On Unity, Diversity and Unity in Diversity

"Our ability to achieve perfect unity in diversity 

will be the beauty and the test of our civilisation." [1]

 

  

I. 

 

Whilst I wouldn't quite define myself as a cockney cowboy, nevertheless, like Jimmy Pursey, I grew up in a time and place in which solidarity was a value the working class prided themselves on and the idea of strength through unity was an unquestionable truth on both the left and right of the political spectrum [2]. 

 

If the kids - or the workers of the world, or the German people - were only united, then they'd never be divided and all would come good; unity not only making strong, but happy in a state of harmony and wholeness. 

 

 

II. 

 

Of course, such idealism is highly suspect; a dangerous utopian (and authoritarian) fantasy. From an early age, I was always more excited by conflict and controversy rather than seeking consensus; difference and diversity, not uniformity. That's why the McLarenesque model of anarchy promoted by the Sex Pistols appealed more than the progressive politics of punk social workers, the Clash.

 

However, these days I roll my eyes to heaven whenever I hear the word diversity; particularly when it's tied to equity and inclusion and falls from the mouth of someone who ultimately desires unity in diversity - i.e., a form of dialectical synthesis in which diverse characteristics are finally unified (and utilised) in some higher goal or purpose.  

 

Like many other terms that were once part of a radical vocabulary - otherness, queerness, and even the prefix trans - diversity has been co-opted by woke humanists espousing multiculturalism and waving rainbow flags, whilst all the time working to create a global citizenship, who belong to One World (and One World Order). 

 

In other words, its the same old moral monomania or idée fixe: humanity united in Peace and Love. 

 

Personally, I'd rather witness a "vivid recoil into separateness" [3] and singular being; for I hate the attempt to deny the starry uniqueness of the individual in the name of false diversity.    

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Quote attributed to the holy fool and hypocrite Mahatma Gandhi.

 

[2] This idea - beloved of fascists and communists alike - originally derived from an ancient Greek motto attributed to Homer: ισχύς εν τη ενώσει (power lies in unity).  

 

[3] D. H. Lawrence, 'Future States', The Poems, Vol. I., ed. Christopher Pollnitz, (Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 526. For Lawrence, this recoil will mark the end of universalism and cosmopolitanism.

 

 

Readers interested in what Nietzsche has to say on the topic of diversity should see the post of 21 July 2018: click here. 

Reflections on a Photo of a Horse's Head - A Guest Post by Louise Mason

Horsehead (SA/2023)

 

 

Horses' heads vary hugely in their size, shape, and character, which partly explains why they have long fascinated artists ...

 

One thinks, for example, of the carved marble horse head by the Ancient Greek sculptor Pheidias; ears flattened, jaw gaping, nostrils flaring, eyes bulging, it's both beautiful and terrifying  at the same time. Believed to date to around 438-432 BC, it's said to be one of the noble nags that drew the chariot of the moon goddess Selene [1]. 

 

One thinks also of the far more recent work by Nic Fiddian-Green; a giant bronze sculpture of a horse's head entitled Still Water (2011). Located amidst the endless noise and movement of traffic in central London, it provides a pleasing contrast in its stillness and silence [2]. 

 

But, looking at the powerful image above by Stephen Alexander, primarily makes me think of the serpentine aspect of horses when they lower their "strangely naked equine heads" [3], press their ears back, and extend their long, muscular necks, moving the latter from side-to-side in an aggressive gesture known as snaking [4].

Notes

 

[1] Part of the Elgin Marbles, this sculpture - commonly known as the Selene Horse - can be found in the British Museum: click here for details.

 

[2] This free-standing work is 33ft high and weighs in at an impressive 20 tonnes. Originally installed at Marble Arch in 2011, it was relocated to Achille’s Way, near Hyde Park Corner, in May 2021. Fiddian-Green, is a British sculptor who specialises in making lifelike horses' heads, having been inspired whilst a student at Chelsea College of Arts by the Selene Horse. Click here to visit his website.

