Category Archives: Jahsonic

Thomas Cook @200

Thomas Cook @200* 

Thomas Cook by you.

Thomas Cook’s guide books contributed to the concept of the armchair traveler.

Many people still prefer the real thing.

So did our protagonist.

She asks:

Félix Vallotton "La Lecture abandonnée" (1924)

“Where are you going?”

He answers:

Probably 1854. Daguerreotype. Photographer unknown probably Gabriel Harrison

“To the Great Exhibition in London. I took your copy of The Stones of Venice , I hope that’s alright?”

“I booked a ticket with Cook

She shouts:

(Melo)dramatic scenes in painting

“Don’t leave me now!” – “Where are you going?”

He answers:

Probably 1854. Daguerreotype. Photographer unknown probably Gabriel Harrison

“To the Exposition Universelle in Paris. I took your copy of Walt Whitman‘s I Sing the Body Electric, I hope that’s alright?”


*Thomas Cook was a British travel agent, born exactly 200 years ago today. He commodified the Grand Tour and invented tourism as we know it today. He gave you a A Room with a View in Tuscany. His guide books contributed to the concept of the armchair traveler.

Daydreamt


Nothing Natural by Jenny Diski

[Amazon.com]
[FR] [DE] [UK]

While reading Jenny Diski‘s Nothing Natural (1986) I daydreamt of publishing my own version of this 1980s version of the classic novel Gordon by Edith Templeton.

The Jahsonic edition had a cover photograph by American photographer Roy Stuart. It depicted either the “La Bonne” (the maid) scene — one of the most erotic scenes in contemporary erotica — or “The Wall” scenario, which is very similar (although with a reversal of gender) to a dream scene in Breillat‘s masterpiece Romance X.

My edition is rewritten to provide for more intelligent discourse and snappier metaphors, and the perspective is changed from Rachel to Joshua. Joshua being the voice of a post-war Sade.

Version 1.0 of Art and Pop

 
Months and Days of the Year
January 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
February 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 (29) (30)
March 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
April 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
May 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
June 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
July 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
August 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
September 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
October 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
November 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
December 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

I’ve finished version 1.0 of my personal note-taking platform Artandpopularculture.com, affectionately known as “Art and Pop”, which I started a year ago. Version 1.0 consisted of adding people and events to each day of the year.

Version 2.0 will be ready in April 2009, it consists of adding the same info (yes, I am seeking this level of self-referentiality) to each year from 1650 until the present day.

There are still some days that need work (in April and May, when I started the wiki), so my apologies for these lacunae. Also, to the individual dates will be added more cultural events such as releases of notable films, first public showings of works of art, releases of musical compositions. Notability criteria are mine, in accordance to the publication biases of the wiki.

The Art and Pop wiki is a continuation of a project I started in 1996: Jahsonic.com, and can be considered as Jahsonic Pro, a who’s who of culture or “culture for smarties”.

According to internet rating service Quantcast, the site reaches approximately 6,816 U.S. monthly unique visitors and is popular among a mostly male, primarily older crowd.

1001 things to do before you die

The mid 2000s saw the process of listmaking coming to the fore with titles such as 1001 Movies (2004), 1001 Paintings (2007), 1001 Books (2006) and 1001 Albums (2006) [you must] see, read and hear [before you die]. I like to think of Jahsonic as an addition and alternative to these lists, with particular attention to what I call a certain ‘cult’ factor. For film I propose 250 films and their directors; for literature 120 books and their writers; and for music a history of dance music and a history of black music, a history of experimental music and their makers. In the visual arts I have fantastic art.

L’abécédaire de Deleuze

L’abécédaire de Gilles Deleuze laced with the back matter of Jahsonic.com:

A as in Animal, B as in ‘Boire’ <Drink>, C as in Culture, D as in Desire, E as in ‘Enfance’ <Childhood>, F as in Fidelity, G as in ‘Gauche’ <Left>, H as in History of Philosophy, I as in Idea, J as in Joy, K as in Kant, L as in Literature, M as in ‘Maladie’ <Illness>, (N as in Neurology, O as in Opera, P as in Professor, Q as in Question, R as in Resistance, S as in Style, T as in Tennis, U as in ‘Un’/One, V as in ‘Voyage’/Trip, W as in Wittgenstein, X,Y as unknown, Z as in Zigzag. —http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~wrankin/deleuzeABC.html

And from the abécédaire itself, some comments by Deleuze on literature, especially his love for Villiers de l’Isle-Adam and Restif de la Bretonne:

Parnet refers to Deleuze’s love for secondary literary authors, like Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, Restif de la Bretonne, asking if he has always cultivated this affection. Here, Deleuze covers his face with one hand as he responds that he finds it truly bizarre to hear Villiers referred to as a secondary author [Deleuze laughs]. If you consider that question… [he pauses, shrugging his shoulders] He says that there is something really shameful, entirely shameful… He recalls that when he was quite young, he liked the idea of reading an author’s work in his entirety, the complete works. As a result, he had great affection not for secondary authors, although his affection sometimes coincided with them, but for authors who had written little. Some works were too enormous, overwhelming for him, like Hugo‘s, such that Deleuze was ready to say the Hugo wasn’t a very good writer. On the other hand, Deleuze knew the works of Paul-Louis Courrier nearly by heart, quite deeply. So Deleuze admits to having this penchant for so-called secondary authors, although Villiers is not a secondary author. Joubert was also an author he knew deeply, and one reason why he knew these authors was for a rather shameful reason, he admits: it had for him a certain prestige to be familiar with authors that were hardly known… But that was a kind of mania, Deleuze concludes, and it took him quite a while to learn just how great Hugo is, and that the size of work was no measure.

And some more comments on Leskov:

Deleuze continues in this vein, agreeing that in so-called secondary literatures… He insists that in Russian literature, for example, it’s not limited to Dostoyevski and Tolstoy, but one cannot call [Nikolai] Leskov secondary as there is so much that is astonishing in Leskov. So these are great geniuses. Deleuze then says that he feels he has little to say on this point, on secondary authors, but what he is happy about is to have tried to find in any unknown author something that might show him a concept or an extraordinary character. But yes, Deleuze says, he has not engaged in any systematic research [in this domain].

But in fact, this whole section on literature is very interesting, we find Deleuze commenting that “ he knows that every great philosopher is a great writer”. This is something I have first heard by W. F. Hermans.

See also video footage here.