First some back story:

A think-tank in my employ came to a problematic conclusion recently, that though I call this site The Nonist, I, its author, am not in fact truly free of “isms.” It was an unpleasant finding to be sure. It struck me immediately that if word got out it could be quite embarrassing. My P.R. firm agreed whole heartedly and recommended swift action be taken.

In an effort to strip me of as many “isms” as realistically possible my stable of mystics, eugenicists, astronomers, and rogue-scientists have since been busy with a harrowing undertaking: to break apart the jumbled mass of choices that make up my Being in hopes of reverse engineering them and tracing particular flaws to their root causes. It’s been hard going and the results are by no means finalized. However, as is the case with many scientific undertakings, there have been discoveries made only tangentially related to the goal.

Which brings me to the “miniscule choice” I referred to earlier.

We have discovered a conclusive and reliable method to test for cynicism in humans. And believe me there is none of that poetic, wishy-washy, stuff about half-full / half-empty glasses involved. The test is simple and repeatable. All that’s required is access to The Food Network on your cable television.

To administer the test on your self simply do the following:

1. Turn on your television.
2. Enter the digits on your remote control which correspond to The Food Network or some similar program in which a “chef” prepares a meal in the course of an episode.
3. Watch the program until the climactic moment.
4. Take note of your own reaction to said climactic moment.

You’re finished, test complete. You now know for certain whether you are a cynic.

Let me explain:

During most television programs in which a “chef” prepares a meal the episode unfolds in a similar way. Ingredients are chosen. Anecdotes are told. Ingredients are manipulated. More anecdotes are told. Ingredients are cooked. Further anecdotes are told until finally the ingredients are gathered together and plated. These steps all lead directly to the climactic moment: the “chef” tasting the meal he or she has just prepared.

It is the choice of reaction to this crux which reveals cynicism in humans.

If you, as a viewer, watch the “chef” put a spoonful of food in their mouth, watch as they chew for a moment impartially blank-faced, then watch as the facial expression of the “chef” changes to one of eye-popping, head-lolling delight; if you hear the exclamatory sounds of pleasure and (after the careful, orgasmic, chewing is finished) the breathy statement of “Now that… is incredible” and you choose to believe, thinking to yourself, “That must have been… incredible.” Then you my friend are not a cynic. Congratulations.

If, however, you watch the “chef” put a spoonful of food ⊕ in their mouth, watch as they chew the food ⊕ impartially blank-faced, then watch as the facial expression of the “chef” changes ⊕ to one of ⊕ eye-popping, ⊕ head-lolling delight; if you hear the exclamatory sounds of pleasure ⊕ and (after the careful, orgasmic, chewing is finished) the breathy ⊕ statement of “Now that… is incredible” and you choose to reject them utterly, thinking to yourself, “Bullshit. Tastes like poached couch-cushion for all I know!” Then you my friend are without doubt a cynic. Congratulations.

You see, as my staff of ambivalent mercenaries and avant-garde pediatrists have explained to me, the entire production is artifice. The kitchen is a set, the time is shifted, the chef is cooking for no-one, the senses involved in the production and its consumption do not include taste, and you can never, ever, ever ⊕ take a bite of that food yourself. You can never know the truth of its flavor. You know this. You tacitly agree to the illusion when you tune in.

Only a true cynic could sit through the entire preparation of a meal, fully aware of the artifice, and upon seeing the “tasting face” of the “chef” feel compelled to reject their sincerity.

So essentially, our calculations reveal, that if you see that “tasting face” and choose, knowing full well it’s all artifice, to scorn or mock the “chef” in your mind anyway, then you are indeed an unabashed, scientifically cerified cynic. Wonder no longer.

If you also happen to notice that the chef does not actually offer an itemized recipe for their dish on screen (the way cooking shows of old always did) presumably because it would undermine sales of their cookbook which is the true cash cow, well then you are a cynic extraordinaire! We doff our hats to your permanently furrowed brow.

In any case if you are addled by cynicism and want to cast it off or trade it for that prettier and shinier model- optimism, remember that each and every choice you make compounds like the bone-dust that comprise a giant’s bread. You must be aware of your decisions, even the smallest, if you are ever to change. A perfect place to start is with the “tasting face.” Teach yourself to believe that and you can believe almost anything. Here is your mantra: “Yum, it’s delicious!”

