The stadium is where the big game will be today, but early yesterday afternoon in the movie theater next door, what generated crowds was the live broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera's The Merry Widow. Groups of men and women, the median age perhaps fifty, even sixty given the abundance of white hair and walkers.
I was there (fitting the demographic) to experience something new. I enjoy operas, though I find opera annoying as background. Looking for tickets on-line the night before, I discovered that to get a seat at all I'd have to travel to Patriots country. There was a hint of secret subculture in all this, but once in my comfortable seat with a huge high-definition screen in front that allowed me to see expressions and gestures close up and excellent sound around that made all the lyrics and dialogue clear, I understood the appeal. The experience was friendly and semi-immersive. Plus there was the perennial favorite with its Straussian rom-com appeal. Lots of jokes, dances, costumes, singable tunes, lovely young men and women, splendid voices, and a happy ending: who could ask for more?
I have had and renewed twice but until a few days ago not actually read The Power of Glamour: Longing and The Art of Visual Persuasion by Virginia Postrel. In that theater, as I felt tears trickle into my beard at the right times, I thought 'This is what she means. This is pure glamour.' Halfway between grand opera and Broadway musical, the play and production were unashamedly crafted to generate a range of emotions from broad humor to idealistic love, and I gave myself thoroughly into the expert hands of my manipulators.
As utterly improbable as the story is, there's an allure in the style of belle epoque Paris, an appeal in the fast-paced vivacity of the action, and an authenticity in the yearnings of the great songs (which especially touched me.)
Desire in all its forms is what glamour has concrete referents for: some object, melody, image, style of action that speaks to what is impossible, or at least not here and now, but so worth wanting. Postrel writes the components of glamour: its promise of escape or transformation, its suggestion of effortlessness, and its element of mystery. Certain on the stage yesterday all were actively in play.
Once the word had the connotation of 'a magical spell', but now it's such a familiar marketing strategy we can laugh at it, while giving ourselves over to.
I've wondered about the glamour of the presence/adventure/lastingness way of life of the God-in-love framework. Here am I writing blog post after post as a way of teaching (myself first) how to live this life.
The wonderful potential of glamour is its power of evoke and represent ideals we are drawn to; the problem is its artificiality, its superficiality, its tendency to evaporate on serious inspection or reflection.
My new cell phone, almost a phablet, definitely has glamour, and as I discover new features and functionalities, my sense of wonder is revived. Clearly, however, this object is the product of much work over a long time. Inside the black box is the record of hundreds of thousands of carefully calibrated design decisions. Are there things which intrinsically evoke a sense of glamour. Poetry is on a quest to prove that everything can have for us a kind of glamour.
But can a way of life be glamorous to the person living it? Where's the glamour in brushing teeth, catching a bus, filling out a report? Going to the heart of the question: is there glamour in encounters here and now with others or otherness, at least potentially and upon reflection, and independent of whatever glamour may pertain to the idea of the world to come?
Is this the question I've been exploring all this while? Okay, is it time for an answer? I think, 'Yes.' Even yesterday's event as I reflect on it has a glamour above and beyond the silly, satisfying story. The gathering of so many not just for an afternoon's entertainment but for some X quality of experience that opera offers speaks to an irrepressibility of desire that is perhaps the most glamorous things about us as old folk, as human beings, as organisms, as nodes in an evolving universe.
I was there (fitting the demographic) to experience something new. I enjoy operas, though I find opera annoying as background. Looking for tickets on-line the night before, I discovered that to get a seat at all I'd have to travel to Patriots country. There was a hint of secret subculture in all this, but once in my comfortable seat with a huge high-definition screen in front that allowed me to see expressions and gestures close up and excellent sound around that made all the lyrics and dialogue clear, I understood the appeal. The experience was friendly and semi-immersive. Plus there was the perennial favorite with its Straussian rom-com appeal. Lots of jokes, dances, costumes, singable tunes, lovely young men and women, splendid voices, and a happy ending: who could ask for more?
I have had and renewed twice but until a few days ago not actually read The Power of Glamour: Longing and The Art of Visual Persuasion by Virginia Postrel. In that theater, as I felt tears trickle into my beard at the right times, I thought 'This is what she means. This is pure glamour.' Halfway between grand opera and Broadway musical, the play and production were unashamedly crafted to generate a range of emotions from broad humor to idealistic love, and I gave myself thoroughly into the expert hands of my manipulators.
As utterly improbable as the story is, there's an allure in the style of belle epoque Paris, an appeal in the fast-paced vivacity of the action, and an authenticity in the yearnings of the great songs (which especially touched me.)
Desire in all its forms is what glamour has concrete referents for: some object, melody, image, style of action that speaks to what is impossible, or at least not here and now, but so worth wanting. Postrel writes the components of glamour: its promise of escape or transformation, its suggestion of effortlessness, and its element of mystery. Certain on the stage yesterday all were actively in play.
Once the word had the connotation of 'a magical spell', but now it's such a familiar marketing strategy we can laugh at it, while giving ourselves over to.
I've wondered about the glamour of the presence/adventure/lastingness way of life of the God-in-love framework. Here am I writing blog post after post as a way of teaching (myself first) how to live this life.
The wonderful potential of glamour is its power of evoke and represent ideals we are drawn to; the problem is its artificiality, its superficiality, its tendency to evaporate on serious inspection or reflection.
My new cell phone, almost a phablet, definitely has glamour, and as I discover new features and functionalities, my sense of wonder is revived. Clearly, however, this object is the product of much work over a long time. Inside the black box is the record of hundreds of thousands of carefully calibrated design decisions. Are there things which intrinsically evoke a sense of glamour. Poetry is on a quest to prove that everything can have for us a kind of glamour.
But can a way of life be glamorous to the person living it? Where's the glamour in brushing teeth, catching a bus, filling out a report? Going to the heart of the question: is there glamour in encounters here and now with others or otherness, at least potentially and upon reflection, and independent of whatever glamour may pertain to the idea of the world to come?
Is this the question I've been exploring all this while? Okay, is it time for an answer? I think, 'Yes.' Even yesterday's event as I reflect on it has a glamour above and beyond the silly, satisfying story. The gathering of so many not just for an afternoon's entertainment but for some X quality of experience that opera offers speaks to an irrepressibility of desire that is perhaps the most glamorous things about us as old folk, as human beings, as organisms, as nodes in an evolving universe.
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