Passion Ends in Fashion: Notes on SEX

 

Malcolm outside his notorious boutique 

at 430 King's Road (1976)

 

 

I. 

 

When it comes to the band's name, there's an argument to be made that the Sex Pistols should have been stylised as the SEX Pistols, thereby emphasising the fact that their origins lay in the shop at 430 King's Road and Malcolm's penchant for the kinkier aspects of sexual activity and experience.

 

For Malcolm, as for Foucault, sex is best understood not as a natural function, nor as something to be scientifically studied in order to discover an essential truth about human identity, but, rather, as a sophisticated ars erotica - i.e., a form of pleasure which needs to be creatively cultivated and via which the subject might, in fact, lose (or reinvent) themselves. 

 

And for Malcolm, sex always needed to be thought in relation to two other terms beginning with the letter S: style and subversion (i.e., fashion and politics). Add these three elements together et voila! you produce a pair of bondage trousers.      

 

 

II.

 

McLaren's store at 430 King's Road - run in collaboration with his partner Vivienne Westwood - underwent a series of radical transformations and name changes during its history. 

 

It originally opened (in 1971) as the Teddy boy hang out Let It Rock, before then briefly becoming Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die (1973-74), selling a range of fashions for rockers who preferred to wear black leather jackets and biker boots, rather than drape jackets and blue suede shoes.   

 

In December 1976, the shop was reinvented as Seditionaries and it continued trading under that name until September 1980. As Seditionaries, the boutique adopted a brutalist aesthetic and attitude and stocked the clothes that are now considered the epitome of punk fashion (and sell for thousands of pounds at auction).  

 

In late 1980, the store was relaunched under the name World's End and resembled - as per Malcolm's design instructions - a cross between an 18th-century galleon and the Olde Curiosity Shoppe; punks had been superseded by pirates, Apaches, and buffalo gals. 

 

Each of these shops has a unique fascination and history and each has secured a place in the pop cultural imagination. But, for me, it is Sex that continues to most excite my interest ...

 

 

III.   

 

Quickly bored even with his own projects and uncomfortable with the idea of commercial success, in the spring of 1974, McLaren radically refurbished 430 King's Road and rebranded the shop as Sex: '"That is the one thing that scares the English. They are all afraid of that word.'" [1]

 

The façade included a 4-foot sign of pink foam rubber letters spelling out the new name in capitals. The walls of the interior of the boutique were also lined with pinkish foam rubber and covered with graffitied lines taken from erotic literature and Valerie Solanas's SCUM Manifesto (1967). Latex curtains, red carpeting, and various sexual paraphernalia used decoratively helped to create the sleazy (somewhat intimidating) look of an authentic sex shop.

 

Sex sold fetish and bondage gear supplied by existing specialist labels, as well as designs by McLaren and Westwood which were intended to be provocative rather than seductive. These included T-shirts printed with images of a nude adolescent smoking a cigarette; homosexual cowboys, bare female breasts; and - perhaps most notoriously - a leather mask of the kind worn by the Cambridge Rapist. 

 

Lines taken from pornographic texts were also often added to the designs, as were various Situationist slogans from May '68 - Sous les pavés, le plage, etc. - and references to some of Malcolm's heroes, such as the playwright Joe Orton.    

 

Pamela Rooke - known as Jordan - was hired as a sales assistant and quickly became the shop's face. 

 

In fact, Jordan embodied the spirit of the store better than anyone; better than the extraordinary clientele (which included members of the Bromley Contingent as well as the newsreader Reggie Bosanquet); better than members of the band; better even than Malcolm and Vivienne (though it can't be denied how great the latter also looked wearing her own designs) [2].  

 

Sex was far removed from the retro-revivalism of Let It Rock - although arguably Too Fast To Live possessed some of the same sense of danger and fetishistic appeal - and the customers who hung out at Sex were not the ageing Teddy boys who had so quickly bored and disappointed McLaren. They were, as mentioned, kids who had come out of glam and liked to dress up to mess up and weren't shy about challenging sexual and social conventions.