Say it with me: “Yum, it’s delicious!”

“Yum, it’s delicious!”

“Yum, it’s delicious!”

See you are well on your way. Now if you’ll excuse me my staff of discredited phrenologists and atonal flautists are eager to continue the “ism-stripping” by driving a 16 inch needle into my brain. Wish me luck. Ta-ta.

“Who? Neva hoid ov’em.”

The Seven Sages of ancient Greece. They are considered by many to be the fathers of western philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy… at least in the general sense. Stories about them may be a touch apocryphal (for instance attribution for specific nuggets of wisdom is occasionally shifted from source to source among the seven) but they were none-the-less considered the great minds of the archaic western tradition.

“Oh.”

Oh indeed. And yet their names are not exactly common knowledge are they? No cars or candy bars named after them. Such is the injustice of daddy time.

So who specifically were these seven dudes so filled with sagacity that they deserve their own ancient-world version of mensa? Well the early philosophy fan-boys debated about their exact make-up just exactly as a group of Trekkies might debate the make-up of the magnificent seven of Starfleet. I am going to go with Plato’s version here (because as far as historical accounting goes, he was not only the philosophy club president but he was also a member.)

Solon of Athens
Occupation: “Beloved tyrant.”
Catch phrase: “Nothing in excess.”
Athenians addressed him as: “Sir”
Turn-ons: Lawgiving, statesmanship, arbitration, lyric poetry, long walks on the beach.
Claim to fame: Creating a supreme court. Repealing the laws of Dracon, which punished even small offenses with death, making only murder and manslaughter punishable by death. Allowed the poor to participate in government. And lastly basically the founding of the Western tradition of constitutional government in the laying of the foundation for classical Greek culture. 

Chilon of Sparta
Known as: “The laconic spartan.”
His enemies called him: “The Fartin’ Spartan.”
Catch phrase: “Know thyself.” (It has never been satisfactorily settled as to whether he meant in the metaphysical sense or what we’d now call the “Biblical” sense.)
Alternate catch phrase: “I’m Chilon like Gillagon.”
It is said that: He died of joy in the arms of his son, who had just gained a prize at the Olympic games.

Bias of Priene
Catch phrases: “Too many workers spoil the work.” “All men are wicked.” “Speak of the Gods as they are.”
Example of his sagacity: He wisely said that as a judge, he would rather decide a dispute between two of his enemies than between two of his friends. No matter what he ruled in the first case, one of the two enemies would become his friend, but in the second case, one of his two friends would become an enemy.
Final Irony: He was a preeminent lawyer and judge of his time and yet his name would, through coincidence, come to mean “a personal and sometimes unreasoned judgment, prejudiced.”

Cleobulus of Lindos
Catch Phrase: “Moderation is the chief good.”
His Father once told him: “Don’t be such a sagenheimer!”
Turn-ons: hexameter verse, egyptian philosophy, Minerva, tyrany.
Example of his sagacity: he wisely said when a man goes out of his house, he should consider what he is going to do: and when he comes home again he should consider what he has done.
Greatest lapse in judgement: naming his daughter “Cleobulina.”

Pittacus of Mitylene
Catch phrase: “Know thine opportunity.”
Turn-ons: Killing athenians, being a general, elegiac metre, floppy hats.
Terms the archaic poet Alcaeus used to describe him:
Sarapous (because he was splay-footed and dragged his feet.)
Cheiropodês (because he had scars on his feet.)
Phuskôn or Gastrôn (because he was fat.)
Agasurtos (because he was lazy and dirty.)
Person who Pitticus exiled: Alcaeus the archaic poet.

Periander of Corinth
Catch phrase: “Forethought in all things.”
Corinthians called him: “Master.”
Good deed: He restricted the number of slaves in Corinth.
Real reason for doing so: To keep the citizens too busy to conspire against him.
Accomplishment: he constructed the famed Diolcos, which carried ships over the isthmos of corinth for a thousand years, in order to kick much naval ass.
Turn-ons: Killing his wife, sending his enemies children off to become eunuchs, puppies.
Admission: Plato actually left Periander off his list because he was a huge dick.

