D. H. Lawrence and E. M. Cioran on Man's Becoming-Animal

Helmo: from the Bêtes de Mode series (2006)

I. Becoming All the Animals in Turn. 

Sick and tired of well-domesticated modern men like her husband, the female protagonist of Lawrence's short novel St. Mawr (1925), ponders if there mayn't be something else to marvel at in men besides "'mind and cleverness, or niceness or cleanness'" and that perhaps this something else is animality. 

Her mother, however, is unconvinced by this idea and imagines that her daughter secretly desires a caveman to club her over the head and carry her away. Angered that her suggestion has been misinterpreted as a vulgar rape fantasy, Lou responds:

"'Don't be silly, mother. That's much more your subconscious line, you admirer of Mind! I don't consider the caveman is a real human animal at all. He's a brute, a degenerate. A pure animal man would be as lovely as a deer or a leopard, burning like a flame fed straight from underneath. [...] He'd be all the animals in turn, instead of one, fixed automatic thing, which he is now, grinding on the nerves."

Mrs. Witt, unnerved by this, argues that whatever else such a combination of man and beast would be, he'd certainly be dangerous. Lou, angry now with her mother, replies that be that as it may, she'd still rather live in a world of animal-men that one full of tame and humble half-men who are merely sentimental and spiteful.     

II. Not to Be a Man Anymore

Of course, D. H. Lawrence isn't the only writer to dream of man's becoming-animal, or, indeed, becoming-plant. So too does the French-Romanian philosopher E. M. Cioran. In his first book, for example, published just ten years after Lawrence's St. Mawr, he writes these rather lovely lines:

"I am not proud to be a man, because I know only too well what it is to be a man. [...] If I could, I would choose every day another form, plant or animal, I would be all the flowers one by one: weed, thistle or rose [...] Let me live the life of every species , wildly and un-self-consciously, let me try out the entire spectrum of nature, let me change gracefully, discreetly, as if it were the most natural procedure."

But it's important to note that Cioran isn't looking to escape from or abandon his humanity once and for all, so much as to make it seem a newly attractive option once more:

"Only a cosmic adventure of this kind, a series of metamorphoses in the plant and animal realms, would reawaken in me the desire to become Man again."    

See: D. H. Lawrence, 'St. Mawr', in St. Mawr and Other Stories, ed. Brian Finney, (Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 59-62, and E. M. Cioran, On the Heights of Despair, trans. Ilinca Zarifopol-Johnston, (The University of Chicago Press, 1992), pp. 68-69. 

Note: Helmo is a French design studio established by Thomas Couderc and Clément Vauchez. In the Bêtes de Mode project, they collaborated with Thomas Dimetto to produce a series of double-exposure photographs of man and beast, exhibited at the Galeries Lafayette, Paris, (2006). To see more of these images, click here. 

Readers interested in a sister post to this one on DHL and EMC and the question of becoming-ash, should click here. 

On the Anguished Lyricism of E. M. Cioran

Emil Cioran - crazy hair, crazy guy!

I.

From out of the blue comes a book in the post: a copy of E. M. Cioran's On the Heights of Despair (1934), kindly sent to me by my friend and sometimes collaborator, the Dublin-based poet Simon Solomon ...

Originally published in his native Romania, this was Cioran's first book in which many of the themes and obsessions of his mature work are already foreshadowed. It might best be described as a series of existential meditations on death, suffering and life's absurdity, in which a young writer openly borrows some of Nietzsche's more theatrical poses and mystical clown's tricks.    

Unfortunately, however, Cioran isn't ever going to be my cup of tea. Even his translator, Ilinca Zarifopol-Johnston, concedes that he's a specialized taste - "too sharp and bitter for many palates and, paradoxically, too lyrical and funny for some others" - though I'm not entirely sure this explains my own aversion. 

After all, I'm perfectly happy with rancorous, darkly comic authors. So perhaps, then, it is the unrestrained lyricism; the fact that there's simply too much blood, sincerity, and fire within the pages for my tastes. If only Cioran had curbed his enthusiasm - and his rhetorical flourishes - I may have found this book easier to read and enjoy.      

Of course, I've no doubt that the self-professed barbarian and passionate young fascist who authored On the Heights of Despair would brand my unlyrical (and perhaps at times even anti-lyrical) call for the exercising of caution cowardly - a sign of my own sclerosis and hollow intellectualism.  

II. 

The vital importance of lyricism to Cioran in the above work is clear from the opening section, in which he roots it in what he terms inner fluidity or spiritual effervescence - the chaotic, unconscious turmoil of the deepest self. Lyricism is thus an outward expression of profound interiority:

"One becomes lyrical when one's life beats to an essential rhythm and the experience is so intense that it synthesizes the entire meaning of one's personality."

I don't know what that sentence means and it's not one I could ever imagine writing; not even in the throes of death or some other decisively critical experience, "when the turmoil of [my] inner being reaches paroxysm". In fact, such language and such thinking is antithetical to my substantial centre of subjectivity.

Thus, I'll just have to remain a stranger to myself and to reality; a loveless being, trapped in an impersonal bubble of objectivity and "living contentedly at the periphery of things", never knowing the lyrical virtues of suffering and sickness, but vegetating in scandalous insensitivity and sanity.  

For according to Cioran, just as there's no authentic lyricism without illness, nor is there absolute lyricism "without a grain of interior madness". Indeed, the value of the lyrical mode resides precisely in its delirious and savage quality; it knows nothing of aesthetics or cultural refinement and is utterly barbarian in its expression. 

Sounding more like Bataille than Bataille, Cioran concludes his vision of excess with the following:

"Absolute lyricism is beyond poetry and sentimentalism, and closer to a metaphysics of destiny. In general, it tends to put everything on the plane of death. All important things bear the sign of death."

As a thanatologist, I agree with this last statement. Only consciousness of death and of the fact that all being is a being toward death, isn't something that I find particularly troubling. In other words, whilst I might share Cioran's nihilism, I don't experience his intense anguish and black drunkenness.

I prefer a practice of joy before death, not a practice of misery (no matter how lyrical) ...

