Nov. 29, 2013 7:18 p.m. ET
The other day, I went to see Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart in Harold Pinter's brilliant play "No Man's Land." The same week I heard András Schiff play the complete "Goldberg Variations" at Carnegie Hall. I also saw an exhibit of Leonardo da Vinci drawings at the Morgan Library & Museum. So culturally speaking, I was taking care of business.
On other fronts, I was not doing so well. Before entering the theater that night, my wife strong-armed me into dining at a local health-food emporium. I had mushroom soup and a salad with beets and kale. I could barely get it down. In-your-face graphics lecturing me about how beets reduce toxicity and kale is a miracle food adorned the walls of the restaurant, which used a new cutting board for every sandwich it made. The establishment reeked of nutritional virtue. It was as if the proprietors were taunting reactionaries like me: Everything we serve, do and cut with is good. If you want trashy food, go down the street to Red Lobster. You evil slob.
Here is my basic problem. I like to put nutritious things with lots of roughage and fiber in my head. Shakespeare, the Brontës, Vermeer. Except when I watch sports, I never fill my brain with the intellectual equivalent of trans-fats: game shows, talk shows, reality-TV shows. The concerts and plays I attend, the paintings I look at, the books I read, are all, in their own way, every bit as nutritious as beets and organic zucchini and walnuts. To my way of thinking, Michelangelo is nothing more than cerebral kale.
But I don't like healthy food. I never have. This may be because I grew up in a city where people pride themselves on eating scrapple, the most sinister foodstuff known to man. True, over the years I have mellowed. In a pinch, I will force down a few farm-fresh endives and rutabaga, but if I had my druthers I would still opt for the bacon double cheeseburger with a milk shake and loads of fries. Back where I come from, eating bad food is not just a habit; it is a badge of honor.
People upbraid me for my toxic, Jurassic eating habits. Aren't you excited about the organic food store that's opening just down the street? No. Don't you marvel at the antioxidizing effect that beets have on your nervous system? Never. Just for the record, do you even know what an alkaline diet is? Absolutely not.
Another thing: I do not like being lectured while I am eating. I do not like getting the third degree about the nutritional benefits of steamed ahi. I do not like being hectored about herbs. For while I may not be taking great care of my body, I do take great care of my brain. "I just had a green power smoothie with dried seaweed and barley grass," a friend will say. "I just saw 'Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg,' " I fire back. "I love the detoxifying effects of white beets," volunteers a friend. "I love the detoxifying effects of 'Long Day's Journey Into Night,' " I retort.
Logic, I believe, is on my side. People are very sensitive about what they put into their bodies. But they will put anything into their brain. They eat free-range chicken, but they watch TV shows about headless suburban demons. They ingest loads of parsnips but never Picasso. They know the nutritional benefits of every supplement under the sun but have never listened to Debussy. They don't seem to understand that Claude Debussy is a nutritional supplement.
I am not saying that my way is the right way. I am merely pointing out that the digestive tract is only one part of the human body. Call me a hidebound traditionalist—yeah, go ahead, just try it, punk—but the brain is every bit as important as the small intestine. So just because you eat beets, regionally grown apricots and sustainable trout doesn't make you better than me. You devour kale. I devour Kafka. Sounds like six of one, half a dozen of the other to me.
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