Sep 19
These models were made between 1810-1830. Biomedical Ephemera says: It’s unknown if these models were intended as a darkly comic “memento mori” sort of novelty, or a teaching aid, or both. The skeletons are accurate enough to have been used to teach students how the articulations line up in the living body, so even as …
Jul 29
Of the vaporization and centralization of the Ego. Everything depends on that. – Charles Baudelaire Modern man is not the man who goes o to discover himself, his secrets and his hidden truth; he is the man who tries to invent himself. – Michel Foucault A 1992 paper by James Mark Shields called Foucault’s Dandy: Constructive Selfhood …
Feb 09
Since m1k3y just declared flâneur to be the word of the week and thinking on that very subject helped inspire me to quit Facebook, I thought I’d share another old essay that, once upon a time, helped define some of the sensibility of this blog. Allow me to introduce, The Data Dandy. The data dandy collects …
Dec 02
The Buddhist meditates on his breath and is thought deep. The dandy meditates on his cufflinks and is thought shallow. From the Samurai Monk, Yamamoto Jocho: Among the maxims on Lord Naoshige’s wall there was this one: “Matters of great concern should be treated lightly.” Master lttei commented, “Matters of small concern should be treated seriously.” From the …
Aug 22
Toronto Life decided that I’m one of the city’s twelve most stylish people. The wife still can’t believe they didn’t go with the pic of me eating tacos in my underwear. I can’t believe they actually got a usable photo. I’m pretty stiff in front of a camera and don’t like being told what to …
May 31
I first heard of Jacques de Bascher when a friend lent me a copy of The Beautiful Fall: Lagerfeld, Saint Laurent, and Glorious Excess in 1970s Paris. I never finished that book. It bored me stupid, actually. But the character of Jacques de Bascher caught my attention. Insofar as being a muse can be called a function, …
Mar 30
A fairly decent short news report on Chappism, which has spread to France. While I don’t consider myself a chap and chaps don’t consider me a chap, I do feel a certain affinity with this group and view them as friendlies. We share many common points. (Both in insurrectionist methodology and style.) I suspect that …
Feb 12
Yesterday, when Mubarak finally resigned, I was at my tailor. Dandyism and revolution have long made strange bedfellows. Eons before the British mocked the American revolutionaries with their song of Yankee Doodle Dandy some of our better dressed people have done much to overthrow the powers that be in politics and culture. If a camera phone is …
Feb 11
I have an appointment with my tailor this morning. Looking forward to it. It’s going to be filmed and I’ll be asked for some of my thoughts on style and whatnot. I’ll tell you more about all that when I know more.
Jan 24
As I child, I’d watch Blue Jays games with Dad. The bat cracked, the ball sent on a line into a gap for a sure double. We’d hold our breath. Devon White loped towards it. Then, somehow, he’s there. Waiting. Never seemed to speed up. Always seemed to jog. But his glove always found the …
"This ultra-sharp, darkly satiric, hyper-speed novel is set in a world where multi-level mega malls serves as city states and everything on the outside lies in ruin. On the lower red levels, gang violence and media saturation and bio-tech designer drugs rule. During the weekend, slummers from the green levels leave their safe lives of jobs and families to partake in risky, sometimes deadly, fun on the red levels. And on every level, TV and advertisements literally penetrate the mind. Death is easy and life cheap, until that life is your own or your beloveds. Extreme stylization, great characters, and a high-level of intensity is maintained throughout. This is a whip-smart, truly violent novel that has at its core a still very human pulsing heart."
May 20, 1990: Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson’s remarkable Kenyon College commencement address on creative integrity.
川流不息 Endless stream by Singer 晴哥 on Flickr.
