On Tuesday, a story I wrote about the joy of biking to Costco was published on a website called InsideHook. On Wednesday, life imitated art: I rode my bike to Costco to purchase supplies for a Golden State Warriors NBA Finals watching party that I will be hosting at my home on Thursday.
Veteran readers of this newsletter will recall that I celebrated the opening game of the Warriors 2021-2022 basketball season seven months ago with One Wing To Rule Them All, a two-part saga about the history of basketball in China, how the Golden State Warriors embody the Dao, cultural imperialism and appropriation, “muscular Christianity,” and, most importantly, Szechwan fried chicken wings. They will understand my obsession with the organic interconnectedness of all things, and thus appreciate how much I enjoyed getting paid to write about biking to Costco, and thereby subsidizing yet another trip to Costco, to facilitate the goal of of creating community through food and basketball, for which purpose I exist on this planet.
However, in the last month I’ve been delighted to sign up roughly fifty new readers, zooming me past the symbolically-important-only-to-me benchmark of 500 total subscribers. Welcome all! I must apologize for the dearth of content in the last month -- I’ve been immersed in a big editing project that will have the happy long term effect of providing me plenty of leisure time to pump out newsletter posts all summer long but in the short term has kept me quite busy.
So I just wanted to say hello. If you would like a representative idea of what this newsletter is all about, read One Wing to Rule Them All, Tapping the Mapo Doufu Source, and Beef Noodle Soup Solidarity. If you want the freshest possible brew of my thoughts on mortality and bicycling, drink deep of The Joys of Biking to Costco.
In the meantime, here is Lin Yutang’s translation of the great Song Dynasty poet Su Shi’s In Praise of Strong Wine.
“In men, one should prefer a mild temperament, but in wine, one need not avoid strong potency. For through such wine, one forgets one’s sorrow as yesternight’s dream, and arrives at an understanding of the truth of the universe... For wine is like a second life to man. It is often in that state of blissful comfort and luxurious ease after a drink that one finds one’s own soul. True enough, rice and yeast are ordinary insensate things, and one would not expect that they be instrumental in tapping the divine afflatus. But the mysterious power of this magic potion seems to rival the mysteries of the universe. It increases one’s joy in times of success and keeps one from harm in times of sorrow. It is cool like the autumn dew and caressing like the spring wind. One’s spirit flushes and flutters like the glow of the morning sun after the night’s clouds have melted away. One’s pores open and one’s eyes become bright.... He sits there oblivious of the material world, his spirit becoming expansive co-extensive with the universe. Complete at ease, he revels in the material well-being; fully aware of what is going around him, yet his mind is idle and free. When the room is full of guests, his only worry is that the barrels may run out; careless of all posthumous fame, the only weighty object seems to be that precious cup. You cannot make nightshirts out of pearls, nor subsist upon jade that glows in the night. The best food fills your belly, but cannot stimulate your spirit; the best dress gives you warmth, but cannot delight your soul. Of all things in the universe, only This One enables you to transcend the material world. Truly, it is something that one cannot go without for a day. What is this intoxicating potion which intoxicates you and yet clarifies your mind, which sets you at ease with yourself and enables you to perceive the ultimate truths of life?”
I will venture to say that, along with a dry martini, a great bike ride accomplishes for me the same aura of clarity and perception of ultimate truth. This is especially apt when the bike ride ends up hauling martini supplies back from Costco. But more to the point: Su Shi was originally from Sichuan. Li Bai, the great Tang dynasty poet, was also originally from Sichuan and was also notorious for his love of wine. Coincidence? Pffft. We don’t believe in coincidences here at The Cleaver and the Butterfly. We believe in the interconnected harmony of the myriad things, and we know without fear of contradiction that both Li Bai and Su Shi would have been huge fans of the Golden State Warriors. And Zhuangzi too, most likely.
Here’s hoping that my barrels don’t run out tomorrow, and please stay tuned for more newsletter posts starting a couple of weeks from now!
Always interesting, wonderful prose. Love it!
Completely unrelated, although I did find this essay fun. Hoping to draw on your expertise. This is a comment which I left on Brad Delong's commentary on China. I'm particularly interested in Xi's pursuit of corruption. Was it just a stick to beat up other factions?
The Economist is late to the game. It has seemed obvious to me that Xi's neo-Maoism was very likely to damage the Chinese economy. Beyond that, I'm wondering if the PRC military is a paper dragon. From coverage of the Russian/Ukraine war, it seems that the kleptocratic nature of Russian elites has gravely impaired military effectiveness. I.e resources that should have flowed, to the military ended up financing real estate and mega-yachts.
I know that one of Xi's early, and popular, campaigns was directed at "corruption". I'm not in position to know if these campaigns were actually genuinely anti-corruption, or just a stick to employ in factional warfare. If the net effect of the campaigns was to shift the corruption rents to Xi's faction, then the possibility of the Chinese military being similarly hobbled seems print. I know the PLA is heavily involved with non-military production. Certainly, the opportunities for balancers, etc. will be noted.