She Flows Lava: On Why the Volcanic Feminism of Betty Hirst is More Effusive Than Dada

Heide Hatry: She Pees Fire (2023)  

heideihatry.com

 

 

I like Heide Hatry. And I like this image; it's always a pleasure to be reacquainted with Betty Hirst. But I really hate the new title assigned to the picture - She Pees Fire. 

 

That might work on an ad alerting women to the signs and symptoms of a urinary tract infection and in which humour is used to counter embarrassment concerning the body, but, in my view, puns should have no place in the world of art [1].  

The photo appears in the latest issue of Maintenant, an annual journal featuring contemporary Dada writing and art [2]. 

 

Unfortunately, I have concerns with this publication and its claim to provide provocative outsider ideas as Dada has done since its inception. For it seems to me that Dada - like punk - was materially embedded in the politics and culture of its time. 

 

To vainly attempt to appear avant-garde by invoking the spirit of something that erupted over a hundred years ago, just seems a little foolish and mistaken to me. It turns Dada into just another -ism (i.e., a practice and an ideology), rather than an Event, (i.e., something unique and chaotic). 

 

I might be mistaken, but I thought the artists involved with Dada during the years 1916-24 aimed to produce works that were completely original; to eradicate all forms of imitation, not found a new school or a tradition in which their ideas and techniques were simply learned and passed on.        

 

Anyway, leaving this debate aside for now, the new issue of Maintenant (#17) argues that war and peace are two-sides of the same coin and that what anti-war protestors should be demanding is not simply a cessation of all military conflicts, but a peacefire. 

 

By this, I think they mean a deconstruction of the binary that forges war and peace into a relationship of co-dependence and obliges us to think of the latter in purely negative terms; i.e., as the absence of war, or the temporary suspension of hostilities.  

 

Heide Hatry's She Pees Fire is a play on this term, peacefire, which, of course, is a play on the term ceasefire - so we have here a double-layered pun. But, as I've said, whilst mildly amusing, it's not a title I care for. 

 

I also fear it detracts from the power of the image, which, to me, reveals the volcanic potentiality of womanhood; she isn't so much pissing fire, as unleashing Hell - i.e., sending a stream of molten lava flowing into the phallocratic world order from out of the bowels of her being. 

 

It's certainly an effusive feminist image, but, ironically, I'm not sure it works to promote an anti-war message. Nor is it particularly Dadaist in character [3]; for it seems to me laden with symbolic meaning, rather than being nonsensical in character (i.e., it's an art-utterance, not just an absurdist prank intended to shock). 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] I'm all in favour of paronomasia if and when it is itself raised to the level of an art form, but I'm extremely wary of puns (and the kind of people who make puns); not because I find them threatening or seek a level of control over the meaning of language, as John Pollack, a communications expert and author of The Pun Also Rises (2012), claims, but because I think they are an easy and lazy form of wordplay - neither witty, nor particularly clever, and certainly not subversive.  

[2] Maintenant: A Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art, Issue 17, ed. Peter Carlaftes and Kat Georges, (Three Rooms Press, July 2023). 

      For more information and to order your copy direct from the publishers, click here. Alternatively, British readers may find it easier to go to Amazon UK: click here. 

 

[3] One might remind readers that, for all of its supposed radicalism and revolutionary spirit, Dada was not without its problematic aspects, including what might be construed as misogynist tendencies. See Women in Dada: Essays on Sex, Gender, and Identity, ed. Naomi Sawelson-Gorse, (The MIT Press, 1999).   

 

 

Melody Blue

Photo of Jane Birkin by Tony Frank used for the sleeve of 

Serge Gainsbourg's Histoire de Melody Nelson (1971)

 

 

As long-time readers of Torpedo the Ark will know, whilst, as a nihilist, my default position is always paint it black, I do have a philosophical fascination with a colour much loved by painters and poets and which French fashion designer Christian Dior once described as the only one which can possibly compete with black: Blue [1]. 

 

This includes the lyrical blue celebrated by Rilke and Trakl; the deep blue invented by Yves Klein; and the blue of the Greater Day that Lawrence writes of. 

 

So, no surprise then, that I should also adore the light blue used as a background colour by the photographer Tony Frank when shooting his iconic image of Jane Birkin for the cover of Serge Gainsbourg's seven-track concept album, Histoire de Melody Nelson (1971) [2].