 

[3] D. H. Lawrence, St. Mawr, in St. Mawr and Other Stories, ed. Bran Finney, (Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 35. 

 

[4] Snaking is a common form of herding behavior, primarily displayed by stallions in the wild, keen to assert their dominance over mares. However, it has also been observed in domesticated horses, including geldings (castrated stallions).

 

  

Why Bambi is Forever Being Killed in My Imagination Thanks to the Sex Pistols

My photo of a local fawn and a poster for the Sex Pistols'

film soundtrack The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1979)

 

Some readers may recall a post from last year in which I attempted to illustrate Oscar Wilde's anti-mimetic contention that life imitates art, with reference to a moth's wing which appeared to incorporate the Cambridge Rapist motif used by Jamie Reid in his work for the Sex Pistols [1]. 

 

But as someone pointed out at the time, seeing a human face - even, as in this instance, a masked human face - in an object of any variety (be it natural or artificial, animate or inanimate) is a common psychological phenomenon [2], which tells us something interesting about how the brain works, but doesn't really lend support to Wilde's theory. 

 

And that's fair enough, I suppose. 

 

Thus, maybe what the above post primarily indicates is that my personal obsession with the Sex Pistols is such that I often view the world through a punk prism. Take, for example, what happened the other day when walking past the deer herd who have colonised what was once a local playing field ...

 

Seeing the little deer pictured above, immediately triggered thoughts of the shocking image of a dead fawn used to promote the Sex Pistols' film (and film soundtrack) The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle [3]. This, in turn, made me start to sing the chorus from the curious track by Eddie Tenpole: 'Who Killed Bambi?' [4]. 

 

I can't remember who said it, but it seems to be true; the songs we loved at sixteen, we'll remember and continue to love for the rest of our lives (even those that have become almost unlistenable).

 

 

Notes

 

[1] See the post dated 13 July 2022 and entitled 'Punk Moth (Or How the Cambridge Rapist Motif Haunts the Natural World)': click here.

 

[2] Once considered a symptom of psychosis, pareidolia, as it's known, is now understood to be hardwired into every brain by evolution; we all attempt to impose a meaningful interpretation on the world and to recognise ourselves in things and patterns of light and shade. See the post dated 4 June 2015 and entitled 'Pareidolia and Prosopagnosia': click here.

 

[3] Readers who share my obsession with the Sex Pistols will be aware that Who Killed Bambi? was originally the title of a film featuring the band, due to be released in 1978, directed by Russ Meyer from a script by Roger Ebert and Malcolm McLaren. After this project was abandoned, McLaren eventually made The Great Rock and Roll Swindle with director Julien Temple, the trailer for which included the title shot of a deer being killed, a scene that was not included in the finished film. A song, however, with the title 'Who Killed Bambi?' did feature in the movie, sung by Eddie Tenpole (see note 4 below). Additional footage from Who Killed Bambi? was also used in Temple's documentary on the Sex Pistols, The Filth and the Fury (2000). 

[4] Click here for the album version of the song and here to see Tenpole (or Tadpole, as Irene Handl amusingly calls him) performing the track in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle film. I have written about 'Who Killed Bambi?' previously on Torpedo the Ark: click here. 

Notes from a Drama Workshop ...

Poet and playwright Síomón Solomon 

 discussing his audio drama Hölderlin's Poltergeists 

at Queen Mary University of London (9 June 2023)

  

I.

 

Whilst attending a table read of selected scenes from Síomón Solomon's Hölderlin's Poltergeists (2021) [1], I was struck by the idea that madness often manifests itself as the hearing of multiple voices, whereas, on the other hand, sane individuals are those who listen faithfully (and in compliance) to the voice of reason (or, as it is sometimes referred to, common sense). 

 

In other words, we might define insanity as a form of disobedience, i.e., an inability (or refusal) to turn towards (and heed) the sound of a unified voice (be it of man or God) which speaks the Truth (as an expression of moral logic), and sanity as a form logocentricity. 

