Weird Studies: You Must Change Your Life

Oddly was sure I posted this before awhile ago, but went back to this episode and apparently I never did? ->

You Must Change Your Life

JF Martel & Phil Ford

Rainer Maria Rilke's poem "Archaic Torso of Apollo" ends on a note that has puzzled and inspired readers for more than a century: "For there is no place that does not see you. You must change your life." In this episode, JF and Phil search for the meaning of this ethico-aesthetic imperative that Rilke heard resounding from a fragment of Greek statuary. This episode is special because the hosts were able to record it in person while on a writing retreat in Western Quebec.

First the poem [which actually was mentioned in the Spirituality & Light thread], then I'll post the episode notes:

We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,
gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.
Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast’s fur:
would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.

Show Notes:

Rainer Maria Rilke, “Archaic Torso of Apollo”
Peter Sloterdijk, You Must Change Your Life
Michel Foucault, The Order of Things
He Man, superhero
Munich Terrorist Photo
Albert Camus, The Rebel
Franz Kafka, "The Trial" and “In the Penal Colony"
Auguste Rodin, French sculptor