 

Paul Gorman provides an excellent summary:

 

"As an environmental installation, Sex was sensational; it literally assaulted the senses. The hectoring tone of the scawls on the 'soft' madhouse walls, the heavy jersey of the T-shirts showing severe images and text in queasy colours, the lack of natural light which produced a dull shine on the clinical black rubber garments and the powdery looking drapes, the clammy atmosphere, the 1960s garage-punk blasting from the BAL-AMi, all combined to make the experience unsettling, commanding commitment - a big Sex word - on the part of the visitor. When the door was closed, one felt less like a customer than a client entering a well-appointed dungeon, particularly when coolly appraised by the stern-faced Westwood." [3]  

 

Sex was, thus, a truly magical space aligned with McLaren's own artistic, sexual, and political obsessions. Whilst a million miles away from being what we now term a safe space inhabited by those who describe themselves as woke, it neverthless demanded that customers one day wake up and realise which side of the bed they were lying on [4].

Photo by David Dagley taken inside Sex in 1976 featuring (from L-R):

Steve Jones, Unknown, Alan Jones, Chrissie Hynde, Jordan, & Vivienne Westwood

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Malcolm McLaren, quoted by Paul Gorman in The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, (Constable, 2020), p. 220.

 

[2] As Paul Gorman notes, in 1975, aged 34, Westwood "cut a stunning figure stalking the streets of west and central London, with her shock of blonde hair complemented by such Sex designs as rubber knickers and stockings and a porn T-shirt or a studded Venus top". See The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, p. 251.

 

[3] Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, p. 226. 

 

[4] I'm referring here to the famous T-shirt conceived by Bernie Rhodes and known (by its abbreviated title) as 'You're Gonna Wake Up'. See the post published on Torpedo the Ark on 16 Dec 2012 on the political importance of making lists: click here.    

On Punks, Hippies, and the Boy in the Blue Lamé Suit

 Joe, Johnny, and Jello in their pre-punk days

 

One of the defining characteristics of punks back in the day, was that they hated the complacency, passivity, and untrustworthiness of middle-class hippies and they differentiated themselves from peace-loving flower children by their hairstyles and clothes: no long hair or beards and no flared jeans or tie-dyed T-shirts with groovy psychedelic prints. 

Having a close-cropped barnet was just as much a sign of radical militancy for the punks as it had been for the rank-and-file Roundheads and very few of them had flowing long locks covering their ears. So it's always a little disconcerting to come across old photos of figures central to the punk revolution - including Rotten, Strummer, and Biafra - and see them looking like ... well, hippies!

 

No wonder Jamie Reid later advised us to never trust a punk either (that punks were, in fact, often just hippies in disguise).

 

 

II. 

 

One is also reminded, upon seeing these pictures, that, essentially, we have Malcolm to thank for concocting an anti-hippie aesthetic and philosophy - not Johnny, Joe, or Jello. It was McLaren's provocative and fetishistic take on fashion, his anarchic politics inspired by Situationism, and a penchant for 1950s rock 'n' roll - all brilliantly expressed in the slogan Sex, Style and Subversion - out of which the look of what became known as punk developed. 

 

Vivienne Westwood would later recall just how odd looking 20-year-old Malcolm was when she met him in the mid-1960s; with his very, very pale skin and his very, very short hair he looked so unlike his contemporaries. If he was, in many regards, a typical product of his era and cultural environment, McLaren was never a hippie and only ever had scorn for them. 

 

Thus it was that, in 1971, Malcolm bought a pair of blue-suede creepers, which, as Paul Gorman notes, had by this date long gone out of fashion; street style was now defined by "feather-cut hair, the ubiquitous flared loon pants, stack-heeled boots, platform shoes and velvet suits" [1]. 

