“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. Cheers to that!
Ryan Wildstar’s Recommendations:
Reading: The Tablet of Destinies by Roberto Calasso
Listening: Radical Romantics by Fever Ray
Looking: The Art of Sofía Bassi
Viewing: Wild Isles with David Attenborough
Tasting: Ballokume (Cookies from Elbasan) for Dita e Verës (Albanian Spring Festival and Pagan Holiday)
For an Authentic Ballokume Elbasani Recipe, click here
Ryan Elston’s Recommendations:
Reading: The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony by Roberto Calasso
“We enter the mythical when we enter the realm of risk, and myth is the enchantment we generate in ourselves at such moments. More than a belief, it is a magical bond that tightens around us. It is a spell the soul casts on itself …. In Greece, myth escapes from ritual like a genie from a bottle. Ritual is tied to gesture, and gestures are limited: what else can you do once you’ve burned your offerings, poured your libations, bowed, greased yourself, competed in races, eaten, copulated? But if the stories start to become independent, to develop names and relationships, then one day you realise that they have taken on a life of their own.” — Roberto Calasso, from The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony
Listening: Silkroad Ensemble: Phoenix Rising with Rhiannon Giddens
Official Site of Rhiannon Giddens
Official Site of the Silkroad Ensemble
Looking: The Art of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770)
Click here to see a giant version of Allegory of the Planets and Continents! (via The Met)
Viewing: Unprisoned — created by Tracy McMillan, starring Kerry Washington and Delroy Lindo (Hulu)
Tasting: A Woman's Place: The Inventors, Rumrunners, Lawbreakers, Scientists, and Single Moms Who Changed the World with Food by Deepi Ahluwalia & Stef Ferrari, illustrated by Jessica Olah
Click here for Ryan Wildstar’s delicious recipe for his Classic Greek Tzatziki!
That’s it for this week! What are your reading, listening, looking, viewing and/or tasting recommendations?
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