The knight watchman
The Murderer Comes Home
Managing myth
Heirs to the Enlightenment, we pride ourselves on our rationality. Jung and Tolkien have alerted us to the place of myth in our lives — and this reaction video shows clearly how potently (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVp__EspD_k) — yet we nonetheless hold to a self-image as rational, technological, scientific, and skeptical. Over at Law and Liberty…
Happy New Year to the readers of V&R
Thanks to all who stopped by the site this year. I hope you enjoyed the moral reflections on the business and meaning of fashion. Plenty more to come in 2019! My best wishes to all for a charming 2019, Graham
Camp Catholicism. Part 2
The mystery of the liturgy coincides totally with the mystery of operativity ~~~ Giorgio Agamben In my opinion, Giorgio Agamben is the most important contemporary European theorist. Political theology in the anarchist tradition, to which Agamben subscribes, has for its goal the exorcism of theology from political economy. Though Agamben is a…
Dress and mimickry in Tolkien
Suspicious of Beren, Luthien hides from him. In a “silver-pearly dress” she ducks “down among white hemlocks and hid herself beneath a very tall flower with many spreading leaves; and here she looked in her white raiment like a spatter of moonlight shimmering through the leaves upon the floor” (Beren and Luthien, p. 42). Roger…
Happy Christmas to V&R readers!
Trust all have a wonderful Christmas. Thanks for reading the book and blog. Cheers, Graham
Yuletide books and scotch
Holiday Reading Picks
Dolce & Gabbana need to take advice from Lord Kames
Two weeks ago D&G famously imploded in China (http://www.dazeddigital.com/fashion/article/42334/1/dolce-gabbana-dg-china-cancelled-shanghai-show-model-experience). To launch a fresh push into the Chinese market, the brand rolled out an ad in which a young Chinese woman tries to eat a slice of pizza with chop sticks. The woman’s struggle with the pizza and giant cannoli was, I suppose, an…
Camp Catholicism. Part 1
In light of the Met’s 2019 fashion retrospective focusing on the role of camp in fashion, it’s time for V&R to start considering the theme. This post is the first in a series. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ In the classic noir novel, The Big Sleep, private detective Philip Marlow stumbles across a dead man murdered with…
French Eyes on HBO’s Succession
My use of Lacan and de Tocqueville to explore a bit the moral dynamics of HBO’s stylish family drama Succession: French Eyes on HBO’s Succession