Dandys, fops and swells

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Dandys, fops and swells

1Randy_Hierodule
Août 31, 2008, 11:02 am

My favorite book on the subject of dandyism (the only one I've read so far), is Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly's The Anatomy of Dandyism - which, starting as an appreciation of George Brummel (who was buried, penniless and forgotten in a cemetery in Caen - in Barbey's native Normandy. The Goncourt's express some entertainingly nasty views in their journals of Barbey's own fopperies), expands into a sort of mystical philosophy of life. Here is a link that provides a list of the canonical works (and much more) on the subject of dandyism:

http://www.dandyism.net/?page_id=27

2Makifat
Août 31, 2008, 2:16 pm

In an age when most adult American males dress like 12 year olds, I'm afraid the aesthetics of dandyism are dead.

Still, I think of one of my favorite authors, Paul Bowles, always immaculately dressed, who was reputed to have travelled into the Sahara with no less than 24 pieces of luggage, one of which no doubt held only his ties. Bowles may have been one of the last literary dandies. Although a case could be made for Gore Vidal.

3MMcM
Août 31, 2008, 2:45 pm

> 2

I think the case is arguable for lots of American subcultures. It may just be that their aesthetics are different.

But, to take a less ambiguous case, how about Congolese sapeurs?

4Makifat
Août 31, 2008, 3:23 pm

Pardon me - my crankiness was tongue in cheek. Yes, there are a variety of subcultures, many of which could by their own aesthetics be considered dandy.

5kswolff
Jan 22, 2009, 5:16 pm

Don't forget the Mods and Bowie-era Glam Rock. The style was different, the attitude was the same. See Velvet Goldmine

6Makifat
Jan 22, 2009, 7:26 pm

I am chagrined to have proclaimed Gore the last literary dandy up there (post 2), while Tom Wolfe is still alive and selling ice cream. Although the appellation "literary" might raise arguments.

7marietherese
Modifié : Jan 22, 2009, 10:24 pm

Members of the group interested in dandyism might enjoy these books:

Rising Star: Dandyism, Gender and Performance in the Fin De Siecle (I particularly recommend this book as it deals explicitly with the fin de siècle.)

The man of fashion : peacock males and perfect gentlemen A picture book. Pretty, if not very detailed.

Men in Black This book examines the gradual move away from color and ornament in European men's clothing after the 18th century.

Dandies: Fashion and Finesse in Art and Culture I don't own this and haven't read it but it does look rather interesting. The wonderful cover image of Una Troubridge in her smartest suit (painted by Romaine Brooks) is quite enticing.

(Note: none of the links above are LT "touchstones" but all should actually take you to the correct page and the appropriate book.)

8kswolff
Modifié : Jan 23, 2009, 2:37 pm

Playboys in Paradise is a good exploration of the playboy (vs. the dandy) in 1950s - 1960s US culture. And where would that put early Hugh Hefner, since his stylish aestheticized hedonism makes him a combination Alfred Jarry-esque Supermale meets a Huysmans-like dandy.

9urania1
Jan 23, 2009, 2:41 pm

What about the female version of dandies, fops, and swells? Are they divas? Uberwenches? Something else?

10DavidX
Modifié : Jan 24, 2009, 3:33 am

In Monsieur de Phocas by Jean Lorrain, the character Claudius Ethal refers to decadent females and males as "larvae". I like that. Non-gender specific.

No one has mentioned David Bowie. Ziggy Stardust was an intergalactic dandy.

11urania1
Jan 24, 2009, 11:09 am

David,

Larvae? No way! I'm uberwenching it until someone presents me with a better term :-)

12kswolff
Jan 24, 2009, 12:43 pm

Uberwench sounds like something Alfred Jarry would come up with. A female counterpart to the Supermale

13DavidX
Modifié : Jan 24, 2009, 3:20 pm

Nietzschean uberwench works for me on some levels. We could use Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly's title Les Diaboliques(She Devils).


