Why You Should Never Wish Happy New Year to a Nietzschean

 

 

I. 

 

I don't know the origin of the zen fascist insistence on wishing everyone a happy new year, but I suspect it's rooted in the 18th-century, which is why in 1794 the Archange de la Terreur - Louis de Saint-Just - was able to proclaim: Le bonheur est une idée neuve en Europe ... [1]

 

Such a new idea of happiness - one concerned with individual fulfilment in the here and now and realised in material form, rather than a deferred condition of soul which awaits the blessed in heaven - had already become an inalienable right of citizens in the United States.

 

Whether Jefferson was inspired by the English empiricist John Locke - or by the French philosophe Jean-Jacques Rousseau - is debatable. But, either way, the pursuit of happiness was declared a self-evidently good thing that all Americans should uphold and practice [2].        

 

It might also be noted that 1776 was the year that Jeremy Bentham famously wrote that ensuring the greatest happiness of the greatest number was the mark of a truly moral and just society [3].   

 

 

II. 

 

So what's the problem?

 

Well, the problem for those who take Nietzsche seriously, is that this positing of happiness in its modern form as the ultimate aim of human existence makes one contemptible. 

 

That is to say, one becomes the kind of person who only seeks their own pleasure and safety, avoiding all danger, difficulty, or struggle; one becomes one of those letzter Menschen that Zarathustra speaks of [4].    

 

Nietzsche wants his readers to see that suffering and, yes, even unhappiness, play an important role in life and culture; that greatness is, in fact, more often than not born of pain and sorrow. This is why his philosophy is a form of tragic pessimism.

 

And this is why it's kind of insulting to wish a Nietzschean happy new year ... [5] [6] 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Louis de Saint-Just made this remark in a speech to the National Convention entitled Sur le mode d'exécution du décret contre les ennemis de la Révolution (3 March 3, 1794) - only four months before he went to the guillotine, aged 26, along with his friend and fellow revolutionary Robespierre.  

[2] The famous line written by Thomas Jefferson in the 1776 Declaration of Independence reads: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

 

[3] This phrase - often wrongly attributed to J. S. Mill - can be found in the Preface to Bentham's A Fragment on Government (1776). 

[4] See Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 'Zarathustra's Prologue', 5.

 

[5] Similarly, one should refrain from wishing happy new year to a devotee of Larry David; or, at any rate, be aware that there's a cut off after which it's no longer appropriate to do so. See episode 1 of season 10 of Curb Your Enthusiasm, entitled 'Happy New Year' (dir. Jeff Schaffer): click here.

 

[6] Having said that, see the post published on 1 Jan 2016 entitled 'Sanctus Januarius' for a Nietzschean new year's message: click here. 

Fond Memories of The Wicked Lady

Fig. 1: Portrait of Katherine Ferrers (c. 1848)
Fig. 2: Margaret Lockwood in The Wicked Lady (1945)

Fig. 3: Faye Dunaway in The Wicked Lady (1983)

 

 

I. 

 

According to popular legend, Lady Katherine Ferrers was a bored young gentlewoman and heiress by day, but a notorious highwaywoman by night; one who committed crimes for the sake of the danger, not the money. 

 

Known as the wicked lady, she terrorised the good people of Hertfordshire as they went about their business; apart from robbing travellers at gunpoint, an entire catalogue of wrongdoing was attributed to her, including arson, slaughtering livestock, and even the murder of a local constable.  

 

Sadly, Katherine was to succumb to a gunshot wound sustained on Nomansland Common during an attempted hold-up in 1660, aged 26. 

 

Her body - still disguised in male clothing - was  discovered by her loyal servants, who carried their mistress home to be buried. It is said, however, that Katherine's ghost continues to haunt the Common - just as she continues to feature in the cultural imagination ...

 

 

II. 

 

In 1944, Magdalen King-Hall published a novel - The Life and Death of the Wicked Lady Skelton - whose story was looslely based on the (contentious) events surrounding Katherine's life. 

 

The following year, a big-screen adaptation entitled The Wicked Lady - directed by Leslie Arliss and starring Margaret Lockwood in the lead role (here named Barbara Worth) and James Mason as her lover and partner in crime (Capt. Jackson) - smashed British box office records, pulling in an audience of over 18 million.