 

This perhaps helps to explain why certain philosophers and artists are fascinated by madness and write in favour of polyvocality, straining their ears to hear multiple voices whispering in many alien tongues, where others like to discern but one voice speaking clearly in a comprehensible manner.       

 

 

II.

 

Academics interested in the history (or, perhaps better to say, histories) of mental ill-health are also keen these days to "place the voices of previously silent, marginalised and disenfranchised individuals at the heart of their analyses" [2] - to let the mad speak for themselves, as it were, and celebrate neurodiversity as just another form of queerness. 

 

Whether this is as productive (and as radical) as some believe, I don't know ...

 

For whilst I'm quite happy to reflect on strangeness and listen to psychotic voices - even to the howling of wolves, or the loud rumble of thunder - in order to grasp something of a reality that isn't exclusively defined by human reason, I'm not sure we can (or should) re-imagine our own identities on the delusions of a mad poet calling himself Scardanelli ...  

 

 

Notes

 

[1] I have written several posts on Síomón Solomon's astonishing drama for voices, a work that is not merely a translation from the German of Stephan Hermlin's radio play, Scardanelli, but an extended remix. Click here to read a selection of such. 

      The table read took place at Queen Mary University of London, in Mile End, as part of a two-day arts and mental health event on the theme of queering boundaries: click here for details.  

 

[2] Those who are interested in this might like to take a look at Voices in the History of Madness, a collection of interdisciplinary essays ed. Robert Ellis, Sarah Kendal, and Steven J. Taylor, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021). I quote here from the introduction to this work. 

      I would also encourage readers to check out the following article by Allan Beveridge, 'Voices of the mad: patients' letters from the Royal Edinburgh Asylum, 1873-1908', in Psychological Medicine, Vol. 27, Issue 4, (Cambridge University Press, July 1997), pp. 899-908. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S003329179700490X 

On Dis/Obedience

Portrait of le poète maudit Síomón Solomon

Stephen Alexander (2023) [1]

 

 

According to the Satanist Simon Solomon, at the root of all human sin lies a refusal to listen to the Word of God. This, essentially, is the meaning of disobedience; the turning of a deaf ear to the Holy Spirit. 

 

And, of course, as a natural born anarchist and self-styled anti-Christ, I'm instinctively disobedient; neither wishing to comply with nor conform to any external authority. Like Nietzsche, I fear that those who are too weak to command themselves and lay down their own law, will ultimately submit to tyranny and come to desire their own oppression (i.e., that a culture of obedience breeds fascism).

 

However, Nietzsche also says that the only thing which makes life worth living is the giving of obedience for a prolonged period in a single direction; that obedience is the essential thing in heaven and earth and the rebellious refusal to obey is merely the sign of a slave. 

 

And, as the cultural commentator James Walker reminds us, D. H. Lawrence also encourages his readers to obey the promptings of their own souls - not so much the voice of God within, but their own genius or demon: "Men are free when they are obeying some deep, inward voice ..." [2], not living in frictional opposition to such. 

 

This passage from his 1923 novel Kangaroo is perhaps the most memorable statement Lawrence makes on the joy of obedience

 

"If a man loves life, and feels the sacredness and mystery of life, then he knows that life is full of strange and subtle and even conflicting imperatives. And a wise man learns to recognize the imperatives as they arise [...] and to obey. But most men bruise themselves to death trying to fight and overcome their own, new, life-born needs, life's ever strange imperatives. The secret of all life is obedience: obedience to the urge that arises in the soul, the urge that is life itself, urging us to new gestures, new embraces, new emotions, new combinations, new creations." [3]

 

 

Notes

 

[1] This portrait - the first in the Simon Solomon Says ... series - is, in part, inspired by Shepard Fairey's phenomenal - and, apparently, phenomenological - Obey Giant project, which transformed from a sticker campaign to a successful clothing line. Click here to visit the official website.  

