Of Science Fiction and Cuban Cigars
Posted by: tony on 01/02/2007 08:42 PM
Updated by: tony on 01/02/2007 08:44 PM
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Expires: 02/02/2007 12:00 AM
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Julie at Happy Catholic points me to an article by Joseph Bottom in which he writes:
But smart ain't the same as intellectual. As I say, there is an intellectual defense of some genre writing. But-believing, as I did, that lawyers tend toward being natural intellectuals-I would have preferred to see the discussion begin with the acknowledgement that Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe produced literature. Now, does any science fiction stand near them?
Quite a few years ago, I became a premium cigar smoker. I don't call myself an afficionado, because my interest in cigars is as a hobby rather than an avocation. I actually have a fairly successful cigar website called The Cigar Diary which I designed, to learn how to do online database programming.
In my travels, I have rubbed elbows (in cyberspace) with some real afficionados. These are people who are able to aquire Cuban cigars legally and have seen fit to gift me with some. Some of these cigars, stars in the cigar firmament, have left me cold. I really don't like them. They are too overpowering for me. I like my cigars a bit milder, nicotine-wise.
I made the mistake of mentioning it once that I believed that Cuban cigars were a bit overrated. I got hit with the standard "sour grapes" argument because I lived in the United States and could not easily aquire legal cuban cigars. The next argument was that my palete was not developed enough to appreciate the subtlties of a cuban cigar, and after I'd gained more experience, I would appreciate them more.
The undertone was that I was a phillistine who could not appreciate the finer things in life.
I'd imagine a lot of it has to do with what I like to term as "the emperor's new clothes" phenomenon. What I mean by this is that you could probably roll donkey dung in a factory third leaf, and if you slipped a cuban label on it, many of these people would declare it "fabulous, complex and earthy with an interesing finish". All because they would not want to be seen as a phillistine like me.
Back to science fiction. I love science fiction. I love horror a-la Stephen King. I do not like most "literature" (though there are exceptions). I started to read "Inferno" by Dante. I put the darned thing down after about 30 pages. It bored me to tears. I have read Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle's "Inferno" about a dozen times. It's the story about a science fiction writer who dies in a stupid accident at a fan convention and ends up in hell. It's a rollicking good read.
I'm also sure a lot of "intellectuals" have Keats on the coffee table and Asimov on the nightstand.
I think a lot of the "intellectual" crowd who can appreciate "literature" is a lot like the clique of "popular kids" in high school whose group you wanted to be in because it was the "in" group, but in your heart of hearts you really didn't like the people in it.
Give me a La Finca corona and an ice cold glass of Yeungling beer while I read "The Stand" by King for the 10th time.
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