 

The British, it seems, have always loved a costume drama - even in wartime. 

 

Unfortunately, the American censors were none too pleased with the movie and several scenes had to be re-shot before it was given a US release; it seems the low-cut bodices worn by some of the more buxom actresses were a bit too much for our puritan cousins across the Atlantic.  

Ideas for a sequel were discussed, but came to nothing and the viewing public had to wait nearly forty years for a remake ...

 

III.

 

This infamous 1983 remake of The Wicked Lady, starring Faye Dunaway (as Lady Barbara Skelton) and Alan Bates (as Capt. Jackson), has all that one might hope for from a film written, produced and directed by Michael Winner - including, controversially, a whip fight between Dunaway's character and a topless Marina Sirtis as Jackson's (unnamed) girlfriend (or doxy) [1].     

 

Winner described his vision of the film as a period romp that combined elements from the story of Bonnie and Clyde with those of Tom Jones (I'm assuming he refers here to the 1963 film, rather than Fielding's classic novel of 1749).

 

Writing in a retrospective review, David Hayles pretty much nails the appeal of the movie:

 

"Winner updated the film the only way he knew how - with sex and violence: by the time the opening credits have rolled, the film has already earned its 18 rating. We see a crow pecking the brains out of a corpse in a gibbet, a man with a rope around his neck dragged across a field by a horse, and a naked couple copulating in a barn."

 

He continues:

      

"The tone is somewhere between the rustic horror of Witchfinder General and the softcore romp Young Lady Chatterley 2, with lavish costumes and beautiful shots of horses thundering across the countryside. The likes of John Gielgud and Denholm Elliot play it very straight, yet veer into overwrought camp melodrama filled with appalling stunt work and, as was Winner’s penchant, nude women at every opportunity. Somehow, it all comes together to make for a delightful feature." [2]

 

The movie premiered at the Odeon Luxe Leicester Square, on the 21st of April, 1983. Although we were not invited to either the screening or the party afterwards, my friend Kirk Field and I were hanging about Soho that day and happened to pass through the Square as some of the guests were arriving and someone - I don't know who - took this snap ... 

 

 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The British censor insisted this scene - which is in the original film, although not the novel - be cut before The Wicked Lady could be given an X-certificate. An outraged Michael Winner encouraged friends and colleagues to write letters of protest to the censor; these figures included Lindsay Anderson, Kingsley Amis, Derek Malcolm, and Fay Weldon.

      Although at the time Marina Sirtis said that filming the scene didn't bother her in the slightest - and despite the fact that she appeared nude two years later in Winner's Death Wish 3 (1985) during a brutal rape scene - she later complained about her treatment by the director, accusing him of sexual exploitation and expressing the hope he would rot in hell for all eternity. 

      In contrast, Faye Dunaway would insist that The Wicked Lady was the only movie she ever truly enjoyed making.           

 

[2] David Hayles, 'The scandalous folly of Michael Winner's The Wicked Lady', published on the Little White Lies website (1 July 2016): click here.

 

 

To watch the trailer for The Wicked Lady (1945): click here. 

 

To watch the trailer for The Wicked Lady (1983): click here. 

 

Reflections on the Death of a Footballer

Dominic Snow: Saint Pelé (2007)

Oil on canvas (51 x 77 cm)

saatchiart.com

 

 

Have you heard the news? 

 

The great Brazilian footballer Pelé is dead ...!

 

Actually, it's hard not to be aware of his passing, as his face and name is everywhere at the moment, even though he hasn't kicked a ball for forty-five years and even though kicking a ball is essentially what he's known for - that, and for being the public face of erectile dysfunction [1].

 

Judging from the press and media coverage, however, you would think he was a veritable saint among men; a bit like Nelson Mandela, only with the number 10 on his back, rather than 46664.

 

White liberals in particular can hardly contain themselves when talking about him and one can't help thinking that it's not because they care about football or remember him playing, but because he's a sporting version one of those figures that film director Spike Lee called magical negroes ...

That is to say, a black man who is pure and noble of soul and in possession of great wisdom or insight; a reassuring figure who upholds the ideal of a universal humanity and teaches us how to be better people.  

