Judenstern (With Reference to the Case of Serge Gainsbourg)

I. 

Although now strongly associated in the popular imagination with Nazi Germany, the yellow badge that Jews were obliged to wear for purposes of public identification (i.e., to clearly mark them as religious and ethnic outsiders), has a depressingly long history, albeit not one that I wish to examine in detail here.  

It's interesting to note, however, that the idea of making the patch in the shape of the six point Star of David first arose in Portugal, even though the hexagram has never been a uniquely Jewish symbol (in fact, Jewish Kabbalists probably borrowed it from the Arabs for use in the design of talismanic amulets known as segulot). 

It's also interesting to note that this Portuguese star was red, not yellow, even though within the medieval and early modern world the latter was the colour most often associated with Judas, religious heretics, and other persons thought cowardly and not to be trusted.   

The Nazis were therefore drawing upon an extensive (anti-Semitic) history when they revived the practice of forcing Jews to wear a distinctive sign upon their clothing, including, most famously, the yellow Star of David with the word Jude inscribed in letters meant to resemble Hebrew script.

Intended to further division and hatred, the Judenstern ironically increased sympathy for the Jews amongst the wider population of the Reich. In the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, for example, a ban had to be introduced on the polite doffing of hats towards Jews, after it became a popular form of protest against German occupation and Nazi brutality.   

II.  

Born in 1929, to Russian-Jewish parents who had fled to France following the 1917 Revolution, Serge Gainsbourg's childhood was profoundly affected by the Nazi occupation during the Second World War.

Fortunately, however, he was able to draw darkly comic inspiration from this tragic period in later years; such as in his controversial album Rock Around the Bunker (1975), which included the track 'Yellow Star'.

In this short song, Gainsbourg recalls how he'd felt as a young boy required to wear such in wartime Paris; an experience only made bearable by pretending that it was a sherrif's badge, or a prize that he'd been awarded.      

Fans of the singer-songwriter - of which I'm one - might also recall that several years prior to this, Gainsbourg celebrated the huge international success of Je t'aime ... moi non plus by commissioning Cartier to design him a platinum Star of David medallion.

As one commentator notes, he had never forgotten the humiliation of his early years and this was an attempt to overcome feelings of shame and anger with humour.

For as they say in French: Rira bien qui rira le dernier ...

Notes

Play: Serge Gainsbourg, 'Yellow Star', from the album Rock Around the Bunker (Polygram International, 1975): click here. 

Note: Rock Around the Bunker is not merely an upbeat concept album about National Socialism and Gainsbourg's own experiences as a Jewish youth growing up in German-occupied Paris; it's also a subtle dig at those who bought into the Nazi chic of the 1970s - including performers such as David Bowie who should've known better.   

Ana: the Little Match Girl of Harold Hill

Were Hans Christian Andersen writing his tale of The Little Match Girl today, rather than in 1845, then I imagine she'd probably be hawking copies of The Big Issue and wearing a headscarf, rather than selling matches bareheaded and barefoot in the street.

Either way, it's a cold and depressing way to try and earn a living and I can't help feeling sorry for the young woman, called Ana, who stands - rain or shine - outside Boots every day with her magazines and, in the circumstances, a remarkably cheerful manner.

Despite Nietzsche's warnings against the dangers of pity, I often return her greeting or give her a smile. And, although I don't want what she's peddling, I have bought her a hot chocolate and even a tub of Aptamil baby formula, as requested.   

And I've done so fully aware that this horrifies many people. Editors at the Daily Mail, for example, seem convinced that The Big Issue is now merely a front for Eastern European criminals; that Britain's homeless and those in genuine need have been replaced by immigrants already in receipt of generous state benefits

Maybe that's true: I don't know ...

However, whilst no one wants to be thought of as a soft touch, i.e., open to easy manipulation and emotional blackmail by those who beg on street corners and spin tales of woe, I would hate to become one of those hard-hearted individuals, lacking in compassion or kindness.

