Posts Tagged ‘dark’

Disclaimer/Preamble/Full Disclosure: In this mostly fictionalized account of his life and times, I do little justice to William of Occam. But the present need for necessary distraction being so great, combined with my desire to provide such vital distraction; a gathering storm has arisen, and the approaching precipitate is set to rain all o’er you. And while I may deceive myself into believing I write these stories for some higher purpose, they usually end up triggering the same pleasure centers in the brain that are fired by cat videos. So although I do aim high, I generally hit rather low and end up hitting the funny bone in such a way that it gets tickled. To wit:

Billy of Occam. He was the life of the party. Problem was there were no parties in the 14th century.

The Duke of Occam was a real guy who lived from 1287-1347, or should I say subsisted from 1287-1347 – it still being quite primitive in the last decades of the Dark Ages. In those bleak times a streaming service meant paying someone to ferry you across a river. It was a benighted time – I mean the spatula hadn’t even been invented yet, and people were so dumb, sometimes they forgot how to exhale and would die from asphyxiation. The breathing-challenged were advised, “Help is coming, but don’t hold your breath.” And the help finally did come in the form of Rudolph Heimlich of Nuremberg, who saved thousands by imparting his now famous maneuver for combatting “stuck diaphragm.”  

Set against this squalid backdrop, the Duke of Occam managed to enjoy his life as a celebrated philosopher, as well as a despotic landowner. Remember, the idea of “benevolence” didn’t really develop until the arrival of the Renaissance in the 15^th century, and “despotic” had not yet become a disparaging term. It was just a standard issue descriptor of all landlords in that era. If you were a landlord in the 14^th century, the only template available was to act despotically. There was no room for wannabe despots in the cozy little Landlord’s Guild – unless you wannabe drummed out for lack of depravity.

If you yearned to behave benevolently in the 1300s, you’d be best advised to ferment mead in a monastery or spend 3 weeks trying to artistically compose a calligraphic “I” at the beginning of the Book of Genesis in a Bible manuscript. Help was on the way here too, courtesy of another German polymath named Johannes Gutenberg who invented the printing press round about 1440. So, while the Duke of Occam’s full-time job may have been to despotically oppress the faceless masses he lorded over, he also had an emerging benevolent side that expressed itself through philosophy; and that’s how he came to formulate the clunky principle eponymously referred to as Occam’s Razor – more on that later. 

In the time before dentistry (unless you considered your barber a dentist), there wasn’t a great need for philosophers, as much as there was a need for root vegetables and anything resembling hygiene. Effete philosophers of the leisure class (a class comprising a total of 18 people worldwide in the hardscrabble 14^th century), dabbled in issuing prescriptions for the refinement of society. But man doth not live by instructive aphorism alone – especially in 1344. In other words, dopey dictums issued by well-fed dilettantes in hopes of combatting societal ills, may have addressed maladaptive behaviors, but they certainly did nothing to combat pervasive hunger or grubby hands. Your average peasant would much prefer a helping of boiled tubers than a prescription for comporting oneself. In even more other words, thanks for your opium-drenched thoughts Mr. Occam, now make with some victuals. Read the rest of this entry »

Extra Toasty Cheez-its?
You had me at Cheez-it.
Now you’re just toasting the lily.

Some may find this Extra Toasty Cheez-It exposé a frivolous exegesis in subprime caramelization. Others, who already stopped reading at the word exegesis, will never know that as a teenager, a buddy and I broke into a casket warehouse and scared the living exegesis out of ourselves (more on that later*). In any event, this lifelong quest for a darker, toastier more caramelized Cheez-It never ends and I’m incredulous that Kellogg’s has the nerve to pass off these decidedly under-scorched cheese squares as Extra Toasty Cheez-Its. Extra Toasty Cheez-Its? Hardly. They’re still just a whiter shade of orange.

My plea for a darker cracker (seems a contradiction in terms both gastronomically and racially) goes out to all the bakers, cereal chemists and marketers at Kellogg’s who manufacturer this irresistible little quadrilateral known as a Cheez-It. When I use the word “manufacturer” of Cheez-Its it feels so cold, so distant, so mechanical. I prefer to believe my snack crackers are magically baked by benevolent little gnomes, or cherubic Keebler Elves or maybe even some Pips, that is, if Gladys Knight could ever spare them. In other words, if Disney had a Cheezitland I’d belong to the Frequent Eater’s Club.    Read the rest of this entry »