See: E. M. Cioran, On the Heights of Despair, trans. Ilinca Zarifopol-Johnston, (The University of Chicago Press, 1992).

Zoonosis (Revenge of the Animals)

Recent reports of the rare viral disease known as monkeypox recorded in the UK for the first time - first in Cornwall, then in Blackpool - oblige one to reconsider the question of zoonosis ...    

The term, zoonosis - from the Greek ζῷον (animal) and νόσος (sickness) - refers to the fact that some infectious diseases can naturally be transmitted between animals and humans. Examples include potentially deadly conditions such as Ebola, rabies, and salmonellosis, as well as the relatively mild - but still deeply unpleasant - monkeypox.

Many strains of swine and bird flu are zoonoses and HIV was originally a zoonotic disease transmitted to people in the early part of the 20th century from our simian friends, though it has since evolved to a separate human-only condition.

Despite the urban myth that infection with HIV was due to human-ape sexual contact, it was most likely due to the consumption of the latter served as bushmeat. Indeed, eating infected food is one of the most common modes of zoonotic transmission.

However, as zoonoses can be caused by a range of pathogens - viruses, bacteria, fungi and parasites - there are numerous modes of transmission, both direct and indirect. Sometimes, this can involve a third party or intermediate species, known as a vector, which carries the disease without itself being infected; think mosquitoes and malaria. 

The fact is, like it or not, zoonotic transmission can occur in any context in which there is intimate contact with animals. Be they livestock, domestics pets, or wild creatures, they'll always find a way to undermine the health of man and extract a symbolic revenge upon a human order that treats them with disdain.  

On Art and Syphilis

Elizabethan Era Syphilis (detail)

by Swedish makeup artist 

Ylva Konradsson 

Even though, by his own admission, Lawrence knows "nothing about medicine and very little about diseases", that doesn't prevent him from offering a reading of English art history that is both critical and clinical in character and from assuming the role of what Nietzsche terms a cultural physician. 

Thus, in a fascinating late essay, Lawrence asserts that the reason the English produce so few painters is not because they are, as a people, "devoid of a genuine feeling for visual art", but because they are paralysed by fear. 

It is this which distorts Anglo-Saxon existence; an old fear which "seemed to dig into the English soul" during the Renaissance and that we might characterise as a morbid and mystical terror of sex and physical intimacy. The Elizabethans came to regard their own bodies with horror and began to privilege spiritual-mental life over instinctive-intuitive being.     

And, according to Lawrence, this was caused by the "great shock of syphilis and the realisation of the consequences of the disease" - particularly by the late-16th century when its "ravages were obvious" and, having initially entered the blood of the nation, it now "penetrated the thoughtful and imaginative consciousness". 

Someone, he suggests, ought to "make a thorough study of the effects of 'pox' on the minds and emotions and imagination of the various nations of Europe at about the time of our Elizabethans", who, despite their attempts to joke about the disease, were haunted by the fear of it. For the fact is "no man can contract syphilis, or any deadly sexual disease, without feeling the most shattering and profound terror go through him ... And no man can look without a sort of horror on the effects of a sexual disease in another person." 

I suspect that's probably true - and dare say many who experienced the outbreak of AIDS in the 1980s will agree. Like the arrival of syphilis, AIDS not only gave a "fearful blow to our sexual life", but the horror of it shaped our cultural imagination. We recoiled further and further away from one another - from physical communion - and into virtual reality (including online porn). 

Now we know know one another only as ideal entities on social media, or obscene online images; fleshless, bloodless, and cold. And our contemporary art reflects this great move into abstraction. It's often very clever, often very amusing, but it's real appeal is that it's germ-free.   

Notes

D. H. Lawrence, 'Introduction to Paintings', Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 2004). 

Johannes Fabricius, Syphilis in Shakespeare's England, (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 1994).

Arguably, the above book is the serious study Lawrence calls for and it lends support to his thesis concerning the manner in which syphilis profoundly changed the manners and morals of Renaissance Europe and shaped the literary and artistic imagination. Fabricius also suggests - as I have - that, in many ways, the emergence of syphilis has numerous parallels with the AIDS epidemic and the socio-political reaction to it. 

Susan Sontag, AIDS and Its Metaphors, (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1989). 

In this brilliant work of critical theory - a companion text to her earlier work Illness as Metaphor (1978) - Sontag extends her arguments made about the way in which cancer is culturally conceived to AIDS, deconstructing harmful myths surrounding the disease. Further, she also provides an interesting comparison between AIDS and syphilis    

The History of a Phone Box

When I was little, one of the things I loved to do was walk with my big sister to the phone box on Straight Road, where she went to call her boyfriend, Barry.

The box was one of those iconic dome-topped designs by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott; iron-cast, bright red in colour and emblazoned with a crown, and which, even until relatively recently, remained a familiar and reassuring sight on British streets. I'm not sure, but I think people with an interest in telephone kiosks refer to it as a K2 - but possibly it was the smaller, cheaper 1935 model, known as the K6.

In fact, it probably was the latter. But, either way, I thought it was a magical object (and space) as a six-year-old and enjoyed every aspect of helping my sister make a call; lifting the handset from its cradle, dialing, putting the pennies in the slot, hearing the pips go, etc. I even liked the fact that sometimes there would be someone waiting impatiently outside in the cold (less so if that someone was me).           

Sadly, post-privatisation in the 1980s, the traditional red phone box was gradually replaced by a ghastly-looking glass booth: the KX100. Nick Kane, Director of Marketing for BT Local Communications Services, announced that the old boxes had to go as they no longer met the needs of customers. Even more outrageously, he claimed the old boxes were not only expensive and difficult to clean and maintain, but unpopular with the public - something I refuse to believe.        

Today, of course, in this age of the mobile, even phone booths in the KX series have mostly vanished from our streets and those that remain are unloved relics in a state of disrepair or ruin, not even fit to piss in. This includes the one pictured above, standing where a handsome-looking red box once stood and made a young child happy.

