Wasting time
Mar. 31st, 2005 06:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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coffee_and_ink:
What's the best thing about NYC?
Its intelligence, its magnanimity, its generosity.
What's your favorite fairy tale?
Impossible to pick one. But some favorites are "The Seven Swans," "East of the Sun, West of the Moon," "The White Snake," "Godfather Death,""Toads and Diamonds," and "The Twelve Dancing Princesses."
But I must give a special nod to Andrew Lang's version of Sleeping Beauty, in The Blue Fairy Book, for this amusing touch:
The Prince has at this point rescued and wed Beauty, and has two children, named Morning and Day. "But he never dared to trust [his mother]; he feared her, though he loved her, for she was of the race of the Ogres, [...] had Ogreish inclinations, and [...] whenever she saw little children passing by, she had all the difficulty in the world to avoid falling upon them. [...]
[Then] the Queen-mother sent her daughter-in-law to a country house among the woods, that she might with the more ease gratify her horrible longing. Some few days afterward she [...] said to her clerk of the kitchen:
'I have a mind to eat little Morning for my dinner to- morrow.'
'Ah! madam,' cried the clerk of the kitchen.
'I will have it so,' replied the Queen (and this she spoke in the tone of an Ogress who had a strong desire to eat fresh meat), 'and will eat her with a sauce Robert.' " [etc.]
Sauce Robert is a bottled steak sauce, like A-1 or Worcester sauce. My parents, who thought this fairy tale was hilarious, kept a bottle of the stuff on the kitchen counter and were very fond of putting it on the dinner table as a Dire Warning to Children Who Fight at Supper.
Who is your favorite Sayers character?
Meh. With the exception of Gaudy Night, I don't think Sayers did that well with characters. Most of them are only a little less cliché than Agatha Christie et al., but what she excelled at was prose style and wit. But In Gaudy Night I like Peter Wimsey very much, and some of the dons quite well.
What's your favorite anime to show people who don't think they're anime people?
Spirited Away.
Do you eat breakfast? What do you eat? Is it what you'd ideally want or a compromise?
Yes, coffee and coffee. Coffee. Yes and yes.
coffee_and_ink:What's the best thing about NYC?
Its intelligence, its magnanimity, its generosity.
What's your favorite fairy tale?
Impossible to pick one. But some favorites are "The Seven Swans," "East of the Sun, West of the Moon," "The White Snake," "Godfather Death,""Toads and Diamonds," and "The Twelve Dancing Princesses."
But I must give a special nod to Andrew Lang's version of Sleeping Beauty, in The Blue Fairy Book, for this amusing touch:
The Prince has at this point rescued and wed Beauty, and has two children, named Morning and Day. "But he never dared to trust [his mother]; he feared her, though he loved her, for she was of the race of the Ogres, [...] had Ogreish inclinations, and [...] whenever she saw little children passing by, she had all the difficulty in the world to avoid falling upon them. [...]
[Then] the Queen-mother sent her daughter-in-law to a country house among the woods, that she might with the more ease gratify her horrible longing. Some few days afterward she [...] said to her clerk of the kitchen:
'I have a mind to eat little Morning for my dinner to- morrow.'
'Ah! madam,' cried the clerk of the kitchen.
'I will have it so,' replied the Queen (and this she spoke in the tone of an Ogress who had a strong desire to eat fresh meat), 'and will eat her with a sauce Robert.' " [etc.]
Sauce Robert is a bottled steak sauce, like A-1 or Worcester sauce. My parents, who thought this fairy tale was hilarious, kept a bottle of the stuff on the kitchen counter and were very fond of putting it on the dinner table as a Dire Warning to Children Who Fight at Supper.
Who is your favorite Sayers character?
Meh. With the exception of Gaudy Night, I don't think Sayers did that well with characters. Most of them are only a little less cliché than Agatha Christie et al., but what she excelled at was prose style and wit. But In Gaudy Night I like Peter Wimsey very much, and some of the dons quite well.
What's your favorite anime to show people who don't think they're anime people?
Spirited Away.
Do you eat breakfast? What do you eat? Is it what you'd ideally want or a compromise?
Yes, coffee and coffee. Coffee. Yes and yes.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-01 06:24 pm (UTC)Likewise, for I have never heard of Bruce Duffy or his novel on Wittegenstein, and am similarly intrigued, intrigued.
I would hazard a guess that Castle's text, though undoubtedly accurate (and certainly hilarious), was written in a spirit of gleeful payback. In her better moments (all of which occurred before 1980, IMO), Sontag would probably have been greatly amused by the portrait.
Don't we all decorate our homes, to some extent, to impress an idol? In my case, I think my home is designed to thrill and astonish an ex-lover from when I was 18. Or else I might be trying to impress Martin Luther King, Jr. Not sure which.
How disastrous, then, if the idol should actually appear on the threshold and fail to notice any of the stuff. This is the danger of believing our own myths about the people we admire, no? In this case, Sontag herself was probably most harmed of all, for she believed the myths other people constructed about her.
(I have been thinking about this lately in another context: about the way we invent the people we fall in love with. I think, these days, that this is the very definition of "in love": to be able to construct a fictional version of a person and then actually believe it.)
I was once at an event--probably an arts or political fundraiser, I don't recall--at which Sontag and Liebovitz appeared. AFAIK there was no secret about them, but I will say that they both behaved much as described by Castle, swanning about in best diva mode and ensuring that the little people knew to the inch how small they were. Ugh.
And a friend who lived in her building said she was rude to the doormen, which is the ne plus ultra of scumness in NYC apartment culture.
