epicureanism

It was typical of the epicureanism and optimism in this display — and the overall life and art of the Illinois-born designer.

In this context, my Harvard colleague Stephen Greenblatt e-mailed me recently a problem raised by Lucretius’ version of Epicureanism: “Since we are all made up out of the atoms that we share with inanimate matter, is there a particular value in life forms?”

There’s likely no significance to him sharing a first name with the Roman philosopher known for espousing the materialist tenets of Epicureanism, but surely he is a relative of Caesar Flickerman, who hosts the Hunger Games during Katniss’ era.

It was a tectonic shift from Francophilia and staid Americana to a sort of flirtatious Mediterranean epicureanism: pesto, raspberry vinegar, sun-dried tomatoes, capers, fancy olive oil, brie, chilled fruit soups.

I was rather fascinated to read in Tom Holland’s book about Baiae, the Roman resort on the Gulf of Naples which was the Roman equivalent of the Hamptons or Malibu, complete with that combination of sexual libertinism and dietary epicureanism which I associate with certain members of today’s American elite.