A meal fit for a king
I was having a late afternoon lunch today at a moderately priced but very nice Indian restaurant, Curry & Kabob, between 105th and 106th Street on Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan (very highly recommended). With the wonderful mixture of so many wonderful flavors, I was thinking that this was a meal fit for a king, and all for ten or fifteen dollars. In an effusive mood I said to the friend I was eating with, “All kings here at one table eat.” Though having a background in literature, my friend understandably did not get the obscure reference until I quoted the lines from the John Donne poem that I was paraphrasing:
All [kings] here in one bed lay.
She is all states, and all princes I.
And then I recited as much of the poem as I remembered.
Here is the whole poem:
THE SUN RISING.
by John Donne
BUSY old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us ?
Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run ?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school-boys and sour prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices ;
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
Thy beams so reverend, and strong
Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long.
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and to-morrow late tell me,
Whether both th’ Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou left’st them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw’st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, “All here in one bed lay.”
She is all states, and all princes I;
Nothing else is;
Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honour’s mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world’s contracted thus ;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that’s done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere ;
This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.
When I looked up the poem later, I saw to my delight, just before the part about the kings, this:
both th’ Indias of spice and mine
… [that] lie here with me,
which I had not remembered earlier. So there wasn’t only the idea of all kings ruling over all states being combined in the person of the poet lying in one bed making love with one woman in whom all states are combined, but that the state being ruled over / the meal being savored, is India / of India.
A footnote in The Selected Poetry of John Donne explains: “The East Indies were the Spice Islands. The West Indies were famous for their mines of precious metals.” Ok, Donne wasn’t speaking of the Indian subcontinent. But “both th’ Indias of spice and mine” are close enough.
Another irony: the former name of the restaurant, until it moved to its present location a few months ago, was Royal Kabob.
- end of initial entry -
May 1
Adela G. writes:
I’m delighted you were so transported by your dining experience that you were moved to quote John Donne.
I’d feel ever so much better, though, if you were also able to report that all the staff had their green cards. Otherwise, I might feel obligated to quote Donne right back at you:
Who is so safe as we? where none can do
Treason to us, except one of us two.
LA replies:
I think there are very few Indians in the U.S. who are illegals. The people running this restaurant are very nice people.
Adela replies:
You write: “I think there are very few Indians in the U.S. who are illegals. The people running this restaurant are very nice people.”
I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. But are you sure only Indians work there? My experience and observation have been that 1) Indians will employ non-Indian workers and 2) Mexican restaurant workers don’t just work at Mexican restaurants.
I am not questioning their niceness but their full compliance with American law. I have stopped patronizing my favorite local Chinese restaurant ever since I saw a distinctly Hispanic worker exit its back entrance. No sacrifice is too great for the cause of traditionalism, n’est pas qu’ainsi?
LA replies:
Yes, there are Mexicans working in every type of foreign restaurant in NYC. As I’ve mentioned, a while back an aquaintance who eats out a great deal said to me me that “In New York City, all food is Mexican food.” But this restaurant is strictly Indian.
However, as I remember, you said that you avoid patronizing any restaurant that may even possibly have illegal employees. That’s not realistic.That’s a little nuts in my view.
Adela replies:
You write: “…you said that you avoid patronizing any restaurant that may even possibly have illegal employees. That’s not realistic. That’s a little nuts in my view.”
Only a little? My husband would beg to differ. He used to call me “Dennis” as in “Dennis Miller rants” but has begun calling me “Garp” as in “The World According To.”
Anyway, here in the heartland, it is easy to patronize restaurants owned and staffed by non-Hispanic-appearing people. If it is also nuts, to one degree or another, so be it.
I have to wonder at the apparent disconnect that allows you to postulate an American in which Muslim immigration is stopped and devout (i.e., militant) Muslims are expelled yet doesn’t permit you to think of boycotting restaurants that may employ illegals as anything other than “nuts”.
You can’t seriously think the grave situation in which we American citizens find ourselves can ever be reversed or improved without 1) citizens inconveniencing themselves and 2) much larger steps than mere boycotts being taken.
LA replies:
It’s not realistic. Suppose there were an illegal working in—or possibly working in—every every restaurant, every grocery store, every department store, in your community? What would you do? Stop buying things? Stop eating? Stop buying clothing? Stop dealing with government offices? Not send your children to school because there are or might be illegal alien chldren in the school system? Not get a driver’s licence because there may be illegals working in the Division of Motor Vehicles, or because some illegals have liecenses? And what about the food services industry, which is heavily reliant on illegals? That’s food that comes from other states, hundreds of miles away. So what do you do? Do you find out the name and location of every food services company that is the source of every chicken and every piece of beef you purchase, and investigate it to find out if they hire illegals?
That’s not just a little nuts. That’s Charles Johnson-crazy. That’s “John Birch Paranoid Blues”-crazy:
Well, I finally started thinking straight
When I run outa things to investigate.
Couldn’t imagine doing anything else,
So now I’m sittin’ home investigatin’ myself!
Hope I don’t find out nothin’ … hmm, great God!
Illegal aliens must be made to leave America. But it’s going to happen by the government enforcing the law. It’s not going to happen by individual Americans making it impossible for themselves to function.
LA continues:
And what about hotels and motels? If you were on a car trip, and looking for a motel to spend the night, would you investigate the motel to see if any illegals work there? And if they do, or, since in most cases it would be impossible to find out, if they possibly do, you get back in your car and keep driving until you find a place that you’re sure doesn’t employ any illegals?
Or let’s say you were going to attend a weekend conference taking place at a hotel. Would you say, “Sorry, I can’t come, there might an illegal working there”?
Adela replies:
You write: “Suppose there were an illegal working in—or possibly working in—every restaurant, every grocery store, every department store, in your community? What would you do? Stop buying things? Stop eating? Stop buying clothing? Stop dealing with government offices? Not sent you children to school because there are or might be illegal alien children in the school system?”
You and I are approaching this from different premises. I believe most American citizens feel as I do and would like illegals expelled or discouraged from staying so that they voluntarily leave. I also believe such a boycott could gain national support and approval, eventually creating a “climate of fear” among illegals and their illegally-acting employers. This climate would make it unnecessary for citizens to barricade themselves in their homes and go hungry, as you imply. You seem to view my efforts as extreme but what I’m trying to tell is you that if enough people made these small and not at all extreme gestures, results could be obtained without our having to take extreme measures.
If it’s cost-effective to employ illegals, many businesses will do so. If it’s not, they won’t. Even in a left-wing climate, ordinary citizens stopped the “Shamnesty” proposal dead in its tracks two years ago just by calling their representatives and protesting its passage. Do you really think a large movement that visibly, audibly boycotted businesses that employed illegals wouldn’t have a similar effect?
We got to where we are today because too many American citizens are afraid of being seen as “not nice”. I think a great deal could be done if citizens got serious about reasserting their rights as citizens. And I don’t think we’d have to go to the extremes you suggest to get some positive results.
LA replies:
Now you’re talking about some kind of an organized boycott. That’s something that could be feasible. But you were talking about an individual person avoiding any contact with, or any purchase of any goods or services, that may be possibly connected with an illegal, which is absurd and impossible. A boycott would also be impossible, if were aimed at literally every business that employs illegals, but if it were targeted, it could be effective.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 30, 2009 09:30 PM | Send