But like many an inarticulate young lover, I thought for a time that seduction was a matter of giving the right book to the right woman. In my case it was Barthes’s A Lover’s Discourse: a meditation on Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther that catalogues the melancholic lover’s prized ‘image repertoire’ – the scene of waiting, the feeling of being dissolved in the presence of the loved being, the attraction of suicide – and thinly veils the author’s own life as a middle-aged gay man in Paris in the 1970s. This gift was always a prelude to disaster.
–
RB and Me: An Education is an essay by
Brian G. Dillon about his relationship with the books of French philosopher Roland Barthes. It's also a lovely autobiography of an awkward boy finding his place in life.
Dillon's website collects his essays, and is trove of interesting insight. Besides writing essays and fiction, Dillon is also the UK editor of Cabinet Magazine, and you can read a fair number of his
articles online, including ones on
Beau Brummel and the cravat,
hypochondria and
hydrotherapy.
posted by Kattullus
on Dec 1, 2011 -
4 comments
Alexis Soyer lived quite an an amazing life. According to his
wiki, he "was a French chef who became the most celebrated cook in Victorian England" who also "during the Great Irish Famine in April 1847, ... invented the soup kitchen and was asked by the Government to go to Ireland to implement his idea. This was opened in Dublin and his "
famine soup" was served to thousands of the poor for free. Whilst in Ireland he wrote Soyer's Charitable Cookery. He gave the proceeds of the book to various charities. He also opened an art gallery in London, and donated the entrance fees to charity to feed the poor." And then there is also the remarkable story of
Soyer's Magic Stove.
posted by puny human
on Jul 30, 2010 -
16 comments
Madman or genius? Well... madman. But being confined to an asylum (with one of his symptoms described as "manic invention") didn't keep
Karl Hans Janke from developing elaborate theories of
atomic energy, flight,
space travel and the history of humanity, creating over 4,000 complex drawings and even models over 40 years of incarceration for paranoid schizophrenia.
[more inside]
posted by Shepherd
on Jun 2, 2008 -
4 comments
Colin Powell to become the secretary of state, which seems ok on the surface, but after looking at the
functions of the position, wouldn't he make a better
secretary of defense instead? I can't say I'm comfortable with the thought of the leading US diplomat and negotiator being someone so closely tied with military force (side question: would a war man negotiate peace treaties or get us into more bombing missions?). I also find it odd that in the acceptance speech, he can speak of the horrors of Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" and in the same breath talk about how the US should build up a missile defense system (our missiles aren't capable of mass destruction?). What do you think about the appointment?
posted by mathowie
on Dec 16, 2000 -
35 comments