Recalling Albert Camus’ Fashion Advice, Noam Chomsky Pans Glenn Greenwald’s Shiny, Purple Tie

70 years ago this month, Albert Camus made his first and only trip to the Unit­ed States, briefly vis­it­ing Philadel­phia and Boston, but most­ly stay­ing in New York, the city that cap­ti­vat­ed him most. As Jen­nifer Schuessler writes in The New York Times, Camus did­n’t quite know what to make of the city’s “swarm­ing lights” and “fran­tic streets.” But he had to appre­ci­ate the warmth with which he was greet­ed. Dur­ing his 1946 stay, Camus cel­e­brat­ed the Eng­lish pub­li­ca­tion of The Stranger on the rooftop of the Hotel Astor. He sat down for an inter­view with The New York­er and gave a mem­o­rable speech at Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty. He also became a fash­ion crit­ic for a brief moment, offer­ing this thought on Amer­i­can neck­ties: “You have to see it to believe it. So much bad taste hard­ly seems imag­in­able.”

All of this sets up a lit­tle joke deliv­ered this week­end by Noam Chom­sky, as recalled on Face­book by jour­nal­ist Glenn Green­wald. Green­wald writes:

I arrived last night at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ari­zona for my event with Edward Snow­den and Noam Chom­sky. Chom­sky arrived short­ly after I did and, after I greet­ed him, the fol­low­ing dia­logue ensued:

Chom­sky: You know, there’s this inter­est­ing essay by Albert Camus, writ­ten dur­ing his first vis­it to the Unit­ed States, in which he described his sur­prise at what he regard­ed as the poor cloth­ing taste of Amer­i­cans, par­tic­u­lar­ly men’s choic­es of ties.

Me (slight­ly con­fused): Are you shar­ing that anec­dote because you dis­like my tie?

Chom­sky: Yes.

That’s how you receive a fash­ion cri­tique from the world’s great­est pub­lic intel­lec­tu­al.

Ouch.

Note: The 70th anniver­sary of Camus’s trip to New York is being com­mem­o­rat­ed in “Camus: A Stranger in the City,” a month­long fes­ti­val of per­for­mances, read­ings, film screen­ings and events. If you’re in NYC, check it out. The full pro­gram is here.

via Crit­i­cal The­o­ry

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Albert Camus: The Mad­ness of Sin­cer­i­ty — 1997 Doc­u­men­tary Revis­its the Philosopher’s Life & Work

Sartre Writes a Trib­ute to Camus After His Friend-Turned-Rival Dies in a Trag­ic Car Crash: “There Is an Unbear­able Absur­di­ty in His Death”

Get to Know Socrates, Camus, Kierkegaard & Oth­er Great Philoso­phers with the BBC’s Intel­li­gent Radio Show, In Our Time