Existential Feast: 03

Desire, Soups, Tension, and Knees

Think of this as your cultural prix fixe, a multi-course fête of film, music, literature, art, and objects that allows you to fully indulge in all the tasty themes that make up the existential life. Every week we’ll deliver a menu of recommendations that will expand, challenge, frustrate, stimulate, and stir.

Read:

A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments

Roland Barthes, 1978

This book is sexy—but not in an obvious way. It’s about nuance, meaning, pursuit, desire, engulfment, language, pleasure. Barthes knew that consciousness demands an experience of being ravished and it is that experience he tirelessly explores here. (An essay to come on this later!)

Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other.

Another day, in the rain, we’re waiting for the boat at the lake; from happiness, this time, the same outburst of annihilation sweeps through me. This is how it happens sometimes, misery or joy engulfs me, without any particular tumult ensuing; nor pathos: I am dissolved, not dismembered; I fall, I flow, I melt.

Make:

Soup

Particularly this kale soup with potatoes and sausage. There truly is no better night spent than inside, a soup simmering on the stove, eating it solo or sharing with beloveds. Recommend pairing it with a wildly crusty bread and a crisp, dry cider.

Look:

Rest Energy

Marina Abramović and Ulay, 1980

Marina Abromovic, yes, the pioneering performance artist, was in the news recently for flogging wellness potions concocted by her doctor. We don’t know how to feel about this. On the one hand, the woman looks good! On the other….huh? Either way, this performance lives perpetually in our heads and always will.

“In Rest Energy we actually hold one arrow on the weight of our body and arrow is pointing my heart. We have two small, little microphones on our hearts where we can hear the sounds of the heart beating. As our performance is progressing heart beats become more and more intense and it's just four minutes and ten seconds, for me it was, I tell you it was forever. So, it was really a performance about complete and total trust.”

Watch:

Claire’s Knee

Eric Rohmer, 1970

“Why would I tie myself to one woman?” asks Jerôme in CLAIRE’S KNEE, though he plans to marry a diplomat’s daughter by summer’s end. Baring her knee on a ladder under a blooming cherry tree, VERY young Claire unwittingly incites a moral crisis for Jerôme while creating an image that is both the iconic emblem of Eric Rohmer’s Six Moral Tales and one of French cinema’s most enduring moments.

The film explores the intricate dance between physical attraction and the profound search for meaning in life. Amidst the picturesque backdrop of a summer in the French Alps, our protagonist grapples with the nature of desire, a knee prompting Lolita-esque questions on the arbitrary nature of our attractions and the pursuit of fulfillment. It’s challenging, uncomfortable, and visually stunning.

She arouses a desire in me that's real yet has no purpose and is all the stronger because of it. Pure desire. A desire of nothing. I don't wish to act on it, but it bothers me to feel it. I didn't think I'd ever desire a woman again. And I don't even really want her. If she threw herself at me, I'd refuse.

We hope you find this feast to your satisfaction. Let us know what you liked, what you hated, or what you want to recommend. This newsletter is not just about wetting our appetite but about creating a community with like-minded individuals.