Blog - Sylvain Reynard

The Professor Speaks – “Museum Sex”

November 24, 2011

Dear Everyone,

The following is a meditation on Museum Sex that was penned by Professor Gabriel O. Emerson, Associate Professor of Italian Studies, University of Toronto. It first appeared here on the Manic Readers website, at the invitation of Miss Ivy:

“I find museums enlightening, provocative … and sexy.

As a Dante specialist, I find myself invited to give lectures around the world. Over the course of my travels, I’ve had the good fortune of visiting many famous museums.

The best museums are quiet and spacious. They allow guests to appreciate the art and artifacts in silence. They’re tastefully decorated so as not to detract from the objects on display. They provide places for visitors to sit down or to stand and contemplate the exhibits.

My favourite museum, without question, is the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

Cosimo de Medici commissioned the Uffizi in the 16th century. Giorgio Vasari, a famous painter and sculptor, designed the gallery. My favourite room in the museum is the Sandro Botticelli room, which contains several of his masterpieces.

One of my favourite paintings by Botticelli is “The Birth of Venus.”

Venus is a voluptuous but modest figure, with a serene countenance and long, flowing hair. I could gaze at her for hours. This brings me to another reason why I like museums – they are incredibly erotic.

Beauty, in particular, the beauty of the female form, has been celebrated throughout history through art. Sometimes the beauty one sees in a museum is so tantalizing, so seductive, it begs for release.

Never is this release more potent and necessary than when one is enjoying a museum with one’s lover. Art, like sex, is supposed to be a shared experience. One is supposed to stand in front of a painting and feel what the artist is trying to communicate. The presence of another, who one knows intimately, only heightens the excitement.

Which leads me to speak, quite naturally, about another favourite topic of mine, museum sex.

Imagine finding a quiet and slightly darkened corner of a gallery, pushing your lover up against a wall to steal a kiss, your bodies aligning perfectly. The low hum of the distant crowd echoes in your ears along with her whimpers and whispered pleas.

Almost breathless, you touch her, allowing your fingers to stroke the hidden nakedness of her skin. Unable to contain your ardour, you pay homage to her mouth and neck, causing her to repeat your name over and over. You push aside clothing, only to feel the blissful connection of flesh against soft, soft flesh.

Searing kisses. Speeding hearts. The rush of blood through the veins. The musky sweet scent of sweat and sex. And always there is the pleasurable excitement of the forbidden, the possibility of being caught …

In a temple that worships the gods and goddesses of beauty, why shouldn’t we indulge our carnal instincts? The sensuous coupling of two desires made one.

Yes, in the sequel to “Gabriel’s Inferno,” there is mention of museum sex. But you’ll have to read the story to see what happens ….”

And now for something completely different –

Happy Thanksgiving to those celebrating and thank you for your support.

All the best,

www.sylvainreynard.com

Interview with The Professor

November 8, 2011

Dear Everyone,

Julie of “A Tale of Many Reviews,” sat down with Professor Gabriel Emerson for this exclusive interview on 4 September 2011:

“(Professor Emerson enters the room, and upon seeing Julie, immediately takes her hand)

Prof. Emerson: Hello, Julie. It’s a pleasure to meet you.

Julie: (trying very hard to maintain eye contact but wanting desperately to visually take in the professor from head to toe) Thank you, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for agreeing to talk with me. Since you are a man that doesn’t beat around the bush, I hope you don’t mind us starting with a bang? (grins teasingly while directing the Professor to a chair across from hers. He sits smiling)

What do you think about having so many female fans?

Prof. Emerson: (scratches his chin) I have fans? I’ve always had my share of female admirers. (he grins slowly) Of course, they admire me for a specific reason. I’ll leave it to you to guess why. (winks)

Julie: (shifts, recrosses legs, laughs lightly, no guesses needed) What is your biggest fear? (thankful her voice sounds normal)

Prof. Emerson: (chuckling) I see you softened me up with the first question. Like most people, I worry about my own mortality. I know I won’t live forever and there are many things I want to do. (He stares at his hands, a troubled look on his face) I worry about losing that which I love most …

Julie: (sensing that may have been too heavy a question so soon decides to lighten the moment) What makes you laugh out loud?