Thales of Miletus
Catch phrase: “To bring surety brings ruin.”
Turn-ons: Astronomy, engineering, mathematics, romantic dinners.
Turn-offs: His mother asking him over and over again to marry her.
When asked why he had no children he answred: “Becuase I love children.”
Claims to fame: Being the first man in history to correctly predict a solar-eclipse. Being the first man in history to have specific mathematical discoveries attributed to him. Determining the height of an Egyptian pyramid by measuring the length of its shadow. Dividing the year into 365 days. Being a world class smart-ass.

Truth be told it is Thales (pronounced Thay-lees) who led me to this post in the first place. There are so many anecdotal stories about him that I would feel it remiss not to offer him special treatment and relate at least one.

When Solon went to visit Thales, Solon asked why he did not get married and have children. Thales gave no reply, but he hired an actor, who a few days later pretended to have just arrived from Athens. Solon asked this actor for the latest news, and the actor said that nothing important had happened, except there was a funeral of some young man who had died while his famous father happened to be away. “Poor man,” said Solon, “but what is his name?” With every question and answer, Solon got more and more worried, until finally he mentioned his own name. “That’s the man!” said the actor, and Solon went into all of the usual expressions of grief while Thales watched impassively. After a while, Thales said to Solon: “You asked why I did not marry and have children. You now see the reason.”

So there you have it friends a refresher course, complete with a few eensy-weensy lies, on The Seven Sages. Hope you enjoyed.

For more see:

The lives and opinions of eminent philosophers.

The Seven Sages, Between Legend and History.

The Seven Sages of Ancient Greece.

The Seven Wise Men of Antiquity.

For further sagacity see:

The Sages Directory.

Lastly I must mention that the images in this post were adapted from The Morse Library of Benoit College’s excellent online version of the The Nuremberg Chronicle , a sprawling medieval history of the world, which, owing to it’s amazing illustrations (some by a young Albrecht Dürer) alone, deserves its own post. Perhaps another time.

In this case the vague feeling is the pleasure of walking aimlessly through the streets of New York; the seemingly causeless delight in strolling about with no destination and no hurry, just looking at things, letting myself wander, getting ideas. In the increasingly rare instances I find myself actually doing it I invariably think, “I wish I could just do this all the time, every day.” In truth, and I’ve never really known why, It just makes me happy. Wandering the streets, facelessly weaving through the throngs, feels so natural and comfortable that I’d never even wondered whether there was a word for it. 

Well, reinforcing the awareness of my own ignorance, I just discovered yesterday there is a word for this perfect activity: flanerie. Had I only known as a child I might have answered all the insistent adult inquiries of “what do you want to be when you grow up?” quite differently and said “I will be a Flâneur!”

The precise definition isn’t exactly kind:

Flâneur
n.\flä-‘n&r\ An idle man-about-town; One who strolls about aimlessly; A lounger; A loafer, an Idler.

Wikipedia puts it thusly: “A flâneur is a detached pedestrian observer of a metropolis, a gentleman stroller of city streets.” beyond this he has been analyzed as a literary figure, a narrative device, an attitude towards knowledge and its social context, and the figure who gives voice to the shock and intoxication of modernity.

As I’m sure you’ve guessed the term is French, and there is no exact equivalent in English. It was originally identified by Charles Baudelaire and as such I may as well let him do the explaining. Of the Flâneur he says the following:

Ha ha. A bit of the Romantic wasn’t he? Anyhow, as stated earlier, whenever something has been named there is likely a decent word-count surrounding it. With flanerie and the flâneur it is just so. If you are ignorant of the idea, as I was, and want to know more, I offer you the following for your further internet wanderings…

From a piece called The Flâneur at the Other Voices section dedicated to Benjamin’s Arcade Project.

From an essay at The Arcades Project Project; The Rhetoric of Hypertext.

Your getting the idea, but enough blockquotes eh? For more in-depth readings on the idea of flanerie, as well as many different takes on its significance, see the following:

• Flaneurs, an enjoyable essay brought to us by the fine folks over at The idler, where else?

