Renaissance Men eat Ketchup

I have recently started eating ketchup on my fries. For years I was a mayo on fries guy, it seemed more cosmopolitan, more european which in North America passes for instant sophistication. But I got to reading "What the Dog Saw" by Malcolm Gladwell, which is basically a compendium of essays that he wrote for the New Yorker that he has put in a book to try and milk for a second time. I digress, one of his articles is about ketchup and the fact that somewhat unlike mustard there is very little diversity in the ketchup world, and what diversity there is, is frankly negligible in the face of the dominance of Heinz. Ketchup it seems according to the ketchup experts (yes there are such things) is the perfect blend of stuff that makes it appealing to the masses.

A renaissance man is supposed to, or at least, in my own mind, be someone of refined tastes with a discerning palate and a discerning eye. There is no room for ketchup or other such mana of the masses, it's all foie gras, filet mignon and fine wine. Surely a renaissance man is defined by such exquisite taste?

On reflection though it seems a bit trite to define a man according to his taste in food or any other such taste. It's not that there is anything wrong with enjoying good food, or good wine but to disdain a food as plebian, seems to me in retrospect the height of snobbery and not a little bit phony a la Holden Caulfield. And if a renaissance man is anything he is not a phony.

I am perhaps defining a real man more than just a renaissance man, but I'm reminded of a time when I told a colleague that I was going to make trifle. His response to me was that "real men don't make trifle", and for once I had the right comeback, "Real men do what ever the fuck they want to do". I think the same is true for renaissance men, I go back to one of my earlier blogs where I insisted that the dialogue about what a renaissance man is essentially a moral dialogue and well, it just seems to me that ketchup and trifle are not burning moral questions.

The renaissance man has style there is no doubt, but it is defined by his own tastes, but the true hallmark is his moral fortitude. Nothing should be dismissed because of social pressures or concerns, but as a matter of personal preference, and nothing need be enjoyed because you are told to enjoy it. I remember another story where I was at a wine event put on by work and a woman asked me wether the wine was good or not, my response was to ask her if she liked it, if she did then it was good, and if not well then it doesn't matter what anyone else said. She looked at me with big round eyes as if she had no idea what I was talking about, she then proceeded to turn to the guy beside me and ask him if the wine was good. What is the point going about liking and disliking things based on what other people say? What a horrible way to live.

Now let's not let the pendulum swing too far. Their is merit in listening to and learning from people who study things like wine. There is no doubt that certain tastes are acquired through a certain amount of effort And a discerning palate is something that can be acquired and can be rewarding unto itself; taking the time to enjoy the pleasures of wine, or trifle or 100 different kinds of mustard is not a bad thing per se and starting off knowing nothing and willing to learn is a pleasurable pursuit, but when that becomes a snobbery it is no longer a renaissance trait. As Rudyard Kipling says (I paraphrase) To walk with Kings but not lose the common touch might just be one of the key traits of the renaissance man.

And so I am going to eat my fries with ketchup and i still love foie gras and chateau-neuf-du pape and while these define my tastes they certainly don't define me.

Learning to Listen to Music

I am trying to spend one hour a week listening to music. This is harder than it seems. We listen to music all the time, in our cars, at the office, on transit and in our homes, with IPods and other devices it’s hard to keep music at bay sometimes. But what I am trying to do is actually spend an entire hour just sitting and listening to music. This is hard, we don’t really listen to music anymore, it’s so accessible and so everywhere that it is easy to let music fade into the background.

I try and imagine sometimes what it was like before recorded music and in particular before good quality recorded music. Can you imagine in the 18th and 19th centuries going to see a symphony by Beethoven and hanging on every note knowing that you might never hear this piece of music again in your life, or if you were lucky you might hear it a handful of times. How differently one would listen to music. It would not be the backdrop to the everyday but a true momentous event in life.

If you aren’t a fan of classical music, so be it, but imagine to if you weren’t in the caste of people who had access to the great music of the day in Vienna, Paris and London, what about the musical experience of the every man, in his village. He didn’t get to turn on the radio and toil away in the fields or put on some chill music at the end of a hard day with a brew in one hand. Music was likely experienced in church or was true folk music. Just the everyday song in the field. It can be really hard to imagine a world where you carry 10,000 songs in your pocket and can easily reach for the radio and find a station with something.

WIth recorded music we also created a scale for good and bad singing. These days only a small portion of the population that wants to be on American idol really sing anymore and then of course the ever dwindling churchgoers. But before the age of recorded music everybody sang and saying that someone was a good singer or a bad singer was as silly as saying they were a good talker or a bad talker. People talk, people sing. These days most people are too embarrassed to sing and if you ask most people will know will tell you they have a terrible voice.

So I’m trying to listen to music every week, and I have to admit it’s hard, my mind wonders to other things, and suddenly I realize I missed the song and I try and refocus. I am trying not to make this an intellectual exercise, I realize I could read about how to listen to music, there are books on this sort of things, but i am determined to actually be able to listen for one hour without intellectualizing just feeling the music. Wish me luck.