 

For McLaren, the shoes: 

 

"'Made a statement about what everyone else was wearing and thinking. It was a symbolic act to put them on. Those blue shoes had a history that I cared about, a magical association that seemed authentic. They represented an age of revolt - of desperate romantic revolt [...]" [2]             

Later, he combined the shoes with a 1950s style blue lamé suit (made by Vivienne) and a matching ice-blue satin shirt: "'I decided it would be really cool to be like Elvis, to be a Teddy Boy in a kind of defiant anti-world and anti-fashion gesture [...]'" [3]

  

And that - boys and girls - is the spirit of punk; more heroic than hippie (and it comes quiffed or spiky-topped, rather than lanky long-haired or feather-cut). 

 

Malcolm the proto-punk (1972)

 

 

Notes

[1] Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, (Constable, 2020), p. 119. 

[2] Malcolm McLaren, quoted by Paul Gorman, ibid.

[3] Malcolm McLaren, quoted by Paul Gorman, ibid., p. 131.

 

 

For a sister post to this one entitled 'Never Mind the Spiky Tops' (28 Nov 2023), click here.  

Never Mind the Spiky Tops

All the curly young punks:

Michael Collins and Adam Ant (top row) 

Mick Jones and Me (bottom row)*

 

 

I. 

 

Short spiky hair - often dyed an unnatural shade à la Johnny Rotten - was one of the defining characteristics of punks back in the day. 

 

However, there were plenty of individuals central to the scene who, even in 1977, were proud of their curls and ringlets, including Michael Collins, for example, who was recruited by Vivienne Westwood to manage the shop at 430 King's Road.

 

One thinks also of Stuart Goddard, who abandoned his pub rock outfit Bazooka Joe after seeing the Sex Pistols, transformed his look and changed his name (to Adam Ant), but still maintained his dark curls even at his punkiest.

 

And talking of dark curly-haired punks ... let's not forget Mick Jones; he may have chopped his curls off in 1976 when he formed The Clash, but it wasn't long before his pre-punk (less militant more glam) self reasserted itself.  

 

 

II.

I'm sure there will be some readers by now asking: So what?

 

Well, for one thing, it's always good to be reminded that before it quickly became just another mass-produced fashion and media-endorsed stereotype - as well as a fixed set of values and prejudices - punk was a highly creative form self-stylisation. It was not about following trends, conforming to norms of behaviour, or caring what others thought about the way you looked. 

 

As The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle attempted to remind us: Anyone can be a Sex Pistol - even with curly hair, like me, and, of course, like Malcolm:

 

           

Photo credits: Michael Collins by Homer Sykes; Adam Ant by Ray Stevenson; Mick Jones by Sheila Rock; Malcolm McLaren by Joe Stevens. I don't remember who took the picture of me, but it's dated October 1977. 

 

 

For a follow up post to this one on punks, hippies, and the Boy in the Blue Lamé Suit, click here.

 

In Memory of Geordie Walker and Keith Levene

Geordie Walker (1958-2023) and Keith Levene (1957-2022) [1]

 

November, it appears, is a mortally dangerous time of year for post-punk guitarists ... 

 

For last year, on the 11th of November, Keith Levene died (aged 65); and yesterday, on the 26th of this month, Geordie Walker passed away (aged 64). 

I'm not going to pretend that I have any great fascination for musicians; always banging on about their instruments and different playing and recording techniques, they are, as Malcolm used to say, amongst the least interesting people to be around.

 

However, Levene - as a member of Public Image Ltd. - and Walker - as a member of Killing Joke - did produce some of the most exciting and bewitching guitar sounds ever heard and I was a huge fan of their work in the late 1970s and early-mid '80s [2]. 

 

So, it was with a certain sadness that I heard about Keith dying last year and, similarly, I was sorry to wake up to the news of Geordie's death this morning. I never met either of them, but their music has significantly shaped (what is commonly referred to as) the soundtrack of my life and for that I'm grateful to both.       

