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heloisedc · 4 years

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Pygmalion Relations

Hair

Wandering in the public square, a lit lantern in hand in the middle of the day, […] A garden more inviting than Eden would […] meet my eye.[1]

Once you arrived, I studied you and was pleased with what I found.[2]

I went to see him the next morning, and received an invitation to dine there, which I accepted.[3]

He was of utter beauty, grazing perfection. The reproduction of the image of the Vitruvian man […][4] He was transparent but impenetrable.[5]

The situation of this house was beautiful, though chosen for convenience.[6] So far as this technic expression of size and power are concerned, I look on the hall as nearly perfect, and were this the highest or even a high class of beauty we need not go further[7] In this sense, it came closest to the idea of perfection, which is the starting point and goal of all art.[8]

His face was distorted[9] And his nose was misshapen, too. Not much, to be sure […].[10] But the perfect proportion and symmetry of his body and frame rendered him beautiful. His skin texture was perfect, the individual hairs on head and body had been lovingly and intricately manufactured and placed.[11]

Oh, how beautiful and stately wast thou on the high couch reclining in the hall![12] He had given great attention to realistic detail, rendering each feature with painstaking precision, whether or not it could in actuality be so seen within the image as a whole.[13] The dishes gave as much pleasure to my imagination as to my palate; sometimes the little piece of nature from which they had been extracted, the rugged holy water stoup of the oyster in which lingered a few drops of brackish water, or the gnarled stem, the yellowed branches of a bunch of grapes, still enveloped them, inedible, poetic and distant as a landscape, evoking as we dined successive images of a siesta in the shade of a vine or of an excursion on the sea […]. [14]

This dinner, although without preparation, was splendid.[15] And The evening was extremely calm and beautiful.[16]

After scaling a ruinous staircase I was shown a bed chamber,[17] where I was invited to stay the night.

Brain

After some passing of time, we had gotten to know each other, and found that we were perfect for each other. I gave him all that I could, while he did the same for me.

It was evidently a case of “love at first sight” […][18]

I had done everything that I could for him I had already banished the shadow of the negative […].[19]

I had learnt that There is the care of the body to consider, health regimens, physical exercises without overexertion, the carefully measured satisfaction of needs.[20]

We would often spend the evenings in the living room, admiring each other.

Mouth

Everything happens, then, during the seconds of complete veiling. Hardly had it begun than a strange light, yellow and tawny, resembling nothing else, neither the evening nor the dawn, invaded the environment; the glory of orange light intercepted by the walls of my abode disappeared, giving way to a somber and magic bath […].[21]

The variant was the surprise bath, where I was taken down the corridors to the ground floor, and arrived in a square room with a vaulted ceiling, where a large bath had been constructed; I was then tipped backwards into the water. [22] Mild water? I found suds forming on my body and I rubbed hastily here, there, everywhere, judging it to be the wash cycle and knowing it would not last long. Then came the rinse cycle. Ah, warm. Well, perhaps not warm, but not quite as cold, and definitely feeling warm to my thoroughly chilled body.[23]

If a man is covered by an eruption you will mix flour of malt little by little in oil, you will apply (it) and he will recover; if he is still not cured, you will apply hot simtum and he will recover; if he is still not cured, you will apply the warm residue and he will recover.[24] If we employ extracts, they must have been recently prepared and preserved with great care.[25] Oiling out, making out, polishing, scraping, etc.[26] This new development came from the perfecting of the arts that imitate the human body.[27] When he awoke, he looked at his body and found it clean as virgin silver, […] whereat he rejoiced exceedingly and his breast expanded with gladness.[28]

Stomach

Now for his diet: for lunch honey, for dinner a biscuit and vegetables, meat infrequently.... In this way his body kept the same condition, as if on a straight line, without being sometimes healthy, sometimes sick, and without growing heavier Even outside the strictly Pythagorean context, regimen was regularly defined with reference to these two associated dimensions of good health maintenance and proper care of the soul.[29]

You can imagine my surprise when I had discovered a tremendous thing, it seemed to me.[30] The layout of a modern kitchen, […] designed to streamline all processes, from food storage and food preparation, to cooking on the stove and serving the finished meal on the dining room table, to dishwashing and the storage of cutlery and dishes.[31] The Greeks were not wrong in showing us the immortals constantly feasting, drinking ambrosia, and laughing endlessly.[32]

And there were always drugs around—most notably, the jars of white crosses and other uppers that he kept in the fridge next to his protein fortified milkshakes.[33]

I experience food beyond the meal not only while consuming it but also in the selection of certain products over others in meal planning and preparation.[34]

In the succeeding month, our health improved [35] even beyond what I had thought was the limit.

