Of Punks and Prostitutes (Everyone Has Their Price)

Linda Ashby with Soo Catwoman and members of the Bromley Contingent 

(L-R: Debbie Juvenile, Siouxsie Sioux, Steve Severin, Sharon Hayman, and Simon Barker)

Photo by Ray Stevenson (1976)

 

 

I. 

 

According to the official trailer, The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle is the staggering story of a punk group that not only "held the record business to ransom", "stuck a safety pin through Her Majesty's nose" and "turned the national press into an occupied zone", but also "smuggled a Great Train robber into the top ten and destroyed the myths of their own success" [1]. 

 

All of these things are true: but were the Sex Pistols really a "kamikaze gang of cat burglers and child prostitutes" [2], or is that just a metaphorical mixture of Mclarenesque fantasy and hype? 

 

Leaving aside ideas to do with self-destructive behaviour and criminal theft, let's examine the more disturbing claim that the Sex Pistols - using that term in its wider application to refer not simply to the members of the band, but to all the many colourful, creative, and often fucked-up characters associated with them - might be viewed as child prostitutes ...

 

 

II.  

 

Some readers may recall that back in July 2019, I published a post in which I discussed an idea central to the Swindle project that the music industry ruthlessly exploits the young artists it controls as well as the young fans who buy its products [3].   

 

It doesn't simply make a point about the exploitative nature of the music business from a financial perspective, however. It also explicitly suggests with its language of pimping and prostitution that the music industry has a sleazy underbelly [4]. 

 

Not that Malcolm was adverse to exploiting young flesh himself in order to create a stir and he seemed to genuinely delight in the world of pornography, fetish, and prostitution, as his early T-shirt designs for Sex make clear. 

 

And many of the kids who hung around (or worked in) his store on the Kings Road and later became friends and followers of the band fronted by Johnny Rotten, also seemed drawn to the world of vice; particularly those who fell under the spell of Linda Ashby, a key figure in the early punk scene and a professional dominatrix, skilled in the art of S&M.    

 

 

III.

 

Ashby, with her short blonde hair, distinctive eye makeup, and often dressed in a favourite outfit from The London Leatherman [5], was a member of what we might term the illicit underground; that demi-monde of gay bars, strip clubs, sex shops, drug dens, and houses of ill repute frequented by a wide variety of people, from artists and entertainers, to politicians and bowler-hatted city gents.  

 

She was also one of those rare customers at 430 King's Road who actually had money to spend and, before long, her large central London apartment - just off Green Park - became an important location for the punk elite to meet up and crash out. This included members of the Bromley Contingent, who were famously photographed by Ray Stevenson in 1976 cavorting on the floor having just spray painted her walls with graffiti [6].

 

Of course, being associated with a known prostitute did not make the teens who gathered round her prostitutes themselves, although, everybody's favourite punk blonde, Debbie Wilson (aka Debbie Juvenile), when not following the Sex Pistols or working as a sales assistant at Seditionaries alongside her best friend Tracie O'Keefe [7], wasn't averse - according to Bertie Marshall (aka Berlin) - from turning tricks in Mayfair to clipping mug punters in Soho. 

 

Indeed, Marshall also worked as a rent boy and he described himself and his friends, like Debbie, who were on the game, as a bizarre and exotic pack of whore hounds [8]. 

 

And so, the phrase from The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle trailer with which I opened this post wasn't entirely fictitious, nor referring simply to the manner in which record companies exploit young talent. There was an all too literal sense in which prostitution was an acceptable (and celebrated) aspect of the punk lifestyle - as it was in the contemporary art world at that time [9].          

 

Notes

 

[1-2] Lines from the official trailer to The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (dir. Julien Temple, 1980), narrated by the famous British newsreader and commentator on BBC Radio John Snagge. To watch on Youtube, click here.

      Note that this commentary - entitled 'Pistols Propaganda' - can also be found as the B-side of the Sex Pistols' single '(I'm Not Your) Stepping Stone' (Virgin Records, 1980), released from the soundtrack of The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (Virgin Records, 1979).

[3] See the post entitled 'Young Flesh Required: Notes on Punk and Paedophilia' (18 July 2019): click here. 

[4] In fact, as Deleuze and Guattari demonstrate in Anti-Oedipus (1972), flows of capital and flows of desire belong to one and the same libidinal economy. Thus sexuality, as they say, is everywhere; as much in the boardroom as in the bedroom; "the way a bureaucrat fondles his records, a judge administers justice, a businessman causes money to circulate ..." it's all about desiring-production. 

      See Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus, trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane (The Athlone Press, 1984), p. 293.

[5] The London Leatherman (est. 1972), which caters to connoisseurs of a certain taste, significantly influenced the fetish fashions and accessories sold at Sex by McLaren and Westwood and, later, the wider punk scene. Thus, the name Ken Magson arguably deserves to be more widely known than it is: a brief biography can be found on The London Leatherman website: click here. 

      A description of the LP7 Wrestlers Suit favoured by Ashby - and a photo of her wearing such - can also be found on thelondonleatherman.com: click here.

 

[6] Ashby would have regularly encountered members of the Bromley Contingent not just at 430 Kings Road, but also at Louise's, a lesbian club in Soho that they and members of the Sex Pistols liked to frequent and where her girlfriend at the time would often DJ. 

      The photo session I refer to with members of the Bromley Contingent, taken at Ashby's flat by Ray Stevenson in October 1976, featured in the first (and only) issue of the Sex Pistols fanzine Anarchy in the U. K. One of the pictures (cropped) can be seen at the top of this post. 