 

 

Notes 

 

[1] The black and white screenshot of Geordie Walker is taken from the video directed by Peter Care for the Killing Joke single 'Love Like Blood' (1985); the black and white screenshot of Keith Levene is taken from the video directed by Don Letts for the Public Image Ltd. single 'Public Image' (1978).

 

[2] See the post dated 1 Sept 2023 for my memories of Killing Joke: click here.   

I Have Nothing To Say

Jiggs the Chimp as Ollie's evolutionary predecessor in  

the Laurel and Hardy film Dirty Work, (dir. Lloyd French 1933) 

 

 

Sometimes, people tell me they would like to begin writing a blog. But when I ask what's stopping them from doing so, they reply:  I have nothing to say.

 

Having nothing to say, however, didn't prevent some truly great artists from producing some very interesting work; one thinks, for example, of Cage and Beckett, both of whom illustrate the crucial function of silence and how you can build upon or radically foreground nothingness: click here. 

 

One thinks also of Seinfeld - a show famous for being about nothing: click here.   

 

And one remembers also Oliver Hardy's refusal to be fazed by or comment upon events in the classic short film Dirty Work (1933). Even when he is devolved into a chimpanzee after falling into a vat containing Prof. Noodle's rejuvination solution, Ollie still has nothing to say: click here. 

 

If, after explaining all this, any would-be blogger still feels at a loss for words, then I advise them to stick with posting pictures of their cat on Instagram. 

 

 

Happy Birthday Julien Temple (and in Memory of Malcolm McLaren)

Film director Julien Temple

(the punk generation's Jean Vigo)

 

 

Born on this day, in 1953, the British filmmaker Julien Temple is - without ever really being part of the gang - crucial to the story of the Sex Pistols, which he began to document from the very early days, having come across the band rehearsing in an abandoned warehouse in Bermondsey, South London, whilst drifting around the area admiring the rusting hulks of ships and the general decay of what had once been a thriving centre of industry and trade. 

 

This chance encounter was before the band had played their first gig at St Martin's School of Art on 6 November 1975 (supporting Bazooka Joe), so Temple can effectively claim to have been involved with the band from day one and was certainly not some Johnny-come-lately on what would become known as the punk scene, even if he never quite escaped being thought of as a middle class cunt - his words, not mine [1].    

 

Be that as it may, he was young and clearly talented enough to capture Malcolm's attention, and so Temple was eventually given permission to become the Sex Pistols' in-house filmmaker. 

 

Initially, however, McLaren, had opposed such an idea. It was only when the band began to hit the headlines that he was persuaded it would be a good idea after all to document what was going on - particularly when Temple offered to do so for free, although Malcolm eventually put him on a retainer of £12 a week.       

 

When the idea of making a full-length feature film arose - originally to be called Who Killed Bambi? and directed by Russ Meyer - Temple was appointed as the latter's assistant. For one reason or another - actually, for many, many reasons - this film was never going to be made and the project eventually morphed into The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980), which is credited to Temple as director, although I'll always think of Malcolm as the film's auteur. 

Twenty years later, Temple then made The Filth and the Fury (2000) with the band's full cooperation, which is to say Rotten was on board and ready to put the record straight and tell the true story of the Sex Pistols (with tears of emotional sincerity welling up in his eyes). 

 

Whilst the latter rockumentary - not a term that Temple likes or uses - was critically acclaimed, I hate it for its attempt not only to give a more balanced account of events, but to humanise the band and perpetuate the ridiculous idea that poor Johnny was somehow a victim - even though he was also, apparently, the real reason for the band's success: A true star, honest!  

Temple claims he wanted to make The Filth and the Fury because he was annoyed with McLaren saying that the band members were essentially of no great import and that he was the artistic visionary who created everything. But, whilst that's not quite the case, neither is it entirely the fantasy of an egomaniac and, ironically, I think Malcolm's contribution to British popular culture is still hugely underrated [2].

 

Still, I don't wish to debate this here and now, nor say anything negative about Temple as a filmmaker. I simply want to take this opportunity to wish him happy birthday and thank him for the role he has played in recording an important period in British social and cultural history.     

