“The aesthetic experience is a simple beholding of the object . . . you experience a radiance. You are held in aesthetic arrest.” - Joseph Campbell
Aesthetic Arrest is our weekly dip into the Epicurean pleasures we’ve been enjoying lately. Here we go!
Ryan Wildstar’s Recommendations:
Reading: Le Deuxième Sexe (The Second Sex) by Simone de Beauvoir
“Enforced maternity brings into the world wretched infants, whom their parents will be unable to support and who will become the victims of public care or ‘child martyrs’. It must be pointed out that our society, so concerned to defend the rights of the embryo, shows no interest in the children once they are born; it prosecutes the abortionists instead of undertaking to reform that scandalous institution known as ‘public assistance’; those responsible for entrusting the children to their torturers are allowed to go free; society closes its eyes to the frightful tyranny of brutes in children’s asylums and private foster homes.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex
Listening: Never-before-released album of Ella Fitzgerald’s 1958 live performance at the Hollywood Bowl.
Read more about this long-lost recording here and here.
Looking: Judith Slaying Holofernes (1620-1621) by Artemisia Gentileschi from the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
Viewing: The Capote Tapes (Hulu), a documentary by Ebs Burnough about the impact of Truman Capote’s scandalous last novel, Answered Prayers.
Tasting: Deaf Dog Beer Bar (Gluvo Kuche) in Skopje, Macedonia
Ryan Elston’s Recommendations:
Reading: Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution by Adrienne Rich
Listening: Mashrou' Leila (music and documentary)
Looking: The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago
Image gallery with more information about The Dinner Party here.
Viewing: Drag Show at Skopje Pride
Video of the full drag show here.
Video of Linda Socialista’s performance of “I’m Coming Out” here.
Official website of Dita Von Bill.
Tasting: Pulled Pork Burgers at Skopje Pride
That’s it for this week! What are your reading, listening, looking, viewing and/or tasting recommendations?
Aesthetic Arrest Podcast: Weekly Cultural Highlights 7/1/22