“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: In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin
“I climbed a path and from the top looked up-stream towards Chile. I could see the river, glinting and sliding through the bone-white cliffs with strips of emerald cultivation either side. Away from the cliffs was the desert. There was no sound but the wind, whirring through thorns and whistling through dead grass, and no other sign of life but a hawk, and a black beetle easing over white stones.” - Bruce Chatwin, from In Patagonia
Listening: Drif by Heilung
Looking: The Art of Gene Pendon
Gene Pendon at Art Public Montréal
Viewing: Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin (directed by Werner Herzog)
Tasting: Ryan Wildstar’s Homemade Birthday Dinner [Photos courtesy of the birthday boy]
Appetizer: Belgian endive with cream cheese and lumpfish caviar
Main course: Slow-roasted cockerel with lemon oregano butter, served with a three cheese gratin dauphinois (kashkaval lope, kashkaval dele & Bavarian emmental) and pan-fried curry cauliflower in Albanian butter
Ryan Elston’s Recommendations:
Reading: Travels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuściński
“Creatures like him [Herodotus] are insatiable, spongelike organisms, absorbing everything easily and just as easily parting with it. They do not keep anything inside for long, and because nature abhors a vacuum, they constantly need to ingest something new, replenish themselves, multiply, augment. Herodotus’s mind is incapable of stopping at one event or one country. Something always propels him forward, drives him on without rest. A fact that he discovered and ascertained today no longer fascinates him tomorrow, and so he must walk (or ride) elsewhere, further away. [. . .]
We do not really know what draws a human being out into the world. Is it curiosity? A hunger for experience? An addiction to wonderment? The man who ceases to be astonished is hollow, possessed of an extinguished heart. If he believes that everything has already happened, that he has seen it all, then something most precious has died within him—the delight in life. Herodotus is the antithesis of this spirit. A vivacious, fascinated, unflagging nomad, full of plans, ideas, theories. Always traveling. Even at home (but where is his home?), he has either just returned from an expedition, or is preparing for the next one. Travel is his vital exertion, his self-justification is the delving into, the struggle to learn—about life, the world, perhaps ultimately oneself.”
- Ryszard Kapuściński, from Travels with Herodotus
Listening: Rites of the Pagan by Elisabeth Waldo
Official Site of Elisabeth Waldo
Looking: The Art of Flavio Solo and Diamond [aka Solo & Diamond]
Viewing: Ennio: The Maestro (directed by Giuseppe Tornatore)
Tasting: Zupa & Cherry Cheesecake from Someg Bakery & Pasticeri [Photos by Ryan Wildstar]
That’s it for this week! What are your reading, listening, looking, viewing and/or tasting recommendations?
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