Rutiluphilia (Reflections on Redheads)

Emma Hack: 'The Redhead' 

from the series Beautiful Women (2013)

emmahackartist.com.au 

Naturally red hair is an uncommon condition, even amongst the native peoples of north-western Europe, such as the Celts, in whom it occurs more frequently. In Ireland, for example, the most redheaded nation on earth, no more than 10% of the population are blessed in this manner, although over 1-in-3 carry the recessive ginger gene variant.

Whilst red hair is associated with other physical characteristics - such as fair (often freckled) skin and light (often green) coloured eyes - so too is it rich with cultural significance and subject to both positive and negative stereotyping.

Redheaded women, for example, are said to be fiery of temper and sharp of tongue.

But they are also regarded as morally suspect and bestial in nature, which is why, for example, during the Christian Middle Ages red hair in combination with green eyes was taken as a sure sign of a witch, a werewolf, a vampire - or a Jew. Such fear and mistrust of redheads - particularly in fatal combination with antisemitism - led to their persecution as heretics during the Spanish Inquisition. 

Not surprisingly, red-haired women also feature in the pornographic imagination as unusually passionate and promiscuous. Perhaps this is due to the vividness of their colouring; or perhaps it's their sensitivity to ultraviolet light and other forms of stimulation that makes such vixens of them.

Or perhaps all such ethno-sexual stereotyping is just nonsense ...     

Lose This Skin: Thoughts on Theodore Roethke's Epidermal Macabre

Juan de Valverde de Hamusco: 

La anatomia del corpo humano (1556)

According to D. H. Lawrence, Whitman was the great American poet-pioneer; the first to smash the old moral conception of man in which the body is conceived as but a shoddy and temporary container for some kind of ghostly essence; the first to seize the soul by the scruff of the neck and insist on her corporeal nature.   

This, for Lawrence, is crucial because he believes that the key to achieving what the Greeks termed εὐδαιμονία is "remaining inside your own skin, and living inside your own skin, and not pretending you're any bigger than you are."

Nietzsche also insists that man's self-overcoming does not correspond to the rapturous possibility of transcendence. The overman is not more spiritual, but more animal; complete with teeth, guts and genitals and all those things which idealists are embarrassed by and hope to see shrivel away. 

So, what's a reader of Lawrence and Nietzsche to make of the following poem by Theodore Roethke:


Epidermal Macabre

Indelicate is he who loathes
The aspect of his fleshy clothes -
The flying fabric stitched on bone,
The vesture of the skeleton,
The garment neither fur nor hair,
The cloak of evil and despair,
The veil long violated by
Caresses of the hand and eye.
Yet such is my unseemliness:
I hate my epidermal dress,
The savage blood's obscenity,
The rags of my anatomy,
And willingly would I dispense
With false accouterments of sense,
To sleep immodestly, a most
Incarnadine and carnal ghost.

Initially, one is triggered - as people now like to say - by the narrator's physical self-loathing and his desire to make an ecstatic break from his own biology, conceived in terms of clothing that conceals true being in all its naked immateriality and innocence.

However, even the narrator - and, for convenience's sake, let's call him Roethke - recognises that such mad metaphysical exhibitionism in which one strips oneself of flesh and bone until one effectively becomes untouchable, invisible, and non-existent, is indelicate; i.e. not only insensitive, but also slightly indecent.

Further, whilst Roethke's hatred for his epidermal dress and the rags of his own anatomy is so profound that he considers willingly dispensing not only with his modesty but all vital feeling, he's honest enough to acknowledge that in death there's no liberation of the soul. All that remains is a decomposing corpse; that incarnadine and carnal ghost that refuses to disappear into thin air.

Noble spirit, Roethke concedes, is entirely dependent upon - is an epiphenomenal effect of - base matter. And just as truth needs to be concealed behind lies and illusions in order to remain true, spirit needs to be wrapped in flesh.

Notes

D. H. Lawrence, 'Whitman', in Studies in Classic American Literature, ed. Ezra Greenspan, Lindeth Vasey and John Worthen, (Cambridge University Press, 2003).

D. H. Lawrence, 'Education of the People', in Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine and Other Essays, ed. Michael Herbert, (Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 161. 

