April 14, 2015

"Hi, Juan. What is 'a knowledgeable road'?"

I respond, at 6:03 a.m., to a commenter who stopped by yesterday at a post I wrote in August 2013 called "The philosophy of travel... the psychology of travel..."
Was this a squandered topic by a terrible thinker and writer? Did this post make any sense with its never ending questions? Did the tone of the writer make you want to jump off a bridge for being so condescending and close-minded? Did you once think "I never want to travel with this person. She has got to be biggest killjoy. She probably likes Olive Garden."? Could I have been better served asking a child, who probably has a better sense of travel and basic writing skills? Does this person think very highly of herself because she asks rather meaningless questions instead of leading her readers down a knowledgeable road? Again, she's probably the worst travel buddy, right?

19 comments:

Earnest Prole said...

Who is the loneliest monk?

Tank said...

Intro to Juan:

Specializing in everything and nothing but mostly NYC life, college sports, TV shows, general media, life, the universe and everything

Specializing in everything and nothing.

I like that.

Anonymous said...

A knowledgeable road is a road that knows where the bodies are buried. Dig up Knowledgeable Road and you'll find Jimmy Hoffa.

Ann Althouse said...

The road knoweth not even the man who hath walked upon it for a hundred years, sayeth the sage.

Ann Althouse said...

All roads go nowhere.

(Get it?!)

chickelit said...

All goads ro[w] nowhere too.

Birches said...

She probably likes Olive Garden.

Burn!

rhhardin said...

Teats divided by four = cows.

tim maguire said...

Hi, Juan. What is 'knowledgeable road'?

Ouch. Now that is a professional-level dismissal.

bbkingfish said...

I didn't read the post, but the comment seems to have been written by a reader who is quite perceptive.

Anonymous said...

You actually go back and read comments, recent comments, on posts dating back to 2013?

Once a post scrolls off the page, I stop commenting. Normally, anyway.

traditionalguy said...

The road remembers. The Road retains knowledge in all of those displays of crosses in the ditches of death, and in all of those Historical Markers reporting the travels of Hans Christian Heg and his merry band of Norwegian into Georgia that ended at Chickamauga... And then home again

Marc in Eugene said...

I thought then that that post was one of your better ones, and re-reading it this morning was a real pleasure. (Thanks, Juan.) The vow of stabilitas that members of certain Catholic monastic communities make is consonant with your ideas, I think: the virtue of being rooted and at home in a particular place with its particular circumstances, of being committed to it and to its fortunes, good and less good and bad.

Ann Althouse said...

"You actually go back and read comments, recent comments, on posts dating back to 2013?"

Comments on posts older than 2 days are moderated, so I am in fact more far more likely to read a comment on an old post. I need to read them to separate the spam from the real comments. There's much more spam coming in on old posts, and most old comments are deleted as spam. I'm interested when someone stops by something old, and in this case, the comments caused me to reread the old post. I'm actually unusually proud of that post. That's my real motivation for frontpaging this.

Krumhorn said...

"You don't stand in front of a mirror before a run and wonder what the road will think of your outfit.

You don't have to listen to its jokes and pretend they're funny.

It would not be easier to run if you dressed sexier.

The road doesn't notice if you're not wearing lipstick.

It does not care how old you are.
You do not feel uncomfortable because you make more money than the road.

And you can call on the road whenever you feel like it, whether it's been a day or a couple of hours since your last date.

The only thing the road cares about is that you pay it a visit
once in a while.

Nike. No games. Just sports."
- Nick Marshall, What Women Want

- Krumhorn

mikee said...

This past weekend I took my wife on a drive through Central Texas looking at wildflowers, which are in glorious bloom right now.

We had a half hour discussion about phototropism in flowers and other plants, started by my mischievous observation that the Oenothera blooms were following the sun, while the bluebonnets remained stolidly vertical.

I married her because we can have such talks. She is a good travel companion.

Michael K said...

I took my kids on trips, especially to Europe. My youngest daughter was taking AP Art History in school and was amazed at the things in the class that she had seen in person.

My middle daughter traveled a lot with me and has gone on to places I have never been including living a year in Spain and spending time in Morocco to work on her Arabic.

Her sister, who has also traveled with me when she was a girl, just got back from Italy last week.

We used to talk about new places to go. One daughter wanted me to go to Ulaanbaatar with her. Maybe we could look for Genghis' tomb.

The boys went with me but not as often.

The youngest would like to live in France.

buwaya said...

In my old country there were many knowledgeable roads. Many were, apparently, up to date on contemporary literature, or some of it anyway.

Some were magical realist (which only existed from certain points of view), some were dystopian (well, most were, and gritty too), some were existentialist, and etc.

Many were fantastical, of high or low fantasy I am not fit to judge.

None, it seems were science-fictional (other than being dystopian, as noted), and certainly, none were cyberpunk. That was right out.

Sydney said...

Some of my best conversations with my family have been on road trips.