Gymnosophy 3: Ye Shall be Naked in Your Rites (Redux)

The original poster for the fifth paper in the 

Treadwell's Sex/Magic series (2005)

I. Opening Remarks

For this third entry in the gymnosophy series of posts, I thought it would be nice to (re-)examine the role of nudity played within modern pagan witchcraft - and to do so by offering an edited version of a paper first given at London's finest occult bookstore, Treadwell's, way back in March 2005.*

The essential argument of the paper was that truth doesn't, in fact, love to go naked - despite what many witches insist on believing, and that there is nothing natural or authentic about nudity. Indeed, working skyclad, very often exposes more than the flesh; not least a lack of style which, like culture, is ultimately founded upon cloth.

Having said that, ritualised nudity as practiced within Wicca isn't simply a naive exhibitionism. It is, rather, a symbolic gesture rich in philosophical and political meaning, involving as it does questions to do with power, freedom, and the body. Whatever it might signify, taking your underwear off in a public space is never simply an innocent act.      

II. Five Good Reasons to Get Naked According to A Witches' Bible

The Wiccan penchant for performing ceremonies naked is often justified on the grounds that it's an ancient pagan practice. However, whilst it is certainly the case that ritual nudity does have a long tradition within magic, it should be noted that it was extremely rare within a religious context until it was assigned as a central feature of the witches' sabbat by Christian writers keen to imagine all manner of transgressive activity taking place within the woods at night.

According to Janet and Stewart Farrar, however, this doesn't really matter - "whether or not the widespread Wiccan habit of working skyclad is mainly a phenomenon of the twentieth century revival […] or the continuation of a secret custom […] is hardly important […] what matters is its validity for witches today" - and there are, they claim, at least five good reasons for working naked:

The first is that it challenges the metaphysical division between mind and body. In other words, by working naked and affirming the beauty and potency of the flesh, witches are making a quasi-deconstructive gesture.

Whilst I'd probably not describe this mind/body division as the cardinal sin of the patriarchal period,  I’d agree, as a Lawrentian, that it has been modern man's fate to be self-divided in this manner, so that the upper centres of consciousness dominate and exploit the lower centres of sensual and intuitive feeling. I'd also support any attempt to counter this which values nakedness as something positive and pristine and helps us overcome the bad conscience that has attached itself to the body and its forces and flows.

Secondly, according to the Farrar's, a naked body is far more sensitive and responsive than a clothed one and trying to work magic whilst dressed is "like trying to play the piano in gloves". There is, therefore, a sound practical reason to disrobe.

Unfortunately, never having attempted to raise psychic energy whilst naked - nor play the piano whilst wearing gloves - I cannot personally vouch for this. Neither can I confirm or deny their additional claim that "the naked body gives off pheromones far more quickly and efficiently than a clothed one, so it may well be that [...] a skyclad coven is exchanging unconscious information more effectively than a robed one", though this seems reasonable (if, that is, human pheromones actually exist).

The third reason for working skyclad, say the Farrar's, is because it allows one to be oneself.

This psychological claim leaves me profoundly depressed: to suggest that undressing is a "powerful gesture of image-shedding, a symbolic milestone on the road to self-realization" reveals naivety at almost every conceivable level. The Farrar's also assert that when naked we are able to see others for what they really are and to relate at a truer level; one that is entirely unmediated and closer to universal nature.

Of course, they are not alone in believing such nonsense. Indeed, the idea of nudity as a way to reach (and/or liberate) an essential self regarded as the origin of all truth and goodness, is common within Western culture. Our society is filled to bursting with intellectually challenged and emotionally disturbed people striving to achieve authenticity and to create identities in which their deepest selves are expressed.

The fourth reason for witches to get naked is a political consequence of the above. Subscribing as they do to the untenable hypothesis that modern man is sexually repressed and, therefore, in need of sexual liberation, it comes as no surprise to find the Farrar's insisting that people are fearful of nakedness in much the same way that the slave is fearful of throwing off their chains and embracing freedom.

However, whilst the moral prohibitions of Judeo-Christian culture have undoubtedly shaped our thinking and behaviour, it's not in the straightforward and simplistic - not to mention entirely negative - manner that the Farrar's imagine. And couldn't it be that our fear of the naked body is as much due to an aversion for corpses and animality, as it is a sign of our repression ...?

