“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: La Bâtarde [The Bastard] by Violette Leduc
“My fingers considered her icy shoulders. I flew away, I snatched up in my beak the tufts of wool caught on thorns along the hedgerows and laid them one by one on Isabelle's shoulders. I tapped at her bones with downy hammers, my kisses hurtling down on top of one another as I flung myself onward through quicksands of tenderness. My hands relieved my failing lips; I molded the sky around her shoulders. Isabelle rose, fell back, and I fell with her into the hollow of her shoulder. My cheek came to rest on a curve. ‘My darling.’ I said it over and over.” - La Bâtarde [The Bastard] by Violette Leduc
Listening: Have You Never Been Mellow & Magic by Olivia Newton-John
Looking: I used to love you by Kevin Knowles & The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2022
Check out Joe Lycett: Summer Exhibitionist 2022
Viewing: My Life as a Rolling Stone (4-Part Documentary on BBC)
Tasting: Ryan Wildstar’s Metaxa Sidecar
In an empty shaker:
Put in 2 large orange wedges (I like blood oranges but any oranges will do)
Add 3 large lemon wedges
Add a dash of simple syrup (two parts sugar, one part water, bring to a boil, cool and chill over night)
Add a scoop of ice and muddle the hell out of it!
Add more ice and then:
3 ounces of Cointreau (or triple sec if you're on a budget)
Then 5 ounces of Metaxa brandy or Cognac (or cheap-ass brandy if you're on a budget or your guests aren't particularly interesting)
Then, shake shake shake, shake your booty et voilà! Strain it into a couple of brown-sugar-rimmed martini glasses (or sugarless if you are counting calories) and imbibe while listening to our Suddenly Last Summer playlist.
Ryan Elston’s Recommendations:
Reading: To the Lake: A Balkan Journey of War and Peace by Kapka Kassabova
“The last time I saw my Great-uncle Slavejko, in the last year of the twentieth century, we sat in their apartment and while his wife served Bosnian pastry, Greek olives, Macedonian tomatoes and Bulgarian wine, he said to me: ‘Your grandmother Anastassia was an idealist. She remained a Bulgaroman. Just like our parents. But they were wrong. We are of pure Macedonian pedigree, an ancient race.’
‘Well, who cares?’ I said, keen not to enter petty disputes over patrimony. ‘We are family, you can’t draw a line like that.’ . . . Uncle was a physicist, but he was interested in history and we both knew that since the Macedonian Empire had ended in the second century BC, a great deal had happened in these lands, a great many peoples had come and gone, been settled, displaced, resettled, purged, renamed, converted, deconverted, reconverted, married and divorced. . . . We sat and ate baklava, although he was diabetic and I was on a diet . . . At least we agreed that baklava was Turkish.” - Kapka Kassabova (from To the Lake: A Balkan Journey of War and Peace)
Listening: Passion Reverence Transcendence (The Music of McCoy Tyner) by Benito Gonzalez
For more about McCoy Tyner, check out “It’s Always Time for Tyner: Atlantis” by Ryan Elston.
Looking: The Art of Emily Carr
To see more paintings by Emily Carr, check out “Three Pacific Northwest Pagan Reveries” by Ryan Elston.
Viewing: Queen Sugar: A Celebration Special & Queen Sugar: Seasons 1-7 (OWN)
Tasting: Street Food: USA (Netflix)
That’s it for this week! What are your reading, listening, looking, viewing and/or tasting recommendations?
Aesthetic Arrest Podcast: Gimme Shelter, Queen Sugar, Street Food & A Sidecar