The Rings of Saturn, Fado, and Araki’s Orchids [November 23]
Recommendations from Me
Claire Denis’s film Beau Travail captures a beautiful and subtle portrait of masculinity, set against the backdrop of a French Foreign Legion outpost in Djibouti.
The Rings of Saturn is W. G. Sebald’s abyss memoir. The descriptions of ship building, rotting mansions, and silk farming are captivating, but it’s not an especially cheerful book.
Nobuyoshi Araki’s portraits of flowers in bloom are striking and sensual.
I am generally unconvinced by Friedrich A. Hayek’s free market prescriptions, but the core claim in his essay The Use of Knowledge in Society is compelling. It argues that most of the knowledge that matters is diffused broadly across all members of a society. To me, this is a refreshing defence of human dignity, and an effective rebuttal to elitism.
Three years ago, I spent two months living in Lisbon. One of the gifts this city gave me was a love of the Fado singer Amalia Rodrigues — fellow admirers of Amalia include queer Portuguese and the Portuguese dictator António de Oliveira Salazar. Her album Fado Português is especially sensuous.
Recommendations from Others
Daniel 2022
'Try different sports until you find one you love. Same with pillows, blogs, relationship styles, etc.’
Nafsika 2022
‘Write secret lovely post-it notes, but also stupid and silly ones. Leave them around your office, the town, and on public transport.’
Michel 2023
‘Take a day off to write cards to lots of friends.’
Matthijs 2023
‘Surprisingly, children are a lot of fun and very grounding, it’s a joy — a new dad'
Vynn 2022
‘Best bodhisattvas: Manjushri, Avalokiteshvara, Amitābha, Sockpuppet bodhisattva.’'