[7] See the post entitled 'Reflections on a Photo of Two Young Punks' (4 December 2018): click here, in which I pay my respects to (and express my fondness for) Debbie and Tracie. 

[8] See Marshall's memoir, Berlin Bromley (SAF Publishing Ltd., 2006). 

      Marshall - aka Berlin - was just 15 in 1976 when he and fellow suburban misfits Susan Ballion (Sioxsie Sioux), Steven Bailey (Steve Severin), and Simon Barker (Six) began to hang around 430 King's Road and follow the Sex Pistols. They formed the core of the Bromley Contingent and, along with a small handful of others, can be regarded as those whom one cultural commentator at the time described as the "'extreme ideological wing of the Peculiars'". 

      See Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 329, who quotes Peter York writing in an article entitled 'Them', in Harpers & Queen (October, 1976).     

[9] I'm referring here to the Prostitution exhibition (1976) by the performance art collective founded by Genesis P-Orridge - COUM Transmissions - at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, which included (amongst other delights) pornographic images, used sanitary products, bloody bandages, rusty knives, and dirty syringes. The opening night show featured a stripper and prostitutes and punks were invited to mingle with the gallery audience; this included members of the Bromley Contingent, some of whom - including Debbie - got their pictures in the papers. 

      Perhaps not surprisingly, the show - which ran for just over a week - caused press outrage and debate in parliament; one Tory MP described all those involved as the wreckers of civilisation. Despite criticism from almost every quarter, the ICA director, Ted Little, defended the show which is still regarded to this day - almost 50 years later - as one of the most controversial in both the ICA's history and that of British contemporary art, challenging moral and aesthetic values in a manner similar to McLaren's Sex Pistols and obliging him to thereafter up his game as a provocateur. 

 

 

Musical bonus: 'We Are All Prostitutes' by The Pop Group (Rough Trade, 1979): click here.  

    

Everybody's on Top of the Pops

 

Legs & Co. dancing to 'Silly Thing' by the Sex Pistols and 'Bankrobber' by The Clash 

Top of the Pops (BBC Television, 12 April 1979 and 21 August 1980)

 

I. 

 

'Top of the Pops', by the Rezillos, is one of the great punk singles by one of the great punk bands [1]. And, in August 1978, it led to one of the great punk performances on the BBC show of that name: click here.  

But even though the band make it clear in the lyrics to their song that they are critiquing the music industry and the significant role played within it by the broadcast media - 

 

Doesn't matter what is shown 

Just as long as everyone knows 

What is selling, what to buy 

The stock market for your hi-fi [2]

 

- TOTP producer Robin Nash, simply smiled and said that not only was it always nice to be mentioned, but that being attacked in this manner demonstrated just how relevant the programme remained even to the punk generation. 

 

Ultimately, it appears that the cynicism of those who control the media and the music business trumps the ironic protest of a new wave band. 

 

 

II. 

 

As if to hammer home this point to those who still believed in the integrity and revolutionary character of their punk idols, we were treated to the spectacle of Legs & Co. dancing to the Sex Pistols on Top of the Pops just eight months later: If you like their pop music, you'll love their pop corn - click here [3].

 

Perhaps even more surprisingy, the following year Legs and Co. gyrated behind bars to the strains of 'Bankrobber', by The Clash, in a routine squeezed in between songs from Shakin' Stevens [4] and Billy Joel [5]. 

 

Worse, the somewhat sentimental punky reggae composition written by Strummer and Jones, which reached number 12 in the UK charts, was sneered at by Cliff Richard, who mockingly declared that it could have been a Eurovision winner: click here [6]. 

 

 

On the front of a television screen ...

 

 

Notes

 

[1] I'm being generous, of course, but it's hard not to love the Rezillos; an assemblage of art and fashion students from Bonnie Scotland, fronted by Fay Fife, who took a much more fun approach to songwriting than the Clash and described themselves as a new wave beat group rather than a punk rock band. More glam than garage - and seemingly more interested in sci-fi and B-movies than rhythm and blues - the Rezillos are sometimes compared to both the Cramps and the B-52s. 

 

[2] Lyrics from 'Top of the Pops', written by John Callis (or, as he was known whilst a member of the Rezillos, Luke Warm). This track, released in July 1978 as a single from the album Can't Stand the Rezillos (Sire Records, 1978), reached number 17 in the UK chart, whilst the LP did slightly better by getting to number 16 and is now considered something of a classic of the punk-pop genre. 

 

[3] To be fair, 'Silly Thing' is a great pop-punk track by Cook and Jones and the always excellent Legs and Co. - a six-girl dance troupe formed in 1976 - give a spirited and amusing performance, choreographed by Flick Colby. 

      The line quoted is from the cinema ad sequence in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (dir. Julien Temple,1980) which correctly predicts the manner in which the Sex Pistols would be co-opted by consumer capitalism and become just another brand name to be stamped on a range of products.

 

[4] Welsh singer-songwriter Shakin' Stevens released his cover of 'Marie, Marie' as the third single from his album of the same title (Epic Records, 1980). Despite being released in July, the single did not enter the UK Singles Chart until the second week of August, staying in the chart for ten weeks and peaking at number 19 (his first top twenty hit). 

 

[5] The Billy Joel song, 'It's Still Rock 'n' Roll to Me', was released from his hit album Glass Houses (Columbia Records, 1980). It made number 1 in the US, but only reached 14 in the UK. The song conveys Joel's criticisms of the music industry and press for jumping on the new wave bandwagon, when it was merely a rehash, in his view, of older musical forms and inferior to his own brand of slightly more sophisticated, ambitious, and highly polished soft rock.   

 

[6] For those who would prefer to watch the official video for 'Bankrobber' (dir. Don Letts), click here.       

