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Collection of essays by the French mystic nicknamed âthe categorical imperative in skirtsâ
Let me convince you with this quote: âWe want to get behind the beauty, but it is only a surface. It is like a mirror that reflects to us our own desire for good. It is a sphinx, an enigma, a sorrowfully irritating mystery. We want to feed on it, but it is only an object we can look on; it appears to us from a certain distance. The great sorrow of human life is knowing that to look and to eat are two different operations.â
I WANT TO EAT THE SUNSET I want to HAVE IT that is what is so great and sexy about food, you can eat the gorgeous pastry, you can consume it, it becomes apart of you and sustains you. But a beautiful painting or person or landscape is different - you canât have it. You canât do anything with it. its beauty exists in virtue of its remove from you. true beauty is useless and the fact that I canât have or do anything with the beautiful thing is unbearable.
Let me convince you with this quote: âWe want to get behind the beauty, but it is only a surface. It is like a mirror that reflects to us our own desire for good. It is a sphinx, an enigma, a sorrowfully irritating mystery. We want to feed on it, but it is only an object we can look on; it appears to us from a certain distance. The great sorrow of human life is knowing that to look and to eat are two different operations.â
I WANT TO EAT THE SUNSET I want to HAVE IT that is what is so great and sexy about food, you can eat the gorgeous pastry, you can consume it, it becomes apart of you and sustains you. But a beautiful painting or person or landscape is different - you canât have it. You canât do anything with it. its beauty exists in virtue of its remove from you. true beauty is useless and the fact that I canât have or do anything with the beautiful thing is unbearable.
Jul 20, 2024
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this quote from Jessica DeFino, beauty reporter and more importantly, critic, on the one person from her past that most influenced who she is today (and I really must agree):
"I am going to take the phrase âwho you are todayâ very literally and go with Harry Dean Stanton â specifically, Harry Dean Stanton in conversation with David Lynch; that famous interaction where David Lynch says âHow would you describe yourself?â and Harry Dean Stanton says, âAs nothing. There is no self,â and they laugh.Â
Iâve been thinking a lot about the concept of the self today for an article Iâm writing on beauty as so-called âself-careâ and âself-expression.â I bristle when people use these terms because in order for beauty products to be a tool for self-expression, you first must have a self to express, and I get the overwhelming sense that most people saying this donât know who they are outside of what they buy and apply. Beauty products are more often used to create an image of a self than express an existing self. I donât know. Iâm taking a class on existentialism and Simone de Beauvoir, so that has something to do with it. But the more I think and read about the self, the more Iâm convinced there is no essential self, not in any way that matters, and pursuing solidarity with the collective is a more interesting and liberating project than defining the self anyway? So yeah, today, specifically, I am luxuriating in the nothingness of being with Harry Dean Stanton (and Buddha before him)."
"I am going to take the phrase âwho you are todayâ very literally and go with Harry Dean Stanton â specifically, Harry Dean Stanton in conversation with David Lynch; that famous interaction where David Lynch says âHow would you describe yourself?â and Harry Dean Stanton says, âAs nothing. There is no self,â and they laugh.Â
Iâve been thinking a lot about the concept of the self today for an article Iâm writing on beauty as so-called âself-careâ and âself-expression.â I bristle when people use these terms because in order for beauty products to be a tool for self-expression, you first must have a self to express, and I get the overwhelming sense that most people saying this donât know who they are outside of what they buy and apply. Beauty products are more often used to create an image of a self than express an existing self. I donât know. Iâm taking a class on existentialism and Simone de Beauvoir, so that has something to do with it. But the more I think and read about the self, the more Iâm convinced there is no essential self, not in any way that matters, and pursuing solidarity with the collective is a more interesting and liberating project than defining the self anyway? So yeah, today, specifically, I am luxuriating in the nothingness of being with Harry Dean Stanton (and Buddha before him)."
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"Beauty privilege is very real. None of us are imagining it, and if we arenât born genetic lottery winners, our only option is to compensate with style, grace, and charm. Of course, none of that shit comes cheap. Thatâs kind of the whole point. Itâs all meant to be aspirational and exclusionary. Weâre supposed to feel depressed by our skin, agitated by our bodies, and anxious about our invisibility. Thatâs the insidious subtlety of social control.
The worst part is that we know in our rational minds that itâs all bullshit, and yet weâre still plagued with self-loathing when we canât live up to unattainable beauty standards. No matter how much self-acceptance we achieve, we can still look in the mirror and instantly catalog all the things about ourselves that we donât think measure up. Itâs maddening. It makes us feel like hypocrites even though itâs not our hypocrisy."
â The Coquette, Ugly-Sexy: Cool? | Adult Mag (2014)
The worst part is that we know in our rational minds that itâs all bullshit, and yet weâre still plagued with self-loathing when we canât live up to unattainable beauty standards. No matter how much self-acceptance we achieve, we can still look in the mirror and instantly catalog all the things about ourselves that we donât think measure up. Itâs maddening. It makes us feel like hypocrites even though itâs not our hypocrisy."
â The Coquette, Ugly-Sexy: Cool? | Adult Mag (2014)
Oct 2, 2024
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â(I am boldly applying this paragraph to the experience of consuming Perfectly Imperfect recs)
âOne of the characteristics of taste is that it is infectious. The essence of a mesh is that it is a repeating pattern, and although each repeat may depend for its shape on the operation of outside forces â economic, social, religious, political, climactic and so on â yet those forces can only operate on single individuals. And the particularly sensitive individuals who first respond to them become, themselves, forces that affect the whole surrounding area.â
âOne of the characteristics of taste is that it is infectious. The essence of a mesh is that it is a repeating pattern, and although each repeat may depend for its shape on the operation of outside forces â economic, social, religious, political, climactic and so on â yet those forces can only operate on single individuals. And the particularly sensitive individuals who first respond to them become, themselves, forces that affect the whole surrounding area.â
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