ASMR

Virginia Woolf as an ASMRtist

Illustration by Sophie Kuang and Antonio Perricone for an article 

written by Cara Nicholson in The Isis Magazine (2019): click here.

 

 

 

What is ASMR?

 

In brief: an autonomous sensory meridian response is a queer tingling sensation that often begins on the scalp and moves down the back of the neck and upper spine. 

 

Some commentators have described it as a pleasant form of paresthesia, though I suppose that depends on what (or who) triggers the feeling and upon the individual experiencing it; euphoria to one person is simply irritating to another. 

 

ASMR is most commonly triggered by auditory and/or visual stimuli, rather than the direct touch of another. And so might best be conceived, like masturbation, as a mental rather than a physical phenomenon. 

 

Orgasm, however, isn't always the desired outcome; some are seeking relaxation rather than sexual gratification and Jennifer Allen who, in 2010, coined the phrase autonomous sensory meridian response, purposely selected these clinical-sounding terms to cover a wide field of experience [1].  

 

Having said that, pornographic ASMR that is deliberately designed to erotically stimulate is certainly available and technosexuals who enjoy getting their tingles in this manner can do so with the help of a vast array of online videos and social media livestreams.

 

Finally, it might be noted, that whilst ASMR is certainly a real phenomenon, little scientific research has been conducted into it [2]. Thus, there's scant neuropsychophysiological data available at this time and this does make one rather skeptical of the claims made by some evangelical proponents who think that, like meditation and yoga, it has all kind of miraculous health benefits.  

 

Personally, I like to hear a woman whisper in a sexy voice or watch her apply her make-up as much as the next man, but I'm not convinced this is therapeutic - that it will, for example, assuage my anxiety, dispel my depression, or cure my insomnia. What's more, I suspect that many who claim they experience euphoria at the drop of a hat are simply kidding themselves. 

 

     

Notes

 

[1] It might reasonably be argued that this is simply a new name for an old thing. The Austrian writer Clemens Setz reminds us, for example, of the following passage in Mrs Dalloway (1925) in which a nursemaid speaks to her shell-shocked male patient, Septimus:

 

"'K … R …' said the nursemaid, and Septimus heard her say 'Kay Arr' close to his ear, deeply, softly, like a mellow organ, but with a roughness in her voice like a grasshopper's, which rasped his spine deliciously and sent running up into his brain waves of sound which, concussing, broke. A marvellous discovery indeed - that the human voice in certain atmospheric conditions (for one must be scientific, above all scientific) can quicken trees into life!" 

 

      Does this qualify Virginia Woolf as an ASMRtist? Arguably. Though what poet doesn't understand the power of the human voice? What musician doesn't appreciate the power of sound? What painter worth their salt doesn't know how to trigger a response from the viewer via visual stimuli? 

      Readers of German might like to see the article by Setz entitled 'High durch sich räuspernde Menschen', in Süddeutsche Zeitung, (6 April 2015): click here. See too the article by Cara Nicholson on Woolf and ASMR in The Isis Magazine that I link to beneath the lovely illustration by Sophie Kuang and Antonio Perricone at the top of this post. 

      The passage in Mrs Dalloway is in Part 1: Early Morning - 11.00 a.m.  

 

[2] Writing in a post published in March 2012 on his blog Neurologica, the academic clinical neurologist Steven Novella discussed the question of whether ASMR is a real phenomenon. Whilst inclined to think it was, he also said that a lot more scientific investigation was needed before it can be conclusively accepted as such: 

      "It is plausible that a subset of the population has a particular pattern of neural hard wiring so that when they experience certain things that are typically quietly satisfying they get a little extra shot to their pleasure center. Once they experience this then they seek out greater and greater triggers of this response, and perhaps then a learning or conditioning component kicks in. 

      [But] what we need at this point are functional MRI and transcranial magnetic stimulation studies that look at what is happening in the brains of people while experiencing ASMR ..." 

      To read the post in full, click here. 

 

 

This post is for Meni in the hope she won't find it as irritating as she does the tingling sensation of ASMR

 

A Statue of One's Own: Notes on Laury Dizengremel's Sculpture of Virginia Woolf

Bronze sculpture of Virginia Woolf seated on a riverside bench 

in Richmond Upon Thames by Laury Dizengremel (2022) 

Photo by Maria Thanassa (2023)|

 

They made a statue of us / And they put it by the riverside / Now tourists come and sit with us  

Blow bubbles with their gum / Take photographs of fun, have fun [1]

 

 

I. 

