Who Is Stephen Alexander? A Guest Post by Sasha Thanassa

Stephen Alexander 

A Non-Selfie Selfie (2025) 

 

And how do you see yourself when looking in the bathroom mirror 

through someone else's eyes? 

 

 

I. 

 

Who (or what) is Stephen Alexander, the shadowy figure who blogs at Torpedo the Ark?

 

The multiple possibilities that he himself has playfully suggested in the past include: artist, anarchist, and antichrist; punk, pirate, poet, pagan ... More recently, he has declared himself to be a darkly enlightened philosopher-provocateur whose concerns are no longer with sex, style, and subversion, but more with silence, secrecy, and seduction. 

 

Using these and other terms that arise from within his own writings - as well as from the work of other figures to whom he often refers - I will attempt here to give a brief impressionistic sketch of someone who, like Foucault, neither wishes to self-identify as a unified subject nor feel obliged to remain forever the same [1].       

 

 

II.

 

Again, by his own admission, there are two names that have shaped Alexander's thinking above all others: Nietzsche and D. H. Lawrence; neither of whom he entirely embraces, but both of whom provide him with the critical weapons and crucial conceptual tools for the fight against moral idealism (i.e., the belief that the Good, the True, and the Beautiful are the highest of values and fundamentally connected) and modern humanism (i.e., the belief that behind everything sits the kind and reasonable figure of Man).    

 

Working in the entrails of Nietzsche and Lawrence more like a postmodern haruspex than a forensic pathologist, Alexander has managed on Torpedo the Ark to produce an idiosyncratic (and intertextual) brand of fiction-theory that suspends the genre distinction between philosophy and literature [2]. 

 

Arguably, it is this mode of language and thought that has enabled him to move across other established categories and freely discuss an almost infinite variety ideas, experiences, and events in a creative and profoundly superficial manner that is always alert to the play (and permissiveness) of language.  

 

III. 

Another name we might mention is that of Simon Solomon; more than a mere commentator on posts or a sometimes contributor, Solomon is a very real (often hostile) presence on Torpedo the Ark and a vital interlocutor. 

It's sometimes hard to tell whether Solomon is Alexander's shadow or vice versa; who's the Jekyll, who's the Hyde (or are they equally monstrous)? In queer ontological alliance - if there is such a thing -  Alexander and Solomon seem fated to remain the best of frenemies [3], each presumably drawing some benefit from their relationship, despite the mutual antagonism [4]. 

IV.

But isn't Alexander just another in a long line of reversed Platonists? 

Perhaps - but what's wrong with that? We need more not less such people. A reversed Plato may still be, as Hannah Arendt pointed out, a reversed Plato [5], but that's better than an unreversed Plato.

 

And besides, as Derrida indicated, the first task of deconstruction has to be reversal (i.e., the locating and overturning of oppositions within a text). That may not be enough in itself - a reversal is not the same as a revaluation - but it's a start on the road toward a new way of thinking.

 

And so, like Lawrence, Alexander encourages his reader to think in terms of immanence rather than transcendence and to climb down Pisgah [6]; to affirm appearances and the natural world of scarlet poppies rather than fantasise about a world above (and/or beyond) this one in which there are eternal white flowers and other Ideal Forms.   

And like Deleuze - another thinker whom Alexander often refers to - he perverts Plato by siding with the Sophists, the Cynics, the Stoics "and the fluttering chimeras of Epicurus" [7].  

 

 

V.

So, have I answered the question with which I opened this post? 

 

Probably not. 

 

Perhaps all I've done is refer to a number of proper names to whom Alexander himself often refers. But then, these proper names serve a crucial textual purpose and contain within them a series of associations (and connotations) that allow us to see how Torpedo the Ark unfolds within a much wider philosophical and literary history and an intertextual space. 

 

When Alexander refers to himself as a Lawrentian, for example, he's not identifying with Lawrence as an extratextual being, but evoking a certain style of thinking and writing.  

 

Using proper names is also, of course, a way of dispersing and disguising the self; like Nietzsche, Alexander wants to be able to declare himself all the names in history [8] - onymic ambiguity rather than unified authorial presence is his aim.  

 

Notes

 

[1] In his introduction to The Archaeology of Knowledge, Foucault famously writes: "I am no doubt not the only one who writes in order to have no face. Do not ask who I am and do not ask me to remain the same: leave it to our bureaucrats and our police to see that our papers are in order." 

      See The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language, trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith (Pantheon Books, 1972), p. 17.

 -

[2] This has been a long time goal for Alexander; see the introduction to his PhD thesis Outside the Gate (University of Warwick, 2000): click here. 

      Admittedly, he problematically writes here about dissolving lines of distinction, whereas in his later writings, influenced by Derrida, he speaks more about troubling (or curdling) these lines and concedes that the deconstructive objective is not the dissolving or permanent suspension of all oppositions, because, ultimately, they are structurally necessary to produce meaning.  

