SHANGRI-LA ILLUSTRATED, AND RILKE

Great things are done when men and mountains meet. (Wm Blake)

I've taken to flickr to get a visual angle on Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard, searching for the various locales and mountain names he drops throughout the book. I must say, there are some rather fine ones out there. God bless the internetz. Still plotting the trek on Google maps, too. Once the map's done I'll post it up here.

Much like Matthiessen and the boldest explorers of past ages I myself have been delving into the terrifying wilds of self-help literature, only taking a break occasionally to read an odd smattering of Rainer Maria Rilke's lyrical Teutonic extravaganzas. Going to start methodically going thru Die Sonette an Orpheus before too long.

ANNAPURNABELLE

Annapurna massif.

Reading Peter Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard, which has already obliged with several items of Choplogical interest. I'm following the route via Google Maps and various satellite imagery, if that ain't pretty neat.

1.) An etymology I should probably know already: Himalaya = Sanskrit hima 'snow' + alaya 'dwelling," i.e. 'abode of snow.'

2.) Annapurna is one goshdarn massive massif.

FLOWING WITH MILK AND HONEY

Reading Henri J.M. Nouwen's wonderfully candid Genesee Diary. Passage below speaks for itself:

I spent the afternoon with Brother Henry at his beehives. This was my first encounter with the bees. Although I was well protected, one bee found its way into one of the legs of my pants. Well, he stung and died as a hero. A remarkable world. Now I am reading up on bees: Murray Hoyt's book, The World of Bees. There I found an example of American pragmatism that makes you cry. Based on the biblical expression of Israel as the "land flowing with milk and honey," Profesor Mykola H. Haydak wanted to test whether this were the perfect diet combination. After two months on a diet of milk and honey, "his skin became dry, pimples marred his face and whitish round spots appeared on his tongue" -- the obvious result of lack of vitamin C. "He added ten ounces of orange juice a day and all these symptoms disappeared." Hoyt remarks after describing the experiment: "So perhaps the 'land flowing with milk and honey' should be changed to 'a land flowing with milk and honey and ten ounces of range juice.' "