These are a Few of My
Favorite Things





An Abstruse and Aggravating Introduction


"Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens."

Yes folks- these are part of a whimsical list of personal delights, sung with innocence and glee in the classic film, "The Sound of Music". In the same vein of cataloging tastes and interests in a playful way, some charming lyrics by an oldies girl group, the Murmaids, come to mind:

"Popsicles, icicles, baseball and fancy clothes
These are a few of the things he loves
He loves Levis and brown eyes
And wind blowin' through his hair
These are a part of the boy I love"
Now to take a different example, one from the rarefied realm of French academia, Michel Foucault chooses to begin his book "The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences" with a quote of the strange and strikingly random captioning of subjects in an antique Chinese Encyclopedia.
Animals are divided up into:
(a) belonging to the Emperor
(b) embalmed
(c) tame
(d) sucking pigs
(e) sirens
(f) fabulous
(g) stray dogs
(h) included in the present classification
(i) frenzied
(j) innumerable
(k) drawn with a very fine camel hair brush
(l) et cetera
(m) having just broken the water pitcher
(n) that from a long way off look like flies

Though I'm not one of those few who have read past the first couple pages of Foucault's "Archaeology of the Human Sciences", my understanding is that from this eccentric artifact from "the East" he launches off into a comprehensive dissection of our opposing "Western" need to categorize forcefully, to systematize broadly, and basically to impose a unifying order on the various forms of knowledge which have yielded themselves to man. Now if you're still awake you may be wondering what it is, exactly, citing Michel Foucault and a Julie Andrews song, that I'm getting at here?. Well, I shall hazard this answer: when it comes to the art of taxonomy, of putting groups of things into something like an organized state, the given material can often remain steadfastly resilient to complete subordination. Now this is obviously the case with the consideration of ones tastes and interests, with "raindrops on roses", "popsicles, icicles", etc, etc. Such pleasant ephemera naturally lend themselves best to the ordering harmonies of poetry and song; which is to say that they are just barely susceptible to categorization at all. However, as Foucault seeks to demonstrate, the more serious domains of carefully collected knowledge and wisdom: these too are variegated, luxuriant, and marked by frequent and sometimes intractable disorder. Not everything is susceptable to a comprehensive systematization as, for example, Aristotle might plot out in his classic philosophy, or Hegel even more emphatically so in his Promethean endeavor.

I am not at all the most enthusiastic student of any subject oriented, hyper-individualist point of view, be it that of existentialism, postmodernism, or the general "dictatorship of relativism" of our times. I genuinely try to hold out for many of the noble ideals of the past; I am attracted to the confident, sunny realism of good old Aristotle- a man who believed in real, objective truth. It is with actual seriousness (I'm not kidding, people!) that I try to believe in the possibility of attaining certainty, in the universality of truth, and in the real potential of harmonizing disparate realms of human learning.

So my internet buddies, as I venture not to stagger off my pedestal of stout philosophical realism, as I survey the domains of my tastes, hobbies, and interests, and beyond that of the realm of facts and theories which I know or think I know, I perceive something like a slightly crude and yet ultimately inspiring cathedral. On the other hand, at times I grow dizzy, and stumbling from my pedestal, am confronted by a realm similar in many ways to the curious, chaotic zoo of Foucault's Chinese encyclopedia. There are raindrops on roses and other lovely things glistening in this moonlit night of fragmented logical symmetry: it is confused, yet not without its charms. Still, I would of course like to offer my cyber-space audience instead something like a gallery of the serenely beautiful, a well planned library of the true, and a museum of the substantial and inherently interesting (sounds cool, right?!). Instead, perhaps, this project has turned out in some ways like a miniature Noah's Ark. Situated somewhere between cyber-folly and cyber-greatness, a floating, fantastical labyrinth has been made. I've done my best to cram into this virtual life preserver the finest of heaven, earth and everything in between. Afloat above an abyss of endless and ultimately unmasterable information (basically, the techno-galaxy which we like to call the internet), I invite you to enjoy this bold attempt to collect and bring together things which are especially fascinating and worthy of our interest. The sublime order of a symphony by Mozart has not been possible here, but you'll certainly be able to find your way around.

I dedicate this portion of my website to several men of the past: Athanasius Kircher, the eccentric Jesuit polymath who at times seemed to know everything there was to know, and also to Robert Burton, the Oxford scholar who compiled the profuse "Anatomy of Melancholy", a veritable summa of human misery and its antidotes. These erudite adventurers of the mind attempted in their writings to create grand syntheses of knowledge, not infrequently to humorous or bizarre effect. Finally, I would like to both mention and call upon the intercession of St. Isidore of Seville, the patron saint of the internet. A bishop of early Medieval Spain, he compiled vast and varied information into an encyclopedia which for centuries and centuries was the most valued of the Middle Ages. May St. Isidore pray that this section of my web page will reflect in a small way the mysterious unity in diversity of God's tremendous and beautiful Creation; may it foster among net surfers the joy of knowledge and learning- (while hopefully tripping some people out and getting a few good laughs as well).



PIED BEAUTY


Glory be to God for dappled things--
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chesnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pierced-- fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift,slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.


Gerard Manley Hopkins S.J.






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