Concerning Pigs, Education, Monks, Nightingales etc.

Cynicism is the only form in which base souls approach what is called honesty; and the higher man must open his ears to all the coarser or finer cynicism, and congratulate himself when the clown becomes shameless right before him, or the scientific satyr speaks out. There are even cases where enchantment mixes with the disgust-- namely, where by a freak of nature, genius is bound to some such indiscreet billy-goat and ape, as in the case of the Abbe Galiani, the profoundest, acutest, and perhaps also filthiest man of his century--he was far profounder than Voltaire, and consequently also, a good deal more silent. 


-Nietzsche on l’abbé Galiani, "Beyond Good and Evil"


Galiani is the most hilarious Neapolitan you've never heard of. Here are some choice bits I translated from an obscure Google Books scan, for your pleasure and edification:


Porco Sacro


There are some monks in Naples who are allowed to raise a herd of pigs at the public expense. These privileged porkers are called by the saintly people who oversee them the porco sacro, or "sacred pigs". Highly respected, they promenade through all the streets; they go into houses, one receives them cordially and with niceties; if a sow goes into labour, one takes every possible care for her and the piglets: and too lucky whomever she has honoured with her lay-in!

 Whoever smacks a porco sacro commits sacrilege. Nevertheless, unscrupulous soldiers sometimes kill them. But such an assassination causes a huge uproar; the city and the senate pass the most severe ordinances possible. The malefactors, fearing discovery, buy two candles and place them at the two ends of the porco sacro, over which lies a great covering, with a baptismal font and sprinkler at its head and a crucifix by its feet. A visitor to the the city would see many on their knees praying around the deceased.

 One of them presents the sprinkler to the commissary; the commissary disperses it, gets on his knees,  prays, and asks who is it that has died.

And the reply:

"One of our comrades, and honest man! What a loss. Behold the way of the world; the good ones always go, while the wicked remain."

On Education

(from a letter to Louise d’Épinay)  

...My treaty on education is all but done: I prove that education is the same for men and for beasts. It reduces itself to these two points: 1) learning to tolerate injustice  2) learning to suffer ennui.

What does one do to train a horse? The horse naturally ambles, trots, runs; but it does it when it seems good to him, and subject to his own pleasure. We teach him to put on speed despite himself, both against his reason (here the injustice) and to do it for two whole hours (here the ennui).

Thus, one teaches Latin or Greek or French to a child; it's not the utility of the thing that interests us, it's that one must accustom him to follow the will of others (to be bored) and to be beaten by a being who was born his equal (to suffer).

When he is accustomed to these things, he's prepped, he's social: he goes into the world, he respects magistrates, ministers, kings, and he doesn't complain. He exercises the functions of his charge, whether he's at his desk, or in a meeting, or in a regiment, or at l'oeil-de-boeuf; he yawns, stays put and earns his living.

If he doesn't do this, he is of no worth to the social order. Thus, education is nothing but the pruning of natural talent to make room for social requirements. Education has to amputate and shave-off his talents. If it does not, you get a poet, the improvisateur, the bravo, the painter, the charmer, the original mind, who amuse themselves and starve, and cannot place themselves in any niche in the social order.

The English, the nation which has received the least education in the Universe, is consequently the grandest, the most embarrassing, and therefore the most miserable of all.

The rules of education are thus quite simple and short. One requires less education in a republic than in a monarchy, and under a despotic regime one must keep children in the seraglios, worse than women and slaves.

Take these theories, develop them, and you'll have a book absolutely contrary to the Emile, and so much the better...

The Monk and the Trunk


A coachman was summoned to a Bernadine monastery on behalf of a man of the cloth who was to take a long journey. The coachman stated his price, and it was agreed upon; he then asked to see the luggage trunk, and it was of a normal size. The next morning, he arrived at the appointed time with his horses and coach. He received the trunk and attached it, and opened the door of the coach for the monk to enter. He had yet to actually see the monk in question, but now he finally saw him: something of a flabby colossus in length, width, and breadth. The entirety of the coach-box was barely enough to contain him. At the sight of this massive pile of flesh, the coachman cried:

"Next time, I'll ask to see the monk instead of the trunk!"

Everyday we ask to see the trunk, and we forget the monk. A woman with charming eyes, the most beautiful mouth, and tits that make one recoil: voila the trunk!

