Contained intoxication?

Stendhal on the balancing act of intoxication and restraint in love:

The whole art of loving seems to me, in a nutshell, to consist in saying precisely what the degree of intoxication requires at any given moment.

And as Belknap interprets:

If the lover is truly in love, he will be bursting to ask, bursting to tell, bursting to know and to make known. But he must always be patient, always willing to bide his time, to keep his sweet sentiments and his ardent gestures to himself until the time for them arrives. And though the beloved may waver in her affection, the lover cannot let his faith be shaken. The love affair as a whole contains moments of distance and moments of closeness; the lover must always adapt, stay ready, and roll with the punches.

I'll excuse the exclusive use of the masculine third person...

I am Human

enjoying an ice cream on a hot (at least for Edmonton) summer's day. love the contrast between her and the ad behind.

New camera!

Got a new camera from a dear friend and absolutely superb photographer (The Big Durian). Ecstatic about it!

Summer time and the living is easy...

our neighbours are in Germany - someone has to eat these!

Oh yeah, show me those outer ankle bones

May not look like much, but this was a scandalous work of art back in the day (1330 BC)

- a wife the same size and colouring (not paler) as her husband
- inside AND outside of feet shown (a direct disobedience of the strictly religious style that reigned in Egypt for 3000 yrs prior)
- the loose, unkingly posture of Tutankhamun (belly-out!), affectionate, PDAing wife and racy eye-gazing between the lovers (somewhat difficult to see in this replica)

Gender equality, heresy, and PDA. Way ahead of their time!

The Dark Side of NYC

Sorry to get all angry Adbusters up in here, but this ad, on Varick and Spring, straight-up annoys me:

What a terrible tagline to promote a terrible business operation that predicates off a terrible lifestyle!

The shop-obsessive culture in the city is a shame, but things like hand-painted pianos scattered through-out public city parks more than make up for the umpteen American Apparels.

Dogmatic follow-up

Tyler Cowen on a quota for dogmatism.
Tyler, you're kidding right? But, because it's fun to play along, my innocuous absurd views are: the importance of 8hrs of uninterrupted sleep (timer resets with bathroom wake-ups), sleeping with your head-toe facing West-East, a daily dose of almonds and perhaps not so innocuous, biases against religion (except if you have an addiction or are overcoming a terribly traumatic experience).

What are your absurd views? We all have them!