Calimocho: On the Politics of Wine and Cola (Redux)

Roland Barthes & Andy Warhol

George Costanza & Jeremy Usbourne 

 

  

I. 

 

Recently, I was at an event with an American friend who doesn't drink; she prefers to sip mineral water rather than Champagne - although, on a hot summer's day, it's been known for her to ask for a Diet Coke with ice and lemon.  

 

Listening to her explain her secular preference to another guest reminded me of a post written back in 2014 on the politics of wine and cola [1], in which I considered the idea that opting for a soft drink over a glass of wine is in some sense a rejection of the snobbery and social complexity inherent in European culture.   

 

In the post, whilst I mentioned Warhol and George Costanza, I don't recall bringing Roland Barthes into the conversation and that is something I'd now like to do in an alternative version of the text; one that considers the concept of wine as a totem-drink and magical substance that transforms any occasion (even if it fails to tick the right boxes for those who value equity, inclusion, and sobriety above all things).  

II.  

  

Probably the most powerful argument for choosing a cool can of Coke over a fine glass of wine remains the one made by Andy Warhol. It's a cultural-political argument which posits the former as the embodiment of American democracy [2] and which stands in stark contrast to Roland Barthes's idea of wine as a quintessential sign of Frenchness - "just like its three hundred and sixty types of cheese" [3].  

 

The Germans have their beer; the Russians their vodka; and the English their cups of tea. But the French - of all classes - have their wine. Manual workers and intellectuals alike, enjoy a glass of wine with their lunch, says Barthes, thereby challenging the belief that it's something enjoyed only by a privileged elite.  

 

However, Barthes admits that wine is a foundational liquid that it grants the drinker a certain social belonging. Thus, to refuse a glass of wine and choose Perrier or Pepsi instead - certainly in a French (or European) context - is not just to exercise a preference, it is to commit an immoral (and incomprehensible) faux pas.   

 

This explains why George Costanza’s robust defence of Pepsi seems so (amusingly) outrageous [3]. When George exclaims 'No way is wine better than Pepsi', he is rejecting the idea that drinking wine is a moral imperative. George isn't just choosing a soft beverage, he's refusing to participate in the Old World ceremony where wine serves as a signifier of adulthood and civilisation. 

 

Warhol's argument for Coca-Cola communism - where the President and the bum drink the exact same product - strips away the mystical qualities that the French, according to Barthes, attribute to wine. While wine varies by terroir and price (creating the very hierarchies that George detests), Coke is a universal constant, requiring no expertise to consume.

 

This brings us rather nicely to the character of Jeremy Usbourne in the British sitcom Peep Show, whose discomfort at ordering a bottle of Barolo isn't just about the price - though that's a very real factor - it's due also to his knowledge of his own inability to perform the role of the wine drinker. Jeremy lacks the habits of the heart - i.e., that unearned cultural capital - that Barthes says allow a person to master wine's complexity. 

 

For Jeremy, wine belongs to a world he hasn't been initiated into. It's not simply that he doesn't know which wine to ask for, he doesn't know how to drink it and ordering a bottle doesn't transform the meal with Big Suze, it simply exposes him as someone who doesn't belong to her class [5]. 

 

Thus his preference for hot chocolate or Coke isn't merely juvenile - it's an unconscious alignment with Warhol's democratic Americanism over the performative demands of European wine culture. Ultimately, Jeremy feels he can drink hot chocolate or Coke without feeling judged, or looking like a dick in the eyes of those who, like Suze, have been initiated into the way of the grape.   

 

 

Notes

 

[1] See 'Calimocho: On the Politics of Wine and Cola' (19 Sept 2014): click here. 

 

[2] See Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B & Back Again) (Harcourt, 1975), pp. 100-101. The section in which Warhol praises the greatness of American society in terms of Coca-Cola (and ballpark hot dogs) can be read here. 

      What Warhol writes here is undeniably true and one senses something of this same patriotism and ironic egalitarianism of the market place born of a New World dislike for Old World snobbery in George Costanza's privileging of Pepsi over wine (see note 4 below).  

 

[3] Roland Barthes, 'Wine and Milk', in Mythologies, trans. Annette Lavers (Paladin Books, 1973), p. 65.

      Obviously, the Greeks, Italians, and Spanish feel exactly the same about wine; that it's not just as an alcoholic drink, but as an essential part of their daily life, culture, and cuisine (they also love their own cheeses just as much as the French, even if they don't produce as many types or consume as much).  

 

[4] See the fifth season episode of Seinfeld titled 'The Dinner Party' (1994), dir. Tom Cherones and written by Larry David. Click here to watch the relevant scene on YouTube. 

 

[5] Click here to watch the scene with Jeremy and Big Suze at the restaurant in the fifth season episode of Peep Show titled 'Burgling' (2008), dir. Becky Martin, written by Jesse Armstrong, Sam Bain, and David Mitchell.   

 

 

On the Borderline Sociopathology of Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld

 

Melanie Smith as Rachel and Jerry Seinfeld as 

a fictional version of himself in Seinfeld

 

 

I. 

 

One of the most critically acclaimed episodes of Seinfeld - and a firm fan favourite - is the season 5 episode entitled 'The Opposite', dir. Tom Cherones, and written by Larry David, Jerry Seinfeld and Andy Cowan (1994). 

 

There are many memorable moments, but, for me, one of the most amusing is the scene in Monk's restaurant in which Jerry's girlfriend Rachel (played by Melanie Smith) decides they should end their relationship:

  

 

Rachel: Jerry ... 

 

Jerry: Yes? 

 

Rachel: I've been doing a lot of thinking. 

 

Jerry: Aha? 

 

Rachel: Well, I don't think we should see each other any more. 

 

Jerry: Oh, that's okay. 

 

Rachel: What? 

 

Jerry: Nah, that's fine. No problem. I'll meet somebody else. 

 

Rachel: You will? 

 

Jerry: Sure. See, things always even out for me. 

 

Rachel: Huh? 

 

Jerry: It's fine. Anyway, it's been really nice dating you for a while. And ... good luck! 

