exploring the aesthetic obsession

[fahye]

Let me put it differently again: if I tell you, for example, some of the things I find erotic in this world - at random, as they flash into my mind - all you'll be able to visualise at first is an ill-assorted jumble of images, a grab-bag of trivial fetishes: boxes with sliding lids, for example, lipstick (as you may have guessed), crisp airline timetables, secret gardens, Johnny Depp (taken as a whole), Marlene Dietrich singing 'Falling in Love Again', a very slight limp in a man, waiters, frail wrists, Andorra... Now, none of there things is 'it', none of them is the thing-in-itself, none of them is part of the mechanics of sex (for example) - in fact, that's why they're erotic. And if I were to describe a scene in which Johnny Depp, a waiter in an Andorran restaurant, nestling in a walled garden, limping almost imperceptibly, a freshly printed airline timetable in his outstretched hand (slender wrist exposed), as I slid the lid of a camphor-wood box back to reveal a glistening lipstick... Marlene's voice in the background, something about never wanting to... Well, the 'it', whatever it is (and it may not be sex), is in there somewhere, in that jumble of fascinations, but it must be re-experienced, not named, not known. (And it's worth noting, too, that this restaurant scene is no more erotic than a single wrist. Eros is like the speed of light: absolute, impossible to improve upon.)

- Robert Dessaix, from the essay 'Orientalism'

Glory, glory.

Cigarettes, rain on windows, John Cusack's voice, very long skirts of rich heavy material, a jangling multitude of metal bracelets on wrists. Bruises, bare curving waists, ribbons, black lace, beautiful words spoken slowly. Fire, cathedrals, red wine, soaring mirrored buildings, the port de bras in ballet, slim blades and ancient instruments; painted nails plucking at harp strings.

Eros as the subjective case: and you?