The Cuckoo, The Nightingale, The Ass


One day in the depths of the forest there arose a dispute over musical tastes between the cuckoo and the nightingale. Each took the side of his own talent:

"What bird," said the cuckoo, "has a song so simple, so natural, and so measured as mine?"

"What bird," said the nightingale, "has a softer, more varied, more striking, more light, more touching song than mine?"

The cuckoo: "I say little, but it's got weight, order; one remembers it!"

The nightingale: "I love to talk, but it's always new, I never get tired. I enchant the forests, the cuckoo depresses them. He's so stuck on his mother's lesson that he doesn't dare try a peep he didn't learn from her. Me, I don't have any master; I play by my own rules. It's exactly because I break them that people admire me. What a comparison between his fastidious method and my happy ecstasies!"

The cuckoo tried several times to interrupt the nightingale, but nightingales sing non-stop and never listen; and that's their little fault. Ours, carried on by his own ideas, pursued them with rapidity, without caring at all about the replies of his rival. Meanwhile, after several arguments and counterarguments, they agreed to seek the judgement of some third beastie.

But where to find an animal equally instructed and impartial to judge? It was not without a bit of looking that they finally found the right adjudicator. While crossing a prairie they saw a most grave and solemn jackass. And since the creation of that particular species, none had ever had such long ears as this one.

"Ah!" said the cuckoo upon seeing them, "we are too lucky! Our dispute is an affair of the ear; there is our judge - God has delivered him expressly to us."

The jackass hee-hawed. He didn't really think that one day he'd be a music critic. But Providence has pleasured itself in stranger things. Our two birds began to debate in front of him, complimented him on his gravity and his judgement, exposed him to the subject of their dispute, and humbly begged him to listen and decide. But the ass, turning his heavy head from side to side and gnashing his teeth, made them understand with his ears that he was hungry and was not holding that day his seat of justice.

But the birds insisted, and the ass continued to bray. While braying his appetite curbed a bit, and there were a few cool shady trees planted about the edge of the prairie.

"Oh alright!," he said, "go there, I'll follow; you sing, I'll go along, I'll listen to you and then I'll tell you what I think."

The birds took off in the blink of an eye and perched; the ass followed them with the air and step of a president of mortar crossing the hall of the palace. Finally he arrived, plunked to the ground, and said:

"Commence! The court listens."

It was he who was the whole court.

The cuckoo said: "My lord, there is not a word to waste on my rationale. Grasp well the character of my song, and above all deign to observe its art and its method." And then, clearing its throat and beating its wings each time, he sung:

 "cuckoo! cuCkoo! cUUckoo! CUkoo! cucKoo! cuckOO! cuckoo! cuckoocoo!"

And after having combined this in every possible way, he stopped.

The nightingale, without preamble, deployed his voice, threw himself into the boldest modulations, followed by the most novel and profound songs; such cadences as catch the breath, followed by lowering tones and murmuring from the depths of his throat like the wave that dissipates itself softly between rocks, and thereupon it rose again, tittered a little, filled the extent of the air and remained as if suspended. It was successively soft, light, brilliant, pathetic, and, whatever character he fancied, he painted it; but his song was not made for everybody.

Carried away by his enthusiasm, he kept on singing, but the ass, who had already yawned several times, stopped him and said:

"No doubt everything you've just sung was wonderfully pretty, but I don't understand any of it; overall it seems rather bizarre to me, messy, unhinged. You might be more learned than your rival here, but he's more methodical than you...And as for myself, I'm all for method."

King Goujian and the Toad

Goujian, King of ancient Yué

Despaired at the cowardice of his Grande Armée;

He was at a loss how to inspire

Their milksop hearts with fire

And like heroes how to risk their lives

Instead of grumbling about their crops and their wives.

One day, while leading his corps

He discerned a green splotch near the hooves of his horse.

On inspection the ribbitin'

Revealed an amphibian,

A toad who, enraged at the army approaching

(Finding its men to be rudely encroaching)

Got up on its hind quarters

And beat its chest to drive off the invaders.

The King, so impressed with this bellicose brute

Clasped his hands in a full military salute.

“Hail, brave toad,” he solemnly declared

“Who, though outnumbered, are not at all scared;

If only my men were as fearless as you

We’d have nothing to fear from the Kingdom of Wu.”