      

[3] The term frenemy - a portmanteau of 'friend' and 'enemy' - could have been invented for Alexander and Solomon, although Jessica Mitford claimed that it had been coined by one of her sisters when they were children for a particularly dull acquaintance; see her article 'The Best of Frenemies' in the Daily Mail (August 1977). It can also be found in her book, Poison Penmanship: The Gentle Art of Muckraking (NYRB Classics, 2010), or read online by simply clicking here.       

      

[4] Interestingly, Freud recognised that a close friend and a worthy enemy are equally indispensble to psychological wellbeing and have not infrequently been one and the same person. See Ernest Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud (Pelican / Penguin Books, 1964) p. 37.

 

[5] See Hannah Arendt, 'Thinking and Moral Considerations: A Lecture', in Social Research, Vol. 38, No. 3, pp. 417-446, (The John Hopkins University Press, Autumn 1971), where she writes: 

      "The quest for meaning, which relentlessly dissolves and examines anew all accepted doctrines and rules, can at every moment turn against itself, as it were, produce a reversal of the old values, and declare these as 'new values'. This, to an extent, is what Nietzsche did when he reversed Platonism, forgetting that a reversed Plato is still Plato ..." (435)

      A revised version of this can also be found Thinking, the first volume of her two-volume posthumously published work The Life of the Mind, ed. Mary Mccarthy (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977-78). 

 

[6] See the essay by D. H. Lawrence 'Climbing Down Pisgah', in Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine and Other Essays, ed. Michael Herbert (Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 223-229.

 

[7] Michel Foucault, 'Theatrum Philosophicum', in the Essential Works 2: Aesthetics, ed. James D. Faubion (Penguin Books, 2000), p. 346.

[8] In a letter to Jakob Burckhardt dated 6 January, 1889 (although postmarked January 5th), Nietzsche claims that by becoming every name in history, he (paradoxically) fights the reduction to anonymity and generality. 

      See his Selected Letters, ed. and trans. Christopher Middleton (University of Chicago Press, 1969), p. 346.

 

 

Révéroni de Saint-Cyr: Modern Perversity and Old School Pessimism

Illustration for Pauliska ou la Perversité moderne (1798)  

by Jacques-Antoine Révéroni de Saint-Cyr [1]

 

"L'amour est une rage; il peut s’inoculer par la morsure ..."

 

 

I.

 

The Marquis de Sade may be the best-known aristocratic French author writing dark Gothic fiction with a sexually explicit flavour, but he wasn't the only one. 

 

And I'm slowly getting round to read Révéroni de Saint-Cyr's two-volume novel Pauliska ou la Perversité moderne (1798); finally translated into English, by Erik Butler, and published by Tartarus Press (2018) [2]. 

 

 

II. 

 

Considered a (minor) classic of its kind, the work tells the story of a young Polish countess, Pauliska, as she travels around Europe, à la Sally Bowles, "inch by inch, step by step, mile by mile, man by man" [3], and misfortune by misfortune [4].

 

Combining supernatural elements with those of an erotic nature, the book is essentially a fatalistic meditation on desire, depravity, and the accursed nature of a life determined more by chance and random events, than moral law or human reason.

 

The suggestion is therefore given that we are all just helpless playthings, or, if you prefer, victims awaiting our own senseless death, rather than free-willing agents who can shape what happens to us and build an orderly world.     

 

Pauliska, is thus a deliberate slap in the face of those philosophes promoting the ideals of the Enlightenment, which is perhaps why Foucault seems to be such a fan of the work ...

 

 

III.

 

Writing in a text entitled 'So Cruel a Knowledge' [5], Foucault delights in the novel's opening where we encounter Pauliska fleeing a burning castle, as invading soldiers rape and disembowel the chambermaids; their screams reverberating in her ears as she makes good her escape:

 

"Pauliska abandons her scorched lands to the Cossacks [...] her countrywomen bound to the pale trunks of the maples, her servants mutilated and their mouths covered with blood. She seeks refuge in Old Europe [...] which sets all its traps for her at one go. Strange traps, in which it is hard to recognise the familiar ones of male flattery, worldly pleasures, scarcely intended falsehoods, and jealousy. What is taking form is an evil much less metaphysical [...] an evil very close to the body and meant for it: A modern perversity." [6]

This, obviously, is not good news for Pauliska, who encounters all kinds of terrifying men belonging to all sorts of strange sect, secret society, or criminal gang: political fanatics, libertines, counterfeiters, mad scientists, religious mystics, she is misfortunate enough to meet (and fall victim) to them all. 

 

Foucault writes: 

 

"In this underground world the misfortunes lose their chronology and link up with the world's most ancient cruelties. In reality, Pauliska is fleeing a millennial conflagration, and the partition [of Poland] of 1795 casts her into an ageless cycle. She falls into the castle of evil spells where the corridors close up, where the mirrors tell lies and watch what passes before them, where the air distills strange poisons [...] It is a paradoxical initiation not into the lost secret but into all those agonies that man never forgets." [7] 

 

This initiation into suffering - into evil - is achieved, says Foucault, through silent myths and wordless complicity; Pauliska is kept in the "harsh and monotonous condition of the object" [8]. 

