The Case of Rachel Dolezal

The controversial case of Rachel Dolezal continues to fascinate and to challenge many of our ideas and misconceptions concerning race and the cultural construction of identity. 

Ms Dolezal, according to her parents, is a white woman of predominantly European descent who has been wilfully misrepresenting and disguising herself as an African American in order to advance her career and rise to a position of prominence within the black community. For not only did she become a university professor of African studies, specialising in the intersection of gender, race and class, but also president of her local NAACP.  

To be fair, Dolezal grew up in a family with adopted black siblings and attended a school in Mississippi where most of her friends and fellow pupils were black. She also married (and subsequently divorced) a black man with whom she has a child. But, of course, none of this serves to make her African American - anymore than does the deep-tanned skin, the clothing, the jewellery, or the make-up and hairstyling. Biologically speaking, she remains what she has always been: a white woman.

But since when has race ever simply been a question of biology? 

Thus, I have to admit I'm sympathetic to Dolezal and know precisely what she means when she suggests that her case is far more complex and multi-layered than many of her critics (or her parents) understand or wish to concede. This includes, for example, that great paragon of sensitive and sophisticated commentary, Piers Morgan, who brands Dolezal a lying, deluded idiot and is clearly outraged by the thought that race might be reconfigured as a question of style rather than blood and the fear that other essential binaries might in this manner also be problematized.

For Morgan - and he explicitly says as much - race is an either/or issue: you're either black or you're white. And Dolezal is 100% white by birth and breeding and can never be anything but white. Morgan thus brands her carefully crafted and performed identity fraudulent and a mockery; akin to wearing blackface. It would be laughable, he says, were it not so serious, concluding that Dolezal has "committed an appalling act of deception that deserves every heap of abuse now raining down on her head".

Of course, what those such as Morgan really wish us to understand is not that Dolezal is who and what she is no matter what she does, but that we are all born into fixed and fatal identities, regardless of what we learn, accomplish, or become in later life. And this would even include Barack Obama: he might be living in the White House and be the son of a white mother, but, according to those for whom race is an all-determining absolute, he remains a nigger for all eternity.     

In other words, racism begins and ends with a form of death sentence; the belief that colour is so much more than merely skin-deep and blackness entirely unrelated to artifice. 

     

Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay!

Lottie Collins                                               Tara King

Steed's exclamation of pervy joy when he discovers that he has been assigned Agent 69 as his youthful new partner - Ra-boom-de-ay! - is perfectly understandable, as, despite her critics, Miss King, played by the very lovely Linda Thorson, brings a fresh and flirtatious new dynamic to The Avengers. 

She's no Mrs. Peel - but then, who is?

However, it's not the female characters in a sixties spy-fi that I wish to discuss here, but rather the old music hall song to which Steed gives reference when playing on the name Tara.

Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay is one of those silly songs with a long history and an amazing cultural resonance which continues to this day. Although first publicly performed in the American vaudeville show Tuxedo in 1891, the song became widely known in the version sung by Lottie Collins, star of the London music halls, the following year.

Having gained rights to perform the song in England, Collins commissioned new lyrics, a new arrangement, and - crucially - added a dance routine. According to contemporary reviews, she delivered the suggestive verses with deceptive demureness, before launching with real gusto into the bawdy refrain and her celebrated kick dance - an idiosyncratic and rather bizarre version of the cancan. It caused a huge sensation and immediately became her signature tune. 

Personally, however, the version of this song I find most interesting is the one given us by Malcolm McLaren and the Bootzilla Orchestra in 1989, retitled as Waltz Darling and re-imagined in the context of the dance craze known as voguing. 

McLaren's version rather nicely returns the song to its black origins; origins which are often not known or simply not cared about. For Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay doesn't ultimately have its roots in London's music halls, but in a 19th century nightclub-cum-brothel run by Babe Connors in St. Louis, Missouri. And the song belongs as much to Mama Lou, as it does to Lottie Collins.

Note: those interested in viewing McLaren's video for Waltz Darling should click here.

In Defence of Giant Lovers

The Meeting Place (detail) by Paul Day 

POV shot by Stephen Alexander

Whilst I wouldn't say I'm a fan, I certainly admire much of Antony Gormley's sculptural work and share many of his criticisms and concerns to do with public art. 

I think he's right, for example, to argue that many pieces unimaginatively plonked down in our airports, stations, and city centres lack ambition or challenge and fail to address the question of what role statues might play in the 21st century. 

However, I'm disappointed to discover that he seems to particularly despise Paul Day's giant brass figure of two lovers embracing at St Pancras International Station, as I quite like it. The Meeting Place might be crude and ill-proportioned - might, in a word used by Gormley, even be described as crap - but it can still excite fetishistically, even if it fails aesthetically.

For not only does the female figure have very lovely calves and ankles, given emphasis by her high-heeled shoes and tip-toe posture, but she also invites an upskirt peek (although, alas, there's nothing to see). 

And then there's the fact that she's thirty-feet tall, which surely brings out the macrophile in many a man. I don't know why it is that giant women - or, more precisely, the thought of being crushed beneath their feet - is so ingrained within the pornographic imagination, but so it is and Day's sculpture obscenely exploits this fact (whether or not he consciously intended to do so).

So, to conclude, we might say this: that whilst The Angel of the North artistically intrigues as an erection, it doesn't solicit an erection; it makes one wonder, but it doesn't make one want to perv.     

     

On Lenny Henry's Knighthood

Photo of Lenny Henry taken in the 1970s by Graham Gough

See: The Black Country Album, (The History Press, 2012)

Comedian, actor, and all-round good egg Lenny Henry is to receive a knighthood from the Queen and he's clearly thrilled and delighted by the fact, describing how receiving word of it left him feeling as if he had been filled with lemonade.

On the one hand, I'm pleased that he's so chuffed and that his family and friends are proud of him. But on the other hand, I'm disappointed that this highly intelligent man - who is clearly sensitive to the politics of class and race - doesn't seem to have any qualms or reservations about accepting such a dubious honour and thereby lending his support to a system of privilege and patronage. 

Still apparently troubled by his experience as a teenage performer on The Black and White Minstrel Show in the 1970s, one worries that his acceptance on bended-knee of this hugely symbolic award will also retrospectively cause him shame and embarrassment and attract further criticism from more radical members of the black community.

Personally, I have the greatest respect for those individuals - whatever their ethnicity or social background - who, when offered the royal seal of approval and a place within the Established Order, have the integrity to refuse. Revolution always begins with the word No.