Finally, the Farrar's argue that nakedness is a way of overcoming personal vanity and teaches those who would otherwise be seduced by "the appeal of splendid robes" to realise that "psychic effectiveness comes from within". 

I have to admit, it's particularly disappointing to discover just how many witches seem to have a puritanical mistrust of fine clothes and expensive make-up. Do they not know the etymology of the term glamour? Historically, hasn't the witch always been a woman dressed in a striking fashion, with her pointed hat, full-length cloak, cat-skin gloves, and long-toed shoes? Hasn't she always understood the magic of colourful cosmetics and exotic perfumes?
 
So hostile are the Farrar's to the idea of wearing clothing during a ceremony that it is only with great reluctance that they make one small concession: menstruating women may, if they wish, keep their knickers on - providing they are of a plain cotton variety and nothing too frilly, colourful, or seductive. I'm afraid that as Nietzsche said of 19th-century feminism, we might say of 20th-century pagan witchcraft:

"There is an almost masculine stupidity in this movement [...] of which a real woman [...] would be ashamed from the very heart."

Today's witch should, in my opinion, revolt into style and dare to look splendid; not only delighting in her own appearance, but actively striking a blow against the drabness of the secular world with its blues and browns and sensible footwear. If she risks being thought a whore in her emerald-green stockings as she struts through town, better that than to be identified as just another office worker or shop assistant on her lunch break.

III. Closing Remarks

It's ironic, as Ronald Hutton points out, that in the ancient world pagan goddesses were most often associated with the city and with the arts and learning; i.e. with culture and society, not nature.

The goddess as Earth Mother is essentially a post-Romantic notion, created by poets like Swinburne and James Thomson. The latter, for example, published a verse in 1880 entitled 'The Naked Goddess' in which the heroine, Nature, comes to town only to be told by the local authorities to cover herself up immediately in either the habit of a nun, or the robes of a philosopher. Only the children appreciate her innocence and the beauty of her nakedness and, when she leaves the town, they return with her to the woods.

This is a nice story. But to make it into a kind of foundation myth, as neo-pagans seems to have done, is, I think, mistaken. Ultimately, whilst it may be magical to go wild in the country - swinging from the trees / naked in the breeze - so too is it a blessing to have a new pair of shoes and a warm place to shit.

Notes

* This and other papers from the series can be found in Vol. 1 of The Treadwell's Papers, by Stephen Alexander, (Blind Cupid Press, 2010).

Jane and Stewart Farrar, A Witches' Bible, (The Crowood Press, 2002), pp. 195-98.

Ronald Hutton, The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft, (Oxford University Press, 2001). 

Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, trans. R. J. Hollingdale, (Penguin Books, 1990), VII. 239. I have slightly modified the line quoted here. 


Readers interested in part one of this post on naked philosophers of the ancient world, should click here.

Readers interested in part two of this post on naked body culture in modern Germany, should click here. 

Readers interested in part four of this post on streakers, should click here.

Gymnosophy 2: On German Free Body Culture and the Third Reich

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: Bathers at Moritzburg (1909-26)

Image: tate.org.uk

The German naturist movement, often known by the name of Freikörperkultur (FKK), was the first such movement in the modern world and helped to establish public acceptance and enthusiasm for nudity which has continued to the present day; there are some legal restrictions about where and when you can strip off, but they are few in number compared to most other countries and as viewers of Eurotrash will recall, Germans love being naked more than anybody else.

Ask almost any German, and they will wax lyrical about the joys of nature, communal living, and getting naked with friends and family - and, indeed, strangers. It is, of course, a Romantic ideal and it's not surprising to discover that at the same time as public nudity was becoming increasingly taboo, there were poets, perverts and philosophers all preaching in favour of nude bathing and adopting an Ancient Greek perspective on these matters.  

It wasn't until 1898, however, that the first Freikörperkultur club was established for consenting adults to meet up and strip off as part of a wider programme of so-called Lebensreform.* Predictably, there was some opposition from within conservative circles who saw such behaviour not as an expression of health and freedom, but moral degeneracy. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, nudist organisations were either banned or absorbed into their own programme of Kraft durch Freude [KdF].

It should be noted, however, that naturism was a subject that the Nazis were extremely ambiguous on. On the one hand, many passionately believed in the benefits of nude sunbathing and sporting activities and argued that FKK should be given state recognition and support. But, on the other hand, there were some Nazis who worried that Nacktkultur** encouraged immoral activity, including homosexuality, so argued for laws restricting its practice.     

