Open-Shirt French Philosophers

This post is dedicate to Brett for saving all his old emails, and, more importantly, not switching email accounts in the last 4 years.

I can't remember exactly how all this happened, but at lunch yesterday, one of my coworkers started talking about French philosopher that he emulates when it comes to shirts. To his surprise, I instantly knew he was talking about Bernard Henri-Levy.

How did I know? Maybe it's because I'm only familiar with one living French philosopher. Or maybe, just maybe, it's because this co-worker has recently decided that he need not wear undershirts or fasten the top four buttons on his dress shirts. Consequently, his look is now a mix of hippy, libertine-swinger, and, most importantly--creepy old French guy. And when I think of creepy French guys, I immediately think of this article where Monsieur Levy deeply meditates on the philosophic implications of showing some chest:

I wake up at 5.30am. I have no problem getting out of bed. The first thing I need is a cup of tea, usually lapsang souchong. I dress as lightly as possible. I often wear a shirt open down to under my chest, but not out of vanity. The truth is, I find clothes suffocating. I want to live as much as possible in the open air, in the sun. I’ve never worn a tie in my life. That caused problems a couple of times: once at the Elysée Palace when I was invited to a lunch with the then president, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, and once at the Vatican at a private audience with Pope John Paul II. I put my foot down both times. The Vatican let me not wear one on the spurious grounds I suffered from a serious handicap.

James Lileks wrote a parody I love, which I could not have found without Brett:

I awake, as is my preference. My waking had, as usual, the pleasant quality of surfacing from one world to another, with the gradual abandonment of one state for another, a trading of realms whose various attributes have merits in eternal opposition. In the sleeping state, one might be conversing with Descartes on an iceberg, while walruses provide hors d’oeuvres on the points of their tusks; in the real, physical state, one finds one has wet the bed again. But to wake is to be born, one thinks, and a certain amount of fluid is present in either case.

It's especially impressive considering the original material already reads like a parody.