LITERARY TAPHANDLE

"Baudelaire's liking for porter."
—page 258 [J16a, 10], The Arcades Project by Walter Benjamin

In Walter Benjamin's thirteen year project of attempting to examine and understand the nineteenth-century, there are little nuggets of information hidden everywhere. The Arcades Project (Das Passagen-Werk) is filled with Benjamin's own observations—in addition to quotations from media, literary, and artistic sources—about various topics. Charles Baudelaire figures quite prominently, and as I am reading the "J" section, simply entitled "Baudelaire," I came across the above quote. It doesn't really seem to fit with its surrounding notes and entries, so the juxtaposition immediately caught my eye. That, and, of course, Baudelaire's liking for porter. I can appreciate that.