 

It's basically an inverted (and romantic) racism and if, like Lee, I was black, it would make me mad as hell (indeed, even without being black it irritates me).  

 

So, I'm sorry that Pelé is dead; maybe he was a great man as well as a great footballer. I don't know and I don't care. What I do know is that I'll be glad when the world's media turns its attention elsewhere. 

 

And, just one final point ... 

 

I think it revealing that the media here in the UK are giving more attention to the death of an ex-footballer from a far away land than to the passing of a truly iconic national figure - Vivienne Westwood  - who also died yesterday.  

 

It shows that the world of fashion - and, indeed, the world of contemporary art - remains something the Great British Public are not only indifferent to, but suspicious, scornful, and fearful of [2], whilst football, on the other hand, is now supposed to be played, watched, and enjoyed by everyone, from rough girls to delicate boys the whole world over.

 

The so-called Beautiful Game has become an opiate of the masses [3].   

 

 

Notes 

[1] Hired by Pfizer Pharmaceuticals in 2002, Pelé was the first celebrity ambassador for Viagra, although he insisted in 2011 that he had never needed to take the little blue pills himself. His main role was to raise awareness around erectile dysfunction and encourage men to openly discuss their problems. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this had some humorous consequences (see spoof image below).

 

[2] One recalls, for example, the shameful reaction of the Wogan audience - egged on by the ghastly Sue Lawley and fellow guest, the equally ghastly Russell Harty - to Westwood's Time Machine collection back in 1988: click here. Well done Janet Street-Porter for sticking up for Westwood, but what a pity Grace Jones wasn't on hand to give Harty and Lawley both a few hard slaps. 

 

[3] Marx, of course, originally used this dictum with reference to religion: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people." See the Introduction to his Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, trans. Annette Jolin and Joseph O’Malley, (Cambridge University Press, 1970). 

      The 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar had an estimated 4 billion viewers for its 64 matches played over 29 days. 

Vivienne Westwood (A Personal Recollection)

Vivienne Westwood (1941-2022) [1]

 

 

I only met Vivienne Westwood once: on 14 June 1982, when I interviewed her at her studio at 25 Kingly Court, Soho, whilst working as an intern in the features dept at 19 magazine ... [2]

 

I wasn't particularly well-prepared. For whilst I had a rough idea of what questions I wished to ask, I only had a notepad and pencil to scribble down the answers, as the tape recorder I was promised by my editor wasn't provided. 

 

(Apparently, the fashion department had objected to my having arranged the interview without consulting them first and so my meeting with Westwood was to be an unofficial assignment ...)

 

Nevertheless, Vivienne - and that was how she told me to address her - was kind and friendly. Indeed, at times she even seemed a little flirtatious, telling me I had nice eyes and that she admired my enthusiasm. She was 40, but looked younger; I was 19 and a bit star-struck.

 

Softly-spoken, she had retained her East Midlands accent. Often, however, she seemed to be speaking as from a script, with many of her sentences beginning with the words Malcolm says ... indicating that she was still very much in love with him (or, at the very least, still smitten by his ideas). 

 

Asked why many of her new designs were so loose and baggy, she patiently explained that the prospect of clothes falling off was always very sexy. She also fed me lines about wanting to make the poor look rich and the rich look poor and how a man on a mountain top tapping two sticks together makes a much bigger noise than all our electronic music. 

 

When my ten minute time slot was over - she was doing several interviews that afternoon - she shook my hand and asked once more for my name, expressing her hope that we would meet again one day. Sadly, however, that never happened (by the time I got to know McLaren the following year, his personal and professional partnership with Westwood was rapidly disintegrating).

 

As for the article I wrote based on my short interview, that was never published - despite the fact that my editor thought highly of it. 

 

Again, I'm pretty sure the fashion department had a hand in this decision, although I was later told it was because I was an unpaid intern and didn't have membership of the NUJ. Either way, it was a pity because one of Vivienne's assistants had given me some fantastic photos to use with the piece (which I foolishly submitted along with the typed text and never saw again).  

