diet shmiet

If you are what you eat, then I am a cup of coffee and a handful of salted peanuts. My boy Ed is a bowl of cereal, with another bowl of cereal for a chaser. The average Slovenian, on the other hand, is a mountain of meat, potato, bread, cheese and cabbage. I was flabbergasted at the sight of my first "typical" Slovenian meal. After five days in the country, I am fatter, and still flabbergasted. My publishers -- kind, generous and concerned to treat me well -- sat me down in front of a traditional lunch after a long morning talking to radio and school kids. I couldn't come close to finishing. I did okay with the sausages (wonderful, spiced and smoky) but couldn't manage more than a bite of the potato hillock in the middle of the plate, or the small swamp of cabbage nestled beneath it. I skipped dinner that night. Next day we were in another town, and they sat me down in front of the same lunch that the next table was having -- a platter of meat, meat, and more meat, with another platter of garnish for the meat. I tried. I did. First a sausage and then some tender pork. I had a bite of rice stuffing, and a forkful of spicy pepper garnish almost as good as my mom's (who will read this blog) and way better than my baba's (who will not). I skipped the special cheese that I was supposed to spread on the meat and allow to melt, but I did try some pickled cabbage. And then I pushed back my plate. But you haven't tried your salad! cried my publisher. I gave her a helpless look. I ... I can't, I said.

Beside us, the couple who had been eating when we sat down were still going strong. Their platter was half empty.

Why aren't Slovenians the size of houses? With this diet they should be waddling along, barely able to fit into the small cars they drive through the narrow winding streets of the old town. But as a nation they are slender, fit folks. Is it a trick of national metabolism? Or might it, perhaps, have someting to do with the dearth of fast food outlets?

oh those Europeans

Went for a midnight run last night, and the city was alive. People all around the squares and up and down the main streets. Ljubljana is a city all right, but its night life is not quite New York's, so I was kind of surprised to see all the late-night activity.

Surpised, and yet not surprised. This is Europe, I thought. People are different here. They take their civil problems seriously, and are not afraid to show their unhappiness with the authorities. In North America we write letters to the editor. In Europe they throw Molotov cocktails and tear up cobblestones. North Americans march around for a bit and then drive home. Europeans erect guillotines.

I kept running. I don't move quickly, so I get a chance to see a lot as I jog along. The crowds were young, energetic, and focussed. I looked for banners, slogans, angry gestures ... but there were none. There was some bottles, but I didn't see any matches or gasoline. As I passed one knot of youths they called for me to join them, but I declined. I didn't think my meagre vocabulary (the only Slovenian words I know are Hello, My Name Is, Thank You, and Best Wishes) could help the cause.

On my way home I passed two youths lying on the grass. I was concerned -- were they the victims of police brutality? I slowed down to a near walk. The first youth groaned, heaved himself to his knees and vomited into a nearby bush. I approached with an expression of concern. Hello, I said. He climbed to his feet and staggered off, seemingly uninjured. The second youth sat up and opened the bottle in his hand. There wasn't much left. He finished the bottle, threw it away, and stood up, swaying gently. The expression on his face was not friendly. He said something in a low guttural voice, and staggered towards me.

Best wishes, I said brightly, and ran back to the hotel.

This morning I gave a lecture at the university. The professor apologized in advance for her students. Term began this week, she said. And many of them were up celebrating. How do you call the opening time for first year students?

I smiled.

Frosh week, I said.

Yah, that's it.

In some ways, Europeans are the same as we are.

where am I?

So here I am in beautiful downtown Ljubljana, mildly jetlagged after a day of travel and a day of presentations. Slovenia is a small country worried about preserving its culture because it is surrounded by large and powerful neighbours. Kids are force-fed Slovenian literature and politics in school. Sounds familiar to a Canadian. But - so different from us - they seem to lap it up! My kids all complained about the Struggle For Responsible Government, that hardy perreniel of the Canadian curriculum. And I sympathized. Hey, I was sick of it thirty years ago. But here everyone seems to revel in their struggle for freedom, independence, self-government. One of the schools I visited today had a Richard Scrimger Day, and there were songs and dances in traditional Slovenian costume. And the kids were smiling. They must have heard this stuff a thousand times but it was still fresh.

Yes, they watch South Park and Simpsons and Family Guy. And their jokes reflect it. They are part of the world American culture. But they are Slovenian too, proud relicts of the old Austro-Hungarian empire. They listen to Blink 182, but they also listen to something called Turbo-folk (imagine oom-pah-pah with a Euro-pop chaser. That's it in the picture -- scary, huh?) And one of the TV channels seems to show indoor soccer 24/7.