 

When plans were first announced to place Laury Dizengremel's sculpture of Virgina Woolf on a bench overlooking the Thames, concerns were raised by members of the Richmond Society who, recalling details of her death [2], feared it was not only insensitive, but  also potentially triggering [3].

 

Richmond Council, however, were not persuaded and supported the siting of the statue, where it would be encountered by far more people than if it were tucked away on a residential street (although whether it encourages discussion of mental health issues, feminism, and sexuality, is debatable).

 

The £50,000 bronze sculpture was finally unveiled in November 2022. Speaking at the unveiling ceremony, Woolf's great-great niece, Sophie Partridge, said critics of the project were narrow minded and insisted that Woolf should be celebrated for her work, not defined by the way she died.   

 

 

II.

 

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend the above ceremony. However, I finally got to see the work up close and personal this week, when I took the Little Greek on a literary tour of Richmond to celebrate her name day.  

It's not bad: certainly better than the barefoot bronze of D. H. Lawrence by Diana Thomson, that stands in the grounds of Nottingham University; or Danny Osborne's reclining Oscar Wilde Memorial Sculpture, in Merrion Square, Dublin. 

 

At any rate, Dizengremel's life-size figure wasn't irritating and didn't immediately make me want to smash it. But neither did it make me want to sit down and take a selfie, which, apparently, is the aim. For Dizengremel believes art should be accessible and encouraging of interaction. And she is keen to make lofty literary figures like Woolf not only relatable, but touchable. 

 

'It is my hope', she says, 'that Virginia will be rubbed raw ...'

 

I have to say, I imagine that Woolf would have been horrified at the thought of being pawed (one might even say molested) in this manner by members of the public; of becoming public property. Personally, I think people should show more respect, not less, to great figures and learn to keep their hands to themselves. 

 

It would be preferable, in other words, if people remained a little afraid of Virginia Woolf - her intelligence, her demeanour, her sapphic superiority and disdain for the masses and modernity - rather than emboldened by a bronze figure to the point where they sit and put an arm around her shoulders in an act of gross overfamiliarity.

 

Finally, let me ask those who think this sculpture is a victory for feminism: How is turning a remarkable woman into an object and plaything in this manner challenging stereotypes?

 

 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] With apologies to Regina Spektor, whose lyrics to the song 'Us' I have slightly reworked here. 

      'Us' was a 2006 single release from the studio album Soviet Kitsch (Sire Records, 2004). To listen to the track and watch the official video, dir. Adria Petty, on YouTube, click here. 

[2] On 28 March 1941, Woolf, aged 59, drowned herself by filling her coat pockets with stones and then calmly walking into the River Ouse near her home in East Sussex. 

      Woolf had been troubled by mental illness throughout her life; she was institutionalised several times and attempted suicide on at least two other occasions. Some commentators trace this back to the sexual abuse she (allegedly) suffered a the hands of her two much older half-brothers, George and Gerald Duckworth, about which I have recently written: click here. 

[3] The group's chairman, Barry May, rather ludicrously suggested that the sculpture 'might distress anyone who knows her story and is in a vulnerable state of mind'. One suspects he had ulterior motives in opposing the siting of the work by the river; perhaps he suffers from automatonophobia, or perhaps he's just afraid of Virgina Woolf.   

Virginia and the Duckworth Boys

 

"Nothing has really happened until it has been described ..."

 

 

I.

 

I have to admit, until very recently my knowledge of Gerald Duckworth was extremely limited. Essentially, I knew he published some of D. H. Lawrence's early work, including Sons and Lovers (1913), and that Lawrence thought him a decent chap. 

 

But I didn't know that Duckworth also published books by Henry James and John Galsworthy. Nor did I know that his middle name - de l'Etang - was the surname of one of his mother's ancestors, Antoine de l'Etang, a page to Marie Antoinette; or that he died whilst on holiday in Milan, in 1937.

 

And I certainly didn't know that Gerald was accused by his much younger half-sister, Virginia, of molesting her as a child; a claim that Woolf first made in a speech at the Bloomsbury Memoir Club in 1920 and which has long been the subject of controversy within literary and feminist circles [1].

