Over the weekend I found myself at a potluck dinner of sorts at a WG in Neukölln that models itself after a squat: hence, the neologism.

Please check out a selection of B&W images from that evening at my photography blog, Theater of Desire.

Enjoy!

-Adam

I apologize if things have been somewhat sleepy here in the past week or so. However, there is much that is worthy of your time and consideration on the other sites on the New York Feuilleton Blogring.

Firstly, on To the Vexed, Voracious and Voluptious, we have a new short-story in the ongoing series “The World Turned Upside Down.”

Then, check out Theater of Desire for a photo gallery from Berlin’s innovative museum for contemporary art, The Hamburger Bahnhof.

Finally, two more essays have been posted to Bilderverbot, perhaps the first-ever blog devoted to aesthetics. The first one deals with Wagnerian imagery at the climax of James Joyce’s Ulysses. The second is a reading of Henry James’ “The Figure in the Carpet” which uses Roland Barthes’ “Le Plaisir du Texte.”

I’ve only been out of school for five months, but already I deeply miss being a student. Perhaps it’s because I’m surrounded by so many philosophy MA candidates.

Until I decide whether to return for an advanced degree, however, I’m taking measures to keep my philosophical mind sharp. I recently joined a weekly Wittgenstein reading group. We meet every Sunday to discuss a handful of propositions from the Philosophical Investigations. Prior to this, the only Wittgenstein I’d read were the Lectures on Aesthetics, last spring in Lydia Goehr’s Modern Survey of Aesthetics.

I was recently revisiting some essays I had written on aesthetical matters. Reopening my college archives, I had a sinking feelings: they seemed homeless and unwanted. I determined to find them a home, finally deciding to post them on one of the other blogs that make up the Feuilleton blogring. Accordingly, I redubbed the blog “Bilderverbot” (the name refers to the ban on graven images in traditions such as Judiasm) in light of the subject-matter of the freshly-posted papers.

So, it gives me great pleasure to invite you to check out what may be the only Aesthetics Blog on the web, Bilderverbot. Until I have the time to contribute brand-new material, the blog shall be a holding site for my critical essays on art, philosophy, literature, film, music.

Currently up on Bilderverbot, you can find essays on a colorful cast of characters, including Hume, Adorno, Schöpenhauer, Wagner, Rossini, Gandhi, Ibn Khaldun, Popper, Collingwood, Goodman, Kracauer, Benjamin, Lucaks, Brecht and many, many more…

As always, I appreciate any and all comments!

Recently up on “Scholarshit,” my pseudo-academic blog is a piece that explores the various attempts to turn opera into film. Productions discussed include Bergman’s “Magic Flute,” Syberberg’s “Parsifal,” Zeffirelli’s “Otelllo,” Powell and Pressburger’s “Tales of Hoffmann,” Rosi’s “Carmen” and Friedrich’s “Elektra.”

Since the birth of cinema, filmmakers have been irresistibly drawn to opera. From Cecil B. DeMille’s 1915 silent version of Carmen to Kenneth Brannagh’s forthcoming film of The Magic Flute, the impulse to blend these composite art forms has tempted and frustrated an array of film artists. This is hardly surprising, as both art forms are mass spectacles that use a variety of media to communicate dramatic and emotional content.
Yet, opera rarely translates well to the screen without the feeling that something has been lost. There are many challenges to creating a successful Film-Opera. A director has to find his own solutions to issues of theatricality, spectatorship and ways to deal with what is basically a struggle for supremacy between music (in opera) and image (in film)… READ MORE