 

Birkin, who would have been twenty-four at the time - and pregnant with Gainsbourg's child - was playing the part of the red-haired, rosy-cheeked 15-year-old with a penchant for blue jeans, a pair of which Birkin can be seen wearing in the photo, whilst clutching a toy monkey to her bare chest. 

 

It's a good look - albeit a slightly pervy one, with its Lolita-esque overtones. Birkin not only gets away with pretending to be an adolescent, but she has an androgynous thing going on in the photo that adds to her appeal. 

 

By staring directly at the camera - one assumes at Frank's suggestion - Birkin reveals Melody's innocence and vulnerability. But she also challenges the viewer to accept her gaze and question their own position vis-à-vis the question of a middle-aged man desiring (or actually entering into) a sexual relationship with an underage girl [3].            

 

Anyway, whatever one's thoughts on this, the fact is Frank's image of Birkin on the cover of Histoire de Melody Nelson has become as celebrated as the album itself and - according to the photographer at least - some people have even started to describe the background colour as Melody Blue [4].  

 

 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] I have written several posts on the colour blue. See, for example, 'Blue is the Colour ... Notes on Rilke's Blue Delirium' (1 April 2017) and 'Blue is the Colour ... Yves Klein is the Name' (2 April 2017).

 

[2] Serge Gainsbourg's Histoire de Melody Nelson was released on 24 March, 1971 (Philips Records). It tells the tale of an illicit romance which develops between the middle-aged narrator and a sexually innocent 15-year-old called Melody Nelson. The album is considered by many critics and fans to be Gainsbourg's most influential and accomplished work (despite only being 28 minutes in length). To play the second track from the album - 'Ballade de Melody Nelson' - click here. 

 

[3] Technically, Melody was not underage as the (heterosexual) age of consent in France at this time was fifteen, as established by an ordinance enacted by the French government in 1945. Interestingly, however, an article within this ordinance forbade anal sex and similar relations against nature with any person under the age of twenty-one (an attempt, one assumes, to discriminate against homosexual lovers).   

 

[4] Readers interested in this post will be pleased to know that Tony Frank has assembled photos, contact sheets, behind-the-scenes imagery, and slides from the shoot with Birkin, into a 96-page book entitled Bleu Melody (RVB Books, 2018). In the book, Frank also recounts his memories from the time.

 

Johnny Vs Jimmy (Notes on a Punk Spat)

Johnny Rotten on Jukebox Jury (30 June 1979)

Jimmy Pursey on Jukebox Jury  (4 August 1979)

 

I. 

 

As disussed in a recent post, Jimmy Pursey - punk's self-proclaimed Cockney Cowboy - was desperate to become a Sex Pistol and assume the mantle of punk figurehead once Johnny Rotten had been unceremoniously thrown out of the band (at Malcolm's instigation) by Paul Cook and Steve Jones [1].   

 

Unfortunately for Hersham's favourite son, it wasn't to be ... 

 

For Cook and Jones soon realised that working with Pursey - an emotional geezer who always wore his heart on his sleeve - was even more demanding than working with Rotten. 

 

Further - and this was the real deal breaker - when they finally got together in the studio to write some new songs, Pursey failed to come up with the goods: "His cover was blown - he didn't have the talents or intelligence that Rotten did, nowhere near." [2]    

 

Nevertheless, the three parted on amicable terms and there was never any of the intense animosity that existed between Messrs Pursey and Rotten ...

 

 

II. 

 

When or why this animosity begins, I don't know: perhaps it has origins that are now lost in the mists of punk history. 

 

Or perhaps Rotten was simply unhappy with the thought that Pursey might replace him as a vocalist in the Sex Pistols; a possibility with which he was taunted by Angelic Upstart Mond Cowie whilst appearing with his new band, Public Image Ltd., on Check It Out in the summer of '79. 

 

Describing Rotten as a terrible singer, a sell-out, and an old man, the Geordie guitarist finished his defamatory attack by saying: "I'm glad Jimmy Pursey's got his job in the Sex Pistols" [3].

