Thanks to the indulgence of Comcast internet connectivity has been restored so RadioFreeUBU will now resume regular programming…

Remy de Gourmont (1858 – 1915) was one of those writers who were very influential in their time, but have been largely obscured today, especially in the English speaking world. A semi-recluse for the last half of his life due to a disfiguring case of lupus, Gourmont was a powerful and mysterious figure among the avant garde tastemakers of his day. T. S. Eliot and the American modernists were very influenced by his essays on art and aesthetics, but he also produced novels, decadent in that delicious, sensuous French way. Here’s some passages from the only one I could get my hands on, the brilliant and subtle Dream of a Woman:

Why have we not the right to be gods, to play with sensations at the bottom of the vale, beneath great prehistoric masonry?

As her silhouette grew clearer in the shadow, Adelaide surprised me by her noble attitude and her pure lines.

She was waiting for me like a woman in a picture. Last night was the third of our nights, mute and Babylonian.

And she gave herself to my staring eyes.

I am trying to express in one word the mingling of tones that stream across the flesh – the rosy ivory of the skin enlivened by the blue reflection of the willow, the little violet shadows that roll along the muscles, the wide medallions of golden sunlight falling over the shoulders where they seem to leap up again as from the vermillion water on the arms and knees, and mount again in sparks toward the belly where a somber crescent swallows them; the breasts beneath this path of light appear more alive and more free; changing their form with every movement of the body, they remain every pure: they are like great flowers with purple and amber hearts, like galley prows spotted with the blood of murders!

Mutual attraction moves rapidly when the hour of separation is known.