Notes on Bimbos and Bodybuilders
Stan Van Rompaey
Grafische Cel, 2022
€29,95
Now the ignoble wait is almost over! A new canonical text in respect of the eternal virgins, endorsed by the event of the year, coming at you from sophisticated mischief. Look camp right in the eye, twist the 8-count of academic killjoy, and weight the world’s burdens to bulge those biceps. “Minimalism is dead!!! Long live tacky extravagance, performative excess, artless luxury, and all forms of opulence for its own sake.”
A heterotopic inquiry into “Camp”.
Any serious attempt to describe or depict “camp” is doomed to failure. Susan Sontag knew that. And so does author Stan Van Rompaey. One who understands the camp’s sensitivity loses it as soon as it is spoken.
Only the real imposter seems to have a fair chance. And there goes Stan. She dances linguistically with bimbos and bodybuilders, she cooks up a wild collection of quotes that are as sensible as they are dusty, and she compiles an unfinished story of obscene imagery. Finally realizing with Oscar Wilde that being natural is such a difficult pose to maintain, she writes an illicit manifesto – as sincere as it is conceived, as personal as it is political – that celebrates excesses and triumphs over every sense of guilt and shame . All this in a desperate attempt to unravel what it means to be “camp”, from a post-ironic frame of mind, fully aware that no aesthetic is innocent and neither are the criticisms of it.
Start reading and watching, plunge into the waves of everyday artificiality, redo your own bimbofication and make sure you lose yourself in the commodity fetishism of these unholy days. And as you drift between and slightly beyond the boundaries of language and understanding, always remember that you are not just any bimbo!
ISBN: 9789492574237
