Ode on a Grecian Urn

Thou still unravished bride of quietness,
Thou foster child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loath?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared,
Pipe to the spirit dities of no tone.
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal---yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss
Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unweari-ed,
Forever piping songs forever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
Forever warm and still to be enjoyed,
Forever panting, and forever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands dressed?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity. Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty"---that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

-John Keats, 1820

What can blue, green and brown do for you?

image credit united parcel service of america, incorporated

Beautiful People by Melanie Safka

Beautiful people
You live in the same world as I do
But somehow I never noticed you before today
I'm ashamed to say

Beautiful people
We share the same back door and it isn't right
We never met before but then
We may never meet again

If I weren't afraid you'd laugh at me
I would run and take all your hands and

I'd gather everyone together for a day
And when we gather'd
I'll pass buttons out that say: Beautiful People

Then you'd never be alone
'Cause there'll always be someone
With the same button on as you
Include him in everything you do.

Beautiful people
You ride the same subway as I do ev'ry morning
That's got to tell you something

We got so much in common
I go the same direction that you do
So if you take care of me
Maybe I'll take care of you

Beautiful people
You look like friends of mine
And it's about time
That someone said it here and now
I make a vow that some time, somehow
I'll have a meeting
Invite ev'ryone you know
I'll pass out buttons for
The ones who come to show

Beautiful people
You never have to be alone
'Cause there'll always be someone
With the same button on as you
Include him in ev'rything you do

He may be sitting right next to you
He may be beautiful people too

And if you take care of him
Well maybe he'll take care of you


'Cause all of the beautiful people do
And I'm a beautiful people too....

Beautiful People, words and music copyright Melanie Safka

Brave enough to accompany the beautiful

J. Ruth Gendler's astute and loving observations of our human condition are packed tight into The Book of Qualities. She brings forth a world where Beauty, Blame, Sensuality, Complacency, Guilt, Power and many, many others are neighbors, relatives, friends and enemies. Each of the 74 qualities she describes has its own personality traits--some of which you may expect, many you may not, yet few you will dispute. She is a wise woman with a weird and essential vision of who and how we are.

Beauty is startling. She wears a gold shawl in the summer and sells seven kinds of honey at the flea market. She is young and old at once, my daughter and my grandmother. In school she excelled in mathematics and poetry. Beauty doesn't anger easily, but she was annoyed with the journalist who kept asking her about her favorites--as if she could have one favorite color or one favorite flower. She does not usually mind questions though, and she is especially fond of riddles. Beauty will dance with anyone who is brave enough to ask her.*

The play of "young and old at once," "mathematics and poetry" and irriation over chosing favorities sent a flash of recognition through me. Still, I wasn't convinced of Gendler's vision here until "Beauty will dance with anyone who is brave enough to ask her." This is true, and I know it from both sides: the stunned and the stunning.

So often, we feel we won't measure up to our visions of greatness, of beauty, of integrity. When we shy away from them, safe, small, lame and ashamed we leave the greatness unattended and lonely.

Consider this in the most literal sense: there are babes aplenty too hot to talk to and few among us who can get beyond that and engage them. Everyone needs love and attention. Even the very, very, very attractive. People're always asking how Regular Joes end up with the knockouts they do. It may be money, it may be power, but those attributes are hollow without confidence and courage at their source.

Consider too, that sometimes it isn't just that we are now too little and lame, but that we don't even believe we should build ourselves into the greatness we can imagine.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. **

Liberate yourself. Liberate the others. Talk to all the 10s you can. Get right up close to the Sun, Apollo. Your blaze of glory is waiting.



*J. Ruth GendlerThe Book of Qualities. Turquoise Mountain Publications, 1984 (pg. 27). Thanks Mark!
**Marianne Williamson. A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of a Course in Miracles. Harper Collins, 1992. From Chapter 7, Section 3 (Pg. 190-191).

Eleven years ago...

...I bought this issue of Interview and knew I wasn't alone.

Inside, is a page of arty celebrities describing in a sentence or two what beauty is for them. There is such passion and intimacy in those lines. It was so good to know that people were thinking this way--cataloging what stirs their souls.

Elate: magazine cover

I love when ugly girls get pretty! It is my favorite cinematic cliche of all time. When the librairian's bun comes down! When the makeunder is revealed! When Oprah gets hotter every month! Terriffic.

Remember the Simpons episode when Moe gets to be a soap opera star like he always wanted but then Lindsay Negel says they want TV ugly, not ugly ugly? America Ferrera was clearly never ugly ugly, but this cover is so lush it doesn't matter what her show's about at all. Fantastic. Really.

I love these colors too. Any shade of blue-green with some smoky grey-brown cast is pretty much a perfect photograph for me. Plus gold? Totally.

Enrage: magazine cover

Oh man, I'm not sure why, but this cover is really getting to people. I keep overhearing conversations where the phrase "so obviously photoshopped" is hissed as the issue gets flung back on the rack. Why the rage? It's so photoshopped it's not tricking anyone right? Photoshop's complex digital processes don't leave behind toxins our children and our children's children will inherit, do they?