Whereupon he lowered his bonnet

And coaxed the toad upon it

Thus to flatter the creature with grandeur

Admitting it singly to his Legion D’Honneur.

His men, shamed by the honour the toad got

Became fearless of fire, and arrow, and sword-cut.

They drove off any foe that got in their way;
Acting something quite Prussian for soldiers from Yué.

7 Disadvantages to Getting a Degree in the Humanities

I hear a lot of talk these days about the advantages of a liberal arts degree; you can scarcely mention the subject to an academic advisor without seeing him leap from his chair to pat you on the back. "Capital! Just capital!" he'll say as he points you towards the future and rifles your pockets for toonies.

But did you know that there are DISADVANTAGES to getting a degree in the Humanities? Unlike Law, Medicine, Business, Engineering etc. these may not be immediately apparent. So before taking your parents' advice to go out and become the next great Wyndham Lewis scholar, consider the following:

1) There is Only One Job in the Humanities. Although it may seem like all of those Humanities graduates are gainfully employed, this is actually only a semi-truth. The fact of the matter is that, due to an unforeseen scarcity issue, the Internal Federation For Younghumanitiesgraduates (or IFFY) passed an ordinance in 1997 requiring that all graduates from liberal arts degrees must share a single job. This unnamed position is rotated on a bi-half-hourly basis and earns the graduate in question the minimum salary of 12.75 dog-biscuits an hour.

2) There are No Girls Allowed in Humanities Programs. This is an unfortunate necessity, arising from various difficulties in passing through narrow classroom doorways with minimal awkward contact. It dates back to St. Pointdexter's original Non Licet Feminae statute  ("no girls allowed!"). Of course, the modern era has found a clever loophole - many women are now happily admitted to Humanities programs on the condition of their adopting a fake mustache, the name "Bertie", and a hastily practiced British accent.

3) Upon Graduation, Humanities Students Must Swear an Oath to Protect Passerine Songbirds. This is known as the "Papageno Pledge" and is taken on by all graduates as way of life for three years,  wherein they must wander the fields singing "too-dee-loo! too-dee-lee!" in search of birds to defend. Nobody quite knows why, but it will necessitate the killing of many cats. Many, many cats.

4) Latin is a dead language. This may seem obvious, but many people mistake the meaning of the phrase. Be aware that Latin is not considered "dead" because nobody speaks it. Quite the contrary. It is called a "dead" language due to a technical detail, viz, that after learning it one gains the uncanny ability to communicate with spirits, ghouls, demons, vampires, mummies, the Old Gods, etc., and that these sanity-devouring children of Beelzebub will haunt your every waking and sleeping moment. In grammatical parlance this is known as "indirect speech".

5) There is Only One Toilet in the Humanities. Although it's possible to use other toilets, it is frowned upon. Students who use other toilets will not be eligible for a degree "summa cum laude".

6) Humanities Graduates are Not Allowed to Vote. This is because they have unfair advantages over everyone else, that is, the ability to read, think, criticize etc. If they were granted suffrage, democracy would snuff-out in an instant and Canada would become an aristocratic, caste-divided society, with Humanities graduates at the top, followed by Shawarma chefs, then Internet Service Providers, then a caste belonging exclusively to the All Books guy, and finally, the-the hoi-hoi polloi.

7) There's Actually a LOT of Math Involved. Contrary to popular belief, you WILL be expected to do some math. To avoid the shame of admitting your absolute incapacity for any quantitative mental operation, avoid the following things:

• Plato's Meno
• Money
• Any professor who claims to teach "intellectual history"
• The Internet
• Anything with roman numerals in the title, Henry IV, Aeneid Book III, iPhones, 13 Dead End Drive etc.
• Most Wu-Tang albums

If you can get over these seven slight hurdles, I can guarantee that the rest of your degree, and consequently, your life, will be smooth sailing! Good luck, sailor-boy.

How to Smell Books - a Librantiquarian's Guide to Stifling Progress

Ask me a month ago what I thought of the state of e-literature, and I would’ve scoffed with the best of them. “Piddle and gumdrops!” I’d say, “what’s going to replace a good, solid book? A Koobloo? An iPad? By humpty dumpty, I should dare say NOT!”

