getting down to business attitude." When I was traveling a lot I always stopped at the DFW airport shoeshine before I got on the plane. Things always went better that way.

The other thing that is missing from shoes for men are Men's Shoe Stores, like Larry's near St Patrick's Cathedral downtown. It was a place that a man could go every year or so and be fitted like he had been for the last 10 years, and walk out with a shiny pair of shoes. Now we are forced into warehouses the size of Walmarts that sell shoes to anyone with feet. Over the top egalitarianism and another sure sign that Western Civilization is crumbling.

More on this tomorrow and also: the sock dilemma.

Air Jordon

I saw my first Apple MacBook Air. Like everything Apple does these days, it is design-marketing-engineering perfection.

Name: perfect. Look: perfect. Size/weight: perfect.

This is a beautiful piece of equipment and, like the commercial demonstrates, is light enough to be held easily with one hand -- something I did as the MacBook Air was handed to me across the table. The monitor is a standard, small-notebook size but is hi-res with the super-clear glass. It's impressive.

The mouse pad is bigger than a standard notebook and takes the same finger commands as the iphone. Genius.

The Air has built-in wireless and a camera with "photobooth" software so the lens can be used as a camera. The monitor acts as the flash. I kid you not, I tried it.

One feature I loved: the electric cord has four small prongs and attaches magnetically to the laptop. It pops off with a sturdy tug.

3 pounds. 2Gig ram. 80 gig hard drive. More than sufficient. No dvd/cd drive. Who cares? The laptop has become a web-access appliance.

What does Apple have that Dell/HP/IBM/Microsoft don't? Vision. Steve Jobs provides a focused mission that guides the company and the products show it. Will the $1700 price tag keep people (like me) away? Yes, but in this case you do get what you pay for.

Web 2.0

You can almost watch it change as you sit there.

The web, internet use, and the attendant software applications are becoming to us, less like toasters, and more like automobiles. That is, not something we use on occasion to improve the quality of our life, but a part of the "warp and woof" of life itself. For those quick to criticize the loss of something, I agree, but the same was said of the radio, the automobile, the television, of movable type, and probably the first time men built a bridge across a river. Something is lost. I choose to enjoy it anyway.

I recall the first time I tried to buy an airplane ticket using internet access. It was about 1988, the access host was Compuserve and there was no graphical interface, users had to type Control codes to generate certain results. One code for select, one for cancel, etc. I had entered (legally) the Sabre reservation system to buy a ticket, just for the for the fun of it. After an hour of going in and out and all around the online system, I gave up. It took a programmer's skill to crack that system.

Now, of course, it's different and changing quickly.

The web itself is becoming the application. We're not just buying books and airplane tickets, business is being conducted across the web because of its ability to share information with a common platform, inexpensively. It is the ultimate economy of scale application. And as applications morph over to iPhones and other truly portable mediums, things like maps, directions, and finding coffee shops and gas stations are changing.

(Sidebar -- when we were first messing around with the internet, no one, and I mean no one, knew that "search" would be the first "oilfield" of the internet, but it is. Search. Think about it. But that is slowly changing, too with Facebook, MySpace, You Tube and StumbleUpon. )

This is the first election that the internet has played a significant role. Candidates don't just prepare to be "on TV". They are prepared always because they are always being placed on "You Tube." Senator Clinton's remarks on Bosnia bullets was seen by millions. Any event, always viewable, is a strange reality. It changes things. Marshall McCluhan would be impressed.

Here are my favorite websites with a Web 2.0 flair. They are more than applications, they are a part of the way people do things, and they are free or close to it.

Google Docs and Domain management. If you buy the .com name, Google will host it for free, including 100 email addresses.

Zoho -- like Google Docs but their online applications are getting more specific and useful. Apps like Invoice generators and Human Resource management. Free for single users. Develop your own database applications.

StumbleUpon/Digg and the like. -- find websites liked by people like yourself.

