History of Snob Taste or Dandy in Age of Mass Culture or A "Sweet" Cynicism

Sunsan Sontag (1933-2004) wrote in 1964 the article Notes on "Camp" (here). Her 58 notes in  sometimes pollarded quotes (bold is added by me):

56. "Camp taste is a kind of love, love for human nature. It relishes, rather than judges."

50. "The history of Camp taste is part of the history of snob taste."  

45. "Camp is the answer to the problem: how to be a dandy in the age of mass culture. One can be serious about the frivolous, frivolous about the serious."

35 and 36. Bosch is camp. Rembrandt is not.

6. "The personality and many of the works of Jean Cocteau are Camp, but not those of André Gide."

8. "[Camp] is the love of the exaggerated, the "off," of things-being-what-they-are-not. The best example is in Art Nouveau, the most typical and fully developed Camp style. Art Nouveau objects, typically, convert one thing into something else: the lighting fixtures in the form of flowering plants, the living room which is really a grotto." 

 

10. "Camp sees everything in quotation marks. It's not a lamp, but a "lamp"; not a woman, but a "woman." To perceive Camp in objects and persons is to understand Being-as-Playing-a-Role. It is the farthest extension, in sensibility, of the metaphor of life as theater."

19. "The pure examples of Camp are unintentional; they are dead serious. The Art Nouveau craftsman who makes a lamp with a snake coiled around it is not kidding, nor is he trying to be charming."

28. "Again, Camp is the attempt to do something extraordinary. But extraordinary in the sense, often, of being special, glamorous."

55. "Camp is generous. It wants to enjoy. It only seems like malice, cynicism. (Or, if it is cynicism, it's not a ruthless but a sweet cynicism.)"

By The Way

How does reading work for you?

I read in the morning for 2 hours if I can and in bed for 1 to 2 hours in the evening. What I read continually changes. My reading list on Monday is not the same by the time I get to Friday. Mostly I read five books at the same time. I can "read" a book for years and finish it after three years. I always finish a book I started reading. Always! Even if it's a bore and not interesting. Why? Because I don't want to get tricked by my self-made presuppositions.

Once again, the strange thing is my to-do reading list changes every week. Better still, every day. Mostly because of what I actually read in another book. Sometimes a smell, a taste, a picture, wind in my face that brings back memories and that makes me wonder "How?", "What?", "When?", "Why?" and another book is "needed" to answer my questions. Another book on top of my to-do reading pile of physical books.

By the way, I think in the present song lyrics have taken over the meaning for "mainstream" cultural life what poems did between the 17th century and the Second World War. Meaning as in: feel alive, feel connected, touching the senses, cause dreams, repeat and ... - there must be more.

 

Great

Heather Covered

I would love to visit the Lake District in North-West England - the port to Scotland - with you. Walk over the flowering heathland of 'Lingmoor fell'. Smell and see the colors of Beatrice Potter's her 'Hill Top Farm'. Drink cider. Have dinner. ... - there must be more ;)

As Sweet As Cherry Pie

Gotta find out ...

P.S. ... - you know.

P.P.S. I am immensely curious for the rediscovery in Kopenhagen of Fernando Colón's (1488–1539) 'Libro de los Epítomes'. It is the final and most comprehensive copy of his project to summarize all the books of his library. His 'Libro de los Epítomes' is an index of 16 books. These 16 books are not complementary to each other (summary 1 to 20,000) but, to put it in an image, parallel and partly overlapping lists of book summaries. The Kopenhagen copy is the most comprehensive index with 3,500 summaries ... only a little over 2,000 did survive - the first and last part are missing.