Thu, 19 May 2005

the other bethlehem
1991.

Pamela and I were loitering around a diner/truck stop out in Elk Run, taking unfair advantage of the 99 cent bottomless cup of coffee and splitting a blueberry muffin with the last of our shared funds. Pamela was on this thing about ideal objects, and how there should be a harmony between each of the five senses in any given object in order for it to be considered ideal. “Take for instance,” she pronounced with coffee-mad grandiloquence, “the lowly blueberry. In its color is the perfect compliment to its flavor, which again is perfectly complimented by its texture.”

“And yet the blueberry is without sound,” I said, “and in its silence it fails to be ideal.”

“This is not true! The blueberry, to those with proper ears, emits what we in the business know to be the blueberry hum.”

Such conversations often degenerated into the ridiculous, particularly those undertaken at four am on a school night, but I was wililng to follow this line of reasoning a bit longer. “The blueberry hum, you say. Of course you know that each concord you place between discrete sense-data only seems ideal because this is your primary context: you know what is ideal from the blueberry, not because the blueberry is ideal, but because it is the first and possibly only blue food you know.”

“LIES!” Pamela said, her ringed fingers flailing over the table. “The first blue food I knew was the blue popsicle, which is not an ideal food! It is a referent to a flavor which never existed! It is only through endless rejection of inferior blue foods that I have come to know and understand the aesthetic correctness of the blueberry!”

Mock-disgusted, I pushed the last bite of muffin away from me, proclaiming “You, obviously, are ignorant. What do you have, really, when you sum your experience but the application of your latent preferences and prejudices? The blueberry is ideal because it fits your schema, and that’s all there is to it. Feel free to finish the muffin; it’s all you have left.”

Pamela popped the last piece of muffin in her mouth and lit another cigarette, starting to crack a smile. “You’re god-damned right I’ll finish the muffin. I may not be able to prove beyond a doubt that the blueberry is ideal, not to biased simpletons like yourself, but I know it’s delicious, and I know I want it, and I know it’s mine. Also I know we need more coffee.”

I giggled a bit, but regained composure and said “Yes, yes, we’ll never get to the bottom of this without more coffee. The fate of the universe depends on the outcome of this conversation.”

And I was kidding, but at the same time I wasn’t.
(12:26.05.19.2005) [/scrytch] #