 

And what is it she has to learn? 

 

That mankind will never establish a world of peace, justice, and freedom, because the savage truth is this; "man is nothing but a dog to man; law is the appetite of the beast" [9], and we're all trapped inside a giant cage from which there is no escape (for even death, as Nick Land reminds us, is at best, a temporary pause or refreshment before the inevitable return to the compulsive dissipation of life) [10].

 

Alternatively, dear reader, if you prefer we end with a different metaphor ... 

 

We're all bound - virtuous and wicked alike - naked on an enormous electric wheel; just like Pauliska at the end of  Révéroni's novel. And when this diabolical object par excellence begins to turn, sparks will fly and we'll cry out in endless agony. 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Born in 1767, Jacques-Antoine Révéroni de Saint-Cyr belonged to an Italian family that followed Catherine de' Medici to France in the 16th century. Unhappy with his less-than-glittering military career, Révéroni decided to try his hand as a writer. Sadly, despite writing a large number of plays, novels, and essays, Révéroni never quite established himself as a man of letters and when he died, insane, in 1829, he was already more or less forgotten.  

 

[2] Readers who wish for a recent French edition of Révéroni Saint-Cyr's novel might like to see the one edited by Antoine de Baecque (Payot & Rivages, 2001). 

 

[3] Lyric from the song 'Mein Herr', written by Fred Ebb, with music by John Kander, for the film Caberet (1972), directed by Bob Fosse. The character Sally Bowels was famously played by Liza Minnelli. 

 

[4] Pauliska is clearly indebted to Sade's novel Justine, ou Les Malheurs de la Vertu (1791), although it arguably possesses its own unique charm.  

 

[5] Michel Foucault, 'So Cruel a Knowledge', in the Essential Works 2: Aesthetics, ed. James Faubion, trans. Robert Hurley (Penguin Books, 2000), pp. 53-67.    

 

[6] Ibid., p. 54.  

[7] Ibid.

 

[8] Ibid., p. 56. 

[9] Ibid., p. 57. 

[10] See Nick Land, The Thirst for Annihilation: Georges Bataille and Virulent Nihilism (Routledge, 1992), p. 180. 

An Open Letter to Simon Solomon from Stephen Alexander

 

Stephen Alexander / Simon Solomon

Dear Simon,

Thank you for your remarks on a recent post entitled 'Yabba Dabba Doo!' (28 Feb 2025). 

As I think you deserve a somewhat longer (and more considered) response than the comments section allows - and as the Little Greek suggested the following remarks may interest a wider audience - I've decided to publish them here in the form of an open letter ...    

Firstly, to answer your question regarding Barthes and nihilism, I suggest you read Shane Weller's essay entitled 'Active Philology: Barthes and Nietzsche', in French Studies, Vol. 73, Issue 2 (April, 2019), pp. 217-233. You can find a revised version of the essay on Kent University's Academic Repository:

https://kar.kent.ac.uk/71559/1/Barthes%20and%20Nietzsche%20%20THIRD%20REVISED%20VERSION%20-%20Clean%20version.pdf 

As some readers may not have the time or inclination to read the above text in full, here's the abstract which, I trust, will allow them to see why Barthes might indeed be considered a nihilist in the Nietzschean sense:  

"While the importance of Nietzsche to Barthes has long been recognized, with Barthes himself being the first to acknowledge it, this essay argues that Nietzsche's influence lies behind almost all of the major aspects of Barthes's mode of reading and writing in the 1970s, a mode that Barthes describes as 'active philology'. At the heart of this active philology is a cancellation of meaning that makes of Barthes's later critical practice a form of active nihilism in the Nietzschean sense. Exploring the various facets of this active philology in order to highlight the ways in which Barthes both follows and deviates from Nietzsche, this essay proposes an understanding of Barthes the active philologist as the incarnation of what Nietzsche terms the 'last nihilist' - and, crucially, one for whom any kind of Nietzschean overcoming of nihilism is anathema."

Even without reading Weller's essay, I would've thought, Simon, that the phrase La mort de l'auteur - title of a famous essay written by Barthes in 1967 - provides a huge clue as to what drives his critical approach ...

Secondly, you're right, Nietzsche does say in The Anti-Christ that the word 'Christianity' is already a misunderstanding and that in reality "there has been only one Christian, and he died on the Cross" [1]. But if you were to continue reading the same section of the above work (39), you would find the following important lines:  

"It is false to the point of absurdity to see in a belief [...] the distinguishing characteristic of the Christian: only Christian practice, a life such as he who died on the Cross lived, is Christian. ... Even today such a life is possible, for certain men even necessary: genuine, primitive Christianity will be possible at all times. ... Not a belief, but a doing, above all a not-doing of many things, a different being." [2]

As ever with Nietzsche, there are lots of subtle twists and turns and one has to be wary about taking a line, a paragraph, or even an entire section as providing his definitive position. He puts it this way; he puts it that way; then he puts it another way entirely. The point is one can be a Christian, providing you don't turn a practice into a doctrine; i.e., it's about imitating Christ not following the teachings of the Church.     