 

Rachel: Yeah, you too. [1]

 

 

As Jerry leaves the restaurant having thrown some money for the bill on the table, he cheerfully sings to himself: She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes ... It's a perfect illustration of Jerry's ironically detached character and the upbeat nature of the song highlights his lack of emotional concern about a romantic relationship being terminated. 

 

Such nonchalance is obviously played for comic effect, but some might see it as a sign of a borderline personality disorder ...

 

 

II.  

 

Fast-forward twenty-seven years and we arrive at the following scene in the season 11 episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm entitled 'IRASSHAIMASE!, dir. Robert B. Weide, and written by Larry David, Jeff Schaffer, and Carol Leifer (2021) ...

 

Larry is at his favourite Japanese restaurant with his date for the evening, Gabby McAfee, played by Julie Bowen, and the conversation goes something like this:   

 

Gabby: Larry, I wasn't even gonna come on this date. I've had such bad luck since my divorce, but Jeff told me the worst thing that happens, it doesn't work out, he's a great person to break up with.   

 

Larry: Oh, yeah. I'm great.  

 

Gabby: Really? 

 

Larry: Yeah. Like, if we go out for six months or eight months or whatever, all you gotta do is say, 'Hey, I don't want to see you anymore'. And I go, 'okay'. 

 

Gabby: No drama?  

 

Larry: Zero. 

 

Gabby: That's a good quality. 

 

Larry: I walk away, and I never give you ... 

 

Gabby: Not another thought. Wow! That's almost like a sociopath, but borderline. 

 

Larry: That's one of the nicest things anyone's ever said to me.   

 

 

Again, this is obviously intended to be funny; we are meant to find Larry's attitude and ability to just walk away as questionable at best - if not absolutely reprehensible. Journalist Mark Matousek writes:

 

"Larry is a narcissist and a sociopath obsessed with the rules of social conduct but completely insensitive to anyone's feelings but his own. [...] You could argue that Larry is one of the most sadistic characters in television history because he has no excuses. He is aware of his moral failings, makes no effort to change them, and [...] has no emotional traumas or existential threats to explain his behavior. Larry's life is one of exceptional comfort and privilege, and he uses it as an opportunity to become his worst self." [3]

 

But, actually, like Gabby McAfee, I think we might say it's a good - rather noble, somewhat stoical - quality. For as Barthesians, we have been reared into a way of thinking that sees the making of scenes and the insistence on emotional posturing as infra dig.

 

Like Barthes, I can't stand those who manufacture conflict in order to act like drama queens; or those who seek to entangle others in their psycho-political games. Like Barthes, as one gets older, one longs to be socially adrift and detached from all kinds of sentimental obscenity (to not be bullied or blackmailed into caring).      

And so, like Jerry and like Larry, one learns how to just walk away - and/or let others walk away if that's what they want; to become borderline sociopathic and trust that things will all even out in the end, so there's really no need to worry or get upset. 

 

 

 Larry David and Julie Bowen in Curb Your Enthusiasm 

(S11/E5 - 2021)

 

  

Notes

 

[1] Dialogue from 'The Opposite', Seinfeld (S5/E22), as found on seinfeldscripts.com: click here. For those who want to watch the scene on YouTube, click here.  

 

[2] Dialogue transcribed from 'IRASSHAIMASE!', Curb Your Enthusiasm (S11/E5). And for those who want to watch the scene on YouTube, please click here. 

 

[3] Mark Matousek, 'Me Myself, and I: Curb Your Enthusiasm and the Art of Being a Sociopath' (29 Sept 2017), on popmatters.com: click here. 

 

 

Thanks to Simon Solomon for suggesting this post.

 

 

Chillaxing with Danielle Mckinney (A Valentine's Day Post for Fatima)

Danielle Mckinney in her studio (2024) 

Photo: Danielle Mckinney / Marianne Boesky Gallery

 

I. 

 

According to an old friend, the French [1] isn't what it once was - but then, what is? 

 

Regardless of what anyone says, however, it's still a favourite haunt of mine: a place that maintains a bustling, vaguely bohemian atmosphere and much of its traditional charm; a place in which you can still strike up conversation with strangers and encounter interesting young women newly arrived from the Continent who are happy to discuss representations of the black female body in contemporary art ... 

 

Women such as Fatima, for example, whom I had the pleasure of meeting at the French a few nights ago, and who persuaded me that I should write a post on the African-American painter Danielle Mckinney, who, it seems, is the darling du jour of the artworld - though let me say at once I am not using this term to either denigrate her or dismiss her work, which, whilst not entirely to my tastes, is nevertheless deserving of critical attention, just as she is worthy of respect.  

 

 

II. 

 

Beginning her career within the visual arts as a photographer - for which she still has a passion - Mckinney has nevertheless really come into her own as a figurative painter, producing a series of canvases that are concerned with the inner experience of black womanhood and the way in which the complex interplay betweeen self-definition and external social construction produces cultural identity. 

 

In other words, Mckinney challenges the one-sided and simplistic idea that the latter is built solely upon appearance - skin tone, hair texture, body shape, etc. - and the perception of these traits by others. Black women are not just the racialised object of a male gaze, nor a fetishised figure within the white pornographic imagination; they are real beings and possess their own dreams, desires, and thoughts and needn't - as Du Bois would say - always look at themselves through the eyes of (judgemental) others. 

 

In a sense, Mckinney is demonstrating on canvas Toni Morrison's argument that the lives of black individuals - including black women - have depth and meaning and that black culture is its own  sovereign centre of knowledge and feeling. 

 

 

III.

 

Obviously, I'm a little ill at ease with the language of identity, self-hood, interiority, etc., and really don't want to go over a lot of old ground for the thousandth time. 

 

So probably best we just leave all that to one side and say something about the paintings themselves which depict black women in private moments; smoking, lounging, or reflecting quietly on things (i.e., reclaiming their time and agency) - what has been described as the politics of rest (contra the politics of resistance); something I'm sure Roland Barthes would approve of [2].  

