“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: Changing Planes by Ursula K. Le Guin
“Airplanes are cramped, jammed, hectic, noisy, germy, alarming, and boring, and they serve unusually nasty food at utterly unreasonable intervals. Airports, though larger, share the crowding, vile air, noise, and relentless tension, while their food is often even nastier, consisting entirely of fried lumps of something; and the places one has to eat it in are suicidally depressing. On the airplane, everyone is locked into a seat with a belt and can move only during very short periods when they are allowed to stand in line waiting to empty their bladders until, just before they reach the toilet cubicle, a nagging loudspeaker harries them back to belted immobility.” — Ursula K. Le Guin, from Changing Planes
Listening: How do You Feel by Ofege
Looking: Photos of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope & Juno Spacecraft Orbit of Jupiter:
Webb Space Telescope Images:
Juno Spacecraft Images of Jupiter:
Viewing: Woman in Motion: Nichelle Nichols, Star Trek and the Remaking of NASA [in honor of Nichelle Nichols (December 28th, 1932 - July 30th, 2022)]
Tasting: ‘Nduja Pizza at Matto Napoletano in Skopje, Macedonia
Ryan Elston’s Recommendations:
Reading: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
“How does one hate a country, or love one? Tibe talks about it; I lack the trick of it. I know people, I know towns, farms, hills and rivers and rocks, I know how the sun at sunset in autumn falls on the side of a certain plowland in the hills; but what is the sense of giving a boundary to all that, of giving it a name and ceasing to love where the name ceases to apply? What is love of one's country; is it hate of one's uncountry? Then it's not a good thing. Is it simply self-love? That's a good thing, but one mustn't make a virtue of it, or a profession... Insofar as I love life, I love the hills of the Domain of Estre, but that sort of love does not have a boundary-line of hate. And beyond that, I am ignorant, I hope.” — Ursula K. Le Guin, from The Left Hand of Darkness
Listening: Could We Be More by Kokoroko
Looking: The Art of Rotimi Fani-Kayode
Rotimi Fani-Kayode at Hales Gallery
Rotimi Fani-Kayode at the Guggenheim Foundation
Race, Sexuality, Spirituality and the Self: The Photography of Rotimi Fani-Kayode
Viewing: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Paramount+)
Tasting: Bokamorra - Haute Couture Pizza & Cocktails (Split, Croatia)
That’s it for this week! What are your reading, listening, looking, viewing and/or tasting recommendations?
Aesthetic Arrest Podcast: Uhura, Ursula K. Le Guin, Nigerian Funk & The Best Balkan Pizza