Areas of Unrest

27 December 1999 - Evil and Decadence in Literature and Life

QOTD: "Reason is, and ought to be, the slave of the passions." - David Hume

Reading: Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World

Listening to: Brazzaville (and yes, I listen to that CD a lot!)

My junior year of college, I took a class titled "Evil and Decadence in Literature." Thus, I have the distinction of being one of a fairly small number of people who read things like de Sade's "Philosophy in the Bedroom" and Mirbeau's "Torture Garden" for credit. I mention this because the Sunday L.A. Times Calendar section had an article about Tod Machover, in which they described a Media Lab gadget that looks like a perfume bottle but that releases music instead of fragrance. I was immediately reminded of Huysman's Against Nature. The main character, in his pursuit of decadent pleasure, creates an organ that sprays perfume in the air and squirts liqueur into the mouth of the player with each note. I figure that could make for some pretty pleasant evenings, indeed.

Speaking of pleasant evenings, last night was another Southern California journaler gathering at Nancy's. I'd met a few of the people there before - Tamar, Mahrya (who has the coolest hair-coloring), and Ri who was, again, accompanied by her fiance, Bill. Other attendees included Amanda and Viv, but the real stars were the out of towners. Dreama was taking advantage of an attempt to serve a subpoena to make the trip from Pittsburgh. Where she has the time to read all the journals she does and manage five children is beyond me. And, then there was Kymm who wasn't quite the giantess I expected. I mean, she is tall, but somehow I'd had this idea that she was about eight feet tall and she's just normal tall. She also managed to write an entry with everybody's URLs so I didn't have to look them all up or beg Nancy, so I will forgive her for calling me "nice." I apparently left far too early, as I am not on vacation. (That's where the evil in life part comes in.) So I didn't meet Rachel and I didn't get to taste Kymm's bread pudding. (I'm perfectly serious about the latter; I love bread pudding.)

I found that most of my conversations fell into one of three categories: 1) journal meta-stuff, 2) travel (surprise, surprise) or 3) my jewelry. In the course of deciding what jewelry to wear, I realized I really need to weed out my jewelry boxes; I have tons of stuff that I can't ever imagine wearing. Some of these things I liked when I got them, but that's long in the past; others fall into the "what was I thinking?" category. I'll probably end up putting a bunch of stuff (not just jewelry) up for sale on e-bay. Some things, however, will just get tossed. If anybody really wants, say, copies of Technology Review from 1986, I refuse to contribute to their hoarding compulsions while trying to cure mine.

Incidentally, to return to the first subject, there are two other things that I remember distinctly from reading Huysman. One was that the hero got bored collecting artificial plants that looked real, so he started collecting real plants that looked artificial. The other was a party he threw that turned out to be a funeral for his virility. I suppose that's better than the only thing I remember about another book we read for that class. The main character in Lautreaumont's Maldoror has sex with a shark. That bit of trivia actually turned up on our final. We had to match characters to books so the professor could verify that we'd really read all of the rather lengthy list. The shark was the character that more students missed than any other.