So, push comes to shove, I'd rather hand over a fiver just to be on the safe side; even at the risk of being taken for a bit of a mug. In the end, that money secures your own spiritual well-being, rather than their material comfort.

And, in my case at least, it also got me an Xmas card from Ana, who said she will keep me in her prayers and, more importantly, signed herself as my fryend.    


Note on the images:

The first is taken from the Disney animated short film The Little Matchgirl (dir. Roger Allers, 2006). 

The second is from the inside of my card from Ana - which, although intended to be festive, was actually a card of condolence, expressing the sender's deepest sympathy. 

Punk Xmas

'Tis the season to be Johnny 

(Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la)

I.

For all its professed anarcho-nihilism and counter-cultural posturing, punk quickly revealed itself to be all too human when the festive season rolled round, with many bands embracing the cynical-sentimental showbiz tradition of releasing Christmas songs. 

Now, whilst punk intellectuals such as Craig O'Hara and Gerfried Ambrosch* might think it terribly subversive for Stiff Little Fingers to release a raucous live rendition of White Christmas, or that by performing Silent Night at a million miles an hour the Dickies caused Franz Gruber to start spinning in his grave, I do not.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter how hard you pogo around the Christmas tree, you're not reclaiming the happy holiday as a pagan tradition or deconstructing moral idealism, you are - in the words of Paul McCartney - simply having a wonderful Christmastime (ding-dong, ding-dong, ding). 

That doesn't make you a collaborator, or a sell out.

But it does mean you perhaps have rather more in common with everyone else than you might otherwise wish to acknowledge and that your romantic rebellion - against cliché, dreary convention, and commercialism - is born of the fact that you care a great deal (punk indifference being merely another pose).**

II.

So what, then, are the best punk Xmas songs?

That's hard to say, as, to be honest, they're all pretty awful, with one or two exceptions, such as Fairytale of New York (1987), by the Pogues, ft. Kirsty MacColl, and Merry Christmas (I Don't Wanna Fight Tonight) (1987), by the Ramones - though I'm not overly keen on either.

I do quite like Siouxsie and the Banshees' version of the traditional French Christmas carol Il est né, le divin Enfant (1982), but, ultimately, my tastes take me back towards the two tunes previously mentioned, by SLF and the Dickies: White Christmas (1980) and Silent Night (1978).

And finally, let's not forget the Thin Lizzy/Sex Pistols collaboration (as the Greedies); A Merry Jingle (1979): click here to watch their performance on Top of the Pops (20-12-79), or here, as they close the New Year's edition of The Kenny Everett Television Show, in another time and in a different world ... 

Notes

* Craig O'Hara, The Philosophy of Punk, (AK Press, revised 2nd edition, 2000); Gerfried Ambrosch, The Poetry of Punk, (Routledge, 2018).
 
** Obviously, when I say punks care, I don't mean about the baby Jesus, but about the authenticity of experience; they so want things to be meaningful and honest and real - including the joy of Christmas. 

To relive Christmas '77 with the Sex Pistols, see the BBC Four documentary directed by Julien Temple, (2013): click here.

Screamin' Jay Hawkins: He'll Put a Spell on You

Because you're mine ...

I.

Never a favourite with the NAACP, Screamin' Jay Hawkins played with black racial stereotypes and white racial fears just as he experimented with music and performance, producing a unique sound and look that would later influence shock rockers from Arthur Brown and Alice Cooper to Marilyn Manson.

The above - and many others - were inspired by his mock-satanism and penchant for macabre stage accessories (including smoking skulls, rubber snakes, and shrunken heads).  

II.

A former champion boxer and Korean war veteran, Hawkins decided to try his luck as a rhythm and blues singer. After an 18 month spell fronting a band, he left to develop a solo career. His big moment came in 1955, when he recorded an astounding - and drunken - version of his composition entitled I Put a Spell On You, for a black music label owned by Columbia Records. 