Backpack / Central Desktop -- organizes information easily.

Craigslist -- Buy and sell -- free.

Overnightprints.com -- for an old printing guy like me this service is amazing. A lot of companies will sell you printing online. They do it right.

Gotomeeting -- online meetings that are easy to access and helpful. I like it.

Sgt. Pepper Taught the Band to Play . . .

I had just read a weblog's headline, "It was 26 years ago today," a slight change to the original line, but still my response was to continue with line two of that famous Beatles song. And that got me thinking (dangerous).

Words, phrases and images, like these, become a part of a common culture in many ways, today most often through a medium other than the traditional words, music, paintings and architecture of our forefathers. That is, today our common images are received through TV, movies, mp3 files and the like. I'll make a lot of enemies by adding and I think we are the worse for it. I think there is a qualitative difference between watching a play in a theater and watching a movie on a screen. Or watching a live piano performance, versus listening it on an iPod. Don't ask me to prove it, I can't, but I do observe it. That's not the point of this essay, and regardless of what I think, we live today, not yesterday and our common understanding of the world is audio-visually inspired.

We complain about the presidential election being overly influenced by photo-ops, TV commercials, and debates that are non-substantive. The truth is, we are moved by them more than we realize or want to realize.

Every family or close group of friends has common words and phrases that mean something special to them and them alone; towns, nations and even the broader cultures do, too. These words and phrases are loaded with meaning and shades of meaning and provide parallels to reality that help these groups commonly relate to the world around them. We remember great lines from great movies, songs and books for the same reason that Hellenic peoples remembered Homer's stories of Achilles and Odysseus. Theoretically, I may prefer their method, but their way and ours are both ways of enjoying a story and of identifying ourselves with the story.

Images are important, metaphors are important. Every once in a while I read of someone referring to the mind as a kind of memory chip, and I cringe with fear of that becoming the accepted metaphor for man. I could moralize here and say that this is why it is important to have good books, music and literature in our homes and around our children, but that's not really my point of this essay and I'm not sure I like stories with morals.

Truth is, the lack of a point in this essay, reminds me of line from the movie, Trains Planes and Automobiles: said Steve Martin to John Candy, "...When you're telling these little stories? Here's a good idea - have a POINT. It makes it SO much more interesting for the listener!"

Food and Faith Sunday. Read this book.

What I am Reading Now:

The Hungry Soul, Eating and the Perfecting of Our Nature, by Leon Kass, M.D.

It is not often that I find one book combining two of my favorite subjects, that is, food and philosophy, but thanks to my son and his friends I have one. And it is a good one.

Dr. Kass is a teacher at the University of Chicago. His education is in the sciences, medicine and biology, he teaches the classics in literature and philosophy. This tells you something about the man. As a scientist he can speak with confidence about the rationalist view of the world that pervades everything, and speak he does knowledgeably and critically. He uses food and eating as the proof of our separateness in the animal species and as a kind of obvious proof that a "soul" exists. A quote from the book,

"But when these scientists look get together for lunch, how do they look on eating? They forget their anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, molecular biology, psychology, and anthropology -- and a good thing, too. For not only might their science interfere with their enjoyment of the meal, it also has nothing to do with their tacit understanding of themselves as eaters. They choose when and what to eat, and they do so quite purposively . . . they notice temperatures and textures, enjoy seasonings and spices . . . they converse while eating, taking as much pleasure in the company and the conversation as in their food." (from the Introduction)

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction: "Good for Food . . . to Make One Wise"
1. Food and Nourishing: The Primacy of Form
2. The Human Form: Omnivorosus Erectus
3. Host and Cannibal: From Fressen to Essen
4. Enhancing Uprightness: Civilized Eating
5. Freedom, Friendship, and Philosophy: From Eating to Dining
6. Sanctified Eating: A Memorial of Creation
Conclusion: The Hungry Soul and the Perfecting of Our Nature