writing is giving your mind another body, so why shouldn't that body be an attractive one?

-- says connie palmen, in the friendship.

(why not indeed.)

still on daphne and apollo, although io is where we're at in class, since we're on beautiful bodies: "tum quoque visa decens" then also she seemed beautiful. kovacs talked about the attractiveness of women in flight or physical exertion, how that's a notion held by the romans, although it is one that is still with us today, certainly, when we say things like, "you look beautiful when you're mad." think scarlett o'hara and her flashing eyes? or for that matter, do people remember the part in pride and prejudice where elizabeth's skirt had trailed in the mud and she was flushed from hurrying across the field, and caroline bingley made catty remarks about what a mess she looked, but darcy said that on the contrary she was all the more handsome because of it? "their [e's eyes'] beauty was heightened by the exercise" i believe he said. and ovid says daphne in flight was: nudabant corpora venti / obviaque adversas vibrabant flamina vestes / et levis impulsos retro dabat aura capillos/ auctaque forma fugast. "the beauty was heightened by the flight" almost the exact same words as the austen. the beauty of female dishevelment, or of the perturbed face, i shall call it. yen asked whether i meant something like the difference between octavia and cleopatra, and i hadn't thought of that, and i guess it's both yes and no. yes, that has something to do with it, the holy chaste and cold constitution vs wild passionate heat/heart. which has to do with propriety and liveliness, and the latter being more desirable and attractive in a narrative. that of course goes back to scarlett and melanie and what we approve in our heroines. so yes, all that too. but i think i meant attractive in a purely hormonal sense. apollo wasn't admiring daphne's spunky personality, or hunting prowess. he was admiring the beauty of disarranged garments and strewn hair and agitated face, which i'm sure has to do with sex. which, actually, of course, come to think of it, isn't unrelated to the idea of passivity and actvity. the disheveled woman is the one who runs, and a heroine that runs is more attractive to us than the one that sits and behaves. composed beauty vs unruly charm. does that seem to be something that's a unique advantage of women though? can men be also attractive for their dishevelment? or would male dishevelment just be being slobby? probably the latter. heh. at least i don't think i've ever found disheveled men particularly lovable yet. other sorts of things do that heart-tug thing with men, i think, like wounds, maybe. age, also. max coming into sophia's house looking like ada's father in the war?

listening to the goldberg variations, which von sent me earlier this afternoon. i like the aria but i think bach is too precise and neat for me. actually kg would say that's not true and that i'm not smart enough to understand bach, and i suppose he would be right, too, but when it comes to piano music i go in for things like debussy and ravel. imitated chaos, and notes stumbling on each other and exploding into extraordinary disorder. the regularity of chopin and mozart just leave me cold. which reminds me that i lost a ravel cd, which i'd left in christine's car, which car she crashed so which cd i never dared ask about. (how thurber would have deplored that awful sentence i'd just written. definitely not an attractive body, that.) and which i'd never replaced. i wonder if i can get hold of it. it helps me write papers. once i was up all night with a milton paper and listening to le tombeau de couperin and that was all that kept me going in the early hours and quietly thinking inside. isn't that strange? order and neatness makes me restless and agitating for more, but the simple chaos can make me calm and keep the mind sharp. now that i need to do work instead of write my journal i wish i had it again although i shall go see if any of it is downloadable. i go.