Count Harry Kessler: "You Cannot Waste Time When You're Young"

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Last April, I read an extraordinary review-essay by New Yorker classical music critic Alex Ross about the following book: Journey to the Abyss: The Diaries of Count Harry Kessler, 1880-1918. Ross, one of my favorite cultural writers, told a vivid story of someone with seemingly unlimited reach in European cultural circles, someone who might have breakfast with Rilke, discuss art with Rodin over lunch, spend an early evening looking after a deteriorating Nietzsche, and look ahead to a weekend with Vuillard. Or Degas. Or Monet. A man who kept note of it all — not just logging it, but commenting, analyzing, thinking on the page.  

Ross’ piece is still subscription-only (11/23/12 update; he’s posted it his on site), but Amazon’s page for the diaries offers this bit from his New Yorker review:

A document of novelistic breadth and depth, showing the spiritual development of a lavishly cultured man who grapples with the violent energies of the twentieth century…also a staggering feat of reportage. The war fever infected Kessler…[he] does not hide the grimness of the scene. For the reader, it is a shock to be deposited in such hellish landscapes several pages after watching the antics of Diaghilev and company; few books capture so acutely the world-historical whiplash of the summer of 1914…The supreme memoir of the grand European fin de siècle.

Within about 10 minutes of reading Ross’ review, I’d put the book on my Must Buy list, and by the time my birthday rolled around in June, a loved one had gifted it to me. I’m only 330 pages into the 850 total, but I can say that it is indeed extraordinary. 

Here is Kessler in his early 20s, in 1891, writing to himself from Paris:

Went with Papa in the evening to the Folies-Dramatiques. On the way home spoke to him about my project of a trip around the world, and he gave his consent. If everything goes well then from November until next October over Egypt, India, Indochina, Java to Australia, then New Zealand and North America.

That’s how Kessler rolled. 

Berlin, February 1895:

For my part the way in which a girl places her feet while dancing or how a young officer holds his horse with his thigh gives me a joy that, in this way, none of the so-called orthodox works of art can. I find in such movements, of which a drawing, for example — even done by the Japanese — can only provide a snapshot, a secret beauty, an unconscious style, which enchants me more than all the perfect of fixed forms.

Paris, July 1895, amid a visit to Paul Verlaine:

Finally he promised me to draw a portrait of Rimbaud as well as he could from memory, the existing ones, with the exception of the Fantin-Latour, are all bad. He also spoke again today more than was necessary about earning money, but he is so naive in this that his grasping had actually nothing repellent about it. It resembled more the fondness for sweets of a child than the usual greed.

Berlin, 1896:

Yesterday and today I read for the second time, after four years, Schopenhauer’s Principle of Sufficient Reason. It is notable how many new voices books, which like this one are deeply thought, acquire over time, and how difficult it is — I notice this in my marginal notes — to recover the old impressions and thoughts. Such a work, read for the second time — and this is even more true for literature — is like a yardstick against which you can measure the change in your self over time. And there are also works, the most powerful and the deepest, that you must read over and over again throughout your life, which, like medieval cathedrals at different times of the day, in the morning light, in the glow of the afternoon, and in the cool gray of evening, are always changing and becoming new. You cannot waste time when you’re young, otherwise it is too late, and you have missed forever the morning light of the masterpieces, perhaps their most splendid lighting.

Brussels, 1897:

When it comes to art, what the idiot looks for in an artwork is the confirmation of his way of viewing, thus the satisfaction of his vanity. The artist is supposed to prove to him what a fine observer of nature he — the eternally complacent, the good citizen, the Sunday art connoisseur — is. True art demands, however, renunciation temporarily so that afterward you can walk away all the richer. All art that does not enter the nerves and senses of those who enjoy it, so that they who have experienced it see or feel the world from then on with something of the genius of the artist who has moved them, is, in the end, not worth being produced.

Weimar, 1904:

Munch painted my portrait.

My reading continues.

"50 Books/50 Covers" Winners for 2011

Some beauties in this annual competition, which is put on by Design Observer, AIGA, and Designers & Books. 

David Carr on Atlantic Media's David G. Bradley

From the NYT profile:

What is the way forward for a 155-year old-magazine that once published Emerson and Longfellow? Digital first and last, with ancillary revenue from conferences. The magazine, edited by James Bennet, is still very much in the middle of the conversation, but these days it is prized mostly for bringing luster to digital assets like Atlantic.com, Atlantic Wire, Atlantic Cities, and beginning Monday, Quartz.

And later: 

“It’s become very, very clear to me that digital trumps print, and that pure digital, without any legacy costs, massively trumps print,” Mr. Bradley said.