[2] D. H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature, ed. Ezra Greenspan, Lindeth Vasey and John Worthen, (Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 17.

 

[3] D. H. Lawrence, Kangaroo, ed. Bruce Steele, (Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 112.  

 

 

In the Bullring With Simon & Simone

André Masson: Bullfighting (1937)

 

 

I. 

 

In response to a recent post [1], the Irish poet and playwright Síomón Solomon asks:

 

"I wonder how you square your squeamishness and selective sentimentality when it comes to bursten bowels and the suffering of animals, with your professed admiration for Bataille's Histoire de l'Oeil - a work which powerfully illustrates the (Nietzschean) idea that, in saying Yes to life in all circumstances and under any conditions, one must ultimately give even the most terrible aspects of existence one's blessing?"

 

 

II. 

 

It's a fair question. And I'm grateful to Solomon for raising it - and also for reminding me of the following passage from Bataille's short novel:

 

"There were actually three things about bullfights that fascinated [Simone]: the first, when the bull comes hurtling out  of the bullpen like a big rat; the second, when its horns plunge all the way into the flank of a mare; the third, when that ludicrous, raw-boned mare gallops across the arena [...] dragging a huge, vile bundle of bowels between her thighs in the most dreadful wan colours [...] Simone's heart throbbed fastest when the exploding bladder dropped its mass of mare's urine on the sand in one quick plop." [2]

 

Sixteen-year-old Simone, then, is the literary antithesis of forty-year-old Kate Leslie, the protagonist of Lawence's Plumed Serpent, who is utterly ashamed and nauseated by what she witnesses at the bullring. Having expected a display of bravery and a gallant show, Kate is shocked by the human cowardice and beastliness - not to mention the sight of blood and smell of bursten bowels [3].

 

But Simone loves everything about the bullfight; the heat, the noise, the cruelty, and not least the possibility of seeing a toreador injured by a monstrously lunging bull. 

 

When her wealthy English patron, Sir Edmund, informs her that at one time it was customary to serve the roasted testicles of the slaughtered bulls to guests seated in the front row of the arena, she begs him to obtain for her the balls of the first beast killed - only she insists they be served raw on a white plate, so that she might lift her dress and sit on them.

 

Unfortunately, this last part proves tricky to accomplish unobserved in a crowded arena. And so Simone simply holds the dish containing the two peeled testicles on her lap, until the opportunity arises to bite into one of them and then slowly and surely insert the other into her cunt - a lewd act which coincides with a handsome young bullfighter having an eye gauged out by a bull "with the same force as a bundle of innards from a belly" [4].                  

 

 

III.

 

What, then, are we to make of this - and how, then, are we to answer Síomón Solomon's question?

 

Firstly, I concede that it takes an almost inhuman effort to affirm even a single moment or joy, when it's in the knowledge that by so doing we affirm also every pain, every sadness, every cruelty, and every obscenity. But that's precisely what we are challenged to do by authors, like Bataille, who subscribe to the idea that all things are tied together beneath the same dark sun. 

 

However, affirming the fact that all things are part of a general economy of the whole, does not, as far as I can see make one morally complicit with evil, nor does it oblige one to participate in wrongdoing. 

 

I can affirm, for example, the pride of the peacock and the lust of the goat, without being a preening narcissist or a licentious libertine; I can affirm the vital cruelty of the natural world, without wanting to watch or make animals suffer in the bullring; and I can even read works of transgressive literature without wanting to act out ... 

 

Notes

 

[1] See the post entitled 'I Don't Know as I Get What D. H. Lawrence is Driving at When He Writes of Bursten Bowels ...' (6 June 2023): click here.   

[2] Georges Bataille, Story of the Eye, trans. Joachim Neugroschal, (Penguin Books, 1982), p. 47.