Sounds crazy but I tell you I'm getting hooked.

the burden of bounty

I don't own an i-pod.

This is not a moral position. I am happy that music is out there, and that we can collect it and store it in vast quantities to use as we wish. I have no quarrel with the technology, either. Nor am I put off by people walking around bobbing their heads to sounds I cannot hear. Bless you all, I say, and the self-selected melodious diversity with which you surround yourselves.

But I don't want to join you.

More than anything else, it is the sense of oppression: the crushing burden of quantity. The idea of holding thousands of hours of listening in the palm of my hand puts me off. I like salted peanuts. But I like them in digestible quantities. A handful of salted peanuts is pleasant. A bowlful is delightful. But a roomful of salted peanuts is hideous. I know I don't have to eat them all at once. But the idea that I couldn't possibly eat them, even if I had a year to do it -- that's off-putting. Almost scary. To me, an i-pod is a concert hall full of peanuts.

And the fact that I have selected each and every one only makes it worse. I have contributed to my own oppression. Isn't there a Chinese curse about attaining your heart's desire? Something like that.

Imagine the most exciting hockey game. Tie score, end to end action, nerve-twanging tension. Great. But what if the game lasted for a year without a break? 24 hours a day of pulse pounding drama, day after day, week after week. You'd die -- or become so blase that you didn't care any more. Hockey would cease to be a source of enjoyment for you. I'd hate to feel that way about music. Have you ever sat in your driveway at the end of a journey, listening to the last few bars of a song on the radio? Kind of a nice moment, isn't it. But what if the very next song was another old favorite. And the one after that. And the one after that. And so on. You could run through a thousand tanks of gas waiting for your i-pod to stop playing songs you loved.

To my mind, there is nothing more delightful than stumbing upon a wonderful piece of music. A gem in the middle of a radio program, a song heard through the din of a party, a single cd in the middle of the shelf. The element of chance plays a large part in enjoyment. Considering that life itself is a happy accident -- whether you're an evolutionist or a theist, or a mixture, you have to agree that we're pretty darn lucky to be here -- I think it appropriate that my pleasures are equally accidental. After all, whose children grow up according to plan? Who sets out to fall in love?

context

Enjoyment isn't all about quality. It's about timing, too. When you are hungry, food tastes good. The most memorable meal of my life was not a seven-course tasting menu with wines to match, but a plate of Kraft Dinner mixed with chunks of canned ham, which I ate at the end of a very long and exhausting trek into a campsite in the dead of winter. Timing, like I said. You know, I can still recall the first bites -- even the charred grit from the side of the cooking pot which got mixed into the cheese sauce tasted wonderful.

I don't want to extrapolate my argument very far, because the perfect meal would then appear to be the one just before you are about to starve to death. I don't like that picture much. But there is something important about our capacity for enjoyment that depends on context.

Which brings me back to music. Stumbling upon a baroque concert in the course of a long drive is a wonderful feeling. I settle back in the seat, turn up the volume and bask in the sound. But what if the concert is never-ending? How long can you bask? How long before you've had enough? I love a beach vacation, but I don't think I'd like a beach life.

(Another quick thought has to do with the chance of stumbling on the concert. If I have it on disc, and can access it at any time, it's not the same. More on this next time, I think.)

I've stopped listening to my all-baroque-all-the-time radio channel. I sampled down the remote, trying alternative rock, Franco-pop, and instrumental new-age channels, and have been appropriately amused, bemused, and lulled. I just this minute switched to the chamber music channel, and am enchanted by a hyper-romantic piano trio I really like and rarely hear. So I'll stick around for a bit. But I don't know how long that bit will be. What if the next piece sounds like sewing machines? A lot of chamber music does, you know. I fear boredom.

A few evenings ago I came downstairs to find Imo reading on the couch with the TV tuned to the big-band radio channel. She was smiling along with some very up-tempo Fats Waller. Pretty good, eh, Dad? she said. I agreed. The song ended. Next up was Goodman. Then Ellington. Imo's smile widened and widened. You know, I could listen to this stuff all day, she said.

Good for you, I said. I don't know if I could.

She laughed at me. I love it when she does that. Well, geez, Dad, of course not. You don't have any attention span.