The grunts, groans and screams that Hawkins added to what was otherwise a fairly standard pop ballard were deemed to be so disturbing that the record was immediately banned from the radio. Nevertheless, it was a huge hit, selling more than a million copies and secured Hawkins a place in the rock 'n' roll hall of fame. 

It also ensured he would be typecast as a performer, whose talents as a singer, songwriter and musician, became increasingly irrelevant; people wanted the outrageously dressed madman with a bone through his nose, taking to the stage in a satin-lined coffin and giving his best impression of the voodoo priest Baron Samedi.*    

As much as his grotesque persona delighted and amused white audiences - not only in the US, but also in the UK and France - it deeply offended many African Americans. Hawkins, however, was unapologetic, explaining that he was simply an entertainer looking to make a few dollars; not a role model, spokesman for the black community, or a civil rights activist.    

Although he had a number of other hit songs - including Constipation Blues (1969); a track about real pain, not merely heartbreak and loneliness - his star was well and truly beginning to fade by the 1970s, although he continued to work up until his death, aged 70, in February 2000, appearing, for example, alongside Joe Strummer in the 1989 cult movie Mystery Train (dir. Jim Jarmusch).  

Since his death, I Put a Spell on You has continued to be covered by a wide variety of artists, most of whom treat the song very seriously; very few have been brave (or foolish) enough to attempt to replicate - or better - the unique performance given by Hawkins himself ...**

Notes

* Hawkins did sometimes express his unhappiness with this; in a 1973 interview, for example, he bemoaned the fact that whilst James Brown did an awful lot of screaming, he wasn't given the name of Screamin' James Brown and nobody expected him to play the fool or questioned the sincerity of his performance. I'm not overly sympathetic with Hawkins, however, who voluntarily sold his soul to the devil.  

** Artists who have covered this song include Nina Simone, Bryan Ferry, Marilyn Manson, and even Bonnie Tyler.

Play: Screamin' Jay Hawkins, I Put a Spell On You, (Okeh Records, 1956): click here. 

And for a live TV performance of the song, click here. 

A Brief Midwinter Reflection

Thank fuck it's the solstice this weekend and the promise of a returning sun; have the mornings ever been so dark as this year? I don't remember them so. But maybe it's an age thing; I appreciate now why so many pensioners like to spend winter in the south, if they can afford to do so.

Of course, despite the December solstice being a cosmic and psychological turning point, it's still a terribly long wait for spring and the warmer days when love becomes possible anew. For as Irigaray points out, whilst a god can enter the world midwinter, it's too early, too cold, and too dark to really rejoice.

Winter undoubtedly has it's own special beauty and rhythm, but it's spring - "when the heavens and the earth unite" - that is the "most wonderful and divine season"; a time of flowers and birdsong that "resonates in a deep silence [...] beyond any word".      

The solstice is a time when, briefly, the sun stands still; but in the spring everything leaps forward - even the clocks! 

See: Luce Irigaray, Through Vegetal Being, (Columbia University Press, 2016), pp. 36 and 37.

 

On Stamina (as Ontological Destiny)

John Melhuish Strudwick: A Golden Thread (1885)

I.

An aged philosopher, said a young Nick Land, is either a monster of stamina or a charlatan. We can probably say the same of artists, rock stars, and maybe even monarchs.

For whilst I don't want to revive and reinforce the romantic ideal of living fast and dying young - as if a premature death confirms authenticity and proves the truth of one's message - there are perhaps certain individuals who are under a greater obligation to die at the right time than other (superfluous) men and women; i.e., not too late, but not too early either. 

However, it's not this Nietzschean idea I wish to discuss; nor do I wish to comment here on what makes monstrous, or write in defence of charlatanism. I want, rather, to say something on the concept of stamina ...

II.

It's unfortunate - and a little disappointing - that Land seems to rely upon the common understanding of the term stamina; i.e., synonymous merely with staying power, or the ability to maintain an activity or commitment regardless of circumstances (including fatigue and old age). That's the kind of error that the sort of people who think that a rock has the capacity to endure might make ...   

