Last week, technolope came over for a quick lunch, which is one of those rare treats when you work from home. We went to Common Grounds cafe, an eclectic little restaurant around the corner from my house.

The restaurant is run by a small community of Christians who in the 60’s “stopped going to church,” and “started being the church.” Based on my recent reading, they appear to hark back to the very earliest communities of Christians – valuing things like self sufficiency and living slightly apart from the rest of their civilization. While they live as overt Christians, their evangelism is limited to a note at the bottom of the menu: “We serve the fruit of the spirit, why not ask?” I’ve never asked, and they’ve never pushed.

The restaurant is amazing. The internal architecture and decoration is all handmade from reclaimed lumber. Every table is a different shape and size, and in the winter a large stone fireplace warms the whole room. The food is, mostly, locally grown on the community’s farm in Western Mass. It’s tasty, filling, and mostly vegetarian. It feels like a tiny slice of community in the middle of the city.

Anyway, technolope and I had our lunch, and when the time came to pay – I was making chit-chat with the man behind the register and he looked at my T-shirt. “Teach the controversy, what does that mean?”

I realized that I was wearing my “Pb -> Au” shirt, which specifically mocks the creationist crowd.

Uh oh.

I explained that “teach the controversy” is a slogan used by people who want to include biblical creation in the science curriculum of public schools. That the shirt makes fun of that, since the mere presence of a controversy didn’t suffice – in my mind – to make something “science.” There will always be people with ideas that are not science – should we include all of them? Even alchemy?

Another couple people had wandered over, and asked “so do you oppose teaching creation in the schools?”

technolope had, at this point, settled back, made metaphorical popcorn … and was watching the show.

I did my best to stay positive, but also to clearly state my position. To do that, I needed to talk about what I believe – rather than letting the conversation be about what they believe. I wound up with something like this: Philosophy and religion are different from science. Science is, necessarily, about evidence. About predictive models with real world power. In some basic cases, like electromagnetism, it’s pretty simple to test in a couple of hours in the classroom. Either a given setup will make the lightbulb go on, or not. Newtonian mechanics are similarly straightforward. In other cases, like evolutionary biology and astrophysics, we wind up looking at the preponderance of evidence and having to make a bit of a judgement call. We can’t actually re-play the evolution (or not) of multicellular life with even a week or a month in a high school lab.

To their credit, they didn’t let me off the hook. “So you don’t think that creation should be taught in the schools?”

I had to admit that, no, I don’t think that the biblical creation story qualifies as science. I tried to lighten it with the fact that I don’t think that physics qualifies as religion.

Long story, less long: I got called out, and learned that I’m not as ready to back up my snotty t-shirts as I might have liked. Back to the honing stone … gotta sharpen that wit.

Went to see the touring production of Ovo by Cirque du Soleil last night. It was wonderful – as usual. CdS shows always give me the impression that I’ve had the opportunity to visit a strange and colorful other world. It’s the classic magical kingdom, just around the corner – through the looking glass – or wherever. There is always a celebration in that new world just as we arrive – but the celebration is not about us. There may be a coming of age, a passing of the torch, perhaps a relationship being born. We are invited to watch from the edges.

Cirque du Soleil’s spirits, beings, or whatever are powerful and dangerous – but also playful. The boundary at the edge of the stage is there for our protection as well as theirs. The beings in the Cirque world can see us – and in the best moments of acting they are as bemused and curious about us as we are about them.

This was the conclusion of a really good day. We ate at Center Street Cafe, picked up our farm share, pruned some deadwood off the trees over the driveway, canned my cherry concoction, made the first gazpacho of the season, and so on. It actually feels like summertime.

When we were in Ashland, Oregon a couple of weeks ago, we took in a performance of the Merchant of Venice by the venerable and reputable Oregon shakespeare festival. Let it be noted that my cold, hard heart has only rarely been warmed by staged drama. Performances on the stage leave me cold – as a rule. Musical theatre doubly so. Thus I was shocked when I found myself moved nearly to tears by this odd, dark, hilarious, and chilling performance. I had never read the play before – and so it was completely fresh to me.

Doubly odd is that the usually acerbic and shrill Maureen Dowd posted a thoughtful review of a New York revival of the same play. I’m almost willing to make the pilgrimage to see Al, f-ing, Pacino play Shylock.

One gorgeous scene evolves with only slight modification, Shylock (the Jew, the evil, the conniving Jew … who comes by his viciousness honestly, after a lifetime of being spat upon) meets a friend who is played as deaf – signing his lines with offhand translation by a muttering Shylock:

SALARINO: Why, I am sure, if he forfeit, thou wilt not take his flesh: what’s that good for?

SHYLOCK: To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my
bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies; and what’s his reason? I am a Jew. Hath
not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with
the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?
if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?

As redmeds dad said at one point during the show: “For all our progress in the last 400 years, the language of bigotry and intolerance is still completely fresh.” He had spent considerable time on it in school and quoted at length. Again, surprise was mine.