Muscle

The most striking interior volume is the central, double height hall that at once evokes memories of medieval great halls and is bathed with light from huge windows. […][36] Everything is mirror […] [37] It contained all sorts of apparatus: an exercise bicycle, wall bars, a rowing machine, a massage machine etc.[38] I begin by taking a mirror, look at my shoulders, examine my loins and thighs.

Entrance of the gymnast in gymnopedy, entrance of the gymnosophists, entrance of the professor of gymnastics.[39] How magnificent. By gymnastic exercises it was intended to harden his body, to sharpen his courage, and to prepare him for the fatigues and dangers […].[40]

The double ecstasy of the muscular effort in the thighs and calves, a powerful, almost metallic leap, a pause in the air that seems eternal, during which the body assumes positions and performs.[41] That there is absolutely no imperfection, is indeed, […], a proof of his being wanting in the highest qualities of architecture; […] and may well be studied for the excellence he displays in methods of levelling stones, for the precision of his inlaying, and other such qualities […].[42]

For almost nobody, except he be trained from the start and equipped with complete reason, can develop to perfect proportions, understanding when he should do certain things, and to what extent, and in whose company, and how, and why.[43]

No sculptor can possibly produce a first class work of art here on Gaia without a well-crafted Participation and the ones I produce of this particular type are considered excellent[…][44] We seem never to be altogether prepared for the resulting distress. If we do not literally shake, as I did […], we may experience an internal shudder that is the subjective equivalent of the overt trembling that occurred […]. While my physical shaking […] was observable by anyone standing near me, the inner shudder at my own bodily pain may not be visible to others even though it is felt intensely by myself, and felt as foreign to me. Some part of my body has become alien to me, split off from a coherent and unitary sense of self.[45]

He clearly abused himself, but in so doing rendered a stature I had never before had the blessing to see. Ideal form of excellence![46] But For what purpose?[47] He seemed beautiful and strong because he was not like me. I had found a new fascination for this incredible man, a man who seemed to have the ability to do anything.

My eyes alighted by chance on the massive mirror that hung opposite and I let out a cry: our reflections in its golden frame were like a picture of extraordinary beauty. It was so strange and fantastic […].[48]

I had found the strong man I needed and was as happy with him as it is possible to be on this funny ball of clay.[49] I had opened myself up to him.

We were now mutually bound together, the lighter being restrained by the heavier, so that he cannot fly off; while, on the contrary, from the lighter tending upwards, the heavier is so suspended, that I cannot fall down.[50] But there remain a double door, behind which I had never been allowed to go. A secret he was hiding from me.

So these two beings lived in this manner, high aloft, with all that improbability which is in nature; neither at the nadir nor at the zenith, between man and seraphim, above the mire, below the ether, in the clouds; hardly flesh and blood, soul and ecstasy from head to foot; already too sublime to walk the earth, still too heavily charged with humanity to disappear in the blue, suspended like atoms which are waiting to be precipitated; apparently beyond the bounds of destiny; ignorant of that rut; yesterday, to day, tomorrow; amazed, rapturous, floating, soaring; at times so light that they could take their flight out into the infinite; almost prepared to soar away to all eternity.[51]

Heart

Here the day has come; here the week of the lectistemium had begun.[52]

The physical effort was small, but the mental effort of trying to control without controlling was enormously difficult.[53] His only aim, his only possible aim, was to please me.[54]

I believed, however, that the soul could achieve temporary separation from the body in an ecstatic trance.[55] Is it truly possible to think without arriving at beauty, without penetrating the secret place where life bubbles up, without the transfiguration of the body?[56]

Prepared?[57]

A single locus of sexuality was acknowledged in social space as well as at the heart of every household, but it was a utilitarian and fertile one: the […] bedroom. [58]

At the sight of him, I felt myself bewildered — every sense was absorbed in ecstasy.[59]

Then begins the body to body of discourse with and against silence.[60]

Air fills the thorax; ten liquids circulate through the vessels and pores; fire sets the heart, the genitals and the brain ablaze; the humus models the human.[61]