For stamina means more than merely having the energy and strength to keep going; it refers us rather to the essential elements of a thing; the vital structures or qualities of being. As the plural form of stamen, we might even define it as the thread (or filament) from which the individual (and their fate) is woven. 

Thus, philosophically speaking, all mortals have stamina (i.e., an ontological destiny) - even charlatans, those who burn out early, or those who regard death as a festival and voluntarily choose to squander their souls ...

See:

Nick Land, The Thirst for Annihilation, (Routledge, 1992). 

Nietzsche, 'Of Voluntary Death', Thus Spoke Zarathustra, (Penguin Books, 1969).   

Dionysos Versus the Amazons

I.

One of two final (prose) poems written by D. H. Lawrence was a work inspired by a reading of Plutarch, concerning the bloody battle fought between the god Dionysos and his followers and the tribe of warrior women known by many names amongst the ancient Greeks, but most commonly remembered today as the Amazons [Ἀμαζόνες].

According to Plutarch, after an initial skirmish at the coastal city of Ephesus, the Amazons fled to the island of Samos, where they were pursued by Dionysos and slaughtered en masse. Lawrence seems to be in little doubt as to who instigated the violence. He writes:

"Oh small-breasted, brilliant Amazons, will you never leave off attacking the Bull-foot, for whom the Charities weave ivy-garlands?"

And, a little later, he notes: "the Amazons swept out of cover with bare limbs flashing and bronze spears lifted."

What Lawrence doesn't do in his reimagining of the myth, is explain why the Amazons should be so fiercely determined to resist the triumph of Dionysos. To understand that, we need to turn to the work of the 19thC theorist of ancient matriarchy, Johann Jakob Bachofen ...


II.

Bachofen is probably best remembered today (if at all) as the author of Das Mutterrecht (1861); a seminal work in which he argues that Woman in her role of sacred (earth) mother is the origin of all human religion, culture and society.

According to Bachofen's post-Hegelian perspective, human cultural evolution consists of several stages, culminating in the Apollonian age in which all traces of the Mutterecht and the matriarchal past were eradicated, and from which modern (solar-phallic) civilisation emerged.

Whilst convinced that, ultimately, there's a progressive movement from base matter to the luminous unfolding of spirit, Bachofen doesn't argue for a smooth, developmental process. He insists, rather, that each shift from one phase to the next is marked by violence and there are often long periods during which regressive forces gain the upper hand and force humanity backwards. 

As the Dionysian phase of cultural evolution was one in which earlier female traditions were either masculinised or destroyed as the phallocratic order of patriarchy slowly began to emerge and assert itself, there was, therefore, good reason for the Amazons to be pissed (as Americans like to say).

It should be noted, however, that Bachofen doesn't approve of their feminist uprising, dismissing it as both reactionary and perverse and decrying the Amazons as a bunch of hate-filled, homocidal, war-loving maidens [männerfeindlichen, männertötenden, kreigerischen Jungfrauen].

He celebrates their defeat by Dionysos as the restoration of the natural order; finally, says Bachofen, women can find their fulfilment (and destiny) via glad submission to the male in all his glory. 
  

III.

I suppose the question is: did Lawrence know of Bachofen and was the latter an influence of any sort?

Well, whilst I don't recall him ever mentioning Bachofen, one suspects Lawrence would have known the name, being as he was well read in German literature and philosophy and married to a woman who would have almost certainly been familiar with Bachofen's ideas.   

What's interesting is that even whilst Lawrence would have detested Bachofen's idealism, he himself frequently wrote within the terms and confines of metaphysical dualism; darkness and light, passive and active, and - most crucially - male and female.

Indeed, like Bachofen, Lawrence sometimes seems to read all human history in terms of a battle of the sexes. And, like Bachofen, whilst he declares his sympathies are with the women, Lawrence often seems deeply troubled by the thought of women who have liberated themselves from men and phallocentric culture entirely, such as Amazons and lesbians.