      

If, in later years, Westwood became - like so many of the punk generation - increasingly irritating and irrelevant, the fact remains she was an astonishing and massively influential figure. It was always a joy to wear her clothes - I still have three of her suits hanging in my wardrobe - and always a thrill to walk through the door at 430 King's Road, even long after it had ceased to be the centre of events. 

 

And speaking of the Worlds End store ... With Westwood's passing coming just six months after that of Jordan's and twelve years after Malcolm's, it is time now, I think - without wanting to sound too Audenesque - to finally stop the spinning hands on the giant 13-hour clock and shut up shop ... [3]

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Screenshot from the BBC News Channel announcing the death of Vivienne Westwood (29 Dec 2022) The image is very much how she looked when I met her in June 1982 and may well have been taken in at her studio around this date.

[2] This recollection is based on entries in The Von Hell Diaries (Volume 3: 1982). 

[3] I suppose that decision will be up to Andreas Kronthaler, who I suspect will almost certainly wish to continue the Westwood brand, over which he has exercised creative control for many years.       

 

Scattered Pictures of the Smiles We Left Behind: In Memory of Four Treadwellians

Thomas, Meni, Mark & Bianca

Treadwells, 34, Tavistock Street, London, WC2 [1]

(c. 2006) 

  

I. 

 

I rarely think back to what might be termed the Treadwell's period (2004-2008), but, when I do, I find it is with increasing fondness for the curious little bookshop and its owner Christina Harrington, and, of course, for the handful of people who used to assemble in the basement to listen to my philosophical reflections on topics including sex/magic, thanatology, and zoophilia [2].  

 

Some of the regular attendees to these lectures soon formed a magic circle with whom I would go for drinks and discussion afterwards. As this group had around a dozen members [3], the Little Greek used to jokingly refer to them as the disciples, though I'm sure none of these highly individual characters recognised themselves as such or thought they had anything to learn from me. 

 

 

II. 

 

Sadly, very few pictures were ever taken at the Store when I was there; 2004-08 was just prior to everyone carrying a smartphone and sharing photos and video footage on social media.

 

However, in a rare snap reproduced above, we see four members of the Treadwell's contingent all looking surprisingly cheerful for some reason [4]. 

 

The gang of four are:

 

(i) Thomas the Austrian; an artist and genuine oddball, whose chief pleasure was telling me how wrong I was about everything and whom I used to imagine as a bald-headed bird of prey picking at my entrails ...

 

(ii) Melpomeni Kermanidou; a beautiful and talented singer-songwriter from Down Under, who, knowing how I hated the sight and sound of people clapping, once threw rose petals at the end of one of my talks - an act for which I will always adore her ...

 

(iii) Mark Jeoffroy; an occultist, poet and illustrator with finely curved lips and a boyish, slightly sinister charm; his eyes sparkling with the conceit of his own corruption, he told me once he was the spiritual heir (if not the actual reincarnation) of William Blake.     

 

(iv) Bianca Madison (aka the Great Dane); a former model turned therapist, nutritionist, activist, author and public speaker, who encourages everyone to learn how to love themselves and live inspired, healthy and compassionate lives (i.e., become a bit more like her).    

 

Wherever they are and whatever they're doing now, I hope they're just as happy as they seem to be in this picture and that - one fine day - we all get to meet up once more ... 

 

Notes

 

[1] Treadwell's moved from this address to 33, Store Street, WC1, in 2011. Those who cannnot visit one of London's friendliest and most fascinating bookshops in person, can go to treadwells-london.com

 

[2] See the post from 4 December 2012 entited 'The Treadwell's Papers' for details of the thirty papers presented at the store during 2004-08 (and the four additional stand-alone papers presented in 2011-12): click here. 

      Readers might also find Gary Lachman's 2007 article in The Independent on Treadwell's interesting, providing as it does an insider's insight into the store at this time. Lachman is spot-on to argue that what set Treadwell's apart from other occult shops is that it was a centre where people from different intellectual and artistic backgrounds could meet and exchange ideas. For this, all credit must be give to Christina, who conjured up an environment in which the world of philosophy and literature could flirt with occultism and pagan witchcraft.

      See: Gary Lachman,  'Pagan pages: One bookshop owner is summoning all sorts to her supernatural salons', The Independent (16 September 2007): click here.

