American Fez

Latin For The Judgin'

Sutor, ne ultra crepidam is by far my favorite Latin expression. It means "Shoemaker, not beyond the shoe."

Apparently, a Greek cobbler criticised the rendering of a shoe in a painting by the Greek artist Apelles of Kos. Apelles followed the cobbler's advice and repainted the shoe only to hear the cobbler extend his criticism into disparagement of sections of the painting having nothing to do with shoes. Consequently, Apelles told him to stick to his area of expertise when delivering subjective verdicts: Sutor ne ultra crepidam!

We are all the judgmental shoemaker to some extent. In fact, I probably spend more time criticising non-shoe subjects than I do making shoes. I spend all day looking at my equivalent of shoes. I'm bored of them so let me get my teeth into my equivalent of umbrellas, pince-nez, snowboards, and knee-high socks. 

Fortunately for me, there is a trend nowadays to believe experts in one particular area of expertise are oracles of wisdom on every other possible area of expertise also. Scientists expound upon Economics; Geologists expound upon Gender Equality; Astrophysicists expound upon Agriculture; Cobblers expound upon Painting; and so on. At times it seems like experts expound upon absolutely everything except their own area of expertise.

This entire blog has been and continues to be a record of a cobbler avoiding the subject of shoes in order to wax lyricallyish about everything else under the sun. 

Perhaps he should look down once in a while to make sure the sole isn't flapping off his own shoe. But I doubt he will.

A Hard Luck Story

Everyone knows the story of Johnny Appleseed, but few are perhaps familiar with the tale of Johnny's less successful sister, Hortense Guavaseed.

An early nineteenth-century evangelist of what would become contemporary Californian juicing culture, Hortense's attempt to introduce tropical fruit cultivation into the northern United States were obviously doomed from the start. Yet she was determined to outshine her famous brother's apple tree distribution accomplishments.

Perhaps one reason for Hortense Guavaseed's failure, despite the unsuitability guava in a non-tropical ecosystem, was that she, unlike brother Johnny Appleseed, was not a Swedenborgian and sang no inspiring hymns before dinner. 

Alas, we shall never know. Metaphysical speculations upon the subject of quixotic agricultural endeavor are beyond the scope of this blog, as indeed are most subjects. Nevertheless, I sang inspiring hymns to the Mandrake roots in my window box. They all withered and died.  

I guess the moral of the Appleseed and Guavaseed family rivalry is: farm to table is one thing if you want to cook a slice of apple with your pork chop, but tropical fruit plantation to five-speed blender for a refreshing smoothie is something else entirely, requiring state-of-the-art refrigeration and efficient, modern transport links which were unavailable in Hortense's time. 

She would die of heartbreak after bringing pineapples to Hawaii only to discover there were loads already there. Such is the fate of many dreamers whose stories are lost to history.

Plumbing Then And Now

Completely alone, at the witching hour, in the middle of nowhere, I might briefly consider dipping my toe into a sauna. 

But at a city health club, surrounded by hairy strangers, there is not a hope in Hell I'm going anywhere near the steam room. I'd rather sit by myself in a freezing toilet.

If you ask me, communal bathing was the number one reason for the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, despite what Edward Gibbon says; and Gibbon is exactly the sort of tiresome, sweaty, close-talking conversationalist you'd be stuck beside in a sauna. 

How can you expect to maintain Pax Romana while spending all day lounging around in other senators' old scummy water? I don't recall Gibbon's endless tome covering that aspect of Imperial decadence and languor. (Although, to be fair, I only read the lurid chapters of his endless book and skimmed the rest, so he might have)

Speaking of personal hygiene and antiquity, it has long been my contention, much disputed by conventional archaeologists, that the great stone monoliths of Stonehenge are actually a set of individual shower stalls. 

Alas, I have zero evidence for this assertion except for a small piece of calcified soap-on-a-rope I found near the site in 1973. "Look at this ancient artifact I've found," I said to my mother, who ordered me to throw it away immediately. Consequently, an important part of the Stonehenge mystery was lost forever. 

Nevertheless, I still hope to prove that Stonehenge was, in fact, an expensive spa reserved for the use of pampered Neolithic fashionistas. Until then the windows of history will remain fogged by the mainstream academy's sauna of orthodox hot air.