None of which diminishes the intelligence and interest of "On Photography" or "Against Interpretation," though I reserve my opinion on "The Pain of Others." But more influential than Simone de Beauvoir? Only a disappointed romantic could say so.
I am pretty sure I know curator Klaus too--though if he's who I think he is, he isn't bald at present. And he's smart, thoughtful and no starfucker. FWIW.
I have to say, too, that Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed, who are frequently seen on the NY social/arts/politics circuit, have not in my limited experience behaved with that kind of vulgarity. Maybe Reed had a toothache that night.
To complete my appalling namedropping I will add that Jacqueline Onassis was the classiest celebrity I've ever seen in action--showed up at the dreariest fundraisers and book parties and was invariably courteous, quietly charming, and accessible.
And I bet she knew all the early Handel operas too. Well, 20 or 30 of them anyway.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-01 08:00 pm (UTC)The Duffy book is late 80's, "The World as I Found It" a historical novel about Wittgenstein's entry into the world of Russell and Morrell, his recoiling from it and them during and after WWI, his ambivalent relation to his own family's wealth and position and downfall, the general difficulty of his character. It preceded Ray Monk's biography and I don't know how accurate it is. Haven't read it in ages or I could review it better, so I will avoid trying to say anything profound.
Interesting point about the people we decorate our homes for -- both Castle's confession and your extension of it. I experience something similar though more in maybe personal neurotic terms -- there are people I carry around in my head who, in some sense, approve or disapprove of me, and whom I sometimes feel I am performing for in day to day life, with varying consequences. It's not confined to the decoration of my apartment (which in my case is very definitely bachelor-in-trouble-with-the-Health-Department) though I wish it were so limited.
Your definition of love is suggestive and stimulating, as always. Sometimes I've thought about physical beauty as the perfect realization of a fantasy, so that you look at a person's features and there is no disconnect between the reality and the ideal that they suggest, no falling short at all. As for being in love -- well, I would call the state of infatuation one in which we feel each action by the other person is one we would have predicted and wanted to happen, so that there seems to be a mysterious and powerful common process joining one's interior life and theirs. Necessarily an unstable state, but an exhilarating one while it lasts!
Oh feel free to namedrop, I'm enjoying the dirt and the anti-dirt. And after all, like I said in my Ten Things Meme, I once urinated next to Robin Williams, so, you know, I've been around! ;)
no subject
Date: 2005-04-02 11:09 am (UTC)I note your careful distinction between infatuation and love. :-)
I buy it: $50-->Blackdog.
That is, what I think you are describing is the egoism of the lover, who sees the beloved as a part of him- or herself, or at any rate a blurring of the borders between self and other. But how do you account for the infatuation in which the object of desire does not return the sentiment? That is, surely, not an action we would have wanted to happen.
And since talk of RL love is always tricksy stuff, I merely note that the reader's passionate infatuation with the book meets your definition of beauty perfectly, for it is "the perfect realization of a fantasy, so that you look at its features and there is no disconnect between the reality and the ideal that they suggest, no falling short." ;-)
And the reader's desire for the hero (or the book), unrequited and eternally frustrated though it is, is one in which each action is one we at least imagine we could have predicted and wanted to happen (yes, even if the hero dies), so that there seems to be a mysterious and powerful common process joining one's interior life and the book's. Necessarily an unstable state.
So infatuation is amenable to definition; but I suppose love is not. For indeed, who knows what love is?
Not I, said the bird, the word's absurd. I don't know what love is.
Not I, said the bee, nothing stings me. I don't know what love is.
Not I, said the hound, I go round and round, but I don't know what love is.
Not I, said the hawk, it's just so much talk. I don't know what love is.
Not I, said the fly, with my compound eye. I don't know what love is.
I do, said the cat, sitting in the sun. I know what love is.
Soundtrack: Billie: I'd rather be lonely than happy with somebody else...
no subject
Date: 2005-04-03 11:51 am (UTC)how do you account for the infatuation in which the object of desire does not return the sentiment?
Oh well, the boundaries between reality and fantasy can be very porous when it comes to the emotional life, don't you think? I am thinking back to specific infatuations, and in each case there was an indication -- perhaps the spark of the infatuation -- that the feeling was, amazingly, reciprocated to at least some degree. And yet I admit that, over time, the degree of disappointment with actual developments is proportionate to the degree of energy invested in fantasy, and while one tries to remain clear-headed about How Things Are in actual day-to-day transactions, there is still a certain charge from the proximity of the person . . . I can't say that I've ever been infatuated with a person who was totally oblivious and indifferent, whatever the disproprotion of interest may have been. Maybe this is the luck of the draw, or an instinct for health. And I am not, of course, counting as infatuation the indulgence in recreational daydreams about stunning strangers.
I react to your reader/book metaphor with my usual combination of interest and wariness. I don't honestly see the emotional connections as commensurate. Still, there is a feeling you get when you encounter an intelligence behind a work of art that surprises you and makes sense of things (including the work itself) that might not have made sense before. I do like the sense of "inevitability" in a book, but I like to feel it has not been obvious or effortless, that discovering it has been about solving a problem, becoming receptive to another sensibility. If that is not too hopelessly abstract to make sense.
[Pause] Mmmm, chinese food at the door. Don't usually indulge at lunchtime. Do you suppose "Full House" as the name of a chef special means anything but bad menu copywriting? I was assured of fried wontons as part of the mix, and misread that as fried dumplings. Offsetting that disappointment, the meats and veggies do, per the description, appear to be swimming in "delightful sauce."
Until next time, then!