 

[3] Other Treadwellians in my little circle included Steve Ash, Tom Bland, David Blank, Dawn Garland, Annette Herold, Simon Image, Sara the Satanist, Fiona Spence, and - of course - Simon Thomas. 

 

[4] We know from the clock on the wall that my presentation would have just finished, so perhaps that explains their joy; now they were free to go off and enjoy themselves in the pub.         

 

 

 

Why I'm Not a Chap

thechap.co.uk

 

As readers of Torpedo the Ark will know, I have long advocated a revolt into style and celebrated the figure of the dandy. 

 

And yet, I've never quite bought into the charmed uprising advocated by The Chap; a British magazine, founded in 1999, that is dedicated to the gentlemanly way of life and seeks to defend old-fashioned values whilst, paradoxically, pioneering new trends in fashion. 

It's not the way of life or world-view being advocated that makes me uncomfortable, however. 

 

It is, rather, the chaps themselves whom I think suspect. For whilst the writers and editors of The Chap insist that they take their anarcho-dandyism [1] seriously, Gustav Temple and company ultimately remind me Tom Hodgkinson and chums at The Idler [2]. 

 

In other words, they are basically middle-class professionals [3] self-consciously trying to be something they're not, whilst satirising the sincere behaviour and beliefs of those who belonged to earlier generations. 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Anarcho-dandyism is a particularly irksome contradiction in terms. However, those who wish to know more can click here to read The Chap Manifesto, or here to learn about several events staged by chaps over the years in order to protest the vulgarity of the modern world.     

 

[2] See the post of 29 December, 2012 entitled 'How to be an Idle Cunt': click here. 

      To be fair, it should be pointed out that Gustav Temple rejects any comparison between The Chap and The Idler. In a 2004 interview with Andrew Stevens for 3:AM  he says, for example, that whilst The Idler has its good points, its appeal is essentially more to contemporary slackers than to traditional gentlemen. To read this interview, click here. 

 

[3] Chaps mostly seem to inhabit the privileged worlds of publishing, journalism, academia, marketing and communications ... etc. They're quirky, but without being twisted; eccentric, but LinkedIn at the same time. You can meet these bourgeois anarchists (if you want to) by clicking here. 

 

     

Rosebud

Illustration of the clitoris by Fiona Tung / The Varsity

thevarsity.ca

 

 

I. 

 

I've never actually watched Citizen Kane (1941) from start to finish; like W. H. Auden and Kenneth Williams, I'm not a fan of Welles's masterpiece [1]; nor, to be honest, do I particularly like his other work (apart from the TV ads for sherry and Sandeman's port).

 

However, I am aware that the key to understanding the psychology of its protagonist Charles Foster Kane - a fictional character inspired by real-life publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst - is the single word that he utters on his deathbed: Rosebud. 

 

Audiences eventually discover that this is simply the trade name of a sledge that Kane loved to play on as a boy. 

 

In other words, we are asked to accept that, in Kane's subconscious mind, Rosebud signified childhood happiness and reminded him of his mother's love, which, for a film that is supposed to be the greatest ever made, is almost laughably trite - as Welles himself acknowledged when interviewed in 1960:

 

"I'm ashamed of Rosebud. I think it’s a rather tawdry device. It’s the thing I like least in Kane. It’s kind of a dollar book Freudian gag. It doesn’t stand up very well. " [2]

 

 

II.

 

Perhaps looking to add a little more interest and intrigue to the origin of the term, Gore Vidal suggested in an essay published in 1989 that Rosebud was actually the pet name that Hearst gave to his mistress's clitoris [3]. 

I don't know if that's true - and I don't know if Vidal himself really believed it to be true. It seems doubtful; for one thing, how would Welles have had knowledge of this secret term used between lovers? It's difficult to imagine that either Hearst or Marion Davies would have shared such intimate information with him. 

 

In a letter to the New York Review discussing his claim [4], Vidal admits that, whilst he had met both parties, neither Hearst nor Davies ever volunteered this detail. However, he points out that the latter was an alcoholic who liked to surround herself with celebrity friends and fellow drinkers, sharing stories about their lives, and that one of these friends was Herman Mankiewicz; i.e., the man who co-wrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane ...

