Every bait and switch was a work of art.
New AP Taylor Swift Podcast episode đźď¸ Aesthetic Theory out now!
This week, we're exploring Aesthetic Theory - the experience of beauty, just for the sake of beauty. Jodi kicks things off by sharing Taylor Swift's "Gorgeous" from her album reputation (2017). This leads to a fascinating chat about Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and how it parallels the song's fixation on beauty. Then, Jenn shares her personal experience of aesthetic pleasure with Taylor Swift's "willow" from evermore (2020). Finally, Maansi wraps things up with "gold rush" from the same album, highlighting the beautiful and artistic descriptions throughout the song.
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đThis Weekâs Extra Credit - Brought to You by Jodi
Theory episodes are both the most nerve-wracking and also the most exciting episodes for me. Nerve-wracking because I know nothing about these literary theories; and exciting because I know nothing about these literary theories! Jenn provides plenty of prep materials to help me get grounded in the topic, but itâs often during the recording of the episode that I get the most clarity and understanding. (We really are an AP Taylor Swift class, connecting the dots and discovering new questions as we go!)
Aesthetic Theory was particularly challenging for me: what do âart for the sake of art,â âbeauty for the sake of beautyâ actually mean? I was particularly stumped by the idea that âArt should be beautiful and pleasure its observer, but to imply further-reaching influence would be a mistake.â Especially as a Swiftie, where everything has a deeper meaning, it felt particularly confusing to explore Taylor Swiftâs music through the lens of Aesthetic Theory. Thatâs partly why I decided to go quite literal and chose âGorgeousâ as my show-and-tell songâitâs a show about beauty for the sake of beauty, letâs talk about a song about beauty!
But Jennâs discussion of âwillowâ helped me begin to grasp this concept of art for artâs sake. Her description of the first time she heard the song captures the idea perfectly:
the first time I heard âwillowâ I just felt like I like teleported. My soul just lifted out of my body. This song just really struck me.
This drove home that aestheticism is about the experience of beauty, not why something is beautiful. You donât need words or an explanation to enjoy beautyâitâs just beautiful!
Since recording this episode, Iâve tried hard to identify when Iâm having my own aesthetic experiences. As someone who overanalyzes literally everything in my life, this was a very hard exercise and resulted in a rather short list that I will share for you, dear reader.
Wallpaper
Yes, you read that right. Wallpaper is an aesthetic experience for me. It serves zero function and is beauty for the sake of beauty. In my rental apartment, putting up wallpaper is a particularly terrible idea practically and economically speaking. But have you ever seen the transformational effect a bold, colorful wallpaper can have on a white-box room? Wallpaper is the most tangible example of aestheticism because it serves literally zero purpose other than to be pleasing to its observer. It doesnât keep you warm, it doesnât make the room bigger, and it can negatively impact a homeâs marketability and value because itâs often hard to remove and expresses the sellerâs style, not the buyerâs. I donât careâgive me all the wallpaper!
The Ocean, or Any Body of Water
I am not outdoorsy. I am definitively indoorsy. But there is something about looking at the ocean, or any body of water for that matter, that instantly soothes and calms my soul. I can stare at the Hudson River or the Atlantic Ocean or even a man-made lake for hours, watching the water ripple in circles on the surface, following the slow, rhythmic palimpsest of waves in, and out, and in, and out. My mind goes blank, my soul, to quote Jenn, âlifts out of my body,â and suddenly the chaos of the world around me evaporates for just a moment.
âLaylaâ (Unplugged version) by Eric Clapton
I first heard this song on the Classic Rock radio station in high school, and it took me until reading about aestheticism to understand why I love it so much. Itâs not the lyrics or the melodyâI donât love the original Derek and the Dominoes version nearly as much as I love the acoustic âunpluggedâ version. Thereâs something about the combination of the live audience reacting to the music, and the way the guitar and piano dance around each other, that transports me every single time.
As someone who primarily listens to music for its lyrics, my love of this song has baffled me for YEARS. I donât understand the lyrics. I canât figure them out. And yet, I donât careâthatâs not important, and itâs not why I love the song. And now I know why I doâbecause I just do. And thatâs enough for it to be an aesthetic experience, the experience of art for the sake of art.
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I leave you, dear Reader, with the words of Oscar Wilde as you hopefully close your laptop, put down your phone, and enjoy something beautiful without trying to intellectualize it:
But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face. The moment one sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid.
âThe Picture of Dorian Gray,â Chapter 1