 

During an interview with Danny Baker in this same period, Jimmy Pursey's name comes up in relation to the question of class and Rotten says:

 

"I certainly don't have to perform at being working class. There's so much made of it, as if the more dumb you are the more glorious you become. That's why Pursey is so well-liked, because he plays his role for everyone. It's so easy to manipulate, it fits into a nice little clichéd bracket - no threat. It's once you break that apart you become a worry to them." [4] 

 

Shortly afterwards, Rotten put in a comical appearance on Jukebox Jury, in which he did his (by then familiar, but still highly entertaining) I hate everything routine followed by a premiditated strop and early exit off set [5]. 

 

Appearing on the same show five weeks later, Pursey couldn't resist having a little dig at Rotten and doing a mocking impression of the latter, much to the amusement of host Noel Edmonds [6].  

Strangely, however, things didn't really come to a head until a quarter of a century later ...

 

In August 2005, Pursey was involved in a fight - well, let's call it a brief altercation - with Rotten whilst they were both queuing for travel visas at the United States Embassy in London. Spotting the latter, Pursey decided to let bygones be byones and went over to offer his hand - which, to be fair, is the decent (and manly) thing to do.

 

Unfortunately, Rotten by this date was well on his way to becoming a genuinely nasty piece of work [7] and he spurned the chance to kiss and make up, launching a foul-mouthed tirade and throwing a cup of coffee over Pursey, who naturally retaliated by trying to kick the fat fifty-year old Sex Pistol, before armed police intervened to calm the situation.  

 

Afterwards, Pursey attempted to make light of this slightly embarrassing scrap, whilst Rotten seemed to want to deny it had even happened, dismissing Pursey's claims in a typical manner: "All the usual lies. He's not fit to be in the same sentence as me. What do you expect from a low-rent, fake mockney, two-bob runt?" [8] 

 

Notes

 

[1] I'm referring to the post of 17 June 2023 - 'Poor Little Jimmy (All He Wanted to Do Was Be a Sex Pistol)' - click here. 

 

[2] Steve Jones, Lonely Boy: Tales from a Sex Pistol, (Windmill Books, 2017), p. 221.

 

[3] Public Image Limited appeared on this Tyne Tees music show on 2 July 1979. They performed the track 'Chant' from the (soon to be released) album Metal Box and were then made to watch a filmed interview with the Angelic Upstarts before being subjected to what Rotten called a "cheapskate comedy interrogation". The whole thing can be viewed on YouTube by clicking here.

 

[4] Danny Baker, 'The Private Life of Public Image', NME, (16 June 1979): click here to read the interview in full online.  

[5] Those who wish to watch Rotten's appearance on Jukebox Jury (30 June 1979), alongside Elaine Paige (seems sweet), Joan Collins (still sexy at 46), and Alan (Fluff) Freeman (a cunt in a wig), can click here.

 

[6] To watch Jimmy Pursey's appearance on Jukebox Jury (4 August 1979), alongside Rick Wakeman (a complacent hippie), Billy Connolly (unfunny Scottish bore), and Judy Tzuke (a one-hit wonder), click here. Pursey does his brief Rotten impression beginning at 8:56.  

[7] Just ask Welsh songstress Duffy, whom he reduced to tears at the Mojo Awards three years later (but that's another story ...)

[8] For a report on the incident written at the time in the Irish Examiner (24 August 2005), click here.

In Memory of Glenda Jackson

Glenda Jackson as Gudrun Brangwen in Women in Love (1969) 

and as Cleopatra in The Morecambe and Wise Show (1971)

 

 

I. 

 

I wouldn't say I was a huge fan of the actress Glenda Jackson [1], who died a few days ago, aged 87. But I do remember with a certain degree of fondness her appearances on the Morecambe & Wise Show - particularly the cod-classical Cleopatra sketch, in which she delivered the immortal line: "All men are fools and what makes them so is having beauty like what I have got." [2]

 

And, of course, I also admire her Academy Award winning performance as Gudrun, in Ken Russell's Women in Love (1969) [3]. The critic Brian McFarlane was spot on to describe Jackson's "blazing intelligence, sexual challenge and abrasiveness" [4] in the superbly written role; I think even Lawrence might have been impressed by her fearlessness.  

 

 

II. 

 

Born, in 1936, into a solidly working-class family from Birkenhead, Glenda was named after the wise-cracking Hollywood blonde Glenda Farrell. 

