– Definition: v. t. To offer for acceptance.
– Used in a sentence:To you the reader, I hereby and humbly proffer my Cook For Any Price stories.
– Why: It implies a social contract somewhat different from its rhyming synonym; I think of it as a kinder, genteeler sort of offer.
THIS BOOK WILL CHANGE THE way you think about (as author Scott McCloud concisely defines it) “sequential art.”
McCloud takes us inside the art form to explain how and why comics/graphic novels work. He tracks the 3,000-year history of Sequential Art from its Egyptian origins to the present day (well, the book’s 1993 publication anyway), breaking down the elements of composition, line, color, symbols, time, and the use of words; he even has a chapter on the unspoken relationship between panels and the space between them. Let’s let the chapter titles speak for themselves:
THE DIVINE This Name tends to be used in circles where the word “God” might cause people discomfort for one reason or another. I’ve mostly seen it in New Age contexts as a non-anthropomorphic gambit to refer to an intentionless force similar to Tao, and have used it myself if I think my co-conversationalist has bad associations with “God.” But I long for a world where “God” can automatically mean “that-which-some-people-call-God,” with no dangerous baggage. (Open your suitcase, please.)
THE TECHNIQUE IS SIMPLE: JUST lay on your back, breathing, and take a complete and negative bodily inventory: “I am not my legs; I am not my feet; I am not my arms;” “I am not my mind;” et al.
Now: What’s left after everything else is taken away?
This admittedly (and deceptively) simple teaching / exercise comes from Ramana Maharshi, an inadvertent Hindu teacher of “Self-realization” whose method resulted in one of the great spiritual experiences of my life.
It’s like this: in the early 2000s, on the sixth night of the Chanukah festival of lights, we were honored to play host to a friend and a famous “New Age” rabbi, of whom the friend was a disciple. Knowing of a mutual friend of the rabbi and myself, a filmmaker who wanted me to meet said rabbi, I invited him too. The filmmaker showed up with a Hindu friend of his own; imagine our delight and surprise when, upon arrival, the rabbi told us that the filmmaker was his own beloved teacher!
The rabbi was scheduled to speak to a small crowd in our apartment, but the only guests were the handful I just described, so the anticipated talk turned into an intimate recollection between rabbi, filmmaker and Hindu of various Eastern and Western enlightenment-teachers. When Ramana’s name was mentioned, the three became very animated and demonstrated Ramana’s awakening-by-negation-of-thought method — a method which, on practicing diligently that night, produced in me the most startling and profound experience.
My word-busy mind dropped away to reveal a deep connection to the wordless Source of all consciousness; a perspective of the egoless space between one thought and another; an all-encompassing peace of mind and soul; a vision of the vast and intimate Self beyond the ego, beyond even the apparent separation of one thing from another.
Even now, years later, I still can’t adequately describe it. (Which is, kind of, the point.) Time has somewhat dulled the experience’s immediacy, but not its effect. It inspired in me a fierce non-dualism (or if you prefer, an undying all-is-One-ism) that remains to this day. And it makes me happy, and grounded, every time I re-experience it.
Thanks, Ramana. I really needed that.
OKAY MOSES,” SAID GOD. “HERE’S another commandment: Don’t boil a kid in its mother’s milk.”
“You mean, don’t eat meat and milk together?”
“No. Don’t boil a kid in its mother’s milk.”
“You mean we should have separate dishes for meat and dairy?”
“No. Don’t boil a kid in its mother’s milk.”
“You mean we should wait a few hours after eating meat before we eat dairy?”
“Moses,” said God,”do whatever the hell you want.”
IT’S THE ATMOSPHERE. IT’S THE background music of cutlery-clinked plates and conversation. It’s the initial pleasure of sitting down at “your” table. It’s having a skilled and knowledgeable waitron. It’s eating what I wouldn’t (or couldn’t) cook for myself. It’s the free iced-tea and water refills. It’s being exposed to unfamiliar food. (It’s also the first bite of said food.) It’s expanding my culinary horizons. It’s seeing and guessing what other people are eating. It’s the perfect match of expectation and fulfillment. It’s the way the aromas of the place excite your senses before (or after) you walk through the door.
IF YOU WERE CONSIDERED A teenage weirdo in the late 1970s/early 1980s in Northern California’s suburban Diablo Valley, you could always find a place on Friday nights at an independent cinema-house in Walnut Creek, gathering with others of your tribe to enact the mythic and terrible rites associated with “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
Aside from the ritualized viewing experience itself, this weekly event included standing in line hobnobbing with dozens of fellow viewers outside the El Rey Cinema for an hour or two before the film started at midnight.
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