Theodore Roethke, 'Epidermal Macabre', from the debut collection Open House (1941). See The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke, (Anchor Books, 1975).

Musical bonus: The Clash, 'Lose This Skin', from the album Sandinista! (CBS, 1980); written and with vocals by Tymon Dogg: click here. 


Thanks to Simon Solomon for suggesting a post on this poem.

The Four Drakes: Part 2: Nick and Gabrielle

Drake is an Old English surname, derived from the Anglo-Saxon term for serpent, draca, and thus etymologically related to dragon (and not to the word for a male duck). There have been a number of illustrious individuals by the name of Drake, including Sir Francis Drake and the comic entertainer Charlie Drake, both of whom we discussed in part one of this post: click here. 

Below, I wish to discuss a famous pair of siblings by the name of Drake, beginning with the younger brother ... 

Nick Drake (1948 - 1974): First the Day after Tomorrow Must Dawn for Me

Posh singer-songwriter and musician, Nick Drake, is a fine example of what Nietzsche terms a posthumous individual - i.e., one who only comes into their own and finds fame once they're dead.   

The prodigiously talented Drake signed to Island Records whilst studying English literature at Cambridge, releasing his debut album - Five Leaves Left - in 1969. By 1972, he had recorded two more albums - Bryter Layter and Pink Moon - neither of which sold more than 5000 copies on initial release.

The fact that he was extremely reluctant to promote the material by playing live and giving interviews to the music press, obviously didn't help matters. But one suspects that such reticence was more due to the chronic shyness and depression from which he suffered than any desire to create a mystique about his own person. 

After the failure of his third album, Drake retreated to his parents home and, aged 26, he took an overdose of amitriptyline pills, a prescribed anti-depressant. A verdict of suicide was given and although this has been challenged by some who knew him, his sister Gabrielle prefers to believe he made a conscious decision to end his life, rather than consider his death the result of a tragic mistake.

Five years later, the release of a retrospective album entitled Fruit Tree (1979) triggered a critical reappraisal of his work and by the mid-1980s artists including Robert Smith and David Sylvian were naming Drake as an important influence. Thirty years later, and he's now sold over two-and-a-half million records in the UK and US markets.

Gabrielle Drake (1944 - ): Serious Glamour 

To be honest, Nick Drake is no more my cup of tea than Charlie Drake; though again, that's in no way to deny or denigrate his obvious talent and intelligence. He's just too much of an introspective hippie for my tastes (Nick - not Charlie).

But his older sister on the other hand, Gabrielle - now there's someone I have always loved to see on screen; be it as the purple-wigged Moonbase commander Lt. Gay Ellis in UFO (1970-71), or as motel boss Nicola Freeman in Crossroads (1985-87). Her appearance in a 1967 episode of The Avengers as Angora and, a decade later, as Penny the schoolteacher in an episode of The New Avengers, is also worthy of note and something for which I'm grateful.

I'm grateful too for the fact that, unlike some actresses, Gabrielle was always happy when young to get her kit off and not above appearing in a number of seventies sexploitation films, including Au Pair Girls (dir. Val Guest, 1972), in which she has a leading role as Randi Lindstrom (that's right, ha-ha! she's Danish).

Perhaps of more interest to my more literary-minded readers will be the fact that she also appeared as a passenger (sacrifice) in a short film entitled Crash! (dir. Harley Cokeliss) and based on a story in J. G. Ballard's The Atrocity Exhibition. The movie also featured the author talking about ideas that he would later develop into one of the great twentieth-century novels. As one critic rightly noted, the presence of Miss Drake brought serious glamour to urban alienation.

Finally, it needs to be said that Gabrielle has worked tirelessly to ensure her brother's name and music live on and it's clear that, rather touchingly, she remains his biggest fan. In 2014, she published a memoir of her brother and in 2018 she collected a Hall of Fame Folk Award on his behalf.

I wish she were my sister ...

Notes

The Avengers episode mentioned above was from Season 5 and entitled 'The Hidden Tiger' (first shown in the UK on 3 March 1967); The New Avengers episode was 'Dead Men are Dangerous' (first shown in the UK on 8 Sept 1977). 

To visit the official website of the estate of Nick Drake, please click here.

To visit the Gabrielle Drake fansite on Facebook, click here. 

