QUOTE : I still think of myself as someone who is interested in the experience of beauty, but I would never describe myself (except to you, in this email) as 'interested in beauty', because people would assume that I meant I was interested in cosmetics. This I guess is the dominant meaning of the word 'beauty’ in our culture now. And it seems telling that this meaning of the word 'beauty' signifies something so profoundly ugly – plastic counters in expensive department stores, discount pharmacies, artificial perfumes, eyelash extensions, jars of 'product'.