  

What I think most interests me about the pictures - apart from their politics - is the fact that Mckinney has a thing for dark backgrounds and allows her figures to emerge from such [3], almost as if to suggest that Blackness is born of darkness and retains an element of such, much like an object always retains its mystery and potency thanks to the fact that is largely hidden and withdrawn and never obscenely exposed or transparent.   

 

Objects never give themselves away and the figures in Mckinney's paintings never give themselves away either (even if she and her critics insist on speaking about the pictures opening windows on to the black female soul). There's an intimacy about her canvases, but no spectacle and if there's symbolism and narrative what really appeals (to me at least) is the silence and stillness. They have presence and one enters into a relationship with them, but one needn't stare at them trying to extract their meaning or make the subjects speak either to us or for us. 

 

 

IV. 

 

And as for the lovely Fatima - my new friend from the French - she's a living example of the sort of strong and independent woman Mckinney loves to immortalise on canvas; one who emerged not from the bright blue sea like a Botticelli Venus, but from the blackness of a Soho night ...    

  

 

Notes

 

[1] The French House is a tiny bar and dining room at 49 Dean Street, Soho, London, long popular with artists, actors, and writers; no pints, no phones, no music, and almost no chance of a seat after six. Click here to visit their website. 

 

[2] I'm thinking here of Barthes's late concept of le Neutre; a refusal to participate in the world of militant activity and ideological posturing and a withdrawl from the arrogance and assumption of the world. Why be bullied into taking a stand or passing judgement when you can sit quietly by the window and look out at the birds in the garden, or go for a short nap? One of the many things we can learn from objects is the art of withdrawal and how to evade the paradigm. See Roland Barthes, The Neutral, trans. Rosalind E. Krauss and Denis Hollier (Columbia University Press, 2007).

 

[3] As one commentator notes, Mckinney had previously tried priming her canvases with white and brown, but nothing felt right until she hit on the idea of painting them black and allowing the figures to emerge as if from a photographic darkroom or an eternal twilight. See Veronica Esposito,'"Women are not usually seen to be resting": Danielle Mckinney's portraits of repose', in The Guardian (17 April 2024): click here.  

 

 

To read more about Mckinney and see a selection of her work and press interviews, etc., please visit the Marianne Boesky Gallery website: click here and/or the Galerie Max Hetzler website: click here. 

      

Alternatively, readers might like to check out Mckinney's Instagram page: @danielle_mckinney_

 

 

In Memory of Soo Catwoman

Soo Catwoman (1954 - 2025)

Photo by Ray Stevenson

 

 

I. 

 

What Roland Barthes felt about the face of Greta Garbo, I feel about the face of Soo Catwoman: it's a pure and perfect object; untouched by time or finger-tips; unmarked by traces of emotion. 

 

It's a face that belongs to art, not to nature, and which has all the cold and expressionless beauty of a mask. An iconic face. A punk fetish object.

 

 

II.  

 

Although she wasn't a member of the Bromley Contingent, Sue Lucas - better known as Soo Catwoman - was a crucial (and much photographed) figure on London's early punk scene and a confidente of the Sex Pistols, at one time sharing a flat with Sid Vicious. 

 

Her distinctive feline image was so powerful that she was even chosen to feature on the front cover of the first (and only) edition of the official Sex Pistols' fanzine, Anarchy in the U. K. and she was widely acknowledged - even by Rotten - as being one of the true creators of punk style. 

 

And so, I was saddened to hear of her passing a few days ago (30 September), aged 70. But, just as Leonardo's Mona Lisa has fascinated people for centuries, I suspect people will be looking at images of Lucas for many years to come. 

 

For whilst the latter may not possess the same enigmatic smile as this Renaissance beauty, she perfectly embodies the character of punk womanhood; combining a defiant and aggressive realism with elements of romance and ambiguity.  

 

And, like la Gioconda, Soo Catwoman fixes the viewer with her gaze and it is this challenging aspect that sometimes provokes a violent response in those who like to look at art works, but don't like art works to look back at them.     

 

Note: for an earlier post on Soo Catwoman - Of Clowns and Catwomen (8 Dec 2016) - please click here. 

 

 

Russ Bestley: 'Turning Revolt Into Style' (2025): Notes on Chapters 3-5

Russ Bestley: Turning Revolt Into Style 

(Manchester University Press, 2025)

 

 

I.

 

It's true that although UK punk began in London, it soon spread elsewhere; that it was neither a uniform nor static phenomenon; that it was "subject to rapid and dramatic change over time, particularly as local scenes sprang up across the country" [a]. 

 

But whereas Bestley, like most other punk scholars, is interested in the way in which "punk's evolutionary diaspora was as much geographical as it was temporal and aesthetic" [103], I have to admit that my own interest tends to begin and end at 430 King's Road. 

 

And whilst I wouldn't dismiss the punk scene as it developed in Leeds, or Manchester, or even Penzance [b] as part of the "'incorporation and containment'" [c] of McLaren's project, I do think that the Sex Pistols were something distinctly different, as recognised by Bernard Brook-Partridge [d].

 

In brief, whether we choose to think of them as the "extreme ideological wing of the Peculiars" [e], or as a group of Dickensian yobs looking to swindle their way to the top of the music industry whence they could shit on their own success, they were not a punk band merely offering us, in Rotten's words, a bit of a twang, a giggle ... [f].           

 

 

II. 

 

Post-punk: an aesthetic and stylistic expansion, which, to be fair, did result in some great records and previously unknown pleasures. 

 

And I'd concede the point that one cannot stay forever at the level of the ruins, like those "sections of the original punk scene ossified around a set of fixed aesthetic conventions" [106]. Ultimately, one has to "build up new little habitats, have new little hopes"[g] and even McLaren and Westwood ditched punk for piracy in 1980 and set off in search of new sounds, new looks, and new adventures.   

 

But, on the other hand, I'm extremely wary of those who think Metal Box is more fun than The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, or more radical than Your Cassette Pet - and I'm sorry to say that seems to include Bestley, who describes the former as ground-breaking and thrills to the album's dub rhythms and "Lydon's leftfield, poetic lyrics" [105], whilst not once mentioning either of the other two albums.     

 

 

III. 

 

Extreme punk politics: from puritanical anarcho-hippies Crass, to fascist morons Skrewdriver - what can one say? 