Despite how it may appear, I'm not overly nostalgic for the past. But it has to be said that there's something brutal and charmless about life in Britain today, shaped by men like Nick Kane and company, who, as Lord Darlington would say, know the price of everything and the value of nothing.          

Larking About with Philip Larkin

The Larkin Toad by Frances Kelly 
Image: The Philip Larkin Society

I.

When it comes to how we view and remember our poets, I'm all for a certain irreverence. But I don't like caricatures that mock without affection; particularly if they also seem to display a poor reading of the author's work.

In other words, whilst a cruel misportrayal of a writer is objectionable, a crass misinterpretation of their text is unforgivable.  

And so we come to the case of Philip Larkin and his representation as a giant toad during Larkin 25 ...

II. 

2010 was the 25th anniversary of Larkin's death and an arts festival in Kingston-upon-Hull culminated on 2 December with the unveiling of a life-size bronze statue of the poet by Martin Jennings. The unveiling was accompanied by Nathaniel Seaman's Fanfare for Larkin, which had been specially composed to mark the occasion.

Although born in Coventry, Larkin had lived and worked (at the Brynmor Jones Library) in Hull from 1955 until his death thirty years later and the city had even named a bus in his honour, so fair enough that the good people thereof should regard him as one of their own and choose to celebrate his life.

However, I'm not sure the centrepiece of the festival is something they can look back on with pride: a work consisting of 40 fibre-glass toad sculptures, each painted with a unique design by a local artist and inspired - or so it's claimed - by Larkin's poetry. Central amongst the designs was The Larkin Toad, by Frances Kelly.

Even at the time, voices of concern were raised. It was said that were it possible for Larkin to have posthumous knowledge of himself reincarnated in bufonid form with dry, leathery skin and short, fat little legs, this would send him spinning in his grave. And Rachel Cooke wrote of the toad stunt that it was:

"so loopily against the spirit of the two poems that are their inspiration - 'Toads' and 'Toads Revisited', in which the squatting toad, impossible to shake off, is both a symbol of work and of the narrator's timid and confining personality - I find myself wondering whether their creators have actually read either one."

And that's the fatal criticism in my view; not that it mocks the man - in whom, by his own admission, something sufficiently toad-like squatted inside - but that it misunderstands (and sells short) his writing.  

Notes 

Rachel Cooke, 'In search of the real Philip Larkin', The Observer, (27 June 2010): click here to read online. 

'Toads' (1954) and 'Toads Revisited' (1962), by Philip Larkin, can be found in Collected Poems, ed. Anthony Thwaite, (Faber and Faber, 2003).  

For a sister post to this one - on why I love Larkin - click here. 

A Fond Farewell to Fenella Fielding

Fenella Fielding as the fiendishly beautiful Valeria

 Carry On Screaming (1966) 

It is again with sadness that I mark the passing of another wonderful comic actress - just days after the death of Liz Fraser - Fenella Fielding, star of my favourite Carry On film, Carry On Screaming (dir. Gerald Thomas, 1966). 

The exotic-looking and exotic-sounding Fenella was born in Hackney, in 1927, to a Romanian mother and a Lithuanian father, with whom she had an unhappy (often physically violent) relationship. Spending much of her childhood in conversation with her dolls, she dreamed of becoming an artist and performer from an early age (much to the horror of her parents who hoped she would become a shorthand typist).

After eventually fleeing her awful home life, Fielding found herself in an amateur production at the LSE playing alongside Ron Moody, who encouraged her in her ambition to become a professional actress. Soon, she began appearing regularly in various reviews and by the end of the 1950s she had made something of a name for herself as a beautiful butterfly of comedy.

Throughout the following decade, Fenella was an established figure in Swinging London: Vidal Sassoon did her hair; Jeffrey Bernard took her clubbing; Francis Bacon and friends were all enchanted. She appeared on TV (in The Avengers, for example) and on film alongside male co-stars including Dirk Bogarde and Tony Curtis.

On stage, meanwhile, she pursued her real passion - drama. An accomplished and versatile actress, Fielding captivated audiences and critics alike with her interpretations of Ibsen, Shakespeare and Euripides. Noel Coward and Fellini both regarded themselves as fans of this highly intelligent and amusing woman who kept a copy of Plato by her bedside.        

Of course, this aspect of her life and work has been fatally overshadowed by her role in Carry On Screaming. It is as smoking-hot Valeria wearing a fitted red velvet dress with plunging neckline, designed by Emma Selby-Walker, that she has entered the popular and pornographic imagination and will forever be remembered.

Serious performers and dramatists may not like it, but classical theatre, it appears, cannot compete with cinematic camp-vamp. And if the role of Valeria provided the kiss of death to Fielding's career, it also guaranteed her cinematic immortality.

I don't know if Fenella will be buried or cremated, but I kind of hope it's the latter, so she may smoke for one last time and the ghost of Orlando Watt might look on and cry: Frying tonight!  

Note: those who are interested might like to click here to watch Fenella in her most famous scene as Valeria in Carry on Screaming, alongside the brilliant Harry H. Corbett as Detective Sgt. Bung.

Why I Love Philip Larkin (The D. H. Lawrence Birthday Post - 2018)

Portrait of Philip Larkin by gforce7 (1996)

deviantart.com 

There are many reasons to love Larkin - and doubtless just as many to hate him. 

Primarily, of course, is the body of work he left behind. Whatever the shortcomings of the man, these were more than compensated for - as if they needed to be - by the strength of his writing. He's unarguably one of our finest post-war poets, something which even most of his critics concede.

But I also love Larkin for his porno-fetishistic interests, his peculiarly English pessimism that is both ironic and understated, and the fact that he declined the honorary position of Poet Laureate when offered it in 1984 (having already turned down an OBE in 1968). A lyrical discontent, Larkin disliked fame and had no time for the trappings of success.       

And then - perhaps best of all - there's his love for Lawrence, whose work his father introduced him to and whom he regarded as the greatest of all English novelists throughout his life. Indeed, such was Larkin's devotion to DH that, according to his biographer, he even liked to mow his lawn whilst wearing a Lawrence t-shirt and drink his tea from a Lawrence mug.     