Lost in Democracy [A Letter from Greece] - A Guest Post by Maria Thanassa

In June 2013, the then Greek government unilaterally decided to shut down and dissolve the state broadcasting corporation (ERT). No prior public or parliamentary debate on the matter took place, nor was there any consultation with the staff.

The move was partly the result of adherence to the austerity measures imposed (demanding the sacking of some 15,000 state employees) and partly an attempt to end years of state media extravagance. The aim was to eventually re-launch the corporation as a smaller, independent broadcaster whose workings would be more transparent and thus open to much greater scrutiny.

At the time, the closure caused widespread anger and condemnation - viewed as it was as a blow to democracy and an assault upon freedom of expression. But now, two years later and the national TV channel has returned triumphantly to the airwaves.

And yet, when Syriza hail this resurrection of ERT from the electronic ashes as a victory of the people, one cannot help feeling rather nauseous. Especially when - despite its makeover - it's essentially the same corporation that, in the past, was associated with cronyism, corruption, and the squandering of public funds (not to mention dull programming).  

Of course, the past doesn't necessarily determine the future. And maybe it would be wise to defer criticism. But, I have to say, it really does stick in my craw when far-left populists portray themselves as the true defenders of democracy and implicitly characterize any who would challenge their authority as the reactionary enemies of freedom.


Athens-born Maria Thanassa is a teacher of Greek language, literature, and film. She has a Ph. D. from Kings College London and is the founder and director of EKON Arts. She also writes a blog that combines her love of baking, photography, and poetry. Readers who wish to visit Moonshine and Lemon can do so by clicking here.

Maria appears here as part of the Torpedo the Ark Gastautoren Programm and I am very grateful for her contribution and, indeed, for all her help and technical support with this blog. 

The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle

And so Malcolm is revealed to have been deadly accurate in his characterization: Johnny Rotten is the Collaborator, happy to be pimped by Richard Branson and to whore first for Virgin Records and now for Virgin Money. 

Of course, deep down, we knew all along Rotten couldn't be trusted and the evidence has been steadily accumulating over the years. Thus what really interests is what Jamie Reid thinks of his still very powerful designs being used on the newly issued credit cards.

Is this, for Reid, the further continuation of the Swindle: one final attempt to slay the innocence and naivety of fans who so desperately want to believe in the integrity of their rock 'n' roll idols; one last lesson in how music makes you waste your time, your energy and ideas, and indeed what little money you may possess?

Perhaps. And it would be some comfort to think so. But probably Reid has no control over the use made of these images and he can only laugh (or cry) like the rest of us.

Carri on Sex Pistols ...

On the Japanese Love of Cuteness

Is there an important difference within Japanese language and culture between moe and kawaii? Does the former, for example, serve to describe what is emotionally experienced by a subject about objects designated as belonging to the latter as an aesthetic category?

Maybe this distinction could be drawn, but it seems to me that the two terms have become virtually synonymous; for that which is felt to be adorable in Japan is invariably cute, just as those things regarded as sweetly endearing invariably solicit feelings of powerful affection amongst dedicated fans and followers.

These feelings can, of course, become eroticised, but an explicit sexual element is not usually key; the relationship established with the (often fictional, not always human) object that one finds too darling for words, is romantic, ideal, and disneyfied rather than obscene or pornographic.

Having said that, there's obviously a fetishistic aspect to moe and one can't ignore the fact that the figure of the doe-eyed, nubile young girl is central within this genre. One might describe devotees of cuteness as bambisexuals who are more interested in imaginary petting and fantasy perving, rather than the actual penetration of bodies or committing sexual crimes involving real children or live animals.

Whatever we might think of this phenomenon, the fact is that kawaii is increasingly accepted in Japan as part of their culture and national identity; one that incorporates older elements of beauty, refinement, magic and myth into an aesthetic and a sensibility that is playful and postmodern in character.

And, ultimately, cuteness surely has to be preferable to the cruelty and asceticism that characterized imperial Japanese society; given the choice, I prefer Hello Kitty and Harajuku fashion over the way of the warrior. 
  

Masterchimp

Photo from PetsLady.com

In news that must surely delight Karl Pilkington, it's been announced by researchers that chimps possess the intelligence and the skills to cook and that, if given the choice, much prefer roasted veg and baked potatoes over raw food - even if they have to wait for their meals and thus defer gratification. Sadly, what they don't have is the secret of fire.

Such findings suggest that early humans or ape-men may have developed a taste for grilled meat much earlier in their evolution than was previously thought, thereby shifting the timeline for one of the crucial developments in human history - barbecuing. 

The transition from a world of raw food to one in which cooking became standard practice, is widely regarded as important because it allowed human beings to expand their diet and increase population size. It also allowed them to significantly reduce the time previously spent foraging for fruit and nuts and edible plants and thus be free to do other things; to daydream and exchange ideas, for example, or to invent new technologies, thereby enlarging brains and stimulating the development of mind.  

What I find particularly pleasing about this story, however, is that it further challenges notions of human uniqueness. Most gratifying of all is that it's one in the eye of those idiots on Masterchef who really think that what they are doing is so fucking exceptional. Now we know that, given a little encouragement, even a monkey can turn the oven on and serve up dinner on a plate!

Note:

Those interested in the research by Felix Warneken and Alexandra G. Rosati on the cognitive capacities for cooking in chimpanzees should see the June 2015 edition of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B (Volume 202, Issue 1809): click here.

     

Omorashi

Kairi Omorashi by HarukoOmo 
deviantart.com

I suppose most of us have experienced the mildly perverse pleasure of a full-bladder and its eventual release, or felt a gently sadistic joy at witnessing a loved one's discomfort when they desperately want to piss in a public space, but are denied the opportunity to do so (the thought that they just might not make it home amusing and arousing in equal measure).  

But only the Japanese have given this variant form of urolagnia a specific name - omorashi - and have not only developed it as αn idea within the pornographic imagination, but built a fetishistic subculture upon it, thereby allowing like-minded individuals who delight in bladder desperation and panty wetting to exchange stories and images and to meet up if so desired. 

It should be noted, however, that for most devotees of omorashi an exchange of bodily fluids is not desired; they neither wish to piss on others, nor be pissed on by them. Nor do they want to see naked organs in close-up action, or hope that things might develop in an overtly sexual manner. 

For the obsession is ultimately with clothed incontinence and omorashi videos tend to focus on the garments worn by the participants; these invariably include schoolgirl uniforms, but films with women dressed as business professionals - looking dignified and in control, before shamefully succumbing to the need to urinate - are also very popular with certain male viewers. 