 

Punk, as I understood it, rejected political asceticism of all varieties; it had no time for "the sad militants, the terrorists of theory, those who would preserve the pure order of politics and political discourse" [h]. 

 

Punk was not apolitical; but it was transpolitical ...

 

 

IV.  

 

"A significant part of the emerging punk aesthetic was driven by enthusiastic followers and amateur producers ..." [124] 

  

Sadly, it seems to me that amateurism is, in this professional era, increasingly looked down upon (with the possible exception being that of amateur porn; the erotic folk art of our digital age). 

 

Which is a pity: for I tend to be of a Greek persuasion and consider the amateur as a virtuous figure; open minded, devoted, and full of passion for their discipline regardless of whether this brings public recognition or generates an income. 

 

Ultimately, as Roland Barthes notes, the true amateur is not defined by inferior knowledge or an imperfect technique, but, rather, by the fact that he does not not identify himself to others in order to impress or intimidate; nor constantly worry about status and reputation. 

 

Also, crucially, the amateur unsettles the distinction between work and play, art and life, which is doubtless why they are feared by those who like to police borders, protect categories, and form professional associations.  

 

Having said that, the fact remains that the "history of punk graphics in the United Kingdom starts [... and I'm tempted to say finishes] with Jamie Reid" [124], whose work for the Sex Pistols captured what they were about with a high degree of skill and style.   

 

Obviously, there were many other design practitioners and graphic artists who emerged at the time of punk and contributed to it. But, other than Winston Smith - who was associated with the American punk band the Dead Kennedy's - and Nick Egan, who worked in partnership with McLaren in the post-Pistols period, I can't think of any whose work ever really excited my interest.  

 

I know a lot of people rave, for example, about Peter Saville's cover for the first Joy Division album (Unknown Pleasures, 1979) and Mike Coles's cover for the eponymous debut album by Killing Joke (1980) [i]. However, whilst they're both vaguely interesting works, neither really means anything to me, whereas Reid's Never Mind the Bollocks cover still makes smile almost 50 years later.    

 

 

V. 

 

Chapter 4 concludes on a slightly depressing note (but true, of course):

 

"Despite the rhetoric of the punk 'revolution', little changed at the major labels [...] The recorded music industry was founded on the core principles of innovation and novelty, at least in relation to identifying new artists that could be moulded and exploited to generate popular appeal. The commercially viable areas of punk and new wave were rapidly absorbed, just like the at-the-time radical music and youth scenes that preceded them." [151]

 

Similarly, while some of the "new breed of punk-inspired graphic designers set themselves apart from the traditional art departments [...] many of the more successful practitioners joined the ranks of the commercial studios as time went on" [151].

 

In brief, never trust a punk [j] and remember - to paraphrase Nietzsche writing in the Genealogy - no one is more corruptible than a graphic artist ... [k]   

 

 

VI. 

 

I think the main takeaway from Bestley's book is that amateurs and professionals need one another and that both types of producer "informed the wider punk aesthetic and reflected common visual conventions that were emerging as the new subculture made a nationwide impact" [154].

 

Those who lack education, skills, and material resources but who still attempt to do things for themselves should not be looked down on. But inverted snobbery aimed at those who are professionally trained and talented and do have access to the very latest technologies [l] is also unwarranted. 

 

 

VII.   

   

Whilst I'm not particularly interested in the "range of processes chosen by punk and post-punk designers for the origination and print reproduction of record sleeves, posters and other visual materials" [155], there are passages in Chapter 5 of Turning Revolt Into Style that caught my attention and in which Bestley's analysis is spot on. 

 

For example, I agree that the reason many punk visual tropes and techniques work so well is because they not only "drew upon a much longer tradition of agitprop art and design" [157], but unfolded within "a new context that extended into mainstream culture resulting in [...] a more powerful impact" [157].

 

In other words, things such as record sleeves, posters, badges, etc., "were not fine art objects to be appreciated by connoisseurs in galleries and exhibitions; they were examples of mass-produced printed ephemera that conveyed a sense of identity and subcultural capital" [157].

 

Of course, today, many of these same objects are in fine art galleries and museums and cultural capital is now big business. 

 

Thus, for example, a copy of the one-off official Sex Pistols newspaper, Anarchy in the U. K., produced by Jamie Reid in collaboration with Sophie Richmond, Ray Stevenson, Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood, and featuring a striking photo of Soo Catwoman on the cover, may have had a cover price of 20p when it was sold on the Anarchy Tour in 1976, but it will now set you back £2000 if you wish to buy it from Peter Harrington in Mayfair: click here. 

 

Cash from chaos, as someone once said ...

 

 

VIII.   

 

Bestley mentions many of the more successful punk fanzines; Sniffin' Glue, Ripped & Torn, Chainsaw, etc. - and several of the fanzines produced outside of London which "reflected the development of scenes well beyond punk's stereotypical epicentre" [172].

 

One that he doesn't mention and won't know of - one that probably only me and one other person in the world remember - was Yourself which was a single photocopied page of A4, printed on both sides, and freely distributed amongst the student body of a small Catholic college which, at that time (1981) was affiliated with the University of Leeds. 

 

The subtitle read: 19 and young - 20 and old (ageism was a defining feature of punk as I remember it back in the day) and the text called for a rejection of all authority, particularly beginning with the letter 'P' (parents, priests, and policemen, for example). 

        

 

IX.

Ultimately, as Bow Wow Wow once informed us, it's T-E-K technology - not punk rock or other forms of subcultural activity - that really brings about fundamental change in society; demolishing patriarchal structures and creating greater degrees of A-U-T autonomy [m]. 

As Bestley notes in his closing remarks to Chapter 5, "changes in the social and technical practices of design blurred the boundaries between amateur and professional production" [178-79]. He continues:

"Changing technologies and the culmination of an ongoing restructuring of the labour market [...] enabled more control along with creative freedom for a new generation of designers ..." [179]

 

 

Notes

 

[a] Russ Bestley, Turning Revolt Into Style: The process and practice of punk graphic design (Manchester University Press, 2025), p. 103. All future page references to this text will be given directly in the post.

