By RENATO ORTIZ*
Charm hides something, its appeal comes from concealment, the secret not revealed; it speaks between the lines, it contains a certain indeterminacy
1.
“There is a difference between the fancy and the charm. The fancy It is rich, well finished, a sign of opulence, but there remains something anachronistic about it, a bit like kitsch, a mismatch between being and being. But one should not confuse things, kitsch is marked by the excess of colors and shapes, superlative dimensions that manifest its aesthetic inclination. fancy It also suffers from excess, but from control, the desire to organize things and reactions in a chain of events. Everything is meticulously conceived and carried out, hence the feeling of artificiality that it evokes.
Charm hides something, its appeal comes from concealment, the undisclosed secret; it speaks between the lines, it contains a certain indeterminacy. It takes time to understand it. fancy if it reveals itself at first sight there is nothing to hide, what is important is the exposure of abundance and refinement.
Some authors, when contrasting eroticism with pornography, return to the theme of secrecy and the obvious. Roland Barthes said that “l'érotisme est là ouù les vétéments baillent" (eroticism is in the yawning of the clothes), between the body being exposed and the rustling of the skirt the gaze is embedded. Charm approaches eroticism, both conceal and reveal, contrary to pornography that shows everything. However, it is a mistake to say that fancy be pornographic, it would be a misunderstanding, its nature is politically correct, between eroticism and pornography it expresses the apathy of good behavior”.
“The Enlightenment thinkers appreciated geometric shapes and straight lines; the plan of precise and linear reason found its correspondence in the realm of things. I stopped in front of the Carrousel monument and gazed at the straight line in front of me, on the horizon the perspective of the Arc de Triomphe; the architecture of the Louvre and the Tuileries Garden are aligned in a convergent and harmonious way with their grandeur.
However, Mitterrand's pyramid deviates from the geometry of the setting, and is displaced from this ideal of open and crystalline projections. With its beauty and transparency, it introduces a dissonance into the museum courtyard. I stared at it and asked, what does it mean? One possible interpretation is that it is a strange object inserted in a place where it does not belong (this is the argument of the critics).
However, looking at it carefully, without any a priori, one can say that it has always been there, the Louvre having been added later. In both cases the feeling of incongruity persists, the architectural dimension of each of these buildings would have different origins and purposes. However, another logical alternative remains: the pyramid shape and the museum shape would be two matrices that are part of the toolbox of a bricoleur (as Claude Lévy-Strauss thought). They have the potential to be used.
The bricoleur architect could manipulate the heterogeneous pieces at his disposal, ignoring the constraints of space and historical time. According to his inclination, his aesthetic will, he would simultaneously place them in the same place. The feeling of spatial paradox is thus undone, as in a special effects film where the forms coalesce in a random game of approximations.”
2.
Last day of the year: the fight between desire and the sea. On the beaches, people bring flowers to Iemanjá. Palms, roses. They are flowers with long stems as if the extension of the branches helps them glide in the current of the water. Men, women, old men and young women, throw the offerings into the sea, motionless, they scrutinize the destination of the improvised boats. Adversity crosses the path of the formulated desire.
Flamengo Beach is a backwater located far from the entrance to Guanabara Bay. Its geographic location protects it from the waves and the ocean's oscillations. The calm waters give it a state of lethargy. People stare at the flowers, anxiously trying to push them away. But the sea resists, interposing itself between hope and disappointment, leaving Iemanjá unaware of the gifts and profane courtships.
The wet branches move a little away from the beach, a few meters, but they cannot slide any further, nor do they have the strength to return. The offerings remain in sight in the limbo that separates them from the orixa-destiny. Iemanjá contemplates the requests of mortals from a distance, in her divine patience she waits for the sea current to reverse in her direction. Tired, she leaves, without crossing the thin line that separates the eternal from the fleeting world of humans.”
3.
A Bodley Library It is a majestic building that bears the marks of the past. Oxford has always been a center of study since the Middle Ages. The building is quadrangular, the size of half a city block, and the building contains a large internal courtyard. Each side of the square has three floors, with very high ceilings, and at the front and back, more or less in the middle of each side, there is a kind of wide tower, increasing the number of floors available. The roof is symmetrically decorated with cone-shaped points pointing towards the sky.
There are three entrances, the side ones are narrower, the main one has a huge wooden portico. On the front of the main entrance there is one of those dithyrambic inscriptions, “Quad Fieliciter Academici Oxonies”, and in the courtyard there are small wooden doors giving access to the old medieval schools: “old medicine school","natural philosophy school","music school", astronomy school (there are nine in total). Access to the library is at the back, not far from the statue of an Oxford academic. At the base of the sculpture you can read in Roman numerals: 1723.
However, in order to frequent this world of erudition and knowledge, there is a requirement: the reader must declare his or her intentions. The employee who served me was polite and methodical. In a small, dark, dusty room, he took from a table a brochure of texts, all identical but translated into numerous languages.
He asked me about my native language and diligently separated the page in Portuguese; although he did not understand a word of what I was saying, he asked me to read the oath aloud, which I did in a solemn and syncopated manner. “I hereby promise not to remove, nor damage or disfigure in any way, any volume, document or object belonging to this Library, as well as not to enter with a flame or lit fire, nor to smoke or light any fire in the premises. I also promise to abide by all the regulations of this Library.” The silence of his incomprehension opened the doors of wisdom to me.
4.
Weberian dialogues. We were both on the treadmill at the gym, walking. I glanced sideways at her firm, beautiful body, full view, reflected in the mirror less than a meter away from us. I knew she was a model and her lush breasts had undergone a surgical intervention: silicone. The other day, also on the treadmill, I could hear her talking loudly, very loudly, with a friend, pondering the advantages of the operation. This time she turned to me, I don’t know why. She said, between one step and the next, the speed of the walker marked 6,4 km/h, “weren’t you the one at the airport?”
We had actually crossed paths in the departure lounge at Congonhas. I was leaving for somewhere and she, accompanied by two colleagues, painted and made up, were perhaps going to take part in some photo shoot. I was surprised by her casual approach. I interpreted that she wanted to talk. I didn't say much. She took care of that, introducing herself as a photo model, having been on the cover of several magazines. The way she said cover left no room for doubt. It was a quality that my ignorance had difficulty understanding.
I asked her age, twenty-two. When I politely added, “you’re young,” she replied, “not that young for my profession.” She said she earned a good income, lived alone, and owned an apartment on Avenida Angélica. She had a Mercedes-Benz. She didn’t say what year it was, but it was understood that it was used. She went to the gym every day. She was aware that her youth was fleeting and that she should take care of her body and her assets. She didn’t drink or smoke and went to bed early.
There were few parties or parties, only professional meetings. She emphasized that she was different from her work colleagues, she lived frugally, even her sex life seemed to be very well managed: “I prefer a no-strings-attached sex, in my profession it’s better not to have a husband or boyfriend”. Taking care of her body and saving money was her goal. She came from the countryside and was very proud of having prospered. That was when I asked her what her father did. Her answer lit up the scene. “An evangelical pastor,” she replied. I then understood her obsession, she had transferred Protestant asceticism to her slender body, investing her capital in it, transforming it into a source of permanent income.”
* Renato Ortiz He is a professor at the Department of Sociology at Unicamp. Author, among other books, of The universe of luxury (Mall). [https://amzn.to/3XopStv]
Originally published on the blog of BVPS.
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