The Four Drakes: Part 1: Francis and Charlie

Drake is an Old English surname, derived from the Anglo-Saxon term for serpent, draca, and thus etymologically related to dragon (and not to the word for a male duck). There have been a number of illustrious individuals by the name of Drake, including ...

Sir Francis Drake (c.1540 - 1596): Sic parvis magna 

Potato-loving, tobacco-smoking Sir Francis Drake was an Elizabethan privateer and explorer who circumnavigated the world, plundering it as he went and claiming various lands for the Crown, including what is now California.

He also famously defeated the Spanish Armada - having first finished a game of bowls -  securing his status as a national hero; although in the current climate of politico-moral correctness this is now open to revision (not least because Drake was one of the first British slave traders). 

Even before 1588, Spanish mariners regarded Drake with a mixture of fear and loathing; they believed him to be in league with the Devil and to possess a magic mirror that allowed him to locate the position of all the ships at sea.

After his death, in 1596, Drake was buried at sea, inside a lead coffin and wearing a full suit of armour perhaps in the hope this might protect him from demons sent to retrieve his soul.

Charlie Drake (1925 - 2006): Hello, my darlings!

Diminutive entertainer, Charlie Drake, is one of those strange, disconcerting comic figures - like Marty Feldman - who continues to haunt my imagination.

Watching him on TV as a child, I always felt repulsed rather than amused by the squeaky voice, sweating red-face, and little iggy-piggy eyes.

Perhaps if he'd been part of the Carry On gang I'd've found him more amenable. But, as a solo performer, overly-reliant upon slapstick, an annoying catchphrase (often addressed to the breasts of a female co-star), and an ingratiating persona, he was just too much for me.      

That's not, of course, to deny his brilliance as a writer and performer; it's simply to say he wasn't my cup of tea - although I admire the fact he gambled away most of the money he had made in his heyday and spent the rest on glamorous young women, whisky, and fast cars. When he died, Drake bequeathed just £5000 from an estimated £5 million fortune.

I also like the fact that - despite suffering with depression throughout his career, like his close friend Tony Hancock - Drake was philosophical about his loss of star status as he got older and transformed, as one critic notes, from an innocent-looking cherub into a faintly malevolent goblin; for there's nothing worse than a bitter and resentful clown. 

Note: readers interested in part two of this post on Nick and Gabrielle Drake, should click here.

Say Hello Then!

Portrait of the Artist Aged 3

(pris juste après une coupe de cheveux)

When I was very young, one of my favourite things to do was stand on the wall at the front of my house and say hello to adult passers-by, be they next-door-neighbours or complete strangers.

In those days, very few people had a car and so there was ample opportunity to initiate contact, even if it was just with the postman, milkman, or the rag-and-bone man, who used to come round on a horse and cart, ringing a bell.

(In those days too, of course, there was no pathological fear of paedophiles and no neurotic concern with health and safety and children of all ages - shocking as it now seems - played outside, unsupervised and without protective clothing.)

One might read my attempt to engage with the world as an innocent sign of friendliness; tinged perhaps with a degree of childhood cheekiness.

But, looking back, I think it betrayed a certain provocative aggression; for if the passer-by failed to respond to my initial greeting, I would quickly issue a second demand that they do so: Say hello then!

Ultimately, it was more a challenge than a greeting ... I didn't want to destroy the passer-by - as I did as an anarchic teenage punk - but I did want to put them on the spot, thus causing a degree of discomfort or irritation.

It wasn't so much that I cared about having my presence acknowledged; but I wanted to remind them that they existed in a world with others and had therefore an ethical obligation to be polite and friendly; that no one had the right to pass by in silence on the other side of the road.

Even today, if I'm honest, I find it shockingly rude when someone sits next to me on a plane, for example, and doesn't nod, smile, or say hello. I understand there's an issue of reserve amongst the English, but, sadly, this is often just used as an excuse to cover up bad manners and social ineptitude.

One of the things I really miss about living in Spain is the fact that everyone says hola!


Afterthought

It might be argued, I suppose, that Torpedo the Ark is just another platform from which to address strangers and that I'm still essentially playing the same childhood game of ethical provocation. And I have to confess that I quite like this idea of continuity with - and loyalty to - my very young self. 