 

 

Jamie Reid badge design 

vam.ac.uk

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Speaking with John Robb in 2022, Temple recalls the reaction of the band when he proposed they provide a soundtrack to a five minute film he was then working on as a student: "'Fuck off!' Middle class cunt basically being the subtext." Click here to watch the full interview on YouTube. The line I quote begins at 2:38.  

[2] Not by Temple, who, despite his issues with McLaren, had this to say in an obituary in The Observer (11 April 2010): 

 

"Malcolm was an incredible catalyst for my generation. To be in the same room as him in 1976 was to be bombarded with energy and swept up in a rush of ideas and emotions. [....] But his impact was not limited to music alone. Right across the creative spectrum Malcolm made young people - artists, designers, writers, film-makers - aware that they had a distinctive voice and encouraged them to use it right there and then." 

      

Temple concludes: 

 

"On a personal note, although I worked intensely with Malcolm for only a short period of time and managed to fall out with him pretty spectacularly too, the creative ideas he instilled in me have lasted a lifetime." 

 

 

Silence is Violence (Or How Wokeism Restricts Freedom by Compelling Speech)

 

 

I. 

 

I don't know who came up with the slogan Silence is Violence, but it's certainly pithy - as an effective slogan should be.

 

In effect, it's a radical extension of the old idea qui tacet consentire videtur and powerfully conveys the contentious arguement that refusing to speak up against racism, for example, is tantamount not merely to lending one's support to discrimination and oppression, but is an act of violence in and of itself.

 

However, as a reader of Roland Barthes, I have long subscribed to the idea that fascism compels speech [1] and therefore have real concerns with the slogan silence is violence - and with the people who chant it in all seriousness (often having failed to think the idea through).

 

In brief: my worry is that the same kind of people who censor or restrict certain forms of speech on the one hand, now also wish to disallow the right to silence on the other hand; insisting that we must speak - although only in an approved manner [2].

 

 

II.

 

Of course, compelled speech has long troubled civil-liberties campaigners and not just Barthesians like me who would wish to keep the option of strategic non-discourse on the table. 

 

The fact that woke activists fail to recognise the inherent authoritarianism of forcing people to identify themselves, express their views, and confess their feelings - so long as they conform to what now passes for moral and political orthodoxy - is certainly ironic (to say the least).

 

And writers including George Orwell and Michel Foucalt must be spinning in their graves ...  

  

 

Notes

 

[1] Roland Barthes, 'Lecture in Inauguration of the Chair of Literary Semiology, Collège de France, January 7, 1977', trans. Richard Howard, October, Vol. 8 (Spring, 1979), pp. 3-16. Published by the MIT Press. This text can be accessed via JSTOR: click here. 

      I am referring to the paragraph in which Barthes says: "But language - the performance of a language system - is neither reactionary nor progressive; it is quite simply fascist; for fascism does not prevent speech, it compels speech." The reason for this, of course, is that speech acts don't take place in a vacuum; they unfold within the bounds of power (and very often enter into the service of power).       

 

[2] Mick Hume summarises all this as follows:

      "The slogan 'Silence is Violence' does not only mean that you must speak out, but that you must follow the correct script. You are free to say exactly what everybody else is saying, and say it loud. Free speech must always involve the right to offend, to speak what you believe to be true regardless of what others think. The flip side of free speech is that you must have the right to be silent when you choose - particularly when somebody is trying to compel you to speak as instructed."

      See his article 'No, silence is not violence', Spiked (16th June 2020): click here.   

On Oblivion

 

I. 

 

I was interested to hear the Chairman of the D. H. Lawrence Society, Mr Alan Wilson, claim in a recent sermon streamed live from St. Mary's Church, Greasley, on the theme of (so-called) Lawrencian Spirituality [1], that Lawrence was searching for something "beyond ultimate oblivion".

