She was hardly the true vine, was she?
There is no true vine, she’d say. There is no truth of the earth. Cicero wanted to turn us from all faith in all terroirs.
Her message was that the earth is alien to us. She wanted to cure us. Wanted to make us into proper Gnostics. We should be disgusted, do you see? We had to be disgusted.
But if she wanted to teach us that, then why did she make the wine so disgusting? Doesn’t that make it too obvious? Isn’t that putting a finger of the scales? She should have made this the most delicious wine of all – don’t you see?
Maybe she’s leading up to that. Maybe the last wine will be absolutely delicious.
She really could be leading up to something. The last wine really could be the best wine.
How far are we from the last wine? How many bottles are there?
Cicero’s highest lesson: to find, to truly discover, the disgusting in the delicious. And then the disgusting in all things. Cicero’s leading us step by step, bottle by bottle.
Is each bottle getting a little more disgusting, or are they about the same?
They’re all pretty disgusting.
The thing is, that once we’ve reached a nadir of disgustingness, the bottles should be become nicer again. Positively tasty. And our task would be to discern what is disgusting in that tastiness. To know deliciousness as distraction.
Work in Progress 