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by l.e. leone

The occidental public Library has some books in it, and the one chosen by the Chicken Farmer was called What Is Existentialism?, by William Barrett. The words on the cover of the old book were black, and the question mark was purple. The Chicken Farmer had got the idea in his or her head that he or she would become smart, so long as there was a fire to be sat by and nothing better to do, like being outside on a log and looking at chickens.

Unfortunately, the book was entirely unreadable and awful, and the Occidental Public Library is only open sometimes. So instead of getting smart, the Chicken Farmer got a sore neck from falling asleep in a chair by the fire. Give you an example:

"Let us examine this bracketing with historical eyes for a moment. Ancient skepticism – I am talking about the pre-Aristotelian skeptics – did not travel this road of doubt, though it went farther along other paths. How is this? How is it they did not doubt the external world and other people, although one fine Sophist went so far as to doubt the possibility of communication itself and ended up by wiggling his finger in order to express himself?" (page 81).

Wait. That's pretty good. I opened the book at random and randomly selected a selection, and it was good. Let me try again.

Page 93: "Probably it never occurred to Spinoza, as he walked past the stock exchange in Amsterdam ..." Wow. Whoa, what a great image: Spinoza walking past the stock exchange, oblivious to something – we know not what because I refuse to finish reading that sentence.

Let's see, from page 139: "Heidegger is equally radical in dealing with the sense of 'true' involved in the verb 'is.' What is now present presents itself; hence there is no presence – no Is – without revelation, or truth."

Not bad, not bad. I don't have a clue what it means, but it does invite me to think, rather than fall asleep. What a kick! Starting at the start and reading forward, one page at a time, the book is utter toilet paper, trust me. But in my attempt to illustrate just how unreadably crappy it is, I have stumbled on a way of reading it: by closing and opening it randomly, like cutting a deck of cards, and picking out sentences here, paragraphs there, phrases and passages willy-nilly. It's my new favorite way to read my new favorite book! What Is Existentialism? Black words, purple question mark.

And I got smart. No thanks to William Barrett. Yes thanks to Pam and Guy, my old pals from New Hampshire who are out here house-and-cat-sitting for some mutual friends of ours. I got to spend almost a whole day with them, and you can only play so many games of cards before you have to have a meaningful conversation. Pam is teaching philosophy to high school kids (roughly my level of learning), and Guy I believe studied himself some philosophy in college.

"What is existentialism?" I said.

And they explained it very very nicely in about 15, 20 minutes, and then Bernie came over and we drove to Ocean Beach and walked around and drove down Clement Street and ate at my new favorite Thai bistro, Be My Guest, me all the while knowing what existentialism was.

My new favorite Thai restaurant is not the cheapest place in the world, but they do have roast duck larb and what they call "bloody curry," which is that red coconut curry with roast duck and pineapple I love so much, and it comes with "Thai-style" naan ($8.95). Probably the best deal on the menu.

But we didn't get it.

Did get: sea bass with edamame and ginger sauce served over a pile of spinach. It cost a whopping $12.95, but it was so freaking tasty it was probably maybe almost worth it.

The philosophical vegetarians ordered tofu praram long-song ($7.95), which means tofu, spinach, peanut sauce, tofu, spinach, peanut sauce, bridge, chorus, and out. I tasted it. Not bad, as tofu goes. They loved it. And also they loved the pumpkin curry, which I tried too and didn't like because I never like pumpkin stuff except for seeds.

And for rice they charge you $2, which they justify by making great rice. Coconut rice. Brown rice. Garlic rice. I don't even know if you can just get plain white rice.

The atmosphere is cool and clean, with artsy plastic chairs, nice squiggly wood walking-stick art, and a really neat-o light bulb cluster-ma-jig. In case you're into that sort of thing ...

Be My Guest. 951 Clement (at 11th Ave.), SF. (415) 386-1942. Sun.-Thurs., 11 a.m.-10:30 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Takeout available. MasterCard, Visa. Full bar. Wheelchair accessible. E-mail L.E. Leone at le_chicken_farmer@yahoo.com.