Wheels Down
My last flight has landed at Asheville. No more flying for a while! I’ve crossed the international date line twice in a week and spent long days working in time zones 12 hours off of each other. I’m glad to be back to my mountains.
My Second Favorite* Anglican Priest Gets Interviewed by My Favorite** Orthodox Iconographer
The Rev. Dr. Malcolm Guite has just published the first volume of an "Arthuriad," a projected 4-volume ballad that retells the Arthurian stories. It's made a bit of a splash.
If you're interested in Arthur, Tolkein, CS Lewis, poetry, fiction, history, the role of imagination in modern life, Christianity, or just hearing two interesting people talk about storytelling, you might enjoy this interview.
* My favorite Anglican priest will always be Fr. Terry, who was a kind and generous pastor when I was asking whether Christianity might be the right path or not.
** To be fair, he's the only iconographer I can name of any denomination, so it's not as impressive as I've made it sound in the title. His Symbolic World podcast / YouTube channel is what he's famous for, but "... Interviewed by a Podcaster" was a less-interesting title.
Back in the USA
I did hear a David Allan Coe song in a bar in Taipei, but this still feels more like home. I won’t actually be home until late tomorrow night.
Rest in Peace, Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry passed away yesterday.
Some advice he gave to himself, but which seems to profit others as well:
How to Be a Poet
(To remind myself)
i
Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill -- more of each
than you have -- inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your poems,
doubt their judgment.
Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill -- more of each
than you have -- inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your poems,
doubt their judgment.
ii
Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.
iii
Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.
Taipei
Downtown, with Taipei 101 on the skyline
Closer to 101.
An unexpected angel. It’s mostly Buddhist here; I saw many Buddhist monks and a few nuns, but no other signs of Christianity except that in the hotel room there was both a New Testament and a Teachings of the Buddha.
The Formosan Bear is, unofficially, the national animal of Taiwan (of old called Formosa Isle).
Taipei Main Station. I caught the High Speed Railway from here. Recommended.
The Most Important Store. Only very recently is it legal to buy a Harley in Taiwan. Until late, large displacement motorcycles were banned by law.
Tetraphobia
A lot of American skyscrapers don’t have a 13th floor, in the sense of a floor with that designation, because the number was thought to be bad luck.
In East Asia, the number omitted is four. The word for four and the word for death are the same syllable with only a slightly different pronunciation.
Fare Thee Well, Dolly
Dolly Parton and Carol Burnett
Dolly Parton giving an impromptu performance in Paídi Ó Sé's Pub
(I've started this video just a bit before she starts singing, skipping over several minutes of people milling about, a t-shirt being given, mic testing and so forth.)
Merle Haggard talks about falling in love with Dolly
Probably my favorite of her songs, recorded with Chet Atkins
What a joy she was.
No Pictures Today
All day exercises from before dawn until well into the dark today. Tomorrow we resume early again, but will end a little earlier. Perhaps I’ll have time for something I can post then.
Our Taiwanese allies are very enthusiastic, disciplined, and intelligent. I won’t say more about it, but you should have a warm place in your heart for Taiwan.
Robots on the March
This one is a waiter who brings your dinner from the kitchen to your table. It is very polite about not bumping into people; they seemed to pay it no mind, trusting its sensors to stop it running into them.
UPDATE: At another restaurant on another night, I saw a robot come out to ‘sing’ Happy Birthday to a patron. This one displayed an appropriate light show on its monitors while doing so.
7-Eleven in Taipei
For some reason my 10-year-old niece in Idaho had strong opinions about the superiority of 7-Elevens in Taiwan. I went by one to get pictures for her. I don’t know where this is coming from, but she likes Korean boy bands too. No account for taste.
Past the jump, more pictures of shelves of stuff. They also sell hard liquor.
Yay, fungus ramen.
Seaweed flavored potato chips!
What is a century egg, you ask? You shouldn’t.
Soybean paste noodles with chili sauce and a Snickers bar.
Wheels Down Taipei
I didn’t make it Friday. It was quite a journey.
I did get to spend many, many hours in the San Francisco airport. On the international terminal there is an outdoor terrace with a sculpture garden.
Melting clocks are also common features in prison tattoos, where they also symbolize the distorted nature of time when you are trapped in one place by unhappy circumstances.
No idea about this one.
Lovely succulents.
That California minimum wage? Fully robotic coffee bars.
Before I left DC I had a “half smoke,” a locally famous sort of chili dog. They aren’t great. DC isn’t known for its food or culture.
Taiwan pictures after the sun comes up.
Eight Slapping Pistons
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