Maybe celebrities really shouldn't promote anything but their own movies. People always sound like such haters when they say this, but maybe it's true. Like, for instance, what's he scowling about? Is he scowling at me because I am polluting the earth? So is he! Movies are made of plastic, Leo. What movie's he coming out with anyway? He's not just on there for that damn Prius is he? Sigh. And to think how deeply I loved him on Growing Pains.

UPDATE DiCaprio's made a documentary about personal environmental responsibility called The 11th Hour, and is showing it at the Cannes Film Festival in France. 20MAY07

What is this thing called now?

Something's up: everything's hot off some presse, lovingly designed with art-deco-throw-back flair. The band names are from dreams of owl machines and everyone's drawing again. Perhaps the common thread is digital zeitgeist backlash: the power for hyperrealism has ceased to thrill the artistic and productive among us, and they've looked to the other end of the spectrum for inspiration.

Though Chris Ware's untouchable in this regard, I'm seeing a lot from the McSweeny's franchise as well. The covers of Wholphin, The Believer and their periodical anthologies are straight graphic nostalgia. They publish so much that I assume any new book I see with that look is theirs. (The cover of Dead Beat was designed by Milan Bozic, a contemporary designer who has nothing at all to do with McSweeny's. Astonishing.) What is this graphic trait called? McSweeny's-y is losing its appeal.

Labeled or labeless, I like what the trend implies:

With computers these days, we can do whatever we want whenever we want and for cheap. Remember when design was slow and expensive and our accomplishments felt momentous and important? Let's make it look like that again. That felt really good. Also there was more stuff everywhere, and stuff's not so bad. Clean design's had its fun—bring on the clutter!

Graphically, we can make anything look like anything we want, so, instead, we daydream about the aesthetic of yesteryear and create it with today's cool tools.

On Repeat: The Lamentable Power of the Gluttonous Loner

My name is Varsity Aesthete, and I repeat music. Repeatedly.

Years ago, when it finally became possible for me, I often enjoyed my music this way. Soundly out of the cassette ghetto, I was awash in the luxury of "repeat all" and "repeat one" - loving the songs more and more each time they played - and as ungrateful and dismissive of this power as the most blissfully spoiled child.

It wasn't until college that I began to push "repeat" with any twinge of anything, and even then it really wasn't much at all. After years of free time alone, I was suddenly 24-hour slumber-partying with all the other freshmen. We'd pile into eachothers' rooms soaking up the social, and it was terrific.

One night, I got to my room and found a bunch of my friends inside chatting - in silence. When I asked what'd happened to the music I'd left on, a pitying glance or two flickered amongst their faces. Finally, very calmly and with a bit of some pointed emotion, I was told that they'd turned it off because I "left it on repeat".

That "left it on repeat" was so loaded for me. The public/private protection was gone and I was out there exposed: naked and gluttonous.

It's only in the past few days as I've been trying to defend this quirk that I've gotten so far in understanding what may be wrong with it. Maybe what's wrong is that it's gross. Gross like eating the large all by yourself in your room alone is gross. You don't want company, it's all for you and no one else needs to know about it. Gross. It's also so bratty. So only child. Christ. What could be more the-world-is-my-oyster-and-always-has-been, oh-when-did-you-get-here? Yikes.

The troubling momentum of self-recrimination has sent me off the deep end here. This post has taken on a guilt-ridden, confessional life of its own. I am beat, I am sad, and I haven't even covered the aesthetic concerns at all.

In Six Names of Beauty, Crispin Sartwell investigates, among many other qualities, the aspect of beauty that comes from rareness, scarcity and innocence.

"My son Sam, now eleven, once crawled across a field at my mother's house toward a huge full moon on the horizon, trying to put it in his mouth. I myself saw the moon differently that night, and am now capable in a pinch of seeing it that way again. But it is a sad and necessary truth about people that the things we experience often become commonplace, that the green on the tree behind the house can no longer be for us a cause of rejoicing unless we receive with it a refreshment of experience in general. We cannot always achieve such a refreshment, and the dullness of the world emerges from our own dullness, from the bluntness of our desires and the and the surfeit of sensation in the course of a life."

Without meaning to, I am perhaps stripping my favorites of their appeal by indulging my desire to enjoy them over and over and over again. There is so much more to say about this, but I am exhausted and more than a little bummed out by this revelation.

Some other time, okay?

The French, Part One

Is it just me, or do the French have the grandeur and glory aesthetic on lock? Honestly, this rendering of their new concert hall, Philharmonie de Paris is alarming in its beauty. What must it be like to live in Paris (eww...I can't believe I just said that. I thought only a certain kind of person breathlessly dreamed of a Parisian life...and frankly I did not think I was one. Ah well. C'est la vie!) surrouned by large stone palaces, grand avenues and women whose blood is couture?

Joan Collins

"The problem with beauty is that it's like being born rich and getting poorer."