{"id":1783,"date":"2009-02-15T22:04:47","date_gmt":"2009-02-15T22:04:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/2009\/02\/15\/louche_decadenc\/"},"modified":"2024-11-28T02:25:19","modified_gmt":"2024-11-28T07:25:19","slug":"louche_decadenc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/2009\/02\/15\/louche_decadenc\/","title":{"rendered":"Louche decadence"},"content":{"rendered":"

As far as cultural commentary goes.<\/strong> I realize that I\u2019m really grabbing at the low-hanging fruit to point out that Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch auction<\/a> is a long-awaited glimpse at the sheer, unadulterated crazy that is the King of Pop’s approach to life. The gallery of selected offerings<\/a> scratches the surface of a story about questionable taste, obscene wealth, stunted maturity, and an attempt to keep reality at bay.<\/p>\n

\"Michael<\/span><\/p>\n

The thing is, the story of the Yves Saint Laurent<\/a> auction has a lot of parallel themes, although I\u2019d venture to say Laurent’s taste was infinitely better, and there’s a very different vibe to an estate auction in comparison to a living person auctioning off the trappings of a chapter in his life he wants to forget. (And honestly, Michael, I can sympathize with that.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

There’s something very enticing about this description of Laurent’s things from a photographer reviewing them: “I have an affinity for louche decadence, which is one of the things on view here,” Pierson says<\/a>. “There is a very opium-den quality \u2014 all those tables full of objects one can peruse in a haze.” It’s less enticing to picture Jackson’s “armour, display cases of custom-made crowns and an ornately carved throne with red velvet upholstering in his bedroom.” However, reading about the two auctions made me feel a bit sad, and I saw some eerie parallels in the way two very different, very wealthy men seemed to rely on so much stuff<\/i> to keep at bay an overwhelming world around them.<\/p>\n

“The innumerable representations of serpents and birds that Saint Laurent amassed, symbols of an obsession with a natural world from which, toward the end of his life, he became increasingly removed” do not seem so altogether different from Jackson’s infamous menagerie<\/a>. “Saint Laurent was not the first person to apprehend that genius can often be a curse. Neither was he the first to withdraw from society, in all its disappointing dimensions, into the fixed and reassuring company of things.” Also, clearly, he was not the last.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As far as cultural commentary goes. I realize that I\u2019m really grabbing at the low-hanging fruit to point out that Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch auction is a long-awaited glimpse at the sheer, unadulterated crazy that is the King of Pop’s approach to life. The gallery of selected offerings scratches the surface of a story about … Continue reading “Louche decadence”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ultracultural"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1783"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1783\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71692,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1783\/revisions\/71692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}