Of Milan and Miniskirts, and Other News

Valentina Rosselli in Nessuno. Photo courtesy Scott Eder Gallery, via Hyperallergic

Today in simulacra, simulation, and other heavy Baudrillard-type shit: Why are so many tech bros convinced that reality is an illusion created by our futuristic descendants? “Many people have imagined this scenario over the years, of course, usually while high. But recently, a number of philosophers, futurists, science-fiction writers, and technologists—people who share a near-religious faith in technological progress—have come to believe that the simulation argument is not just plausible, but inescapable … ‘Maybe we should be hopeful that this is a simulation,’ [Elon] Musk concluded, last week, since ‘either we’re going to create simulations that are indistinguishable from reality or civilization will cease to exist. Those are the two options.’ If you hope that humanity will survive into the far future, growing in power and knowledge all the while, then you must accept the possibility that we are being simulated today.”

Fun pretentious dinner-party trick: ask if anyone has read Byron’s memoirs and mock anyone who answers in the affirmative, because those memoirs don’t exist, duh. “Byron’s memoirs—which might have finally provided the ‘truth’ about his life—were destroyed soon after his death. The story goes that three of his closest friends (his publisher, John Murray; his fellow celebrity poet, Thomas Moore; and his companion since his Cambridge days, John Cam Hobhouse), together with lawyers representing Byron’s half-sister and his widow, decided that the manuscript was so scandalous, so unsuitable for public consumption, that it would ruin Byron’s reputation forever. Gathered in Murray’s drawing room in Albemarle Street, they ripped up the pages and tossed them into the fire. The incident is often described as the greatest crime in literary history. It has certainly served to fuel curiosity and conjecture about Byron’s personal life for another couple of centuries. What was the damning secret his friends needed to protect? Domestic abuse? Sodomy? Incest? Probably all three, we imagine.”

“Starchitects” like the late Zaha Hadid present themselves as benevolent aesthetes, designing public works that revitalize moribund cities around the world. But really they’re just helping rich people and promoting globalization: “Many leading architects, and most architecture critics, fail to acknowledge the basic reality that architecture isn’t just a vacuum of aesthetic virtues and vague adjectives—it is a product of its political, economic, and social context … Because architects are largely beholden to their clientele, their predilection for designing luxury lodging is partly attributable to changes in the housing market and the global economy. But we shouldn’t let them off the hook that easily. By and large, elite architects have disengaged from efforts to make the most fundamental unit of architecture available to all … Prime movers in gentrification, Hadid and her fellow starchitects have deployed their talents in service of an urban development model that erects symbolic monuments for elites rather than improve the lives of ordinary people.”

Contrary to popular belief, Milan in the sixties was no place to wear a miniskirt. Just ask Valentina Rosselli—she’s fictional, but she’ll tell you anyway: “Inspired by American silent screen star Louise Brooks, Valentina Rosselli is the heroine of illustrious Italian comic book artist and graphic novelist Guido Crepax, who started drawing the famous character in 1965. Through his outstanding technique, cinematic compositions, and subtle use of ink and line, Crepax created an introspective and consciously sensual character, a photographer living in the midst of a feminist revolution, that would become his trademark. Through Valentina, Crepax unhinged the sexual taboos of Italian society dominated by the doctrine of the Catholic Church.”

Finally, let’s talk about history’s oldest cuss words: “Latin obscenity was in some ways much like our own, being based around sexual and excretory taboos. The Roman sexual schema was quite different from ours, however, leading to some distinctive swearwords. It was socially acceptable for a Roman man to have sex with anyone of any gender, in any way, as long as he was the active partner. To insult someone, then, a Roman would not use futuo (the Latin f-word)—he would more likely say ‘Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo,’ as the poet Catullus does to critics who have accused him of effeminacy. He threatens them with oral rape and anal rape, basically—he will humiliate them by putting them in the passive position. The worst insult you could throw at a Roman man was that he practiced cunnilingus—this was to be passive with respect to a woman, a shame almost not to be borne.”

Advertisement