Ruined

Lost yesterday to car trouble, waiting in parking lots, waiting at shops, waiting at home. But the beater runs again. You know it is bad, though, when the people who make money working on your car tell you it might be time to think about buying another. I think it is time to pay up on a bet I made with Jan Bernhardtz. He won the car fair and square. Jan, come over and collect. OK.

I have a friend who gives me great things to read. He is an attorney, but he's OK. He's a writer and a traveler and an art collector and a romantic. Etc. A good guy. He sent me this link and an excerpt from Pico Iyer's introduction to his new book on Somerset Maugham.

The perfect traveler must be a perfect contradiction. She should be open to almost everything that comes her way, but not too ready to be taken in. He should be worldly, shrewd, his feet firmly on the ground; but he must also have the capacity to give himself over to moments of real wonder. He or she must be curious, observant, spirited and kind—ready to spin a spell-binding tale of adventure and irony at the Explorers’ Club, and then throw it all over for a crazy romance in the South Seas.

In doing a Google search, I found that "The Moon and Sixpence" was available online from a number of sources, and I began reading the first chapter. Later, after sushi and sake on the veranda, I went to the bookstore and bought it and a few other books by Maugham. There are some wonderfully quotable things. Many of us will take this as our mantra:

"His faults are accepted as the necessary complement to his merits."

I've been thinking about aesthetics too much lately, about the hierarchical choosing and privileging of all things as aesthetics is not simply about the arts, so when I came across this thoroughly Modern sensibility, I stopped for a minute:

"The artist, painter, poet, or musician, by his decoration, sublime or beautiful, satisfies the aesthetic sense; but that is akin to the sexual instinct, and shares its barbarity. . . ."

I am ruined for awhile. I want to return to Cuba this fall. I want to get down to Peru again and to visit Chiapas. And of course there is Viet Nam. What am I doing, I thought last night? Why am I wasting time?

There is a lot here for you to peruse on a lazy Saturday if you choose. But be careful. It might ruin you, too.