Why Cemeteries Matter

As Americans increasingly opt out of burial, cemeteries very well may become obsolete. It’s worth asking, then, especially at a time of year when graveyards loom large in our cultural imagination, what purpose do they serve? Aside from the practical need to dispose of corpses in a sanitary way, do they serve any higher good for the community? Rachel K. Alexander, Tablet

Amo molto passeggiare per i cimiteri, soprattutto quelli americani, o quelli monumentali. L'idea che stiano scomparendo mi turba molto.

Scompaiono anche le città? 

Can you hear the death rattle of the skyscraper? It’s the sound of the free candyfloss cart being wheeled past the rows of empty desks, and the lonely drip of the beer-keg tap by the water cooler. In a desperate attempt to lure employees back to their offices, companies are laying on all manner of novelty treats, from monogrammed water bottles to personalised notebooks. It is hoped that these perks might convince people to leave the house, get on packed trains and jostle for the lifts, all in the name of teamwork and productivity. Oliver Wainwright, The Guardian

The Chastity Plot

Austen’s novel [Pride and Prejudice] is a brilliantly ironic take on what Lisabeth During calls “the chastity plot.” The course of true love never does run smooth, at any rate not in the English social novel of the nineteenth century, in which misunderstandings, missed opportunities, and plain missteps ensure that it doesn’t all end too soon—that there is, in fact, a plot. For your longed-for love match to get fouled up by someone else’s indiscretion (with a third party) seems particularly harsh. It is, however, the inevitable consequence of a system in which women’s sexual virtue acts as a guarantee of the legitimacy of social reproduction. Clair Wills reviews, Lisabeth During, The Chastity Plot (University of Chicago Press). nybooks.

Can music give you an orgasm? The short answer is yes. A longer answer will unlock the secrets of the evolution of music. But let’s begin with orgasms. Sam Dresser, Aeon

Interessante, no?

Smells

If all our genius lies in our nostrils, as Nietzsche remarked, the nose is an untrained genius, brilliant but erratic. The human nose can detect a dizzying array of smells, with a theoretical upper limit of one trillion smells—yet many of us are incapable of describing these smells in words more precise than smelly and fragrant. Jude Stewart, The Believer

Un bell'articolo sugli odori, un altro su come si legge un libro (sono sempre stata incuriosita da come si legge!). 

The 20-page rule: Novelist Mark Billingham advises readers to angrily launch a book across the room after 20 non-gripping pages – but almost 40% of people will keep going right to the end, The Guardian

infine Hannah Arendt, sempre affascinante:

As her friend Mary McCarthy once said, Arendt was “a magnificent stage diva”.  Christopher Bray, The Critic

Dogopolis

Dog mess once had medicinal uses. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, physicians used it as an astringent in the form of album Graecum (dried and whitened canine excrement).

It was hard for some observers to discuss the canine excrement that was now visible within the modern cityscape. In a letter to the Times of London, Bristol-based Dr. G. Knowles acknowledged the difficulty of discussing the foul matter: “I can only think that people have been comparatively silent regarding this disgusting nuisance out of a sense of delicacy.” Excerpt reprinted from Dogopolis: How Dogs and Humans Made Modern New York, London, and Paris by Chris Pearson, published by the University of Chicago Press. © 2021 by the University of Chicago Press. Lapham's Quarterly

Oltre alla cacca dei cani, questa settimana segnaliamo anche il cambiamento che sta avvenendo nelle autobiografie: 

Rather than prioritizing confession and catharsis, today’s authors are focusing on the question of who gets to share their version of things and interrogating the form, along with themselves.  Megan O’Grady, NYT