      For readers unfamiliar with this classic work of the porno-philosophical imagination (originally published in 1928), Simone is a sixteen-year-old erotomaniac with a perverse penchant for inserting soft globular objects - be they eyes, testicles, or boiled eggs - into her vagina or between her arse cheeks. Half-way through the novel, she and her lover - a distant cousin who is the tale's anonymous narrator - run away to Spain in order to escape a police investigation in their native France. Here, they are supported by a fabulously rich (and depraved) Englishman, Sir Edmund, who enthusiastically lays on obscene entertainments for the young couple.  

[3] See Chapter 1 of D. H. Lawrence's novel The Plumed Serpent (1926), 'Beginnings of a Bull-Fight'. 

[4] Bataille, Story of the Eye ... p. 54.

I Don't Know as I Get What D. H. Lawrence is Driving at When He Writes of Bursten Bowels ...

Picasso: Gored Horse (1917) 

Graphite pencil on canvas with ochre primer 

(80.2 x 103.3 cm)

Museu Picasso de Barcelona

 

 

I. 

 

As readers of D. H. Lawrence are very well aware, he loves to write about the mysterious nether region of the human body known as the loins - i.e., that zone of libidinal intensity that lies somewhere between the ribs and the pelvis (or above the legs, but below the waist).

 

In fact, the only thing that excites his imagination more are the bowels ... 

 

 

II. 

 

Unfortunately, a bit like Frank O'Hara, I'm not quite sure I always understand what Lawrence is getting at when he uses this term [1]. On the one hand, it seems to be more than simply an anatomical reference to the gastrointestinal tract; indeed, for Lawrence, the bowels seem to be the seat of human compassion from which the deepest desires also spring. 

 

But, on the other hand, Lawrence likes to base his philosophical understanding of the body in biology where possible. So when he talks about the bowels, he is also referring us to the digestive system and those sausage-like organs known as the intestines or entrails. 

 

And, rather like Kenneth Williams, who described his daily bowel movements obsessively in his diaries, Lawrence seems to be plagued by a fear of things not working properly in this region, as we can see in the novel Kangaroo (1923), for example, when the marsupial-like fascist Ben Cooley is shot several times in his "'bloomin' Kangaroo guts'" [2], as one of his followers says.

 

Richard Somers - the book's Lawrentian avatar - visits Cooley in the hospital and can barely disguise his horror and disgust at the thought of ruptured bowels:

 

"Somers found Kangaroo in bed, very yellow, and thin [...] with haunted, frightened eyes. The room had many flowers, and was perfumed with eau de cologne, but through the perfume came an unpleasant, discernible stench. [...]

      Somers could not detach his mind from the slight, yet pervading sickening smell.

      "'My sewers leak,' said Kangaroo bitterly, as if divining the other's thought." [3]

 

Bruce Steele's explanatory note on this is spot-on:

 

"Jack's angry reaction to his leader's having been shot in the stomach and not killed outright probably reflects the First World War soldier's fear of abdominal wounds. In a pre-biotic age, peritonitis was a common and deadly complication of such wounds. While a ruptured bowel could be stitched, contamination of the abdominal cavity was frequently fatal; it would account for  the 'unpleasant, discernible stench' and Kangaroo's diagnosis 'My sewers leak'. If the sniper had deliberately aimed at his stomach rather than his head - which would probably have killed him instantly - it would have been in the knowledge that the victim would almost certainly die a slow and painful death." [4]

 

Of course, whilst being shot in the stomach can lead to a slow and painful death for a man, being disemboweled by the horns of an angry bull can be an equally horrific (and, arguably, even more obscene) way for an elderly horse to die.

 

And so to Mexico City ...   

 

 

III.

 

There are several disturbing scenes in Lawrence's novel The Plumed Serpent (1926), including the opening one set at the plaza de toros [5] - and I'm not referring to the fact that someone in the crowd thought it funny to throw an orange at the bald spot on Owen's sunburnt head.

 

Rather, I'm referring to the following incident involving a blindfolded horse ...