As for De Profundis and other matters ... I don't see why I should accept this tear-stained text as more valuable than Wilde's earlier writings; you may find what you describe as his repudiation of aestheticism magnificent and moving, but I see it as a loss of style. 

And as for his ludicrous self-identification with Christ (with the latter conceived as a Romantic hero and artist), well, what is that if not simply another pose? I'm surprised you're taken in by this mix of self-pity, resentment, and bloated rhetoric. 

I'm also surprised that you don't seem to see the irony in quoting the part of Wilde's letter in which he takes a pop at those whose "thoughts are someone else's opinions [...] their passions a quotation" [3].

And not only do you quote from Wilde, but from Nietzsche and Jung too - even as you seem to object to my referencing authors; or perhaps your remark about being an 'anyone-ian' betrays a misunderstanding of how proper names function within a text.

In brief, the proper name contains within it a series of associations (and connotations) that I’m calling upon in order show how 'my' text unfolds within a much wider philosophical and literary history and an intertextual space. When I say 'as a Barthesian', for example, I’m not identifying with Barthes as an extratextual being, but evoking a certain style of thinking and writing.

Using proper names is also, of course, a way of dispersing and disguising the self; like Nietzsche, I want to be able to declare myself 'all the names in history' - onymic ambiguity rather than unified authorial presence is the aim. 

Anyway, hope these remarks answer your questions and address your concerns. 

SA  

Notes

 

[1] Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Penguin Books, 1990), p. 161. 

[2] Ibid. 

 

[3] Oscar Wilde, De Profundis. Written in 1897, the complete and corrected text wasn't published until 1962 when it was included in The Letters of Oscar Wilde, ed. Rupert Hart-Davis (Harcourt, Brace & World). The line quoted can be found on p. 479. Note that a scholarly edition, ed. by Ian Small, was published as De Profundis; Epistola: In Carcere et Vinculis, by Oxford University Press in 2005 (Vol. II of The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde). 

Yabba Dabba Doo! On Writing So As to Pleasure and In Praise of the Laughing Caveman

Betty, Wilma, Barney, and Fred enjoying a good laugh

The Flintstones (Hanna-Barbera Productions, 1960-66) 

 

 

A question I am often asked is: Why write?

 

I suppose I could answer as many other writers have answered and suggest it's to stave off death; i.e., one writes so as not to die [1].

However, as a nihilist who subscribes to the Nietzschean view that life is merely a very rare and unusual way of being dead [2], I've no reason to postpone a joyous return to the inanimate; a reconciliation with what is actual [3].    

So, why write, then?

 

Well, as a Barthesian, I remain keen to affirm the pleasure of the text and the posts assembled here - even those which are more readerly than writerly in character [4] - are intended to afford torpedophiles some degree of enjoyment by introducing an element of fun [5] in the field of critical blogging (a field that is all too often determined by those whose practice of writing is weighed down by the spirit of gravity). 

For fun is not only a crucial component of playfulness (i.e., hedonic engagement with the world), but it can also help one avoid what Wilde terms humanity's original sin, i.e., self-seriousness: If only the caveman had known how to laugh ... [6]  

 

Notes

 

[1] Writers - particularly poets and some philosophers - often overestimate the power of language. Unfortunately, whilst sticks and stones may certainly break our bones, I'm not convinced that words can ever save us. See the post 'Writing So As Not to Die' (27 Feb 2025): click here.

[2] See Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Book III, section 109. 

[3] See Nietzsche, Kritische Studienausgabe, Volume 9, 11 [70].

[4] Writing in Le plaisir du texte (1973), Barthes makes a distinction between two types of text; those that are readerly (lisible) and those that are writerly (scriptible). 

      The first, provides the kind of reassuring pleasure (plaisir) that doesn't challenge the reader's subjective consistency; whilst the second type of text induces a state of bliss (jouissance), which allows the reader to lose or step outside the self. Obviously, Barthes values the latter over the former, but he concedes that even the most readerly of text can still give some satisfaction, even if it doesn't make you cum in your pants and cause literary codes to explode.

      See the two-part post entitled 'Postmodern Approaches to Literature (3)', published on TTA on 2 August 2016 where I explore all of the above at some length. Click here for part 1; or here, to leap straight to part 2. 

 

[5] See the post written in defence of fun published on 3 June 2024: click here.

[6]  I've always loved this line from Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), even if the evolutionary origin of laughter - which can be traced back millions of years to our great ape ancestors - appears to be rooted more in survival and the formation of vital social bonds than merely enjoyment. 

      See Jordan Raine's article on this topic on the conversation.com (13 April, 2016): click here. 

Writing So As Not to Die

 

 

One of the questions I'm often asked is: Why write?

 

Well, in part, it's because, like Kafka, I think a non-writing writer risks madness [1].

 

But it's also because I subscribe to the (somewhat magical) belief that words have the power to protect us and can keep even death at bay. 

 

Not avert it indefinitely, but at least stave it off until such a time as I no longer have anything further to say and, like Prospero at the end of The Tempest, voluntarily decide to jack it all in; break my laptop, burn my books, etc.

 

What this implies, I suppose, is that there exists an essential affinity between language and death (or literature and evil), with the latter acting as both the limit as well as the core of the former. 

 

Those who think writing is merely about the communication of ideas or self-expression, have failed to grasp its true import: We write so as not to die ... [2]

 

 

Notes

 

[1] In a letter to Max Brod (5 July, 1922), Kafka wrote that "a non-writing writer is, in fact, a monster courting insanity." See Letters to Friends, Family, and Editors, trans. Richard and Clara Winston, (Schocken Books, 1977), pp. 332-335.

[2] In an interview with The New York Times (19 August, 1984), the Mexican author Carlos Fuentes said: "You start by writing so as to live, and you end up by writing so as not to die." The interview, by Nicholas Shardy, can be found online by clicking here.

      One might note, however, that in an essay entitled 'Language to Infinity', Foucault credits Blanchot with the idea of writing so as not to die; trans. by Donald F. Buchard and Sherry Simon, the essay first appeared in Tel Quel (1963), pp. 44-53. This text can also be found in Michel Foucault, The Essential Works 2: Aesthetics, ed. James D. Faubion, (Penguin Books, 2000), pp. 89-101. 

Loving the Alien: Nyah - the Devil Girl from Mars

 

Patricia Laffan as Nyah in the kinky sci-fi classic 

Devil Girl from Mars (dir. David MacDonald, 1954)

 

"They're scared of girls in the war of the worlds ..."

 

 

I. 

 

Some films you have to see to believe; and Devil Girl from Mars (1954), starring Patricia Laffan, is one such ...

 

 

II. 

 

A black-and-white British sci-fi, produced by the famous Danzinger Brothers [1], Devil Girl from Mars tells the story of Nyah, a stern but alluring alien dominatrix dressed in a shiny, black PVC costume [2], whose mission is to acquire Earthmen for breeding puposes; her home planet's male population having been severely depleted during a war of the sexes. 

 

Whilst open to the idea of a rational negotiation, Nyah is prepared if necessary to use advanced technological force - rayguns and robots - to accomplish her mission and thereby secure the future of her race. 

 

Intending to land in London, damage to her spacecraft - caused when entering the Earth's atmosphere - obliges Nyah to land instead outside a remote Scottish village, surrounded by moorland. Making her way to the public inn, she encounters a small cast of colourful characters, including an astrophysicist, a journalist, an escaped convict (in love with Doris the barmaid) and a fashion model [3].

 

The inn's landlord is played by everybody's favourite Scottish actor, John Laurie, who is perhaps best remembered today (despite a long and impressive film career) as Private Frazer from Dad's Army (1968-1977); sadly, he doesn't anticipate his later TV role and declare the above to be doomed, even when Nyah is threatening to kill them all, with the assistance of Chani, her menacing automaton.  

To cut a long story short - although, actually, the film is only 77 minutes in length - the escaped convict proves to be the hero of the hour, successfully sabotaging Nyah's flying saucer after take off and sacrificing himself in order to save the men of Earth from a fate worse than death; i.e., becoming sex slaves on Mars to a race of cruel superwomen, with a penchant for PVC and BDSM ... [4]   

 

III.

Obviously, almost everything about this film - made on an extremely low budget - is poor; the acting, the dialogue, the sets, the special effects, etc. And yet, paradoxically, as one critic said at the time: "There is really no fault in this film that one would like to see eliminated. Everything, in its way, is quite perfect." [5]    

 

And its way is - to use the slightly tiresome trio of words that have been central within critical discourse for some time now - queer, kinky, and camp. In their discussion of the film, Steve Chibnall and Brian McFarlane emphasise the perverse dynamic [6] at play within the film and how such has (supposedly) political implications. 

 

Nyah, they claim, is a "genuinely shocking figure in the staid world of British film-making of the time"; one who imparts an "eroticised threat to a patriarchy that was increasingly troubled in the post-war years", which is why Devil Girl from Mars is, therefore, "not only a camp classic but an ideologically significant moment in 1950s British cinema [7].

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Edward and Harry Lee Danzinger were American-born brothers who produced many British films and TV shows in the 1950s and early '60s, thereby having a significant role in shaping the popular imagination of movie goers and TV viewers during this period.

 

[2] I'm guessing it wouldn't be leather, as it's hard to imagine Martian cows, but I'm not sure and it could well be that Patricia Lafflan's costume - designed by Ronald Cobb - features both leather and vinyl elements. 

 

[3] I appreciate that readers who have not seen the film or checked out the IMDb page - click here - will think I'm making this up, but I can assure them I'm not. And as it says in the trailer, this is a story that might yet be true!

 

[4] Whether this atones for the (accidental) killing of his wife for which he was convicted, is debatable. As is whether all Earthmen would thank him for his actions; I know quite a few who would have happily returned with Nyah to Mars and submitted of their own free will to a life as stud males servicing nubile alien females.   

 

[5] Gavin Lambert, review of Devil Girl from Mars, in The Monthly Film Bulletin, Vol. XXI, No. 240 (1 January 1954), p. 83. 

 

[6] The 'perverse dynamic' is a theoretical concept developed by Jonathan Dollimore in Sexual Dissidence (1991). It refers to the production of perversion from within the very social structures that often seek to deny such. The pervert is thus revealed not to be a remote alien being, such as Nyah, but one of us after all.    

 

[7] Steve Chibnall and Brian McFarlane, The British 'B' Film (BFI / Bloomsbury, 2009), p. 212. Readers will rightly detect my scepticism about such claims of 'ideological significance' and sexual radicalism. 

 

 

To watch the trailer to Devil Girl from Mars, click here. 

 

And for those who simply must watch the whole film, it's available on YouTube: click here.

 

 

Musical bonus: Bow Wow Wow; 'I Want My Baby on Mars', Your Cassette Pet (EMI Records, 1980): click here.  

 

 

Be a Little Deaf and Blind ... How Cynical Pragmatism Secures Wedded Bliss

A mottoware jug made by the Watcombe Pottery (Torquay) [1]

For many years, my mother owned a little ceramic jug decorated with a picture of a cottage on one side and the words 'Be a little deaf and blind / Happiness you'll always find', on the other. 

 

Such proverbial folk wisdom greatly appealed to my mother; though whether she applied this particular teaching in her own life - and whether, if she did, it brought her the promised reward of happiness - I'm not sure. 

 

Anyway, my mother is dead now and the little painted jug made in Torquay is mine - as is the question of what to do with it ... 

I'm pretty sure my sister would either throw it away or attempt to sell it on eBay; throwing things away and selling things on eBay is her speciality and the sign of a woman who not only sees a price label attached to everything, but is dead to the mysterious allure of objects [2].   

 

I don't want the little jug to be thrown away or sold on eBay, however. 

 

And so I suppose I'll keep it; even if I don't necessarily endorse a message that might have been written by the Japanese monkeys Mizaru and Kikazaru [3] and which was offered as pragmatic advice to new brides in the 18th-century when confronted by their husbands' little indiscretions [4] ...

 

Notes

 

[1] The Watcombe Pottery was originally established as the Watcombe Terra Cotta Clay Company in 1869 by G. J. Allen, after he discovered a particularly fine red clay in the grounds of Watcombe House.

      In 1901, the business was acquired by Hexter, Humpherson and Co., who also owned the Aller Vale Pottery, and it began producing a wide range of pottery in the popular style associated with Torquay, including the motto wares, aimed at the emerging tourist market. 

      Sadly, the Watcombe Pottery was forced to close its kilns for good in 1962. 

 

[2] I have written on the allure of objects - and how this can make happy - in several posts; click here and here, for example. 

 

[3] These were two of the Three Wise Monkeys, famous for avoiding evil thoughts and deeds in the Buddhist tradition; Mizaru saw no evil and Kikazaru heard no evil. 

      Interestingly, in the West we interpret their story very differently and reference the proverb in order to pass moral judgement on those who intentionally ignore wrongdoing, preferring instead to turn a blind eye, cop a deaf ear, or remain silent when the right thing to do is speak up. 

      For my post on Mizaru and Kikazaru, published back in November 2013, click here. 

 

[4] See Jennie E. Batchelor, 'Be but a little deaf and blind ... and happiness you'll surely find': Marriage in Eighteenth-Century Magazines for Women', in After Marriage in the Long Eighteenth Century: Literature, Law and Society, ed. Jenny DiPlacidi and Karl Leydecker, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), pp. 107-127.

      And see also chapter 3 of Batchelor's book The Lady’s Magazine (1770–1832) and the Making of Literary History, (Edinburgh Univerity Press, 2022), pp. 112-113, where she discusses the case of one woman who wrote to the Lady's Magazine in 1774, seeking advice on how to deal with the discovery that her husband has a mistress. 

      Contrary to what she wishes to hear, the reader is told by the magazine's popular agony aunt, Mrs Grey (aka the Matron), that a (rather cynical) form of pragmatism is the best policy; neither seeing, hearing, nor speaking of any thing which may occasion marital discord. This is neither to condone the actions of her husband, nor exonerate him of wrongdoing. But it does recognise that it will not help matters to confront him, as roving husbands are never brought to heel by public reproach.    

 

 

That Time I Met Neneh Cherry (An Extract from the Von Hell Diaries: 1 March 1985)

Cover of the Float Up CP album  

Kill Me in the Morning (1985) ft. Neneh Cherry

 

 

It was only when reading a review of Neneh Cherry's recently published memoir, A Thousand Threads (Fern Press, 2024), that I finally twigged that she had been the lead singer with a band that I'd been to see back in the spring of 1985 ...

 

Without wishing to get too bogged down in rock history, Float Up CP were essentially Rip Rig + Panic playing under a new name, but still peddling a kind of funky, jazz-infused post-punk sound, over which Miss Cherry added her own soulful-pop vocals; all a bit too experimental for my tastes, I'm afraid. 

 

Nevertheless, I was persuaded by Steve Weltman (Managing Director of Charisma Records) to do a spot of A&R work on his behalf and check out the above group. My diary entry for Friday 1 March, 1985, reads as follows:

 

 

Went to see Float Up CP. I wasn't paid any extra to do so, but as I had a car to take me to and from the gig - plus ten quid spending money for drinks - I can't complain, I suppose ...

      Dragged Andy [1] along, as he had called over with a (belated) birthday present - a copy of the Bhagavad Gita - and a bottle of wine. I suspect I'll enjoy drinking the latter more than reading the former, being as I am pagan-punk rather than Hindu-hippie in nature!

      The car arrived at 10pm. After initially taking us to the wrong venue, the driver eventually managed to get us to the gig on Holloway Road, just in time to see the band come on stage. They were, to be fair, actually quite good; especially the singer - a slightly plumpish, but very lively girl with a hitched up skirt and falling shoulder straps. Ultimately, however, despite her charms, they were not really my cup of tea.  

       After the show, spoke briefly with Nils [2], whom I like, as he's always friendly to me. Also managed to say a quick hello to the inimitable Jock Scott [3], who was up on the stage at some point during the gig. Then Andy and I walked all over North London trying to find a fucking phone box, so we could arrange our ride home. 

      Ended up in Kings X, where we walked into a Wimpy Bar 'to have a rubber bun' - as Poly would say [4]. Funny enough, we bumped into the singer from Float Up CP, so chatted with her until the car arrived. Turns out she was born in Sweden, but grew up from an early age in New York. Seemed like a really nice girl. And very sexy! Unfortunately, if she told me her name - which I'm guessing she probably did - I can't for the life of me recall it.     

       

 

Readers will not be surprised to discover that I did not go on to become either a great talent spotter or a great diarist; whatever unusual abilities I may or may not possess, it seems that hyperthymesia is not one of them [5]. 

 

As for Float Up CP ... well, they would go on to release a studio album nine months later - Kill Me in the Morning (Rough Trade Records, 1985); a track from which - 'Joy's Address' - released as a single the previous year - can be played by clicking here. 

 

And Miss Cherry would, of course, go on to become a huge solo star who remains very much respected and admired within popular culture (not only by fans and critics, but by her fellow artists). Her smash hit single 'Buffalo Stance', released in November 1988 from her debut album Raw Like Sushi (Virgin Records, 1989), which reached number 3 in the UK, but went all the way to number 1 in her native Sweden, can be played by clicking here.

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Andy Greenfield; longtime friend, who is now an internationally respected biologist, but who back then was a Ph.D student at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington.

 

[2] Nils Stevenson; former road manager of the Sex Pistols who had renewed his working relationship with Malcolm during the Duck Rock period. I'm still not quite sure if he was officially managing Float Up CP, or simply acting as a kind of mentor to the group.    

 

[3] Jock Scott; a punk performance poet and well-known man about town and face on many-a-scene. I wrote a post in memory of him published on 18 April 2016: click here.    

 

[4] Poly Styrene; singer-songwriter and front woman of X-Ray Spex. The line I'm quoting is from the song 'The Day the World Turned Day-Glo', which was released as a single in March 1978 (on EMI Records), reaching number 23 in the UK singles chart. 

 

[5] Hyperthymesia - also known as highly superior autobiographical memory - is an extremely rare condition that enables individuals to spontaneously recall a large number of life experiences in vivid detail. The term was coined by American neurobiologists Elizabeth Parker, Larry Cahill, and James McGaugh in 2006. I may spend an excessive amount of time thinking about my own past - one of the signs of hyperthymesia - but, unfortunately, I have the memory of a goldfish.

 

 

On Torpedo the Ark as a Form of Digital Hypomnema and Honey Making

Stephen Alexander: Hypomnema (2025)

 

 

I. 

 

Is blogging really so different from the ancient Greek practice of providing a written commentary on the self and the keeping of a singular (if fragmentary) record of events? 

 

I would rather like to think that it isn't; although it depends of course on the blog and the blogger. 

 

Here, I shall offer remarks only with reference to Torpedo the Ark (TTA), which may not be the best or most popular blog in the world, but which nevertheless provides - in my view - a contemporary example of what Plato and friends referred to as hypomnemata ...

 

 

II. 

 

Neither offered as intimate diary entries, nor a series of spiritual confessions designed to purify the soul, the posts on TTA are intended as an intertextual form of ethopoietic writing based upon an assemblage of literary quotes, artistic images, gay philosophical reflections, and other heterogeneous elements.

 

And that's the key: however personal they may seem, these posts do not merely provide a narrative of the self and the primary aim is to "capture the already said, to collect what one has managed to hear or read" [1] in order that one may detach oneself from the constant buzz of the present and the uncertainty of the future.

 

In other words, blogging allows one to find a little untimely peace and quiet, via contemplation of the past. 

 

However, before one leaps to the conclusion that blogging is thus essentially conservative and nostalgic in character, my writing of posts is also (and always) a radically disparate practice, which doesn't wish to unify ideas into a doctrine or system; nor attempt to know an author's body of work in depth and in detail.  

 

It doesn't really matter, for example, if I haven't read every last word written by Nietzsche and Lawrence (the two authors who have most shaped my own thinking); and it makes very little difference to the success or failure of a post whether I have fully grasped what they meant to say, or whether I am able to faithfully reconstruct their arguments. 

 

 

III. 

 

Ultimately, TTA is governed by the same two principles that Foucault says determine the ancient Greek notebook: (i) the local truth of the precept and (ii) its circumstantial use value. I thus feel free, like Seneca, to take what I want from where I want and relate it to my own life however I like:

 

"Writing as a personal exercise done by and for oneself is an art of disparate truth - or, more exactly, a purposeful way of combining the traditional authority of the already said with the singularity of the truth that is affirmed therein and the particularity of the circumstances that determine its use." [2]      

 

Some critics are annoyed by this and accuse me of all kinds of things; I had a charming email the other day, for example, informing me that TTA is 'an infuriating mix of narcissism, plagiarism, and wilful misreading'. 

 

Fortunately, I'm not too bothered by such accusations. For again, like the great Stoic philosopher mentioned above, I feel at perfect liberty to select (and steal) ideas from other authors and then shape them into what is needed: "'This is my own custom; from the many things which I have read, I claim some part for myself.'" [3]

 

After all, isn't that what bees do when they promiscuously gather nectar from a 1000 different flowers in order to make honey?      

 

Notes

 

[1] Michel Foucault, 'Self-Writing', in Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth, Vol. 1 of The Essential Works of Foucault 1954-1984, ed. by Paul Rabinow, trans. Robert Hurley and others (Penguin Books 2000), p. 211.

 

[2] Ibid., 212. 

[3] Seneca, Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium, Letter II, section V. Quoted by Foucault in the work cited, p. 213. 

 

 

This post is for a friend who asked: 'Do you regard blogging as a form of life-writing?'

In Defence of Diary Writing

Messrs. Stevenson and Wobble back in the day

 

 

I recently came across a book review by Jah Wobble which opens with the former PiL bass player expressing his suspicion of - and, indeed, his very evident scorn for - people who keep diaries: 

 

"If one is truly involved in events as they unfold, is there the time or inclination to take notes?" [1]

 

Wobble answers his own question by suggesting that diary keeping is the kind of anal activity that only those who seek to influence the future interpretation of events (often magnifying their own role in said events) engage in.   

 

There may, of course, be an element of truth in this. 

 

But it's not the whole story and as someone who kept a diary throughout the 1980s, I rather resent Wobble's sneering tone and his privileging of lived experience over the recording and retrospective analysis of events. 

 

For some of us - perhaps of a rather more philosophical predisposition than Mr Wobble - there is no distinction between writing and life. 

 

Journal keeping - or, indeed, blogging - is for us a vital form of scripting the self [2] and I prefer those like Nils Stevenson who creatively construct disparate truths about actual events, rather than those who, like Wobble, simply boast they were truly involved, but far too caught up in the excitement of the moment to reflect upon their own experience [3].  

 

Notes

 

[1] Review by Jah Wobble of Vacant: A Diary of the Punk Years 1976-79 by Nils Stevenson, with photos by Ray Stevenson (Thames and Hudson, 1999), in the Independent on Sunday (11th April, 1999). The review is archived on the PiL fansite Fodderstompf: click here.

 

[2] By this term I refer to a reflective and voluntary practice via which individuals are not only able to gain a degree of ethical self-understanding, but also to "change themselves in their singular being, and to make their life into an oeuvre that carries certain aesthetic values and meets certain stylistic criteria". 

      See Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality 2: The Use of Pleasure, trans. Robert Hurley (Penguin, 1992), pp. 10-11.

 

[3] It might be noted that Wobble did, in fact, publish his memoirs in 2009. A new and  expanded edition of this critically acclaimed work was published under the title Dark Luminosity: Memoirs of a Geezer by Faber & Faber in 2024. So maybe he was taking notes all along ...