ASMR

Virginia Woolf as an ASMRtist

Illustration by Sophie Kuang and Antonio Perricone for an article 

written by Cara Nicholson in The Isis Magazine (2019): click here.

 

 

 

What is ASMR?

 

In brief: an autonomous sensory meridian response is a queer tingling sensation that often begins on the scalp and moves down the back of the neck and upper spine. 

 

Some commentators have described it as a pleasant form of paresthesia, though I suppose that depends on what (or who) triggers the feeling and upon the individual experiencing it; euphoria to one person is simply irritating to another. 

 

ASMR is most commonly triggered by auditory and/or visual stimuli, rather than the direct touch of another. And so might best be conceived, like masturbation, as a mental rather than a physical phenomenon. 

 

Orgasm, however, isn't always the desired outcome; some are seeking relaxation rather than sexual gratification and Jennifer Allen who, in 2010, coined the phrase autonomous sensory meridian response, purposely selected these clinical-sounding terms to cover a wide field of experience [1].  

 

Having said that, pornographic ASMR that is deliberately designed to erotically stimulate is certainly available and technosexuals who enjoy getting their tingles in this manner can do so with the help of a vast array of online videos and social media livestreams.

 

Finally, it might be noted, that whilst ASMR is certainly a real phenomenon, little scientific research has been conducted into it [2]. Thus, there's scant neuropsychophysiological data available at this time and this does make one rather skeptical of the claims made by some evangelical proponents who think that, like meditation and yoga, it has all kind of miraculous health benefits.  

 

Personally, I like to hear a woman whisper in a sexy voice or watch her apply her make-up as much as the next man, but I'm not convinced this is therapeutic - that it will, for example, assuage my anxiety, dispel my depression, or cure my insomnia. What's more, I suspect that many who claim they experience euphoria at the drop of a hat are simply kidding themselves. 

 

     

Notes

 

[1] It might reasonably be argued that this is simply a new name for an old thing. The Austrian writer Clemens Setz reminds us, for example, of the following passage in Mrs Dalloway (1925) in which a nursemaid speaks to her shell-shocked male patient, Septimus:

 

"'K … R …' said the nursemaid, and Septimus heard her say 'Kay Arr' close to his ear, deeply, softly, like a mellow organ, but with a roughness in her voice like a grasshopper's, which rasped his spine deliciously and sent running up into his brain waves of sound which, concussing, broke. A marvellous discovery indeed - that the human voice in certain atmospheric conditions (for one must be scientific, above all scientific) can quicken trees into life!" 

 

      Does this qualify Virginia Woolf as an ASMRtist? Arguably. Though what poet doesn't understand the power of the human voice? What musician doesn't appreciate the power of sound? What painter worth their salt doesn't know how to trigger a response from the viewer via visual stimuli? 

      Readers of German might like to see the article by Setz entitled 'High durch sich räuspernde Menschen', in Süddeutsche Zeitung, (6 April 2015): click here. See too the article by Cara Nicholson on Woolf and ASMR in The Isis Magazine that I link to beneath the lovely illustration by Sophie Kuang and Antonio Perricone at the top of this post. 

      The passage in Mrs Dalloway is in Part 1: Early Morning - 11.00 a.m.  

 

[2] Writing in a post published in March 2012 on his blog Neurologica, the academic clinical neurologist Steven Novella discussed the question of whether ASMR is a real phenomenon. Whilst inclined to think it was, he also said that a lot more scientific investigation was needed before it can be conclusively accepted as such: 

      "It is plausible that a subset of the population has a particular pattern of neural hard wiring so that when they experience certain things that are typically quietly satisfying they get a little extra shot to their pleasure center. Once they experience this then they seek out greater and greater triggers of this response, and perhaps then a learning or conditioning component kicks in. 

      [But] what we need at this point are functional MRI and transcranial magnetic stimulation studies that look at what is happening in the brains of people while experiencing ASMR ..." 

      To read the post in full, click here. 

 

 

This post is for Meni in the hope she won't find it as irritating as she does the tingling sensation of ASMR

 

Spectres of Marx and Derrida: A Post in Response to a 6/20 Paper by John Holroyd

 

The ghostly figures of Karl Marx (1818-1883) 

and Jacques Derrida (1930-2004)

'Deconstruction never had any meaning or interest 

other than as a radicalization of a certain spirit of Marxism ...'

