Thomas Couture’s
The Romans of the Decadence (1847), from the collection of the Fogg Art Museum. (Photo by Art Media / Print Collector / Getty Images)
Frederick Seidel is the poet laureate of the enlarged prostate. Most likely he would freely admit it, as the unruly gland appears more than once in the poet’s new
Selected Poems, which distills 40 years of appetites shored against the indignities of age. If the lyric poet is traditionally working to “find his voice,” the volume outlines the trajectory of a poet who, with some effort, found his as the bard of perpetual midlife crisis. Seidel’s subjects are his lust for life and our disgust at his lust, and he glories in the dirty details: bespoke Caraceni suits from Milan, Patek Philippe watches, and the Ducati motorcycles that have become his signature. Above all, though, is his lust for lust. Intercourse is Seidel’s inexhaustible subject, from BDSM play to an octogenarian’s attempt to hit on the maître d’ at a Me
I want more : Igor Levit writes about his life
How an unhappy teenager became a star pianist and political activist: Igor Levit gives readers a personal glimpse of his life and what drives him.
Igor Levit started to play the piano at age 3 Igor Levit may well be one of the best pianists of the century. In any case, he is the most noticeable, writes Florian Zinnecker, in the preface to
Hauskonzert, the new biographical book he co-wrote with Levit .
The celebrated 34-year-old concert pianist is in fact omnipresent in the German media, not only as a musician but also as a vocal critic of the far right and social problems.