Ultimately, any prohibitions on nudity were not strictly enforced during the Third Reich - provided activities were kept in the countryside and that all clubs and organisations were officially registered with KdF to ensure that Jews and known communists were not given membership; naked rambling beneath a Nordic sky was something that only members of the master race could enjoy ...

Notes

* Lebensreform was a social and cultural movement in the late-19th and early-20th century that propagated a back-to-nature fantasy that anticipated the hippies and the green movement of today in its emphasis on organic farming, vegetarianism, nudism, alternative therapies, anti-capitalism, and neo-paganism. Although politically diverse, I would argue that the driving force of this reactionary movement came from the extreme right and that völkisch Romanticism all-too-easily feeds into the spurious Blut und Boden ideology of the Nazis. 

**  The term Nacktkultur was coined by Heinrich Pudor, who in 1906 published a three-volume study that connected nudism to vegetarianism and social reform. It was also tied to pacificism and became politicised by radical socialists who believed that sunbathing, plenty of outdoor exercise and sexual hygiene would lead to a utopian society. Mention should also be given to Adolf Koch, as his was the name most closely associated with Nacktkultur in the 1920s and '30s. A PE teacher who had studied psychology and medicine, Koch was founder of the Institute for Nudist Education, as well as a network of schools throughout Germany. Despite attempts to curry favour with the new regime (to which he was not unsympathetic), his organisation was closed down and his activities curtailed by the Nazis. 

Readers interested in part one of this post on the naked philosophers of the ancient world, should click here. 

Readers interested in part three, on nudity and neo-pagan witchcraft, should click here. 

Readers interested in part four, on streakers, should click here.

Gymnosophy 1: On the Naked Philosophers of the Ancient World

Medieval image (c. 1420) of Alexander encountering the γυμνοσοφισταί

I.

Ascetic - often militant - nudity has a very long history, predating skyclad witches, free-loving hippies, and German naturists preaching their vitalist philosophy of Lebensreform and whilst I'm mostly interested in the modern world, I thought it might be fun to provide some ancient historical context for more recent expressions of Nacktkultur. 

The term, gymnosophists, was used by Plutarch when describing an encounter between Alexander and a group of Indian wisemen who regarded both food and clothing as detrimental to a life of pure contemplation and so followed a strict vegetarian diet and went around naked at all times.

What Alexander made of these holy fools who prided themselves on their extraordinary impassivity and indifference to suffering, I don't know. But reports of these (and other) naked thinkers obviously got back to Greece and seem to have influenced the development of various schools of thought; they are believed, for example, to have served as role models for the Cynics, who loved to sit naked in the marketplace.    

It's also worth noting that Pyrrho - along with Anaxarchus - had accompanied Alexander on his trip to Asia and exposure to Eastern philosophy seems to have inspired his own ideas and ethics. Having said that, however, it's important to remember that his ideal of ataraxia has roots in earlier Greek philosophy and it would be mistaken, I think, to push the Indo-Greek connection too far here.   

Similarly, the Greeks didn't need any foreign encouragement to go round naked ...

II.

In Ancient Greece - as in other ancient Mediterranean cultures - male nudity, particlarly within an aesthetico-athletic context, was the cultural norm.

Only women were expected to do the decent thing and cover up and, apart from Aphrodite, goddesses too were normally portrayed clothed in the Classical period, or posed in a modest manner with hands strategically placed. It might surprise some readers to discover that the (admittedly misogynistic) phrase Put 'em away, love is first recorded in a fragment of text by the comic playwright Aristophanes.

Socrates and his mates would often head down to the gymnasium to admire the bodies of youths working out or competing in sports. The love of beauty was an important component of Greek philosophy and this certainly included the beauty of the human form; indeed, this was often regarded as the most exceptional form of beauty - the mark not only of civilisation at its highest, but an unfolding of the sacred. Thus it was that participants in religious ceremonies were also often nude. 


III.

Whilst there are still plenty of naked saints and gurus wandering round India, devoted to their gods, practicing yoga, posing for the tourists, etc., the modern Greeks have pretty much covered up and full nudity is not officially sanctioned even on beaches (although often tolerated in practice).

As for gymnosophy, the term was bandied about in the late-19th and early-20th century by several groups and movements in Europe and the USA, denoting an ideology that insisted truth loves to go naked and that mankind needs to return to a more natural way of living (one that often involved asceticism and meditation, as well as nudity and eurythmics).