      To be fair to The Clash, they never did appear in person on Top of the Pops, unlike almost every other punk band at the time (and the reformed Sex Pistols in 1996). However, they did allow the use of videos for 'Should I Stay or Should I Go' and 'Rock the Casbah' on TOTP when these singles were re-released in 1991 (six years after they disbanded).     

Giovanni Dadomo: the Snivelling Shit

Giovanni Dadomo giving a superior and slightly sideways look 

to Messrs. Rotten & McLaren on Nationwide 

(BBC TV 12 Nov 1976)

 

 

I.

 

Sometimes, it can take almost fifty years before your brain makes the necessary connection and you finally realise something you really ought to have known at the time.

 

For example, it was only very recently that I twigged that the founder and frontman of the Snivelling Shits was the same Giovanni Dadomo who, in his guise as a respected music journalist, appeared on an episode of the BBC current affairs show Nationwide featuring the Sex Pistols [1]. 

 

According to Dadomo, whilst their music was a bit derivative, the group's aggressive nihilism was more of a concern, as it not only had regrettable real-world consequences, but soon became boring:

 

"Destruction for its own sake is dull, ultimately ... it doesn't offer any hope ..." [2]

 

 

II.

 

Of course, any worries Dadomo may or may not have had, didn't stop him from abandoning his flares and two-tone platform shoes and forming his own punk band the following year. 

 

However, it now seems clear to me - in a way that it wasn't back in 1977 - that the Snivelling Shits were essentially an attempt to parody the movement spearheaded by the Sex Pistols. Disconcerted by the threatening nature of the band (and, one suspects, envious of their success), Dadomo attempted to expose their crassness and musical worthlessness, as he perceived it. 

 

If the New York Dolls were, as Bob Harris famously described them, nothing more than a mock rock band, then the Snivelling Shits were similarly a mock punk band.  

 

Ironically, however, their single 'Terminal Stupid' [3] was an instant favourite (not least with John Peel, who played the track endlessly on his late night radio show) and it is now firmly established as a classic of the punk genre. 

 

He may have come across as a twat on Nationwide when confronted by Messrs. Rotten and McLaren in all their flame-haired glory, but, to be fair, Dadomo was obviously a talented and witty lyricist, as recognised by members of the Damned who asked him to co-write a couple of songs with them [4]. 

Sadly, Dadomo died in 1997. It's been suggested by some that he was the poor man's Nick Kent, but that seems unfair and a little unkind.

 

In a memorial post on a Facebook page dedicated to the Snivelling Shits, he is described (presumably by one who knew him) as a "beautiful human being; literate, musical and hilarious" as well as sensitive and highly intelligent [5].

I'm sure all of that - and more - is true. But he wasn't a Sex Pistol ...  

 

Notes

 

[1] The Sex Pistols and their manager Malcolm McLaren appeared on the BBC TV show Nationwide on 12 November, 1976. As well as being interviewed by an irritated Maggie ('I don't have a safety pin through my nose') Norden on the punk phenomenon, the band were shown performing 'Anarchy in the UK' (recorded at the BBC studios the day before). 

      Click here to view the exchange between Norden, McLaren, Rotten, and Dadomo on the BBC Archive (on Youtube).

 

[2] As can heard in the above exchange linked to, Malcolm - perhaps rather predictably - countered this by declaring: "You have to destroy in order to create, you know that. You have to break it down and build it up again in a different form." 

[3] The single 'Terminal Stupid' was released in late 1977 on the independent label Ghetto Rockers. It was later included on the album I Can't Come (Damaged Goods, 1989), described by one reviewer, Dave Thompson, as punk "at its most pristinely putrid". Click here to read Thompson's review on AllMusic. And click here to play the magnificent 'Terminal Stupid'.    

 

[4] Dadomo co-wrote 'I Just Can't Be Happy Today' with Captain Sensible - released as a single from the album Machine Gun Etiquette (Chiswick Records, 1979) - and 'There Ain't No Sanity Clause' with Rat Scabies, Captain Sensible, and Dave Vanian, released as a single in November 1980 (Chiswick). Those who wish to hear the version of this latter track recorded by the Snivelling Shits (and included on the album I Can't Come (1989)), should click here. 

 

[5] This Snivelling Shits Facebook post was published on 4 July 2015: click here. It is reproduced on punk77.co.uk - click here.

 

On Plato and Starmer: Noble Liars

Noble Liars: Plato and Keir Starmer

 

 

I. 

 

Q: What unites Plato (an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical period) and Keir Starmer (a British politician and lawyer currently serving as Prime Minister of the UK)? 

A: Both believe in the political necessity of falsehoods; of deliberately propagating a noble lie in order to achieve and secure social cohesion and stability. Both understand that this might be seen as morally questionable, but justify their mendacity by appealing to the greater good - and, indeed, their own inherent virtue. 

 

Plato wished to found his ideal city-state - ruled over by golden philosopher-kings - on a myth about the metallic origins of class difference [1]; whilst Starmer, on the other hand, wants to defend his ideal of a multicultural society - ruled over by a woke liberal elite - on a myth that has the red letters DEI running through it like those in a stick of rock. 

 

 

II. 

 

Of course, as someone who has previously written in praise of three great liars - Nietzsche, Twain, and Wilde [2] - and argued that lying is an art not only vital to the functioning of society, but necessary for the preservation of human life in a violently chaotic and inhuman world, it would be hypocritical for me to now condemn Plato and Starmer for their mixture of political pragmatism and cynicism, and to start defending the ideal of Truth at all times and on every occasion (as Kant does, for example). 

