Otto > Recent Status Updates

Gay/feminist Wagner

This chapter was more of a history of queer liberation movements in Western Europe

You just CANNOT TOUCH miss ‘salem’s Lot

Loving this little book written by Poulenc’s longtime collaborator. Literally invaluable. I’m finding so many charming little pieces I would never have found otherwise!

Niebelheim
Jewish and Black Wagner

Probably THE definitive text on Wagner's virulent Anti-semitism and racial prejudices. Interestingly, the B-side to this essay highlights the somehow-even-more-hateful German writers and philosophers in the fin-de-siècle and how they wielded Wagner's cultural godhood as an evil megaphone; amplifying his views and grotesquifying them in his name.

REQUIRED READING FOR ALL MUSICIANS

5. Holy German Art
The Kaiserreich and Fin-de-Siècle Vienna

All of these miserable men writing Wagner fanfiction made me finally understand how Wagner became a symbol of the elites and ,in turn, authoritarianism. He was quite literally a German Cultural God and his likeness was used as propaganda for Nationalistic views. MUCH more to say about the baggage his name carries but I’m being cut off!

Truly enchanting mastery of the English language. The very New England tradition of Transcendentalism applied to the west/nature as a way to find god-with-a-lowercase-g AND maturity (but aren’t those two secretly the same thing?) Using Francine as a foil for Andrew’s REAL youth over the age he wants to be

Really attentive writing that flows with surprising ease. American Manifest Destiny/go west/rampant capitalism vs. young man from Boston who just wants to find himself. Hydrogen Bomb vs Coughing Baby but make it evil settler-colonialism

Picking up the dusty tomes at my bedside

Chapter 4. Grail Temple

Particularly interesting is the propulsion to godlike status of Wagner in these fin-de-sciècle artistic movements. They created a fictional image of who this man was and his supposed mystical powers over emotion and music. Those Parisians were wacko!

Kinda crazy butterfly effect that the Chicago World’s Fair resulted in, almost 120 years later, Take It Off by Kesha

“Villager with a blind spot for the macabre” is a crazy read

I think when I first read this my reading comprehension was just SO bad and I’m glad I’m reading this again after rehabbing my comprehension skills this last year. Bonus experience with my connection to Chicago! Love this city down

What I’m lovingggg about o’farrell’s writing is the efficiency of her exposition. Finding out Agnes is pregante because her stepmother couldn’t find her menstrual pads! Live!

“The drama leads us to wonder whether there is any moral world order at all, and to what extent moral judgements make sense”

Very curious info about the genesis of part 2…being purposefully posthumously published as the masses really wanted to know how it ended, yet it’s critically regarded as inferior to the first part - seemingly because Goethe did not have time to edit as ferosciously as he did with part 1. The summaries of the scenes are interesting but mean nothing to me!

Summer beach read that summer was too short for

Just logging all of my books I’m halfway done with

This introduction is fascinating! It’s really setting up the hugeee piece of literature that is Faust. I had no idea that Goethe wrote this for all people. It’s been completely restricted to the German PhD students! Love him he seemed fierce