 

Of course, that still doesn't prove that Rosebud was in fact Hearst's hypocorism for Davies's clitoris. But, as Vidal says, if it was that would certainly explain in part Hearst's furious response to the film - which he attempted to suppress - and his deep hatred of Welles.

 

Ironically, of course, it could be that Welles himself had no idea of any of this. He always gave Mankiewicz full credit for coming up with the idea of Rosebud and it's possible the latter didn't tell Welles the real significance of the term (that he was essentially playing a joke not on Hearst, but on Welles).

 

I suppose we'll probably never know for sure the full meaning of Rosebud - if it is, in fact, anything other than the trade name of a sledge [5]. And in that sense the joke's on all of us who waste time thinking about it ...

  

 

Notes

 

[1] After watching the film on 29 Jan 1942, a 15-year old Kenneth Williams described Citizen Kane in his diary as "boshey rot". See The Kenneth Williams Diaries, ed. Russell Davies, (Harper Collins, 1993), p. 2.

 

[2] Click here for the section from the interview with Welles on the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) in which he explains his dislike of the Rosebud device used in Citizen Kane. 

 

[3] Gore Vidal, 'Remembering Orson Welles', The New York Review (1 June 1989): click here. 

 

[4] Gore Vidal's letter on what might be termed the Rosebud controversy, was written in reply to a letter sent to the Editors of The New York Review by Jay Topkis (17 Aug 1989): click here. 

[5] A gay friend tells me that Rosebud actually indicates that Kane had a liking for sodomy and that Welles was a closeted homosexual; for it seems that the term refers not only to the clitoris, but to the anus (and/or the pinkish-red rectal tissue protruding from the anus following a prolapse due to frequent penetration of the latter).

 

 

To watch the official 1941 trailer for Citizen Kane, written and directed by Orson Welles, click here. Unlike other trailers, it doesn't feature any footage from the actual movie, but offers itself as a short spoof documentary on the film's production.   

 

 

Nurses

Two of my favourite cinematic nurses: 

Shirley Eaton as Dorothy Denton in Carry On Nurse (1959) 

and Juliet Mills as Joanna Jones in Nurse on Wheels (1963) 

 

 

I.

 

Should striking nurses in the UK be given a pay increase and improved working conditions?

 

Probably. 

 

But they should also, in my view, be subject to much higher levels of professional and personal conduct. Appearance, for example, should be made a matter of the highest priority; no one wants nurses with tattoos, piercings, or inappropriate hairstyles. 

 

And they should also return to wearing traditional uniforms, consisting of a dress, apron and cap, instead of slobbing about like overgrown toddlers in brightly-coloured, gender-neutral, polycotton short-sleeved tops and drawstring trousers (known by the ugly-sounding name scrubs) [1].

 

 

II. 

 

Nurses like to believe that people love and respect them and that this is a given.

 

However, such love and respect is a relatively recent thing; prior to the mid-19th century, nurses were thought to be immodest - if not actually shameless - women who, like prostitutes, offered intimate services and who were often drunk when providing such [2]. Even Florence Nightingale conceded that nursing was often the profession chosen by those women who were too stupid, too lazy, or too old to go on the game. 

 

It was only from the 1860s that educated women began to train as nurses and their status slowly began to improve (although their pay remained low and their working hours long) and only after the Second World War, with the establishment of the National Health Service in 1948, that public affection for nurses was universal and unreserved; as was clear from their portrayal in films such as Carry On Nurse (1959) and Nurse on Wheels (1963) [3].     

 

But, sadly, this world has passed. And whilst nurses on the picket line today know how to shout and make wage demands, they have no idea that their role was once understood to be a spiritual calling ...   

 

 

Notes

 

[1] A traditional nurse's uniform is not just worn for practical reasons; it has symbolic value, signifying status, for example. And it's also designed (like a nun's habit) to enhance the allure of the wearer. The fact that nurses have decided to abandon such uniforms - first came the disposable paper caps in the 1970s and the plastic aprons in the 1980s, then came the scrubs imported from America in the 1990s - has been a grave error. 

