Nov 23
Book Inscriptions
I’m a big fan of this practice. The gift of a book is always personal. (via lookingup: hamandheroin)
"Light-fingered highjinks..."
description
Nov 23
The Emperor of Ice-Cream, by Wallace Stevens
Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month’s newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
Nov 23
“Inappropriate and unacceptable began their modern careers in the 1980s as part of the jargon of political correctness. They have more or less replaced a number of older, more exact terms: coarse, tactless, vulgar, lewd. They encompass most of what would formerly have been called “improper” or “indecent.” An affair between a teacher and a pupil that was once improper is now inappropriate; a once indecent joke is now unacceptable. This linguistic shift is revealing. Improper and indecent express moral judgements, whereas inappropriate and unacceptable suggest breaches of some purely social or professional convention. Such “non-judgemental” forms of speech are tailored to a society wary of explicit moral language…. What was once an offence against decency must be recast as something akin to a faux pas.&rdquo
Nov 23
“What I find about travelling is that you never know what the smell will be like, or what the colours will be. The movies don’t prepare you for that.&rdquo
— My colleague L. on my return to work this morning.
Nov 23
Nov 23
A Few Questions for Belle de Jour, Call Girl and Scientist - Freakonomics Blog - NYTimes.com
“While there are many reasons why men go to prostitutes, I noticed a few trends that had to do with women. The inability to ask a partner for kinky sex, for instance, came up more than once…. And to some extent, my clients were men who were addicted to success. They knew I, as a call girl, would respond positively to their advances, whereas outside of the transaction a woman like me might not. After all, women are widely perceived as the gatekeepers to sex, so in theory they can have it as often as they like, and men do not get a say in that. It’s not universally true of course, but that is a dominant dynamic.
…
There seems to be a lot of chatter in the U.K. papers surrounding me, about how my experience was a matter of class — though of course that isn’t strictly true. It can affect the level of agency one has. I suppose it does take a certain amount of awareness of value for someone, even in dire financial straits, to be able to say “I will have sex for £200, not £30.” That confidence can sometimes be more associated with social class, but I think it’s more to do either with education or self-esteem, which are not necessarily related.”
An interesting Q&A with confessional call-girl Belle du Jour, who was outed this month as Dr. Brooke Magnanti, 34, a neurotoxicologist at the Bristol Initiative for Research of Child Health. Critics denounced Magnanti’s anonymous memoirs of high-class prositution (later adapted for a UK television series starring Billie Piper) as literature that glamourised women’s experiences of prostitution, or as some sort of alarming guidance-counselling pamphlet for girls who have a natural aptitude for sex-work.
What I find interesting, more so than the “matter of class” to which Magnanti alludes above, is how her education (a related though separate matter) influences how we view her now. It seems to complicate our opinions of her stance on prostitution (based on her shrewd analysis of her experiences) — does the fact that she gained a doctorate mean that her story is more legitimate, or the knowledge that Magnanti was working towards a career in science (in child health, no less) diminish our moral outrage?
Nov 23
“But five-song lulls mean time for thinking, and I spent most of it thinking about just how much the success of Britney Spears - and even her mental health - is measured and predicated on the way she looks. As I’ve written before: Britney with fat on her body is read as ”off the rails”; skinny, toned Britney means “she’s baaaaack” - as much so as the quality of her albums or songs.&rdquo
— Rachel Hills on seeing Britney Spears perform in her Australian Circus tour.
Nov 22
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Plays: 62
Florence and the Machine - ‘Dog Days are Over’
Nov 22
“Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.&rdquo
— F. Scott Fitzgerald (via simko)
Nov 22
Man Ray: Femme tenant l’Objet désagréable, 1937
The ‘disagreable object’ is a sculpture by Giacometti…
Nov 22
sasha pivovarova, hugo sauzay, irina lazareanu, freja beha erichsen & eddie klint | “czechmate” | w, december 2006 | ph. michael thompson (via calivintage)
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