The English Gymnosophical Society was founded in 1922 and numbered Gerald Gardner among its early members. Gardner, of course, would later become a central figure within naturism and neopagan witchcraft or Wicca, as he termed it. I shall explore these and other connections in future posts ...   

Readers interested in part two of this post on naked Germans, should click here.

Readers interested in part three of this post on naked witches, should click here. 

Readers interested in part four of this post on streakers, should click here.

In Praise of the Plastic Mac

Joan Bennett and Pamela Green illustrate the sexy, 

stylish character of the see-through plastic mac

As everybody knows, the first fully waterproof raincoat was designed by Scottish chemist Charles Macintosh, almost a century ago, using softened rubber sandwiched between two layers of fabric. Functional, lightweight, and stylish, the mac - as it came to be known - quickly became an essential element of the British wardrobe, popular with both men and women, as nobody likes getting wet.

Advances in fabric technology mean that raincoats are now constructed from all kinds of hi-tech material and come in many different colours, but, personally, I have a penchant for clear plastic macs and so was pleased to see them recently making a return to the catwalk; Karl Lagerfeld, for example, sent out models in his spring 2018 collection for Chanel complete with transparent capes, boots and rain hats.  

Of course, as Caroline Leaper - fashion editor at The Telegraph - reminds us, staying dry in style has long been a concern. But synthetic clothing, including vinyl, only became popular after the Second World War when production boomed and prices dropped, finding fans amongst fashionistas and fetishists in the 1950s, '60s and '70s.    

I'm sure many torpedophiles will have their own favourite image of a beautiful woman in a plastic mac, but, for me, it comes down to just two: Joan Bennett, as Kitty March, in the 1945 film noir, Scarlet Street and Pamela Green posing for the Hungarian-born photographer Zoltán Glass, in the early-mid 1950s.

I cannot put into words how much I love these pictures ... 

See: Caroline Leaper, 'The plastic mac is back: How the humble raincoat got an upgrade for spring', The Telegraph (12 Feb 2018): click here. 

Witches' Brew 2: We're in Love With Janie Jones, Whoa ...

Janie Jones displaying her hex appeal

Marion Mitchell - better known by her professional name, Janie Jones - began her showbiz career as a caberet artist in the late-fifties, initially performing at the Windmill Theatre in Soho. But she first achieved public notoriety in 1964, when she attended a London film premier wearing a topless dress.

A decade later, and Miss Jones was jailed for hosting illicit sex parties at her home that involved prostitutes. Whilst banged-up behind bars - she was sentenced to seven years, but only served four - she met and befriended the Moors murderer Myra Hindley (something that she would later regret doing).

After her release, in 1977, she still made occasional appearances on TV, but, basically, her 15 minutes had come and gone and the only reason I remember her name is because Joe Strummer had a crush on her and she inspired the brilliant opening track of The Clash's debut album [click here].

However, I was amused to discover that she released several records herself as a pop singer in the mid-sixties, including the novelty song Witches Brew, which reached number 46 in the UK singles chart in late-1965 (so not exactly a smash, but a bigger hit than any subsequent releases).

To be honest, it's a fucking awful record - one that even the witches of Treadwell's might have difficulty dancing to. Nevertheless, those who would like to give it a listen can click here.

Note: those interested in part one of this post - on the 1960 film Witches' Brew, featuring Pamela Green - should click here. 

Witches' Brew 1: Skyclad with Pamela Green

Pamela Green in Witches' Brew (1960)

There's a kinky connection between Wicca and naturism, in that participants of both these things love to get their kit off at every opportunity and frolic naked (or skyclad, as the witches say). 

It's not suprising, therefore, to discover the existence of an 8mm striptease film, featuring English glamour model and actress Pamela Green, called Witches's Brew (1960). Nor is it surprising to find that the film was directed by George Harrison Marks, a key figure - as photographer and filmmaker - in the British porn industry for over forty years.

(Note: Marks even makes a brief appearance in the above as a hunchback assistant.)   

In 1949, Miss Green joined the Spielplatz Naturist Club, located in the village of Bricket Wood, Herts. Spielplatz had been founded in 1929 as a utopian retreat for nudists by Charles Macaskie and his wife. Among their visitors was Cambridge scholar and poet - and founder of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids - Ross Nichols.