 

Nevertheless, I am concerned that when a noble lie is exposed, it can have unfortunate consequences; triggering the very things that those who posit such fear and seek to prevent (e.g., a loss of trust in authority figures and institutions, as well as a breakdown of social order). 

 

And the thing with Starmer is he's such a transparently dishonest figure that everyone knows he's lying all of the time. Starmer risks destabilising the UK and pushing the electorate into either political apathy (they no longer vote), political extremism (they start to vote for maverick figures), or violent protest (they start to throw bricks); for if nothing is true, everything is permitted [3].

 

Notes

 

[1] Plato presented the noble lie - γενναῖον ψεῦδος - in the fictional tale known as the Myth of the Metals in Book III (414d - 415e) of The Republic (c. 375 BC). 

      In it, Socrates describes the natural origin of the three social classes - all born of the same good earth - who compose the Kallipolis. First are the men of gold, who make the best rulers; second, are the men with more silver in their souls, who make the best auxiliaries and are thus destined to assist the men of gold; and thirdly, are the hoi polloi or men of bronze, who have a different set of strengths (and weaknesses) and make the best farmers and craftsmen. 

      Interestingly, although once born into a certain class one cannot leave it, parents with one type of soul can nevertheless produce offspring with a different metallic nature, so there is a degree of social mobility even in Plato's ideal state. Socrates claims that if everyone believed this myth it would have the positive effect of making them care for society and each other.        

 

[2] For the post on Nietzsche in the series on three great liars, published in June 2020, click here. For the post on Mark Twain in the same series, click here. And for the third and final post in the series, on Oscar Wilde, click here. 

      Readers are also invited to click here for a follow up post entitled 'Tell Me Sweet Little Lies' (23 June 2020). 

[3] This so-called assassin's creed is a nihilistic statement par excellence (even if it doesn't simply mean that any action is justifiable or without consequences). For many people, the phrase is taken from a video game first released in 2007; for others, it comes from the 1938 novel by Vladimir Bartol. But I'm sure readers of TTA will recall that Nietzsche also used this phrase in the Genealogy (1887); see Essay III, section 24.   

Sein zum Tode: Notes on the Case of Ellen West and the Work of Ludwig Binswanger

Ellen West (1888-1921) [1]

 

'She looked in death as she had never looked in life; calm, happy, and peaceful.'

 

I. 

 

I've been interested in the tragic (but also seminal) case of Ellen West since the Thanatology series of papers at Treadwell's in 2006 and, to be honest, I'm very surprised to discover that - apparently - I haven't discussed it in a post published on Torpedo the Ark before now ... [2]

 

 

II.

 

Der Fall Ellen West - Eine anthropologisch-klinische Studie was published in 1944-45 by the Swiss psychiatrist Ludwig Binswanger [3].

 

It offers a fascinating account of a young woman's agonising struggle to die at the time and in the manner of her own choosing and is considered to be a crucial text within a discipline known as Daseinsanalysis (one that attempts to combine therapeutic practice with existental philosophy) [4].    

 

Ellen West already had a clinical history of depression and disordered eating by the time she came under the care of Binswanger at his Bellevue Sanatorium in the picturesque town of Kreuzlingen, Switzerland, in 1921. Her ten week stay here resulted in a diagnosis of bulimia nervosa and schizophrenia and, ultimately, the suicide that she had long desired.

III.

West was born to a Jewish family in the United States in 1888, who moved to Europe when she was ten years old. An intelligent and articulate child, who enjoyed reading and writing poetry, she was also said to be disobedient and prone to obsessive-compulsive behaviour. By the time she reached early adulthood, she already had an extreme fear of gaining weight and began taking an extraordinary amount of laxatives.

 

Aged 28, she married her cousin, Karl, and hoped for a child. But her eating disorder had left her in a frail and fragile condition and by 30 she was no longer menstruating and had fallen to a dangerously low weight below 100 lbs. (the average weight for a healthy woman of her age at that time was between 135-150 lbs).

 

If he hadn't noticed already, West's husband was forced to confront the truth of his wife's condition when she confided in him about her problematic relation with food, her addiction to laxatives, and her obesophobia, which, by this stage, was mutating into an altogether something different (and something philosophically more interesting).       

 

 

IV.

Towards the end of her life, death was West's great obsession; one is tempted to describe it more as her passion and paradoxical life goal (i.e., that which provided meaning and direction and which she didn't merely resign herself to, but actively strove to achieve).

 

She had arrived at the conclusion that being dead was better than being fat - and preferable to a life that felt empty and boring and required the constant consumption of food. And so, West chose to invite death into her life by indulging in dangerous activities, such as kissing children with scarlet fever, riding horses in a reckless manner, and standing naked in the cold after having a hot bath [5].    

None of these things did the trick, however, and West eventually died after leaving the Bellevue clinic with Binswanger's blessing [6] and swallowing a lethal dose of poison; something her husband consented to and witnessed, telling others that she had been in a strangely festive mood for several days prior. 

 

Herr Doktor Binswanger was also recorded as saying that Ellen looked 'as she had never looked in life - calm, happy, and peaceful', having taken full responsibility for her own existence and her own death. 

 

 

V.

 

So, what, in sum, do we learn from the case of Ellen West? 

We learn that for some people, sometimes, only voluntary death brings freedom and fulfilment. 

 

In other words, there are times when nothingness and non-being take on a desperately positive meaning and only in her decision for death did West, paradoxically, find her authentic self. As George Steiner writes, conveniently summarising Heidegger's thinking on the matter in Sein und Zeit (1927):

 

"Dasein can come to grasp its own wholeness and [...] meaningfulness [...] only when it faces its 'no-longer-being-there' (sein 'Nicht-mehr-dasein) [...] Dasein [...] has access to the meaning of being because, and only because, that being is finite. Authentic being is, therefore, a being-towards-death, a Sein-zum-Tode." [7] 

 

 

VI.