Now, whilst we might legitimately have concerns with some of the dubious sexual politics played out within the world of omorashi, it is, I think, relatively harmless and is frequently looked down on as too tame by hardcore fetishists for whom watersports involves far more edgy and unsettling elements. 

However, under current UK legislation I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that even omorashi is categorised as a form of extreme pornography and that peeing your pants has thus been made into a criminal offence!

Note: thanks to political writer and researcher - and defender of civil liberties - Nick Cowen, for his kind advice on this post.

Of Birds and Blondes (and One Fat Film Director)

 

The recent spate of attacks by crows on young blonde women jogging in a South London park, has once again highlighted the fascinating relationship - marked by corvid animosity - between a highly intelligent species of bird and a type of human being often unfairly portrayed as attractive and fun-loving, but not so smart.

Predictably, but, in this case, quite legitimately, the news media that covered this story all made reference to Hitchcock's 1963 classic, The Birds, a film loosely based on Daphne Du Maurier's short novel of the same name and deeply ingrained in our cinematic memory and cultural imagination. 

Of course, the events in Eltham Park don't quite match the full horror of what unfolds in Bodega Bay, but it's always perversely pleasing to recall Tippi Hedren making her film debut and being pecked to pieces for the sadistic pleasure of director and audience alike. 

Hedren, a former fashion model, was one of a number of so-called Hitchcock blondes, famed for their ice-cold innocence and Nordic beauty. When asked why he preferred to cast such women in lead roles, Hitchcock replied in a somewhat creepy manner that it was because bloody footprints are best seen against virgin snow.

Hedren portrayed the character of Melanie Daniels to perfection and Hitchcock was full of praise for his new protégé and plaything, noting her slightly glib humour and jaunty confidence, her sharpness of expression and attractive throw of the head. 

As for the actress, she initially found everything on set fascinating and wonderful. But she would later describe the week spent filming the final frenzied attack scene as the worst of her life. 

Before shooting, Hitchcock had assured her that only mechanical birds would be used. Hedren found herself, however, in a tiny bedroom having prop men in thick protective clothing fling dozens of live gulls and crows directly at her. Admittedly, their beaks were held shut with rubber bands, but their wings and feet were free to beat and to scratch. When one of the birds gouged her cheek, narrowly missing an eye, Hedren understandably burst into tears and collapsed, dizzy with fear and exhaustion. 

When a doctor recommended that she be given a week to rest and recover, Hitchcock protested. Angered and outraged by this, her physician was moved to ask whether the director wanted to kill his leading lady. Hitchcock's silent response to this is, I suppose, open to interpretation. But what is for sure, is that Hitchcock certainly wanted to possess and intimidate Hedren and ultimately the real horror of this tale lies in the abuse of a young woman by a fat man with power, not by a few angry birds.


Note: thanks to Maria Thanassa for bringing the story of the crow attacks in Eltham Park to my attention and suggesting that it might make the basis for an interesting post on this blog.        

On Pareidolia and Prosopagnosia

Still from the classic silent movie Le Voyage dans la Lune (1902)

Torpedo the Ark means: Take that Man in the Moon!

Pareidolia is the psychological term for the all too human propensity to see ourselves - particularly our own grinning faces - in nature. A well-known example of this is the man in the moon phenomenon. 

In other words, pareidolia is the visual form of apophenia or the will to meaning that interprets purely random patterns or events as being in some way significant, thereby displaying evidence of intelligent design, or the hand of God. 

It's thus thanks to pareidolia in combination with other forms of apophenia - or what Michael Shermer has termed patternicity - that primitive mankind was able to organize chaos and make the universe not only intelligible, but also loving and divine; a manifestation of the sacred. Even today, there are believers who see the face of Jesus on a slice of burnt toast.        

And this is why torpedo the ark means rejecting all forms of correlationism and all attempts to locate agency, whether in heavenly bodies, or loaves of bread. In fact, I'm only half-joking when I say that the philosopher today is obliged not only to cultivate innocence and forgetfulness, but also prosopagnosia or face blindness. 

Perhaps then - and only then - will we be able to know objects as fully independent of ourselves.

Note: I am grateful to Azucena Gómez for suggesting this post and bringing some of the technical terminology to my attention.  

Love Unlocked

A happy couple on the Pont des Arts before the removal 

of the love locks on June 1st 

The decision taken by the municipal authorities to remove the hundreds of thousands of love locks from the Pont des Arts is a triumph of practical common sense over romance; evidence that even in Paris health and safety matters more than affairs of the heart. 

Having said that, there was something rather frightful about all that congealed weight of feeling (be it sincere or otherwise) and the obscene brass symbolism of l'amour. It reminded one of how gangrenous and burdensome love becomes when it is fixed in place and full of insistence. As one commentator wrote, the bridge was starting to groan under this display of collective egoism. 

But, on the other hand, one has to be careful not to be snobbish or superior here; I certainly don't pretend or wish to imply that love as I experience it is in some way more authentic, more noble and more beautiful because it doesn't come with a lock and key. Nor do I find the metal locks ugly as things in themselves; when glittering in the sunshine they constitute a rather pretty and impressive form of three-dimensional graffiti or folk art. 

So, in sum, I have mixed feelings about their removal. Probably, if it had been up to me, I would have left them and allowed the bridge to collapse in suicidal complicity, bringing this love story to the tragic conclusion that it deserves.  

Breast Ironing

Just as the Western world finds the courage and strength of conviction to confront the disgusting practice of female genital mutilation, news emerges of an almost equally horrific form of cultural cruelty originating in the Central African Republic of Cameroon.

Breast ironing is the attempt to suppress the development of breast tissue in pubescent girls by using hard and often heated objects to literally flatten any signs of such development. Usually, this is carried out by the girl's mother who does so in the belief that it will protect her child from sexual harassment, rape, and early pregnancy that would tarnish the family name and prevent the girl from completing her education. 

Thus, as so often with the moral stylization of the flesh, breast ironing is a bad act carried out with good intentions; i.e., a form of violent physical abuse inflicted in the name of love.

The most commonly used implement for breast ironing is a wooden pestle, normally reserved for the pounding of tubers. Sometimes, however, other tools are used, including coconut shells, grinding stones, and hammers that have first been heated over coals. It is widely practiced throughout Cameroon and is also found in neighbouring countries and millions of girls have had to endure this extremely painful torture which can have serious and lasting physical and psychological effects.

And now, thanks to mass immigration and multiculturalism, breast ironing is here in Europe too, imported by the Cameroonian diaspora keen to retain their native traditions. 