 

For although he was right to identify the importance of the term oblivion in Lawrence’s late poetry [2] - and whilst I would agree with Mark Fisher that "awareness of our own Nothingness is [...] a pre-requisite for a feeling of grace" [3] - there is no beyond oblivion; that's the tremendous challenge of the concept and why it is incompatible with the fundamental Christian belief of eternal life.  

 

In other words, if you subscribe to the idea of oblivion, you must accept the final sinking of one's soul into the magnificent dark blue gloom and the total erasure of self. To hope for life beyond oblivion, is as absurd as wishing to be remembered after one has been completely forgotten.     

 

 

II.

 

Whilst there may be some religious adherents who subscribe to the idea of oblivion [4], I tend to think of it more as a philosophical (and neuroscientific) concept, associated with those for whom death means what it says on the tin: the cessation of all consciousness (or subjective experience) and complete non-existence in any personal sense of the term. 

 

Socrates famously considered the question of oblivion when he was sentenced to death. Addressing the court, he first considers the possibility that his soul will migrate from this life and this world to the next life and next world. 

 

Although this idea appeals to him - because then he'll be able to discuss philosophy with all the great thinkers of the past - Socrates is nevertheless prepared to accept that death might, in fact, be terminal. This prospect doesn't frighten him, however, as oblivion essentially means to his mind a dreamless and uninterrupted sleep [5].  

 

Later thinkers, including the great Roman philosophers Cicero and Lucretius, basically came to a similar conclusion; i.e., that death was either a continuation of consciousness or cessation of it, and that if the former, then there is no reason to fear death; while if the latter is true, then there's also no good reason to be deeply troubled (for one will know nothing, feel nothing, be nothing).

 

As Epicurus famously put it in his Letter to Meneoceus: 'When I am, death is not; when death is, I am not.'

 

 

III.

 

Ultimately, oblivion is really just a term for a mind-independent reality; i.e., a reality which, despite the presumptions of human narcissism, "is indifferent to our existence and oblivious to the 'values' and 'meanings' which we would drape over it in order to make it more hospitable" [6].   

 

I don't know if saying that makes me a nihilist, a naturalist, or an extinctionist. But it certainly makes it difficult to subscribe to Lawrence's vitalism which makes oblivion strangely inviting; like a relaxing bath that we pop in and out of, feeling refreshed and reborn into a new body.

 

What such a cosy idea ignores is the fact that, as Ray Brassier reminds us, ultimately there will be no cosmos to be reborn into; that one day - roughly one trillion, trillion, trillion years from now - "the accelerating expansion of the universe will have disintegrated the fabric of matter itself, terminating the possibility of embodiment" [7]. 

 

Brassier continues: 

 

"Every star in the universe will have burnt out, plunging the cosmos into a state of absolute darkness and leaving behind nothing but spent husks of collapsed matter. All free matter, whether on planetary surfaces or in interstellar space, will have decayed, eradicating any remnants of life based in protons and chemistry, and erasing every vestige of sentience - irrespective of its physical basis. Finally, in a state cosmologists call 'asymptopia', the stellar corpses littering the empty universe will evaporate into a brief hailstorm of elementary particles. Atoms themselves will cease to exist. Only the implacable gravitational expansion will continue, driven by the currently inexplicable force called 'dark energy', which will keep pushing the extinguished universe deeper and deeper into an eternal and unfathomable blackness." [8]

 

In other words: oblivion über alles ...

 

I'm sure some believers will mumble about this universal annihilation all being part of God's plan, but, of course, we know that's bullshit - this is the disintegration of God's plan and the return to formless and empty chaos marks the triumph of evil.  

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Those with an hour and twenty minutes to spare and who are interested, can watch Wilson and two other speakers, Anthony Rice and John Patemen, discuss their understanding of Lawrentian Spirituality on the D. H. Lawrence Society YouTube channel by clicking here. The event took place on Saturday 18 November, 2023, at Greasley Church (Nottinghamshire).