      For a post on women in uniforms, published back in April 2014, click here. 

 

[2] The cultural stereotype of the naughty nurse continues to circulate in both the popular and pornographic imaginations and is undoubtedly rooted in this 19th-century idea that nurses were akin to prostitutes (i.e., women with loose morals and a liking for gin). 

      The image of the nurse as a ministering angel who stoically tends to the sick and dying out of Christian duty - a noble and devout being akin to a nun - was developed in part to counter the above, although it is simply the other side of the same coin and ultimately reinforces the virgin/whore dichotomy.  

      For a post on this topic, published back in April 2013, click here. 

 

[3] Carry on Nurse - the second in the long-running film series - starred Shirley Eaton as Staff Nurse Dorothy Denton, alongside many of the regular Carry On team (including Hattie Jacques as Matron). It was the UK's top-grossing film of 1959 and, with an audience of 10.4 million, had the highest cinema viewing of any of the Carry On films. Click here for the trailer on YouTube.

      Nurse on Wheels, starring Juliet Mills as District Nurse Joanna Jones, shares several members of its cast and production team with the Carry On films - like Carry On Nurse, it was directed by Gerald Thomas - but is not an official entry in the series and doesn't quite have the same level of campness or sauciness. Click here to watch the opening titles on YouTube.

      I am aware, of course, that such films do not necessarily depict the reality of nursing or of English life in this period - just as I'm aware that there are (so-called) male nurses.   

   

 

Just Because the Sky Has Turned a Pretty Shade of Orange and Red Doesn't Mean You Can Simply Point a Camera and Shoot ... Or Does It?

Golden sunset and red sunrise over Harold Hill 

(SA / Dec 2022) 

 

 

I. 

 

For many serious photographers, these two snaps taken from my bedroom window - a golden sunset and a red sunrise - constitute perfect examples of cliché. 

 

That enormous numbers of people enjoy looking at such pictures doesn't alter the fact that images of dusk and dawn have virtually zero aesthetic value; their mass production and popularity only confirming their banality. 

 

As one commentator notes: 

 

"Their very ubiquity is what seems to repel; photography has tainted what it sought to cherish through overuse. It miniaturises natural grandeur and renders it kitsch." [1]

 

If you're a reader of Walter Benjamin, you might explain how mechanical reproduction devalues the aura - by which is meant something like the uniqueness - of an object or event [2]; if you're a fan of D. H. Lawrence, you'll probably start shouting about Kodak vision and how this prevents us from seeing reality, just as cliché inhibits the forming of new perspectives [3].  

 

Now, whilst sympathetic to both of theses authors, I also want to be able to take my snaps and share them with others in good conscience. And so I feel obliged to challenge those who are hostile to photography per se - even if, on philosophical grounds, I share their concerns.

 

And I also feel obliged to challenge those who are dismissive of certain genres of amateur photography - pictures of flowers, or cats, or of the sun's risings and settings - out of cultural snobbery; i.e., those who sneer at aesthetically naive individuals and speak of the wrong kind of people making the wrong kind of images.

           

 

II. 

 

I'm thinking, for example, of the Marxist academic, writer, photographer and curator, Julian Stallabrass, who is interested in the relations between art, politics and popular culture and who sneeringly entitled a chapter of his 1996 work on the widespread popularity of amateur photography 'Sixty Billion Sunsets' [4].

 

As Annebella Pollen notes: 

 

"Stallabrass's denigration of mass photographic practice is based on what he perceives to be its overwhelmingly conventionalised sameness (unlike elite art practices, which are positively polarised as avant-garde, creative and distinctive)." [5]

 

In other words, because Stallabrass sees every sunset photograph as essentially the same, he dismisses them all as "sentimental visual confectionary indicative of limited aesthetic vision and an undeveloped practice" [6]; in other words, stereotypical shit. 

Unfortunately, this attitude is echoed by many other critics and theorists convinced of their own cultural superiority. If you thought postmodernism did away with such snobbery, you'd be mistaken - which is a pity. 

 

For whilst I may agree that just because the sky has turned a pretty shade of orange and red one is nevertheless required to do more than simply point a camera and shoot in order to produce an image that is also a work of art, there's nothing wrong with just taking a snap and plenty of snaps have genuine charm and, yes, even beauty. 

