How An Aesthete Documents His Aesthetics

Walter Pater writes in the preface to The Renaissance Studies in Art and Poetry that “To define beauty [...] is the aim of the true student of aesthetics.” 

“What is important, then, is not that the critic should possess a correct abstract definition of beauty for the intellect, but a certain kind of temperament, the power of being deeply moved by the presence of beautiful objects.”

That one should ask questions like “What is this song or picture, this engaging personality presented in life or in a book, to me? What effect does it really produce on me? How is my nature modified by its presence, and under its influence? [...] one must realize such primary data for one’s self, or not at all.”

“The aesthetic critic, then, regards all objects [...], all works of art, and the fairer forms of nature and human life, as powers or forces producing pleasurable sensations [...].” 

The aesthete should strive “[...] to indicate what the source of the impression is, and under what conditions it is experienced. His end is reached when he had disengaged that virtue, and noted it, as a chemist notes some nature element [...]”

So the next time you hear a piece like Treuting’s “Extremes” (2009), see a piece like Venus Callipyge, read a piece like Nabokov’s “Lilith” and\or bite into a Burger Joint well-down cheeseburger with the works, note like a chemist the effect it has on you, how you’re being moved, how your nature is being modified and the pleasurable sensations being produced. 

THE PARIS REVIEW Rejection

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I recently submitted five poems via snail mail to The Paris Review . (Surprisingly, the editors don't accept online submissions.) And I received a rejection "letter" today. The "letter" is a bit disingenuous, because I doubt that the editors at the prestigious literary journal "regret" not being able to publish my verse. 

Kathryn A. Higgins, who interned at the journal, shared, "The Paris Review gets many unsolicited manuscripts every day and publishes I believe about one each year.

Depressing and yet encouraging — the work is definitely read, although not published."

However, I'm proud to join the likes of other poets such as Charles Bukowski whom were never published in the The Paris Review. Here's one of the poems that I submitted:

The Allure of Nymphets 

by Mo Ibrahim

Chaplin had a crush on 
12-year-old Maybelle Fournier before 
he met Mildred Harris at 14 
and at 16 his child she bore.

And he was smitten with Hetty Kelly 
and fertilized Lillita when they were 15,
after Casanova took the virginity 
of Nanetta and Marta; a true libertine. 

Seidel wrote in Ooga-Booga 
about maidens and Ducatis; only the best.
“But this woman is young. 
We kiss. It’s almost incest.”  

The Pretty Little Liars were dressed 
in minis and panties that they flashed
at the “fortysomething guy” 
before he hastily left the mall abashed.

Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany’s 
13-year-old Holiday Golightly 
married [a much] older man 
and no one opined she was crazy.

At 15 she lived with a college jock 
whose eyes could have been blue.
 At 18 she said, “I can’t get excited by a man 
until he’s at least forty-two.”

Californication’s Frank Moody had sex 
with his step-daughter who was 16.
 Bored to Death’s Ray was sad as the writer 
didn't sodomize the coed who was 16.

While On the Road Neal Cassady 
of the 15-year-old Marylou said, 
“...so sweet, so young, hmm, ahh.” 
But it was Dean who took her to bed.

In The Dark Side of Camelot  
Kennedy Sr. had sex with his 17-year-old caddie, 
while his wife, LBJ and Lady Bird 
listened to the action [over tea].

Frank Sinatra had the confidence 
to beseech an affair with 14-year-old Tuesday Weld 
who turned down the role of Kubrick’s Lolita 
before her meltdown that was uncompelled.

And what did the 16-year-old write on her FB wall?
It was her New Year’s resolution.
 “I’m going to fuck my history teacher!” 
At least she wasn't a damn freshman.

Gossip Girl’s Dan asked, 
“Who doesn’t like school girls?” 
Case in point, take the homeless man,
who whistled at the Catholic school girls.

That was on the Grand Central platform.
All the while,
the Pope approves of the length of their skirts 
that are enticing to an ephebophile

A Writer is a Prince!

I was originally drawn to the March 2014 issue of Vanity Fair due to the subtitle of the article The Prince of Patchin Place:

"... the Harris Tweed-clad modernist [E.E. Cummings], a longtime friend and mentor to her novelist father, rocked her teenage world." 

I thought that I could have used the article as a source for The Allure of Nymphets blog and for the second  volume of the book; however, this quote for E.E. Cummings stood out as well, “A writer is a prince!” 

Cummings felt that way despite:

"... he sometimes didn’t make enough money to pay the rent on the ramshackle apartment in Greenwich Village."

"... his last book of poetry had been rejected by every estimable publisher, 

his wife was six months pregnant by her dentist and 

his Aunt Jane had purloined his income ..."

However, Cummings had the "... ability to live elegantly on almost no money." And maybe most importantly, through it all, he maintained a very high level of self-esteem, which according to Cabane in The Charisma Myth would explain his charismatic appeal to the 15-year-old Masters High School sophomore.

Ephebophile Poets and Novelists

I wrote in The Allure of Nymphets and on The Allure of Nymphets' blog that according to Wyatt Mason of the New York Times, a favorite subject of poets for centuries has been man’s attraction to beautiful young women i.e, nymphets. For example, past poets Dante, Petrarch, John Donne and Poe and contemporary poets Frederick Seidel and Charles Bukowski all wrote about nymphets and/or were in age-discrepant relationships. 

And a number of famous novelists are no different. For example, Leo Tolstoy, Franz Kafka, Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway, Philip Roth and  J.D. Salinger wrote books with an ephebophile protagonist and/or the authors were in age-discrepant relationships. 

Let's combine the two by looking at a poem about an ephebophile author. 

In a clean, well-lighted place by Charles Bukowski 

the old fart [Ernest Hemingway]. he used his literary reputation
to reel them in one at a time,
each younger than the last.
he liked to meet them for luncheon and
wine
and he’d talk and listen to them
talk.
whatever wife or girlfriend he had at the moment
was made to
understand that this sort of thing made him
“young again.”
the young ladies vied to bed down with
this
literary
genius.
in between, he continued to write,
late at night in his favorite bar
liked to talk about writing and his amorous
adventures.
actually, he was just a drunk
who liked young ladies,
writing itself,
and talking about writing.
wasn't a bad life.