14kswolff
Modifié : Jan 25, 2009, 12:04 pm

Too bad the term "She Devil" has so many negative connotations:

http://www.avclub.com/articles/streepvsbarr-girlfight-case-file-124-shedevil,254...

15Makifat
Jan 25, 2009, 12:06 pm

14
Too bad the term "She Devil" has so many negative connotations

I was about to dispute your comment, then I clicked on the link...

16DavidX
Modifié : Jan 25, 2009, 10:50 pm

I was blissfully unaware of that film. There was another film by the name Les Diaboliques(1954) directed by H.G. Clouzot. One of my faves.

Am I the only person who thinks Ziggy Stardust was a dandy? Marc Bolan was also quite dandyesque. One of his best albums was called Dandy in the Underworld. If Beau Brummel had been around in the 1970's, he would have started a band.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueUOTImKp0k

17kswolff
Jan 26, 2009, 12:07 am

Glam rockers are total dandies. Like that contemporary glam group, the Dandy Warhols.

What's cool about Bowie is that he's such a chameleon. He's done almost every musical and fashion style. I'm still waiting for his sequel to "Outside."

18LolaWalser
Jan 26, 2009, 3:50 pm

#9

Women in that class are natural dandies and fops, or they can hardly expect to be considered "women". So, no special designation for the stylish and style-obsessed ladies, no.

19kswolff
Jan 27, 2009, 10:17 am

We shouldn't forget that dandies, fops, and swells were also blurring the gender lines, both in dress and behavior. So a female dandy could also be a dandy. Like the T. Rex lyrics, "Girls will be boys / and boys will be girls / it's a mixed up world, etc."

Besides the classic Decadent period, we should also include Weimar Germany, especially the naughty Berlin scene, with its transvestism, sex clubs, and other interesting activities.

20Makifat
Jan 27, 2009, 10:30 am

19
The lyrics are from "Lola", by Ray Davies/The Kinks. A fascinatingly ambiguous ditty.

Not dissing Marc Bolan in any way....

21drbubbles
Jan 27, 2009, 10:48 am

>18 LolaWalser: "no special designation for the stylish and style-obsessed ladies, no"

What about "clotheshorse"? "fashionista"?

22PhaedraB
Jan 27, 2009, 1:00 pm

> 21

The distinction would be that (modern Western) women are expected to be fashion-obsessed, but (modern Western) men are not. In this culture, men who are obsessed with fashion are considered feminized, which is culturally dangerous. A woman concerned about her appearance, even if very concerned with it, is still considered in the range of normal.

Where women cross into dangerous territory is when they reject female norms, as with cross-dressing and gender-bending. Which takes it full circle, as that is the cultural danger zone for men that the dandies, fops and swells explored.

23drbubbles
Jan 27, 2009, 1:01 pm

Oh. So that's why we even have those words.

24slickdpdx
Jan 27, 2009, 3:47 pm

I think the Gothic types picked up the perfumed hanky of dandyism after Glam dropped it. Too old to know where that hanky is in today's youth culture. Hip hop?

25Makifat
Jan 27, 2009, 4:02 pm

Ok, dammit, I have to say it: Everytime I read the topic line, I hear the voice of CHER in my head!

Dandies, fops and swells
We heard it from the people of the town....


It will surely drive me to drink this evening around 5 p.m.

26Makifat
Jan 27, 2009, 4:07 pm

But I guess if I have a choice, I'd rather be a swell.

I'd do reasonably well as a dandy, but a complete washout as a fop...

27Makifat
Jan 27, 2009, 6:17 pm

Anyway, let us not forget the inestimable Mr. Stephen Tennant, the prototype of the early 20th century fop and the purported original for Anthony Blanche* in Brideshead Revisited, for whom the epithet "effeminate" was far too mild. His story is told entertainingly in Serious Pleasures.