 

In the end, even a bad photograph can seduce and what Barthes calls the punctum - i.e., that which is most poignant (even nuanced) in a picture - is often the failure, fault, cliché, or imperfection. Perhaps, in this digital age of imagery shared via social media, we therefore need to rethink what constitutes a good or bad photograph.    

And, ultimately, Stallabrass is simply wrong: no two sunsets (or dawns) are ever the same and no two photographs of sunsets (or dawns) are ever the same; there is an eternal return of difference (not of the same or to the same). 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Annebella Pollen, 'When is a cliché not a cliché? Reconsidering Mass-Produced Sunsets', eitherand.org - click here. 

 

[2] See Walter Benjamin's essay 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction' (1935), which can be found in Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt, trans. Harry Zorn, (Bodley Head, 2015).

 

[3] See D. H. Lawrence's essay 'Art and Morality' (1925), which can be found in Study of Thomas Hardy and Other Essays, ed. Bruce Steele, (Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 161-68. 

 

[4] Julian Stallabrass, Gargantua: Manufactured Mass Culture, (Verso, 1996). 

 

[5] Annebella Pollen, 'When is a cliché not a cliché? Reconsidering Mass-Produced Sunsets', op. cit.

 

[6] Ibid.

 

 

On the Question of Quality Versus Quantity

 

   

I. 

 

Good people always insist: It's quality rather than quantity that matters [1].

 

You'll be a much happier and more authentic human being, they say, if you forget about numbers, stop being acquisitive, and focus instead on things that have real value and substance, such as meaningful relationships.

 

It's a kind of moral minimalism in which the related mantra less is more is used to justify a small circle of friends, or the fact that one hasn't read many books. 

 

Surprisingly, even D. H. Lawrence, who is usually quick to attack the base-born stupidity of proverbial wisdom, buys into this idea. But whilst he may be right to argue that it is better to read one good book six times rather than six bad books once [2], we feel obliged to point out the possibility of reading six good books six times.

 

That's a greater quantity of books - and many more readings - but surely that's better than simply reading one text over and over and insisting with monomaniacal intensity on its value. For that's precisely the error religiously-minded people fall into when they mistakenly decide that all they ever need read is a single holy text. 

 

Ultimately, it's not a binary choice: you can have quality and quantity. In fact, as we'll explain below, you can't have the former without the latter ...

  

II. 

 

Speaking as an evolutionary biologist, I can say that nature massively favours quantity over quality, which is why it can be so outrageously profligate. It's not necessarily the fittest who survive in this life, it's those who have the numbers to stake a claim on the future. 

 

And by modelling populations over long timescales, a recent Oxford study showed that the most important determinant of evolutionary success was not good genes, but the widest number of genetically available mutations [3].   

 

Brilliant individuals come and go like flowers; they simply don't have time to fix in the population or determine the evolutionary outcome of a race.   

And speaking as an artist, I can also confirm the fact that the creation of great works rests upon a large body of work. That's why, for example, it was necessary for Picasso to paint some 60,000 pictures in order to produce a small number of works - probably fewer than a 100 - that are considered masterpieces. 

 

This doesn't mean the vast bulk of the work is worthless or a waste of time; on the contrary, it was vital. For it was by producing works in such quantity that Picasso was able to learn, experiment, and evolve as an artist. Most importantly, it allowed him to make mistakes; for just as quality rests upon quantity, success rests upon repeated failure.   

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The saying is often attributed to the Roman philosopher (and proto-Christian) Seneca; see his Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XLV: 'On sophistical argumentation', line 1. Click here to read online.    

 

[2] See Lawrence's discussion of books and reading in relation to this question of quality (or real value) versus quantity in Apocalypse and the Writings on Revelation, ed. Mara Kalnins, (Cambridge University Press, 1980), p. 60.  

 

[3] The study is published in the journal PLOS ONE and was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. It's lead author is Dr Ard Louis, Reader in Theoretical Physics at Oxford University. For an interview with the latter discussing the key finding of the study - i.e., that  life's evolution is all about arrival of the frequent, rather than survival of the fittest - click here.