The Alpha-Flaneur

[Gruto]

Style is eminently phenomenological

Agree!!

Yes, in that sense that style happens as you experience the outer world. Your move is your style. Like a soccer player you react to what is going trying to make the best of it. You depend on the play, yet you also create it. Style is fluid and dynamic, never static. That's the phenomenological perspective.

[Costi]

I wonder, do any of you use some little memento mori in your lives? I considered it from time to time, something to keep the mind from drifting, but I always felt too squeamish to, you know, place a skull on my desk

So you prefer Guercino to Poussin...
The skull may be just too visual, but you could replace it with Hamlet's famous six-word line. He chose "to be" and I am also happy to be in Arcadia while it lasts. Happy I was born alive. Art, who is not absent from Poussin's composition, is there to remind us how we can transcend mortality, rather than live with its scythe above our necks.

[Costi]

The best part of having this discussion in the confines a BBS is we don't have to prattle on about it in real life: in real life, we can just open our eyes, and be.

Oh, yes!

[Costi]

Style is eminently phenomenological

Agree!!

Yes, in that sense that style happens as you experience the outer world. Your move is your style. Like a soccer player you react to what is going trying to make the best of it. You depend on the play, yet you also create it. Style is fluid and dynamic, never static. That's the phenomenological perspective.

There we go again!
I meant it in the sense that you cannot experience someone else's Style except in direct contact, in real life, not in a photograph, not even in a movie. In THIS sense phenomenological - you have to experience it: erleben.

[Arky]

So you prefer Guercino to Poussin...
The skull may be just too visual, but you could replace it with Hamlet's famous six-word line. He chose "to be" and I am also happy to be in Arcadia while it lasts. Happy I was born alive. Art, who is not absent from Poussin's composition, is there to remind us how we can transcend mortality, rather than live with its scythe above our necks.

The thought of one led me to the other. This is a beautiful remark you made. The former looks back, the latter forward.
You are right, pregnant metaphor is oppressive: but the memory (mine at least) is brittle, and sometimes the old car needs a jumpstart to remember not to squander time but to have fun, fun, fun.

Speaking of which, to return to the original thread title -- I think the flaneur represents several stages of evolution before the person becomes pickled and turns into a "dandy," which is almost always a pejorative. I feel entirely positively about the flaneur inasmuch as he represents a bon vivant which, I think, is the point of all we've been talking about: to live well.

[Rowly]

: lack of Style is a dysfunction. The natural state is to have it and manifest it. We are so good at blocking it... And we get better every day. Some by ignoring, some by overintellectualizing.

Leonardo da Vinci “Intellectual passion drives out sensuality.”

Style is eminently phenomenological: it has to be lived, experienced. It won't let itself explained.

Leonardo da Vinci “Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.”

Style is a live experience, it cannot be recorded. (Perhaps that's why I like theatre and don't watch movies much lately... not to speak of recorded music! But sometimes photo albums can be nice, even though they can never replace the actual experience.)

I thought I had no more to say...but I have to agree with all of this...right down to the photos. Mine are mostly in black and white. I have been saving a nice cigar for when the mood of satisfaction justifies it...so thanks to your good selves, I am now going to enjoy a smoke. Have a great weekend, and thanks!

[Costi]

Enjoy, and thank you

[Arky]

Best wishes, Rowly & co.

[hectorm]

Please, please, I'm enjoying this immensely. Rowly, Costi, Arky, Gruto and other LL art and style philosophers, please don't let it die.

[Costi]

Hectorm, but it did not die, it resolved - as in music. I was going to remark how naturally we agreed on the essential and how peace descended blissfully upon us tonight. That is a moment to cherish and enjoy - with a cigar, a drink or just lying on your back and watching the stars, as I did (it can be a lot more intoxicating!). You can watch the sunset tonight, if your day is not over yet, and join us:

Deine Zauber binden wieder was die Mode streng geteilt
alle Maenschen werden Brüder wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt

But there is no need for words and voices, right? It is already here that the concord is reached:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70dYvHGY9iw

en-Joy!