*"Anthony Blanche, the "aesthete" par excellence, a byword of iniquity from Cherwell Edge to Somerville...ageless as a lizard, as foreign as a Martian. He had been pointed out to me often in the streets, as he moved with his own peculiar statliness, as though he had not fully accustomed himself to coat and trousers, and was more at his ease in heavy, embroidered robes...I found myself enjoying him voraciously, like the fine piece of cookery he was.""

28kswolff
Jan 28, 2009, 11:10 pm

Tim Gunn? Clinton Kelly? Two modern dandies if there ever were. More power to them. A female equivalent, maybe Stacy London? (The co-host, along with Kelly, of What Not to Wear) Granted, WNTW has more practical and utilitarian goals, but the snark from Clinton and Stacy is priceless.

29CharlesFerdinand
Jan 29, 2009, 9:47 am

Well, the dandy, with a bit of gender bending is alive and well in the Victorian Gothic scene, as I know from personal experience.

What about Marilyn Manson, BTW

30LolaWalser
Jan 29, 2009, 9:52 am

#21

We're talking no later than 19th century.

Dandies and fops weren't "gender-bending" any more than the earlier hose-and-plumes wearing men. These anachronistic views are tiresome...

31Randy_Hierodule
Modifié : Jan 29, 2009, 11:50 am

Speaking of female dandies... and of crossing gender lines, here is a portrait of Zinaida Hippius entitled "The Page":

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Bakst_Gippius.JPG/300px...

32PhaedraB
Jan 29, 2009, 11:46 am

#30

I agree to the 19th C. (extremely early) 20th C. limit.

However, gender-bending is a function of violating what is considered "normal" at any given time. If hose-and-plumes are the norm, wearing them is not gender bending. If they are not the norm (I'm thinking 1966ish when "can't tell the boys from the girls!" caused cultural hysteria, if you are of the age to remember that), it is. Thus, if the cultural norm is that women, but not men, should be obsessed about their appearance, then men who are so obsessed might be, to use our term, gender-bending. Women dressing as men, George Sand or Marlene Dietrich, for example, at times when that was amazingly scandalous, were gender bending.

(Historical side note: one harassment tactic used against hippie women in, I believe, SF of all places, was arresting those wearing men's jeans. There was a law on the books against cross-dressing.)

Marilyn Manson and such, besides being from a different era, I would regard as expressing an extreme of an existing sub-culture norm, one that is considered more annoying than dangerous to the culture at large.

Class, of course, is a big issue. Marginalized groups can get away with a lot more, with a lot less attention, than people who are perceived to be part of the ruling class. Hippies were dangerous because they represented college-educated youth, when going to college was still an elite exercise.

Go back a century, and no one cared much about cockney fops. We're still looking at the excesses of the upper classes.

33DavidX
Modifié : Août 1, 2011, 2:49 am

I agree with the late 19th century (extremely early 20th Century limit). What I was trying to say was that the cultural revolutions of the late nineteenth century were progenitors of the cultural revolutions of the twentieth century in many ways.

The cultural rebels of the late nineteenth century were an elite group of privileged individuals. They opened the pandoras box from which sprang the cultural and sexual revolutions of the twentieth century.

In some instances twentieth century artists have deliberatly played on the myth of Dandyism. In the instance of Ziggy Stardust, David Bowie and Mick Rock created a character that was a lampoon of the myths of the dandy and of the poet maudit.

32. Phaedra, thankyou for mentioning Marlene Dietrich and George Sand. I keep thinking of that wonderful scene in the film Morroco where Marlene performs in male drag and kisses a girl in the audience.

30. Ben, Wonderful portrait of Zinaida Hippius. Thanks.

We haven't mentioned Judith Gautier yet.

34Dead_Dreamer
Jan 31, 2009, 1:36 pm

Ce message a été supprimé par son auteur

35Dead_Dreamer
Jan 31, 2009, 1:36 pm

No one has mentioned the Lucifer Box series by Mark Gatiss. The main anti-hero, Lucifer Box (an Edwardian dandy and secret agent), is based on a combination of Sherlock Holmes, James Bond and Oscar Wilde. So far, the series consists of three books: The Vesuvius Club, The Devil In Amber and Black Butterfly. It's a wonderful, if very tongue-in-cheek, series.

