Geniuses have no sex
marko....@afxnews.com
Louis Katorz wrote:
> Well Nappy was not too thrilled with de Staël's _De l'Allemagne_
> because of its praise for German culture. So he exiled her.
Indeed. I found her book to be mostly sentimental twaddle
about Gothic cathedrals, chivalry and meditation (with some
nice passages about the sublime in Nature thrown in) but
it did help to introduce Romanticism to France. I think she
may even have coined the term "romanticism", in fact. There
is an amusing description of Madame de Staël's attempt to
seduce Napoleon in Vincent Cronin's biography _Napoleon_:
"Quite different from Napoleon's steady, principled opponents
was the lady who claimed to express their views but in fact
expressed her own. Germaine de Staël was not French at all but
Swiss. She was bossy; her favourite countries were England
and Germany; she married a Swede; her soul, as she never tired
of saying, was veiled in northern mists of melancholy. Some
of the melancholy arose from the fact that she had a round
face, thick nose and full lips. These were partly redeemed
by flashing dark eyes and beautiful hands, in which she
ceaselessly twirled a twip of poplar. Her private morals were
as loose as those of Talleyrand, who fathered her first child.
When, in _Delphine_, Germaine portrayed the ex-bishop in
the character of Madame de Vernon, Talleyrand murmured:
'I understand that Madame de Staël, in her novel, has disguised
both herself and me as women.
Germaine de Staël entered Napoleon's life by writing him
letters during the first Italian campaign. She called him
'Scipio and Tancred, uniting the simple virtues of one to
the brilliant deeds of the other'. What a pity, she added, for
a genius to be married to an insignificant little Creole,
unworthy of appreciating or understanding him. Napoleon
laughed at the idea of this bluestocking comparing herself
to Josephine and did not reply. But Germaine was persistent
and back in Paris called on him unexpectedly. Napoleon, who
had been having a bath, sent a message that he wasn't dressed:
a detail which Germaine brushed aside: 'Genius has no sex.'
Later at Talleyrand's she ran the conqueror to earth and
presented him with a laurel branch. 'Who is the woman you most
respect?' Napoleon replied, 'The one who runs her house best.'
'Yes, I see your point. But who, for you, would be the greatest
of women?' 'The on who had the most children, Madame.'"
(pp. 284-5)
----- Posted via NewsOne.Net: Free (anonymous) Usenet News via the Web -----
http://newsone.net/ -- Free reading and anonymous posting to 60,000+ groups
NewsOne.Net prohibits users from posting spam. If this or other posts
made through NewsOne.Net violate posting guidelines, email ab...@newsone.net
David Latane
Crabb Robinson, who also at this time--while not inventing "romanticism"--first
used the phrase l'art pour 'art (see Burwick's book on Romantic Mimesis)
D. Latané
Shaun Cooper
images and their sources if anyone can help...
Thank you,
Shaun.
sh...@shauncooper.com
Illustration 1 Source: Meret Oppenheim retrospective catalogue, Moderna
Museet, Stockholm. 1967. Page 11. Caption: Ma gouvernante, my nurse, mein
Kindermadchen. 1936. Kat.nr.10.
Illustration 2 Source: Realism, Rationalism, Surrealism. Yale/OU Press,
London, 1993. Page 240.Caption: Meret Oppenheim, Ma Gouvernante (My Nurse),
1936, white heels with paper ruffles, presented on an oval platter, 14x21x33
cm. Photograph: Statens Konstmuseer. DACS, London, 1993.
Illustration 3 Source: Beyond the Teacup. Independent Curators Inc. &
Distributed Art Publishing, New York, 1996. Plate 16. Caption: Ma
gouvernante-My Nurse-mein Kindermadchen, 1936. High-heeled shoes with paper
ruffles on an oval platter. 5« x 8« x 13in (14x21x33cm). Nationalmuseum,
SKM, Stockholm.
Illustration 4 Source: The Muse as Artist. Women & the Surrealist Movement.
Art in America, New York, July 1985. Page 126. Caption: Meret Oppenheim: Ma
Gouvernante, My Nurse, Mein Kindermadchen, 1936, mixed mediums, Moderna
Museet, Stockholm.
