Michael Blowhard writes:

Dear Blowhards --

* Daniel Gilbert thinks there are good evolutionary reasons why we're so bad at forecasting what our future emotional states will be.

* Is chocolate better than a kiss?

* Kate Marie falls hard for "The Wire."

* Patrick Deneen pays a visit to Crunchy Green Giant Wendell Berry. (Link thanks to Rod Dreher.)

* Have you made the acquaintance of the witty and mischievous Stephenesque?

* Here's a brilliant little conceptual Flashy thing showing how it is your mouse really makes your pointer move. It may take a while to load, but the payoff is pretty delicious. (Link thanks to Charlton Griffin.)

* Portraiture ... Landscapes ... Modernism ... Traditionalism ... My question for the day is: Why isn't high-class lingerie accepted as one of the fine arts? Where's the justice?

* Speaking of chic undies, here's a fashion show that even straight American boys should be able to enjoy. (NSFW, but only mildly so.)

* Alias Clio has a good word for Walter De La Mare, and shares some rueful and smart reflections about romance. Great, if sad, line:

I've occasionally met married men who had strong romantic feelings about their wives. I don't think I've ever met a married woman who had romantic feelings about her husband.

Clio's self-description -- "Conservative Bohemian with eclectic tastes" -- has a sexy music to it, doesn't it? As does her list of favorite art-things. Among them: "Night of the Hunter," Haydn, Barbara Vine, Boswell's "Johnson," Bach, and the Rolling Stones. Yeah, baby.

* Here's yet another new blog full of rowdy and super-bright righties.

* In this video, Barry Schwartz gives a compact version of his "too much choice makes us miserable" thesis. Though I don't find Schwartz's policy suggestions attractive, I think his main point is a good one.

* Mom's gonna kill herself! Dad thinks college was a big mistake! (Link thanks to Charlton Griffin.)

* If even a high-tech razor like a Mach 3 can leave my face raw, how did Early Man manage to survive the removing-facial-hair process? Here's a history of shaving. It turns out that the first razors were probably flint stones. Suddenly wearing a beard sounds very appealing.

* Chris Dillow treats himself to a good wrestle with the conflict between liberty and social cohesion.

Best,

Michael

Michael,

Every time I see an Elsewhere title, I feel like it's Christmas morning. It's "MvB surfs the web so you don't have to!", and then it's alt-open-in-new-tab, repeat.

Thanks,

Holzbachian

Posted by: Holzbachian on May 9, 2007 1:02 PM

Wow, you rarely see that kind of ethnocentrism these days. Aren't there some studies which show that having an ethnocentric world view is partly biological? Maybe it was selected for among the Jewish population, because that's f**king crazy dude.

Posted by: adrian on May 9, 2007 2:05 PM

Did you notice that most of the models in that lingerie video looked like women and not twelve year old boys? How strange is that?

Posted by: Cody on May 9, 2007 3:50 PM

"Cliquer sur l'image pour l'agrandir." Absolutely.

Ah, but do you think they meant "enlarge *the picture*"?

(Apologies for the schoolboy double entendre, but really. Hot or what?)

Posted by: Alan Little on May 9, 2007 4:37 PM

Lingerie sites seem so much more sophisticated when they're in French, don't they? "Le fil de la Petite Coquette" indeed.

In the undies site and in the fashion show video, there are no Asian or black women. What's the problem here?

Which gives me a chance to comment on: "I don't think I've ever met a married woman who had romantic feelings about her husband."

Try an Asian woman, or more specifically a Filipino woman, and you won't believe this one.

Romance, I think, has something to do with truly needing one another to be complete. This has almost disappeared in the trendy, gay worshipping districts. The focus is entirely on self. And, there is much despair over this.

At Myrna's memorial ceremony, I spoke of her devotion and selflessness. The response was very dramatic. I heard and continue to hear from women and gay men who think that they can reproduce with me the kind of deeply romantic relationship that Myrna and I shared. Most of them I knew. They were not fit material for the type of relationship that Myrna and I had. They had spent their entire lives worshipping themselves. The culture of narcissism does not provide much basis for romance.

Posted by: Shouting Thomas on May 9, 2007 4:41 PM

Stephenesque is wonderful. He's wry and funny and erudite, with exquisite prose and a gimlet eye, an enjoyable dash of misanthropy.

I don't know if it's easily accessible, but he wrote an individualized, highly personal take on every letter of the alphabet, A-Z.
Hilarious.

Posted by: Deschanel on May 9, 2007 5:51 PM

Deschanel, the alphabet thing can be found ">here, it's in three sections. Glad you liked it.

And thank you for the kind words.

Blowhards, please forgive my self-publicity.

Posted by: stephenesque on May 9, 2007 8:48 PM

Re: chocolates vs. kissing...I think they need to do their research over and make sure those wired up kissing couples are strangers who find each other very attractive. Then commence the kissing and watch those needles go crazy. At the least, make sure the kiss-o-meter is not registering a kiss-fatigued couple.

Posted by: Charlton Griffin on May 9, 2007 9:13 PM

...and he likes Vintage Port.

Posted by: Tat on May 9, 2007 9:46 PM

I wrote to your friend Stephenesque. I read one of his blog entries; it was something clever but I can't remember what it was about. I left a remark in the post: I called him a "moron".
Sincerely,
R

Posted by: Robert R. Owen on May 9, 2007 10:21 PM

Alias Clio likes Haydn AND Barbara Vine? Too bad I'm already married.

Posted by: jult52 on May 10, 2007 9:40 AM

*jult52, you are a man?! My world crumbles.

Posted by: Tat on May 10, 2007 8:24 PM

It ain't the lingerie that's a work of Art!

Posted by: BTM on May 11, 2007 12:34 AM






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