“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: New Collected Poems by Marianne Moore (edited by Heather Cass White)
Poetry
by Marianne Moore
I too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle.
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers that there is in
it after all, a place for the genuine.
Hands that can grasp, eyes
that can dilate, hair that can rise
if it must, these things are important not because a
high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because they are
useful; when they become so derivative as to become unintelligible, the
same thing may be said for all of us—that we
do not admire what
we cannot understand. The bat,
holding on upside down or in quest of something to
eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless wolf under
a tree, the immovable critic twinkling his skin like a horse that feels a flea, the base—
ball fan, the statistician—case after case
could be cited did
one wish it; nor is it valid
to discriminate against “business documents and
school-books”; all these phenomena are important. One must make a distinction
however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the result is not poetry,
nor till the autocrats among us can be
“literalists of
the imagination”—above
insolence and triviality and can present
for inspection, imaginary gardens with real toads in them, shall we have
it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand, in defiance of their opinion—
the raw material of poetry in
all its rawness, and
that which is on the other hand,
genuine, then you are interested in poetry.Listening: Being by Baaba Maal
Looking: The Art of William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825 - 1905)
Viewing: Rain Dogs — created & written by Cash Carraway, starring Daisy May Cooper, Jack Farthing, Ronkẹ Adékoluẹjo and Fleur Tashjian (HBO & BBC)
Cash Carraway on Rain Dogs: ‘We always see working-class stories through a middle-class gaze’
Tasting: Searching for Mexican Food in Europe!
Click here for Ryan Wildstar’s recipe for Grandma Luisa’s Gucamole!
Ryan Elston’s Recommendations:
Reading: Everything Comes Next: Collected and New Poems by Naomi Shihab Nye
Listening: Playing The Piano 12122020 by Ryuichi Sakamoto (January 17, 1952 – March 28, 2023)
Official Site of Ryuichi Sakamoto: Playing the Piano 2022
Looking: The Art of Wim Heldens
Viewing: My Name is Mo'Nique — stand-up comedy special by Mo'Nique (Netflix)
‘My Name Is Mo'Nique’ Is A Ray Of Hope For Other Undervalued Black Women (via Essence)
Tasting: Eva Longoria: Searching for Mexico — starring Eva Longoria (CNN)
All the restaurants Eva Longoria visits in ‘Searching for Mexico’
That’s it for this week! But we want the dinner party to continue! So each week we’re now asking a “dinner party” question for everyone joining us here at our table. Last week we asked: “What was the last good movie YOU saw?” Here are some of the great responses from the comments, including quite a few classic films:
Brenda Bryson recommended For Roseanna (from 1997) [also known as Roseanna's Grave]
Del Mar recommended The Silent Partner (from 1978)
kde recommended Slaughterhouse-Five (from 1972)
Christina recommended Carnival of Souls (from 1962)
Andrea Engstrom recommended Emily the Criminal (2022)
Katie Kleinhesselink recommended The Fabelmans (2022)
Thank you everyone for your wonderful responses! That was last week . . . but we don't want this week's dinner party to end either!
So here is this week's question for the table:
As we mentioned, April is National Poetry Month! So here's this week's dinner party question for everyone listening right now: Who is one of YOUR favorite poets? Tell us your choice in the comments, and we'll share some of your responses on next week's podcast!
Cheers to that!
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