See: Andrew Motion, Philip Larkin: A Writer's Life, (Faber and Faber, 1994). 

For a sister post to this one - on Larkin and the Larkin Toad - please click here. 

Save the Hedgehog

Photo: Tim Melling /Getty Images 

As a rule, I don't like the idea of saving anything, be it a whale, an immortal soul, or a sum of money. Whenever someone says we need to save this, that, or other, I always wonder from what and for what. It seems a slightly futile - if not ultimately a nonsensical - concept.

However, in the case of the hedgehog I'm willing to make an exception, because it's such an exceptional little beast; one of the earliest mammals and little changed in its spiny perfection for the last 15 million years. 

It also, of course, has a special place in the affections of the British; indeed, in a recent poll, it was voted our favourite wild species. But as author and journalist Tom Holland asks: If we love hedgehogs so much, why are we letting them vanish?

The answer, of course, is because we prefer to convert our gardens into driveways and eat McFlurries in a lifeless concrete world, sprayed with pesticide. We might anthropomorphically fantasise about Mrs Tiggy-Winkles, but we are supremely indifferent as a nation to the demise of the humble hedgehog, whose numbers have crashed dramatically over the past 20 years (down by over 30%).

Today, entire regions of the country are hedgehog-free zones. As Holland notes, an animal once ubiquitous in our fields, parks, and gardens is now facing extinction. It's a national shame: we encourage other peoples around the globe to protect their tigers, pandas, elephants and gorillas, but we can't even ensure the survival of our own small creatures. 

I wholeheartedly agree with Holland that we have an ethical duty to protect our wildlife; to be kind, while there is still time, as Larkin wrote in a mournful verse after accidently killing a poor hedgehog with his lawnmower.   

Notes

Tom Holland, 'If we love hedgehogs so much, why are we letting them vanish?', The Guardian (9 Sept 2018): click here to read online. 

Philip Larkin, 'The Mower', Collected Poems, ed. Anthony Thwaite, (Faber and Faber, 2003): click here to read on The Poetry Foundation website. 

For a related post to this one, on hedgehogs versus HS2, please click here.

Reflections on the Snail

Henri Matisse: L'Escargot (1953) 
Gouache on paper, cut and pasted on paper 
mounted on canvas

The Little Greek hates snails, because they eat her plants. But I like them ...

Perhaps it's because I grew up watching The Magic Roundabout and had a particular fondness for Brian. But it's also because, like other molluscs, they seem to me to be fascinating creatures, gastropodding about in the dampness of the garden and leaving a silvery slipstream of mucus in their wake, an ephemeral trail that points the way for the beaks of birds that love to eat them. 

The fact that snails have little tentacles on their head, a primitive little brain, and possess both male and female sex organs (i.e., are hermaphrodites), also inclines me to view them favourably; they are both alien and perverse when considered from a human perspective. 

I particularly like the tiny baby snails, newly hatched, with a small and delicate shell already in place to conceal their nakedness. They are very pretty and very sweet. Francis Ponge speaks of their immaculate clamminess. The fact that people can kill them with poison pellets without any qualms is astonishing and profoundly upsetting to me. 

To her credit, the Little Greek only tries to dissuade the snails from eating her plants by using (mostly ineffective) organic solutions, such as coffee granules and bits of broken eggshell sprinkled around. Alternatively, she sometimes rounds 'em up and relocates the snails to the local woods - though this enforced transportation of snails also makes me a little uneasy, as it's all-too-easy to imagine little yellow stars painted on their backs.   

Not that this prevents me from eating them, prepared with a garlic and parsley butter when in France, or cooked in a spicy sauce when in Spain ... 

Note: the Francis Ponge poem to which I refer and from which I quote is 'Snails', trans. by Joshua Corey and Jean-Luc Garneau, Poetry, (July/August, 2016). Click here to read in full on the Poetry Foundation website.  

In Memory of Liz Fraser

Liz Fraser in Carry On Cruising (1962)

I was very sorry to hear of the passing two days ago of busty British beauty and much-loved Carry On star Liz Fraser, aged 88.

As I wrote in an earlier post, any film in which she appeared is instantly improved, even if, sadly, not always worth watching, and seeing Liz in her black underwear always makes happy and nostalgic. She had the serious erotic charisma that Barbara Windsor, for all her infectious giggling, completely lacks and was undoubtedly one of the great comedic actresses of her generation and one of the smartest of all dumb blondes. 

For anyone like me who loves TV of the sixties and seventies, it's impossible not to think fondly of Miss Fraser, who had roles in many classic shows, including: Hancock's Half  Hour, Dad's Army, The Avengers, and Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased).    

And anyone like me who loves the Sex Pistols, will also recall that, like Irene Handl and Mary Millington, she also pops up in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (dir. Julien Temple, 1980).

Thus, with her place in the popular cultural (and pornographic) imagination happily secure, she can, I hope and trust, rest in peace. 


Note: the earlier post I refer to above is 'Why I Love Carry On Cruising' (2 Jan 2017): click here.    

The Prince and the Showbot (Or Why I Prefer Artificial Intelligence to Royal Stupidity)

HRH the Prince of Wales and ASIMO the humanoid robot  

It's ten years since Prince Charles met Asimo, the humanoid robot developed by Honda, whilst on a royal visit to Japan.

The latter - always ready to perform and go through his advanced motions - warmly greeted the man who would be king with a wave and a cheery konnichi-wa, before launching into a seven minute step and dance routine at the Miraikan Museum in Tokyo.   

If Charles was impressed, he didn't show it. Not only did he keep his distance from Asimo at all times, declining the opportunity to shake hands, but he displayed a regal coldness that bordered on contempt. Only after Asimo stood on one leg with his arms outstretched, saying bye-bye in English, did Charles give a half-hearted smile.    

But it's only now, however, that he's finally made his hostility towards robots and his opposition to AI a matter of public record ...

Speaking at a GQ awards ceremony, where the 69-year-old Prince was presented with a Lifetime Achievement honour for his philanthropic work, Charles warned that human beings were losing basic skills as a result of technology and expressed fears that machines could one day rise up and take over the world (including the English throne). 

