(no subject)

One of the more interesting memes, from setting_sun

Look at your LJ "interests" list. If you have fewer than 50 interests, pick every fifth one. If you have between fifty and seventy-five interests, pick every seventh one. If you have over seventy-five interests, pick every tenth one. If you have fewer than ten, pick all of 'em.

List them on your LJ, and tell everyone exactly what it is about these things that interests you so much.

Camille Desmoulins/French Revolution/Jacques Louis David
The age of the Enlightenment is my favourite period in history. I love the culture, the literature and the art of that time. Camille Desmoulins was one of the most prominent leaders in the Revolution, but, unlike Danton and Robespierre, he was pretty. Then, as with all the celebrities of the Terror, they chopped his head off. >:O

Jaques-Louis David is the painter behind some of the more famous paintings of Napoleon, and also painted Marat, stabbed to death in the bath by angry!sort-of aristorcrat, Charlotte Corday. It’s a very sombre, beautiful piece, still and reflective in the chaos of the Terror.

Death in Venice
I just love this muted, beautiful work, the sultry and deadly glamour of Venice, and Aschenbach’s desperate pursuit of the boy Tadzio whom he watches from afar. What he feels for the boy isn’t really explained, but I don’t think it’s lust, really. Well, not in that sense—more that Tadzio sums up what he has lost, and where better a setting than in that decaying, beautiful city? Towards the end, when he sits on that deckchair on the beach of the Venetian lido—it just seems to sum up so much about the beauty of life and the final humiliation of death. Visconti’s film makes me cry.

Queer As Folk
From the pen of Russel T. Davies, him what writes Doctor Who and who wrote Casanova, this was one of the freshest, funniest and funkiest series ever to be shown on British TV. It was far ahead of its time and I adore it. Not to be mistaken with the American version, which, whilst sometimes fun, doesn’t have Stuart Alan Jones.

This Sceptred Isle
This was a radio series and set of books about the history and beauty of the British isles. But also, it’s a better thing on my interests than the prosaic “United Kingdom.”

Snark
Because the internet isn’t the internet without snark.

Yurp
Because Europe is interesting. Oh, why is it spelt like that? It’s a neologism that has come about in recent years here that may have something to do with a certain president talking about “Yurp” and the “Yurpean Union.” These things stick.