I Like You Just The Way You Are*

I like the taste of tofu. Plain. I am one of those people (we're fairly rare) who think it has a flavor all its own. As much as I enjoy dressing my tofu in exotic and evocative flavors, I'm happy eating it without anything added. I agree with most people's assessment of this food as bland. I'm unconvinced that's the same as the other adjective I hear used to describe the taste of plain tofu: boring.

A few weeks ago, I attended a screening of Michel Gondry's animated documentary of Noam Chomsky, Is The Man Who Is Tall Happy?**  During a discussion after the screening, Chomsky (who was there, with Gondry, taking questions) said, "Science, or any kind of inquiry, is the attempt to show that superficial complexity is really simple." As my brain began to object to that statement--some things are "simply" complex in nature, and irreducible that way--Chomsky added, "There are many questions to ask about this. For example, what is 'simple'?"

Indeed. I'd add, along the lines of "one man's meat is another man's poison," that what is simple for one person isn't, for another.

Simplicity, as a concept, tends to attract value judgements. The attached values range widely, from elegant to near-idiotic, cutting-edge minimalist to time-wastingly boring. Going back to "one man's poison," one person's "boring" is another person's, well, plain tofu, in my case.

Those used to highly-flavored food look askance at a plain-tofu eater like me (as they reach for the Sriracha). At such moments, I often feel compelled to explain why "bland" isn't "flavorless," and what it is, exactly, that I like about plain tofu. I hunt for something succinct, some pithy explanation that illuminates this concept for spicy-food addicts everywhere. I could simply say, "I like it." Ah, to be freed from the compulsion to find, analyze, simplify-to-its-essence and then explain the deeper meaning in everything...

Bob Dylan, never a simple man, reportedly said, about the song  "Leopardskin Pillbox Hat," "It's just a song about a hat, man." That song has been over-analyzed, if not to death, then to meaninglessness. Never mind the lyrics, which may or may not be about a hat, one of several women in Dylan's life (or a composite), a Lightnin' Hopkins song. The style, blues, tends to lose its power when analyzed too much. Its power is in its simple repetition, which mimics a very complex thing our brains do when we miss someone or something.

I could try to force a point and say that "Leopardskin Pillbox Hat" is like tofu in that it's something people are rarely content to leave (well enough) alone. I'd rather not go down that path. The quest for simplicity is complex, too often over-analytical. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and plain tofu is just plain tofu--not that either a cigar or tofu is simple, necessarily.

*Fred Rogers, Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood
**A brilliant, brilliant movie, and so much more than an animated documentary. I'm motivated to watch every one of Gondry's films, now.