Why I'm a Sex Pistol Rather Than a Clash City Rocker

A Seditionaries Destroy shirt 

McLaren and Westwood (1977) 
Victoria and Albert Museum Collection

According to Mick Jones, speaking in an interview with GQ in 2011, there were two types of punk: those who wanted to destroy and those who wanted to create ...

Clearly, the Sex Pistols wanted to destroy; they announced the fact on their first single and on the shirts that Uncle Malcolm and Auntie Vivienne designed for them. They were into chaos, not music. And when asked what he intended to do about the rapid post-War decline of the UK, I'll always remember with a smile Steve Jones saying: Make it worse.

Like Nietzsche, the Sex Pistols wanted to consummate nihilism by accelerating the process; to kick over that which was already rotten and threatening to fall; to go still further in the schizonomadic direction of decoding and deterritorialization. Certainly for McLaren, the most revolutionary of strategies was to unleash all kinds of forces and flows and push things to the extreme, which is to say, their exterior and absolute limit. 

The Sex Pistols, we might say, are rock 'n' roll's anarchic promise brought to fulfilment; and they are also the exterminating angels who came to destroy rock 'n' roll once and for all, exposing its complicity with capital and the manner in which the music business ultimately serves to keep young people under control.

Their final great act was not their astonishing self-immolation on stage at the Winterland, but the destruction of their own legend in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle - a project that incriminates everyone, including the fans.  

The Clash, in contrast, were typical type two punks: "trying to create something better for everybody", as Mick Jones says. Social justice warriors with zips and safety pins; or nice middle-class boys pretending to be outlaws, as Sebastian Horsley memorably described them.

The problem is that those who speak about initiating a new wave, often secretly wish to shore up the old order and establish successful careers within it. Thus it was, for example, that for all their anti-American posturing and talk of phoney Beatlemania having bitten the dust, the Clash were desperate to make it big in the US and soon fell into all the usual rock star clichés. Indeed, they even ended up opening for the Who at Shea Stadium:

And all the young punks looked from Joe to Roger and from Mick to Pete; but already it was impossible to say which was which ...

Finally, in 2003, the surviving members of the Clash were all present and correct to meekly accept with gratitude their induction into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of fame - an institution which Rotten amusingly branded a piss-stain on humanity.

Of course, it's true that - eventually - we have our fill of destruction and must turn again to the task of creation; that once all the old forms are shattered and all the old icons toppled, we need to find a new way of living beneath the open sky. Only an idiot mistakes the ruins as an end goal.

But - and it's an important but - we should be extremely wary of those idealists who appear overly keen to start building the New Jerusalem; especially when using the same old tools and materials.   

Notes

To read the interview with Mick Jones, by Alex Pappademas, in GQ (2 Nov 2011): click here. 

To watch the Sex Pistols performing Anarchy in the UK during their final show (Winterland, San Francisco, 14 Jan 1978), click here. They tweak the lyrics, but the message remains the same: Destroy. 

To watch a 7 min promo film for the Clash Live at Shea Stadium album (Epic, 2008), click here. The actual show took place on 13 Oct 1982. 

For Sebastian Horsley's take on the difference between the Sex Pistols and the Clash, click here. 

Notes on the Be Real Campaign

berealcampaign.co.uk

I.

The Be Real Campaign - which has developed out of a global marketing campaign by Unilever for a range of toiletries sold under the brand name Dove and in partnership with the YMCA - is determined to change attitudes to body image and help all of us put real health above appearance.

According to their website, low body confidence is something that affects everyone; impacting upon our physical and mental well-being and preventing us from achieving all of the wonderful things we would be capable of if only we were more body confident.

In order to bring about real change, the campaign calls upon businesses, advertisers, and the media to act responsibly and embrace real diversity, positively portraying different body shapes and sizes drawn from all ages, genders and ethnicities.

Individuals are also encouraged to take back control and sign a pledge in which they promise to help create a body confident nation by no longer editing their photos on social media. They also, of course, agree to submit their details to the Be Real Campaign.

II.

I suppose it'll be pretty obvious to most readers that I won't be signing this pledge. Indeed, I philosophically oppose the aims of this campaign and the language of politico-moral correctness and authenticity upon which it relies.