Thus, it's noticeable that in his poem Lawrence seems more concerned about the fate of the beasts that accompanied Dionysus into battle, than the fate of the women who were put to the sword:

"The rocks are torn with the piercing death-cries of elephants, the great and piercing cry of elephants dying at the hands of the last of the Amazons, rips the island rocks."  

Notes

D. H. Lawrence, 'The Elephants of Dionysos', The Poems, Vol. III, ed. Christopher Pollnitz, (Cambridge University Press, 2018), pp. 1615-16. This work, along with another (untitled) prose poem, was found on a short manuscript torn from a notebook. They are believed to be the last poems Lawrence wrote, composed at the beginning of December, 1929.

W. R. Halliday, The Greek Questions of Plutarch, (Oxford, 1928); see Question 56. This is the edition that Lawrence consulted when writing his poem on Dionysos and the Amazons. 

Johann Jakob Bachofen, Myth, Religion, and Mother Right, trans. Ralph Manheim, (Princeton University Press, 1992).

Cynthia Eller; Gentlemen and Amazons: The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory, 1861-1900, (University of California Press, 2011). See Chapter 3: On the Launching Pad: J. J. Bachofen and Das Mutterrecht, which I found particularly helpful when writing this post.  

This post is for Maria.

And Winner, of the 2019 Torpedo the Ark Award, is ...

Micromys minutus

... Wendy Fail, for her successful attempt to reintroduce harvest mice to Northumberland.

As a doctoral student back in 2004, Fail bred 240 of these lovely and elusive little creatures in captivity, before then releasing them over a two month period on to a coastal nature reserve with plenty of reedbeds for them to hide in.

Although subsequent trap surveys suggested that the mice hadn't survived and formed a viable population as hoped, it now seems - 15 years later - that descendants of the original animals are in fact breeding, as freshly woven nests have been discovered at the reserve.   

Contacted with the news, Fail was said to be ecstatic - and I'm pleased for her - as I am for this particular species of mouse, which, like many other UK species, is in sharp decline due to all the usual reasons (including habitat destruction and modern farming methods, for example). 

A priority species for conservation and protected by law, the harvest mouse is Britain's smallest rodent (weighing no more than a tuppenny bit) and the only one with a prehensile tail.

Preyed upon by pretty much everything - including owls, cats, and even other mice - the harvest mouse is also surprisingly vulnerable to prolonged periods of cold, wet weather; not ideal when you live in England (even if primarily confined to the South East of the country). 

She hasn't, by her own admission, saved the world. But Fail has succeeded in making it just a slightly more magical (and less lonely) place and for that I congratulate her.

(Let's just hope that the pine martens that have also recently returned to Northumberland don't eat them ...!)

Perfumed Pop Perfection

Dior: Joy (2018): click here

I. Joy *

Somethings are so perfect they deserve to be acknowledged as such. And the TV ad by Dior for the fragrance Joy, directed by Francis Lawrence and starring the sublimely beautiful Jennifer Lawrence, is one such thing. 

It's visually stunning, as one might expect, as the 28-year-old American actress frolics in a swimming pool with a jellyfish, playfully spits water at the camera, lounges in the sun, and floats beneath the stars, etc.

But - crucially - it also has a magical soundtrack supplied by The Rolling Stones; an irresistable slice of psychedilic pop entitled 'She's a Rainbow' ...

II. She's a Rainbow **

'She's a Rainbow' featured on the (much-maligned at the time, but now critically-acclaimed) album Their Satanic Majesties Request (1967) and was also released as a single in the US (although it wasn't a big hit, peaking at number 25 in the charts). 

Simplistic, repetitive, and, at times, childlike, it's been described as the prettiest and most un-Stoneslike of all songs written by Jagger and Richards, and features a string arrangement by John Paul Jones, piano by Nicky Hopkins, and the magnificent refrain she comes in colours (the title of a single released 12 months earlier by the LA band Love, led by singer-songwriter Arthur Lee).  

I'm not, for obvious reasons, a great fan of The Rolling Stones and although perfumed pop perfection smells less of teen spirit and more of a multi-million dollar licensing deal, I love this hippie-trippy song nevertheless ...

