#Walter Benjamin
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Suppose you make the acquaintance of a young person who is handsome and attractive, but who seems to be harboring a secret. It would be tactless and reprehensible to try to penetrate this secret and wrest it from him. But it is doubtless permissible to inquire whether he has any siblings to see whether their nature could not perhaps explain somewhat the enigmatic character of the stranger. This is exactly how the true critic inquires into the siblings of the work of art. And every great work has its sibling (brother or sister?) in the realm of philosophy.
Walter Benjamin, a Theory of Criticism
Riot Girl meets Walter Benjamin
Gayle Wald, a professor of English at George Washington University in Washington, DC, has spent a good part of her career writing and teaching about popular music (including to this magazine’s editor-in-chief and style editor, both GWU alumni). Though the bulk of English courses offered at the university are about literature traditionally defined, Wald stands out with syllabi that pair Billie Holiday biographies with Walter Benjamin essays and Nina Simone albums. Here, she tells us about how her days hosting a women’s-only radio show in the riot grrrl early ’90s led her to see music in a different light, ultimately inspiring an academic career largely dedicated to the power of music.
(Source: thefader.com)
→ Mythology of Blue: 8 Reasons Why I Want to Go Back in Time to Meet Walter Benjamin
Really lovely post.
- “I came into the world under the sign of Saturn — the star of the slowest revolution, the planet of detours and delays.” (Aesthetics and Politics)
- “Work on good prose has three steps: a musical stage when it is composed, an architectonic one when it is built, and a textile one when it…
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I am not exaggerating when I say that to a true collector the acquisition of an old book is its rebirth. This is the childlike element which in a collector mingles with the element of old age. For children can accomplish the renewal of existence in a hundred unfailing ways. Among children, collecting is only one process of renewal; other processes are the painting of objects, the cutting out of figures, the application of decals – the whole range of childlike modes of acquisition, from touching things to giving them names. To renew the old world – that is the collector’s deepest desire when…
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…in tragedy, pagan man becomes aware that he is better than his god, but the realization robs him of speech, remains unspoken.
Walter Benjamin (via poodlecactus) from “Fate and Character” in Walter Benjamin, 1913-1926
(Source: refillsare50cents)
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