Illustration 5 Source: Fetishism: Visuality, Power & Desire. South Bank
Centre, London & Royal Pavillion, Art Galleries & Museums, Brighton in
association with Lund Humphries, London, 1995. Page 67. Caption: Meret
Oppenheim, My Governess, 1936, Moderna Museet, Stockholm.
Illustration 6 Source: Beyond the Teacup. Independent Curators Inc. &
Distributed Art Publishing, New York, 1996. Plate 15. Caption: Objet (Le
d,jeuner en fourrure), 1936. Fur-covered cup, saucer & spoon; cup, 4 in
(11cm)diameter; saucer, 9 in (24cm)diameter; spoon 8in (20cm)length; overall
height 3 in(7.2cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Purchase. Photograph
1996. The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Illustration 7 Source: Beyond the Teacup. Independent Curators Inc. &
Distributed Art Publishing, New York, 1996. Plate 1. Caption: Votivbild
(Würgengel)/ Votive Picture (Strangling Angel), 1931. Indian ink and
watercolour, 13 x 6 in (34x17.5cm). Galerie Renee Ziegler, Zurich.
Illustration 8 Source: Beyond the Teacup. Independent Curators Inc. &
Distributed Art Publishing, New York, 1996. Page 17. Caption: Pourquoi
j'aime mes chaussures / Why I Love My Shoes, 1934. Indian ink, 8¬ x 10 in
(21x27cm). Kunstmuseum Solothurn, Switzerland.
Illustration 9 Source: Beyond the Teacup. Independent Curators Inc. &
Distributed Art Publishing, New York, 1996. Plate 34. Caption: Das Paar /
The Couple, 1956. Pair of brown boots attached at the toes, ca.7 x 15 x 6
(ca.20x40x15cm). Private Collection.
Illustration 10 Source: Beyond the Teacup. Independent Curators Inc. &
Distributed Art Publishing, New York, 1996. Plate 49. Caption: Das Haus der
fee / The Fairy's House, 1961. Painted wooden stick, doll's shoe, Plexiglas
box, and gilted snail's shell; height: 15 in; box: 6¬ x 4 x 3 in
(16x12x8cm). Whereabouts Unknown.
Illustration 11 Source: Beyond the Teacup. Independent Curators Inc. &
Distributed Art Publishing, New York, 1996. Page 28. Caption: Installation
Views, Exposition Surr,aliste d'objets, Galerie Charles Ratton, Paris, 1936.
Illustration 12 Source: Defiance in the Face of Freedom. Parkett / Institute
of Contemporary Arts, London, 1989. Page 43. Caption: Postcard from Marcel
Duchamp to Meret Oppenheim, 1936.
artyw
department. My College Calculus prof once told us about the
mathematician Euler, who was prolific in many ways including having 13
kids. This surprised some people, but not my prof who said "As if a
mathemitician couldn't get it up thirteen times." I dont remember much
else from my Calculus class.
j...@radidelmex.net
> Apparently Isaac Newton didn't fare too well in the "have lots of sex"
> department.
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_208.html
> My College Calculus prof once told us about the
> mathematician Euler, who was prolific in many ways including having 13
> kids.
Euler had lots of kids, but what did Mrs. Euler have to say about his pillow
talk? IIRC, Voltaire and Feynman were also randy chaps. I suspect that Darwin
was somewhere in the middle. Chopin, I suspect, was a horndog, but Beethoven
had no horns at all.
I'm clinging to the contra-positive, No sex -> I must be a genius!
Yarn Spinner
When I was young and stupid, I had lots of sex.
Jesse Leon McCann, comic/children's book/ heck, anything writer-guy
*What I'm working on RIGHT NOW:
SIMPSONS EPISODE GUIDE VOL 3 (Seasons 11, 12)
*Visit my cheezo-web page
http://hometown.aol.com/jleon2001/myhomepage/index.html
David J. Loftus
or a little sex with a lot of different people?
j...@radidelmex.net
> Does it make any difference whether one has "lots of sex" with one person,
> or a little sex with a lot of different people?
What about a lot of sex with little people? One should total the heights of
one's partners (headboard are handy for this) and divide by pi. A volume
measurement might also be informative, but a ruled comforter is a turn-off.
David J. Loftus
The Procrustean method of skewing the numbers is also a distinct
turn-off.
David Loftus