It was whilst staying at Spielplatz that Nichols probably first met Gerald Gardner, who established a coven nearby as part of his development of Wicca as a modern neopagan religion.       

Put these people together - Gardner, Nichols, Macaskie, Harrison Marks and Pamela Green - stir gently and bring to the boil and voila! one produces a veritable witches' brew of sex, magic, nudity and nature worship all set in the pleasant surroundings of the English countryside. 

According to those who knew her, Miss Green not only had a signed first edition of Gardner's The Meaning of Witchcraft (1959) on her shelf, but even named her cat Pyewacket, à la Gillian Holroyd in Bell, Book and Candle. So as well as being a favourite amongst the dirty mac brigade, she must surely qualify as a figure of special interest to those who hang round Treadwell's and belong to the spooky community.       

Some of the women at Spielplatz taking part in a 

Miss Venus contest including Pamela Green (centre)

Photo by Stephen Glass (1950)

Notes 

Those interested in knowing more about Pamela Green should visit the excellent website devoted to her: Pamela Green - Never Knowingly Overdressed: click here.      
 
Those interested in reading part two of this post - on Janie Jones - should click here. 

This post is dedicated to Christina (obviously): treadwells-london.com 

On the Art of Crucifixion

Horace Roye: Tomorrow's Crucifixion (1938)

Images of a crucified figure have a long history; one that it may surprise some readers to discover pre-dates the Christian era, although, of course, most such images are of Jesus hanging on the Cross and thus belong to a particular religious tradition of art.*   

Whilst crucifixion art had its heyday in the Middle Ages, when increasingly gruesome and realistic representations of suffering became de rigueur, modern artists have nevertheless continued to find inspiration in the subject matter.   

Dalí, for example, famously gave us his version in 1954: Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus); a surreal or, more accurately, nuclear mystical painting in which Christ is crucified not to a simple wooden cross, but to the unfolded net of what is termed within geometry a tesseract (i.e. the four-dimensional analogue of the cube). Some critics regard it as one of Dalí's most successful works, uniting science and religiosity in an ingenius manner.   

Francis Bacon was another 20th-century artist fascinated by all forms of physical torment and violent death in general. In 1965 he painted a triptych entitled Crucifixion that follows (in mood, colour and form) two earlier works: Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion (1944) and Three Studies for a Crucifixion (1962).

What I love about these works is - in contrast to Dalí's picture - the fact that there's nothing spiritual about them; in fact, they are obscenely material and treat human flesh as if it were butcher's meat on display. As Bacon confessed to the critic and curator David Sylvester when discussing the above works:

"I've always been very moved by pictures about slaughterhouses [...] There've been extraordinary photographs which have been done of animals just being taken up before they were slaughtered; and the smell of death. We don't know, of course, but it appears by these photographs that they're so aware of what is going to happen to them, they do everything to attempt to escape. I think these pictures were very much based on that kind of thing, which to me is very, very near this whole thing of the Crucifixion. I know for religious people, for Christians, the Crucifixion has a totally different significance. But as a non-believer, it was just an act of man's behaviour to another."

Finally, mention must be made of an extraordinary photograph from 1938 by Horace Roye, who is perhaps most fondly remembered today for his thousands of female nude portraits (or Eves without leaves as he jokingly referred to them).** Entitled Tomorrow's Crucifixion, it depicts a naked woman wearing a gas mask whilst nailed to a crucifix. Unsurprisingly, it caused a huge amount of controversy at the time, but is now rightly regarded as one of the most striking images from the pre-War period, anticipating the horrors to come.   

Notes

* Interestingly, in the first three centuries of Christian iconography the crucifixion was rarely depicted. It's thought that any such images were viewed as heretical by early church leaders who regarded the subject as unfit for artistic representation and preferred to focus the attention of believers on the miracle of resurrection.

** A bit like D. H. Lawrence three decades earlier, Roye was prosecuted in the 1950s for obscenity after refusing to airbrush out pubic hair from photos of his models. Defending himself in court, Roye successfully challenged the absurd idea that nudes were only acceptable if made to look as smooth and lifeless as marble statues, or as impersonal as dead fish. 

See: David Sylvester, The Brutality of Fact: Interviews with Francis Bacon (Thames and Hudson, 1987).

All Aboard the Good Ship Greta

I. 

I don't know who invented carbon fibre; nor do I know where and when it was developed into the light-weight, super-strong (though very expensive) wonder material that is increasingly used in the manufacture of all kinds of things today - including, as we shall see, multi-million dollar yachts. 