 

A politically-conscious and talented teenager, Miss Jackson won a scholarship to study at RADA in 1954. 

 

Prior to this, she spent two years working at Boots, which she hated; as she did the series of soul-destroying jobs she was obliged to take whilst unable to land roles in the early years of her acting career [5].

 

Fortunately, fame, fortune, and critical success were just around the corner and Jackson became a huge star of stage and screen in the 1960s, 70s and 80s.

 

However, she decided to quit acting in 1991, in order to devote herself to politics full-time as the Labour Party candidate for Hampstead and Highgate. 

 

Entering Parliament the following year, Jackson declared her determination to do anything legal to oppose the Tory government, still led at this time by Margaret Thatcher, whom she despised. 

 

(As a staunch republican, she wasn't a great supporter of the British monarchy either.)

 

In 2015, having retired from politics, Jackson returned to her first love; even treating us to a magnificent (gender-transcending) interpretation of King Lear, in Deborah Warner's 2016 production at the Old Vic: 

 

 

 Photo: Tristram Kenton (2016)

 

 

Notes

 

[1] As lengthy obituaries for Jackson have (rightly) appeared in every major news publication, I'm not going to recap her life and career in detail here. Primarily, I wanted simply to remind readers of her roles as Cleopatra and Gudrun Brangwen. However, I will add a few biographical details in part two of this post discussing her later years.    

 

[2] See The Morecambe & Wise Show (S5/E5), dir. John Ammonds, written by Eddie Braben, which aired on 3 June, 1971. Click here to watch the lengthy (14:32) Cleopatra sketch on the Facebook page Classic TV Moments. The line quoted begins at 5:57.  

 

[3] Interestingly, Jackson was pregnant whilst filming Women in Love - though I'm not sure if this fact helped, hindered, or made no difference to her astonishing performance. 

      Click here to watch the famous scene in which Jackson - as Gudrun - dances in front some (bemused and increasingly agitated) Highland cattle, whilst her sister Ursula (played by Jennie Linden) watches on fightened of what might the beasts might do. Eventually, Gerald Crich (Oliver Reid) arrives to put a stop to her fun and games, demanding to know why she wished to drive his cattle mad.

 

[4] Brian McFarlane (ed.), The Encyclopedia of British Film, (Methuen / BFI, 2003), p. 339.

 

[5] These jobs included: waitress in a coffee shop; receptionist for a theatrical agent; and a shop assistant at British Home Stores. Being a woman with an artistic temperament from a traditional working class background, surely helped Jackson in the role of Gudrun.   

 

 

Poor Little Jimmy (All He Wanted to Do Was Be a Sex Pistol)

The Sham Pistols: Jimmy Pursey, Steve Jones, Dave Treganna, and Paul Cook

Photo by Paul Slattery (July 1979)

 

 

James Timothy Pursey - or Jimmy Pursey as he likes to be known - is the founder and frontman of British punk band Sham 69. 

 

Although initially inspired by the Ramones, Jimmy always wanted to be a Clash City Rocker; he even dreamed of one day becoming a Sex Pistol ...

 

For despite the fact that Sham 69 were one of the most commercially successful punk groups - achieving five Top 20 singles and making regular appearances on Top of the Pops - Jimmy lacked that one thing he truly desired - credibility and the respect of his punk superiors.     

 

Thus, imagine his joy when, on 30 April 1978, Jimmy was invited on stage at Victoria Park in East London, to perform alongside Joe and Mick, belting out 'White Riot' in his own inimitable mockney style, in front of a 100,000 people: click here.

 

And imagine his still greater excitement when, the following year, having kicked Rotten out of their band, Steve Jones and Paul Cook invited Jimmy to become the new voice and face of the Sex Pistols - or, more precisely, the Sham Pistols as they were (possibly) going to be known.

 

Alas, it wasn't to be ... 

 

For although Cook and Jones found Jimmy amiable enough at first and things seemed to be progressing well in the studio - in July 1979, the singer informed the NME they had recorded 10 songs and would be ready to tour by September that year - Sham 69 were still contractually bound to Polydor whilst Cook and Jones were signed to Virgin.

 

Apart from this legal issue, relations were also beginning to sour on a personal level between Jimmy and the two former Sex Pistols, coming to a head on 19 August, when the latter walked out of a recording session and Jones hilariously declared: It's worse than working with Rotten.