Notes

* Created by François Demachy, Joy incorporates notes of mandarin, zested bergamot, rose, jasmine, and sensual sandalwood. It is intended to be an olfactive interpretation of light and is Dior's first major fragrance launch since J'adore back in 1999. For more details, visit the Dior website: click here.   

Readers might also note that the fragrance's name is not linked to Lawrence's Oscar-nominated role in the 2015 film Joy (dir. David O'Russell); that's simply a happy coincidence. And although Jennifer and Francis Lawrence have frequently worked together, they are not, in fact, related; the shared surname is simply another coincidence.

** 'She's a Rainbow' is something of a favourite not only with Stones fans, but advertising executives, having featured in several other commercials over the years as well as the Dior ad; these inlude one for Apple in 1999, who wanted to promote their colourful i-Mac computers, and, more recently, one for Acura's RDX in 2018. The song is thus what Arthur Daley would call a nice little earner for Mick and Keith, who, unlike some artists, happily embrace commercial licensing of their songs. 

As the Stones continue to play 'She's a Rainbow' live, one assumes it's one of the two songs on Their Satanic Majesties Request that Jagger and Richards still think fondly of, despite both having dismissed the album as basically not very good.

Play: The Rolling Stones, 'She's A Rainbow', from Their Satanic Majesties Request (Decca, 1967): click here to play the full version (with intro) on YouTube courtesy of Universal Music Group.

London Squawking: The Rise of the Ring-Necked Parakeet

 Who's a pretty boy then? 

Photo by Tim Blackburn / PA

I.

Originally from Africa, the bright green ring-necked parakeet that now thrives in London and SE England, is one invasive species that we can all welcome; for surely everyone loves parrots which make a colourful (if rather noisy) addition to British wildlife.  

Well, probably not everyone, but I don't wish to discuss those who hate parrots here; I would like, rather, to discuss the question of how the tropical birds were introduced into the UK, as this has been a subject of contention and, indeed, urban legend ...


II.

One such legend, for example, traces their origin to a pair released by Jimi Hendrix on Carnaby Street, in the heart of Swinging London, in 1968.

Another slightly less groovy story suggests that the parrots arrived seventeen years earlier, when Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn were in Town to film scenes for The African Queen (1951) and various exotic animals were required on set by director John Huston, some of which - including the parrots - are believed to have escaped.*  

Alas, it seems that neither of the above legends relating to the origins of the UK's parakeets are true; at least not according to a team of academic researchers at Queen Mary University (London) who have looked into the question.

Their work has led them to conclude (rather mundanely) that the booming parakeet population has grown from multiple small-scale releases, some of which were accidental and others due to the intentional actions of nervous pet owners worried by sensational media reports of parrot fever (psittacosis) dating back to the 1930s. 

However they got here, we should be grateful and happy to have the birds (along with the 33 other countries that this avian migrant has made a home in). Those who call for a cull of the parrots due to expanding numbers - and who often express false concerns about their impact on native species - should, in my view, be tarred and feathered. And then shot.  

I would fully endorse what the author Nick Hunt writes here:

"In an age of climate emergency, with mass extinction ripping apart the fabric of the living world, when the dominant narrative of our times is one of loss and disappearance, collapse and diminishment, parakeets tell a different story. These plucky newcomers beat the odds, not only surviving but thriving. In a nature-depleted culture, when city dwellers are supposedly alienated from the environment and anything that is feral or wild, parakeets are the subject of outlandish speculation, the source of mystery, imagination and everyday wonder."**

     

Notes

* Although much of the movie was shot on location in Uganda and the Congo, many scenes were, in fact, filmed at Isleworth Studios, in Middlesex.

** Nick Hunt, 'The great green expansion: how ring-necked parakeets took over London', The Guardian (6 June 2019): click here to read online.

See also: Nick Hunt and Tim Mitchell, The Parakeeting of London, (Paradise Road, 2019).