Charles also conveyed his hope that humanity would see sense, listen to him, and make a return to a more traditional lifestyle; one that was less reliant upon smart technology and more about arts and crafts. The thought that we might voluntarily choose instead to forge an ever-closer relationship with our machines and become-cyborg, was one that he found totally and utterly objectionable.

He has a point, I suppose. The question concerning technology is an essential one, as recognised by many writers and philosophers over the past century, such as Lawrence and Heidegger. But simple-minded technophobia is as tedious as the techno-idealism of the transhumanists and experts in the field of AI have been quick to point out that the Prince's concerns are often born from ignorance and an anti-scientific worldview.    

As Professor Dave Robertson at the University of Edinburgh has suggested, rapid advances in this area could greatly enhance human experience and amplify our abilities, not see our demise as a species or enslavement to an army of super-intelligent machines.

And - push comes to shove - if I were to be stranded on a desert island, I'd sooner it were with Asimo than a royal half-wit. 

Note: readers interested in viewing Associated Press footage of the 2008 encounter between Prince Charles and Asimo (who was recently retired by Honda), should click here. 

On the Mythology of Wood (with Reference to the Case of Larry David)

Tile coaster by cafepress.co.uk 

I.

According to Wikipedia:

"Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin that resists compression."

Mankind has been using wood for millennia; as fuel, as a building material for ships and houses, and for making a wide variety of other essential objects (including tools, weapons, furniture and totem poles). Peoples everywhere love it for its firmness, its softness, and the natural warmth of its touch. Wood is not just an organic material, it is also a poetico-magical substance.

But high regard for wood, including the pleasure of its feel, is one of the things on which I differ from Larry David. The latter not only respects wood, he reveres wood and is considerate of it as a material, refusing to discriminate between types and grades of wood. Pine, walnut, or oak - it doesn't matter - Larry holds all wood in equal esteem.   

But in so doing, of course, he's subscribing to a certain mythology and reinforcing what Barthes terms a hierarchy of substances - a way of thinking in which certain natural materials are privileged over man-made ones, particularly those belonging to the family of plastics.


II.

As I wrote in a very early post on this blog with reference to marble contra plastic, the fact that certain materials, including wood, retain their high-ranking status within such a hierarchy and continue to be used by craftsmen and manufacturers who want their work to be seen as belonging to a long and noble tradition, means nothing to me. I prefer synthetic substances, such as laminate flooring, for their democratic cheerfulness and affordability, free from cultural pretension and snobbishness (even if bourgeois in origin).

Plastic may be a disgraced material with a purely negative reality - the product of chemistry, not of nature - but it enables the euphoric experience of being able to reshape the world and endlessly create new forms and objects, limited only by our own ingenuity and imagination. It doesn't necessarily allow one to live more beautifully or more truthfully, but I'm bored of these things posited as supreme values and of being bullied by our grand idealists who mistakenly equate them with the Good.


See:

Curb Your Enthusiasm, Season 7, Episode 10, 'Seinfeld', dir. Jeff Shaffer / Andy Ackerman (2009). To watch the relevant scenes on YouTube, click here.  

Roland Barthes, 'Toys' and 'Plastic', in Mythologies, trans. Annette Lavers, (The Noonday Press, 1991). Click here to read this text online.  

Note: the early post I refer to was 'Why I Love Mauro Perucchetti's Jelly Baby Family', (1 Dec 2012): click here.  

Jagger is a Punk

Mick Jagger as a Rolling Sex Pistol

One of the more interesting facts surrounding the death of Nancy Spungen in October 1978 and the immediate arrest of her boyfriend, Sid Vicious, who was charged with her murder, is the fact that it was Mick Jagger of all people who stepped up to pay for the Sex Pistols' legal fees and helped assemble a defence team.

Or at least that's so according to Johnny Rotten, who, I suppose, has no reason to lie, although he does use the revelation made in a 2013 press interview not only as an opportunity to praise the Rolling Stones frontman, but to take another predictable swipe at Malcolm, whom he remembers as being clueless and ineffectual at providing the necessary support (which might be true, but what, pray, did you do for your best friend Mr Lydon?).     

I suppose it shouldn't be that much of a surprise to discover that Jagger felt sympathy and affection for Vicious, as he is himself something of a punk at heart and responsible for writing one of the great nihilistic pop anthems in Paint it Black (1966).

Indeed, such was Jagger's fascination with the Sex Pistols that he even wore a Seditionaries Destroy shirt, as designed by McLaren and Westwood, whilst on tour with the Stones in America in the summer of 1978 and it's amusing to imagine what might have been if, after Rotten was exposed as a collaborator and thrown overboard, Malcolm had enlisted Jagger as the new lead singer instead of Ronnie Biggs ...


Afternote

I've been advised by Paul Gorman, McLaren's biographer, that Rotten's account of things isn't entirely accurate; that whilst Jagger did contact Malcolm with an offer to help financially, it was in fact never taken up. Further, Malcolm met with several lawyers and worked hard on Sid's behalf during this time. More details can be found by clicking here: paulgormanis.com 

As for the Destroy shirt, it was originally bought by Anita Pallenberg as a gift for Keith Richards. He refused to wear it, however, so Mick appropriated it into his own wardrobe. Again, many thanks to Paul Gorman for this titbit. 

Reflections on the Georgia Guidestones

Georgia Guidestones 

Photo by Gina Eric (2014)

I.

The Georgia Guidestones is, arguably, the world's ugliest monument.

Erected in 1980 in Elbert County, Georgia, it is best described as stupidity in stone, with prehistoric pretensions of grandeur and intellectual pretensions of philosophical profundity. It's the sort of thing that only idiots would find impressive. Yoko Ono, for example, praised it as a stirring call to rational thinking.

The monument consists of a central slab with four others arranged around it in, apparently, astronomical alignment and a capstone to top things off. A set of guidelines is inscribed on the structure in eight different languages, including English, Spanish, Swahili, and Chinese. There's also a brief message inscribed at the top of the structure in more ancient scripts, including Classical Greek and Sanskrit.     