It just so happens that I was of the opinion of every librarian and antiquarian luddite, to wit, that an iPad functioned something like a colourful etch-a-sketch, that one had to fiddle and calculate one’s way through innumerable settings, nobs, and doo-dads before a rough equivalence of the Latin alphabet would slowly materialize out of the grainy background like a mirage in the Nafud desert, and that people who claimed to READ books on something so primitive were either confused about what a book was, or what reading was, or what one did with them other than flip the pages.

And then I got one.

I now realize that all books ought to be burned for fuel without a hint of hesitation. However, I am a soft-hearted old codger. Despite the wonders of the new technological environment, I am convinced that there is one domain in which it still cannot compete, one which librantiquarians have seized on with fervor as the saving grace of their profession, and one which I just so happen to be an expert in.

Allow me to present you then with an beginner’s catalogue to sniffing books. Since that is clearly all that they are good-for nowadays:

Penguin Classic, old editions (black with white text): A bit gluey on first whiff, but a mellow, almost citrous after-sniff makes for an overall smooth inhale. A sign of great things to come.

Everyman Editions, Early 20^th Century (shitty bindings, annoyingly small text): Though these particular editions read as though a set of Casio instructions had been reverse-engineered to encompass all of western culture, the lemon-gluey purity of the smell, combined with the range of texts which make up the series, make them very much worth owning, so long as you never attempt to read or open them. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more affordable way to smell Walter Savage Landor’s Imaginary Conversations.

Beijing Foreign Language Press, Old Illustrated Classics (Journey to the West, Outlaws of the Marsh, the Scholars etc): A mix of green-tea leaf, banana, and glue, with a lemony tickle that reminds me of the summer evenings of my adolescence. There is certainly something toxic in the ink which, if properly humid, contributes to a state of fatalistic euphoria so conducive to the overall atmosphere of brutally violent concision and entertaining psycho-dementia that makes up Chinese Classic narrative. An essential summer sniff.

Almost all octavos from the late 19^th century purchased exclusively at University book sales: The native smell of the volume is almost always overrun by that of either pipe tobacco, coffee, or Scotch, usually in that order. Glue had yet to be invented, or rather was still being used as a Scottish breakfast condiment, and so contributes very little to the bouquet, unless through unnecessary modifications i.e. library cards at the back etc. A squeeze of lemon does wonders here.

Scholastic Book Orders, ca. 1993-1998: A cheery blend of watermelon jolly-rancher, glue, newspaper ink, and earth-worms. If you’re going to try to smell this one, please ensure that you have been properly inoculated against cooties (double times infinity at the very least!).

New Directions, largely 20^th century modernists: For such an intimidating and avant-garde series, smell remarkably like the above mentioned scholastic book-orders. Minus earth-worms, and with an additional inclinations towards totalitarianism and fine cheese.

Penguin Classic, Middle Editions (coloured spine-tops, smog yellow borders): The essential stand-by “great snort” of all book-smelling. Subtle, all-encompassing, and with the glue currently at its prime level of decay (Anno Domini June 2012), the odour of these mastersniffs make reading the things from cover to cover a worthwhile experience. There is much debate on the peak whiff-zone, whether it be nearer the cover, central spine, epilogues etc. and that this is all contingent on the size of the volume. With all due respect to my esteemed colleagues in the field I would like to hazard my own revolutionary opinion, that is, that the prime sniff is to be had at the unorthodox position of the top of the body pages, somewhere equidistant between spine and falling-off point. The smellista who trusts me on this shall not be disappointed, though he or she may find the text a little screwy to discern. But aren’t we all?

Books purchased at the Buchhandlung on Kurze Straße  in Göttingen, Germany: Smell like a lake of dreams.

 vs.

GF Flammarion, texte intégral (white or off-yellow depending on age): Like all things French and lemony, risky purchase. Newly printed, they smell not unlike a stroll through a Best Buy Blowout Sale. IF, however, the proper mellowing has occurred, usually, but not always, indicated by a severe YELLOWING of the cover, you may get a great surge of snuff, whig-powder, chocolat, and the guillotine. An interesting combination, especially with a little lemon on the side.

Penguin Classic, New Editions (black everything, red or white text): A cheaply printed Ottawa-valley telephone book in all but mere content. Alternatively, smells like the decay of the College of Humanities, and consequently, of man.