 

[b] See Simon Parker's PZ77: A Town a Time A Tribe (Scryfa, 2022), for a nostalgic look back at the punk scene in Penzance in 1977. And for my thoughts on this work, see the post entitled 'Punk History is for Pissing On' (21 Sept 2025): click here. 

      In brief: I don't like it. Bestley seems to approve of punk bands acknowledging their roots and paying homage to their locality and that of their friends, family, and fans; singing about "the issues that affected their local community" [113]. But that kind of folksy provincialism doesn't really appeal to me (not even when it's the Clash singing about West London). 

      In part, the is due to my own intellectual background in schizonomadic philosophy; home is made for coming from, it's not somewhere to idealise (or even dream of going to). Punk, at it's best, is headless and homeless (one might do well to recall the destination of the Sex Pistols bus as well as Poly Styrene's problematising of identity). Remember kids: civic pride is simply a form of micro-nationalism.

 

[c] Gary Clarke, quoted by Russ Bestley in Turning Revolt Into Style, p. 103.

 

[d] Brook-Partridge was a high-profile Tory who served as chairman of the Greater London Council's arts committee (1977-79). He famously described punk rock as "nauseating, disgusting, degrading, ghastly, sleazy,  prurient, voyeuristic and generally nauseating". 

      Singling out the Sex Pistols as the worst of the punk rock groups, Brook-Partridge labelled them as the "antithesis of humankind" and suggested that "the whole world would be vastly improved by their total and utter non-existence". 

      Malcolm so-loved this, that a filmed recording of Brook-Partridge uttering these words was included in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (dir. Julien Temple, 1980). As far as I recall, no other punk (post-punk, or new wave) band ever solicited such a vitriolic response. Click here to watch on YouTube.

 

[e] Peter York, 'Them', Harpers & Queen (Oct 1976), quoted by Paul Gorman in The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 329.  

 

[f] Of course, Rotten himself would eventually collaborate with Virgin Records and build himself a long term career in the music business. 

 

[g] D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover, ed. Michael Squires (Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 5. 

 

[h] Michel Foucault, Preface to Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus, tran. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane (The Athlone Press, 1984), p. xii.

 

[i] Bestley discusses Cole's Killing Joke sleeve on p. 141 of Turning Revolt Into Style. 

 

[j] Jamie Reid came to the same conclusion and in 2007 he issued a limited edition giclee print with this title; an ironic inversion of the 'Never Trust a Hippy' slogan from The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle.  

 

[k] See Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality, III. 25. 

      For Nietzsche, the artist, as a creator, should actively invest and transform the world; not simply represent it by holding up a mirror to the times. Or, failing all else, the artist should be prepared to return the world to its chaotic character and become a great destroyer.

      Unfortunately, Nietzsche was obliged to accept that the becoming-decadent of even our greatest artists is far more likely than their becoming-untimely.  

 

[l] Often, knowledge of and access to new technology was what mostly "separated the professionals from the amateurs, the commissioned from the vernacular" [170]. 

 

[m] I'm quoting from the lyrics to the Bow Wow Wow single 'W.O.R.K (N.O. Nah No My Daddy Don't)', written by Malcolm Mclaren and released on EMI Records (1981). 

 

To read the first post in this series - Notes on the Introduction - click here. 

 

To read the second post in this series - Notes on Chapters 1 & 2 - click here. 

 

To read the fourth and final post in this series - Notes on Chapters 6-8 - click here.  

 

 

Re-entering the Circle of Fragments

Self-portrait used for cover of The Circle of Fragments 

(Blind Cupid Press, 2010)

 

 

I. 

 

The final book I published with Blind Cupid Press in 2010 [1] was a collection of little poems [2] written in the period 2000-09.

 

The title of the work - The Circle of Fragments - and, to some extent, the style of the pieces themselves, was inspired by the following lines written by Roland Barthes: 

 

"To write by fragments: the fragments are then so many stones on the perimeter of a circle: I spread myself around: my whole little universe in crumbs; at the centre, what?" [3]  

 

"The fragment ... implies an immediate delight: it is a fantasy of discourse, a gaping of desire. In the form of the thought-sentence, the germ of the fragment comes to you anywhere: in the café, on the train, talking to a friend ..." [4]  

 

What I wrote in a very short preface to the book is even more true now than then: along with a few broken bones and some shards of shattered glass, these leftover fragments - written between Barcelona and Berlin, Aberdeen and Athens - are pretty much all that remain from this period of my life.  

 

And so, it was amusing to recently re-enter le cercle des fragments and look back at what they captured (and, just as importantly, what they missed or failed to capture).    

 

 

II.

 

Obviously, I cannot reproduce all 112 of the fragments, although readers will find a number of them scattered here and there on Torpedo the Ark if they search the index closely enough (or click on those titles below that conveniently come with a link). 

 

However, I thought it might be instructive to provide a full list of titles [5] in the hope that they will provide a clue of sorts as to the content, theme, mood, and tone of the anthology:

 

