I did attend a tea ceremony once at the biggest Zen temple in Kyoto. Along with my American girlfriend, I was the guest of a quite exclusive club of wealthy housewives (almost all the traditional arts of Japan survive through the patronage of wealthy housewives). They were sitting in a large circle on the tatami mats, waiting for the ceremony to begin, when in we walked, the only two Westerners. They were trying to be polite and not stare when my forehead connected loudly with a low-hanging beam. I wouldn’t describe it as a clunk; it was much more resonant than that, I’m sure. We’re talking an 800-year-old temple here. It really broke the ice though – maybe a little too much. An unfortunate undercurrent of mirth remained throughout the ceremony.

Regarding attractive vs. non-attractive people, I’ve said for a while that some of the ugliest people I’ve known have been among the most beautiful, and vice versa.

Regarding objects, are you familiar with Japanese tea-ceremony traditions? Way back in college one of my courses included some history of the business. Apparently, one of the mainstays of their “high tradition” was the collection and use of certain clay vessels for handling the tea, ranging from antique to ancient. In conventional terms, these are quite ugly — but the practitioners found their appearance worthy of meditation and poetry.

But there was one rather odd account, where a certain fellow single-handly introduced a new tradition, that of making new, temporary implements out of bamboo on the spot. The readings did not give full details, but between the lines I sensed something to the effect of: this guy was too poor to afford the traditional vessels, but he’d managed to charm his way into “the crowd” — well enough that the nobles, monks, etc were willing to let him make a new path to the tea ceremony.

In reference to your last comment, I’m very interested in the sort of attachments that we form with homely objects, places and people. We can’t call them unattractive, clearly, because there is something about them, some charisma, that we do find attractive. (Someone once wrote about George Eliot that she was attractive in that way: when he first met her, he thought she was the ugliest woman he ever saw, but after ten minutes of conversation, he thought she was one of the most attractive.)

There were a few years when I was a kid, that my Mom wouldn’t let me get a real pet, so I’d keep dishes of “pet yeasts”….

Beth – Ha! You are a way more serious chef than I am, to judge from your periodic (and usually mouth-watering) food posts. I am the not-so-high priest of casseroles, quiches and “comfort food.” Far from subtle, in other words.

Poor Scarbutt. But lucky, too.