 

According to Woolf, Gerald physically picked her up one day, plonked her onto a table, put his hand under her skirt, and then proceeded to fondle her genitals. To Virginia - who was only six years old at the time - this was a shocking incident; one which she never forgot, even if she forgave Gerald and did not accuse him of any further violations (or indiscretions, as commentators who wish to trivialise this incident prefer to write).  

 

Woolf provides a graphic description of what happened in a posthumously published piece of autobiographical writing: 

 

"As I sat there he began to explore my body. I can remember the feel of his hand going under my clothes; going firmly and steadily lower and lower, I remember how I hoped that he would stop; how I stiffened and wriggled as his hand approached my private parts. But it did not stop. His hand explored my private parts too." [2]  

 

Of course, it may well be that Gerald regarded his younger sister more as an object of sexual curiosity, rather than sexual desire. And doubtless such things as this are common in family homes up and down the land. But, even so - perhaps due to the twelve-year age difference between the two parties - this incident makes for uncomfortable reading and it was certainly one that deeply affected Woolf.

 

Indeed, those far more knowledgeable about the impact of childhood sexual abuse than I argue that even a single incident such as this can have such powerful long-term consequences that it's impossible to fully understand Woolf's later life, as a woman and as an artist, without acknowledging what happened to her as a child at the hands of Gerald - and, indeed, his elder brother George, who was (allegedly) a far more serious sex pest ...

 

 

II. 

 

According to Woolf, she and her sister were repeatedly abused over a period of many years by their half-brother George Duckworth. This abuse began when she was aged thirteen; Vanessa sixteen; and George twenty-eight. 

 

Virginia would write of his violent passion and brutish behaviour and the implication was given that he had attempted to establish an incestuous relationship with her and Vanessa (although neither Woolf nor Bell ever accused him of rape, as such). 

 

In '22 Hyde Park', she discloses how, one night, as she lay undressed and stretched out on her bed trying to sleep, George came creeping into her room. When she sat up and cried out he instructed her not to be frightened - and not to turn on the lights. Then, according to Woolf, George flung himself on the bed beside her and took her in his arms [3].  

 

For George Duckworth's defenders, these allegations are not only unproven, but unfounded; some even describe them as far-fetched and suggest that Woolf concocted an imaginative drama out of little more than erotic horseplay, which, whilst not entirely innocent, was neither something to make a fuss about.

 

Ultimately, we have no way of knowing the truth of what happened: but I doubt very much that Woolf invented or fantasised the abuse. On the other hand, however, it's probably wise to retain a degree of skepticism concerning claims that are made without any supporting evidence (particularly claims made by imaginative artists who are often unreliable narrators of their own lives and prone to embroider actual events).   

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Although many Woolf scholars today don't question whether the abuse happened, disagreement persists about the nature and extent of the abuse and what effect it may have had on the rest of her life. I think we can agree, however, that Woolf's speaking out on this subject was a courageous and highly unusal thing for a woman at that time to do.

      

[2] Quoted from Virginia Woolf, Moments of Being, ed. by Jeanne Schulkind, (Sussex University Press, 1976). 

      This collection of posthumously-published autobiographical essays was first discovered in the papers of her husband, Leonard Woolf, and used by Quentin Bell in his biography of his aunt Virginia, published in 1972. In 1976, the essays were edited for publication by Jeanne Schulkind; a revised and enlarged second edition was published by the Hogarth Press in 1985; the most recent edition, introduced and revised by Hermione Lee, was published by Pimlico in 2022.   

      The title was a phrase used by Woolf to describe those rare moments (not necessarily positive or beneficial) in which an individual directly experiences reality, in contrast to the states of non-being which separate us from reality or serve to protect us from its tragic (or traumatic) nature. Arguably, an incident that scars the individual for life - such as a sexual assault in childhood - might be construed as just such a moment. 

 

[3] This essay, '22 Hyde Park', can be found in Moments of Being, op cit.

 

 

Readers interested in learning more about this topic will find the following essay by Lucia Williams helpful: 'Virginia Woolf's History of Sexual Victimization: A Case Study in Light of Current Research', Psychology, Vol. 5, No. 10, (August 2014), pp. 1151-1164. Click here to read online.  

