#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

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

The spectacle of a great, solvent government paying a fictitious price for gold it did not want and did not need and doing it on purpose to debase the value of its own paper currency was one to astonish the world. ↗

— Garet Garrett

#currency #debase #did #doing #fictitious

Summer movies are spectacles; that's what you pay 10 dollars to see. You want to get teased by effects sometimes. I think that will never stop. ↗

— Jan de Bont

#effects #get #i #i think #movies

I want people to go to the movies. I am the man of the spectacle. I'm playing. ↗

— Roman Polanski

#go #i #i am #man #movies

Peace, plenty, and contentment reign throughout our borders, and our beloved country presents a sublime moral spectacle to the world. ↗

— James K. Polk

#beloved #beloved country #borders #contentment #country

Don't borrow someone else's spectacles to view yourself with. ↗

— Simon Travaglia

#else #someone #spectacles #view #yourself

I sort of became infatuated with soldiers. I got to know some of them and got a little perturbed with Hollywood making a spectacle out of them and making them look like they have screwed up somehow. ↗

— Channing Tatum

#got #hollywood #i #infatuated #know