 

[2] See the poems beginning with 'The Ship of Death' and ending with 'Phoenix', in 'The Last Poems Notebook', in D. H. Lawrence, The Poems, ed. Christopher Pollnitz, (Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 630-641. Almost every poem in this sequence contains the word oblivion. The amusing thing is that Lawrence explicitly warns that any one who attempts to ascribe attributes to oblivion is guilty of blasphemy - but that, of course, is precisely what he's doing.   

 

[3] Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures, (Zero Books, 2022), p.157. 

 

[4] In Christian theology, for example, there is a notion of annihilationism which opens up the idea of oblivion. In sum, it's the belief that after the Last Judgment, all damned human souls and fallen angels - including Lucifer - will be totally destroyed and their consciousness extinguished. 

      Annihilationism thus stands in contrast to both the belief in eternal torment and the belief that everyone will ultimately be saved and given eternal life. Although the idea has come in and out of vogue throughout the history of the Church, annihilationism has tended to be a minority view. In 1995, the Church of England's Doctrine Commission declared that Hell may, in fact, be a state of total non-being (i.e., oblivion), rather than a place of eternal suffering.

 

[5] One could, if one was tempted to do so, challenge Socrates on this idea of death as a kind of sleep - just as one might challenge Lawrence's poetic descriptions of death as a plunge into darkness, or the idea that we are merely dipped in oblivion so as to be reborn on the other side. 

      In his paper 'Death, Nothingness, and Subjectivity', the naturalist philosopher Thomas W. Clark critiqued such flawed descriptions and the temptation (even amongst some atheists) to imagine that we might still - in some miraculous manner - experience or know death. By using the language of darkness, silence, and peaceful oblivion we effectively reify nothingness; i.e., make it into a positive condition or quality, into which the deceased individual can then be conveniently lodged.

      Clark's paper was originally published in 1994 as a lead article for the Humanist. It was reprinted in The Experience of Philosophy, ed. Daniel Kolak and Ray Martin, (Oxford University Press, 2005) and in The Philosophy of Death Reader, ed. Markar Melkonian, (Bloomsbury, 2019). It is also available to read on Clark's website Naturalism.Org: click here.

[6] Ray Brassier, Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), p. xi.

 

[7] Ibid., p. 228.

[8] Ibid.

 

 

This post is in memory of David Foster Wallace (1962-2008), whose final collection of short stories was published under the title Oblivion (Little, Brown and Company, 2004). The image at the top of this post is based on artwork by Mario J. Pulice for the cover of the first edition of this work.  

Give Me the Madness of My Ladybird

The Ladybird - from the Pink Series 

by Stephen Alexander (2023)

 

 

I'm hoping that the visit of a ladybird - perhaps looking for a warm place to stay over winter - will bring something good my way. 

 

Because although there are those who say it's vulgar to wish for luck - even when carried on the wings of a such a noble insect - I really feel in the need of a change of fortune, as 2023 has neither been a very happy nor a very healthy year. 

 

And one gets tired - and bored - of being miserable and feeling unwell.     

 

So, little ladybird, with your scarlet wings and black spots, work your healing magic. I've had my fill of the seven sorrows, so let me now know one or two of the seven joys. 

 

Or as Count Dionys would say: Gib mir den Wahnsinn meines Marienkäfers!  

 

 

No Matter What the Future Brings ...

"You must remember this / A kiss is just a kiss ..." [1]

 

 

I. 

 

The kiss between Kirk (played by William Shatner) and Uhura (played by Nichelle Nichols) in an episode of Star Trek entitled 'Plato's Stepchildren' [2] - which was first broadcast 55 years ago this month - is often cited - incorrectly - as the first example of an interracial kiss on television [3].

 

Even if not actually true - and even if their lips do not actually touch [4] - it was a nice moment and (in a time of heightened racial tension) a significant one. Indeed, it is often ranked as one of the greatest romantic moments in Star Trek and one of the most culturally impactful. 