Ultimately, there's very little to be said - even though there is clearly an urgent need for something to be done. One might suggest that those parents who are so concerned about protecting the honour of their female offspring that they are prepared to crush budding breasts and/or mutilate genitalia shouldn't be allowed to have baby girls in their care. But this might only lead some to mistakenly think I'm condoning female infanticide, which is a whole other (if clearly related) problem.

It shouldn't be, but, unfortunately, the words It's a girl are often heard in many parts of the world as a license not only to maim, but to kill. 

Eve Teasing

blanknoise.org

So-called Eve teasing is a phenomenon by no means limited to South East Asia, but the men of this region have gained a particularly shameful and ugly reputation for sexually harassing and assaulting young women who have simply asserted their right to venture into a public space, catch a bus, or go to school. 

It might begin with a series of crude remarks, vulgar gestures, and inappropriate touching, but such behaviour fosters an intimidating environment in which far more serious acts of sexual violence can blossom. Indeed, I'm sympathetic to feminists who not only see a direct link between Eve teasing and rape, but classify the former as a minor form of the latter.

Whatever else it is, Eve teasing is certainly not just a type of harmless flirtation - although, arguably, it might be characterized as a form of courtship disorder, endemic in societies in which female independence directly challenges sexist norms, patriarchal traditions, and misogynistic values.

And this, it is important to note, by no means just refers us to Muslim societies. In fact, in a recent poll conducted amongst gender specialists around the world, the country that  was nominated as the worst place to be a woman amongst the G20 nations was not Saudi Arabia, as one might have thought, but India.
  
Further, following several high profile cases involving tourists, several countries, including China, Japan, Switzerland, Canada, Australia, Russia and the United States, have issued advisory notices to their citizens alerting them to the rape epidemic across this country so loved (and so romanticized) by so many. The UK government posts this on its website:

"Women should use caution when travelling in India. Reported cases of sexual assault against women and young girls are increasing: recent sexual attacks against female visitors in tourist areas and cities show that foreign women are also at risk. British women have been the victims of sexual assault in Goa, Delhi, Bangalore and Rajasthan and women travellers often receive unwanted attention in the form of verbal and physical harassment by individuals or groups of men."

It further warns: 

"If you are a woman travelling in India you should respect local dress codes and customs and avoid isolated areas, including beaches, when alone at any time of day. Avoid travelling alone on public transport, or in taxis or rickshaws, especially at night."

This not only causes me to wonder why any woman would choose to go there at this time, but also think it might be worthwhile re-examining the case of Miss Adela Quested and the young Indian doctor, Aziz. Was her charge that he sexually assaulted her in the Marabar Caves really just the hysterical fantasy of a silly, self-absorbed girl, as the majority of (mostly male) critics have insisted ...?


Notes: 

Those interested in knowing more about the growing resistance amongst the women of India to Eve teasing and other forms of sexual violence might care to visit the Blank Noise website: click on the address beneath the image above.

Those interested in reading the full advice given by Her Majesty's Government on issues of safety and security to persons who plan on visiting India, click here. 

Those interested in knowing more about the controversial case of Adela and Aziz should see E. M. Forster's 1924 novel, A Passage to India. 

Dinggedicht

Trümmerfrau by Max Lichnit

What is this thing?

This thing that doesn't eat, doesn't sleep, doesn't speak, doesn't clean,
but continues to drag itself around, hanging-on, with tears in its eyes.

This thing that sits touching its face, as if seeking familiarity
with its own crumbling features.

This thing that fears silence, fears solitude, fears darkness, fears death,
and yet doesn't remember how to live.

This thing, this ruin, that is and is not meine Mutter.


SA

Why the Dalai Lama is Just Another Holy Fool

 

I wouldn't say I hate the Dalai Lama with the same degree of intensity as, for example, I hate Mother Teresa or Gandhi, but there's certainly something about him that I dislike and mistrust: the ghastly monastic robes; the perpetually smiling face (memorably described by James Snell as that of a dozy kitten); the fact that he likes to endorse the spiritual pretensions of Hollywood celebrities and hold the hands of royalty; the cynical manner in which he mixes Bambi-morality with calls for a return to a brutal theocratic feudalism under his own semi-divine leadership, etc.

Not surprisingly, Christopher Hitchens brilliantly outlines the case against him. But an equally interesting critique is by Pascal Bruckner, in which he contrasts Mr Tenzin Gyatso's astonishing success as a master of public relations and self-promotion, with his relative failure politically: 

"Coming out of exile like an Asian Moses descending from his Himalayas to reveal the essential truths ... he has transformed himself into a worldly guru ... a sort of peddler specializing in ... amiable twaddle precisely calibrated to the taste of European  and American audiences." 

He came to champion the cause of his people suffering under Chinese occupation and to impart the wisdom of the East, but, whilst the Dalai Lama succeeded in making a meek and mild version of Buddhism fashionable, he emptied the former of any real urgency or history.

Being generous, one might conclude not that he sold out or betrayed the Tibetan people, but that he was, as Bruckner suggests, overly keen to be a performer in our own image.

  
 
See: Pascal Bruckner, Perpetual Euphoria, trans. Steven Rendall, (Princeton University Press, 2010), pp. 59-61.

 

Lovely Lesbians

 Photo of June Miller by Brassaï (c. 1933)

Henry Miller's posthumously published novel Crazy Cock, was originally entitled Lovely Lesbians - this with reference to his beautiful second wife, June, and her lover, the somewhat mysterious figure of Jean Kronski, fictionally portrayed by Miller in the above work as the arts-loving and rather dapper dyke, Vanya.

Miller met June in 1923, when she was still only 21 and working as a dancer in New York. He immediately fell in love and abandoned his first wife and child in order to be with her. They married in the summer of the following year and their relationship is central to much of his work, including the two Tropic books and his semi-autobiographical trilogy, The Rosy Crucifixion.     

In October 1926, at June's insistence, Jean moved in with them. This allowed her to cultivate an intensely close relationship with the latter and she seemed to enjoy Jean's affections more than her husband's, much to Miller's chagrin. Not surprisingly, things soon came to a head and in April 1927 June and Jean left for Paris together.

Unfortunately, things didn't work out very well for the lovely lesbians and June returned to her old life with Miller in New York just three months later. As for Jean Kronski - if that was in fact her name - she is thought to have committed suicide in an insane asylum c.1930.