Of course there are many more. But this should keep you from burning the basics.

Five Ways to Deal with Street Walkers, Vagabonds, Riff-Raff, Rough-Riff, White Water Rafts, and other Members of the Banu-Sasan

My new apartments in the market have made me acutely aware of certain types of people which the standard suburbanite will be at pains to admit exist at all; indeed would, with a faux-allergenic cough to the elbow, be much more comfortable dismissing along with the various mythological creatures of his undergraduate degree (viz. fairies, hobgoblins, lesbians etc).

I must assure him that they do exist. Nay, are quite prevalent. He will be shocked to learn that within less than a week of appropriating my spaces, I have been confronted with: 

• panhandlers
• buskers
• gangsters
• men in angled hats
• cronies
• men without hats in the least (mark this, Rufus!)
• women who hold hands 
• prostitutes or sad clowns, 
• various vermin: dogs, pigeons, babies etc.
• foreigners, politicians, 
• foreign politicians 
• and, most curious of all, a type of coffee-bearing, brief-cased marsupial called a “government employee”.

Should homo sapiens suburbanus ever feel the Wanderlust of his tribal ancestors drawing him to the “big city”, he ought to apprise himself of the following rules-five:

The Top Five Ways to Deal with Street Walkers, Vagabonds, Riff-Raff, Rough-Riff, White Water Rafts, and other Members of the Banu-Sasan

1) Pay them to go away. This method works wonders. I am surprised it has not been already adopted universally by the happily be-homed among you. It is a little known fact that the jingly bits which have accrued in your pocket, though worth very little to your personal economy, are treated like some kind of currency among credit-cardless men of the alleyways. Should you toss some of this worthless stuff in their direction, they will not only cease accosting you, but might, insofar as their brute facial mechanisms allow, show a sort of sub-suburbanite gratitude. Darwin, and your afternoon, shall be vindicated.

Should you be in a position of coinlessness, however, and discover that your person of the night does not accept debit, I suggest you;

2) Offer them gainful employment. What cannot be paid on the spot can be more readily assured in the future by means of contractual obligation. The fact of the matter is, that any encounter on the street is a potential job interview. As a suburban man of means, no one understands more readily than yourself the benefits of a good work-ethic applied diligently.

 Need some work done? Well, here’s your man! Able-bodied, ready to work, and full of initiative (among other liqueurs). Why not offer that lady a crack at your lawn and bushes, or, if sporting the proper equipage, you can take a crack at hers. In either case, there is no better way to benefit society and your geraniums at the same time.

3) Commiserate. This is a word that, like many others, has a meaning. When applied to gutter-urchins, it refers to a certain type of deflated trumpet sound emitted from your naso-aural region approximately spelled “aaaAAAAAoowwwwWWW,” followed by a nod, and finally, a hefty bite from your lukewarm Arby’s dumpster-roll. 

4) Communiserate. As a tax-paying tax payer who has voted in many a Hooray Harry times a’past, you are entitled to hold opinionated opinions that are your right to hold flim-flam but buggeranto who voted him in anyway glargen mcflargh.

As such, you will have earned enough frequent voter points to become a communist for a specified period of time. A communist is someone who is entitled to his or her opinions thank you very much. 

If, as a communist, you are approached by a salamander of the byways, and are broached for change, a cigarette, or the time, not only are you expected NOT to comply, but have the additional benefit of recommending that the unfortunate creature read the yellow-pages backwards after dunking it in a puddle of urine, or, as this combination is more generally known, a “zine”.

5) If you can’t feed ‘em, join ‘em. The younger middle class “he or she” who has run out of options will be happy to know that the economy is in a downward spiral. Consequently, if none of the preceding advice has been applicable to your situation, you may yourself be in a position to join the ranks of the great unwashed.

To qualify, you must have or shortly be obtaining:

• An honours University degree
• Supportive friends
• At least one bright eye, bushy tail
• Some kind of “hope” for the “future”

If you have all of these pre-requisites, you can cheerfully set-off towards a career path in the misery industry. While the slow grind of the economy cannot assure your immediate demotion from aspirant youth to tap-dancing hobo, we can confidently say that several years of hustling by your erstwhile employers, parents, and respectable elders will leave you with a nice enough picture of civilization to drive you to baked beans and jungles as fast as you can trundle.