Prof. Emerson: Monty Python. Have you seen “The Dead Parrot Sketch”?

Julie: (slightly surprised) No, I haven’t, but I will look it up on youtube later since you recommend it. I did enjoy The Search for the Holy Grail though. (pausing and looking thoughtful) This may get a bit personal, if so feel free to not answer. (smiling and starting to feel more at ease around the professor)

When and where were you the happiest?

Prof. Emerson: When I met Beatrice, of course. Nothing in my life comes close to the happiness I experienced at that moment. Meeting her changed my life.

 Julie: (nods in understanding) What then is your greatest regret?

Prof. Emerson: (He frowns) Their name is Legion, for they are many.

Julie: (not wanting to shift the mood to the dark side again decides to accept that and move on) To appease those female fans I referred to earlier, what is the quality you most like in a woman?

Prof. Emerson: (laughing) Do I have to choose just one? Let me see. (His eyes glint mischievously as he leans forward in his chair) Modesty. It’s far more erotic for a woman to be covered rather than naked, for the hiddenness tantalizes the imagination… and it makes the – ah – unwrapping so much more enjoyable, for both partners. Don’t you agree?

 Julie: (stunned into a moment of silence not knowing if the professor is teasing taking note of her black modest dress she purposely wore for this interview. Clearing her throat…) What do you most value in your friends?

Prof. Emerson: Loyalty and truth.

Julie: (gives a crooked grin and a slight nod in his direction) Who is your favorite hero of fiction?

Prof. Emerson: Hector, from Homer’s Iliad. I know that’s cheating, since he was a historical figure. If we were going to be strict about it, I’d say Beowulf. “Beowulf bode in the burg of the Scyldings,  leader beloved, and long he ruled in fame with all folk, since his father had gone away from the world, till awoke an heir…”

 Julie: (having no intelligent response presses on) What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

Prof. Emerson: Ah, that’s a good question.

Julie: (YES! Feeling intelligent again.)

Prof. Emerson: (He stares into space for a moment, thinking) I used to think it was chastity, but I’ve undergone a change of heart. So I’d choose patience.

 Julie: (Damn! but still puffed up from the previous praise) If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

Prof. Emerson: I’d give up my pride. Pride is the worst of the Seven Deadly Sins, you know. I suppose if I were to rid myself of only one sin that should be it. It’s the sin that fell the angels. Dante buries the prideful in the very pit of Hell.

Julie: (smiling, the words not lost on her, really begins to like the professor besides for his physical attributes) What is your motto?

Prof. Emerson: It’s a line from Dante’s La Vita Nuova: “For what virtue does this heart own so much delight?”

Julie: (setting her pen on top of her notepad, regretting the inevitable end of the interview, looks directly into the professor’s eyes and smiles) Thank you Professor. It has been a pleasure.

Prof. Emerson: And I can say, without question that it’s been a delight to be with you, Julie. Thank you for the invitation.”

–

With thanks to Julie and her associates at her book review website. If you’re looking for book reviews, you should take a look at her site.

All the best and thanks for reading,

www.sylvainreynard.com

The Professor Speaks – “Dante Seminar 001”

October 31, 2011

“Amor, ch’al cor gentil ratto s’apprende,

prese costui de la bella persona

che mi fu tolta; e ‘l modo ancor m’offende.

Amor, ch’a nullo amato amar perdona,

mi prese del costui piacer sì forte,

che, come vedi, ancor non m’abbandona.”

“Love, that can quickly seize the gentle heart,

took hold of him because of the fair body

taken from me-how that was done: still wounds me.

Love, that releases no beloved from loving

took hold of me so strongly through his beauty

that, as you see, it has not left me yet.”