 

It's clear that Michel Foucault found the case of Ellen West particularly fascinating and he develops this thanatological line of thinking in his own work. She was, he said, a woman "'caught between the wish to fly, to float in ethereal jubilation, and the obsessive fear of being trapped [by] a muddy earth that oppressed and paralyzed her'" [8].

 

To embrace death was obviously to bring her life to an end, but suicide nevertheless enabled the brief experience of a "'totally free existence […] one that would no longer know the weight of living, but only the transparency where love is totalized in the eternity of an instant'" [9]. 

 

I'm not sure I know exactly what this means - but it sounds very beautiful and it's worth noting in closing how the case of Ellen West has inspired several writers and artists, including the acclaimed American poet Frank Bidart, whose long persona poem 'Ellen West' (1977) can be read by clicking here [10]. 

 

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: 

Kopf Dr. Ludwig Binswanger und kleine Mädchen (1917-18) 

 meisterdrucke.uk

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The real name of the young woman at the centre of this case remains unknown; Ellen West was a pseudonym invented by her doctor, Ludwig Binswanger, who is believed to have based it on the character Rebecca West, in Ibsen's play Rosmersholm (1868), a central theme of which is the idea of suicide as one way to find meaning and freedom in death.

 

[2] I say apparently because I'm half-convinced that such a post was published on TTA but has since been deleted by Blogger. 

      The Treadwell's paper to which I refer was entitled 'Suicide and the Practice of Joy before Death'. It can be found in volume two of The Treadwell's Papers (Blind Cupid Press, 2010). 

 

[3] Ludwig Binswanger (1881-1966) was a Swiss psychiatrist and pioneer in the field of existential psychology or what he termed Daseinanalyse (see note 4 below). 

      In 1907, Binswanger received his medical degree from the University of Zurich and, as a young man, he worked and studied with some of the great shrinks of his era, including Freud, Jung, and Eugen Bleuler (who coined the terms schizophrenia and autism). He was, however, always a bit wary of psychoanalysis and arguably more influenced by the philosophical ideas of Husserl and Heidegger. Perhaps not surprisingly, Foucault was a fan of Binswanger's work, translating his 1930 essay Traum und Existenz from German into French in 1954 and providing a substantial introduction (the fact that Ludwig Binswanger's uncle, Otto Binswanger, had been one of Nietzsche's physicians during the philosopher's final years was doubtless something Foucault also found intriguing).

      An English translation of Binswanger's most famous case - that of Ellen West - by Werner M. Mendel and Joseph Lyons, can be found in Existence: A New Dimension in Psychiatry and Psychology, ed. by Rollo May, Ernest Angel, and Henri F. Ellenberger (Basic Books, 1958).  

 

[4] Daseinsanalysis was first developed by Binswanger in the 1920s under the name phenomenological anthropology. His thinking at this time was heavily influenced by Husserl on the one hand and Freud on the other. His key idea was that human existence (as a specific mode of being) is open to any and all experience and that die Lebenswelt significantly shapes an individual's self (thus, if you want to change the way someone thinks, you must first alter their lived experience of the world).

      Binswanger also believed that mental health issues - including schizophrenia, melancholy, and mania - often stemmed from the paradox of men and women living alongside others whilst ultimately remaining alone. As he developed his thinking and continued his research, Binswanger began to increasingly relate his analysis to the work of Martin Heidegger and following publication of his book Grundformen und Erkenntnis menschlichen Daseins in 1942, he began using the term Daseinanalyse.

 

[5] Whether or not these activities constitute a practice of joy before death is something that you, dear reader, may decide upon. It might be noted that West also attempted to commit suicide on several occasions via more conventional methods; for example, she twice overdosed on pills, once threw herself in front of a car, and once attempted to jump from the window of her psychiatrist's office.

 

[6] As James Miller informs us, in her sessions with Binswanger Ellen West is "alert, amiable, and apparetly consumed by the desire to die". Thus, after consulting with two other psychiatrists - both of whom agree that her case is hopeless - Binswanger decides that she should be allowed home, even though he is aware that Ellen "will almost certainly kill herself".  

      See James Miller, The Passion of Michel Foucault, (Flamingo, 1994), pp. 74-75.

 

[7] George Steiner, Heidegger (Fontana Press, 1989), p. 99.

 

[8] Foucault quoted by James Miller in The Passion of Michel Foucault ... p. 75.

[9] Ibid.  

      Although Foucault didn't successfully commit suicide, he made a number of attempts to do so - including one in which he slashed his chest open with a knife - and always dreamed "'of violent death, of savage death, of horrified death' […] a death in which in its most inauthentic form is but the bloody and brutal interruption of life, yet in its authentic form, is the fulfilment of [man's] very existence". 

      For Foucault, then, as for Ellen West, suicide is the final desire or ultimate mode of imagining. Far from being a negation of the world and the self, it is rather "'a way of rediscovering the original moment in which I make myself world'". 

      Again, see Miller, The Passion of Michel Foucault ... pp. 78-79. 

 

[10] 'Ellen West', by Frank Bidart, was originally published in The Book of the Body (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977). It can also be found in Bidart's In the Western Night: Collected Poems 1965-90 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1991). 

 

Chrysopoeia: From Alchemy to Particle Physics

 

 

I. 

 

One of the problems I have with analytical psychology is that it posits symbols everywhere. 