36kswolff
Fév 2, 2009, 2:24 pm

How about Rachilde's book Monsieur Venus? A mannish female turns a young male flower store worker into her feminine plaything.

37DavidX
Modifié : Fév 3, 2009, 5:23 pm

36. It's time for me to read Rachilde. Thanks for inspiring me. Monsieur Venus seems an ideal place to start.

35. Lucifer Box looks really fun. You have tempted me to read a graphic novel series. Shame on you.

38kswolff
Fév 5, 2009, 11:09 am

Be sure to put Velvet Goldmine on that list. Todd Haynes draws the line from Oscar Wilde to Chuck Berry to glam rock. Well, it's a bit more complicated and decadent than that.

39Dead_Dreamer
Fév 5, 2009, 11:48 am

37. The first Lucifer Box book, The Vesuvius Club, is available as both a graphic novel and standard novel (the graphic novel came later). I haven't seen the graphic version yet.

40DavidX
Fév 5, 2009, 10:28 pm

39. Appropriately the cover is yellow and looks Beardsley-esque. Thanks again. Both formats look like fun.

38. I see your Velvet Goldmine and raise you a Blood and Glitter.

41kswolff
Fév 6, 2009, 2:25 pm

Love the title. How decadent can you get?

42DavidX
Fév 6, 2009, 2:34 pm

Has anyone picked up the new book, The Hellfire Clubs by Evelyn Lord. I'm wondering if If I should add it to my shopping list.

Blood and Glitter is a collection of Mick Rocks photographs of the glitter era, when all the young dudes carried the news.

43varielle
Fév 6, 2009, 3:00 pm

Got it, but it's been on my TBR pile. Must give it a look.

44varielle
Juil 7, 2009, 11:47 am

Ce message a été supprimé par son auteur

45Randy_Hierodule
Modifié : Juil 7, 2009, 2:45 pm

Thank god. I thought I'd never hear his name mentioned again.

46Randy_Hierodule
Avr 21, 2010, 7:08 pm

This is exactly what is wanted: http://www.lordwhimsy.com/companion/index.html

47slickdpdx
Avr 21, 2010, 8:30 pm

There is some great stuff in there.

48Randy_Hierodule
Modifié : Avr 22, 2010, 7:36 am

... and then I received this message from a friend more knowledgeable than I in these matters: "--is it the Affected Provincial's Companion?

if so don't buy it. DANDYISM.COM refuses to acknowledge the existence of it, refutes it in toto.

i may have two copies, can send you one. it's mildly amusing, only mildly. How To Be A Complete Dandy: Guide for Rakes, Swells, Beaus is a better book along similar lines and with more literary leads/quotes/bios, etc."

49Makifat
Avr 22, 2010, 4:28 pm

That Lord Whimsy thing sent me lurching for the classics.....

Some links to works pertaining to dandyism and available on Internet Archive:

http://www.archive.org/details/dorsayorcomplete00shoruoft

http://www.archive.org/details/beauxanddandies00jerrgoog

http://www.archive.org/details/beaubrummelland00monvgoog

50kswolff
Juil 30, 2011, 10:05 am

Hilobrow makes an interesting case for Richard Linklater as a cinematic neo-flaneur:

http://hilobrow.com/2011/07/30/richard-linklater/

51Makifat
Modifié : Juil 30, 2011, 6:30 pm

50
Re: "Slacker"
in which Austin, Texas, is portrayed as a noncoercive utopia dedicated to jawboning

As someone who lived in Austin for close to 20 years, and had some acquaintance with at least a couple of the persons in the film, I'd have to say that what "Slacker" (and its subsequent buzz in River City) revealed to me was the tremendous anxiety that goes along with staying (or at least with being perceived as) laid-back and hip.