 

"The picador pulled his feeble horse round slowly, to face the bull, and slowly he leaned forward and shoved his lance-point into the bull's shoulder. The bull, as if the horse were a great wasp that had stung him deep, suddenly lowered his head in a jerk of surprise and lifted his horns straight up into the horse's abdomen. And without more ado, over went horse and rider, like a tottering monument upset.

      The rider scrambled from under the horse and went running away with his lance. The old horse, in complete dazed amusement, struggled to rise, as if overcome with dumb incomprehension. And the bull, with a red place on his shoulder welling a trickle of dark blood, stood looking round in equally hopeless amazement.

      But the wound was hurting. He saw the queer sight of the horse half reared from the ground, trying to get to its feet. And he smelled blood and bowels.

      So, rather vaguely, as if not quite knowing what he ought to do, the bull once more lowered his head and pushed his sharp, florishing horns in the horse's belly, working them up and down inside there with a vague sort of satisfaction." [6] 

      

As the novel's protagonist Kate Leslie rightly recognises, this shocking spectacle reveals nothing so much as human cowardice and indecency. She turns her face away in disgust. And when she looks again, "it was to see the horse feebly and dazedly walking out of the ring, with a great ball of its own entrails hanging out of its abdomen and swinging reddish against its own legs as it automatically moved". [7] 

 

But the sordid show isn't over: another horse is brought into the bullring so that it may be publicly disemboweled for the amusement of the crowd:

 

"Kate knew what was coming. Before she could look away, the bull had charged on the limping horse from behind [...] the horse was up-ended absurdly, one of the bull's horns between his hind legs and deep in his inside. Down went the horse, collapsing in front, but his rear was still heaved up, with the bull's horn working vigorously up and down inside him, while he lay on his neck all twisted. And a huge heap of bowels coming out. And a nauseous stench." [8] 

 

 

IV. 

 

I've never been (and wouldn't go) to a bullfight, and so would find it difficult (and disturbing) to visually imagine this scene were it not for the fact that Picasso - a lifelong bullfighting enthusiast - produced the image at the top of this post, after attending a bullfight in Barcelona during his stay in the city in 1917.

 

As the anonymous author of a piece describing this work on the Picasso Museum's website rightly notes:    

 

"In contrast to what he had mostly done on previous occasions, here the artist leaves aside the colourful and festive representation of the spectacle of bullfighting to focus his attention [...] on the solitary agony of the disemboweled horse, which collapses until it falls on its knees in a fetal position or prayer posture that has been compared to that of a fossilised crustacean or bird. Picasso manages to transcribe the animal's stabbing pain by means of its outstretched neck and raised head, looking upwards with a fixed gaze, as if asking for mercy to put an end to its cruel agony, once and for all." [9]

 

The author concludes: 

 

"The drama and cruelty of the scene reaches its zenith with the horn that sprouts from the ground and stands threateningly, waiting for the horse to finish collapsing to then finish it off." [10] 

 

I suppose, to end on a slightly more positive note, it might be mentioned that bullfighting was banned in Catalonia several years ago and the the last bullfight in the region took place in September 2011. [11]

 

However, there are still eight countries in the world where this ancient festival of gore still takes place - Spain, France, Portugal, Mexico, Columbia, Venezuela, Peru, and Ecuador - and every year around 180,000 bulls (and 200 horses) are slaughtered in the ring.

 

 

V. 

 

In sum, I might not get what D. H. Lawrence is driving at when he writes of bursten bowels, but I do know: 

 

(i) I wouldn't want to be shot in the stomach ...

 

(ii) I don't like cruelty to animals ...

 

 

Notes

 

[1] See Frank O'Hara, 'I don't know as I get what D. H. Lawrence is driving at', Selected Poems, ed. Mark Ford, (Alfred A. Knopf, 2009), p. 167. The poem can be read online at allpoetry.com: click here. 

 

[2] D. H. Lawrence, Kangaroo, ed. Bruce Steele, (Cambridge Unversity Press, 1994), p. 317.

 

[3] Ibid., pp. 322-323.    