The anonymity of those responsible for the Guidestones - as well as the content of their message for mankind - has ensured the monument attracts controversy and gives rise to all kinds of crazy conspiracy theory (I want the Guidestones smashed, but not because I believe them to be of a deep Satanic origin).

In the summer of 1979, an individual using the pseudonym of Robert C. Christian commissioned the work on behalf of a small group of loyal Americans. Serving as a compass, calendar and clock, the monument is intended to withstand even catastrophic future events. But I'm hopeful that it will one day simply be bulldozed or blown up - much like the Buddhas of Bamiyan - without any undue fuss.

It's already been defaced with paint and had various pieces of graffiti written over it. Whether this was by art critics, iconoclasts, or individuals objecting to the New World Order, I don't know.         

II.

So what, then, are the ten great politico-moral principles of the Georgia Guidestones ...

Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.

Guide reproduction wisely - improving fitness and diversity.

Unite humanity with a living new language.

Rule passion - faith - tradition - and all things with tempered reason.

Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.

Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.

Avoid petty laws and useless officials.

Balance personal rights with social duties.

Prize truth - beauty - love - seeking harmony with the infinite.

Be not a cancer on the earth - leave room for nature.

Without wanting to sound too much like PC Plod, what is there to say other than move along - nothing to see here. For it's essentially the same old utopian bullshit, combining ideas of population control, eugenics, eco-fascism, world government, and Platonic Ideals of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. We've been experimenting along these same lines - with mixed results at best - for the past 250 years or so.

And so we really don't need the explanatory tablet (complete with punctuation errors and spelling mistakes) set alongside the stones to tell us what's being affirmed here: an Age of Reason founded upon genocide; for in order to maintain humanity under 500,000,000 we would need to first exterminate around seven billion people presently living.

The only real mystery here is this: why do so many idealists - acting in the name of Love, Nature and Reason - always fantasise about killing people?*

* To be fair, many commentators argue that the Guidestones are intended as a blue-print for a post-apocalyptic world and that they envision the best way to rebuild a devastated civilization. In other words, the suggestion to keep humanity's number below half-a-billion was made on the assumption that a nuclear war had already reduced mankind below this figure.

On Painting Ceilings

Kazimir Malevich 
Suprematist Composition: White on White (1918) 
Oil on canvas (79.5 x 79.5 cm)

I.

The Sistine Chapel ceiling, painted by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512, is certainly an impressive piece of interior decorating and design, incorporating over 340 figures, both clothed and nude, allowing the artist to fully demonstrate his skill in creating a huge variety of poses for the human body (poses that have been much imitated ever since). 

Contrary to popular belief, Michelangelo painted in a standing position, not lying flat on his back, and endured great physical discomfort; eye strain, neck ache, muscle cramps, etc. Little wonder then that he bodged certain sections and that it was left unfinished. Nevertheless, according to Goethe, those who haven't seen this work for themselves can have no appreciable idea of what greatness a single man is capable.


II.

I was thinking of Michelangelo and his High Renaissance masterpiece whilst painting a ceiling in my mother's house over the weekend. Not that I drew inspiration from the Italian; that came rather from the avant-garde Russian artist Kazimir Malevich and his Suprematist composition of 1918 entitled White on White (shown above).  

For that's essentially what I was doing: painting white on white, inch after inch and one polystyrene foam tile after another, using Farrow and Ball's All White Estate emulsion; an expensive but soft and sympathetic paint which provides a chalky, very matt finish, with just a 2% sheen (which is more than enough lustre for any ceiling in my view).      

Whilst most people today probably prefer to use a roller and get the job done as quickly and as conveniently as possible, I like to take my time and prefer to use a small (12 mm) brush, ensuring that individual brush strokes and small imperfections remain evident; the thought of machine-perfect smoothness - or machine-smooth perfection - is anathema to my tastes. 

Having now completed the second coat, I have to confess that I prefer my ceiling in all its infinite and abstract whiteness to Michelangelo's, which - for me - is far too busy and show-offy. It's nice to dispense with illusions of depth and to also rid painting of representation and colour. The foam tiles - that were so popular at one time, but which are now deemed to be a fire hazard - provide a richly textured surface.      

Although I don't much care for his ideal fantasies of purity and spiritual transcendence, I share something of Malevich's exhilaration and know exactly what he means when he claims in his 1919 manifesto to have overcome the lining of the coloured sky and learnt how to swim in the freedom of the white abyss ...

On Pythons in the Everglades

An adult female Burmese python captured in the Everglades

Photo: Wayne Lynch / Getty Images / All Canada Photos

As a life-long ophidiophile, any newspaper headline that contains the words hybrid python or super-snake is sure to attract my attention. 

And thus it was that I found myself excitedly reading a story in today's Guardian about a recent US study into non-native species that has discovered that some specimens of python slithering around the Florida Everglades are a genetic mixture of two species, potentially making it an even more formidable creature; one that is perfectly adapted to its sub-tropical environment;        

I appreciate that the good people of the Sunshine State may feel that they already have enough exotic fauna to contend with - a million alligators, giant carnivorous lizards and poisonous tree frogs, etc. - but I couldn't help smiling at the thought of this new and improved (all-American) snake feasting on the local wildlife and asserting itself as the region's apex predator, full of hybrid vigour.         

Apparently, researchers had expected to discover the snakes were pure Burmese python. Instead, they were surprised to discover the genetic signature of the Indian rock python also present; a smaller, faster, more aggressive creature that prefers to live on higher, dryer ground than its Burmese cousin. 

For those who hate the thought of invasive species and hybridisation - and who would, if they could, exterminate every last python in Florida - this is obviously an unwelcome development. But there's not much that can be done; the estimated 300,000 pythons that occupy the waterways of a 1.5 million acre wilderness cannot all be captured or killed. The population is thus only likely to grow, expanding its range northwards.

Still, every Eden needs its serpent, as they say ... And besides, Florida's 500,000 feral pigs are probably a bigger threat to the Everglades than pythons - at least until the latter eat them.