• The Flâneur U.K. official website of La Société des Flâneurs Sans Frontières (Liverpool chapter). Especially enjoyed their Useful Advices and Informations to the Tourists and Other Welcomed Visitations bit.

• Modernity and the Flaneur from the Fu Jen University english language pages, which asks “How do we characterize the postmodern flaneur?”

• Google cache of a piece called Eye-swiping London: Iain Sinclair, photography and the flâneur.

• Rethinking Flanerie from the site Urban spaces | Urban Places which compares the Modernist archetypes of the the flâneur and “the stranger.”

• Visual Culture and the Contemporary City. Which is part of an online Sociology course from the University of Salford.

• American Flaneur: The Cosmic Physiognomy of Edgar Allan Poe. Which is a review of James V. Werner’s book of that title, and focuses, obviously on Poe.

• Then there is Flaneur.org which labels itself under the heading “Urban Enthusiasms.” I suppose it’s a place for other loungers, loafers, and men-about-town to share their thoughts.

• Lastly I offer Passage of the Flanuer which makes the almost impossible to miss connection between the rarified, idle, urban wandering of the flâneur and the similar experience, now so common, in wandering through cyberspace.

So there you have it. I (and perhaps by extension you as well) learn something new every day. In that I am neither wealthy nor in possession of endless amounts of leisure time I doubt it is my destiny to become the great New York flâneur I might dream of being, the closest I’m likely to come is the raggedy, penniless version, better known as the hobo.

By the way if you have no intention of reading through those links but were never-the-less wondering what the title of this post meant, it came from the following:

From the very brief front matter of the book, in Einsel’s own words:

I think they are pretty beautiful. Just exactly of their time stylistically. But then I may be reacting to them because they kind of remind me of the metal piggy-bank my mother always had around… a rotund bald man with a black mustache sitting in a chair. When you put a coin in his hand he’s deposit it in his jacket pocket… might even have tipped his hat. I’d gladly offer up more of Einsel’s work, but as I said earlier, does not seem to be much on the old internet. Hope you enjoyed. 

Now when I say I was “presented” with this truth, I mean it quite literally. It was not the totality of the film, which despite its craptacularness, allowed me to somehow glean a deeper, hidden, message. No. Nothing so romantic. It was laid-out bare in a specific scene.

In it Pryor is approached by a young asian girl who up until recently had been a child prostitute. She shows him a drawing she’s done, which is completely without artistic merit of any kind, and then proceeds to proposition him. Pryor is appalled and tells her so. He then, and this is the important part, explains that rather than shopping her ass around she ought to focus on her Art, saying something to the effect of, “you’ve got real talent!”

It struck me while watching this scene just how valuable the subjectiveness of Art can be to those of us who are without any kind of useful skill, without talent, without passion, without goals, and ultimately without anything tangible to offer society.

With only a few words of encouragement the confused and aimless among us can grab hold of a pencil and set off into the murky, subjective land of Art. No matter how untalented, unskilled, and unimaginative even the most dispassionate belief in our own artistic merits can keep us afloat.

Art school can safely shuttle us through the college years. The half decade or so after can be fueled on the resultant fumes until we begin, finally, mercifully, to disperse and settle into our menial jobs as barristas, book store employees, museum security guards, bartenders, and graphic designers. Positions in which, though completely untalented in any way, we can never the less contribute, however slightly, to our society. 

The world of Art can forever after serve as a buoy for our self-image. When asked, over Irish car bombs at the local dive-bar, “What do you do?” we can spare ourselves the pain of saying, “I sweep the floor at a hair salon” and say instead with a tortured, far-off look, “I’m an artist.”

So you see the great uncommented upon value of Art is as a haven for the vast amount of aimless among us who might otherwise clog the rivers with their corpses. 

A brass plaque should be placed over the entrance of every art school in the country which reads something to the effect of:

Give us your tiresome, your passionless, your huddled and talentless masses and we will usher them safely to the far shore of their crushing mid-life crisis.

I like to imagine another scene, perhaps on the cutting room floor, in which a virginal little asian girl approaches Pryor with a heart-wrenchingly beautiful picture, and he looks at it and says: “Girl, you’ve got real talent, now get out there and sell that ass!” But I guess that’s a different blog post all together.