Sea-Bitch, German Sea-Cow, Sun-Lizard-Rock, Love Remains the Great Adventure, In the Land of Convalescence, Underground with all the World, Death Chant, Sitges, Post-Coital Disappointment, At the Anchovy Museum (Collioure), Mosquito, Black Holes, The Holy Life, One Should Not Apologise Oneself Out of Existence Simply to Please Her, The Sorrow of an Invisible Man, The Bitterness of a Domesticated Man, The Woman Who Was Jealous of the World, Idiota, At the Funeral of a Domesticated Man, Lolita, In Memory of Anaïs Nin, In Memory of Henry Miller, The Birthday Cake, On the Other Side, Blanes, Song of a Discontented Man, When You Are Dead, In the Bookshop, Yolanda, In Becoming a Subject of the Sun, Lemon Drizzle, The Taormina Virgins, Un relation privilégiée, Phallic Defiance on Ward H2, In Memory of Friedrich Nietzsche, Filthy Love (In Memory of Georges Bataille), Diary Fragment, Hakenkreuz, Her Cunt, Supposing Truth to be a Woman, Life Bleeds, At the Party, Spinster (In Memory of Sylvia Plath), Flightpath, In Memory of Marinetti, Under Erasure, Haecceity, In Memory of the Divine One, The Three Consolations, Baby on the Bus, Aberdeen, Miracle, Tear Drops, Polarity, Confession of a White Widowed Male, Being and Nothingness, The Boring Dead, Little Greek, Flow, Becoming-Flower, Promises Promises, Fucked-Up, Crab-Like, Pa amb Tomaquet, Sandals, Floratopia, Fox, We Do Not Have Souls, September, In This Life, Posthumous Hope, Decree Nisi, Dawn, Image, Thomas, Mark, In Kissing Liberty, Odysseus, With the Coming of the Sun and the Rising of the Moon I Think of Her, Dawn Chorus, Conflicted Morality and Desire, Seven Fragments of Glass: I: Crash! II: In the Confrontation with Glass III: At the Hospital in Athens IV: Poppies V: The Vengeance of Objects VI: On Which Side is Wonderland? VII: I Love Everything That Flows, This is not a Love Song, Love, What She Should Tell Him, Tears, The Danger, Gifts, Self-Sacrifice, The Hired Hand, Snippets, Death Sentence, Lost Crows, We’re a Long Way From Wuthering Heights, Breast Relief for a Dying God, Little Miss Microbe, Reflections on the Abolition of Slavery, Regents Park, Cockroach, Caliban, If the World Were Caring, The Tour Guide, Roses in April, Abandoned, Baby Fingers, Negritude, Rats, Beige, Zurüchgeblieben, Aufklärung.   

 

 

III. 

 

Looking back, I still think many of these little poems sparkle in an amusing manner (even if the world at the time did not agree) and I regard them with similar affection as D. H. Lawrence regarded his own collection of fragments, which he called Pansies.

 

Better, says Lawence, to offer a simple thought which "comes as much from the heart and the genitals as from the head" [6], than present clever ideas and opinions - or didactic statements - dressed up in lyrical form. 

 

And this passage from Lawrence re his book of pensées perfectly expresses how I felt about The Circle of Fragments: 

 

"I do not want to offer this little book as a candidate for eternity in the ranks of immortal literature. It is [...] a book of today, and if it is a book of tomorrow, well and good. But I hope that on the third day, it will have gone to sleep, and become forgotten. Immortal literature dragging itself out to a repetitional eternity can be a great nuisance, and a block to anything fresh." [7] 

      

   

Notes

 

[1] There were seven Blind Cupid Press books published in 2010. The other six titles were:  

 

Whore's Don't Fuck Between the Bedsheets: Fragments from an Illicit Lover's Discourse 

Outside the Gate: Nietzsche's Project of Revaluation Mediated Via the Work of D. H. Lawrence

Visions of Excess and Other Essays

The Treadwell's Papers Volumes I & II: Sex/Magic and Thanatology

The Treadwell's Papers Volumes III & IV: Zoophilia and Reflections Beneath a Black Sun

Erotomania and Other Essays

[2] As will become clear, I primarily think of the pieces as fragments, though often in the past I described them as little poems, even if that's a problematic term both for me and for my critics who insist that they lack the rhythymic language and richness of imagery that defines the art of poetry. Some have suggested that they might, at a push, be called aphorisms, but, again, I'd be weary of using that term; the fragments may be short and observational, but I'm not sure they embody any form of wisdom or truth. 

 

[3] Roland Barthes, Roland Barthes, trans. Richard Howard (Papermac, 1995), pp. 92-93.

 

[4] Ibid., p. 94.  

  

[5] I'm one of those writers to whom titles matter. Indeed, I sometimes dream of the perfect title that would make the text redundant. Probably this is why I was once told that I'm not a serious writer or thinker, but, rather, a sloganeer or a comedian addicted to certain catchphrases and for whom everything is ultimately just a set up for a punchline. 

 

[6] D. H. Lawrence, Introduction to Pansies, Appendix 6, The Poems, Vol. I., ed. Christopher Pollnitz (Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 663. 

 

[7] D. H. Lawrence, 'Unused Foreword to Pansies, Appendix 7, The Poems, Vol. I ... p. 667.   

 

 

On the Politics of the Skirt and the Rise and Fall of Hemlines

Six young women model six classic skirt lengths 

ranging from micro-mini to maxi

 

 

I. 

 

One of the things that Roland Barthes doesn't like is women wearing trousers: and he's not alone in this; many men prefer to see women in skirts. But it depends on the woman. And it depends on the skirt or slacks in question ... 

 

For some skirts are very ugly, whilst some trousers - such as a classic cut pair of Capri pants as worn by Grace Kelly - are very beautiful. 

 

Indeed, some women look so sexy and stylish in trousers that this is how they are best remembered within the cultural imagination; Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, and Katharine Hepburn are very obvious examples - and who can deny that Sydney Sweeney has great jeans? [1]

 

Here, however, we're going to briefly comment on the rise and fall of hemlines during the last 125 years or so and say a bit about the politics of the skirt. 

 

 

II. 

 

According to the Cole Porter song, in olden days even a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking [2], but now, for better or for worse, most people prefer bare limbs to old hymns [3] and don't want dress codes to be enforced by the morality police (or even the fashion police).  

 

I don't know when exactly the sun set on the olden days, but we should probably mention the introduction of the rainy daisy skirt in the 1890s, which had a significantly raised hemline - as much as six inches off the ground - and would later influence the introduction of ever-shorter skirts in the 20th century [4] (although it should be noted that, up until 1914, most skirts still touched the ground, including the infamous hobble skirt that had its brief fashion moment in the Edwardian period).  

 

Before we continue, it's important to remember that there's no progress in the world of fashion; a short skirt is not an improvement nor an advance on a long one. And fashion is not even a striving after beauty. The logic of fashion - if we may call it such - isn't tied to aesthetic criteria, but to an obsessive desire for novelty, innovation, and constant change as a value in and of itself; there is no goal or ultimate look [5].