What is confidence, ultimately, but a mixture of faith and narcissism? And what's the point of being healthy if you look like shit? As for Dove's idea of the real, do they not know that - somewhat ironically - it's objectifying and betrays a death instinct?

Our individuality and our agency is a type of artifice; something styled within culture. To become-human is to challenge real being (understood in essentialist terms) and enhance our thingness; our uniqueness as a species rests on the fact that we are more than a mere piece of nature and that we have invented each gesture.

I may, as a Nietzschean, be interested in ways of overcoming our humanity as presently conceived, but I certainly don't want us to fall back into a pre-human condition lacking in style, complexity and virtuality - no matter how real it may be ...

I'm Pretty Vacant - But I'm Not Sure I Belong to the Blank Generation

Virgin Records (1977)

I.

I remember listening to a run down of the charts in the summer of 1977; anxiously waiting to press record on my cassette player when Pretty Vacant by the Sex Pistols finally blasted out and hoping against hope that Tony Blackburn wouldn't ruin things by inanely talking over the greatest ever intro to a pop song; an intro that, if you like, consummated my love affair with punk.

Released on July 1st, Pretty Vacant was the band's third single and, unlike God Save the Queen, you could actually listen to it on the radio, despite Rotten's aggressive phrasing of the term vacant, sung repeatedly in the chorus with a strong emphasis on the second syllable. Indeed, you could even watch the official promo video, directed by Mike Mansfield, on Top of the Pops.


II.

According to Malcolm, Pretty Vacant was written at his instigation and directly inspired by Richard Hell's Blank Generation (which was itself a punk re-imagining of Bob McFadden's and Rod McKuen's 1959 single The Beat Generation).

Just as Rotten - by Hell's own admission - pushed the nihilistic persona that he'd originally developed in a more extreme direction, so is Pretty Vacant a far more provocative kettle of fish than its American counterpart. The latter is clever and vaguely amusing, but it lacks something in comparison. One can imagine Steve Jones hearing Blank Generation and crying out for it to be given some bollocks.

Perhaps the difference (and, for me, the problem) is that Hell allows himself the option of opting out of his own lifestyle - he can take it or leave it - but the Sex Pistols have no choice but to affirm the beauty of their own emptiness without caring what anyone thinks of this.

Is it a class thing, a cultural thing, or something else? Interestingly, Hell has spoken about the chauvinism of British punks who would sneer at the American bands and insist on the UK origins of the movement.

Whatever it is, there's something crucially different between the two songs. When one listens to Blank Generation one feels that one is listening to Hell's private vision or personal experience; it's basically a poem set to music. Pretty Vacant, by comparison, is a call to arms that genuinely articulates the feelings of a generation. And, whilst there's humour in both songs, it's more crudely sarcastic than cleverly ironic in the latter.

Ultimately, you don't need to have read Blake, Rimbaud and Burroughs to understand the Sex Pistols; you just need a mistrust of hippies, an eye for fashion, and an instinct for chaos. 

Play:

Pretty Vacant by the Sex Pistols: click here. 

Blank Generation by Richard Hell and the Voidoids: click here. 

They Eat Donkeys Don't They?

A box of donkey-hide gelatine from the 1960s 

Photo: George Knowles / South China Morning Post  

I. Meat is Murder - and So is Traditional Chinese Medicine

I suppose most people are aware of the Chinese practice of grinding up tiger bones and rhinoceros horns in the belief that these things have magico-medicinal properties and can help relieve numerous chronic ailments, cure disease, boost vitality and improve potency.

And I suppose most people are also aware that these crackpot claims lie behind an illegal international trade in body parts from critically endangered species; there are now less than 4000 tigers in the wild and only around 30,000 rhinos.    

But how many people, I wonder, are aware of the fact that the Chinese are also responsible for the dramatic decline in donkey numbers, both domestically and abroad? Twenty years ago, China had around 11 million donkeys; now the figure is less than 6 million.

As we will discuss, this, too, is mostly due to the mania for traditional medicine, although the fact that the citizens of the People's Republic of China also like to chow down on donkey meat - including so-called donkey burgers in which chopped or shredded meat is placed within a warm flatbread, known as a shaobing, and seasoned either with green pepper or coriander - is an added factor. 