Now, I'm no expert on Miller, so I don't really know what he meant by the phrase lovely lesbians - one suspects he was using it in a sardonic manner, as I can't imagine he was entirely happy about the affair between his wife and Miss Kronski (though, that said, he didn't seem to mind later sharing June with Anaïs Nin, who was as sexually and creatively obsessed with her as Miller himself) - but it appeals very much because, for me, there is always something lovely about lesbians, wherever they are on the Sapphic spectrum; from the most feminine of lipstick lesbians, to the most butch or bullish of dykes.      

    

Does saying this make me a malesbian perchance? Not really. For this is a problematic term, for several reasons. Let's just say it demonstrates that I'm very much oriented towards women, feel happier in their company than in the company of men, and that Torpedo the Ark is an openly feminist blog which shares the view subscribed to by American poet and activist Audre Lorde that feminism fundamentally emerges out of a lesbian consciousness, whether or not one actually sleeps with women.

Cocksuckers and Communists

As everybody knows, the witch-hunts in Cold War America during the early 1950s, led by Senator Joseph McCarthy, were not directed against individuals who liked to dance with the devil in the pale moonlight, but those who were - or were suspected of being - communists or left-leaning fellow-travelers.

But what is rather less well known is that McCarthyism was not merely a paranoid political response to the perceived Soviet infiltration of the US, but also manifested a phobic concern with homosexuality as an equally threatening and related form of subversive deviance.

Thus it was that the Second Red Scare was also tinted with lavender. In fact, the so-called Lavender Scare resulted in far more people being persecuted and hounded out of their jobs (or worse) than the more widely reported anti-communist campaign.

Both queers and reds were regarded as profoundly Un-American - that is to say, anti-God, anti-family, and anti-wholesomeness or what we might term apple-pie morality. They were believed to be actively conspiring to bring about a revaluation of sexual and cultural values and the overthrow of government.

For McCarthy and his supporters, someone such as Harry Hay was virtually the embodiment of evil and the link between political radicalism and perversion was proven beyond any shadow of a doubt. On one occasion McCarthy even brazenly announced to reporters that anyone who opposed him had to be either a communist or a cocksucker.

Happily, those of a lavender persuasion not only survived this ugly period in American history, but were strengthened by it. For ironically, the forerunners of today's LGBTQ movement came out of the McCarthy era; the Mattachine Society was founded in 1950, for example, followed by the Daughters of Bilitis in 1955.

As for old Joe, he died a broken man aged forty-eight, in 1957, from acute hepatitis (exacerbated by alcoholism), having been censured by the Senate three years earlier and seen his power and influence dramatically wane. As President Eisenhower is believed to have quipped, McCarthyism had become McCarthywasm. 


Notes

See: David K. Johnson, The Lavender Scare, (University of Chicago Press, 2004). 

A feature-length documentary by Josh Howard based on the above work is presently in post-production.

The Case of Leopold and Loeb

The shocking case of Leopold and Loeb continues to haunt the cultural (and criminal) imagination - not least of all when one has just re-watched Hitchcock's 1948 film, Rope, which was an adaptation of Patrick Hamilton's 1929 play of the same title, inspired by their sorry tale.
    
For those unfamiliar with the case, the salient facts are these: Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were highly gifted students at the University of Chicago, from extremely privileged backgrounds. In an attempt to demonstrate their intellectual and moral superiority, they set out to commit the perfect crime. This involved the kidnap and murder of fourteen year-old Bobby Franks in May 1924. 

Leopold, born in 1904, was the son of a wealthy Jewish family who had emigrated from Germany. A child prodigy with an outrageous IQ who spoke several languages fluently, he had by the time of the murder already completed his undergraduate degree at Chicago with honours and was planning to study law at Harvard. His partner in crime - and lover - Richard Loeb, born in 1905, was also exceptionally bright. Despite this, he was regarded by his tutors as lazy and overly interested in pulp fiction. 

Although the two boys knew each other whilst growing up in the same affluent neighbourhood, their relationship only really blossomed at the University of Chicago; particularly after discovering that they shared a mutual love of crime stories and an interest in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. Leopold was particularly fascinated by the latter's concept of the Übermensch and imagined himself as someone destined to pass beyond good and evil. In a letter to Loeb, he wrote that superior individuals are, on account of certain inherent qualities, exempted from the laws which govern the lives of ordinary men.

Putting theory into practice, the two friends engaged in a series of petty crimes in order to demonstrate their contempt for and rejection of bourgeois society. Emboldened by their success at evading capture, they progressed to ever more serious acts, including arson. Disappointed, however, with the lack of media coverage they felt their crimes deserved, they decided to up the stakes in order to capture public attention and confirm their status as superior individuals: thus the killing of Bobby Franks, a second cousin of Loeb's described by Leopold as a 'cocky little son of a bitch'.

Unfortunately, the so-called crime of the century was solved by police in just a matter of days. Leopold and Loeb were arrested and both confessed during interrogation (although each blamed the other for delivering the fatal blows to the head of the young victim with a chisel). Both men also declared that they were motivated by a sense of philosophical investigation; this was murder as an intellectual exercise or moral-aesthetic experiment - as justifiable, said Leopold to his lawyer, as the killing of a beetle by an entomologist.

At the end of their month long trial, both were sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder, plus an additional 99 years for the kidnapping. The two maintained their intimate relationship behind bars until Loeb was brutally slashed with a razor in the showers by another inmate, James Day, in January 1936. Although taken directly to the prison hospital, his life couldn't be saved. Leopold was allowed to wash his friend's body as a final act of affection.     

Following this incident, Leopold went on to become a model prisoner and he made many significant contributions to improving conditions at Stateville Penitentiary before his release in 1958. He then went on to become a model citizen, working in healthcare and social services and studying bird-life as he searched for a halo in Puerto Rico. He died in 1971, aged 66.

The Franks murder has since inspired many works of fiction, film, and theatre. I think what really interests about the case of Leopold and Loeb is also what most depresses: when you strip away the lavender trappings and philosophical pretension all you are left with is a rather squalid act that demonstrates what Hannah Arendt famously termed the banality of evil. In other words, for all the sensational and transgressive aspects of murder, it results finally in a feeling of numbness and terminal boredom.

One might have hoped and expected something else, something more, from such gifted young men. Why do so many self-confessed Nietzscheans disappoint?     

The Joy of Buttons - A Guest Post by Christian Michel

I

When the success of Lolita allowed him to live in the luxury he had been accustomed to in his childhood before the Russian Revolution, Vladimir Nabokov complained after the long-serving and much-loved lift man at the Montreux Palace was replaced by an automated system of buttons.

Nabokov doesn't elaborate, but his concern seems unrelated to the misery of unemployment or the human cost of further advances in machine technology. Rather, it was more to do with his own desire for recognition as a respected patron of the hotel. Buttons, alas, do not meet this need.