-Dante, Inferno, Canto 5.100-103

With those words, I begin my seminar on Dante.

Students enrol in my seminar for various reasons – some choose it because it fits their schedule, some choose it because they can spell the title. Many students expect the class to be uninteresting because it’s about a dead poet.

Then I start talking about sex.

Talking about sex isn’t as exciting as, say, having sex. When you talk about sex, your heart doesn’t pound, your breathing doesn’t speed, your skin doesn’t heat.

But talking about sex can leave you wanting more. That’s why I direct my students’ attention to Canto 5 of Dante’s Inferno, where he encounters the Lustful.

Most university students are familiar with lust. I simply expose them to aspects of lust that they’ve never encountered before.

During his journey through the Second Circle of Hell, Dante meets Paolo and Francesca. Their story has the makings of a dramatic film – two lovers separated by deceit and a political marriage. Their adulterous affair was precipitated by mutual attraction and story of Lancelot and Guinevere, another pair of adulterous lovers. But Paolo and Francesca’s romance came to a tragic end when they were discovered by Francesca’s husband, who killed them both. (Parenthetically, it should be noted that Dante places Gianciotto, the husband, amongst the murderers in Hell.)

Paolo and Francesca are captured by Rodin in his famous sculpture, The Kiss, which depicts them engaging in a provocative embrace. Notice how Francesca’s body is bent back with passion, while Paolo’s hand rests tantalizingly on the flare of her hip. You’re meant to feel their desire. You’re meant to feel as if you’ve surprised the naked lovers just as they are about to recline on the bed and make love.

My favourite painting of the couple is The Ghosts of Paolo and Francesca Appear to Dante and Virgil by Ary Scheffer. But if you look at the painting, you’ll notice that the artist has taken license with the text. Part of the lovers’ punishment, according to Dante, is being prohibited from touching one another for eternity. Scheffer has ended their physical separation.

Notice the desperation with which the beautiful Francesca clings to the naked body of her lover. Both Scheffer and Rodin emphasize the beauty of her back. Scheffer makes the image more provocative by wrapping the lovers in a bed sheet, but he reveals less of Francesca’s body than Rodin.

You’ll have to attend the next class if you want to hear more about the connection between the hidden and the erotic.

By the end of the first seminar, I’ve persuaded most of the students that Dante is worth studying. And it’s only the beginning of the semester …

-Professor Gabriel O. Emerson,

Department of Italian Studies, University of Toronto.

(This post appeared on http://lushbookreviewss.blogspot.com/2011/08/guest-post-professor-gabriel-o-emerson.html August 26, 2011)

Thanks for reading, everyone. All the best,

www.sylvainreynard.com

“Gabriel’s Inferno” to be translated into Hungarian

October 25, 2011

Dear Everyone,

I have good news. “Gabriel’s Inferno” is going to be translated into Hungarian.

The following is an excerpt from the press release:

Elizabeth Harper, Ph.D, President/Publisher of Omnific Publishing, LLC, has sold Hungarian-language Rights to “Gabriel’s Inferno” by Sylvain Reynard to Pioneer Books, of Budaörs, Hungary. An exploration of forbidden love and obsession, “Gabriel’s Inferno” is a captivating and wildly passionate tale of one man’s attempt to escape from his own personal inferno as he tries to earn the impossible…love and forgiveness.

I would like to thank Dr. Harper and Omnific Publishing for negotiating this arrangement and I would also like to thank Pioneer Books for their interest in my novel. I’m looking forward to seeing the translation.

If you read Hungarian, would you let me know?

For the link to the full press release, click here.

All the best and thanks for reading,

www.sylvainreynard.com

The Professor Speaks – “Oxford Gladiator”

October 18, 2011

Dear Everyone,

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been interviewed by several different websites. And the Professor has been invited to pen a guest post or two over that time. I’m going to re-post the Professor’s writing, since it’s so rare.

