It is the fragrant lack of practicality that makes high-heeled shoes so fascinating: in terms of static mechanics they induce a so...rt of insecurity which some find titillating. If a woman wears a high-heeled shoe it changes the apparent musculature of the leg so that you get an effect of twanging sinew, of tension needing to be released. Her bottom sticks out like an offering. At the same time, the lofty perch is an expression of vulnerability, she is effectively hobbled and unable to escape. There is something arousing about this declaration that she is prepared to sacrifice function for form.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Human visual perception is a far more complex and selective process than that by which a film records. Nevertheless the camera len...s and the eye both register images--because of their sensitivity to light--at great speed and in the face of an immediate event. What the camera does, however, and what the eye in itself can never do is to fix the appearance of that event. It removes its appearance from the flow of appearances and it preserves it, not perhaps forever but for as long as the film exists. The essential character of this preservation is not dependent upon the image being static; unedited film rushes preserve in essentially the same way. The camera saves a set of appearances from the otherwise inevitable supercession of further appearances. It holds them unchanging. And before the invention of the camera nothing could do this, except, in the mind's eye, the faculty of memory.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The human body is not a thing or substance, given, but a continuous creation. The human body is an energy system ... which is neve...r a complete structure; never static; is in perpetual inner self-construction and self-destruction; we destroy in order to make it new.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The discovery is, of course, that "man" and "woman" are fictions, caricatures, cultural constructs. As models they are reductive, ...totalitarian, inappropriate to human becoming. As roles they are static, demeaning to the female, dead-ended for males and females both. Culture as we know it legislates those fictive roles as normalcy. Deviations from sanctioned, sacred behavior are "gender disorders," "criminality," as well as "sick," "disgusting," and "immoral."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Isn't Hollywood a dump--in the human sense of the word. A hideous town, pointed up by the insulting gardens of its rich, full of t...he human spirit at a new low of debasement.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Mrs. Van Daan's grizzling is absolutely unbearable; now she can't any longer drive us crazy over the invasion, she nags us the who...le day long about the bad weather. It really would be nice to dump her in a bucket of cold water and put her up in the loft.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
"... It's a day's work To empty one house of all household goods... And fill another with 'em fifteen miles away, Although you do no more than dump them down."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The dangers of mass culture are much easier to define than the ideals. The foremost one, which may negate all the ideals, is an ov...erpowering narcotic effect, relaxing the tired mind and tranquilizing the anxious. Genuine art is demanding and difficult, often unpleasant, nagging at the mind and stretching the nerves taut. So much of mass culture envelops the audience in a warm bath, making no demands except that we all glow with pleasure and comfort. It is this that may negate the range of possibility (the bath is warmer at the shallow end), keep taste static or even deteriorate it a little, muffle the few critical and ironic sounds being made. That premature cultural critic Homer knew all about this effect, at various times calling it Lotus Eaters, Calypso, Circe, and the Sirens, and he just barely got our hero through intact.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Latin America can no longer tolerate being a haven for United States liberals who cannot make their point at home, an outlet for a...postles too "apostolic" to find their vocation as competent professionals within their own community. The hardware salesman threatens to dump second-rate imitations of parishes, schools and catechisms--out-moded even in the United States--all around the continent. The traveling escapist threatens further to confuse a foreign world with his superficial protests, which are not viable even at home.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »