Romance, Porn & Poetry: Valentine Musings [Ice Cream Sundae]
No big prizes for what this Sundae 14th February 2016’s theme is, it’s pretty obvious.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
That said, now what? I’ve been doing some research and of course a lot of web pages are already featuring dozens of articles about Valentine’s Day a week prior.
I could paraphrase a few Wikipedia articles I’ve read about the ancient origins of Valentine’s Day, from Christian martyrs under Roman rule around the 5th century AD, how one signed a letter “Your Valentine”, to possibly later mixing things up with the Roman tradition of Lupercalia. The latter was a festival of fertility organised at about the same time of year (What a coincidence!).
That said, the connection with romantic love apparently came a little later, with poetry from Chaucer in the 14th century; about the same time stories of courtly love were like totally trendy with the European nobility.
The idea of courtly love had even started a couple of centuries earlier, during the Middle Ages. The main historical reference is De Amore (The Art of Courtly Love), a treatise written in the 12th century by one Andreas Capellanus. The main premise is that practicing courtly love while respecting a number of codes of behaviour ennobles both the lover and the beloved. Troubadours embellished and popularised all the ideas carried in romantic love to this day, that I grew up with in Disney animated features or similar family movies.
Back to Valentine’s Day. For those who believe it’s a made up holiday, well it’s true though as mentioned it’s been around and celebrated for over 700 years. We made up that we should celebrate aging another year; this isn’t wildly different.
Valentine’s Day can be seen as a reminder that it’s important to act and show how you appreciate and love your partner. A relationship is never a fixed thing, as the common knowledge goes, it needs working at. Romantic acts, gestures that your loved one will particularly appreciate, bring the experience and feeling of love to the foreground.
When I write romantic, it doesn’t have to be red roses and hearts of course; it’s whatever your loved one likes. It’s about providing them with something they really enjoy, it’s telling them how much you know them and love them.
One pitfall to romance is to think of what you like first and imagine that by extension they will too, which isn’t necessarily the case. Think of what they will enjoy. If in doubt ask them, or ask a close friend of theirs if it needs to remain a secret. Of course this can and should happen year round. This doesn’t mean you’re off the hook for Valentine’s Day. It simply depends how much your partner cares about this particular day. In doubt, doing something is better than doing nothing. And yes, I am stating the obvious.
I’ve always been a bit of a romantic at heart, possibly and occasionally a soppy one too.
As a teenager I specialised in falling for girls who weren’t particularly interested in me, or that I probably freaked out with grandiose and heavily significant declarations of love. I’d wallow in romantic despair before and after listening to songs like Scorpions’ Still Loving You for way too long.
Sometimes I’d turn to writing poetry. Most of it is in French, though I managed to find one that I wrote in English and seems appropriate to share with you today. I think it might be the first time I show it to anyone beyond a couple of close friends.
Nature awakens in the sun’s embrace
Colours blossom under the spring daylight
My heart shrinks in cold winter moonlight
Feeling mortified in lonely disgrace
Fabulous flowers inspire people’s scent and sight
Bees and birds are busy building anew
Only images of decay fog my view
My mind is filled with destructive insight
Couples enjoying their love on a park lawn
Passionate kisses under Cupid’s bow
So painfully wounded by his arrow
I wander aimlessly, a soulless pawn
A celebration of joy and harmony
This fantastic season brings happiness
All I feel is alienation and madness
Until I snap out of my misery
While I’m at it and in a different genre, here is one in French. This one is about the four seasons rather than love found or lost. It starts with spring, one verse per season:
Douce brise printanière, caresse d’une main invisible,
Qui d’une candeur enthousiaste chasse les soucis,
Appelle à la vie suite à un repos paisible,
Où foison de couleurs éclatantes se marient
Fraîcheur satinée du courant d’air estival,
Voguant avec paresse sous la chaleur du soleil,
Participe avec joie aux nombreux festivals,
En musique et trompettes en ces nuits sans sommeil
Violents vents automnaux soufflants pleins de furie,
Dansent les feuilles mortes aux couleurs rougeoyantes,
Un spectacle étonnant, dernière semblance de vie,
Chants rebelles d’une Dame Nature combattante
Piquante bise hivernale, blancs flocons scintillants,
Gémissant lentement en moroses litanies,
S’infiltre en nos corps, frissons aux bras d’un amant,
Arborant fièrement joues rougies, mine ravie
It is all pretty academic, trying to follow the rules of classical poetry I was learning in high school. I haven’t written poetry in many years; you can tell me if I should try it again. If I do, it might be an opportunity to write something happier, perhaps less contemplative.
Looking back, I think I was more comfortable settling in situations of unrequited love than risk being even more embarrassed asking girls out, or getting hurt in an actual relationship. I don’t necessarily mean this as a fact; it’s just a way to look at things.
Meanwhile, I was likely missing out on other opportunities to go out with girls who might’ve been interested without me realising at all.
I guess it was part of my awkward experience of being a teenager (and probably a young-ish adult too, really). It seemed to work in stories or movies and I couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t the same in real life.
When it comes to movies I don’t love all romantic comedies, though I know and appreciate enough of them to have an opinion. I’ll reserve most of my opinions about The Sound of Music for another Sundae about musicals, for now let’s just say it’s one of my all-time favourites.
This reminds me of my cinema studies at university in Paris. I remember a brilliant module where we studied a sub-genre of the 1930s and 1940s called the comedy of remarriage, based on a book by American philosopher Stanley Cavell. It’s called Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage. The book includes seven fantastic romantic comedies from the Golden Age of Hollywood. It’s been quite a while since I studied the book so I’m relying on paraphrasing a few other articles. Cavell’s main idea about the sub-genre is that all the movies typically feature couples that are divorced or separated and then get back together after a variety of madcap adventures. From a practical perspective it apparently allowed a few filmmakers to circumvent the Hays Code that banned any explicit mention of adultery or illicit sex in the movies. Cavell also deals with many themes including growing up, feminism, liberty, relationships, the values of marriage and more.
Some other scholars have pointed that all the comedies identified by Cavell also belong to the Screwball comedy genre, a style of movies popular during the Great Depression in which a female character dominates the relationship with a male character whose masculinity is humorously challenged in the process.
All seven movies on the list are amazing though I think my favourite is Bringing Up Baby, or at least it’s the one I watched the most. Howard Hawks directed it. Cary Grant stars as a pretty shy and reserved palaeontologist looking for the missing bone of a Brontosaurus skeleton — possibly the character that inspired some of Ross at the beginning of the TV series Friends, but I digress. He is supposed to get married a few days later. He meets Katharine Hepburn’s character, an airy quick-witted woman who happens to own a leopard, the eponymous Baby. I recommend checking it out if you haven’t seen it.
I mentioned Disney earlier, now it seems like kids go straight from Disney to YouPorn or Porn Hub, from the spreading of arguably unrealistic, certainly idealised versions of romantic love to fantasised and definitely unrealistic versions of sex. I could be wrong but it felt right to make some kind of transition to mention sex, though that’s a topic deserving of a whole Sundae to itself some other time.
This also makes me think about the celebrated “Safe for work” Porn Hub ad campaigns, check them out if you haven’t. They’re very clever, funny or both. These are the finalists from an advert competition they ran open to the public, and this is their Christmas TV advert. It’s all “safe for work”. And finally the excellent Tumblr account “Porn Hub comments on Valentine” is worth checking out.
Without wanting to moralise, I think it’s good that a few interesting projects are dedicated to show different and more realistic views of sex for young people than the porn fantasies I recommend having a look at, like Cindy Gallop’s (this links to her 5 minute intervention at a TED Conference) initiative Make Love Not Porn and its video version.
So there you have it. Prepare your romance cards right with your loved one and pleasing poetry could lead to passionate play.
If you’re single, or just have 45 minutes to spare, or for couples who enjoy listening to podcasts together, this week I published an interview with a fellow strategist, friend and ex-colleague, Sid Loyal. He’s an awesome dude; we had a great conversation about his sneakers collection and has a bunch of great stories to tell about brands in India and the rest of Asia.
I also want to mention a crowdfunding Kickstarter project I’ve been looking forward to; it’s for a tabletop roleplaying game called 7th Sea. They are making a completely new edition after 15 years. They’ve beat the funding record for tabletop RPGs for the first 24h after launch and they’re already way over $500k funded! It’s one of my favourite games and I interviewed the author, John Wick, for my podcast. He featured my interview on his Kickstarter project page, which has given me a welcome audience boost. If you enjoy movies like The Princess Bride, Les Trois Mousquetaires or Pirates of the Caribbean I heartily recommend checking it out!
Or if you still don’t know what to do with yourself and just have an itch to scratch there’s always porn.
Which is what the Internet is for, after all.
Please share this email with a friend if you liked it, and keep in touch if you’re after marketing advice and recommendations for your business. I’m a trialling a “buy me lunch” starting offer for my consulting services these days in case you’re interested (that’s in London, unless you want to buy me a flight somewhere too).
Enjoy the rest of your Sunday, have fun!
Lots of love,
Willem
This newsletter was originally published via email on the 14th February 2016. You can also sign up to receive Ice Cream Sundae on the Ice Cream for Everyone website.