 

Elaborating in an interview at the time, Jones described how an overly emotional Jimmy kept crying and stuff like that. Worse, he and Cook had come to the conclusion that although Jimmy could talk the talk, when push came to shove, he couldn't walk the walk: All he wanted to do was be a Sex Pistol.   

 

Recalling events in his autobiography, almost 40 years later, Jones writes: 

 

"When me and Cookie gave Jimmy a try, it was never going to be the Sex Pistols in our minds, we always thought of it as a new group. The odd thing about it was that we liked him, but when we got together to try and write some songs in a studio out in the country, he couldn't fucking come up with anything. His cover was blown - he didn't have the talents or intelligence that Rotten did, nowhere near". 

- Steve Jones, Lonely Boy: Tales from a Sex Pistol (Windmill Books, 2017), p. 221.

 

After the dissolution of the embryonic new band, Cook and Jones went on to form The Professionals and poor little Jimmy moved on to solo projects, later reforming Sham 69, with whom he still performs today, aged 68. 

 

 

Musical bonus: 'Natural Born Killer', a track by the Sham Pistols recorded in June 1979 (later reworked with new lyrics by Cook and Jones as 'Kick Down the Doors'): click here. 

 

Thanks to Sophie S. for her help fact checking this post. 

 

For a related post to this one, on Johnny Rotten Vs Jimmy Pursey, click here.

 

 

Claude Lalanne, Serge Gainsbourg, and the Man with the Cabbage Head

 

Claude Lalanne's L'Homme à tête de chou, as featured on 

the cover of  Serge Gainsbourg's 1976 album of the same title 

 

 

Claude Lalanne was an avant-garde French sculptor and designer, who often worked in collaboration with her husband, François-Xavier Lalanne, even though they had distinctively different styles and ideas.

 

Inspired by a whimsical mix of Surrealism, Art Nouveau, and her love of plants, Claude Lalanne produced some astonishing pieces (including items of furniture and jewellery) and her hybrid (often bizarre) style of decorative design has captured the imagination of many in the art world, as well as leading fashion designers including Tom Ford, Marc Jacobs, and Yves Saint Laurent, the latter of whom commissioned Lalanne to create several mirrors adorned with electroplated leaves and branches [1]

 

In fact, for anyone who wanted an apple with lips, a rabbit with wings, or a man with a cabbage head, Lalanne was the go-to artist; Salvador Dalí once asked her to make him some cutlery and Serge Gainsbourg famously acquired her piece entitled L’homme à tête de chou, featuring it on the sleeve of his 1976 album of the same title [2], thereby bringing her work to the attention of a new and wider audience. 

 

Amusingly, Lalanne also made a whole series of chicken-legged cabbage sculptures which she called choupattes - a series she added to (with the assistance of her daughter and granddaughter) right up to her death, aged 93, in 2019. 

 

 

Claude Lalanne: Choupatte (2014 / 2017)

Bronze (57.5 x 63.5 x 63.5 cm)

Ben Brown Fine Arts

  

 

Notes

 

[1] After his death in 2008, Yves Saint-Laurent's fifteen Lalanne designed mirrors fetched more than $2m at auction. 

      It might also be noted that Lalanne collaborated with the designer on his 1969 Empreintes collection, for which she made bronze breastplates cast from the chest of his favourite model. It was Saint-Laurent's only collaboration with an artist. 

 

[2] Although not as celebrated as Histoire de Melody Nelson (Philips Records, 1971) - considered by many to be Gainsbourg's most influential and accomplished work - L'Homme à tête de chou (Philips Records, 1976) does have its moments and dark delights. It tells the story of a middle-aged man obsessively in love with a young and free-spirited shampoo girl, Marilou. Driven mad by jealousy and desire, he eventually murders her with a fire extinguisher, concealing her body beneath the foam. Unsurprisingly, he ends his days in an inane asylum.

      Claude Lalanne's sculpture, owned by Gainsbourg, is pictured on the front sleeve of the album sitting in the courtyard of his house in Paris (5 bis Rue De Verneuil). Click here to listen to the title track of L'Homme à tête de chou uploaded to YouTube by Universal Music Group.    

 

 

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