“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: Our Lady of Babylon by John Rechy
Listening: My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross by ANOHNI and the Johnsons
Looking: The Art of Edmonia Lewis (also known as “Wildfire”)
Viewing: Wham! documentary directed by Chris Smith (Netflix)
Tasting: Ryan Wildstar’s Cherry Clafoutis
Ryan Elston’s Recommendations:
Reading: Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins (born July 22, 1932)
“On her small canvas, she recreated a section of the Crazy Mountains, the range near Livingston that they had admired earlier that day; that is to say, she recreated the mountains not as she had originally seen them but as she eventually chose to see them, for a person has not only perceptions but a will to perceive, not only a capacity to observe the world but a capacity to alter his or her observation of it—which, in the end, is the capacity to alter the world, itself. Those people who recognize that imagination is reality’s master, we call ‘sages,’ and those who act upon it, we call ‘artists.’” — from Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins
Listening: 109 Ans de Piano [109 Years of Piano] by Colette Maze (The oldest recording pianist in the world!)
Looking: The Art of Yinka Shonibare
[Note: Most Instagram images below are severely truncated or cropped. Click on the images to view the artworks at full size. Be sure to click on the actual image itself or you may get an error.]
Official Site of Yinka Shonibare / Instagram / Works for Sale (via Artsy)
Inside the powerful new art initiative spearheaded by Yinka Shonibare (via Harper's Bazaar)
Viewing: Taylor Mac's 24-Decade History of Popular Music created by & starring Taylor Mac, costumes designed by Machine Dazzle, makeup by Anastasia Durasova, directed by Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman (HBO & HBO Max)
‘America Is Queer’ and Drag Icon Taylor Mac Is Preaching the Gospel (via Rolling Stone)
Celebrating the history of American music in 24 Hours (via NPR)
Tasting: Kouign-amann from Pâtisserie Mélilot in Paris, France
That’s it for this week! But we want the dinner party to continue! So each week we are asking a “dinner party” question for everyone joining us here at our table. Last week, we asked: “What's one of YOUR favorite cities in the world?” Here are some of the great responses from the comments:
Ryan & Ryan chose Montreal!
Del Mar chose Tokyo!
kde chose Zagreb!
Andrea Engstrom chose London!
Cheryl chose Lisbon!
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:
Both of our reading choices this week included a character based on Salome. We looked at art portraying Cleopatra and Medusa. And John Rechy's Our Lady of Babylon gives us a different perspective on Eve, Helen of Troy, Mary Magdalene, Medea and other notorious women. There's always at least two sides to every story.
So, our question for the table this week is:
Who's one of YOUR favorite misunderstood women from history, myth or literature?
Tell us your choice in the comments and we’ll share some of your responses on next week’s podcast! And thank you for joining us for Season Two of Aesthetic Arrest!
Cheers to that!
Aesthetic Arrest Podcast: Wham!, ANOHNI, Tom Robbins, Taylor Mac & French Desserts!