See: Richard Luscombe, 'Super-snake: hybrid pythons could pose new threat to Florida Everglades', The Guardian (25 Aug 2018): click here to read online.  

Notes on DIY

Bob the Builder

As a punk, one was obliged to subscribe to the political ethos of do it yourself: form your own band, print your own magazines, design your own clothes, etc., etc. 

I remember, however, that Rotten supplemented (and qualified) this idea by also insisting that whatever it was one did, one should always do it properly and was contemptuous of those who understood the first rule of punk as a license to be mediocre or inept. There was nothing shoddy or second-rate about the Sex Pistols; the look and the sound was all carefully contrived with an eye for detail and a profound understanding of style.

But for most people, of course, DIY isn't an anarchic method of self-empowerment and taking back control, it's to do with home improvements and having somewhere to go and something to do at the weekends; i.e., wander round Homebase, before then annoying the neighbours with a power drill as you work on the extension or loft conversion.

In other words, it's part and parcel of la vie domestique - i.e., the most boring form of life there is.

DIY encourages consumers to imagine they're skilled artisans, but it's more recreational than creative in character and more about cost-cutting than self-expression. At best - and at a real stretch - it's the idiot younger brother of the Arts and Crafts movement, though I still find it difficult to see a family resemblance between William Morris and Tommy Walsh.         

To paraphrase Wilde, a great deal of nonsense is spoken about DIY. There's nothing essentially dignified about hammering a nail, hoovering a carpet, painting a ceiling, or fitting a floor. Indeed, most - if not all - jobs of this kind are dirty, dusty, and depressing and such pleasureless activities should be admitted as such.

It's good to take pride in what you do - but when what you're doing is tedious and undignified, then it's best to be honest about it. Sometimes, it's preferable not to do it yourself, but to get on the blower to Bob the builder ... 


Note: I'm paraphrasing Wilde on manual labour in his 1891 essay 'The Soul of Man Under Socialism', written in his anarcho-libertarian phase: click here to read online.

  

Day 369: Notes on the Case of Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghegan

Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghegan 

The case of Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghegan - two young American cyclists murdered in Tajikistan by Islamists who first drove into them and then stabbed and shot them - is tragically fascinating for what it tells us about evil and the naive optimism of those who foolishly deny the existence of such.

According to the above, the reason so many people believe that the world is a scary, dangerous place inhabited by monsters, is due to a conspiracy; the powers that be want to keep us all afraid and mistrustful of one another.

In a blog post published shortly before he and his girlfriend were slaughtered, Austin wrote: "Evil is a make-believe concept we've invented to deal with the complexities of fellow humans holding values and beliefs and perspectives different than our own ..." People are, he insists, mostly generous and kind.

Now, that last part might of course be true and I'm not one of those conservative commentators who wish to frame this event in Little Red Riding Hood terms, i.e. as a cautionary tale against straying too far from the safety of home, or messing with strangers, etc. Nevertheless, the fact remains that people are not entirely generous and kind.

And some, indeed, are malevolent and cruel; particularly when motivated by a religious ideology and deep resentment towards privileged Westerners who think the whole world is their playground - from Iceland to Timbuktu - round which they can pedal in perfect peace and harmony, admiring the views and patronising the locals, blogging and Instagramming as they go. 

But just like tourists and travellers, terrorists too like to use social media. And in a video released after the couple's death, the group of men responsible are seen pledging allegiance to the Islamic State and vowing to kill the infidels who have overrun their land. As Baudrillard said, the world isn't dialectical. It's a place of violent extremes and radical antagonism; not reconciliation or synthesis.

In other words, it operates according to a principle of evil ...

Sweden: Vad Fan Gör Du?

I.

Sweden is a country about which I know very little and were it not for ABBA and the cinematic charms of Britt Ekland, I'd probably care even less.

However, as even left-leaning Prime Minister, Stefan Löfven, was on the radio this week telling everyone how angry he was with what's happening in his country and promising to get tough, I suppose I should say something ... 

II.

Until recently, Sweden was inhabited almost exclusively by Germanic peoples and therefore enjoyed a high level of ethno-cultural homogeneity. It may not have been the most exciting place on Earth, but there are worse things than living in a happy, healthy, peaceful and prosperous country eating meatballs, surrounded by forests and beautiful landscapes, but with easy access to an IKEA.

In the past few years, however, Sweden has become a more diverse nation due to immigration from Africa and the Middle East. A significant number of the population now have a non-Nordic background and this has resulted in a number of what government officials and the mainstream media like to call social challenges.   

Proponents of mass immigration continue to argue that, despite these challenges and the establishment of so-called vulnerable areas in numerous towns and cities, there have been important economic and cultural benefits and people should just relax a little [tagga ned] when considering the newcomers. 

Opponents, meanwhile, can't see beyond the shocking crime statistics and growing civil unrest; from gang violence, rape, and arson attacks at one end of the scale; to young Muslim women refusing to shake hands on the other. For them, the cow is very much on the ice, so to speak.

Sadly, it does seem as if the prolonged period of Scandinavian serenity enjoyed by the Swedes is about to end. Which is a pity - but who's to blame for this other than the super-liberal Swedes themselves? Especially, of course, those in positions of political power, including Herr Löfven.

Ultimately, what Douglas Murray refers to as the strange death of Europe is both an act of self-negation and an act of faith carried out in the name of moral-idealism ...  

See: Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe (Bloomsbury, 2017). 

On Luck

Lucky, lucky, lucky me!

Even though I haven't a dime,

I laugh and play in a carefree way

And I have a wonderful time.

Within the dualistic theology of Christianity things have only two possible origins; either they come from God, or they are rooted in evil.

What's interesting is just how many things Satan is given credit for; not just mortal sin and witchcraft, but music, dance and detail. Indeed, some Christians even insist that luck is diabolical in origin - the luck of the devil - and therefore not something to be wished for or invoked.

