Here is what I found from the erudite, calmly informative (I could learn from that!) Tiberge at Gallia Watch, who kindly introduced my new blog when I started it back in 2013.
I have met Tiberge three times since, where we spent time together in lovely Philadelphia, chatting about blogs, Larry Auster, Laura Wood, beauty, France, and any other topic that took our fancy.
If you are responsive to aesthetics, to beauty, beauty of everything - art, music, architecture, human faces, human shapes, fashion, flowers, manners, voices, and if you feel that today's vulgar and narcissistic counter-culture has arrogantly abandoned the individuality, the inner questioning that are essential for beauty, in favor of insolent, indolent conformity, a conformity that tries to pass itself off as "original" or "creative" or "personal", when in fact it is parasitic, imitative, and repellent - worse, it is deliberately repellent, then you experience, as I do, a vague feeling of nausea in this repellent age we're living in. When a young man, who might have been good-looking in another era, makes your sandwich while you watch in disgust, his arms covered with tattoos, rhinestone earrings clamped on his ears, baggy pants slipping down almost to his thighs; when your waitress, who could be pretty if she valued prettiness, arrives squeezed into a mini skirt, her ears studded with nails, not to mention her nose, and her head shaven to boot, to take your order (as if one could eat after being served by such a creature), then you know you are living in the Age of Repellence. When you are forced to listen to the sounds of someone else's pygmy culture, diligently and diabolically piped through the loud speakers of every store, every coffee shop, every restaurant, every waiting room, everywhere, with no recourse to complain, no power to oppose the shrieking pygmies that rule over us and destroy our peace, then you just stay home.
Remember when a coffee shop conjured up visions of a comfortable chat with friends or a chance to read a good book over a good cup of espresso? Not any more. Starbuck's is torture. Every shop is torture. The sights and sounds are vomitous, repellent, deliberately repellent.
Of course I am speaking of an urban area that is run by "minorities" and elitist leftists. You may see a better side of things where you are.
Kidist Paulos Asrat is the administrator of Reclaiming Beauty, where she analyzes and criticizes the anti-beauty agenda of today's young, (mostly) white women. Of course she denounces the obvious outrages of the type I described above, but she also compares the influential styles of the past with those of today. In a recent post she compared Vogue magazine of the 50's with recent issues. And even more recently she discussed the unfortunate changes made to certain great French perfumes, such as Guerlain's La Petite Robe Noire (The Little Black Dress).
Her insights and opinions won the approval of the late Lawrence Auster who often posted her comments. Recently, Toronto-based Kidist made a trip to New York, with a detour to Springfield, Pennsylvania to visit Lawrence's grave site, where she took several photos. Those of you who followed his blog and his painful last weeks, may find this post of interest.
She is also a great admirer of the New York Public Library, a structure that leaves one breathless, a testimony to the intelligence, taste and vision that prevailed in more civilized times in the United States. And of The Cloisters, in upper Manhattan, a place of rare beauty, another stunning testimony to the American drive for excellence and to the generosity and erudition of men, such as John D. Rockefeller, Jr., often despised for their wealth, yet they poured their money and knowledge into the reconstruction of an extraordinary medieval-style complex of buildings housing priceless treasures, including the Unicorn Tapestries. They did this out of love for art and a desire to educate and elevate the public's understanding. The Cloisters is a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Read more about her Ethiopian origins here, where she provides several links to Lawrence Auster's VFR. I should add that she is fluent in French having studied French in England. (Click her resumé at the top right of her homepage.)
Kidist and I met once, at Lawrence Auster's December dinner in 2011, but we did not really have a chance to speak. I'm very sorry I missed her when she came to Springfield a couple of weeks ago, but she was here and gone so quickly, before I even knew. So hopefully next time…
Top, the "blue hour" in Paris, between day and night. Borrowed from her website.
Below, from the Unicorn Tapestries at The Cloisters.