Maybe that's my problem.

flat baroque

I have satellite TV now. (Don't worry, this is not a post about my favorite shows. I have no favorite shows, and the ones I watch are with and because of my kids. If it's of interest at all, and while I'm still in the bracket, I can tell you that the most used channels are MTV2 and a rugby-soccer channel where all the announcers have North British accents. But that's not the point here.) Along with the 650-odd channels of television I get about 300 channels of radio. And one of those plays baroque music. I've had it on in the background for about a week now, except when the kids are over and switch to Viva La Bam.

As you'll have guessed, I like baroque music. Always have. The first record I remember listening to was Bach's transcriptions of Vivaldi's multi-violin concerti for multi-harpsichord. (My mom tells a charming story of me on the living room floor, picking my nose in tempo.) First record I bought with my own money was not "Sugar Sugar" but something by Giovanni Gabrieli. (Not that I can't sing the words to "Sugar Sugar." No one alive at the time escaped that song. Long after every word of the great poets has vanished from me, I will be able to sing "Sugar Sugar." That's the ineluctability of pop culture. I suspect that my last conscious thought will not be of art or destiny or loved ones. I can see me in the nursing home, friends and family leaning forward as I whisper, "Come and listen to a story 'bout a man named Jed ...")

Sorry, where was I? Baroque music. Yes, I have loved it all my life. Pleasant, tuneful, easy-access music. Some pieces are old friends; others are new but they share so many features that I feel I know them. Scanning down the radio dial and finding a piece by Handel or Scarlatti has always been enough to make me smile at my good luck.

This past week I have smiled a lot. The baroque TV channel has the day blocked out in two or three hour segments, but they are all the same, sausage links of sound made of the same ingredients. But do you know -- I'm getting sick of it. It hit me this morning when I got up, flipped on the TV, and heard the old familiar strains. That's what this post is about. I am beginning to be oppressed by my own good fortune. If you are starving, a meal is an important event. But I am not starving for baroque music. I am stuffed.

More on this next time -- I feel that there are a number of factors involved in my sudden distaste for the soundtrack of my life. Right now, I am going to go back downstairs, turn off my satellite TV, and find something different to listen to. I wonder what would represent anti-baroque music? Mahler? Philip Glass? Blondie? Biggie Smalls? Jason Collett?

Maybe silence.

say no! to sports

Changing at the YMCA the other day (is it necessary to add clothes, I wonder? That's what I was changing) I ran across Steve, an acquaintance of a few years. We got to talking of our children, which is what we seem to have in common (is it necessary to add that they are different children?) Steve is so proud he could burst -- his son is playing varsity football. Well done! I said, several times, since the topic kept coming up.

Takes after me, he said.

Well he would, wouldn't he, I said.

Steve looked puzzled.

I mean, he's your son, I said, going on to mention that my son Sam is also playing university sports. Frisbee, to be exact.

Steve looked puzzled again. Frisbee? he said. As if it was a concept with which he was unfamiliar, like abstract extension or string theory.

Oh yes, I replied. And not just toss-it-around-the-park-and-check-out-the-girls frisbee. He is on a team. They play games. My boy is quite the athlete.

Steve smiled down at me. Not condescendingly -- he's a nice guy. But not not condescendingly, if you understand. That's, uh, great, he said, and headed for the showers, limping slightly on the knee he injured all those years ago playing -- you guessed it -- varsity football.

I suppose we all suffer from the excesses of youth. Choices pursued avidly in our teens and twenties can come back and bite us in middle age. Serious and unlucky indulgence in love or pharmaceuticals, food or drink or any number of risky businesses can have lifelong consequences. But sports seems to be the most dangerous pursuit of all. Is there a retired pro hockey or football player who does not wake up in pain? And these guys at least have glorious memories and bank accounts. What about the college and minor league stars who were a step slow for the pros? What about the amateurs who gave up their health for the good old school? I can't help noticing all the trick knees, bad backs, and blown shoulders of guys my age -- and how many of these chronic conditions date back to high school or university athletics. And yet these ex-athletes -- the Steves of the world, gobbling ibuprofin like candy, limping and wincing through life -- are often quite pleased when their childen take up a sport that might well land them in hospital. Chip off the old block mentality. I wonder how many ex-drug addicts are pleased to see their children following in their footsteps?

I'm being facetious, but only up to a point. I am glad that Sam is having fun and running around the frisbee field. But at the risk of offending Steve, I am very thankful that my son is not playing varsity football, or rugby or hockey or lacrosse. I've heard some mighty scary stories about field hockey too.

Of course the genes are against Sam. I have no athletic glory to look back on. Mind you, on the plus side, I don't hobble or take pain killers, and my dad still jogs dozens of miles every week.

That's a block I am proud to be a chip off of.