Unfortunately, their explanation for this rests on a mistaken piece of etymology. For the word luck is not derived from the word Lucifer. Lucifer is an Old English term derived from Latin and means light-bearing; luck is a late Middle English word rooted in German and Dutch and refers to chance and good fortune.

Of course, Christians don't like either of these things; chance implies that there are events outside of God's control and when you like to conceive of your deity as omnipotent - overseeing the throw of every dice and the toss of every coin - that's not something you can accept.

And good fortune, they would argue, is not quite the same as receiving God's blessing; indeed, it seems suspiciously close to a pagan notion of fate and rekindles memories of an ancient goddess known for her fickleness and willingness to reward even the undeserving.     

As D. H. Lawrence pointed out, monotheistic followers of the Abrahamic religions - Jews, Christians, and Muslims - hate pagan gods, but they more than hate the great pagan goddesses, whom they curse and call vile names.

Though, having said that, Lawrence himself accuses Lady Luck of being vulgar and rejects the gifts that she may bring his way. But that's because he retains a strict puritanical streak in his nature and believes in working hard and earning his just rewards; ultimately, there can be no rocking horse winners in his world.  

The Buddha was another misery guts on this question, insisting that all things must have a cause - be it material or spiritual in nature - and that events never occur at random or by chance alone. Like Lawrence, he thinks that there's something base and shameful about making a living from gambling and seemingly relying on luck. Karma, the notion of moral causality, is of course central within Buddhism.

Still, I'm not a Buddhist. Nor a Christian; nor even much of a Lawrentian any longer, so can cheerfully confess to loving the idea of luck. It's crucial, I think, to live with a certain gay insouciance; to laugh at the sun and to wish on the moon, shaking hands with every passing chimney sweep.

For when you realise that life's a chuckle, Lady Luck'll smile upon you ...


Musical bonus: Lucky, Lucky, Lucky Me - one of the greatest songs ever written, by Milton Berle and Buddy Arnold, performed by Evelyn Knight with the Ray Charles Singers, (Decca, 1950). 

From the Land of Cockaigne to the Big Rock Candy Mountains

Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Land of Cockaigne (1567) 

Oil on panel (52 x 78 cm) 

First conceived in the imagination of medieval peasants and poets, Cockaigne is an immanent utopia wherein all desires are realised, sensual pleasures of every description readily available, and the daily restrictions placed upon one's freedom by priests and feudal masters are abolished - whilst they get their comeuppance at last.

Heaven might await the virtuous in some posthumous future, but Cockaigne was the collective dream of an earthly paradise - now/here, rather than nowhere - that encouraged the cardinal sins of lust, gluttony and idleness, thereby challenging the teaching that the good life had to involve constant toil on the one hand and abstinence on the other.       

At it's most carnivalesque, Cockaigne was said to be a topsy-turvy place in which the weather was always mild and even when it did rain, it rained custard; there were rivers of the finest wine flowing freely and ready-roasted pigs wandered about with carving knives conveniently placed in their back. According to some accounts, there was even a fountain of youth. Nobody works and yet nobody ever goes hungry.   

This idea of Cockaigne spread throughout Europe, with some interesting national variations; central to the Italian version, for example, which can be found in Boccaccio's Decameron (1353), is a mountain made of Parmesan cheese - which was handy for the people who lived there and spent the entire day preparing and eating pasta dishes.  

Of course, as with the appropriation of anarchic and amoral folk tales and their literary reworking as so-called fairy tales, eventually the myth of Cockaigne was taken up by the prigs and pedagogues of the emerging bourgeoisie and they turned it a fable condemning gluttony and sloth. Bruegel's depiction of Luilekkerland and its hedonistic inhabitants seen above, is intended as a warning against the spiritual emptiness that follows when we fall into a life of sin; whilst comic, it certainly isn't intended as a celebration of Cockaigne.

However, every now and again the idea resurfaces. In Haywire Mac's hobo-punk classic The Big Rock Candy Mountains (1928), for example, which beautifully sets out an American bum's vision of Cockaigne:

A far away land that's fair and bright, where the handouts grow on bushes and you can sleep out every night; a land where the cops all have wooden legs, the bulldogs have rubber teeth and the hens lay soft-boiled eggs; a land where you never need change your socks and the little streams of alcohol come trickling down the rocks; there's a lake of stew, and of whiskey too - you can paddle all around 'em in a big canoe - a land where there ain't no short-handled shovels, axes, saws or picks and they hung the jerk who invented work. 

One might ask if a dream of a better life in a land of plenty isn't the primary factor at work within the ongoing migrant crisis; they cross the seas in little boats having mistaken Europe for Cockaigne ...

See: Herman Pleij, Dreaming of Cockaigne, trans. Diane Webb, (Columbia University Press, 2001). 

For an earlier post on The Big Rock Candy Mountains, click here. 

Rutiluphilia (Reflections on Redheads)

Emma Hack: 'The Redhead' 

from the series Beautiful Women (2013)

emmahackartist.com.au 

Naturally red hair is an uncommon condition, even amongst the native peoples of north-western Europe, such as the Celts, in whom it occurs more frequently. In Ireland, for example, the most redheaded nation on earth, no more than 10% of the population are blessed in this manner, although over 1-in-3 carry the recessive ginger gene variant.

Whilst red hair is associated with other physical characteristics - such as fair (often freckled) skin and light (often green) coloured eyes - so too is it rich with cultural significance and subject to both positive and negative stereotyping.

Redheaded women, for example, are said to be fiery of temper and sharp of tongue.

But they are also regarded as morally suspect and bestial in nature, which is why, for example, during the Christian Middle Ages red hair in combination with green eyes was taken as a sure sign of a witch, a werewolf, a vampire - or a Jew. Such fear and mistrust of redheads - particularly in fatal combination with antisemitism - led to their persecution as heretics during the Spanish Inquisition. 

Not surprisingly, red-haired women also feature in the pornographic imagination as unusually passionate and promiscuous. Perhaps this is due to the vividness of their colouring; or perhaps it's their sensitivity to ultraviolet light and other forms of stimulation that makes such vixens of them.

Or perhaps all such ethno-sexual stereotyping is just nonsense ...