 

Thus, for example, Jung insists that the alchemists were not literally attempting to turn lead into gold; that chrysopoeia is simply an ancient Greek term for individuation and has nothing to do with the transmutation of base metals. 

 

In other words, the alchemists were metaphorically describing a process of self-realisation and their obscure and seemingly nonsensical texts contained universal truths which, once you understood how to interpret them, anticipated and reinforced his own theories [1].

 

Thus lead, don'tcha know, symbolises the unconscious, that shadowy place of repressed emotions, unresolved conflicts, and unacknowledged forces; whilst gold, on the other hand, symbolises the fully integrated (and fully conscious) self.      

 

 

II.

There's nothing wrong with viewing alchemy as a magical art or esoteric philosophy if that makes happy. But, personally, I prefer to think of it as an early form of science, associated with chemistry and metallurgy.

 

And so I'm pleased to report that our friends at CERN have demonstrated (on several occasions) that you can, in fact, turn actual lead into actual gold - though the great work requires a particle accelerator rather than a simple melting-pot or crucible. 

 

In 2002 and 2004, scientists using the Super Proton Synchrotron reported producing a minuscule amount of gold nuclei from lead nuclei, by inducing photon emissions within deliberate near-miss collisions of the latter.

 

And, earlier this year, another experimental team at CERN announced that they had used the Large Hadron Collider to replicate the 2002 SPS experiments at higher energies and created a total of roughly 260 billion gold nuclei over three runs (that might sound a lot, but, again, it's a tiny, tiny amount of material; think trillionths of a gram). [2].

 

 

III.

 

So, how's it done? 

 

Well, since the crucial difference between an atom of lead and an atom of gold is that the former contains three more protons [3], all you have to do is subtract these with an artificially produced electric field and Bob's your uncle, you have accomplished something that medieval alchemists could only dream of and followers of Jung only conceive in relation (yawn) to the psyche.  

 

Of course, that's not so easy; as I indicate above, you're going to need access to some serious technology if you wish to fire lead atoms towards each other at extremely high speeds. But it is doable - and that's pretty amazing, I think (even if not something that the scientists at CERN particularly welcome) [4].

 

Notes

 

[1] Jung readily admits that he initially regarded alchemical texts to be nonsensical and impossible to understand. However, curious, he pressed on and eventually discovered passages that he thought significant and which seemed to correlate with findings in his own work: 'I realised that the alchemists were talking in symbols ... [and that] only after we have learned how to interpret them can we recognise what treasures they hide'.  

      See  C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, recorded and ed. by Aniela Jaffe (Vintage Books, 1965), p. 204.

 

[2] Despite its very high density, the gold nucleus is incredibly small, with a diameter of approximately 3 x 10⁻¹⁴ metres. This is about 10,000 times smaller than the diameter of a gold atom itself. So even 260 billion gold nuclei don't amount to much and cannot be directly observed. 

      Gold is defined as a distinct element on the basis of its nucleus consisting of 79 protons. The neutrons meanwhile - which vary in number depending on what isotopic variety of gold one is dealing with - determine the stability and mass of the nucleus.   

 

[3] For those, like me, who need a reminder ... A proton is a subatomic particle with a positive electrical charge. They are found in every atomic nucleus of every element.  

 

[4] Equally amazing is the fact that if you only subtract one proton from an atom of lead you'll produce thallium - a rare, naturally occurring silvery-white soft metal known for its toxicity - whilst if you subtract two protons, you'll end up with mercury.

      The reason why scientists don't particularly welcome this unintentional alchemy is explained by Ulrik Egede, a professor of physics at Monash University: 

      "Once a lead nucleus has transformed by losing protons, it is no longer on the perfect orbit that keeps it circulating inside the vacuum beam pipe of the Large Hadron Collider. In a matter of microseconds it will collide with the walls. This effect makes the beam less intense over time. So for scientists, the production of gold at the collider is in fact more of a nuisance than a blessing."

      See Ulrik Egede, 'Physicists at the Large Hadron Collider turned lead into gold - by accident', The Conversation (13 May 2025): click here.  

Queer as Punk

A punk bromance: Sid 💘 Johnny

 

'Punk is a challenge to reconsider everything you do, think or feel; 

including the ways that you love.' [1]

 

 

I. 

 

In the second volume of his memoirs - Anger is an Energy  (2014) - Johnny Rotten flatly denies the persistent rumour that he and Vicious, unlike Cook and Jones, were more than just good friends ... 

 

Perhaps one reason why this romantic myth continues to resonate is because before becoming a term used by the media to identify a form of rock music that emerged in the 1970s, the word punk had a long subcultural history rooted in illicit and deviant sexual activity.   

 

In the 16th century, for example, it was used by writers including Shakespeare as a synonym for a female prostitute and spelt rather charmingly as puncke [2]. By the late 17th century, however, it had taken on a different meaning and described a youth who is provided for by an older man in exchange for certain favours. 

 

This queer [3] etymology takes on renewed significance when one recalls the story of the Sex Pistols; an anarchic collective held together with safety pins and bondage straps which included a far wider and more diverse group of people than the actual members of the band [4]. 

 

The teens who spent their time hanging around 430 King's Road challenged heteronormative values with their behaviour, attitude, and appearance; cheerfully wearing T-shirts designed by McLaren and Westwood which included images drawn from gay porn, including homosexual cowboys, nude adolescents, and well-endowed American footballers [5].     

And so, whilst both Rotten and Vicious were for the most part straight in terms of their sexual orientation, their emphasis on non-conformity, free expression, and open acceptance of gay culture - the band and their followers would often socialise in the early days at a lesbian member's club in Soho called Louise's - was positively received within the queer community at that time.    