One of the few truly "laid back" people I ever met in Austin was the fellow that ran the head shop near Inner Sanctum records. That dude was so relaxed, I'd swear he must had to have worn Depends.

52Makifat
Juil 30, 2011, 6:36 pm

Or, as David Bowie sang in Brecht's "Baal's Hymn", on an EP purchased at said Inner Sanctum Records:

Slackness, softness are the sort of things to shun
Nothing can be harder than the quest for fun
Lots of strength is needed and experience too
Swollen bellies can embarrass you

53kswolff
Juil 31, 2011, 11:49 pm

Being laid back only requires a few things: a bottle of absinthe, some opium, a comfy sofa, and a lot of extra time.

54Makifat
Modifié : Août 1, 2011, 1:22 pm

I remember reading a book several years ago, by Nick Tosches, I believe, in which he goes in search of an actual opium den, or at least some actual opium. Apparently the stuff is incredibly hard to find.

ETA: Must have been The Last Opium Den.

55DavidX
Modifié : Août 16, 2011, 2:34 am

It is a very good thing that opium is so hard to find. I tried it a couple of times back in the eighties. I remember feeling very euphoric and experiencing a sensation of weightlessness as if my feet were floating several inches off the floor. If it were easy to find I would do nothing else but chase the dragon.

56tros
Août 12, 2011, 12:50 pm

After reading Black Opium, I think I'll pass on the dragon and stay with the potent weed that's readily available.

57DavidX
Août 12, 2011, 1:10 pm

You are a wise man and Black Opium looks like a fun read.

I've found that absinthe and cannabis compliment each other very nicely.

58Randy_Hierodule
Modifié : Août 14, 2011, 1:47 am

56: How readily? :) Out of the loop in the inner loop.

I took a walk a month or so back in a park I used to haunt as a teen in the late 1970s (Robert Hanssen, it turns out, stalked the same territory). It had just stormed a day or so before and I noticed as I walked along the creek a crude homemade bong lying in a pile of residue left behind by the floods. It had been years since I had seen a bong - and I had last seen one there (I saw it there a lot, actually; it was mine). I was genuinely happy to know a tradition of sorts was still observed. It made me nostalgic for certain activities.

59Randy_Hierodule
Modifié : Août 14, 2011, 1:42 am

Ce message a été supprimé par son auteur

60tros
Août 14, 2011, 5:22 pm

Pot clubs proliferate like bunnies out in the wild west. My local club has the best chinese restaurant in the world next door. Stock up and chow down!

61tros
Modifié : Sep 1, 2011, 12:49 am

57

I recommend quality pot with great music on your computer running on winamp
with milkdrop visualization full screen, especially with a big screen.

Psychedelic, man! ;-)

Your choice of beverage.

62tros
Oct 1, 2011, 1:07 am

There's some really nice kif around. Mellows out a smoke.
"A little kif in the morning..."

63Randy_Hierodule
Oct 1, 2011, 1:27 am

... checking airfare now....

64tros
Modifié : Oct 1, 2011, 1:15 pm

If memory serves, which it probably doesn't.

"A little kif in the morning makes a man as strong as a 100 camels in the courtyard."

http://www.librarything.com/work/81758/book/59038796

A Hundred Camels in the Courtyard
by Paul Bowles

66Makifat
Oct 2, 2011, 3:29 pm

The narrative voice of Pot Pourri: Whistlings of an Idler is that of an Argentine dandy. I began it a couple weeks ago, but I'm not in the mood for such insouciance, so I've laid it aside for the present...

67tros
Oct 2, 2011, 4:29 pm

66 - PP looks interesting and amusing.

65 - A recent story said the same about CA growers. Why don't more states pass
med. pot laws? Too many red neck, tea-partyers?

69kswolff
Oct 4, 2011, 10:07 am

Began watching the TV adaptation of Brideshead Revisited -- I read the book a couple years ago -- and it is littered with dandys, fops, and swells, albeit those of Interwar vintage. Sebastian Flyte is a bouquet of dandified eccentricity and in the TV version, the Brideshead estate is played by Blenheim Palace It seems Waugh's late work is a piece of decadent nostalgia, since it was written in the 1940s.