The glorious light makes us drunk with joy and our sense of wonder has no limits. This pleasure is truly divine! What pure happiness we feel in the bottom of our hearts at this spectacle! What ecstasy! No, we cannot possibly give expression to it! At this season nature’s work is done; everything is the image of perfection; everything has acquired a clearly defined form that is full blown, accurate and pure. Outlines are clear and distinct; their maturity gives them noble, majestic proportions; their bright, vivid colours have acquired all their brilliance.[62] Then the engine was started, the machine ran along the ground, gathered speed, until finally, all of a sudden, at right angles, I rose slowly, […] as it were static ecstasy of a horizontal speed suddenly transformed into a majestic, vertical ascent.[63]

Now, drawn out from his body, his sinews formed a bundle of dark, shiny stalks, not unlike the bundle of lightning bolts that lay beside him, although these were bright and smoking.[64] Now between the dry head, more than dead, almost abstract, empty and dessicated, suitably objectivized, wholly exterior, pierced, visible, nameable, articulated, analyzable, between the skull and the rest of the world, a circumstantial halo of light, like the ones worn by the great saints, replaces, at bone level, the lining of flesh, fat, muscle, organs, skin, veins, tendons, hair, radiance, charm, beauty, glory. Thus the body thinks. The body thinks therefore shines.[65]

the body becomes an architectural structure, moving masonry, a ship; the skeleton becomes a firm framework, with tie beams and rafters; the muscles form the wall and partitions.[66]

Moments are points of rupture —ephemeral, euphoric, revelatory of the total, radical, sometimes revolutionary possibilities latent in everyday life.[67] Everything that I can see in this body produces in me ecstatic wonder.[68]

Then, having risen to so high a pitch, having been sustained with so much vigour, the chant, mingled with a murmur of supplication in the midst of ecstasy, seemed at times to stop altogether like a spring that has ceased to flow.[69] This music makes me cry because I am not like it, not something complete, which turns toward the lost sweetness of life like a distant quotation. Happiness can only be thought of as something lost, as a beautiful alien. It cannot be anything more than a premonition that we approach with tears in our eyes without ever reaching it. [70]

I was absolutely in a state of ecstasy, and, involuntary, sinking on my knees, I passionately extended my arms towards him, certain he could not hear, and having no conception that he could see me; but there was a fireplace at the end of the room that betrayed all my proceedings.[71] And when I got into the open air, I heard distinctly, as the night was still, the distant sound of a door unlocking.[72]

When the door in front of him finally opened, he stared straight into a hallway, [73] which seemed to stretch out into the infinite. At the end of this couloir, a door.

I prudently walked towards it.

Womb

As I opened the door, I heard a sort of echo in the roof; it sounded like voices and it began to shake my Roman courage.[74] I entered and was taken aback by The blackness, […] the vast emptiness stretching out infinitely.[75] Deep, dark, dank, dismal silence.[76] the infinite void of space[77] But is that emptiness not also the ultimate plenitude?[78]

The darkness embraced him lovingly.[79]

There are beauties that are more palpable and explicable, and they are hidden and secret beauties.[80] I walked into the vastness, the door closing behind me. I almost slipped after taking a step Because the ground was wet.[81]

His hands were stroking my body anxiously, but with care and love. And it did touch me in somewhat the same way; it also brought close to me things of the kind which we not only see with our eyes but feel also in our hearts.[82]

I felt my way along the moist walls, until I let go and walked freely. My feet touched something, laying on the floor. Something that felt like A small bit of steel.[83]

That was the little thing, or the beginning of the little thing, that was soon to become the big thing.[84]

[…] the ‘first chaos’, the absence of order in perfect order, the absence of all relation.[85]

Thus, the creation began. A primordial action, statuary repatriates mass— strange, inevitable, ceaselessly returning, equilibrium and content of the world, first object—by unifying it, like a thing; by individuating it, like a body; by localizing or marking a space by its means; by stabilizing mass like a dead thing or body; by therefore stopping time; by giving mass limits it cannot leave, by defining it or even by inventing the act of defining.[86]

Through this technique, […] a new object was being formed; slowly, it superseded the mechanical body, the body composed of solids and assigned movements, the image of which had for so long haunted those who dreamt of disciplinary perfection.[87]

It shall be perfect therefore, as its Father which is in heaven is perfect.[88]

After Twelve years, three months, and four days,[89] it’s complete![90]