 

Thus, what we witness throughout the 20th century is hemlines going up and down like a whore's drawers: fashionable skirts were short in the Roaring Twenties (at or just below the knee, thereby allowing flappers [6] greater freedom of movement on the dance floor); long again in the more austere - but also more sophisticated - 1930s (typically reaching mid-calf) [7]; and shortest of all in the Swinging Sixties, when bright young things favoured the mini-skirt (6" above the knee), although some hippie chicks preferred to wear long flowing bohemian-style maxi skirts as the decade drifted toward and into the 1970s.  

 

 

III.

 

And today, in a post-Covid era; "skirt styles are more varied than ever, reflecting a world of interconnected cultures which can no longer be defined by a single  [...] narrative" [8]. 

 

In other words - and returning to the Cole Porter song - anything goes ...

 

Because of this, some commentators are suggesting that the asymmetric hemline is the defining style of the decade, "while others believe the rise in sheer and lace maxis is emblematic of our increasingly obfuscated society" [9].  

 

As we move into the second quarter of the 21st century perhaps the only thing that can be said for certain is that the skirt "is no longer simply rising or falling with GDP, but splintering and mirroring a world of fragmented economies, aesthetics and identities" [10].

 

In an age of chaos and diversity - when no one really knows what the fuck is going on and no single style dominates - we find skirts of every shape, length, and material appearing side by side on the catwalks and in highstreet stores.  

 

Now, of course, some think this a good thing; either a triumph of individualism and the freedom to wear whatever one wants; or of multiculturalism - the great ideal of the motley-spotted who pride themselves of the fact that they have embraced all peoples and value all customs, beliefs, and outfits equally.     

 

Others, however, of a more Nietzschean bent who don't wish to skirt around the issue, see in this barbarism of tastes and fashions a type of systematic anarchy and the destruction of genuine culture, which requires unity of style in all the expressions of a people - including hemlines.       

  

 

Notes

 

[1] I have written two posts on women in trousers; one discussing the case of Katharine Hepburn (9 May 2018) - click here - and one outlining a brief history of Capri pants (featuring Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn (10 May 2018): click here. 

      And for my tuppence ha'penny's worth on the case of Sydney Sweeney (31 July 2025), click here and/or here (the latter giving a Nietzschean take on the controversial American Eagle campaign featuring Miss Sweeney).  

 

[2] Cole Porter, 'Anything Goes', from his 1934 musical of the same title. Click here to play the version recorded by Sinatra for his 1956 album Songs for Swingin' Lovers (remastered in 1998).   

 

[3] This is an extremely anti-Lawrentian position. For Lawrence not only loved old hymns, but he hated bare arms and legs. 

      See the essay 'Hymns in a Man's Life' (Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton, Cambridge University Press, 2004), in which Lawrence writes how the hymns he learned as a child have more value to him than the finest poetry. 

      And see 'A Propos of Lady Chatterley's Lover' (published as one volume with Lady Chatterley's Lover, ed. Michael Squires, Cambridge University Press, 1993) in which he writes disapprovingly of the half-naked women of the 1920s who think it very chic and a sign of their independence to expose their limbs in public, describing it as a form of cynical vulgarity. 

      Ironically, when in the Cole Porter song referred to above he writes of good authors who once knew better words, now only using four-letter words, he is very likely thinking of Lawrence and James Joyce.   

 

[4] A rainy daisy is a style of walking skirt originally designed in the United States for use on wet days and was usually just two or three inches off the ground. The origins of the name are uncertain, but it has been suggested that they were named after the flirtatious fictious figure of Daisy Miller, who features in the short novel of that name by Henry James (1879).  

 

[5] As Lars Svendsen notes: "Fashion does not have any telos, any final purpose, in the sense of striving for a state of perfection [...] The aim of fashion is rather to be potentially endless, that is it creates new forms and constellations ad infinitum." 

      See Fashion: A Philosophy, trans. John Irons (Reaktion Books, 2006), p. 29.

 

[6] For a post written in praise of the flappers (1 January 2016), please click here. 

 

[7] Interestingly, economist George Taylor noted in a 1929 book entitled Significant Post-War Changes in the Full-Fashioned Hosiery Industry, that following an increase in sales of fine silk stockings, skirts got shorter (and, presumably, as skirts got shorter, the demand for fashionable stockings increased still further).

      This contributed to a theory known as the hemline index which posited that the length of a skirt will rise when the economy is booming and fall when the stock market is in trouble - thus helping to explain why skirts were longer in the 1930s, for example.   

      Finally, it might be noted that whilst many economists at the end of the 20th century were sceptical about the so-called hemline index, in 2010, two academics at the Erasmus School of Economics (Marjolein van Baardwijk and Philip Hans Franses) examined data from fashion magazines against measures of GDP from 1921 to 2009 and they found that the hemline lengths were an accurate indicator of economic fluctuation, even if  changing trends in skirt length typically lag three years behind market shifts. 

 

[8-10] 'In History: The evolution of the skirt through the decades', TheIndustry.fashion (16 June 2025): click here. 

      This excellent short piece - which comes with some fantastic photos - also describes skirts in the decades I chose to skip (i.e., the 1980s - 2010s).  

 

 

Disrhythmy: A Tale of Two Mothers

'La subtilité du pouvoir s’opère par la disrythmie ...'

 

 

I. 

 

I was amused by the fact that Roland Barthes was a little shocked by witnessing the following scene:

 

"From my window (December 1, 1976), I see a mother pushing an empty stroller, holding her child by the hand. She walks at her own pace, imperturbably; the child, meanwhile, is being pulled, dragged along, is forced to keep running, like an animal, or one of Sade's victims being whipped. She walks at her own pace, unaware of the fact that her son's rhythm is different. And she's his mother!" [1]   

 

For Barthes, this was a clear abuse of power. 

 

But for me, it brought back happy memories of my own early childhood, when I used to walk to the local shops with my mother, holding her hand, as she hurried down Daventry Road and along Hilldene Avenue, obliging me to to keep up as best I could and adapt my rhythm to hers.

 

Happy days: I didn't in the least feel dehumanised or victimised at the time and, it seems to me now, that it's right for a parent to set the pace; modern mothers are mistaken in thinking it is they who should adapt themselves to their child's rhythm and give in to their every demand; that it's they who should be dragged about. 