 

 

II. 

 

Notwithstanding what I say above, I think we should be wary of retrospectively romanticising the story of the Sex Pistols, or imposing contemporary theoretical interpretations concerning queer sexual politics and identities on to the reality of the UK punk scene in the 1970s. I don't want to be the person who says let's stick to the facts at every opportunity, but I would agree that any analysis showing a flagrant disregard for historical accuracy seems of little real value or interest.   

 

Further, as David Wilkinson points out, "once punk is separated from rooted judgement through failure to locate it within a particular conjuncture, its politics can be celebrated as uniformly positive" [6] and that's a problem: the Sex Pistols did not promise to make things better and punk wasn't entirely gay friendly; there remained elements of homophobia within it (just as there did of racism, sexism, and reactionary stupidity).   

Ultimately, for McLaren and Westwood, same-sex passion was seen as something with which to confront and discomfort the English; they wished to weaponise it, not promote gay liberation or simply camp things up for the fun of it: 

"Given [their] positioning of same-sex passion as alienated, perverse and violent, it is unsurprising that McLaren and Westwood not only seemed to have little interest in the radically transformative aims of gay liberation, but were also prone to homophobic gestures that were calculated to shock in their contempt of even reformist demands for respect, understanding and openness." [7]

 

Ultimately, as Wilkinson says, McLaren and Westwood's "was an idiosyncratic, peculiarly hybrid kind of politics, especially in relation to sexuality" [8]; one based on the radical understanding of desire as "an instinctive, irrational force capable of disrupting social norms once unanchored from the private sphere" [9], but they weren't interested in how to further loving relationships, same-sex or otherwise.   

 

And as for Johnny and Sid, for better or worse, they were more romantically fixated on Nora and Nancy than one another.   

 

 

Notes

 

[1] I'm paraphrasing Pete Shelley writing in the second issue of his self-produced punk fanzine Plaything (1978): click here. 

 

[2] Shakespeare used the word, for example, in Measure for Measure (1603-04), where Lucio suggests that since Mariana is 'neither maid, widow, nor wife', she may 'be a Puncke’ (Act 5, scene 1).

[3] I am using this term here as one that includes same-sex desire, but which is not synonymous with such. If it were up to me, as someone who finds the empty secret of non-identity philosophically more interesting than the open secret of same-sex desire, I would restrict use of the word queer to refer to forms of practice and behaviour that have nothing to do with sexuality or gender. 

      See the post of 16 March 2025, in which I discuss the term: click here. 

[4] When I think of the Sex Pistols, I certainly don't just think of Steve Jones, Paul Cook, Glen Matlock, and Johnny Rotten, but also of Malcolm McLaren, Vivienne Westwood, Jamie Reid, Jordan, Soo Catwoman, Helen of Troy, and various members of the so-called Bromley Contingent. 

 

[5] David Wilkinson makes the important point that these designs "deliberately inhabited dominant understandings of unsanctioned sexuality as perverse, sordid and violent in order to provoke a reaction" and that McLaren and Westwood were not consciously offering a set of alternative values. 

      See Wilkinson's excellent essay 'Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t Have?): Punk, Politics and Same-Sex Passion', in Key Words: A Journal of Cultural Materialism, No. 13 (2015), pp. 57-76. The line quoted from is on p. 64. 

 

[6] David Wilkinson, ibid., p. 59.

[7] Ibid., p. 65. 

 

[8] Ibid., p. 62.

 

[9] Ibid., p. 63.  

Musical bonus: Tom Robinson Band, 'Glad to be Gay', from the EP Rising Free (EMI Records, 1978): click here. 

 

 

Temporal Reflections Whilst Sitting in My Back Garden

Sitting in the back garden in 1967 and 2025

 

 

I.

 

The debate as to whether we inhabit time, move through time, or if, indeed, time moves through us, remains a fascinating one for both philosophers and physicists alike. 

 

I suppose it ultimately all comes down to how one interprets the nature of time and its relationship to space. If, for example, one thinks of space-time as a single 4-dimensional continuum, then we obviously dwell within it and experience it as fundamental to our being.

 

But if, on the other hand, one likes to conceive of time in a more classical sense as something distinct from the spacial geometry of the universe, then it becomes possible to think of ourselves as objects that are simply carried along from past to to future via the present as if in a fast-flowing temporal stream. 

 

Personally, I'm quite interested in the so-called block model of time that proposes all moments exist simultaneously. According to this model, the idea of moving in a linear and unidirectional manner through time is dismissed as an illusion of consciousness [1].    

 

 

II. 

 

As I confessed in a post published a while back [2], whilst, paradoxically, I have a minimal sense of identity on the one hand, I've always possessed a strong sense of temporal self-continuity, and have never really bought into the idea of there being seven distinct ages into which a single life might be neatly divided up. 

 

Like the Killing Joke frontman, Jaz Coleman, time means nothing to me, and whether something happened fifty-eight years ago or yesterday, is a matter of indifference; even without shutting my eyes, I can still think the thoughts and experience the feelings I had as a child without making an imaginative journey back in time [3]. 

 

In part, this is perhaps helped by the fact that my spatial coordinates and the objects of my universe - my frames of reference - have remained (relatively) fixed and stable as the images above illustrate [4].

 

 

Notes

 

[1] This block theory, also known as eternalism, in which past, present and future, all exist simultaneously should not be confused with presentism, according to which only a perpetual present exists and therefore has ontological primacy. 

      Nor should it be mistaken for the growing block theory of time, according to which an ever-expanding past and present exist, but the future doesn't; in other words, whilst the present becomes the past and therefore adds to the total history of the world, the present does not precede any future. This model is said to confirm the popular understanding of time in which the past is fixed, the future unreal, and the present constantly changing.     