[4] Bruce Steele's explanatory note to 317:12 of D. H. Lawrence's Kangaroo ... p. 406.

[5] In Lawrence's day, the main bullring in Mexico City was the Toreo de la Condesa. This ancient bullring was replaced in 1946 by the monumental Plaza de toros México, an arena that seats over 41,000 people.

[6] D. H. Lawrence, The Plumed Serpent, ed. L. D. Clark, pp. 15-16.

[7] Ibid., p. 16. 

[8] Ibid. 

[9-10] See the text that accompanies Picasso's Gored Horse (1917) on the Museu Picasso de Barcelona website: click here. 

[11] The ban was officially annulled for being unconstitutional by Spain's highest court in October 2016. However, despite the overturning of the ban, no further bullfight has taken place in Catalonia. 

 

 

On Constipation and Calomel in D. H. Lawrence's Aaron's Rod (1922)

  

 

When Aaron Sisson gets the flu and is forced to sweat it out in bed for days on end, one of the unfortunate consequences is the cessation of regular bowel movements. 

 

A local quack is summoned and gives him a dose of the mineral calomel, a popular medicine made from mercury chloride often used as a purgitive to relieve constipation and to treat numerous other illnesses that negatively impact the gastrointestinal tract [1]. 

 

Usually, as in this case, the calomel was administered orally in the form of  a little blue pill, the mercury chloride being mixed with either licorice or sugar to help sweeten the experience of, essentially, being poisoned. 

 

Unfortunately, the doctor gives Aaron a rather strong dose and this causes the patient to have a rough time: "His burning, parched, poisoned inside was twisted and torn." [2]

This isn't Lawrence indulging in hyperbole for literary effect; many poor sods given calomel experienced terrible side effects, including cramping, vomiting, and bloody diarrhea (mistakenly read as signs the treatment was working). 

 

Indeed, when given in extremely high doses, calomel led to mercury poisoning, which could result in permanent deformities and even death. For example, some patients ended up with gangrene of the mouth, thanks to the mercury in the medicine causing the tissue of the cheeks and gums to rot and teeth to fall out.

 

Thankfully, with the development of safer and superior cathartics in the mid-twentieth century, it was determined that, due to its toxicity, calomel was causing more harm than good and it was removed from medical supply shelves. 

 

It is now only used in certain insecticides and fungicides ...

 

            

Notes

 

[1] Calomel first entered modern medicine in the West in the early 17th-century. By the 19th century, it was viewed as a miracle drug and used against a wide range of diseases, including syphilis, bronchitis, cholera, gout, tuberculosis, influenza, and cancer. During the 18th and early 19th centuries pharmacists used it in moderation; but by the late 1840s, it was being prescribed in heroic doses up to four times a day.

 

[2] D. H. Lawrence, Aaron's Rod, ed. Mara Kalnins, (Cambridge University Press, 1988). p. 94.

 

 

Sometimes, Better a Dead Mountain Lion Than a Live Dog

Artist Heide Hatry & 

Luna the Mountain Lion (2023) [1]

 

 

I.

 

According to the author of Ecclesiastes, a living dog is better than a dead lion [9:4]. 

 

However, as the New York based German artist Heide Hatry knows, that's not always true; sometimes it is the deceased who have something vital to teach us, which is why her long fascination with corpses has often resulted in work of great insight.

 

Her latest muse (and family member) happens to be a stuffed puma [2], which interests because D. H. Lawrence also once drew inspiration from the long slim body and round face of a dead mountain lion, killed by two foolishly smiling hunters, in Lobo Canyon, New Mexico, on a cold winter's morning.    

 

He concludes his beautiful and misanthropic poem on the subject:

 

And I think in this empty world there was room for me and a mountain lion. 

And I think in the world beyond, how easily we might spare a million or two of humans 

And never miss them. 

Yet what a gap in the world, the missing white-frost face of that slim yellow mountain lion! [3]

 

Which is, of course, all-too-true ... 

