The Anatomy of Disgust by William Ian Miller. Harvard University Press, 1998 - Literary Criticism - 320 pages

I came across the title of this book somewhere in that stash of clippings I recently uncovered, and how did I miss this one? William Miller thinks that disgust helps to bring order and meaning to us even as it horrifies and revolts us. I have not read the book, nor do I think i want to, but he apparently goes into details about our basic human, physical activities: "eating, excreting, fornicating, decaying and dying." Whether the list is the reviewer's or Miller's, you'll notice some of the verbs have Latin roots and some Anglo-Saxon. No F-word. "The pleasure of sex comes from the titillating violation of disgust prohibitions."

That makes me think of that joke about the fastidious Jewish American princess saying to her new husband, "You want to put your what into my what????"

What's love got to do with it?

"Imagine aesthetics without disgust for tastelessness and vulgarity; imagine morality without disgust for evil, hypocrisy, stupidity, and cruelty."

Is it simply an Either-Or world, after all? I checked out Kierkegaard. Yeah, maybe. It's a puzzlement.

Upper and lower class divisions are based on such distinctions. "The high's belief that the low actually smell bad, or are sources of pollution, seriously threatens democracy."

Oh, dear: snap decisions made on the very personal reactions of the olfactory nerve are very scary. But Miller thinks that our failure (more like prejudice) is not really an occasion for despair, for disgust also "helps to animate the world, and to make it a dangerous, magical, and exciting place."

And the you-know-what hits the fan.

I found some travel tips among my catch-all notes that might be useful to pass on in this season of holiday travel.

First, tips from a book by Mark Lawson, The Battle for Room Service: Journeys to All the Safe Places (1993), with advice that might make you think of Anne Tyler's novel, The Accidental Tourist (1985). The protagonist, you may remember (Macon O'Leary, I think - I'll have to check: I did. The name is Leary, not O'Leary. Not bad for a book I read almost 3 decades ago.) Anyway, he made his living as a travel guide, advising people of places to go that are Just Like Home (J LH). Some people really don't went travel to be broadening; it's too threatening.

Lawson advises you to decide how much physical activity you want. I notice that the ElderTreks travel brochure breaks activity down into several categories from easy to moderate to strenuous, or the equivalent thereof. It never uses the term "Couch Potato" but CPs get the message.

Walk around the plane. Here's a statistic I never read before: The full distance from nose to tail and back on a 747 is about 400 feet. Thirteen times - your fellow passengers will love you - and you've covered a mile. Now have a Bloody Mary (my advice, not his).

This is not on Lawson's list, that I know of, but I remember reading that the Duke of Edinburgh advised travellers to "tinkle when you get the chance." (It could only have been the Duke of Edinburgh.) Because you never know. The same is true of napping. Lie down when you can. This is the best treatment for jet lag that I know.

Here's one I never thought of: send a postcard home to yourself. I'm not sure why. Maybe just to see how long it takes. Well, you already know how I feel about postcards.

This is the best one: take a magnifying glass with you, not just your magnifying spectacles and not just for reading the small print. You can really look at things, like lichens and mosses, for example. SOW, did you know there are 100 different kinds of lichens in that neat little ravine in northern Ontario? I forget the name (not Leary), and I'll have to look it up. I've long since despaired of any of you out there helping me. That's okay.

Perhaps we should talk about picnics next.