The lift operator - educated, well-mannered, and at ease around the rich and powerful - was, if not quite a gentleman in his own right, nevertheless a true professional who understood perfectly how society is founded upon mutual respect and recognition between its members, even across divisions of class. The sordid topic of coin does not - or at least should not - be allowed to disrupt this.      

Certainly in the well-ordered environment of a grand hotel, members of staff are not regarded as abject inferiors and whilst they must certainly not be overly-familiar or forward, neither are they expected to be obsequious or servile. It's a question of balance; of being relaxed, but not informal or discourteous. This, in turn, impels the guests of the hotel to be polite and, hopefully, generous with tips. Thus all actors in this disciplined artificial utopia perform in accordance with social expectation and custom.  

Of course, this social model may not appeal very much to a modern, democratic sensibility. But isn't it more human and, indeed, more humane than a world wherein we are all required to push our own elevator buttons? 

II

Having said this, perhaps Nabokov and those who subscribe to an idealised world of masters and servants miss something crucial: we moderns love pressing buttons and interacting with technology and that is why the machine has triumphed and the old order given way.

Perhaps our daily use of and reliance upon mighty machines and smart devices has somewhat dulled the pleasure, but imagine our ancestors joy at realising that they could suddenly achieve miracles at the touch of a button, or the flick of a switch. To get anything done at all used to require hard labour and dirty, dangerous, tedious hours of endless toil. And the result was often hardly worth the effort!

It is only after the industrial revolution ushers in the Age of the Machine and, later, information-technology, that work becomes honourable and life becomes more than merely a short, brutal form of meagre existence that is scratched out from the dirt on a day-to-day basis. What is more beautiful than being able to press a button in order to power up and light up the world? Or indeed, destroy it. 

Nabokov neglected or chose to ignore this aspect. And so, whilst I agree with him that individuals need the recognition and respect of their fellows, we don't want to be deprived of the joy, the convenience, and the privilege of pressing buttons.


Christian Michel is a London-based, French political theorist and activist; un homme de lettres et un homme de la ville. He teaches courses on economics and is regularly asked to speak at international events as a leading figure within the libertarian movement. Christian also organizes a twice-monthly salon at his West London home known as the 6/20 Club and facilitates the Café Philo at the Institut français on Saturday mornings.      

Christian appears here as part of the Torpedo the Ark Gastautoren Programm and I am very grateful for his kind permission to revise and edit - and not merely reproduce - the above text which has previously appeared elsewhere in a longer, somewhat different version.   

Ash to Ashes (In Memory of a Pagan Philosopher)

Steve Ash, the writer and pagan activist who was well-known in occult and counter-cultural circles in London, is dead.

That's not a sentence I expected to be writing, or take any pleasure in so doing. I wouldn't even have known of his passing in the autumn of last year were it not for the kind dedication of a recent book review made by Mr Tim Pendry who, like me, had a somewhat ambiguous, on-off, up-and-down friendship with the deceased. 

I knew Mr Ash via Treadwell's - Christina Harrington's wondrous bookshop - and for a brief period in 2009 we were fairly regular correspondents. He had an MA in philosophy from King's College London and was interested in questions to do with mind and consciousness from both an academic and an esoteric perspective. He also wrote on a wide variety of other subjects including the Knights Templar, Queer Theory, and the work of H. P. Lovecraft.

I can't ever remember agreeing with him on anything and thought that he was fundamentally mistaken on pretty much everything (particularly his reading of Nietzsche), but I always admired his ambition as a writer and his populist touch; here was a man who was unafraid to place the multiverse in a nutshell. 

The last time I heard from him was a couple of years ago when he left a comment on a post written on this blog (see How Even Witches Lose Their Charm). Ever-provocative and desirous of conflict, he accused me of being a crypto-Christian. But, now, in the circumstances, I suppose I can forgive him for this final erroneous insult. 

I'm told he has a loyal following and I'm sure they, as well as his friends and family, will miss him greatly. I won't, but wanted nevertheless to take this opportunity to write something in his memory. 

The Charm of Kink (with Reference to the Case of Mrs. Peel)

The charm of kink is that it has charm. And the nature of this appealing quality is camp.

In other words, whilst it would be wrong to set up a false dichotomy and seek to salvage kink from a more problematically perverse aesthetic with origins deep in the pornographic imagination, it is certainly more playful than pathological; a kind of frivolous form of fetishism in which stylization and mannerism matters far more than actual sexual activity. 

The kinky individual delights in props, costumes, and role playing as pleasures in their own right and not simply as methods of enhancing orgasm and camp perversity is ultimately more about fashion, fun, and theatre than fucking in dreadful earnest which, if it does take place, does so off-stage, as all forms of obscenity should. It relies upon (and is happier with) suggestiveness rather than anything overt; a sophisticated and teasing combination of imagination, irony and innuendo.  

This is perfectly illustrated by the case of Mrs. Peel, played by Diana Rigg in sixties spy-fi series The Avengers. Mrs. Peel is the personification of kinky charm and English cool, whether she's wearing her trademark leather catsuit, fancy dress, or groovy get-ups created by John Bates and, later, Alun Hughes, to emphasise her youthful, contemporary character.    

Perhaps her most notorious outfit was the Queen of Sin costume, worn in the most viewed and much discussed episode entitled 'A Touch of Brimstone'.

As can be seen in the photo accompanying this text, the Queen of Sin costume consists of a black embroidered corset laced tightly at the back and cut straight across the breast. The corset comes with a barely-there, see-through black lace micro-mini that just about reaches the top of her naked thighs and fails to conceal the black satin high-cut bikini briefs worn beneath. The look is complemented with a spiked leather collar (complete with leash), evening gloves, stiletto heeled boots (also back-lacing) and, somewhat lamely, a live snake.     

For many fans of the show, the moment that Mrs. Peel strips away a long black cloak and stands revealed in her Queen of Sin costume constitutes a real highpoint or kinky consummation of some kind. It certainly makes Steed's eyes - and one suspects not just his eyes - bulge with surprise and delight.

But for me, as for the censors at the time, with its explicit visual references to the world of BDSM, 'A Touch of Brimstone' goes too far; the cat is let out of the bag so to speak. I prefer Mrs. Peel kept under wraps and think she is at her most seductive when she manages to combine the perverse with the prim and proper; the deviant with the demure.