 

Reflections on Gauguin's La Vague (1888)

Paul Gauguin: La Vague (1888)

Oil on canvas (60.2 x 72.6 cm)

 

"As they neared the shore each wave rose, heaped itself, broke and swept a thin veil of white water 

across the vermillion sand. The sea paused, and then drew out again, sighing like a sleeper 

whose breath comes and goes unconsciously." [1]

The Little Greek is right: Gauguin's painting La Vague is an astonishing work ...

Painted whilst living in Brittany, Gauguin was as captivated by the primeval character of the North Atlantic coastline as D. H. Lawrence was during his time in Cornwall, from where he wrote the following magnificent passage:

"It is quite true what you say: the shore is absolutely primeval: those heavy, black rocks, like solid darkness, and the heavy water like a sort of first twilight breaking against them, and not changing them. It is really like the first craggy breaking of dawn in the world, a sense of the primeval darkness just behind, before the Creation. That is a very great and comforting thing to feel [...] I love to see those terrifying rocks, like solid lumps of the original darkness, quite impregnable: and then the ponderous cold light of the sea foaming up: it is marvellous. It is not sunlight. Sunlight is really firelight. This cold light of the heavy sea is really the eternal light washing against the eternal darkness, a terrific abstraction, far beyond all life, which is merely of the sun, warm. And it does one’s soul good to escape from the ugly triviality of life into this clash of two infinites one upon the other, cold and eternal." [2]

 

Having found himself an interesting vantage point from which to work [3] - one which could only be accessed during low tide - Gauguin probably made a number of preliminary sketches, before beginning the actual canvas at his lodgings. 

 

Whilst Guaguin's abiding fascination with Japanese prints is clearly evident in La Vague, he was also inspired by a young artist called Emile Bernard, who was working nearby and buzzing with creative ideas. Through his discussions with the latter, it became clear to Gauguin that it was vital to find a new (post-impressionistic) form of expression; one that was more subjective, more primitivist, more visionary, and, above all, anti-naturalist. He and Bernard would call their new conception synthétism. 

 

Gauguin was now free to experiment and to dream. No longer under any obligation to simply copy what he saw, he could reimagine the landscape as he deemed necessary; in La Vague, for example, the third rock (in the upper-left corner) is an invention added purely for visual effect. 

 

And, most outrageously of all in the minds of those who demand realism, Gauguin painted the sandy beach an unearthly shade of martian red, affirming his increasingly idiosyncratic sense of colour. Further to this, the bright redness of the beach also relates to an optical phenomenon that Gauguin cleverly introduced into his work:  

 

"Detectable in the surging, foamy surf, is a prismatic phenomenon, in which the water appears to separate the reflected sunlight into its component chromatic wavelengths - pale violet, blue, green, and yellow - which, completed by the vermilion sand, yields a curving, rainbow-like effect along the upper edge and right-hand side of the painting." [4]

 

Finally, perhaps the thing I most admire about Gauguin's picture (as an object-oriented philosopher) is the addition of two tiny female figures, fleeing the incoming waves which threaten to overwhelm them and possibly carry them out to sea. This just intensifies the brutal elemental power of the painting; the ancient rocks and crashing waters care nothing about human bathers, or the warm softness of their flesh. 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] A slightly modified couple of lines from the beginning of Virginia Woolf's 1931 novel The Waves. 

      I don't know if Woolf borrowed the title of her book from Gauguin - just as he took the title for his canvas from Hokusai’s famous woodcut The Great Wave of Kanagawa - but I do know that Roger Fry's introduction to Britain of works by Post-Impressionist painters, including Gauguin, had a significant impact on Woolf's own thinking and that The Waves might best be regarded as a work of literary abstractionism; a synthesis of poetic myth and external realism. 

      For an interesting essay on this, see Bernadette McCarthy; 'Denying the Dichotomy: Word Images in The Waves', in Cahiers victoriens et édouardiens, 64 (Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier, 2006): click here. 

      Readers might also be amused by a post entitled 'Virginia Woolf as Gauguin girl' (27 Dec 2013), published on Paula Maggio's blog - Blogging Woolf - which relays the tale of how Virginia and her sister, Vanessa Bell, attended a party thrown in conjunction with Roger Fry’s 1910 exhibition of Post-Impressionist painters at the Grafton Galleries, dressed as figures from Guaguin's Tahitian paintings: click here.