70tros
Oct 5, 2011, 7:12 pm

Blissful Brownies ain't too bad either. Maybe I'll save one for you, B? Nah.

71Randy_Hierodule
Oct 6, 2011, 9:42 am

70: I could sorely use one or two.

72Randy_Hierodule
Modifié : Oct 6, 2011, 9:56 am

69: My particular favorites are Vile Bodies, A Handful of Dust and Decline and Fall (It reminds me of Darconville's Cat - the young hero, bounced from Oxford, takes up a position at a boy's school in the Welsh hinterlands. His impression of the locals is as amusing as it is uncharitable).

As for the fops and dandies, etc. - have you got a copy of Children of the Sun A Narrative Of "Decadence" in England After 1918? It's a good source book on "the bright young things" and their milieu.

73kswolff
Oct 29, 2011, 5:18 pm

The latest craze from England, "chap hop":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2laXc6WfJs&feature=related

74tros
Modifié : Nov 15, 2011, 7:45 am

Being intelligent is such a burden! ;-)

High IQ linked to drug use

http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2011/11/14/high-iq-linked-to-drug-use/

"My high IQ made me do it, officer."

75kswolff
Nov 15, 2011, 11:06 am

74: So what explains the rampant use of crystal meth in US Red States?

76Randy_Hierodule
Modifié : Nov 15, 2011, 11:31 am

We called it "crank" in the 70s. It was cheaper than coke and better than the "freeze-dried" coffee our parents bought.

77Randy_Hierodule
Nov 15, 2011, 11:45 am

Re: 66 - missed that one. Thanks! Just grabbed a copy.

78kswolff
Avr 18, 2012, 8:14 pm

"The photographer is an armed version of the solitary walker reconnoitering, stalking, cruising the urban inferno, the voyeuristic stroller who discovers the city as a landscape of voluptuous extremes. Adept of the joys of watching, connoisseur of empathy, the flâneur finds the world 'picturesque.'" -- Susan Sontag, On Photography

80Soukesian
Août 19, 2012, 5:37 pm

The Look: adventures in Pop and Rock fashion by Paul Gorman is an amazing guide to the fashion and the boutiques of London from the rock'n'roll era through mods, glam and punk to the eighties and nineties. He runs a couple of regularly updated blogs where you will find such fascinating items as the definitive history of the Chelsea boot:

http://rockpopfashion.com/blog/

http://www.paulgormanis.com/

81Soukesian
Modifié : Sep 11, 2012, 3:34 pm

Revolt into Style should be mentioned here. George Melly, no mean dandy himself, provides vivid and insightful reportage of the early mod era just as London started to swing.

82kswolff
Déc 2, 2012, 11:54 am

"Paris and the data mind," by Craig Mod:

http://www.themorningnews.org/article/paris-and-the-data-mind

83varielle
Mai 22, 2013, 12:21 pm

Here's a story on the cultural history of the dandy from Slate.
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2013/05/history_of_the_dandy_liber...

84kswolff
Jan 12, 2014, 11:32 am

It was either here or the "Pimps and carnies" thread:

"5 Bum Wines Reviewed":

http://www.thrillist.com/drink/nation/bum-wine-comparing-wild-irish-rose-thunder...

85varielle
Modifié : Juin 16, 2014, 2:27 pm

There was a story on dandies today on CBS Sunday Morning which referenced I am Dandy: The Return of the Elegant Gentleman by Nathaniel Adam. Back later with the link to the video.

eta: Here it is. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-dandy-celebrating-the-exquisite-gentleman/

86kswolff
Juin 15, 2014, 6:19 pm

My wife and I saw Mr. B the Gentleman Rhymer at CONvergence in Minnesota last year. It was quite ripping. What, what?

