Grudge Match!

The James Beard Foundation award nominees (pshew!) were announced yesterday. In the writing about food category (or something like that), Bill Buford's Heat squares off against Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. I have this strange prejudice about non-chefs writing about kitchens (according to AV, a "chef writing snob"), and so I put Buford's book down in respectful disgust about 2/3 of the way through ... even though it is about Mario Batali. AV loved it, though, so that's why this particular award is shaping up to be a grudge match. He's not yet read Omnivore's. Congratulations, also, to local fella Adam Cayton-Holland (Westword), who was nominated for a piece he wrote in December.

Speaking of Michael Pollan, I just finished The Botany of Desire, which was a lot of fun. Except for that part where he speculates that the theory of Forms was conceived while Plato was -- er -- "intoxicated." That was profoundly disturbing, and it has been bothering me since I read it last week. Now I'm on to reading Matthew Stewart's The Courtier and the Heretic about Leibniz and Spinoza. It's fascinating so far, and contains a passing reference to the defenestration of Prague. Stewart seems more sympathetic to Spinoza (and it's hard not to be sympathetic, given that he supported himself grinding lenses by day and writing scandalous philosophical treatises by night, all while Leibniz power-played his way around Europe wearing, no doubt, powdered wigs and the like), but it's made me want to read more Spinoza.

Yesterday we saw The Host, which was somehow reminiscent to me of Dr. Strangelove. It is, undoubtedly, a sharp poke at many things American ... but this is the subtext of a supremely artistic and complete film. We had a rollicking conversation about it over a less than stellar dinner out after the movie.

Spring break continues -- I've been grading quite a bit, and am hoping that the grading will be finished in time for me to do some actual planning and preparation for the second half of the semester. Tomorrow night I'm radioing from 10pm to 12 midnight (89.3 FM/www.kuvo.org) and looking forward to playing some adventurous music over the airwaves.

For some reason, I can't bring myself to talk much about philosophy over the blog-waves. I don't know if that's a side effect of a higher proportion of teaching to learning right now or what, but the substance of my blog has changed a lot over the last six months. Sorry to those of you readers who are interested in more substantial things, but it seems that the only things that grab me to blog about are non-philosophical in nature. Maybe someday soon I'll get back on the philosophy blog horse. For now, though, I'll stick to writing about movies, tennis, and telly ... and Spinoza.