Oh, and the other plus side? I got to come home to this, on our back porch (and why yes, I did buy that baguette this morning):
I'm loving Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, it's Dad's old copy (the cover loooooks there like it's attached, but don't be fooled by a crafty photographer) from probably about when it came out (one might hazard a guess it could be from a time when he owned a motorcycle himself), but it's tying in to all sorts of pieces going on right now. Certainly travel -- it's set on a motorcycle trip from Minnesota to Bozeman, MT, going through Yellowstone, which was exactly where Mackenzie and I were this summer (hm, might Dante know something about this?). It's always fun to get to actually know the place an author is talking about, with mountain air and how fast it comes at you after the summer heat of the plains, the silence and space of Yellowstone.
One of the main discussion points Mister Pirsig has set up so far is the comparison between classical and romantic knowledge. Science versus Art, how they have been separated, the vast differences. He gets at this with the idea of motorcycle maintenance, how it is closer to an art than a science while at the same time being incredibly logical, rational, reasoned, because without that logic the mechanic would be completely useless. Lots of questioning underlying form, not thinking but thinking about how one thinks. It makes me think of the famous choreographer Twyla Tharp's book, The Creative Habit, how she went about creating art almost as though it were science, with endless experimentation in front of a video camera that she then would go through each day to find the seconds and minutes of successful data points, and then string those steps together into incredible pieces of dance.
More musing later, I'm already thinking I might have to start over as soon as I finish it, figure out what he was actually trying to say. Word of warning to those of you contemplating coming over to this side of the pond: watch out for bleu cheese. The switching of the "ue" to "eu" is key in this arena. The French like their fromage staaaann-ky. Don't say you weren't warned.
Oh Dante is very familiar with the ways of the Montana roads.
ReplyDeletemhmm I thought so. Have you read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance? If not I'm officially putting it on your to-read list, mister engineer/yoga guru.
ReplyDeleteI tried to read it, loved the bike stuff, but then it got all philosophical & put me to sleep. My mind doesn't work that way, so I gave up on it.
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