Camp

J. Bryan Lowder at Slate gives a nice discussion of camp, a difficult subject to analyze:

Camp slows reality down long enough for you to consider its most minor components, long enough for you to collect little darlings for your private cabinet of curiosities. For its practitioners, camp is a retreat, a respite from overbearing ideologies, preapproved narratives, and, above all, the fascism of usefulness. Instead, it offers a rare quiet space where one can freely meditate on a “gesture,” a “pattern,” or a “figure.” It’s a twilight garden where, while chasing one of those fanciful fireflies, you may indeed just stumble upon the sublime—especially if you’re wearing heels.