 

I couldn't help thinking that John Holroyd's paper on Marx presented last night at Christian Michel's 6/20 [1] was something of a missed opportunity. For rather than simply rake over over the ashes of historical Marxism, he might have invoked the spirit of that untimely Marxism which continues to haunt capitalist society and the imagination of those concerned not with communism per se, but the possibility of radical critique. 

 

And rather than argue in favour of positive freedom - i.e., a fulfilled and unalienated form of existence lived within a harmonious community established upon an ideal of justice - Holroyd could have developed the idea of what might be termed posthumous freedom, by which one refers to a model of freedom invested with elements from the past and overshadowed by futurity; a model that embraces uncanny otherness thereby disrupting the presence of what is present (including the self), and renders the question of alienation a non-issue. 

 

That's not to say Holroyd's talk was uninteresting or poorly presented: in fact, Holroyd is an accomplished speaker who clearly has an excellent grasp of his material. But, it was essentially just a reminder of Marx and the messianic or religious nature of his work - the aspect which clearly most excites Holroyd - rather than a daring philosophical attempt to reimagine Marx in spectral form à la Derrida [2].    

 

Of course, Holroyd doesn't pretend to be a Derridean and probably has little truck with différance and deconstruction. And some might argue it's a little unfair to criticise a speaker for what they don't say, rather than focus on the issues that were addressed.

 

Nevertheless, for a writer interested in the persistence of ideas from the cultural and social past and intrigued by those thinkers, like Marx, whom Nietzsche calls posthumous individuals, Holroyd might at least have indicated he was aware of Derrida's seminal text on atemporal Marxism - and if he isn't, then this, in my view, is a serious shortcoming and I would respectfully suggest he add it to his reading list ASAP.      

 

 

Notes

 

[1] John Holroyd has a background in theology and philosophy and has taught religious studies (and other subjects) in schools (and online) for many years and lectured at the London School of Philosophy.  He is the author of Judging Religion: A Dialogue for Our Times (Silverwood Books, 2019). 

      Christian Michel is a French polymath who has graciously hosted the twice-monthly 6/20 Club at his west London home for almost twenty years, during which time an impressive assortment of speakers have presented papers on a huge number of topics. 

 

[2] Jacques Derrida's Spectres de Marx (Éditions Galilée, 1993) was trans. by Peggy Kamuf and published in English by Routledge the following year. 

      The ideas that Derrida introduces here - such as hauntology - were first presented in a series of lectures during a conference on the future of Marxism held at the University of California, Riverside in 1993. For Derrida, the spirit of Marx contines to haunt the modern social imaginary even in a world that is post-Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union (and this will continue to be the case so long as there is injustice, inequality, oppression, and exploitation). 

      For a critical reading of this text by Fredric Jameson, Antonio Negri, Terry Eagleton, and others, see Ghostly Demarcations, ed. Michael Sprinkler, (Verso, 1999).

 

 

A Brief History of the Mug Shot From Alphonse Bertillon to Andy Warhol

Top: Alphonse Bertillon's self-taken mugshot (1900)

Bottom: A canvas from Andy Warhol's Most Wanted Men series (1964)

 

I. 

 

Thanks to Donald Trump, everyone is talking about mug shots ... An informal term for a police photograph, typically taken soon after an individual's arrest in order to help with future identification [1].    

 

The act of photographing criminals began soon after the invention of photography in the 1840s, but it wasn't until 1888 that French police officer and biometrics expert Alphonse Bertillon standardised the process in terms of lighting and angles, etc. [2] 

 

His mug shot selfie, reproduced above, is typical; one side-view image and one face-on, against a plain background. Such photos are often compiled into a rogues gallery of images or a so-called mug book, although, in high-profile cases, the mug shot might also be circulated via the mass media and feature on wanted posters.

 

It is thanks to the latter phenomenon that mug shots gradually came to have a certain cachet and became fixed within the cultural imagination; the faces of gangsters such as Clyde Barrow, John Dillinger, and Al Capone, became as well-known as famous film stars and a whole host of Hollywood celebrities would eventually pride themselves on having had their own images captured by a police photographer.

 

Fascinated by both crime and celebrity, the American Pop artist Andy Warhol created a large mural of twenty-two mug shots in 1964 entitled Thirteen Most Wanted Men - a work which I would like to discuss below ...