Notes

'A Touch of Brimstone', episode 21 of series 4 of The Avengers, written by Brian Clemens and directed by James Hill, was first shown (with cuts) in the UK in February 1966. It was deemed unsuitable for broadcast in the US. As well as starring Patrick Macnee as Steed and Diana Rigg as Mrs. Peel, it also co-starred Peter Wyngarde as The Honourable John Cleverly Cartney, the camp libertine and aristocratic anarchist who is the villain of the piece.

Those who are interested may care to go to the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmxe3ueE9jU

Sottorealism: Beneath Contempt ...?

Photo of Aris Kalaizis (2010)
kalaizis.com

Bataille's philosophical and political critique of the elevated, the ideal, and, indeed, of the very prefix sur (as in surrealism) remains, eighty-five years on, pretty much valid and legitimate as far as I can see. He's right to stay - as far as is possible - low down and dirty and to posit the world of things upon a base materialism; right to value those old moles who burrow under the surface and subvert those systems that look to the heavens where angels fly and eagles dare. 

Any revolution or art movement that involves soaring over the everyday with contempt led by those who suffer from an Icarian complex and secretly desire their own downfall, or pathologically delight in the thought of worldly destruction, deserves to be met with suspicion, derision, and contempt. 

But what of sottorealism? Is it a weird form of speculative materialism that interestingly counters the idealistic pretension of surrealism; or is it merely a dubious postmodern return to symbolism? 

The term, sottorealism, was coined by American art critic Carol Strickland in a 2006 essay to describe what she recognized as a new aesthetic approach in the work of Greco-German artist Aris Kalaizis; one which, like surrealism, values dreams and unconscious forces, but attempts to crawl beneath the surface of a reality invested and shaped by such, rather than rise above it. By manifesting these numinous realities in his work (after a lengthy process that first involves model building and photography), Kalaizis hopes to create canvases that are zones of convergence between the seen and unseen.  

We could also describe this practice as mythical realism - a term that the poet Paul-Henri Campbell likes to use with reference to his own work and it's surely not coincidental that the latter has written extensively and enthusiastically about the art of his friend Kalaizis.

According to Campbell, Kalaizis works with the immateriality of boundaries and probes the liminal joints of reality in a unique manner, viewing the world with his inner-eye and demonstrating how the creative process doesn't simply involve skill and toil, but opening oneself to a paramount mystery by which, I suppose, he means some form of divine (or demonic) guidance.

Now, forgive me if I'm being crass or overly hasty here, but doesn't this sound like a return to the language of the old religiosity or metaphysics with which art seems to invariably entangle itself?

Again, it's surely not coincidental that Campbell has studied theology and that Kalaizis's recently completed and monumental canvas, The Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew or the Double Martyrdom (2014/15) presently hangs in the Imperial Cathedral, Frankfurt. It might be that Kalaizis, a self-confessed atheist, maintains a critical and ironic stance towards organized religion, but something seems to whisper here of what Bataille would describe as a predilection for values and a call for some kind of spiritual reinvestment of contemporary society.

In sum, whilst I admire the technical brilliance of his work and concede that looking beneath is something different from looking beyond, I can't help thinking that Kalaizis wants desperately to locate the miraculous beneath the mundane and is unfortunately not quite enough of a dirt-digger to be a true mole.  


Notes

Georges Bataille, 'The "Old Mole" and the Prefix Sur in the Words Surhomme and Surrealist', Visions of Excess, ed. Allan Stoekl, (University of Minnesota Press, 1993), pp. 32-44.

Paul-Henri Campbell (ed.), Sottorealism, (Imhof-Ed., Petersberg, 2014). 

See also the documentary about Kalaizis entitled Sotto, by Ferdinand Richter (2014): click here.

Pagan Magazine (1983-92)

Pagan: the Magazine of Blood-Knowledge
Issue I (1983)

For some, the way to move beyond the ruins of punk was via a colourful and poppy new romanticism. For others it involved wearing all black and the creation of a queer gothic sensibility; or power dressing for a job in the city and a shameless embrace of Thatcherism. 

For me, however, the natural progression was towards a post-punk primitivism inspired by - amongst other things - D. H. Lawrence's Apocalypse, McLaren and Westwood's Nostalgia of Mud, Killing Joke's Fire Dances, and a second-hand copy of the Larousse Encyclopedia of World Mythology.     

And so, in 1983, I created Pagan: the Magazine of Blood-Knowledge ...

For nearly ten years I single-handedly wrote, illustrated, photocopied, and distributed the above giving full-range to my various obsessions, including those that were not only literary and aesthetic in origin, but esoteric and political in character as the magazine veered dangerously from poetry, art, and nature worship towards the black hole of Nazi occultism.

This is not to argue that the latter is always the fatal outcome of the former. But, in aggressively confronting Occidental reason and Christian morality with its absolute Other and in promoting a pessimistic vitalism tied to an anti-modern, anti-democratic politics of cultural despair, one inevitably runs the risk of encountering and thence succumbing to the temptation of fascism. Habermas is not wrong to argue this.    

On the other hand, just as Dionysian philosophy can lead you into the abyss, so too can it lead you out and I would say that it was ultimately Nietzsche and those thinkers often derided as postmodernists - not Jürgen Habermas - who helped me see that irony, indifference, and incredulity are preferable to the faith, fanaticism, and fervour that I valorised and called for in my younger days.

I can still look back at Pagan Magazine with some pride and amusement. But I have to admit there are also feelings of shame, embarrassment, and even horror. Anyway, for the record - and for those few readers who may be interested - here's an index of the issues:


I: Dark Sex (1983)
II: Pan (1983)
III: Pagan Poetry (1983)
IV: The Cult of the Plumed Serpent (1984)
V: Pure Sex (1984)
VI: Rejuvenate! (1985)
VII: The Priest of Love (1985/86)
VIII: Erotic Art (1986)
IX: Once Upon a Time (On Folk and Fairy Tales) (1986)
X: Death to Democracy - Long Live the Folkish State! (1986)
XI: Ragnarok: Twilight of the Gods and the Coming of the Wolf (1986)
XII: The Ithyphallic Issue (1986)
XIII: We Shall Remain Faithful ... (1987)
XIV: Women (1987)
XV: And Time is Running Out ... (1987)
XVI: The Summer Edition (1987)
XVII: Transformation (1987)
XVIII: European Folk Dress Fashion Special (1987)
XIX: Poetry for the New Age (1987)
XX: Killing Joke: A New Day (1987)
XXI: The Tarot (1987)
XXII: Alchemy and the Transference Phenomenon (1988)
XXIII: Astrology (1988)
XXIV: On Magick and Witchcraft (1988)
XXV: Retrospective: the History of Pagan Magazine 1983-88 (1988)
XXVI: An Illustrated Miscellany of Curious and Interesting Items (1988)
XXVII: The Dead Kennedys Issue (1988)
XXVIII: Expressions (1988)
XXIX: The Green Issue (1989)
XXX: Farewell to the 80s ... And Welcome to the 1990s (1989)
XXXI: Modigliani: Le Peintre Maudit (1990)
XXXII: Vincent Van Gogh (1990)
XXXIII: Vive Picasso! (1990)
XXXIV: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: On the Life and Work of William Blake (1990)
XXXV: Dreams, Nightmares, Visions (1990)
XXXVI: The Pagan and Occult Roots of National Socialism (1991)
XXXVII: Adolf Hitler (1991)
XXXVIII: The New Order (1991)*
XXXIX: Blood and Soil: Race, Nationality, and Eco-Mysticism (1991)*
XL: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Pagan: The True Confessions of Stephen Alexander (1991/92)*
XLI: New Poems and The History of Pagan Magazine (Part II): 1988-1991 (1992)