Not positive that’ll work for everyone, but The Atlantic company sure has seen some success the past few years.

"Lessons For Building A Tablet Magazine That's Actually Worth Using"

From Co.Design:

The New Yorker has seen success with its relatively straightforward digital edition, but there’s nothing that really differentiates it from the print version, except maybe that it’ll save you the embarrassment of having a tower of unread issues on your nightstand.

Aside from poet-spoken poems? Videos? Supplemental documents? Slideshows of artworks? Movie clips?

This suggestion (even made in slight jest) — that only futuristic interactive material counts as worthwhile tablet content — gives me the blues. 

Zadie Smith Profiles Jay-Z

Two of my favorites.

At one point, Smith introduces another lyrical gem (“I got watches I ain’t seen in months / Apartment at the Trump I only slept in once”), then rebuts a likely critique:

But asking why rappers always talk about their stuff is like asking why Milton is forever listing the attributes of heavenly armies. Because boasting is a formal condition of the epic form. And those taught that they deserve nothing rightly enjoy it when they succeed in terms the culture understands.

Popping Up in the New York Times

Hey, there’s The New York Times covering Abstractions Arrive! The piece, written by David Streitfeld, includes a new interview with Gass about books and technology. Thanks for the nod, Paper of Record!

The Pussy Riot Closing Statements

Remarkable and brave.

And here’s David Remnick, who spent years living in and covering Russia, on the scandal. His post includes video of Tolokonnikova reading her statement.

Reporting on NMPS 2012

At the TOKY Blog, I offer five key take-aways from attending the National Museum Publishing Seminar last June.

MATCHBOOK. bikinis meet their match

“Clever matches between bathing suits and books." 

Great idea.

“The Gass Sentences: A Top 50”

Today is William Gass’ 88th birthday. For the Big Other website, John Madera asked some writers, readers, and publishers to name their own “literary pillars,” as a tribute to Gass and his “50 Literary Pillars” project from the early 1990s. After being invited to contribute, I went in a slightly different direction.

"First of all, we don't publish slideshows"

Great email from BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti to his troops about why the site’s succeeding right now.

@KimKierkegaard

KimKierkegaardashian: The philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard mashed with the tweets and observations of Kim Kardashian.

Genius. 

Death in Spring — a beautiful cover, designed by Milan Bozic, and an unforgettably weird, savage, and poetic novel from the Catalan writer Mercè Rodoreda. Published in English for the first time by the commendable Open Letter Books. (How great, I learned only today, that it received this NPR nod on its “You Must Read This” series.)

[vimeo 45784128 w=500 h=281]

Reblogging myself from a new microsite for Abstractions Arrive:

On a Saturday morning in July 2012, the esteemed writer and internationally collected artist spoke about the release of Abstractions Arrive: Having Been There All the Time. The video was made by Stephen Schenkenberg and recorded in Gass’ St. Louis home (which holds 15,000 books). 

Discussing "J R"

At Open Letters Monthly, Greg Gerke and Gabriel Blackwell have a long and interesting discussion about William Gaddis’ masterful novel.

n+1: Euro Cup 2012

Dushko Petrovich, both wrapping up the tournament so far and previewing today’s final, offers this sketch of Mario Balotelli:

As a civilian, he is outlandish. Last year, his white Maserati was impounded twenty-seven times, accumulating £10,000 worth of parking tickets. He also accidentally set his house on fire with firecrackers, was fined a week’s wages for throwing darts at a teammate, and kept turning up unannounced in strange places, including a women’s prison in Brescia (“just fancied having a look”) and Xavarian College in Manchester, where he apparently came for the bathroom but stayed for a while.

On the pitch, he is always a threat. But to whom? He scores amazing goals, many of them invented out of nothing, but he often falls out of games and regularly gets kicked out. Several times this tournament, he has gone clear on goal and entered a kind of daze, as if he has forgotten where he is.

Atul Gawande on the ACA Ruling

From the surgeon/writer’s impressive Daily Comment for The New Yorker:

The major social advances of the past three centuries have required widening our sphere of moral inclusion.

"Study Reveals Dolphins Lack Capacity To Mock Celebrity Culture"

This gem could have been a headline-only piece, but The Onion goes the full nine:

Even when presented with softballs like production stills from The Proposal, the marine animals exhibited no discernable reaction.

Gerhard Richter Painting,” certainly one of the finest artist documentaries I’ve ever seen. Smart, measured, surprising. Watch the trailer, then find it in your city. A big thanks to Webster University for bringing it to St. Louis.