  

[2] These beautiful lines are in a letter written by Lawrence to J. D. Beresford, dated 1 Feb 1916. See The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. II, ed. George J. Zytaruk and James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 519-520. 

 

[3] Commenting on the peculiar nature of Gauguin's vantage point, an anonymous critic writing for the British auction house Christie's notes: 

      "Gauguin often composed landscapes from elevated and other unusual vantage points, allowing him to dispense with a stabilizing horizon [...] Instead of gazing into the typically broad expanse of the landscape format, the viewer in La Vague experiences a vertiginous plunge into vertical depth, the psychological effect of which is like peering into the inner recesses of one's own emotional self." 

      Readers who are interested, can click here to read the full essay on the Christie's website. 

 

[4] Lot Essay on the Christie's website: click here.

 

 

This post is for Maria Thanassa (MLG).

In Praise of Bedsits

Dancing laughing / Drinking loving 
And now I'm all alone / In bedsit land

Writer and music journalist Jon Savage is absolutely right to identify Soft Cell's 1981 single Bedsitter as one of the great tracks of the decade, not just for its "melody, mood, and irresistible forward motion", but also for daring to address in a pop song themes of loneliness, isolation and the limits of hedonism as a lifestyle. 

Having said that, there wasn't necessarily anything desperate or depressing about living in a bedsit during this perod. Speaking from personal experience, I can vouch that there was nothing more liberating than having a room of one's own in the heart of the city.

The room may have been unheated, the decor seedy, and the landlord Rigsby-like, but I would echo Virginia Woolf and say that having a modest but fixed and regular income (i.e. dole money) and a place to live (with key and lock) is crucial if one is to achieve creative freedom and independence and I loved every minute spent living all alone at 7, Arlington Gardens, surrounded by books, clothes, and records on the floor (delighting in memories of the night before). 

What's more, when I consider members of today's so-called boomerang generation - like my nephew - it fills me with a mixture of horror and sorrow. For despite all the home comforts and advantages that he speaks of, to remain living with one's parents at the age of 28 seems inconceivable (and a little obscene) to me.

But there you go, times and people have changed ...

See: 'Jon Savage on song: Soft Cell - Bedsitter', The Guardian (25 Jan 2010): click here to read online.

Play: Soft Cell, 'Bedsitter', single release from the album Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret (October 1981): click here. Songwriters: Dave Ball and Marc Almond. Lyrics: © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.

Note: the photo is of the poet Lori Gatford taken in her Leeds bedsit sometime in the late 20th century. 

In Praise of Moths

A very pretty mint moth (native to the UK)

Photo by Mark Parsons / Butterfly Conservation

Everyone loves butterflies: but not moths. People seem to regard the latter as an inferior version of the former.

Indeed, even Virginia Woolf writes about the moth's lack of gaiety in comparison to the butterfly, although she does concede that the moth has a sombre beauty all of its own, arousing pleasant thoughts of dark autumn nights and ivy-blossom. Mostly, however, she experiences a queer feeling of pity for the poor moth, whose life, to her, appears meagre and pathetic and whose death is insignificant.

Other people complain about the destructive feeding habits of moths. But, even though they left holes in my favourite Vivienne Westwood jumper, I like moths. And I was pleased, therefore, to read that although overall their numbers are in serious decline, thanks to climate change and the global horticultural trade there are several species making their home here for the first time.

Indeed, according to a recent report, almost 30 species of tiny, often inconspicuous micro-moths - known as pyralid moths - have arrived in Britain during the last 30 years; either flying in of their own accord, or transported here with human assistance. Hopefully, at least some of these will be able to establish themselves in the UK. 

For love 'em or loathe 'em, moths comprise a substantial part of Britain's biodiversity and play an important role as pollinators. They also, of course, provide a vital food source for many birds, bats and other mammals. If you care about these larger creatures, then you have to also learn to care for insects of all kinds - even the creepy and uncolourful ones that sleep in the shadows ... 

See: Virginia Woolf, The Death of the Moth and Other Essays, (University of Adelaide, 2015). This is a web edition of the work that can be read online by clicking here.