#spectacle

Glory is largely a theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience... The desire to escape or camouflage their unsatisfactory selves develops in the frustrated a facility for pretending -- for making a show -- and also a readiness to identify themselves wholly with an imposing spectacle. ↗

— Eric Hoffer

#spectacle #nature

Each spring for a period of weeks the imperial gardens were filled with prize tulips (Turkish, Dutch, Iranian), all of them shown to their best advantage. Tulips whose petals had flexed wide were held shut with fine threads hand-tied. Most of the bulbs had been grown in place, but these were supplemented by thousands of cut stems held in glass bottles; the scale of the display was further compounded by mirrors placed strategically around the garden. Each variety was marked with a label made from silver filigree. In place of every fourth flower a candle, its wick trimmed to tulip height, was set into the ground. Songbirds in gilded cages supplied the music, and hundreds of giant tortoises carrying candles on their backs lumbered through the gardens, further illuminating the display. All the guests were required to dress in colors that flattered those of the tulips. At the appointed moment a cannon sounded, the doors to the harem were flung open, and the sultan's mistresses stepped into the garden led by eunuchs bearing torches. The whole scene was repeated every night for as long as the tulips were in bloom, for as long as Sultan Ahmed managed to cling to his throne. ↗

— Michael Pollan

#spectacle #sumptuousness #music

I love movies with spectacle but spectacle can be a performance, it doesn't have to be a creature. ↗

— J. J. Abrams

#i #love #movies #performance #spectacle

If you ever find happiness by hunting for it, you will find it, as the old woman did her lost spectacles, safe on her own nose all the time. ↗

— Josh Billings

#ever #find #happiness #her #hunting

In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation. ↗

— Guy Debord

#conditions #directly #everything #immense #into

St. Michaels Mount is a favourite place of mine; people will walk across to the Mount all day and assume they will be able to walk home. The spectacle of hundreds of people realising that the path they walked over on is disappearing under several feet of water is very amusing. ↗

— John Dyer

#across #all day #amusing #assume #day

I was a WASP kid going to a high school that was 99 percent Jewish and I wanted attention and I wanted to make a spectacle of myself because I couldn't stand to be ignored. ↗

— James Ellroy

#because #going #high #high school #i

You know, the reward for 'Captain America' is amazing. It's always fun to see a giant spectacle film and see the fun stuff - the special effects. ↗

— Chris Evans

#amazing #america #captain #captain america #effects

My belief, for what it is worth, is that city dwellers cannot understand the world. Insulated from reality by complex and expert systems of provision and police, baffled by fashion and spectacle, city dwellers can distinguish neither the sources of their existence nor the consequences. ↗

— James Buchan

#belief #cannot #city #complex #consequences

I'd love to follow the Tour de France one day. It's a really exciting spectacle. I've only seen it once as it was coming into Paris and that was very exciting for me. I have memories of that. ↗

— Bryan Ferry

#day #exciting #follow #france #i