Finally, all the parts that have contributed to the perfection of the work which we admire[91] came together, forming the one, most sublime, most charming, most graceful, most splendid, most touching being.[92]

[…] more safely guarded by its walls, more superb in palaces, more ornamented in respect to temples, more beautiful by virtue of its buildings, more illustrious in its porticoes, more splendid in its piazzas[93]

In an ecstasy of joy, […], we reiterated, stroking and patting it as though it were a horse that had just come first past the post: “You’re the most beautiful being we know, do you hear?”[94]

[1] Wollstonecraft, Complete Works

[2] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[3] Rousseau, Collected Works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

[4] Hays, Architecture Theory since 1968

[5] Hugo, Les Miserables

[6] Wollstonecraft, Complete Works

[7] Fergusson, An Historical Inquiry into the True Principles of Beauty in Art

[8] Mallgrave, Architectural Theory

[9] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[10] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[11] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[12] Seneca, Complete Works

[13] Chilvers, A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art Oxfor

[14] Proust, In Search of Lost Time Vol III The Guermantes Way

[15] Rousseau, Collected Works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

[16] Wollstonecraft, Complete Works

[17] Wollstonecraft, Complete Works

[18] Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex

[19] Deleuze, Difference and Repetition

[20] Foucault, The History of Sexuality Volume 3

[21] Serres, Biogea

[22] Foucault, History of Madness

[23] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[24] Serres, History of Scientific Thought

[25] Laennec, A Treatise on the Diseases of the Chest and on Mediate Auscultation

[26] Gombrich, Art and Illusion

[27] Younes, The Historical Dictionary of Architecture of Quatremere De Quincy

[28] The Book of the Thousand and One Nights

[29] Foucault, The History of Sexuality Volume 2

[30] Serres, Hermes Literature Science Philosophy

[31] Teige, The Minimum Dwelling

[32] Serres, The Parasite

[33] Davis, High Weirdness

[34] Zimring, Encyclopedia of Consumption and Waste

[35] Laennec, A Treatise on the Diseases of the Chest and on Mediate Auscultation

[36] Cruickshank, A History of Architecture in 100 Buildings

[37] Deleuze, Cinema 2 The Time Image

[38] Bourdieu, Distinction

[39] Serres, Genesis

[40] Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

[41] Serres, The Five Senses

[42] Ruskin, The Stones of Venice

[43] Seneca, Complete Works

[44] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[45] Casey, The World on Edge

[46] Wollstonecraft, Complete Works

[47] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[48] Deleuze, Masochism Coldness and Cruelty Venus in Furs

[49] Deleuze, Masochism Coldness and Cruelty Venus in Furs

[50] Pliny, Natural History Volume 1

[51] Hugo, Les Miserables

[52] Serres, Rome

[53] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[54] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[55] Schmitt, The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy

[56] Serres, The Five Senses

[57] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[58] Foucault, The History of Sexuality Volume 1

[59] Rousseau, Collected Works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

[60] Serres, Hominescence

[61] Serres, Biogea

[62] Mallgrave, Architectural Theory

[63] Proust, In Search of Lost Time Vol V The Captive The Fugitive

[64] Calasso, The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony

[65] Serres, Statues

[66] Serres, The Five Senses

[67] Hays, Architecture Theory since 1968

[68] de Montaigne, The Complete Essays

[69] Proust, In Search of Lost Time Vol III The Guermantes Way

[70] Sloterdijk, Critique of Cynical Reason

[71] Rousseau, Collected Works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

[72] The Book of the Thousand and One Nights Supplementary Nights

[73] Kafka, The Trial

[74] Rousseau, Collected Works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

[75] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[76] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[77] Serres, The Birth of Physics

[78] Foucault, History of Madness

[79] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[80] Harrison Wood Gaiger, Art in Theory 1648 1815

[81] Hugo, Les Miserables

[82] Proust, In Search of Lost Time Vol III The Guermantes Way

[83] Hugo, Les Miserables

[84] Zizek, Less Than Nothing

[85] Serres, The Birth of Physics

[86] Serres, Statues

[87] Foucault, Discipline and Punish

[88] Tyndale, Doctrinal Treatises

[89] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[90] Hovestadt Buehlmann, Quantum City

[91] Harrison Wood Gaiger, Art in Theory 1648 1815

[92] Frankl, The Gothic

[93] Smith, Architecture in the Culture of Early Humanism

[94] Proust, In Search of Lost Time Vol III The Guermantes Way

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