Tag Archives: aesthetics
Is Beauty for the Birds?
Is Beauty for the Birds? We set up our deck fountain fairly late this summer and — as a result, it seemed – no birds came. For weeks, they just stayed away. This was very disappointing, since we watch them … Continue reading
Posted in absurdism, academe, action, alienation, anthropology, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, beauty, books, chivalry, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, courage, courtship, cultural politics, culture, desire, erotic life, eternity, ethics, faith, fashion, femininity, feminism, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, health, hidden God, hierarchy, history of ideas, idealism, ideality, ideology, idolatry, literature, masculinity, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, ontology, peace, philosophy, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, Renaissance, roles, romance, scientism, secular, sex appeal, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theology, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged aesthetic distance, aesthetics, architectural genius, Art, beauty, beauty as objective, beauty as sacred, beauty as subjective, birdbath, birds congregating, cynicism, deck fountain, disputing over taste, environmental harmony, gossip, groupthink, hopelessness, inwardness, outward form, painting seascapes, pornography, propaganda, propaganda in art, quality and quantity, relativistic sophisticates, Roger Scruton’s “Beauty: A Very Short Introduction”, rudeness, sparrows, suspending disbelief, taste, the eye of the beholder, the qualitative, the quantifiable, the sacred, The Sistine Chapel, The Taj Mahal, ugliness, ugliness in art, water coolers, wrens
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Léo
Léo A few days ago I took a trip to Manhattan, formerly my home town, to visit old friends. One friend was Laurin Raikin, a founder of NYU’s Gallatin Division. We’ve known each other for many years and among the … Continue reading
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, beauty, Biblical God, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jews, Judaism, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, mortality, mysticism, non-violence, ontology, oppression, past and future, peace, philosophy, poetry, political movements, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, relationships, religion, Renaissance, roles, romance, romanticism, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, social conventions, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, suffering, the examined life, the problematic of men, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, twentieth century, victims, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged "Fiddler on the Roof", academic celebration, aesthetics, anonymous gift, anti-clerical, anti-clerical Spaniard, art history, benefactor, books on kabbalah, Brandeis University, Brazilian cafe, Catalan style, Catalonia, celebratory weekend, challah, City of Lights, communal prayer, cosmopolitan, deceptive evil, downtown Manhattan, dream of one's death, epic story, evil doers, existential choice, expensive concert, Fine art, foster father, free thinker, Friday night candles, godfather/godchild, Gruenewald "Crucifixion", handsome youth, Henri Bergson, Henri Foçillon, Jewish mysticism, last rites, Laurin Raikin, leading revolutionary, Leo Bronstein's Kabbalah and Art, Leon Trotsky, leukemia, Lower Manhattan, male friendship, Manhattan, meaningful mystery, meaningful story, men friends, moral rank, mortal illness, motorcycle accident, mystery, Narcis Serradel I Pascual, New York Public Library, nom de guerre, nonjudgmental, NYU Gallatin Division, objectivity, old Jew, Paris in the '20s, Paris in the '30s, philosophy, philosophy of art, poor Jews, precognitive dream, professors of the Sorbonne, Russian revolution, sabbath wine, seductive evil, Shabbos, shtibl, spontaneous remission, students at Brandeis, tenderness, the Sabbath, true story, undeceived, unhappy love affair, University of Paris, unseduced
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Nostalgia and Yearning
Nostalgia and Yearning For most of my life, I’ve lived under a low-hanging cloud of yearning. The Germans call it Sehnsucht. It’s romantic longing for a fog-enshrouded, mystery-enfolded, beckoning future. It’s the kind of longing depicted in the movie, “Wuthering … Continue reading
Posted in action, afterlife, alienation, anthropology, art, art of living, autonomy, beauty, Bible, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, faith, fashion, femininity, feminism, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, guilt and innocence, health, heroes, hidden God, history, history of ideas, idealism, ideality, identity, idolatry, immortality, institutional power, Jews, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, medieval, memoir, memory, mind control, modernism, mortality, mysticism, nineteenth-century, non-violence, ontology, oppression, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, power, propaganda, psychology, public intellectual, reductionism, relationships, religion, Renaissance, roles, romanticism, seduction, sex appeal, sexuality, social conventions, sociobiology, spirituality, suffering, terror, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, theism, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged acceptance, aestheticism, aesthetics, alchemy, ancient Egypt, ancient Israel, Anya Seton, Anya's Seton's Green Darkness, art as a cultural marker, beautiful art, being centered, belonging, bodice busters, Carnegie Museum, creativity, curators, curators' fads, daydreams, doomed lovers, Egyptian mummies, Egyptian tombs, Egyptian wall paintings, El Al flight, Emily Brontë, Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, equilibrium, estrangement, Fine art, Germany in the 1930s, girlhood, girlhood fancies, Goethe, Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther, gothic romance, Hollywood films, Holocaust, home sickness, homecoming, hypnotic regression, idealization, idealized future, idealized past, imagination, Lawrence Olivier, life balance, living in the now, Merle Oberon, Metropolitan Museum, modern Israel, museum goers, Native American art, Nazi period, nostalgia, Old Hollywood films, ordinary life, past life regressions, Peace, place in history, present world, projection, recognition, reincarnation, relics, repetition, retrospection, return, reunion, romantic suicide, Sehnsucht, Shoah, star-crossed lovers, stately homes, Stefan Zweig's "The World of Yesterday", suicide cult, the moors, The Romantic Movement, Thomas Mann's Joseph and His Brothers, time travel, Tudor times, Turner Classics, typee, world of tomorrow, yearning
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