One of the Manolo’s many internet friends has left the most interesting comment in the posting of “What the Manolo Is…” below.

Maestro Manolo, we are very confused. Fight Club is a great film, it’s in my top five. But Maestro, doesn’t the theme of the film run contradictory to the values you espouse here? Fight Club is a film about the abandonment of material cultures, of being the core of what you are without overmuch commercialization. Many commercial brands are denigrated. But you yourself, Maestro, have become famous for your espousal or mockery of one particular brand over another, for being a self-admitted (and extremely adroit) fashionista.

Please understand, Maestro, I have a great amount of respect for your taste and choices. You yourself have affected some of my style choices and views on what a gentleman should wear. I do wish you nothing but utmost success, and perhaps one day that script with Mr. Day-Lewis or Monsieur Depp as a star in it (which I will PROMPTLY go see!). But your choice of films confuses me! What are we to think!

Manolo says, this comment it is worthy of discussion in the body of the Manolo’s blog.

First, the friend of the Manolo perhaps misapprehends what the Manolo does in his “What the Manolo Is… “ postings.

These postings they are merely the listing of the media that the Manolo he is consuming this week. It is usually not the endorsement of the worth or the unworth of the item being consumed.

For the specific example of this, with the Fight Club, the Manolo he truly enjoyed the visuals, the acting, and the manly violence, but overall he found the movie more than somewhat ridiculous in its premise, and more than somewhat juvenile in its viewing of the world. Yes, it is the very good movie, but it is also the immature fantasy, which, of the course, are by no means mutually exclusive.

As for the culture of the consumer, which is proudly celebrated here in the blogs of the Manolo, the Manolo he is under no illusions that “things” are the substitute for the life of the soul or the mind.

Instead here the things they are celebrated as things, as objects of beauty or unbeauty to be admired, or denigrated as the case may be. This applies especially in this place to the shoes, the clothes, and the fashion.

It is also the belief of the Manolo that the admiration of beauty, even of the beauty of the objects that can be purchased at the outlet store of the factory, is not imcompatible with having the rich inner life.

Indeed, until recently, it was the commonly held belief that owning or even looking at things of beauty could aid in achieving the inner spiritual beauty. (Do we not take our children to the museums of art? What is the purpose of that if not to inculcate into them some idea of the power of beauty.)

The Manolo will not pontificate on the trouble caused by the rise of the Protestantism, or the Weberian theory of the ethic of work and the iconoclastic leanings of Calvinism, instead he will merely note that most of the religions of the world believe that the spiritual can be accessed through the contemplation of beauty. Why else, for the example, the veneration of the icons in the tradition of the Eastern Orthodox?

So, in the final response to the question, the Manolo can only say that beauty and the acquisition of the objects of beauty, have their own spirituality, one that if approached properly enriches life.

This it is one of the reasons why the Manolo blogs about fashion, because beautiful clothes and beautiful shoes, make us happy and enrich our lives with their beauty.

But enough of this! Back to the funny pictures of the celebrities!