To my eye, the play evolves in the form now embodied by Steven Colbert. All our brutish viciousness and stupidity are on raw display – smilingly portrayed by a vicious, heartless guy who supposedly embodies all our virtues.

I’m sitting on a patio in Indianapolis, beginning the digestive process on a decent portabella sandwich. A beer has been delivered to the table – it could be the second of the evening – and it rests beside my laptop. I’m the guy at the restaurant with his laptop out, posting to facebook.

Don’t judge.

The temperature is perfect. It’s perhaps 78 degrees, and the stars are beginning to be visible behind the bright lights of the downtown. I enjoy hearing the contented babble of people making their way through a summer evening. I enjoy being outside in a t-shirt and jeans and feeling downright comfortable.

Earlier this evening I worked in at a local jiu jitsu place. Good people, strong and competent. I had a solid workout and didn’t get injured – which is all I really ask when I’m on the road.

As to work today, I quote penny arcade:

My response was to haul out the big guns. Actually, it’s my policy to leverage the big guns exclusively. I had a few little guns for awhile, and I sent them back. “Won’t be needing these,” I said.

With that, I return to deleting email and considering how a more humble, and also more witty, individual might respond to what remains.

Some of my customers are much, much cooler than others. Working for one of the cooler ones this week – in the data center. Data centers, for those of you who have not had the pleasure, tend to be cold and windy places with ambient noise in the “hearing damage” range. Lots of fans humming and so on.

Anyway, I suggested this in an email:

I'm tied up at home this morning. Can we plan to convene at the cave of the winds around 1pm? I think that a couple hours of assembly line plug-and-chug could get all the machines in place, imaged, and powered on.

To which the customer (a recently ascended member of the National Academy of Sciences – who hosted the Dalai Lama on a recent visit to Boston) replied:

Thanks for all your efforts, and sorry for the snaffu last week. I think John is in today,
and that he will be able to convene at the cave of winds, should he survive the tests and trials to gain access and entry...

Should I ever become so successful – I hope to retain that level of wit and humility.

Having exhausted all brainpower for the day, I’m cleaning out my under-desk shelves. On said shelves I find a little electronic whatsit that was superficially cool in like 2002 – but it should go now. I fling it to the trash, muttering, “this is the lamest thing ever.”

As it hits the trash, I turn to address the cats. I point to the trash can and say, “and I speak from authority on these matters of lameness.”

This is how it is at the home office.

I keep staring at the world, and thinking how the value of life is so incredibly low.

The measured value of non-human life is zero dollars. Birds, tortoises, buffalo … whatever you pick … the “cost” of buying their meat, fouling their habitat, or driving them out includes exactly $0 worth of value based on the fact that any sentient being would generally prefer (edge cases aside) “living” as opposed to “dying.” There is a slight consideration for the fact that all sentient beings prefer “not suffering” rather than “suffering,” but that’s mostly due to some security foul ups that allowed documentation of how we treat factory farmed animals. Meat costs a little bit more because, as a society, we put a teensy bit of value on not having to know about the suffering of untold billions of creatures. We got shown the pictures, so we insist on regulation … but so long as we didn’t have to look – we didn’t care. Merely killing them “humanely,” is free. I.e: Animal life has zero value.

Go further, and realize that the value of human life is really approximately zero dollars as well. This is most recently and obviously true in the BP gusher – in which The Corporation’s negligence led directly to the deaths of 11 men … but it’s also true across the board.

As yourself “how much would you have to pay me to kill myself?” Assume, if you want the game to go anywhere at all, that you are allowed to give that money – tax free – to your closest relative. You don’t get to pick which one though … you’re dead. If you’re a law enforcement officer, that value appears to be between $200k and $300k. It’s lower for soldiers … about $100k.

For ease of comparison, if the BP gusher was flowing at 60,000 barrels per day, and if oil sold at $80 per barrel, BP is killing 48 soldiers per day (a company every few days) until they get the damn thing capped.

Shared a unique experiencel with redmed, capital_l, and technolope at Opaque in San Francisco on Friday. The short story is that we ate a meal together in an entirely lightless dining room, helped by servers who are each visually impaired to some degree.

First off, the place is hard to find … and not just because we were in a cab in a strange city. Opaque is downstairs from a sister restaurant, “Indigo.” it’s behind one of those doors that leads directly into a basement – and it’s easy to miss even with the sign. We were sitting in the cab staring straight at it when the greeter popped her head out around the door and waved us in. Apparently this happens a lot.

Woke up, not quite so early this morning. Packed up and rolled out – back to the same breakfast place to order the exact same thing. Really, when you find a perfect lox bagel – there’s nothing to do but order it over and over. The coffee shop in Trinidad still makes me happy. They don’t do paper take-away cups. You order a coffee – you get a mug. If you’re in town for a while, bring the mug back. Or a different mug. Whatever. No paper cups though – that would make for a lot of trash.

Drove south to Eureka to the Blue Ox Millworks. This is the brainchild of a mad-genius style woodworker who does victorian style woodworking – mostly with period tools and machines. They demonstrated a treadle powered ripsaw, and a bicycle pedal style jigsaw. He had an interesting quote on the wall:

Kids don’t need an education – they need a problem interesting enough to get them to figure stuff out.