 

That's how to spoil a child.

 

 

II. 

    

What didn't amuse me, however, was something I witnessed yesterday when taking a stroll:

 

A mother, holding her daughter by the hand. The young girl dawdling to look with wonder at some large yellow daffodils growing in one of the very few front gardens yet to be concreted over. Suddenly, the woman sharply yanks the child's hand and tells her to hurry up: "We haven't got time to look at some stupid flowers!"   

 

Now that's what I call dysrhythmy and shockingly bad parenting ...   

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Roland Barthes, How to Live Together, trans. Kate Briggs, (Columbia University Press, 2012), p. 9.

 

Idiorrhythmy

D. H. Lawrence: untitled ink drawing (1929) [1]

 

I. 

 

In a series of lectures in the academic year 1976-77, French philosopher and critic Roland Barthes explored the idea of how individuals might productively live with others in a manner that preserves the right of each to exist at their own pace and maintain a necessary degree of solitude. 

 

He discussed this in his own singular and imaginative fashion - i.e., as a form of fantasy [2] - in relation to the fascinating concept of idiorrhythmy [3]; a term that first appeared in the early middle ages in connection with certain orders of monks whose members although existing alongside one another in the same space, were free to work and prayer each according to their own specific rhythms  [4].

 

For Barthes, idiorrhythmy thus provides the clue as to how we might live together in a society, but, at the same time, respect the character quirks and behavioural idiosyncrasies of members - no matter how strange, irritating, or offensive we might find these things.

 

It sounds good, but, unfortunately, there's the very real danger that such an ultra-liberal (almost anarchic) model for social coexistence risks fragmentation into a chaos of self-sufficient, self-interested, and self-absorbed egoists, caring for nothing for anyone as they spin contentedly on their own axis. 

 

And whilst I might not fancy being a member of a really tight-knit community in which the interests of the individual are stricty subordinate to those of the collective, neither do I wish to live in a world of atomised individualism. 

 

II. 

 

Sometimes, like Barthes, I imagine myself living somewhere by the sea - or perhaps in the mountains - in a little house, "with two rooms for my own use and two more close by for a few friends" [5], as well as somewhere we might gather with our neighbours for celebration.

 

But then, like Barthes, I quickly snap out of this longing for Rananim [6] and realise that it's ultimately just a "very pure fantasy that glosses over the difficulties that will come to loom like ghosts" [7].

 

Indeed, it's hard enough living at times with just one person and one is obliged to ask: is there such a thing as an idiorrhythmic couple? 

 

Barthes doesn't seem to think so. In any case, he's expressly uninterested in such a model per se, preferring to only talk about couples in the context of wider groups. His main objection is not only that the couple offer a model of domesticated and legitimised desire, but that such a model "blocks any experience of anachoresis" [8]; i.e., it doesn't allow for a vital retreat into one's own peace and quiet [9]. 

 

But surely that depends; not so much on who that person is as a person with their various interests and ideas, but on their impersonal rhythym. 

 

Provided the latter isn't too disruptive of one's own and they don't, like Madonna, insist that you get into the groove in order to prove your love [10] - for this invariably means falling into line with their rhythm - then I can't see the problem with individuals forming a monogamous couple (on the condition that they are separated sometimes and don't become "'stuck together like two jujube lozenges'" [11].   

 

 

Notes

 

[1] This astonishing ink drawing of two nude figures by Lawrence illustrates the unique rhythms of the body and how these individual rhythms interact in a pattern of relationship.

 

[2] In his late work, Barthes loved to use the term fantasy, by which he understood "a resurgence of certain desires, certain images that lurk within you, that want to be identifed by you [...] and often only assume concrete form thanks to a particular word [... that] leads from the fantasy to its investigation".       

      See Roland Barthes, How to Live Together, trans. Kate Briggs (Columbia University Press, 2012), p. 6.  

 

[3] The term idiorrhythmic is a combination of the Greek terms for personal and distinct, ἴδιος (ídios) and rule or rhythym, ῥῠθμός (rhŭthmós). In modern English, it therefore means something like self-regulating, or independent. 

[4] Barthes refers to these loose-knit religious communities as idiorrhythmic clusters. Sadly, they were eventually replaced by cenobitic orders of monks who lived according to a single model; we might say that individual rule and rhythm were replaced by centralised law and order. Or, as Barthes writes: "Power - the subtlety of power - is effected through disrhythmy ..." How to Live Together ... p. 9.    

[5] Roland Barthes, How to Live Together ... p. 7.

 

[6] Rananim was the name for a small utopian community dreamed of by D. H. Lawrence; a place where he, Frieda, and a few friends could escape the modern world and create a more fulfilling way of life founded upon the assumption that members were fundamentally good at heart and shared his vision for mankind.

[7] Roland Barthes, How to Live Together ... p. 7.

 

[8] Ibid., p. 8. 

 

[9] Barthes also claims that the history of modern communes has demonstrated that things quickly fall apart "from the moment that family groups are reestablished - due to the conflict between sexuality and the law". See How to Live Together ... p. 8.  

[10] I'm referring to the track 'Into the Groove' by Madonna, which featured in the film Desperately Seeking Susan  (dir. Susan Seidelman, 1985). Written and produced by Madonna and her then boyfriend Stephen Bray, the song was latter added to the 1985 re-issue of her second studio album, Like a Virgin (Sire Records, 1984). It was a number 1 hit and remains her best-selling single in the UK.     

[11] D. H. Lawrence, Aaron's Rod, ed. Mara Kalnins (Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 91. This is Rawdon Lilly speaking. He continues: "'Everybody ought to stand by themselves, in the first place [...] They can come together, in the second place, if they like. But nothing is any good unless each one stands alone, intrinsically.'" 

 

Musical bonus: 'I Got Rhythm' composed by George Gershwin, with lyrics by Ira Gershwin (1930). Originally sang by Ethel Merman in the stage musical Girl Crazy, it has been recorded on numerous occasions by a variety of artists ever since. Click here for a version by Ella Fitzgerald from 1959.