1024. THE QUOTABLE GESTURE

THE QUOTABLE GESTURE

I am reading Walter Benjamin as a lark.
You can't do that. I know. He's much
too serious for that. And dour. Every
sentence seems like an...hour.
-
Baudelaire found the physiognomic (!)
type bred by this new kind of life -
a prostitute scrutinizing the passers-by
while at the same time on guard (with
those same eyes) against the police - to
be delineated nicely in Constantin Guy's
numerous drawings of prostitutes :
'Her eyes, like those of a wild animal,
are fixed on the distant horizon; they
have the restlessness of a wild animal...
but sometimes also the animal's sudden
tense vigilance.' I, one the other hand,
now get fixated by the duality of all I see.
-
There is but one way in and one way out?
I am confused in the sense of not knowing
any longer the place I am in? Simply put,
now that is the problem. Tense heart beating.
Suspicious eyes wandering. That girl, with the
lipstick, has quite a city smirk. 'Dullness' also
says Baudelaire, 'is frequently an ornament
of beauty.' Yes, yes! Dullness is truly an
ornament of Beauty!