 

[2] The post to which I refer was titled 'Being is Time: Life in the Present Perfect Continuous' (5 Oct 2022): click here. 

 

[3] I'm paraphrasing from the Killing Joke song 'Slipstream', from the album Extremities, Dirt and Various Repressed Emotions, (Noise Records, 1990): click here. 

 

[4] I'm aware, of course, that time passes (and does so at the same pace) regardless of whether one constantly travels all around the world or sits in the same spot for almost sixty years; that time dilation is related to factors such as gravity rather than the physical location and stationary nature of the subject and that we grow old not matter what we do or don't do.     

 

 

On the Man Who Liked to Stare

 

 'When you stare long into the abyss, the abyss will also stare into you ...' [a] 

 

Nakamura has a fascination for staring death in the face; provided it's the death of another and that individual is deserving of their fate having been found guilty by a court of law of some grievous crime, such as murder.

 

Without getting into the rights and wrongs of capital punishment, most societies consider the unlawful and intentional killing of another human being to be an extremely serious matter, deserving of harsh punishment, be that a life behind bars, or state-sanctioned execution. 

In Nakamura's mind, murder is always an act of malicious evil whilst judicial homocide is morally justifiable and also a social necessity when considered in terms of deterrence, for example. And so, he feels he has a sacred duty to witness the death of criminals and the desire to do so is one that often arises within him:

"Nakamura's pride and joy in witnessing the death penalty, which he had felt on several occasions, and which he had told his friends and even his wife about, was on the rise again. He felt as if something special, something powerful, something stern and unmovable, like divine punishment itself, resided within him." [b] 

 

And yet, on the morning of the execution Nakamura often felt a level of physical anxiety that went beyond nervous anticipation; his entire body would begin to tremble in an unpleasant and uncontrollable manner. And his weak cup of tea "tasted of nothing" [91]. 

 

His wife obviously notices, but when she tries to speak to him and tell him of her dislike for the whole business, he grows angry and wants to strike her. 

 

"'Of course, I don't like it either,' he said. 'But if everyone felt that way, it would be easier for warmongers and criminals. You have to choose one side or the other. Either we, as citizens, will make society safe, or we will leave them to their own devices.'" [92]

 

Having said this, he reassured himself somewhat: "And he also felt that he was a hero, a hero who fulfilled his duty without regard for his own interests" [92]. His wife, however, is less than convinced; she knows that there's a real and often terrible price to pay for repeatedly witnessing executions, as studies have shown and many have testified [c].  

 

Nakamura boards his early morning train. Sat opposite him were a couple of businessmen, two young men in uniform, and "a beautiful, drowsy young woman" [93], who particularly fascinates him:    

 

"Her colour gave him a certain masculine feeling. The girl's eyes, which were a kind of melancholy grey, made him think of the rumpled bedclothes she had just woken up on. [...] Nakamura was so busy looking at her eyes, her breasts, and the rich lustre of her hair, that he almost forgot where the train was heading." [94]  

 

Almost: but not quite. His intrusive and sexualised staring [d] ultimately doesn't distract him from his sacred duty of attending the gallows. For the thought of an imaginary fuck was not as thrilling to him as the prospect of an actual death. It was the latter that filled him with "a certain dark and powerful force" [93] and made his erection as hard as a judge's hammer.   

 

He arrives at the prison: he takes his seat: he awaits the arrival of the condemned: "He was a young man. He was tall. Nakamura could not take his eyes off this man's body" [96], unless it was to look at his "youthful, slightly beaming, blushing face" [96].

 

And when the condemned man's eyes meet his own, "Nakamura thought he saw something beautiful shining in the man's small eyes like a flash of lightning" [96]. 

 

He shivers and feels himself lightheaded as the trapdoor opens, closing his eyes in a kind of ecstasy as "the sound of people’s voices whispering" [97] echoed around the room.  

 

Afterwards, Nakamura is desolate, his eyes glowing "as if fevered" [98], or having ejaculated.  

 

Consummatum est ...

 

Nakamura was obliged to sign a note saying that he had witnessed the execution. Although unable to think clearly, he felt himself filled with the silent knowledge of death; his avaricious curiosity satisfied (for the moment).

 

 

Notes

 

[a] Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, IV. 146.

 

[b] Chōkōdō Shujin, 'The Condemned', in Nakajimi Says and Other Stories (The Tripover, 2025), pp. 90-91. All future page references in this post are to this text. 

 

[c] Research suggests that witnessing executions - in whatever capacity - can have a profound and often traumatic impact on individuals, affecting their mental and emotional well-being. Indeed, even those who facilitate the executions and hardened journalists who report on them, often experience significant levels of stress, leading to nightmares, insomnia, panic attacks, and a sense of detachment from reality or other people. 

      Thus, the idea put forward by proponents of capital punishment that executions bring closure and allow healing is questionable to say the very least. 

 

[d] As far as I know, it is not yet a crime to look at someone in a public space, but so-called intrusive staring is now regarded as a form of harassment (particularly if it's an unwanted form of sexual leering) and so can get you arrested and possibly banged up. 

      To be fair, I can see how one might be made to feel uncomfortable if one is watched and evaluated by a stranger, but I don't have much time for arguments framed within the context of objectification; no one is dehumanised by being looked at or lusted after. Ultimately, I suppose whether or not staring is a genuine concern depends on context, the intent of the individual staring, and the sensitivity of the person being looked at. 

 

 

This post is for Soko and Rebecca. 

 

Click here for an earlier post responding to Nakajimi Says and Other Stories (2025).