The first article is a piece he wrote for Tigris Eden:

“Oxford Gladiator” by Professor Gabriel O. Emerson, Associate Professor of Italian Studies, University of Toronto

I am not a man who makes decisions lightly. But when I want something, I pursue it relentlessly. If a woman catches my eye, I won’t rest until we’ve managed to press our bodies together and she’s panting my name. And I never back down from a challenge.

After I graduated from Princeton, I went to Magdalen College, Oxford, where I studied Dante and Virgil.

My interest in these two poets led quite naturally to an interest in the customs of ancient Rome, especially the lives of the gladiators.

Gladiatorial contests straddled the space between public entertainment and religious sacrifice. On the one hand, Romans enjoyed the spectacle staged combat provided. On the other, the contests provided plenty of bloodshed and death to feed the hunger of the city gods. One could view the loser in such a match as providing a human sacrifice to the gods of Rome.

My interest in gladiators took a somewhat unexpected turn one evening when I was accosted by a group of loud, drunken Christ Church students. I was walking from the Bodleian Library to my room at Magdalen, carrying a book on gladiators, when I bumped into someone. He pushed me, cursing loudly. I called him a Neanderthal and shoved him back.

Catching sight of the book I was carrying, the Neanderthal, (who I will now call “Brutus”), challenged me to fight him like a gladiator. I was shocked that such a behemoth was literate, let alone able to string together a complete sentence.

I told him to name the time and place.

That’s how I found myself on the meadow of Christ Church College just after dawn, holding a sword that Brutus and his friends had conveniently “borrowed” from one of the suits of armour owned by the college. They’d also procured a couple of breastplates and two shields. I fastened the breastplate to my chest but spurned the shield. The broadsword weighed at least a kilo and I would need both hands to wield it properly.

Brutus was a mountain of a man, tall and wide. He was easily a head taller than my own six feet, two inches and outweighed me by about a hundred pounds. He also had an overabundance of facial and body hair, which gave him a bear like appearance. He looked like someone who could have fought with the Germanic tribes against the Romans, centuries earlier.

As we prepared to do battle, a rag tag group of students gathered. I was the only sober one among them until a theology student was untimely ripped from his bed and told that he would act as referee. (Poor chap)

“Right,” he said, wiping the sleep from his eyes. “The warrior who draws first blood wins. Shake hands, gentlemen.”

Brutus crushed my hand with his meaty paw, fixing me with a severe eye. He winked before shoving me backward.

I swore an oath as I stumbled, struggling to regain my footing. With an incoherent cry, he rushed me, swinging his sword at my head. I dodged, then pivoted behind him and struck his kidney with the flat of my sword.

With a roar, he grabbed his back, flailing wildly. I bobbed once again, plowing my foot into his knee.

He threw an elbow, which glanced off my jaw. I ran my tongue over my teeth to make sure they were all intact before spitting out blood.

Brutus grinned treacherously, raising his sword. The blade whistled through the air before the clash of metal against metal rang in my ears. The impact of our swords jarred my arm all the way to my shoulder. I could feel my entire body shudder, rattling my teeth.

I withdrew and swiped at his midsection, scraping across his breastplate. But I was wildly off balance. He swung at my side, striking the place where the breastplate ended, and I fell to my knees. I curled inward in pain.

Brutus stood over me, slightly winded, before lifting his sword.

“Et tu, Brute?” I whispered, before tackling his knees.

The giant fell like a great oak tree, cut down in his prime. I stumbled to my feet, clutching my sword.

As the last pinks and greys of dawn gave way to a pale blue sky, I pressed a knee to his chest and with the tip of my sword drew blood just beneath his left ear.

Breathing heavily and sweating profusely, I removed my breastplate, stabbing my sword into the dewy grass. My opponent groaned and pressed a hand to his neck.

The crowd was silent. They stood aside as I passed through them, walking the slow steps of the victorious but battered warrior.

“Who was that?” Someone asked, pointing at me.

I turned around.

“Gabriel Emerson, president of the fencing club.”

Enjoy your day everyone. Thanks for reading,

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