Performativizing Papyrocentricity #74

Papyrocentric Performativity Presents…

A Big Book about BooksThe Penguin Classics Book, Henry Eliot (Penguin 2018)

Wrecks & Drugs & Rock & RollBodies: Life and Death in Music, Ian Winwood (Faber 2022)

In the Bland of the BlindAn Unexplained Death: The True Story of a Body at the Belvedere, Mikita Brottman (Canongate 2018)

Hu Thru MuThe Musical Human: A History of Life on Earth, Michael Spitzer (Bloomsbury 2021)

A Bit of EngLitThe Power of Delight: A Lifetime in Literature: Essays 1962-2002, John Bayley (Duckworth 2005)

Chrome TomeThe Secret Lives of Colour, Kassia St Clair (John Murray 2018)

Cannonball Corpse – AC/DC: The Story of the Original Monsters of Rock, Jerry Ewing (Carlton Books 2015)

Chimpathy for the Devil?Oasis: Supersonic: The Complete, Authorised and Uncut Interviews, curated by Simon Halfon (Nemperor 2021)

D for Deviant, K for Korpse…Doktor Deviant’s Diary of Depravity: Kandid Konfessions of a Kompulsive Korpse-Kopulator, ed. Dr David Kerekes and Samuel P. Salatta (Visceral Visions 2022)


Or Read a Review at Random: RaRaR

Tête avec Texte


Above you can see the Peacock on a Platter, or Robert de Montesquiou posing as the severed head of John the Baptist and flanked by relevant lines of his own poetry. But there’s a better version of the poetry, as you can see by comparing the photo with this:

J’aime le jade,
Couleur des yeux
D’Hérodiade

Et l’améthyste,
Couleur du sang
De Jean-Baptiste. — from “Robert de Montesquiou: The Magnificent Dandy” (1962) by Cornelia Otis Skinner


I love jade,
Color of the eyes
Of Herodias

And amethyst,
Color of the blood
Of John the Baptist.


Elsewhere Other-Accessible…

Portrait of a Peacock — Cornelia Otis Skinner’s excellent essay on Montesquiou
Le Paon dans les Pyrénées — review of Julian Barnes’ not-so-good book partly about Montesquiou