II. How Eeyore is Turned into Ejiao 

Ejiao - or, as it is known in English, donkey-hide gelatine - is obtained from the skin of a donkey via a process of drying, soaking and stewing.

What was once believed to be a humble blood tonic, has successfully been re-branded as miracle product and marketed at China's expanding middle class. As well as being found in a wide variety of medicinal goods, ejiao also features in foodstuffs and expensive beauty products; for ejiao is said to not only make you feel better - but look better.

Not surprisingly, therefore, the ejiao industry has now become a global mega-business, with Dong-E E-Jiao, the world’s largest producer, reporting sales of £700 million in 2016.

But there's a problem: according to the ejiao industry's own figures, they process around 4 million donkeys each year, producing 5000 tonnes of gelatine. As domestic supply is capped at less than half this figure - 1.8 million, to be precise - it means manufacturers have to find an extra 2.2 million donkeys elsewhere and are thus heavily reliant upon imported skins often purchased from illicit supply networks at over-inflated prices and an unsustainable rate.

The shortage of genuine Chinese donkey hide has not only sent the cost of raw material through the roof, but it has encouraged the poor in Africa into (literally) selling their asses in order to cash in, undermining the long-term stability of rural economies.    

Whilst I'm vaguely sympathetic towards these people being exploited by Sino-capitalism, it's mostly the poor donkeys I feel sorry for; malnourished and mistreated during their short lives, they are then brutally killed and butchered in the unregulated slaughterhouses that can be found popping-up all over Africa, Asia and South America. 

As for the Chinese, who keep the ejiao industry grinding on ... one is almost tempted to share Morrissey's assessment of them - though, ultimately, aren't carnophallogocentrism and cruelty defining characteristics of humanity? 


Notes

For a related post on cruelty towards donkeys and the politics of zoosadism in Pakistan, click here. 

For an earlier post on Chairman Mao and the swindle of traditional Chinese medicine, click here. 

Anyone interested in doing something to help donkeys, should visit the website of The Donkey Sanctuary: click here. 

Donkey Punch: On the Politics of Zoosadism

Photo: ACF Animal Rescue 

According to the author and journalist Fatima Bhutto, it makes little real difference who wins the election held today in Pakistan amidst predictable violence and claims of widespread vote-rigging. 

It is, she says, the nation's supreme tragedy "that such a young, hopeful, promising people are offered this glut of shoddy candidates", all eagerly playing their role in a political circus - including the ex-cricketer turned sinister clown, Imran Khan, peddling a morally flexible manifesto and relying upon the support of the powerful military establishment. 

Khan's mixture of militancy and misogyny is shocking and depressing enough. But most shocking and depressing of all is the following tale of animal cruelty reported by Ms Bhutto ...

On 17 July, Karachi-based supporters of Khan's political party - the PTI  - tied a donkey to a pole: 

"They punched its face till its jaw broke, ripped open its nostrils, and drove a car into its body, leaving the animal to collapse, having been beaten to within an inch of his life. Before they left, they wrote 'Nawaz' (the name of the former prime minister) into its flesh, seemingly inspired by their leader, Imran Khan, who has taunted [his opponents in the PML-N] as ghaddhay or donkeys. The donkey was rescued by the ACF Animal Rescue team, a private organisation, who noted that, even days later, it could not stand up on its own because of the ferocity of its torture. It soon succumbed to its injuries, an innocent creature beaten to death for entertainment."

As if that wasn't horrifying enough:

"A day later, another donkey in Karachi was mercilessly attacked, this time the skin on its face was ripped off, the flesh on its forehead torn apart till all that remained between its eyes was a pulpy, bloody hole."

What, really, is one supposed to make of such disgusting acts of cruelty?

Bhutto worries that it is yet one more sign of the horror to come in her homeland. And maybe she's right: for zoosadism is one of those behaviours often considered a precursor to psychopathic violence; i.e., research indicates that madmen who can cheerfully punch a donkey in the face, are far more likely to punch their fellow man in the back of the head.

See: Fatima Bhutto, 'Imran Khan is only a player in the circus run by Pakistan's military', The Guardian, (24 July, 2018): click here to read online. 

Thanks to Afiya Zia for bringing the above article to my attention.