What Was I Thinking? (8 April)

Images used for the posts published on

this date in 2014, 2021, and 2023

 

 

Sometimes - especially those times when, like today, I can't think of anything else to write about - it's convenient to be able to look back and see what one was thinking on the same date in years gone by ...

 

In Praise of the Pig

 

The interesting thing about this post from 8 April 2014 is that it cost me a very dear friendship with an amazing woman called Beatrice de Dia, who found it to be Islamophobic, whereas it was, rather - as the title surely indicates - simply an expression of my porcophilia.   

 

And so, whilst the post did challenge the dietary injunction against eating pork found within Islamic (as well as Jewish) religious culture, it mostly celebrated pigs as intelligent, social, and loveable creatures who are, of course, genetically very similar to human beings, sharing as we do 98% of our DNA with them (which is why they represent the best hope for the xenotransplantation of organs in the future).

 

The post was also a reading of the view put forward by Christopher Hitchens; namely, that the reason heaven hates ham has nothing to do with food hygiene, but because eating pork uncomfortably reminded the ancient Semites of a time when human sacrifice and cannibalism were de rigueur. 

 

Finally, the post ended by calling on non-Jews and non-Muslims to also reconsider their own vile treatment of the pig and end the disgusting cruelty of factory farming. 

 

For if, on the one hand, pigs deserve better than to be vilified by those who allow religious superstition to distort their relationship to the animal world, then on the other hand, so too do they deserve more than being confined, separated from their young, and forced to live in their own filth before being slaughtered in their hundreds of millions each year by the Chinese, Americans, and Europeans. 

It's such a shame that Beatrice couldn't process the post - despite smiling at its mock-epic quality - and seemed to think I was encouraging racial and religious intolerance (even hatred). I'll always think of her very fondly (and still miss her terribly). 

 

 

Notes on An American Werewolf in London

 

Fast forward seven years, to 8 April 2021, and I was offering thoughts on An American Werewolf in London (dir. John Landis, 1981). 

 

Well, I say that, but actually the post was less a film review and more an excuse to sing the praises of two women who have secured their place in the hearts (and erotic imagination) of many a male viewer: Jenny Agutter and Linzi Drew. 

 

The former, who plays Nurse Alex Price in the film, is still, in my view, one of the most beautiful English actresses ever to have graced the screen; whilst the latter, appearing as Brenda Bristols, may not quite have the same allure as Mary Millington, but she did have a successful (and varied) career in the UK sex industry during the 1980s, working as a stripper, model, and porn star.

 

One day, if I can ever see past the charms of the female stars, I must really get around to discussing the demonic Nazi stormtroopers that appear in a terrifying dream sequence that even the Chapman brothers would've been proud of and how the film is crucially tied to the question of Jewish identity and feelings of cultural estrangement ... 

 

 

In Memory of Two Dead Artists 

 

Was it really 14 years ago that Malcolm McLaren died, aged 64, and over 50 years ago that Picasso departed this life, aged 91? Apparently. 

 

As I noted in a post published last year on this date, McLaren may have acted with mock delight when told of the great Spanish painter's death, but he undoubtedly admired Picasso and was happy to pose by one of his works when being interviewed at the Guggenheim in 1984 for an episode of The South Bank Show. 

 

His friend from art school days, Fred Vermorel, wrote this in 2015:

 

"Considered as an artwork [...] McLaren's Sex Pistols was as seminal and resonant as Picasso's Guernica. Only this was a masterpiece made not of paint and canvas but of headlines and scandal, scams and factoids, rumour and fashion, slogans, fantasies and images and (I almost forgot) songs - all in a headlong scramble to auto-destruction."[1]     

 

I think that's not only a nice thing to say, but also very true.

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Fred Vermorel, 'Blowing Up the Bridges So There Is No Way Back', in Eyes for Blowing Up Bridges: Joining the Dots from the Situationist International to Malcolm McLaren (John Hansard Gallery, 2015). Quoted by Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 292.  

What I Believe

Paul Cadmus: What I Believe (1947-48)

I have always had a certain amount of respect and affection for E. M. Forster. Primarily because he had the decency and the courage to publicly say of Lawrence after the latter's death in 1930 that he was the greatest imaginative novelist of his generation. This contrasts starkly with the often sneering and hostile verdicts of other friends and contemporaries - let alone Lawrence's enemies, of whom there were many.      

Lately, however, I have found myself enjoying again Forster's fiction (with the exception of A Passage to India) and even, dare I say it, some of his essays; such as What I Believe (1938), which opens with the wonderful lines:

"I do not believe in Belief. But this is an Age of Faith and there are so many militant creeds that, in self-defence, one has to formulate a creed of one's own." 

This is pretty much the position I find myself in today. To paraphrase Forster, postmodern irony and cool indifference are no longer enough in a world of religious fundamentalism wherein ignorance and superstition thrive, evolutionary scientists are forced to debate with creationists about the school curriculum, and cosmologists still have to convince many that the earth travels round the sun and is not in fact the centre of the universe.      

It would be nice to remain transpositional and forever defer meaning, but, unfortunately, one is no longer afforded the luxury. Rather, one has today to take up some kind of position - however reluctantly and provisionally - and say clearly what one means (and even mean what one says). This doesn't come easily and it represents something of a philosophical retreat. Insouciance remains I think the great word of tomorrow, but it is for the moment rendered impossible. For we live in the time that we do: extremely unpleasant and bloody in every sense of the word.

Forster thinks the key to surviving such a time is the forging of relationships between people based not on race, nation, or creed, but on fondness and friendship. I tend to agree with him here too. Starting from queer relationships founded upon trust and kindness between strangers, we may be able to build something worth protecting and cherishing. 

But such bonds are often despised today: we are encouraged to rediscover our roots and identify ourselves as members of ethno-tribal communities, or as the chosen followers of a supreme deity. Like Forster, I find this idea repugnant and, like Forster, if I had to choose between betraying my country, race, or god and betraying a friend, I only hope that I would have the guts to stick by the latter.       

So imagine my disappointment when someone I held dear emailed to say that, even at the price of love and friendship, she would sooner kiss goodbye to me or to any other individual with whom she had established a happy alliance, than compromise or abandon her ideals (including her slightly ludicrous fantasy of belonging to and representing a universal underclass to which she owes her ultimate loyalty).   

I should surely not have to remind someone who calls herself Beatrice that Dante placed Brutus and Cassius in the lowest circle of Hell precisely because they chose to betray their friend Julius Caesar, rather than Rome.