Here he is, as the old chaps at Eton say, kickin' it in the old school manner:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSflRlHPay4

87kswolff
Juil 8, 2014, 10:43 am

Re: OutKast and the irreversible decline of hip hop:

"The Love Below, on the other hand, was hardly recognizable as a rap record—it was an emotional, often campy, concept album about the search for love, delivered by Andre, who at this point in his career was dressing like a mid-century British dandy and whose music had started to sound like the diametric opposite of traditional rap: vulnerable, expressive, and willing to explore new things."

http://www.avclub.com/article/speakerboxxx-love-below-outkast-heralded-decline-g...

Also, Andre 3000's song "Dracula's Wedding" would make for a great soundtrack to a vampire movie.

88Randy_Hierodule
Déc 4, 2014, 4:08 pm

"An Aesthete's Lament": http://aestheteslament.blogspot.com/

89kswolff
Modifié : Déc 4, 2014, 10:51 pm

Men's Style: a thinking man's guide to dress by Russell Smith

http://www.librarything.com/work/915731/book/114401306

A perfect handbook for the aspiring fop.

90theoria
Déc 4, 2014, 11:42 pm

The Popinjay, the Rake, and the Dandy should be stylistic models.

91kswolff
Déc 5, 2014, 4:45 pm

90: I heard Christopher Hitchens described as a "Trotskyist popinjay," although he may be accurately described as a dipsomaniacal atheist fop.

92kswolff
Modifié : Déc 5, 2014, 4:45 pm

Ce message a été supprimé par son auteur

94kswolff
Déc 5, 2014, 11:14 pm

Neil Patrick Harris, zombie fop:

http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/b7/86/4d/b7864d47c43fde34ca270a17a244f52e...

... and riding a unicorn:

https://p.gr-assets.com/540x540/fit/hostedimages/1380361170/712060.jpg

...

All right, let's get this discussion back on track:

"Jeeves lugged my purple socks out of the drawer as if he were a vegetarian fishing a caterpillar out of his salad." -- The Inimitable Jeeves, by PG Wodehouse

95kswolff
Jan 1, 2015, 9:56 pm

HD Thoreau compares a good book to fungus:

http://driftlessareareview.com/2015/01/01/commonplace-book-thoreau-goes-plectrum...

Granted Thoreau could hardly be called a dandy or a fop, but he was a kind of rugged flaneur.

96kswolff
Fév 2, 2015, 8:16 pm

I'm curious about the possible overlap between Saki, Wodehouse, and Ronald Firbank There's a matter of chronological overlap and aesthetic deportment; Saki wrote his stories before the onset of WW2, Wodehouse wrote from the 20s to the 60s, and Firbank wrote in the Teens and 20s but wrote about the 1890s aesthetes. Whereas Huysmas presented the aristocracy as a withered branch, these writers populate their works with comic fops and loveable aristocratic dingbats. Evelyn Waugh falls somewhere within this trio, albeit with a more astringent satirical bite (a dry martini to Wodehouse's gin fizz) overlaid with Waugh's trademark Anglo-Catholicism.

97kswolff
Oct 25, 2015, 12:21 pm

98kswolff
Jan 17, 2016, 7:43 pm

My review of Wilberforce by HS Cross, about the shenanigans of an English boarding school in 1920s Yorkshire:

http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/wilberforce-novel

99kswolff
Mai 17, 2016, 8:01 pm

Just received The Pocket Square by A.C. Phillips Looks like a great little volume for the aspiring Beau Brummel

100AsYouKnow_Bob
Mai 17, 2016, 8:18 pm

>99 kswolff::

(your link doesn't work...)

101kswolff
Mai 18, 2016, 8:48 pm

What the hell? I admit, sometimes the links on Librarything are best appreciated as Theater of the Absurd

102kswolff
Oct 11, 2020, 9:26 pm

"Defining Masculinity in Fin-de-Siècle France: Sexual Anxiety and the Emergence of the Homosexual" by Michael D. Sibalis at Journal of the Western Society for French History.

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89072314115&view=1up&seq=263

Devenir membre pour poster.