Saturday, June 21, 2014

Hospitality

David Denby said in Great Books, that he sat down and read the Odyssey in one sitting.

The only book I read in one day was The Hobbit, when I was a teenager over the summer when I was visiting my father. I woke up and read it, and fell asleep after I finished, one day.

I'm going to visit a friend who has a house on Long Island sound. I will pour a libation to Zeus, Poseidon, Buddha, Vishnu, Jesus, Mohammad, Zoroastrian, all my dead relatives, nature, all the gods and goddesses, all the things that capture the human mind, devine and mundane. I shall pour the libation onto the bluff above the sea to mark the glorious day.

I won't have to clasp the knees of my friend to get his hospitality.

It's funny who we think deserves hospitality. If you're poor, the wrong color, and have problems, people mostly like "tough love". We're so afraid that if we help people, then they won't help themselves, because somehow we have to rationalize the grave inequalities in our society. People always act like it's so obvious, it's easy to be a Mitt Romney and live off your accumulated wealth. Like he's earned his wealth. If work is so great, why does he not have to work, why is he exempt from the rule? Because he's so wise and frugal? Driving with a dog on the roof for a family vacation. I laugh when I think of the episode of New Girl, when Schmitt pretends to be a Romney. He's too Jewish. But I digress.

There is a feel in the Odyssey that Odysseus gets the hospitality he gets because he is part of the elite. King Alcinous does not ask him who he is until he's hosted him for quite a while, but he knows he's of noble bearing. What are the easy traits of nobility, that can't be copied by the common man?

I got to the place in my library book where I found the magnetic strip. I could return the book, then go back, remove the strip and walk out with the book. But I don't like to steal, doesn't feel right. I'll buy my own copy. I want to read this book to my sons. I wonder if I should read the Illiad first. I've never read it. On the one hand, it's the book before, the first book of civilization. On the other hand it's not as easy to read, supposedly.

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