Some environmentalists embrace CF technology as it promises to make planes and cars ever-more fuel efficient and it also plays a significant role within the wind power revolution (turbine blades made from carbon fibre are longer, more rigid, and more resilient than traditional fibreglass models). 

Unfortunately, however, carbon fibre is wasteful to manufacture, difficult to recycle, and results in a toxic by-product. And whilst there's talk about being able to eventually mass produce it from plant material, at the moment it's made from oil and acrylonitrile - so it's really not as eco-friendly as some might like to pretend.


II. 

At first, when I read of Greta Thunberg's announcement on Twitter that she'll shortly be sailing across the Atlantic in a high-speed, carbon fibre, multi-million dollar racing yatch owned by a German property developer in order to attend a UN climate summit in New York, I thought her account must have been hacked by a prankster. But, apparently, that isn't the case; she is genuinely that detached from reality that she fails entirely to see the absurd comedy of the situation.

Wishing to make a point about the climate impact of aviation, Greta refuses to fly. But - as she helpfully reminds us - America is "on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean" and there are no trains to take you there. Thus, going by boat would seem to be the only other option - though maybe she could've taken a yellow submarine. 

However, Greta being Greta - an extremely privileged and over-indulged teenager who has apocalyptic visions of the future and the superhuman ability to see carbon dioxide - she's not going by raft made from recycled oildrums and driftwood; nor is she sailing across the sea singlehandedly.

The Malizia II is a hi-tech 60ft craft fitted with sails, solar panels and underwater turbines to generate zero-carbon power (note: it has a diesal engine for emergencies). Based in Brittany, the admittedly beautiful-looking boat is proudly sponsored by the Yatch Club de Monaco. Greta will be accompanied on the voyage by the skipper, her father, and the grandson of Prince Rainier and Grace Kelly.

Oh, and the obligatory film crew ...    

One hesitates in describing this as a ship of fools, but the sheer vanity of the super-rich posing as environmental activists - and the contempt displayed for the rest of us - is as vomit-inducing as the enormous waves Thunberg is about to encounter.  

I would like to wish bon voyage to this happy crew of eco-warriors - but I also damn them all to hell.

Notes on the Case of Bettie Page

Image via Bettie Page on Facebook

According to Hugh Hefner, who featured her in Playboy as the January Playmate of the Month in 1955, Bettie Page was an iconic figure who significantly influenced American society. I don't know to what extent that's true, but she has certainly secured her place within both the popular cultural and pornographic imaginations (helping, in fact, to blur the distinction between the two).     

It seems that almost everyone knows - and almost everyone loves - Bettie, with her shoulder-length jet-black hair and amazonian figure (amazonian in the camp Russ Meyer manner rather than in the classical Greek sense). Indeed, over sixty years since her modelling heyday and eight years after her death, her estate still continues to rake in the millions and she continues to exert her charm. 

So I suppose the question is ... why? 

According to one commentator, the answer is because Page appeals to a large female fan base as a sexually liberated body positive role model. She may have been abused as a child and suffered serious mental health problems after she stopped modelling, but she's not regarded as a tragic figure or as a victim. On the contrary, for many women she embodies vibrancy, self-confidence, humour, and intelligence.

Again, I don't know to what extent these claims are true, but I'm inclined to accept that many women - particularly those who identify as sex-positive feminists or in some sense queer - feel a strong emotional bond to Bettie Page in much the same way - and for many of the same reasons - they do to Betty Boop in her pre-Hays Code prime [click here].*

The argument is that Page puts the rrr into pinup girl and that there's something a bit punk rock about her look and her attitude - something that I'm also happy to concede. Her imperfections and unconventional looks offer an alternative to the cultural ideal of beauty and she encourages us to challenge stereotypes and affirm our own individual quirks. 

Page also subscribed to a punk ethos in that she styled her own hair and makeup for photo shoots and handmade most of the clothes she wore when modelling. Not that she wore many clothes, of course, and usually they were worn only so that might teasingly be removed.

For Bettie was a gal who liked to be naked and challenged the idea that there was anything indecent or shameful about the body - a view which, interestingly, didn't seem to conflict with her devout Christian faith. As she told one interviewer who challenged her on this: 'I don't believe God disapproves of nudity. After all, he placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden naked as jaybirds.' 