Note: The issues marked with an asterisk were not completed and so never circulated. Three further issues were also semi-assembled after issue XLI: one on the figure of the prostitute, one on Nietzsche, and, finally, one entitled 'Bits' that was a celebration of fragments and leftovers. 

The Object is Poetics

Jean Dubuffet, Personnage Hilare 

(Portrait de Francis Ponge), 1947

Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 

In a text entitled The Object is Poetics, Francis Ponge correctly points out that the relationship between man and object is not at all limited to possession or use. Our soul is transitive, writes Ponge. By which he means it needs "an object that affects it". For man is a curious body "whose centre of gravity is not in itself". 

We have our being, in other words, in the infinite number of things outside ourselves. There are thus as many ways of being as there are objects and relationships. Arguably, the artist understands the multiple and decentred nature of man best of all; understands that the world is not only populated with other human beings, but with birds, beasts and flowers - and, indeed, with objects belonging to the inanimate world:       

"The world is peopled with objects. On its shores, we see their infinite crowd, their gathering, even though they are indistinct and vague. Nevertheless, that is enough to reassure us. Because we also feel that all of them, according to our fancy, one after the other, may become our point of docking, the bollard upon which we rest."

But, in order for this to be true, we must choose true objects, says Ponge. By which he means real objects that exist as such, with their own weight, mind independently. All too frequently we become enthralled by our own ideas: "Most often, man only grasps his emanations, his ghosts. Such are subjective objects". 

These pseudo-objects endlessly sing the same dreary song - the song of a triumphant humanity. True objects, however, exist outside of our own thoughts and desires and are not merely decorative or background features. They emit a black noise, inaudible and alien ... 

See: Francis Ponge, 'The Object is Poetics', in The Sun Placed in the Abyss, trans. Serge Gavronsky, (SUN Books, 1977). 

Note: this post forms part of a longer (as yet untitled) project on Ponge, poetry, and object-oriented philosophy being worked on in collaboration with Simon Solomon.  

   

Why I Love Richard Avedon

Selfie in the Manner of Richard Avedon 

Stephen Alexander (2015)

New York has been home to many great photographers. But perhaps the greatest of them all remains Richard Avedon whose magnificent portraits continue to resonate within our cultural imagination.

Like Warhol, whom he famously photographed alongside members of the Factory in 1969, Avedon understood how art, fashion, sex, and commerce have an intimate and sophisticated relationship within modern society.

Further, Avedon knew that the non-essential essence of these things is revealed not at some underlying ideal level, but in the accessories, poses, and small personal gestures of his models and can thus easily be captured on catwalk, canvas, film, and face.

He wasn't interested in revealing the hoary soul, but fascinated rather with how photography creates profoundly stylish images that grant access to the greatest of all truths (which is the truth of masks):

"My photographs don't go below the surface. I have great faith in surfaces."   

This remark alone makes me love him dearly and recognise Avedon as a comrade-in-arms in the never-ending struggle against depth and interiority.   

Fleurs du Mal

Obscenity (2015)
Photo by Stephen Alexander

The sight of a flower always gives a certain superficial joy in the appearance of things. 

But the symbolic language developed both to describe flowers and to express human emotions in floral terms is often entirely inadequate, limited as it is by cultural convention and oozing with sentimental cliché. Our love might be like a red, red rose, but a red, red rose is nothing like our amorous ideal.         

For at the core of every flower burns something obscene and evil like a tiny black sun that, in truth, poets and philosophers - who nearly all remain theo-humanists at heart - have never been very comfortable with. Georges Bataille is one of the few writers who dares to stare into the heart of vegetal darkness, affirming the inexpressible real presence of the plant and rejecting the symbolic descriptions traditionally offered as puerile absurdities that are sexless and sunless in character.

Flowers, admits Bataille, are undeniably beautiful at first glance. But, look closer, and you'll note that most of them are badly developed and barely distinguishable from foliage; "some of them are even unpleasant, if not hideous. Moreover, even the most beautiful flowers are spoiled in their centres by hairy sexual organs."

The interior of a tulip for example, as pictured above, doesn't correspond with its exterior loveliness; tear away the petals and you're left with something sinister and alien. Even the most elegant of stamens is rather satanic and there are plants so diabolical that "one is tempted to attribute to them the most troubling human perversions".

In a passage that emphasizes just why it is that ultimately flowers are not an expression of some divine ideal, but, on the contrary, a base form of sacrilege, Bataille writes:

"Even more than by the filth of its organs, the flower is betrayed by the fragility of its corolla: thus, far from answering the demands of human ideas, it is the sign of their failure. In fact, after a very short period of glory the marvellous corolla rots indecently in the sun, thus becoming, for the plant, a garish withering. Risen from the stench of the manure heap - even though it seemed for a moment to have escaped it in a flight of angelic and lyrical purity - the flower appears to relapse abruptly into its original squalor: the most ideal is rapidly reduced to a wisp of aerial excrement."   

This, if you like, is the first aspect of the revenge of the flowers; they undermine and mock our emasculated idealism with their obscene reality, reminding us that beauty and desire have nothing to do with permanence or purity. And this is why metaphysicians prefer the never-fading blooms of heaven or the immortal pensées of some great thinker, to the delicate weeds that grow by the road side.       

See: Georges Bataille, 'The Language of Flowers', in Visions of Excess, ed. Allan Stoekl, trans. Allan Stoekl et al, (University of Minnesota Press, 1993), pp. 10-14. Note that the translation of the final paragraph quoted has been slightly modified.