[hectorm]

Freunde......I oblige.

[Costi]

O Freunde, nicht diese Toene!


Gruto, I have been thinking… The relationship (and the difference) between what I call Style and what you call Style is that between electricity and magnetism. I agree that the MANIFESTATION of Style is fluid, dynamic, interpersonal, it takes place in the world. But that is the magnetism, an effect. If one sits still and does nothing, Style does not manifest, it is dormant. As soon as the current flows, magnetism is generated and that puts the existence of Style into evidence. However, that electricity (and the magnetism it generates) can be so weak that it is undetectable. Having Style is being able to generate a strong current. What makes the current flow strong and steady? It’s not the world, it’s all on the inside – the life of the spirit. What is interesting to study and understand is that current – its magnetic manifestation simply follows, nothing mysterious about that.
The phenomenon, which is the object of the phenomenological experience, is the magnetism. We cannot experience someone else’s Style directly, but only through its effects. In that sense, what you call “Style” when you perceive it in someone else (by means of its effects) is in you, the observer, rather than in the person to whom you attribute it. YOU experience Style, while the current generator may not even be aware of it.
But if we want to work on our Style quotient, we can only work on the current, on its intensity, on its steadiness – the magnetism cannot be influenced directly however hard we try. It is not “in the world” that we can do this, just the way we cannot make waves on a still lake unless we stir it somehow.
Magnetism may be interesting to study for the observer, so he may understand how he apprehends it, how it works on him – this study, however, will not lead him to understand what Style is. What is interesting and mysterious is the generation of current, the inner wiring, the source of electricity.

[Arky]

Current/magnetism

This explains why, when I pursue my own interests and personal expression without concern for outcomes, armies of babes seem to come out of the woodwork, to my surprise and delight. When I try to reverse-engineer that magnetism and focus too deliberately on it, the she-wolves retreat.

Please, please, I'm enjoying this immensely.

Don't worry, there is more in the pipeline for other threads

[Gruto]

O Freunde, nicht diese Toene!


Gruto, I have been thinking… The relationship (and the difference) between what I call Style and what you call Style is that between electricity and magnetism. I agree that the MANIFESTATION of Style is fluid, dynamic, interpersonal, it takes place in the world. But that is the magnetism, an effect. If one sits still and does nothing, Style does not manifest, it is dormant. As soon as the current flows, magnetism is generated and that puts the existence of Style into evidence. However, that electricity (and the magnetism it generates) can be so weak that it is undetectable. Having Style is being able to generate a strong current. What makes the current flow strong and steady? It’s not the world, it’s all on the inside – the life of the spirit. What is interesting to study and understand is that current – its magnetic manifestation simply follows, nothing mysterious about that.
The phenomenon, which is the object of the phenomenological experience, is the magnetism. We cannot experience someone else’s Style directly, but only through its effects. In that sense, what you call “Style” when you perceive it in someone else (by means of its effects) is in you, the observer, rather than in the person to whom you attribute it. YOU experience Style, while the current generator may not even be aware of it.

But if we want to work on our Style quotient, we can only work on the current, on its intensity, on its steadiness – the magnetism cannot be influenced directly however hard we try. It is not “in the world” that we can do this, just the way we cannot make waves on a still lake unless we stir it somehow.
Magnetism may be interesting to study for the observer, so he may understand how he apprehends it, how it works on him – this study, however, will not lead him to understand what Style is. What is interesting and mysterious is the generation of current, the inner wiring, the source of electricity.

Well put. I also see it as a difference between essentialism or relationalism. In regards to style, I think that relationalism brings us much further an understanding of the style art or skill. Essentialism is better suited for discovering the meaning of life and all that

[Costi]

Well put.

Thank you, Gruto.

I also see it as a difference between essentialism or relationalism. In regards to style, I think that relationalism brings us much further an understanding of the style art or skill.

Further or farther?...
(see Arky's comment on reverse-engineering)
essentialism in relationalism, perhaps

Essentialism is better suited for discovering the meaning of life and all that

"All that" is what really matters, right?