Not sure if I agree in toto – but that’s certainly something I’ve felt about modern education. It seems to squash creativity and interest in problem solving in the interest of facts and figures. Insert your own rant about mass education designed for a population of assembly line workers if you choose. I’ve said it before and don’t need to re-iterate.

Proceeded South to Ferndale to the victorian town fronts – and took lunch in our car on the leftovers of last night’s dinner. Did I mention last night’s dinner? The fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, and cucumber? The olives (because I couldn’t see buying a pint of olive oil for one salad – but an appetizer of olives sounded pretty good. The locally smoked salmon? The filet of rock cod, caught that day on the day boats? Because, I can tell you – even the next day – a round of bread, some cheese, fresh basil, and smoked fish made a damn good lunch.

Then we drove down the Avenue of the Giants … about 30 miles of awesome two lane road winding among 1,000 year old trees and kitsch shops. And then we drove approximately the 90 northernmost miles of CA coastal rt. 1. That was some of the most amazing driving I’ve ever done. When they say “25 miles per hour” around a given curve – I found that I got serious, butt-clenching adrenaline if I came into that curve above about 35. When they said “10 miles per hour,” I laughed out loud and slowed down to 10.

Still, when we got to the Glendeven Inn, I was totally ready for a glass of wine … and they were 100% willing to oblige with a flight from the local selection of Pinot Grigios. We relaxed for a couple of hours – fed the chickens, looked at the llamas, and generally amused ourselves. Then it was off to a solidly vegan meal at Ravens Restaurant just up the street. We looked over their gardens as well and pronounced them “good.”

I write this from in front of the massive fireplace in the common room – and I’m starting to remember why I work so hard: It’s not for the work itself – but for the rest of life that surrounds it.

Woke up this morning in our tiny cabin over looking the Pacific. Seriously. We’re on a bluff that backs onto the ocean. We watched the sun go down into the ocean last night, and then got up from the rocking chairs and went in to light a fire and go to bed. Yes, fire. No heat. Quite chilly without the fire. Heavy comforters and all … but still. That’s a chilly breeze from Japan.

Looking out the window this morning we saw BUNNIES!!! There were two immature rabbits, who at one point exchanged rabbit-nose-kisses under our sleepy gaze. I mean, seriously. Rabbits? Nose kissing? That’s just crazy talk.

Went over to the Beachcomber Cafe, which was a little snapshot out of hippie-ville. While we were there, a backpacking dulcimer player wandered in and offered to work for his breakfast. The owner put him to work defrosting the chest freezer. We ate the locally cured lox on bagels. It ruled. I had the “epic” coffee blend.

Drove back up to Redwoods National Forest and drove the Coastal Trail. From the high bluff overlook we saw WHALES!!!! Specifically, gray whales too lazy to follow the calendar that says that they need to have started migrating by now. We proceeded around the trail, and then to various sites in Redwood forest – including “Big Tree.” BT is about 1,500 years old and perhaps 280 feet tall. When BT was a sapling, the Ottoman empire was in full swing, prior to the iconoclast period. Muhammad was a couple of hundred years from being born. Yeah. I visited something older than Yoda. Humans are neither as large nor as long-lived as we might imagine.

We then drove out to Fern Canyon, which was a trip. I considered hopping out to photograph the car, knee deep in a national part stream, as the starter picture for my new website: http://screwhertz.org. Thought better of it. We saw ELK, with CALVES!!! Based on the many signs indicating that the mothers are quite territorial, we decided against running up to the calves and hugging them. There were also many humans with their pups trailing after them, making that distinctive barking noise that human pups make.

I dropped redmed off at the cabin, grabbed a cup of coffee and a fresh-out-of-the-oven cookie from the coffee shop, and then went shopping. Bought smoked salmon and scallops, plus fresh cod, from the local smokers. They buy off the day boats and smoke what they can’t sell fresh. I LOVE this town. Also picked up tomatoes, cheese, basil, an onion, and another loaf of bread from the grocery store. We spent the remainder of the evening reading, eating, and trying to identify hummingbirds from the back porch.

The fire is now lit, and is off in search of chocolate.

— EDIT —

An additional amusing story: The owner of this place stopped by this evening to make sure everything was to our liking. He noticed my teach the controversy shirt, we exchanged the secret atheist hand signs to be sure we were cool, and then started talking openly. He’s perhaps 65 years old and clearly made bank back in the days when it was straightforward to do some good engineering work in CA and then buy coastal bluff property.

Cool dude. Wants to sponsor Art Weekend West. Seriously.

Anyway, at one point he said something to the effect that and I are going to have a continuing experience that we’re among the pod people … that we’re physiologically similar – but DIFFERENT from those around us.

We tried to express that we’re already there, and he’s like NO IT GETS WORSE.

Anyway, he also said three or four times that we need to “poke ’em in the eye,” referring to theists, creationists, political partisans, and a variety of other idiots.

I like it here.