In sum, Page is a fascinating case study who combines contradictory elements and playfully subverts not just ideas of beauty and morality, but also the awful seriousness of the sex industry; she was what Nietzsche would have called a comedian of the ascetic ideal - a knowing parody of the pinup rather than the queen of such. Thus, those who speak of her authenticity have misunderstood her appeal, which is that of the fraud who is always mocking everything and everyone with her performance.

Notes 

* I'm not trying to denigrate Miss Page by comparing her to an animated character. I'm perfectly aware that Betty Boop is a 2-dimensional fictional figure whilst Bettie P. is a fully-rounded actual woman. Nevertheless, there's something wonderfully cartoonish about the latter and it's surely not coincidental that illustrator Dave Stevens based a character on her in his successful 1980s comic book The Rocketeer.  

See: Tori Rodriguez, 'Male Fans Made Bettie Page a Star, but Female Fans Made Her an Icon', The Atlantic (6 Jan 2014): click here. 

Watch: Bettie Page Reveals All, a documentary film dir. Mark Mori (Single Spark Pictures, 2012): click here for the official trailer.

And for five minutes of joy, click here.

Reflections on a Forgotten Umbrella

Banksy: Nola (Girl with Umbrella) (2006)

Hexagon Gallery

Ich habe meinen Regenschirm vergessen: I have forgotten my umbrella.

This five word sentence from one of Nietzsche's notebooks, neatly enclosed in quotation marks but without any contextualising information that might help us understand it, has intrigued many readers - not least Derrida, who attempted to deconstruct it in typically exhaustive fashion.

We could, of course, just take its meaning literally: we know that Nietzsche owned a red umbrella which, when in Turin, he liked to carry with him in order to shield his eyes from the bright Italian sun. So it's perfectly possible that he might, in fact, have one day forgotten it - just like all those other people who do so each and every day in towns and cities around the world; it's nice to sometimes imagine Nietzsche not as an anti-Christ or Übermensch, but just a slob like one of us. 

Some scholars, however, are convinced that these words have greater significance; that perhaps the word umbrella refers not to an everyday object, but to something far more mysterious and important - i.e., that umbrella is used here metaphorically. Again, that's certainly possible. But, personally, I prefer to think of Nietzsche's umbrella as an actual thing which is in itself of great interest, as the writer Marion Rankine illustrates in her amusing book Brolliology (2017).     

Rankine reminds us that whilst umbrellas play only a minor role within philosophy and literature, there have nevertheless been several writers and thinkers - including Charles Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson - who turned their attentions to these curious hand-held devices that can open and shut like artificial flowers and afford us protection from the elements. Or, indeed, from tigers and assailants; for many a person has used their brolly as a weapon, as well defensively as a shield. 

Sadly, as Rankine also reminds us, umbrellas are, today, often degraded objects; mass-produced in Chinese factories and no longer treasured by their owners. Once upon a time, they were carefully made by craftsmen using beautiful materials and expensive models were a sign of social status (one of the ways that Robinson Crusoe distinguished himself from Friday was by making himself an umbrella which, when not in use, he carried with him under his arm like a gentleman).

In fact, an umbrella revealed not only an individual's class, but served as a reliable indicator of their taste, style and personality. Today, their construction is so poor and flimsy that umbrellas can hardly even be relied upon to keep you dry; the first gust of wind and they flip inside out like a giant bat's wing or collapse entirely, to be thrown away with an angry curse, but without concern.

One hardly dares to think what this says about us as a culture ... It's as if we've forgotten ourselves.

See:

Leslie Chamberlain, Nietzsche in Turin (Picador, 1996).

Jacques Derrida, Spurs: Nietzsche's Styles, trans. Barbara Harlow, (The University of Chicago Press, 1979).

Marion Rankine, Brolliology: A History of the Umbrella in Life and Literature (Melville House, 2017).  

See also:

Charles Dickens, 'Please to Leave Your Umbrella', in Household Words Vol. XVII, Issue 423 (May 1858), pp. 457-59. Click here to read as a pdf via Dickens Journals Online.   

Robert Louis Stevenson, 'The Philosophy of Umbrellas', in Collected Works (Edinburgh Edition 1894-98), Vol. 21, 1896 - Miscellanies, Vol. IV. Click here to read on the NLS website.

Play: Rihanna, 'Umbrella', single release from the album Good Girl Gone Bad (Def Jam, 2007): Orange Version Ft. Jay-Z: click here.