What do Japanese tea gardens, jazz, and crying in public have in common? Find out on this week’s episode of Neobimbos! KC and Evie discuss the beauty of imperfection by examining the Japanese aesthetic theory of “wabi,” and of course, taking it to Freudian lengths. As is our style, we’ll start by analyzing rock gardens and Japanese food, move on to the ethos of punk rock, but somehow end up with a number of questions (and some answers this time) about how vulnerability and our flaws unite us and form unique bonds of love. Having a rough week? This is the episode for you; it really is a heartwarming journey.

Reading List:

General

• David E. W. Fenner. “In Celebration of Imperfection.” Journal of Aesthetic Education 38, no. 2 (2004): 67–79. https://doi.org/10.2307/3527317.
• Saito, Yuriko. “The Role of Imperfection in Everyday Aesthetics.” Contemporary Aesthetics 15 (2017), https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/liberalarts_contempaesthetics/vol15/iss1/15

Japanese Aesthetics

• Wicks, Robert. “The Idealization of Contingency in Traditional Japanese Aesthetics.” Journal of Aesthetic Education 39, no. 3 (2005): 88–101. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3527434.
• Saito, Yuriko. “The Moral Dimension of Japanese Aesthetics.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 65, no. 1 (2007): 85–97. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4622213.
• Saito, Yuriko. “The Japanese Aesthetics of Imperfection and Insufficiency.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 55, no. 4 (1997): 377–85. https://doi.org/10.2307/430925.

Jazz

• Gioia, Ted. “Jazz: The Aesthetics of Imperfection.” The Hudson Review 39, no. 4 (1987): 585–600. https://doi.org/10.2307/3851219.
• Brown, Lee B. “‘Feeling My Way’: Jazz Improvisation and Its Vicissitudes-A Plea for Imperfection.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 58, no. 2 (2000): 113–23. https://doi.org/10.2307/432090.
• Hamilton, Andy. “The Aesthetics of Imperfection Reconceived: Improvisations, Compositions, and Mistakes.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 78, no. 3 (2020): 289-300. https://doi.org/10.1111/jaac.12749.

Punk Rock

• Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk Rock by Gillian McCain and Legs McNeil

Human Condition

• Maybe Baby Newsletter by Haley Nahman
• Art of Loving by Erich Fromm
• Donna Harawy’s Cyborg Manifesto

Some Favorites:

• Books
  • Bonjour Tristesse by François Sagan
  • Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell
  • The Beautiful & The Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • The Book of Eels by Patrick Svensson
  • Superforecasting by Philip E. Tetlock & Dan Gardner
  • The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
  • Mythologies by Roland Barthes
• Movies
  • Tin Drum, directed by Volker Schlondorff
  • Before trilogy, directed by Richard Linklater
  • A Summer’s Tale, directed by Éric Rohmer
  • Room with a View, directed by James Ivory
• Music
  • Butterflies by Four Tet & Skrillbaby
  • Summer Wine by Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazelwood