Reflections on the Death of a Footballer

Dominic Snow: Saint Pelé (2007)

Oil on canvas (51 x 77 cm)

saatchiart.com

 

 

Have you heard the news? 

 

The great Brazilian footballer Pelé is dead ...!

 

Actually, it's hard not to be aware of his passing, as his face and name is everywhere at the moment, even though he hasn't kicked a ball for forty-five years and even though kicking a ball is essentially what he's known for - that, and for being the public face of erectile dysfunction [1].

 

Judging from the press and media coverage, however, you would think he was a veritable saint among men; a bit like Nelson Mandela, only with the number 10 on his back, rather than 46664.

 

White liberals in particular can hardly contain themselves when talking about him and one can't help thinking that it's not because they care about football or remember him playing, but because he's a sporting version one of those figures that film director Spike Lee called magical negroes ...

That is to say, a black man who is pure and noble of soul and in possession of great wisdom or insight; a reassuring figure who upholds the ideal of a universal humanity and teaches us how to be better people.  

 

It's basically an inverted (and romantic) racism and if, like Lee, I was black, it would make me mad as hell (indeed, even without being black it irritates me).  

 

So, I'm sorry that Pelé is dead; maybe he was a great man as well as a great footballer. I don't know and I don't care. What I do know is that I'll be glad when the world's media turns its attention elsewhere. 

 

And, just one final point ... 

 

I think it revealing that the media here in the UK are giving more attention to the death of an ex-footballer from a far away land than to the passing of a truly iconic national figure - Vivienne Westwood  - who also died yesterday.  

 

It shows that the world of fashion - and, indeed, the world of contemporary art - remains something the Great British Public are not only indifferent to, but suspicious, scornful, and fearful of [2], whilst football, on the other hand, is now supposed to be played, watched, and enjoyed by everyone, from rough girls to delicate boys the whole world over.

 

The so-called Beautiful Game has become an opiate of the masses [3].   

 

 

Notes 

[1] Hired by Pfizer Pharmaceuticals in 2002, Pelé was the first celebrity ambassador for Viagra, although he insisted in 2011 that he had never needed to take the little blue pills himself. His main role was to raise awareness around erectile dysfunction and encourage men to openly discuss their problems. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this had some humorous consequences (see spoof image below).

 

[2] One recalls, for example, the shameful reaction of the Wogan audience - egged on by the ghastly Sue Lawley and fellow guest, the equally ghastly Russell Harty - to Westwood's Time Machine collection back in 1988: click here. Well done Janet Street-Porter for sticking up for Westwood, but what a pity Grace Jones wasn't on hand to give Harty and Lawley both a few hard slaps. 

 

[3] Marx, of course, originally used this dictum with reference to religion: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people." See the Introduction to his Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, trans. Annette Jolin and Joseph O’Malley, (Cambridge University Press, 1970). 

      The 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar had an estimated 4 billion viewers for its 64 matches played over 29 days. 

Vivienne Westwood (A Personal Recollection)

Vivienne Westwood (1941-2022) [1]

 

 

I only met Vivienne Westwood once: on 14 June 1982, when I interviewed her at her studio at 25 Kingly Court, Soho, whilst working as an intern in the features dept at 19 magazine ... [2]

 

I wasn't particularly well-prepared. For whilst I had a rough idea of what questions I wished to ask, I only had a notepad and pencil to scribble down the answers, as the tape recorder I was promised by my editor wasn't provided. 

 

(Apparently, the fashion department had objected to my having arranged the interview without consulting them first and so my meeting with Westwood was to be an unofficial assignment ...)

 

Nevertheless, Vivienne - and that was how she told me to address her - was kind and friendly. Indeed, at times she even seemed a little flirtatious, telling me I had nice eyes and that she admired my enthusiasm. She was 40, but looked younger; I was 19 and a bit star-struck.

 

Softly-spoken, she had retained her East Midlands accent. Often, however, she seemed to be speaking as from a script, with many of her sentences beginning with the words Malcolm says ... indicating that she was still very much in love with him (or, at the very least, still smitten by his ideas). 

 

Asked why many of her new designs were so loose and baggy, she patiently explained that the prospect of clothes falling off was always very sexy. She also fed me lines about wanting to make the poor look rich and the rich look poor and how a man on a mountain top tapping two sticks together makes a much bigger noise than all our electronic music. 

 

When my ten minute time slot was over - she was doing several interviews that afternoon - she shook my hand and asked once more for my name, expressing her hope that we would meet again one day. Sadly, however, that never happened (by the time I got to know McLaren the following year, his personal and professional partnership with Westwood was rapidly disintegrating).

 

As for the article I wrote based on my short interview, that was never published - despite the fact that my editor thought highly of it. 

 

Again, I'm pretty sure the fashion department had a hand in this decision, although I was later told it was because I was an unpaid intern and didn't have membership of the NUJ. Either way, it was a pity because one of Vivienne's assistants had given me some fantastic photos to use with the piece (which I foolishly submitted along with the typed text and never saw again).  

      

If, in later years, Westwood became - like so many of the punk generation - increasingly irritating and irrelevant, the fact remains she was an astonishing and massively influential figure. It was always a joy to wear her clothes - I still have three of her suits hanging in my wardrobe - and always a thrill to walk through the door at 430 King's Road, even long after it had ceased to be the centre of events. 

 

And speaking of the Worlds End store ... With Westwood's passing coming just six months after that of Jordan's and twelve years after Malcolm's, it is time now, I think - without wanting to sound too Audenesque - to finally stop the spinning hands on the giant 13-hour clock and shut up shop ... [3]

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Screenshot from the BBC News Channel announcing the death of Vivienne Westwood (29 Dec 2022) The image is very much how she looked when I met her in June 1982 and may well have been taken in at her studio around this date.

[2] This recollection is based on entries in The Von Hell Diaries (Volume 3: 1982). 

[3] I suppose that decision will be up to Andreas Kronthaler, who I suspect will almost certainly wish to continue the Westwood brand, over which he has exercised creative control for many years.       

 

Scattered Pictures of the Smiles We Left Behind: In Memory of Four Treadwellians

Thomas, Meni, Mark & Bianca

Treadwells, 34, Tavistock Street, London, WC2 [1]

(c. 2006) 

  

I. 

 

I rarely think back to what might be termed the Treadwell's period (2004-2008), but, when I do, I find it is with increasing fondness for the curious little bookshop and its owner Christina Harrington, and, of course, for the handful of people who used to assemble in the basement to listen to my philosophical reflections on topics including sex/magic, thanatology, and zoophilia [2].  

 

Some of the regular attendees to these lectures soon formed a magic circle with whom I would go for drinks and discussion afterwards. As this group had around a dozen members [3], the Little Greek used to jokingly refer to them as the disciples, though I'm sure none of these highly individual characters recognised themselves as such or thought they had anything to learn from me. 

 

 

II. 

 

Sadly, very few pictures were ever taken at the Store when I was there; 2004-08 was just prior to everyone carrying a smartphone and sharing photos and video footage on social media.

 

However, in a rare snap reproduced above, we see four members of the Treadwell's contingent all looking surprisingly cheerful for some reason [4]. 

 

The gang of four are:

 

(i) Thomas the Austrian; an artist and genuine oddball, whose chief pleasure was telling me how wrong I was about everything and whom I used to imagine as a bald-headed bird of prey picking at my entrails ...

 

(ii) Melpomeni Kermanidou; a beautiful and talented singer-songwriter from Down Under, who, knowing how I hated the sight and sound of people clapping, once threw rose petals at the end of one of my talks - an act for which I will always adore her ...

 

(iii) Mark Jeoffroy; an occultist, poet and illustrator with finely curved lips and a boyish, slightly sinister charm; his eyes sparkling with the conceit of his own corruption, he told me once he was the spiritual heir (if not the actual reincarnation) of William Blake.     

 

(iv) Bianca Madison (aka the Great Dane); a former model turned therapist, nutritionist, activist, author and public speaker, who encourages everyone to learn how to love themselves and live inspired, healthy and compassionate lives (i.e., become a bit more like her).    

 

Wherever they are and whatever they're doing now, I hope they're just as happy as they seem to be in this picture and that - one fine day - we all get to meet up once more ... 

 

Notes

 

[1] Treadwell's moved from this address to 33, Store Street, WC1, in 2011. Those who cannnot visit one of London's friendliest and most fascinating bookshops in person, can go to treadwells-london.com

 

[2] See the post from 4 December 2012 entited 'The Treadwell's Papers' for details of the thirty papers presented at the store during 2004-08 (and the four additional stand-alone papers presented in 2011-12): click here. 

      Readers might also find Gary Lachman's 2007 article in The Independent on Treadwell's interesting, providing as it does an insider's insight into the store at this time. Lachman is spot-on to argue that what set Treadwell's apart from other occult shops is that it was a centre where people from different intellectual and artistic backgrounds could meet and exchange ideas. For this, all credit must be give to Christina, who conjured up an environment in which the world of philosophy and literature could flirt with occultism and pagan witchcraft.

      See: Gary Lachman,  'Pagan pages: One bookshop owner is summoning all sorts to her supernatural salons', The Independent (16 September 2007): click here.

 

[3] Other Treadwellians in my little circle included Steve Ash, Tom Bland, David Blank, Dawn Garland, Annette Herold, Simon Image, Sara the Satanist, Fiona Spence, and - of course - Simon Thomas. 

 

[4] We know from the clock on the wall that my presentation would have just finished, so perhaps that explains their joy; now they were free to go off and enjoy themselves in the pub.         

 

 

 

Why I'm Not a Chap

thechap.co.uk

 

As readers of Torpedo the Ark will know, I have long advocated a revolt into style and celebrated the figure of the dandy. 

 

And yet, I've never quite bought into the charmed uprising advocated by The Chap; a British magazine, founded in 1999, that is dedicated to the gentlemanly way of life and seeks to defend old-fashioned values whilst, paradoxically, pioneering new trends in fashion. 

It's not the way of life or world-view being advocated that makes me uncomfortable, however. 

 

It is, rather, the chaps themselves whom I think suspect. For whilst the writers and editors of The Chap insist that they take their anarcho-dandyism [1] seriously, Gustav Temple and company ultimately remind me Tom Hodgkinson and chums at The Idler [2]. 

 

In other words, they are basically middle-class professionals [3] self-consciously trying to be something they're not, whilst satirising the sincere behaviour and beliefs of those who belonged to earlier generations. 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Anarcho-dandyism is a particularly irksome contradiction in terms. However, those who wish to know more can click here to read The Chap Manifesto, or here to learn about several events staged by chaps over the years in order to protest the vulgarity of the modern world.     

 

[2] See the post of 29 December, 2012 entitled 'How to be an Idle Cunt': click here. 

      To be fair, it should be pointed out that Gustav Temple rejects any comparison between The Chap and The Idler. In a 2004 interview with Andrew Stevens for 3:AM  he says, for example, that whilst The Idler has its good points, its appeal is essentially more to contemporary slackers than to traditional gentlemen. To read this interview, click here. 

 

[3] Chaps mostly seem to inhabit the privileged worlds of publishing, journalism, academia, marketing and communications ... etc. They're quirky, but without being twisted; eccentric, but LinkedIn at the same time. You can meet these bourgeois anarchists (if you want to) by clicking here. 

 

     

Rosebud

Illustration of the clitoris by Fiona Tung / The Varsity

thevarsity.ca

 

 

I. 

 

I've never actually watched Citizen Kane (1941) from start to finish; like W. H. Auden and Kenneth Williams, I'm not a fan of Welles's masterpiece [1]; nor, to be honest, do I particularly like his other work (apart from the TV ads for sherry and Sandeman's port).

 

However, I am aware that the key to understanding the psychology of its protagonist Charles Foster Kane - a fictional character inspired by real-life publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst - is the single word that he utters on his deathbed: Rosebud. 

 

Audiences eventually discover that this is simply the trade name of a sledge that Kane loved to play on as a boy. 

 

In other words, we are asked to accept that, in Kane's subconscious mind, Rosebud signified childhood happiness and reminded him of his mother's love, which, for a film that is supposed to be the greatest ever made, is almost laughably trite - as Welles himself acknowledged when interviewed in 1960:

 

"I'm ashamed of Rosebud. I think it’s a rather tawdry device. It’s the thing I like least in Kane. It’s kind of a dollar book Freudian gag. It doesn’t stand up very well. " [2]

 

 

II.

 

Perhaps looking to add a little more interest and intrigue to the origin of the term, Gore Vidal suggested in an essay published in 1989 that Rosebud was actually the pet name that Hearst gave to his mistress's clitoris [3]. 

I don't know if that's true - and I don't know if Vidal himself really believed it to be true. It seems doubtful; for one thing, how would Welles have had knowledge of this secret term used between lovers? It's difficult to imagine that either Hearst or Marion Davies would have shared such intimate information with him. 

 

In a letter to the New York Review discussing his claim [4], Vidal admits that, whilst he had met both parties, neither Hearst nor Davies ever volunteered this detail. However, he points out that the latter was an alcoholic who liked to surround herself with celebrity friends and fellow drinkers, sharing stories about their lives, and that one of these friends was Herman Mankiewicz; i.e., the man who co-wrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane ...

 

Of course, that still doesn't prove that Rosebud was in fact Hearst's hypocorism for Davies's clitoris. But, as Vidal says, if it was that would certainly explain in part Hearst's furious response to the film - which he attempted to suppress - and his deep hatred of Welles.

 

Ironically, of course, it could be that Welles himself had no idea of any of this. He always gave Mankiewicz full credit for coming up with the idea of Rosebud and it's possible the latter didn't tell Welles the real significance of the term (that he was essentially playing a joke not on Hearst, but on Welles).

 

I suppose we'll probably never know for sure the full meaning of Rosebud - if it is, in fact, anything other than the trade name of a sledge [5]. And in that sense the joke's on all of us who waste time thinking about it ...

  

 

Notes

 

[1] After watching the film on 29 Jan 1942, a 15-year old Kenneth Williams described Citizen Kane in his diary as "boshey rot". See The Kenneth Williams Diaries, ed. Russell Davies, (Harper Collins, 1993), p. 2.

 

[2] Click here for the section from the interview with Welles on the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) in which he explains his dislike of the Rosebud device used in Citizen Kane. 

 

[3] Gore Vidal, 'Remembering Orson Welles', The New York Review (1 June 1989): click here. 

 

[4] Gore Vidal's letter on what might be termed the Rosebud controversy, was written in reply to a letter sent to the Editors of The New York Review by Jay Topkis (17 Aug 1989): click here. 

[5] A gay friend tells me that Rosebud actually indicates that Kane had a liking for sodomy and that Welles was a closeted homosexual; for it seems that the term refers not only to the clitoris, but to the anus (and/or the pinkish-red rectal tissue protruding from the anus following a prolapse due to frequent penetration of the latter).

 

 

To watch the official 1941 trailer for Citizen Kane, written and directed by Orson Welles, click here. Unlike other trailers, it doesn't feature any footage from the actual movie, but offers itself as a short spoof documentary on the film's production.   

 

 

Nurses

Two of my favourite cinematic nurses: 

Shirley Eaton as Dorothy Denton in Carry On Nurse (1959) 

and Juliet Mills as Joanna Jones in Nurse on Wheels (1963) 

 

 

I.

 

Should striking nurses in the UK be given a pay increase and improved working conditions?

 

Probably. 

 

But they should also, in my view, be subject to much higher levels of professional and personal conduct. Appearance, for example, should be made a matter of the highest priority; no one wants nurses with tattoos, piercings, or inappropriate hairstyles. 

 

And they should also return to wearing traditional uniforms, consisting of a dress, apron and cap, instead of slobbing about like overgrown toddlers in brightly-coloured, gender-neutral, polycotton short-sleeved tops and drawstring trousers (known by the ugly-sounding name scrubs) [1].

 

 

II. 

 

Nurses like to believe that people love and respect them and that this is a given.

 

However, such love and respect is a relatively recent thing; prior to the mid-19th century, nurses were thought to be immodest - if not actually shameless - women who, like prostitutes, offered intimate services and who were often drunk when providing such [2]. Even Florence Nightingale conceded that nursing was often the profession chosen by those women who were too stupid, too lazy, or too old to go on the game. 

 

It was only from the 1860s that educated women began to train as nurses and their status slowly began to improve (although their pay remained low and their working hours long) and only after the Second World War, with the establishment of the National Health Service in 1948, that public affection for nurses was universal and unreserved; as was clear from their portrayal in films such as Carry On Nurse (1959) and Nurse on Wheels (1963) [3].     

 

But, sadly, this world has passed. And whilst nurses on the picket line today know how to shout and make wage demands, they have no idea that their role was once understood to be a spiritual calling ...   

 

 

Notes

 

[1] A traditional nurse's uniform is not just worn for practical reasons; it has symbolic value, signifying status, for example. And it's also designed (like a nun's habit) to enhance the allure of the wearer. The fact that nurses have decided to abandon such uniforms - first came the disposable paper caps in the 1970s and the plastic aprons in the 1980s, then came the scrubs imported from America in the 1990s - has been a grave error. 

      For a post on women in uniforms, published back in April 2014, click here. 

 

[2] The cultural stereotype of the naughty nurse continues to circulate in both the popular and pornographic imaginations and is undoubtedly rooted in this 19th-century idea that nurses were akin to prostitutes (i.e., women with loose morals and a liking for gin). 

      The image of the nurse as a ministering angel who stoically tends to the sick and dying out of Christian duty - a noble and devout being akin to a nun - was developed in part to counter the above, although it is simply the other side of the same coin and ultimately reinforces the virgin/whore dichotomy.  

      For a post on this topic, published back in April 2013, click here. 

 

[3] Carry on Nurse - the second in the long-running film series - starred Shirley Eaton as Staff Nurse Dorothy Denton, alongside many of the regular Carry On team (including Hattie Jacques as Matron). It was the UK's top-grossing film of 1959 and, with an audience of 10.4 million, had the highest cinema viewing of any of the Carry On films. Click here for the trailer on YouTube.

      Nurse on Wheels, starring Juliet Mills as District Nurse Joanna Jones, shares several members of its cast and production team with the Carry On films - like Carry On Nurse, it was directed by Gerald Thomas - but is not an official entry in the series and doesn't quite have the same level of campness or sauciness. Click here to watch the opening titles on YouTube.

      I am aware, of course, that such films do not necessarily depict the reality of nursing or of English life in this period - just as I'm aware that there are (so-called) male nurses.   

   

 

Just Because the Sky Has Turned a Pretty Shade of Orange and Red Doesn't Mean You Can Simply Point a Camera and Shoot ... Or Does It?

Golden sunset and red sunrise over Harold Hill 

(SA / Dec 2022) 

 

 

I. 

 

For many serious photographers, these two snaps taken from my bedroom window - a golden sunset and a red sunrise - constitute perfect examples of cliché. 

 

That enormous numbers of people enjoy looking at such pictures doesn't alter the fact that images of dusk and dawn have virtually zero aesthetic value; their mass production and popularity only confirming their banality. 

 

As one commentator notes: 

 

"Their very ubiquity is what seems to repel; photography has tainted what it sought to cherish through overuse. It miniaturises natural grandeur and renders it kitsch." [1]

 

If you're a reader of Walter Benjamin, you might explain how mechanical reproduction devalues the aura - by which is meant something like the uniqueness - of an object or event [2]; if you're a fan of D. H. Lawrence, you'll probably start shouting about Kodak vision and how this prevents us from seeing reality, just as cliché inhibits the forming of new perspectives [3].  

 

Now, whilst sympathetic to both of theses authors, I also want to be able to take my snaps and share them with others in good conscience. And so I feel obliged to challenge those who are hostile to photography per se - even if, on philosophical grounds, I share their concerns.

 

And I also feel obliged to challenge those who are dismissive of certain genres of amateur photography - pictures of flowers, or cats, or of the sun's risings and settings - out of cultural snobbery; i.e., those who sneer at aesthetically naive individuals and speak of the wrong kind of people making the wrong kind of images.

           

 

II. 

 

I'm thinking, for example, of the Marxist academic, writer, photographer and curator, Julian Stallabrass, who is interested in the relations between art, politics and popular culture and who sneeringly entitled a chapter of his 1996 work on the widespread popularity of amateur photography 'Sixty Billion Sunsets' [4].

 

As Annebella Pollen notes: 

 

"Stallabrass's denigration of mass photographic practice is based on what he perceives to be its overwhelmingly conventionalised sameness (unlike elite art practices, which are positively polarised as avant-garde, creative and distinctive)." [5]

 

In other words, because Stallabrass sees every sunset photograph as essentially the same, he dismisses them all as "sentimental visual confectionary indicative of limited aesthetic vision and an undeveloped practice" [6]; in other words, stereotypical shit. 

Unfortunately, this attitude is echoed by many other critics and theorists convinced of their own cultural superiority. If you thought postmodernism did away with such snobbery, you'd be mistaken - which is a pity. 

 

For whilst I may agree that just because the sky has turned a pretty shade of orange and red one is nevertheless required to do more than simply point a camera and shoot in order to produce an image that is also a work of art, there's nothing wrong with just taking a snap and plenty of snaps have genuine charm and, yes, even beauty. 

 

In the end, even a bad photograph can seduce and what Barthes calls the punctum - i.e., that which is most poignant (even nuanced) in a picture - is often the failure, fault, cliché, or imperfection. Perhaps, in this digital age of imagery shared via social media, we therefore need to rethink what constitutes a good or bad photograph.    

And, ultimately, Stallabrass is simply wrong: no two sunsets (or dawns) are ever the same and no two photographs of sunsets (or dawns) are ever the same; there is an eternal return of difference (not of the same or to the same). 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Annebella Pollen, 'When is a cliché not a cliché? Reconsidering Mass-Produced Sunsets', eitherand.org - click here. 

 

[2] See Walter Benjamin's essay 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction' (1935), which can be found in Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt, trans. Harry Zorn, (Bodley Head, 2015).

 

[3] See D. H. Lawrence's essay 'Art and Morality' (1925), which can be found in Study of Thomas Hardy and Other Essays, ed. Bruce Steele, (Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 161-68. 

 

[4] Julian Stallabrass, Gargantua: Manufactured Mass Culture, (Verso, 1996). 

 

[5] Annebella Pollen, 'When is a cliché not a cliché? Reconsidering Mass-Produced Sunsets', op. cit.

 

[6] Ibid.

 

 

On the Question of Quality Versus Quantity

 

   

I. 

 

Good people always insist: It's quality rather than quantity that matters [1].

 

You'll be a much happier and more authentic human being, they say, if you forget about numbers, stop being acquisitive, and focus instead on things that have real value and substance, such as meaningful relationships.

 

It's a kind of moral minimalism in which the related mantra less is more is used to justify a small circle of friends, or the fact that one hasn't read many books. 

 

Surprisingly, even D. H. Lawrence, who is usually quick to attack the base-born stupidity of proverbial wisdom, buys into this idea. But whilst he may be right to argue that it is better to read one good book six times rather than six bad books once [2], we feel obliged to point out the possibility of reading six good books six times.

 

That's a greater quantity of books - and many more readings - but surely that's better than simply reading one text over and over and insisting with monomaniacal intensity on its value. For that's precisely the error religiously-minded people fall into when they mistakenly decide that all they ever need read is a single holy text. 

 

Ultimately, it's not a binary choice: you can have quality and quantity. In fact, as we'll explain below, you can't have the former without the latter ...

  

II. 

 

Speaking as an evolutionary biologist, I can say that nature massively favours quantity over quality, which is why it can be so outrageously profligate. It's not necessarily the fittest who survive in this life, it's those who have the numbers to stake a claim on the future. 

 

And by modelling populations over long timescales, a recent Oxford study showed that the most important determinant of evolutionary success was not good genes, but the widest number of genetically available mutations [3].   

 

Brilliant individuals come and go like flowers; they simply don't have time to fix in the population or determine the evolutionary outcome of a race.   

And speaking as an artist, I can also confirm the fact that the creation of great works rests upon a large body of work. That's why, for example, it was necessary for Picasso to paint some 60,000 pictures in order to produce a small number of works - probably fewer than a 100 - that are considered masterpieces. 

 

This doesn't mean the vast bulk of the work is worthless or a waste of time; on the contrary, it was vital. For it was by producing works in such quantity that Picasso was able to learn, experiment, and evolve as an artist. Most importantly, it allowed him to make mistakes; for just as quality rests upon quantity, success rests upon repeated failure.   

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The saying is often attributed to the Roman philosopher (and proto-Christian) Seneca; see his Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XLV: 'On sophistical argumentation', line 1. Click here to read online.    

 

[2] See Lawrence's discussion of books and reading in relation to this question of quality (or real value) versus quantity in Apocalypse and the Writings on Revelation, ed. Mara Kalnins, (Cambridge University Press, 1980), p. 60.  

 

[3] The study is published in the journal PLOS ONE and was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. It's lead author is Dr Ard Louis, Reader in Theoretical Physics at Oxford University. For an interview with the latter discussing the key finding of the study - i.e., that  life's evolution is all about arrival of the frequent, rather than survival of the fittest - click here.

 

 

Is it Time to Torpedo Torpedo the Ark?

Henry Winkler as Fonzie about to jump the shark in Happy Days (1977)

Alice Krige as the Borg Queen in Star Trek: First Contact (1996)

 

I. 

 

Having spent many years among the ruins writing nothing but fragments in praise of fragmented writing, there was, in the late autumn of 2012, nowhere else to go - and nothing else to do - but enter the blogosphere and embrace the postmodern re-creation of that most charmingly sentimental of forms, le journal.

 

However, as Torpedo the Ark marks its tenth anniversary and rapidly approaches its 2000th post, I find myself wondering whether the blog has, in fact, jumped the shark ...?

 

This perjorative phrase was coined in 1985 with reference to a now notorious episode of the American sitcom Happy Days, in which Fonzie (literally) jumps over a shark whilst on water-skis [1]. 

In a nutshell, it means that a once great TV show (or blog) has passed its best before date - or, if you prefer, gone beyond a joke - and entered the phase when it requires increasingly ridiculous stunts and gimmicks in order to retain its audience (or readership). 

 

This is certainly a concern, although, to be honest, not much of a concern, as I think that one of the most interesting aspects of Torpedo the Ark is that the quality of the posts (like the length and content) can vary wildly and that this variation is not chronologically determined. 

 

Thus, like the Fonz, I'm cool when it comes to jumping the shark. And besides, it doesn't prevent me from growing a beard afterwards [2].  

 

 

II.

 

More of a worry is that the following critic may have a point: 

 

 

Dear Stephen Alexander,

 

You claim that Torpedo the Ark is an attempt to destroy the coordination of life in all its rich diversity and difference. Ironically, however, that's precisely what you are doing on your blog.

      Indeed, I am tempted to think of Torpedo the Ark as a kind of Borg vessel and visualise you as a Borg Queen, overseeing the co-option of otherness and assimilating a wide variety of ideas within a single narrative.

      Unlike Noah, who built his Ark to God's design in order to preserve and protect all forms of life, you have constructed a diabolically clever blog which forcibly transforms very singular writers and thinkers into drones ready to do your bidding, or dummies who give voice to your own nihilistic philosophy based not so much on the futility of resistance as the abandonment of all hope and curbing of any enthusiasm.

    

 

This is a provocative email in which the writer nicely summarises the blog's (nihilistic) philosophy. And if I thought it were true, I'd certainly be concerned.     

 

However, whilst I may have a profound loathing for species 5618, I don't quite see myself as a Borg Queen in the manner my correspondent conceives. For just as she is more an avatar of the Collective than a ruler over it, I am merely an effect and function of the blog, rather than a sovereign intelligence controlling everything behind the scenes. 

 

In other words, I am neither the origin nor the limitation of Torpedo the Ark and so it's really not up to me to determine when or how it comes to an end. Happily, I can leave that to fate ...      

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The Happy Days episode in question was the third episode of season five, entitled 'Hollywood: Part 3' (dir. Jerry Paris), which aired on 20 September, 1977. Click here to watch a five minute clip on YouTube. 

      It's important to note that Happy Days remained a hugely successful show long after this episode and the series ran for another six seasons. 

 

[2] Growing the beard is the opposite of jumping the shark; the definitive moment when a show or an artist finally finds their feet (or their voice) and their popularity or critical standing suddenly takes off.

      The phrase derives from the fact that the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation is considered superior to the first season and that, coincidentally, the character William Riker (played by Jonathan Frakes) had chosen to abandon his clean-shaven look.   

 

 

La beauté est une promesse de bonheur: On the Joy of Discovering Stendhal

Portrait rouge et noir de Stendhal by SA (2022)

based on the original work by Louis Ducis (1835) 

 

"Ne me demandez pas qui je suis et ne me dites pas de rester le même ..." [1]

 

 

I. 

 

Stendhal is one of those 19th-century French writers that I've never got around to reading. 

 

And that's despite the fact that Nietzsche thought highly of him, describing Stendhal in Beyond Good and Evil as the last great psychologist [2] and confessing in Ecce Homo that he envied Stendhal for providing the finest and funniest atheist joke: God's only excuse is that he does not exist [3].

And it's also despite the fact that, astrologically speaking, Stendhal belongs to the House that I privilege above all others (i.e., the 11th). Being an Aquarian doesn't necessarily make you an interesting writer, but it does mean that Stendhal can be placed alongside the likes of Byron, Dickens, Lewis Carroll, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and William Burroughs, to name but a few.   

 

However, the fact remains I've never been tempted to read Stendhal - until now; and that's entirely thanks to a fascinating article written by Naveed Rehan, an independent scholar based in Lahore, Pakistan ... [4]

 

 

II. 

 

Rehan's description of Stendhal as a man full of contradictions who is believed to have used over a 100 different pseudonyms and worn many masks in his lifetime, could almost have been written with the aim of catching my attention and sending me to the Amazon website so as to immediately order a copy of Souvenirs d’Égotisme, a short unfinished text which, Rehan informs us, recounts his time in Paris between 1821 and 1830 and which was written in just thirteen days during the summer of 1832. 

 

According to Rehan, this memoir would now be classified as a work of creative nonfiction - "a relatively new name [...] for an old way of writing, often referred to as belles-lettres" [5]. The key to this style of writing - whatever we choose to call it - is artfulness. 

 

It's a clever, ironic, sophisticated genre produced by writers who aren't afraid to slant the truth and who understand the importance of shaping experience and giving natural feeling artificial form. As Rehan notes: "It is not enough just to be sincere in writing true life stories; one must also craft them so that they can have the desired effect upon the reader."  

 

Having said that, Stendhal declares his intention "to be absolutely truthful and sincere in his Memoirs", which is a concern and more than a little problematic. But then we remember D. H. Lawrence's injunction to trust the text, not the author and we discover that Stendhal's perfect sincerity is just another pose and that, as Rehan points out, Souvenirs d’Égotisme is as artful as even a Wildean reader would wish for.   

 

The fact is, we never discover the real writer behind the mask; although arguably his identity is not so much hidden as dispersed and multiplied, until we are no longer sure who he is. Attempts to piece together an authentic and unified self from his fragmentary writings - to discover Stendhal's true identity - are ultimately doomed to failure; this master of illusion and disguise will never be found out or pinned down.     

 

And that's a good thing. Why? Because, as Rehan suggests, it enables Stendhal to preserve freshness of heart, by which I think she refers to the innocence of becoming; which is always of course a becoming-other and by no means merely an imaginative exercise, even if it can often be something that takes place within great works of literature, as Deleuze and Guattari demonstrated. 

 

I'm grateful to Naveed for presenting Stendhal in such a charming light; one which counters the orthodox Lawrentian view that he was, as a matter of fact, a nasty piece of work [6].      

 

 

Notes

 

[1] This line from Michel Foucault could easily have been penned by Stendhal; both men wrote in order to have no face. The line can be found in L’archéologie du savoir (1969) and is usually translated into English as: 'Do not ask who I am and do not ask me to remain the same ...'

 

[2] Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, II. 39. 

 

[3] Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, 'Why I Am So Clever', §3.

 

[4] Naveed Rehan, '"I Am Large, I Contain Multitudes": Rereading Stendhal's Souvenirs d’Égotisme', The Friday Times, (12 December, 2022): click here. All quotes in the post above are from this piece by Rehan. 

 

[5] Rehan is not the first or only critic to suggest that creative nonfiction is just a rather more austere sounding term for belles-lettres. 

      In an article entitled 'Non-fiction is dead: Long Live Belles-lettres', Arpita Das, for example, argues that writing which although based on reportage of real events, people and places is nevertheless a skilful literary construction, is best described "by that charming phrase coined in the days of Voltaire, 'belles-lettres', meaning simply 'fine writing'". 

      The article can be found in Open magazine (2 Dec 2011), or read online by clicking here.  

 

[6] See Lawrence's letter to E. M. Forster (6 Nov 1916) in The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. III, ed. James T. Boulton and Andrew Robertson, (Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 21. 

      For those readers who don't have this book to hand, Lawrence writes: 

 

"I believe in bonheur, when people feel bon. But to pretend bonheur when you only feel malice and spite [...] no thank you. [...] I feel a bit shy even of Stendhal's bonheur. I look for it in vain in Rouge et la Noir, and L'Amour, and Chartreuse. A man may believe in that which he in himself is not. But I don't give much for such a belief. [...] Let a man go to the bottom of what he is, and believe in that. And Stendhal was not bon: he was méchant to a high degree. So he should have believed in his own wickedness, not kept a ticket to heaven up his sleeve, called bonheur."  

      Lawrence's essentialism and sincerity - on full display here - would of course make it difficult for him to ever really like (or trust) Stendhal, or those who, like Stendhal, affirmed the truth of masks and stamped becoming with the character of being. 

Reflections on Heide Hatry's Rusty Dog

Heide Hatry: Rusty Balloon Dog (2015) 

Photo by Stan Schnier

 

 

I. 

 

Ask a metallurgist and they'll tell you that rust is an iron oxide, usually reddish-brown in colour, formed by the reaction of iron and oxygen in the catalytic presence of water. Which, of course, is true in as much as it's factually correct. 

 

But, when considered from a philosophical perspective, rust is a fascinating erotico-aesthetic phenomenon, which is why it has long appealed to artists; particulary those who see beauty in decay and believe in the ruins. 

 

II. 

 

Victorian writer and art critic, John Ruskin, for example, was a big fan of rust. Whilst conceding that you can't use a rusty knife or razor with the same effectiveness as a rust-free blade, rust, he says, is not a defect, but a sign of metallic virtue [1].

 

What's more, in a certain sense, "we may say that iron rusted is Living; but when pure or polished, Dead". Rusting, in other words, is a sign of inorganic respiration; the taking in of oxygen from the atmosphere by the iron.  

 

Further, it's iron in this oxidised, vital form which makes the Earth not only habitable for living organisms, but beautiful; for rust makes the world softer to the touch and more colourful to the eye - just think, he says, of all those "beautiful violet veinings and variegations" of marble. 

 

 

III.

I recalled Ruskin's lecture in praise of rust when seeing one of Heide Hatry's figures in the Rusty Dog series and whilst reading her thoughts [2] on what these figures represent. 

 

According to Hatry, the rusty dogs pose a challenge to the super-shiny, super-smooth aesthetic of Jeff Koons, exemplified by his mirror-polished stainless steel Balloon Dog (1994); and secondly, they call into question the commodification of art, exemplified by the sale of the latter in 2013 for a then record sum for a work by a living artist of $58.4 million.

 

Unlike Koons's balloon dogs - he produced five in all, each with a different transparent colour coating - Hatry's rusty dogs are small in size and made out of cheap 'n' cheerful material. I'm almost tempted to refer to them (affectionately) as mutts.

 

They remind one rather of the famous animal assemblages made by Picasso in the early 1950s, which incorporated found materials, magically transforming them into works of art. His she-goat, crane, and baboon were playful, certainly, but not just intended to be fun - a key term for Koons.       

 

Ultimately, however, for all his talk of fun and innocence, Hatry thinks Koons is cynical and that his works lack soul - by which she seems to mean depth, seriousness, and maturity, but which I would interpret (following Ruskin) as meaning they don't breathe; don't oxidise; don't rust. 

 

For it's rust which is the anti-Koonsian material - and rusting the anti-Koonsian process - par excellence. 

 

Rust challenges all forms of idealism, including the Koonsian dream of a super-smooth, super-shiny surface that perfectly reflects the viewer in all their narcissism and projects the promise of an everlasting, never changing world, free from corruption and death.       

Notes

 

[1] See John Ruskin, 'The Work of Iron, in Nature, Art, and Policy', Lecture V in The Two Paths (1859). Click here for the 2005 eBook published online by Project Gutenberg from which I'm quoting. 

 

[2] These thoughts were expressed to me in an email dated 8 Dec 2022 and contained in an unpublished essay - 'Must We Abhor a Vacuum?' - written in collaboration with John Wronoski, in 2014.

      Although I am more favourably disposed to Jeff Koons and his work than Heide, I do have issues with his aesthetic of smoothness and, push comes to shove, I side with those who affirm dirt, dust, rust, and shit (what Bataille calls base matter) over the smooth, the shiny, the seamless, etc. 

 

 

 Readers who are interested, can click here to access the posts on (or with reference to) Jeff Koons on Torpedo the Ark.  

 

 

Maiesiophilia

A pregnant Demi Moore photographed by 

Annie Liebovitz for Vanity Fair (1991) [1]

 

 

I. 

 

One of the most famous - and, at the time, most scandalous - scenes in D. H. Lawrence's 1915 novel The Rainbow, features newly wed Anna Brangwen dancing naked before the Unknown, whilst heavily pregnant:

 

"Big with child as she was, she danced there in the bedroom by herself, lifting her hands and her body to the Unseen Creator [...] to whom she belonged.

      She would not have had anyone know. She danced in secret, and her soul rose in bliss. She danced in secret before the Creator, she took off her clothes and danced in the pride of her bigness." [2]      

 

One Saturday afternoon, alone in her bedroom before the fire, she again "took off her things and danced, lifting her knees and her hands in a slow, rhythmic exulting" [3]. When her husband Will enters and finds her naked in the shadows, he is somewhat startled, and advises that, if she's not careful, she'll catch a cold. 

 

Irritated by this stupid, sexless remark, Anna lifted her hands and began to dance once more, the firelight illuminating her body:

 

"He stood away near the door in blackness of shadow, watching transfixed. And with slow, heavy movements, she swayed backwards and forwards [...] pale in the dusky afternoon [...]

      He watched, and his soul burned in him. He turned aside, he could not look [...] Her fine limbs lifted and lifted, her hair was sticking out all fierce, and her belly, big, strange, terrifying [...] Her face was rapt and beautiful [...] [4]    

 

Will is unable to ever forget this vision of his pregnant young wife; if it aroused him at all, so too did it terrify him; for at that moment she was, in all her femaleness, beyond him. 

 

This is certainly an interesting scene to do with womanhood, sex and pregnancy - albeit one that Lawrence cannot help dressing up in religious language (just as, on the other hand, this self-professed priest of love cannot help eroticising his own metaphysics). 

 

One assumes that Lawrence's publishers (Methuen & Co.) must have known that this scene - along with several others - would cause them problems with the censors ...? 

 

And, sure enough, The Rainbow was prosecuted for obscenity, as a result of which around a thousand copies of the novel were seized and burnt and the book remained unavailable in Britain for the next eleven years (although editions were published in the United States). 

 

As one critic wrote in high moral outrage, when art refuses to 'conform to the ordered laws that govern human society [...] it must pay the penalty' [5].

 

 

II.   

 

In a letter written to Martin Secker in 1920, Lawrence reflects on the fate of The Rainbow, suggesting that the magistrates had acted in response to the hostile reviews the book received. He also informs Secker: "The scene to which exception was particularly taken was the one where Anna dances naked, when she is with child." [6] 

 

Thus, Lawrence was certainly aware that this scene was probematic - and I'm sure he knew why. For whilst Christianity has never taught that coition during pregnancy is a sin, many Church Fathers - including St. Augustine and Clement of Alexandria - seem, like Anna's husband Will, to be freaked out by the erotic aspects of pregnancy and the idea of fucking an expectant mother. 

 

The former, for example, spoke harshly about those husbands who approach their wives for sexual intercourse whilst they are with child, seeing this as a shameful lack of self-control [7]. As for the latter, he was more concerned about potential harms that might result, believing that it was necessary to protect the uterus once it had received the semen it desires and began the process of child formation. 

 

According to Clement, the womb closes itself up during pregnancy and no longer craves semen. Thus, any further act of coition at the man's insistence - and any new delivery of semen - is an excessive act of violence [8]. 

 

Beliefs such as these have continued to shape the thinking of many people, even whilst modern medical professionals insist that sex during pregnancy is normal, healthy, and perfectly safe for all parties concerned; including the unborn child, which is protected by the amniotic fluid in the womb and by the cervical mucus plug that forms shortly after conception.         

 

 

III. 

 

In conclusion ...

 

Whilst some women may experience a decrease in their sex drive whilst pregnant, others - like Anna Brangwen - never feel more sexually attractive and empowered than when big with child. 

 

Similary, whilst some men - like Will Brangwen - have a tokophobic aversion to seeing their pregnant wives dance round naked and ecstatically delighting in their womanhood and fertility, others veer towards maiesiophilia and are turned on by lactating breasts and an enlarged abdomen [9].      

 

Personally, I'm with Will on this one. It's not that I feel humiliated or nullified in my maleness by the site of a pregnant nude woman. Rather, I just find it slightly irritating when women like Anna (or Demi) get too full of themseves and believe that pregnancy - a biological function shared with all other mammals - is a miraculous state that gives them meaning or brings them closer to God. 

I would remind such women of this crucial couple of lines from Lawrence:

 

"That she bear children is not a woman's significance. But that she bear herself, that is her supreme and risky fate: that she drive on to the edge of the unknown, and beyond." [10]

 

      

Notes

 

[1] This nude photograph by Annie Liebovitz of 28-year old actress Demi Moore, who was seven months pregnant at the time, certainly got people talking when it appeared on the cover of the August 1991 issue of Vanity Fair. 

      Many critics deemed it inappropriate; some even described it as indecent (despite the fact that Moore discreetly covers her breasts with her hand). Some retail outlets would only sell the issue once it was wrapped in plain paper, as if a pornographic magazine, much to Moore's bemusement. It has since been named as one of the most influential images of the 20th-century, although, interestingly, Liebovitz herself doesn't think it a particularly good picture.    

 

[2] D. H. Lawrence, The Rainbow, ed. Mark Kinkead-Weekes, (Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 169-170. 

 

[3] Ibid., p. 170.    

[4] Ibid., pp. 170-171.

[5] James Douglas, writing in the Star (22 October, 1915), quoted by Mark Kinkead-Weekes in his Introduction to The Rainbow, p. xlvi.

[6] D. H. Lawrence, letter to Martin Secker (16 January 1920), in The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. III, ed. James T. Boulton and Andrew Robertson, (Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 458-460. The line quoted is on p. 459.

 

[7] See Augustine, On the Good of Marriage, V.   

 

[8] See Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus, II. X.

 

[9] Pregnancy porn may still be a rather niche interest, but internet searches for such have steadily increased during the last few years according to stats released by Pornhub, in 2017. Not all of this traffic comes from out-and-out pregnancy fetishisists, however; it also includes, for example, those men who simply like to fantasise about their own virility and gain arousal or gratification from the possibility (or risk) of impregnating a woman. 

      Somewhat surprisingly, Pornhub's data also reveals that women are significantly more interested in pregnancy-related porn than men; indeed, women in the 25-34 year old age group are the most likely to search online for such. See Lenyon Whitaker, 'Pornhub data reveals "pregnancy porn" searches are on the rise', Metro (15 May, 2017): click here.   

 

[10] D. H. Lawrence, 'Study of Thomas Hardy', in Study of Thomas Hardy and Other Essays, ed. Bruce Steele, (Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 52. 

      In this same passage, Lawrence explicity denies that the purpose of sex is for the depositing of seed. Procreation, he says, is "merely a preservative measure" and the continuance of life in the flesh "only a minor function".