Reflection.

In order to comfortably welcome friends and family, my better half has convinced me that we need a television in our house, an intrusion that hasn't been part of our life for the twelve years we've been together, and one that I had happily removed from my life as a bachelor in 2008.

_________ is a toilet bowl in whose reflection we hope to learn how to treat each other well and not kill each other in a thousand ways.

Jim Harrison

What could fill the blank?  Harrison said "politics," but television, especially the commercials, could fit masterfully.  

College and professional football?  Thank God for radio broadcasts.

News media?

Food culture?

Don’t get lost in the hype.  That’s all contemporary culture is.

Politics.

Music.

Art.

All of it -- overpromising, underwhelming.

I'll take Wordsworth, Josquin, a slab of wood with a handmade piece of cheese on it, and a sip of wine or two (you can even keep the glass).

Toss aside your simpleminded incredulity for a while and think of me as Baba Ram Jimmy, a round, brown old man who has lifelong sought spirituality through food and drink. Right now in America it is hard to see the stars and moon through a blood-smeared windshield. In such difficult times we must turn to the sacral elements at hand, to specific rituals of worship, even if our private God is a twenty-ton Olmec stone head so neutral that it makes the Buddha look like a fraternity glad-hander. 

Perhaps I'm less evolved than you.

Jim Harrison