Here are some notes from Paul Theroux's introductory essay to Exotic Postcards, just broken phrases mingled with my own thoughts. I don't know which is which right now. Summary, paraphrase, quotation and outright theft.
An exotic photograph is an invitation, a beckoning to the faraway, the fantastic. The exotic is always elsewhere and meant to produce yearning. Ornate, like an odalisque, a Romantic promise, an Occidental lie. These are stereotypes of "The Other." The image closes the distance between our desire and what isn't. They say everything about those who need to be furnished with images for their dreams.
Some of the words and phrases are Theroux's, but I don't think that's what he said. Read the essay. Ideology got in my way. The other night, I told a group of academics that all pleasures were guilty. They looked at me like I was an idiot. Maybe, but mine seem to be.
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