 

For me, however, as the author of a series of papers on zoophilia [5], there is another on-screen kiss in 1968 which interests more; and that is the kiss shared between Taylor (played by Charlton Heston) and Zira (played by Kim Hunter) in the movie Planet of the Apes (dir. Franklin J. Shaffner) ...

 

 

II.

 

The original - and the best - Planet of the Apes movie (written by Michael Wilson and Rod Serling, loosely based on the 1963 novel by Pierre Boulle), is fondly remembered by many people for many scenes and many lines of dialogue. 

 

That includes, obviously, the still-shocking end scene when Taylor realises where he is and what has happened: 'Oh, my God. I'm back. I'm home. All the time ... We finally, really did it. You maniacs! You blew it up! God damn you! God damn you all to hell!' [Click here.]

But my favourite scene comes shortly before this, when Taylor is about to ride off, accompanied by Nova, in search of what Dr Zaius terms his destiny. 

 

Wishing to express his gratitude to Cornelius and Zira for the help they have given him, he informs the latter he'd like to give her a kiss. She gives her consent and seems to enjoy the touch of his lips on hers, even if she finds Taylor so damned ugly. [Click here.]

Again, it's  a very touching scene and, arguably, far more transgressive than the kiss in Star Trek, hinting as it does at the possibility of interspecies romantic relations - particularly human-chimp sexuality, something that I have previously discussed on Torpedo the Ark: click here.   

 

 

III.

 

Amusingly, in her 1994 autobiography Beyond Uhura Nichelle Nichols recalls that one person describing himself as a proud white Southerner wrote the following in a letter to the studio after her kiss with Shatner was broadcast: 

 

"'I am totally opposed to the mixing of the races. However, any time a red-blooded American boy like Captain Kirk gets a beautiful dame in his arms that looks like Uhura, he ain't gonna fight it.'" [6]

 

One can't help wondering if a similar letter was received by the producers of Planet of the Apes, that might possibly have read:

 

I am totally opposed to the mixing of species. However, any time an all-American hero like George Taylor gets rescued by a beautiful chimp scientist like Zira, he may as well take advantage of the fact. 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] These lines (and the line used in the title of this post) are from the jazz song "As Time Goes By" written by Herman Hupfeld in 1931. It became famous when it featured in the 1942 film Casablanca, performed by Dooley Wilson as the piano player Sam. Click here.

 

[2] Star Trek, 'Plato's Stepchildren' [S3/E10], directed by David Alexander, written by Gene Roddenberry, Meyer Dolinsky, and Arthur H. Singer, was first broadcast on 22 November 1968. The scene in which Kirk kisses Uhura can be viewed on YouTube by clicking here. 

 

[3] Although widely believed to be the first interracial kiss on TV, there are, in fact, several earlier incidents of such. For example, Shatner himself exchanged a kiss with France Nuyen - a French-American actress of Asian heritage - on an episode of The Ed Sullivan Show back in 1958 (they were performing a scene from the Broadway production of The World of Suzie Wong in which they starred).

      Shatner, in his role as Captain Kirk, also kissed Lt. Marlena Moreau, played by BarBara Luna, an actress of Filipino-European ancestry, on the lips in the second season episode of Star Trek entitled 'Mirrror, Mirror' (1967).

 

[4] Shatner would later reveal that concerned NBC executives had insisted their lips never touch, using the technique of turning their heads away from the camera to conceal what was (or was not) going on. However, writing in her 1994 autobiography, Beyond Uhura, Nichols insists that in the take of the scene that was eventually broadcast the kiss was genuine. Despite the concerns expressed, the episode received no complaints - in fact the response from fans of the show was hugely positive. 

 

[5] See The Treadwell's Papers, Vol. III, (Blind Cupid Press, 2010). The six papers in the Zoophilia series (also known as the Bodil Joensen Memorial Lectures) were first presented at Treadwell's Bookshop in Feb-March 2007. 

 

[6] Nichelle Nichols, Beyond Uhura: Star Trek and Other Memories, (G. P. Putnam and Sons, 1994), pp. 196-197.