 

 

II. 

 

According to the Nature Conservancy, there are only around 50,000 mountain lions left in the world; 30,000 in the United States and 20,000 in the rest of the Americas. Contrast this with the fact that the human population is believed to have reached 8 billion in November 2022. 

 

That's 1 mountain lion for every 160,000 people ...

 

And yet, 3000 of these magificent cats are still killed by the latter in the United States each year. Again, compare that with the fact that in the last 100 years there have been fewer than 130 officially documented cougar attacks on people, of which only 27 were fatal (which is less than the number of bee sting fatalities in the same period). 

 

It's very depressing: for whilst I still insist that even a dead puma is at least as fascinating as any of the 470 million mutts kept as pets around the world, it would be nice if there were a significantly higher number of live mountain lions - yes, even at the expense of one or two million human beings [4].

 

     

Notes

 

[1] This photo, taken from Hatry's newsletter, is also used as a profile picture to advertise her MFA Art Practice Lecture Series at the School of Visual Arts (NYC), where she is currently the artist in residence. Click here for further details. 

[2] Mountain lions are known for good reason as the cat of many names - in fact, they are listed in dictionaries under more names than any other animal in the world. Depending on the region and native language, common names for the American lion include cougar, panther, puma, and catamount. 

 

[3] D. H. Lawrence, 'Mountain Lion', in Poems, Vol. I, ed. Christopher Pollnitz, (Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 351-352. The poem can easily be found in numerous places online; click here, for example. 

 

[4] Readers who agree, might like to support the work of the Mountain Lion Foundation (a non-profit organisation protecting mountain lions and their habitat): click here.       

More Philosophy on the Catwalk (With Reference to the Case of Andrea Sachs and her Cerulean Blue Sweater)

 

Anne Hathaway as Andrea Sachs and Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestly

The Devil Wears Prada (dir. David Frankel, 2006)

 

 

When writing about fashion, it's important to do so with reference to politics and philosophy; to show, for example, how the sartorial expression of identity is never purely an individual matter. 

 

For as Miranda Priestly so memorably instructs a smirking Andrea, no one pulls on a lumpy blue sweater as a matter of personal preference [1]. 

 

That's not to argue that the way we look is determined and regulated in the minutest detail by the fashion industry, or that human beings lack a certain degree of free will.

 

But it is to indicate how those who say they don't care about the dictates of fashion are never truly exempt from the latter and that, to paraphrase Schopenhauer, whilst we are free to wear whatever we want, we are not free to choose what we want [2].

 

Notes

 

[1] I'm referring to the scene in The Devil Wears Prada in which Miranda Priestly (editor of a hugely influential fashion magazine) instructs her fledgling assistant Andrea Sachs (a college graduate who aspires to be a serious journalist) on how her unstylish dress sense doesn't reveal that she is above (or outside of) the world of fashion. 

      In fact, quite the opposite; it exposes her as an unwitting fashion victim, naive about the importance of design. Objecting to Andy's use of the word stuff to describe (and dismiss) fashionable clothes, Miranda launches into a devastating monologue:

 

"Oh, okay. I see, you think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select, I don't know, that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue. It's not turquiose, it's not lapis. It's actually cerulean. You're also blithely unaware of the fact that, in 2002, Oscar de La Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns, and then I think it was Yves St. Laurent [...] who showed cerulean military jackets [...] 

      And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers. Then it filtered down through the department stores, and then trickled on down into some tragic Casual Corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs, and it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry, when in fact, you’re wearing a sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room, from a pile of 'stuff'."   

 

      - From the original screenplay by Aline Brosh McKenna. To watch how the scene plays out on screen, click here. 

 

[2] See chapter 5 of Schopenhauer's 1839 essay Über die Freiheit des menschlichen Willens, trans. into English as 'On the Freedom of the Will', by Christopher Janaway, in The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics (Cambridge University Press, 2009), where he argues that whilst man always does what he wills, he does so necessarily.