Men's Bodies Explored By Men

The golden ending set in media res ...

Andrew McMillan physical "urination"

you wake to the sound of stream into bowl
and go to hug the naked body
stood with its back to you     and kiss the neck
and taste the whole of the night on there
and smell the morning's pale yellow loss
and take the whole of him in your hand
and feel the water moving through him
and knowing that this is love     the prone flesh
what we expel from the body and what we let inside

prone flesh -- "likely or liable to suffer from, do, or experience something unpleasant or regrettable" rather than "lying flat"

I am prone to like the version that ends as above; the truncation of some thoughts about breath causes a slight pang and yet is welcome     the mind pauses and it is the form that speaks

in the longer version the tautness is gone    

I had forgotten that loving could feel so calming
telling you that your body was beautiful     sighing out
the brittle disappointments from the bones     having no judgement
of what the body may want to be doing     where the breath may fall

imagine all that freight of philosophy is carried by the one word "expel"     and cast is the spell     we know where the breath may fall     neck     kiss

French has the beautifully suggestive verb humer     long vowels     most appropriate to mark morning encounters

And so for day 2312
12.04.2013

Rough Notes from Eells on Pater on Mona Lisa

Emily Eells
Proust’s Cup of Tea: Homoeroticism and Victorian Culture (2002)

p. 183-148

Pater - homoerotic ’Conclusion’ of The Renaissance dropped from second edition; replaced by frontispiece

His description of it makes his meaning clear:

a face of doubtful sex, set in the shadow of its own hair, the cheek-line in high light against it, with something voluptuous and full in the eyelids and the lips.

The title of the 1873 edition - Studies in the History of the Renaissance - was changed to The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry in the 1877 edition.

p. 190

Pater’s implicit stress on the sexual ambiguity of the Mona Lisa is particularly perceptive, as computer-generated images have revealed that the face with its enigmatic smile in fact conceals a self-portrait of da Vinci. Until recently, John the Baptiste hung alongside the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, a juxtaposition which made the striking similarity in their androgynous faces all the more apparent.

See Lillian Schwartz, “Leonardo’s Mona Lisa” Art and Antiques (January 1987) pp. 50-54

Assessment of the claim : Antoinette LaFarge (Oct 1996). "The Bearded Lady & the Shaven Man: Mona Lisa, Meet Mona/Leo". Leonardo: The Journal of the International Society of Art, Science, and Technology.

And so for day 2056
30.07.2012