Skip to main content

Greek Donuts

Friends,

This week, my wife scared me half to death. I was so absorbed reading Plato, I had not noticed her sitting behind me. So, imagine my surprise when I turned to find a masked Greek theater performer (or, as it turns-out, my wife wearing her beauty treatment). While my pulse slowly returned to normal, I started wondering why Greek names haven’t caught on. After all, Greece is the cradle of civilization. Then again, perhaps the foreign-sounding appellatives add gravitas to the great philosophers of old. Would Socrates come down a notch if the folks in his dialogues had ordinary names like Bob, Joe or Mike; instead of Euthyphro, Crito or Simmias? Let’s take the phone booth time machine* out for a spin, babble fish** in ear, to the 5th century B.C., where we can be a fly on the wall for a random philosophical discourse:

  • SOCRATES: So, Joe, we agree our senses trick us and don’t let us see the true essence of things. You good with that?
  • JOE: Sure thing, bro!
  • SOCRATES: And Bob, don’t it follow that pleasure and pain are like duct-tape, strapping the soul to the body, fooling the mind and making us think this world is more real, when we know that’s a bunch of hooey?
  • BOB: Righteous, dude!

Alright. So maybe I laid-on the Bill and Ted/San Dimas High, too heavily (or was that Hillbilly and Ted?) Still, you get my point. Or, maybe you don’t, after all, donuts – Loukoumades, if you’re Greek — have no angles. To paraphrase Homer Simpson, that other great philosopher, mmm… loukoumades!


Monica playing the part of ​Xanthippe – or, perhaps the gorgon Medusa?


Happy Friday!


* A reference to Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.

** A reference to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bring your own Geiger counter!

Friends, This week’s news were literally radioactive -and I’m not talking about the fallout from the Trump-Putin summit. I’m talking mutate your DNA-exciting news. I’m talking Marie Curie-worthy news. I’m talking Geiger-counter-tilting news. I’m talking… well, you get the (glow in the dark) picture. A study about a lone wolf collared near Chernobyl and tracked on a long trek spawned the headline “ Could Chernobyl Wolves Be Spreading Mutations? ” While one can be forgiven for envisioning a flying wolf with laser eyes and a green aura about it, the disappointing story basically says most mutations are harmful to an animal’s health -and unhealthy animals are unlikely to travel 250 miles and mate with other wolves, contaminating the gene pool. So, much ado about nothing. The desire to open Rocky Flats (a nuclear weapons facility turned wildlife refuge) to the public has triggered some litigation from an environmentalist group. At st...
Post a Comment
Read more

Donut Doodle Dandy

Dear Members and Constituents, In trying to figure-out Wednesday’s cool-looking Google Doodle ( Jorge Luis Borges’ 112 th birthday ), I stumbled across a list of Google Doodles you’ll never see. This, and a Rockies game later that day, were sufficient inspiration to get my head spinning around what other doodles Google might never noodle? I’m sure you’ll probably have a few ideas of your own, but I was able to come-up with a couple. How about a former Colorado Rockies player whose unfortunate encounter with a moth put him in the news this week? The Matt Holliday doodle might look something like this… Another item which, surprisingly enough, has not been made into a doodle are donuts. Although I was slightly taken aback to find this delicious pastry has not been featured, after the initial disappointment, I decided to take matters into my own hands and take a stab at one (perhaps Google can use it next year for national donut day )… or to celebrate Greek police having “ blown a ho...
Post a Comment
Read more

Gilding the Donut

Friends, Despite writing about donuts (sort of) for over 20 years, I don’t believe in sugar coating, after all, honesty is the best policy. Gilding, on the other hand I’m good with. Take the church of the Society of Jesus in Quito, (AKA La Compañía). Built in fits and starts between 1597 and 1765, the volcanic rock baroque facade conceals a spectacular interior. I had the chance to go inside this week and although I had heard about the gold leaf work inside, the descriptions had not done it justice. The details from floor to ceiling transport you to another world, perhaps that’s the point. If you’re ever there, be sure to visit. And while you’re there stop by one of the many panaderías … if you’re lucky they might even have a donut. Happy Friday!
Post a Comment
Read more