 

 

II. 

 

Although Warhol had been commissioned to create a work for exhibition at the 1964 World's Fair in New York, Thirteen Most Wanted Men almost certainly wasn't what those who invited him to decorate the façade of the New York State pavilion had hoped for; in fact, the expectation was that he would produce a celebratory work that would represent the best - not the dark underbelly - of America. 

 

Partly inspired by a 1923 work by Marcel Duchamp, in which the French artist placed his own face on a wanted poster [3], Warhol decided to screen-print large-scale copies of images from a booklet published by the New York Police Department, entitled The Thirteen Most Wanted, and containing mug shots of dangerous criminals (including a child murderer) whom the authorities were anxious to arrest. 

 

As an anonymous critic writing for the Christie's website notes: "By elevating the criminal visage to a form of high art Warhol is aligning these nefarious figures with his own earlier celebrity portrayals." [4]   

 

Unfortunately, two weeks before the fair was due to open, Warhol was officially informed that he must remove or replace the work within 24-hours. Not wanting to do either, Warhol instead gave his permission for the 30-metre wide canvas to be painted over with silver house paint prior to the opening of the Fair [5].

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Mug, of course, is an English slang term for (usually an ugly) face, dating from the 18th century. Often, when posing for a mugshot, a person will pull a face in an attempt to distort their features, thereby making future identification by a law enforcement agent a little more troublesome (thus we speak of mugging for the camera).  

 

[2] Bertillon was one of the founding fathers of forensic anthropometry; i.e., a system of identification based on the finding that that several measures of physical features - such as the size and shape of the skull - remain fairly constant throughout adult life. Bertillon concluded that when these measurements were made and recorded systematically, individual criminals could effectively be differentiated. 

 

[3] Created in 1923, Duchamp's Wanted: $2,000 Reward lithograph was the final work of art he completed before leaving New York that year to return to Paris. 

      Duchamp pasted two mug shots of himself on a joke poster he'd come across and had a printer add another alias to those already listed; that of his recently invented alter ego Rrose Sélavy. Duchamp re-created the (now lost original) work throughout his career and hoped it would played a significant role in the (de)construction of his artistic identity.

 

[4] See the essay on the Christie's website entitled 'Warhol's Most Wanted' (16 May 2018): click here.

      One can't help wondering why it is that the male homosexual gaze so often lingers on the faces and bodies of violent felons; is it the inevitable result of criminalising love? Or is it simply an inconvenient truth that evil attracts and has a more photogenic quality? Richard Meyer touches on these questions in his book Outlaw Representation: Censorship and Homosexuality in Twentieth-Century Art (Oxford University Press, 2002).

 

[5] The official reason given was that the Governor of New York, Nelson Rockefeller, was concerned that the images of mostly Italian-Americans would be offensive to a significant section of his electorate. However, it is also believed that Warhol himself was dissatisfied with the work and so more-than happy to have been afforded the opportunity to paint it over in his favoured colour of negation. 

      Warhol would later use the original silkscreens to produce paintings in his Most Wanted Men series and many of these were exhibited in Paris, Cologne, and London, in 1967-68.

 

On the Evil Genius of the Image: Notes on the Mugshots of Donald Trump and Hermann Göring

Mugshots of Donald Trump (24 August, 2023) 

and Hermann Göring (22 June 1945)

 

 

So much has already been said about Donald Trump's instantly iconic mugshot taken at Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, Georgia - apparently the most viewed photograph in the world - that there's not much for me to add. 

 

The muted grey background is rather flattering and deflects from the harshness of the lighting. Trump, wearing a blue suit with a white shirt and red tie, stares down not just the anonymous prison photographer, but all of his political opponents and critics in the mainstream media. 

 

It's a fuck you look of angry defiance and with this one image, Trump brilliantly turns the tables on those who had hoped to humiliate him and, perhaps, seals victory in the 2024 presidential election. For this photo, available on a wide range of merchandising (i.e., commercial propaganda), has already helped the Trump campaign to raise millions of dollars.   

 

Malcolm McLaren may have showed us how to create cash from chaos, but it's Donald Trump who best understands how to monetise notoriety and I think that the conservative commentator Candace Owens is right to describe Trump's approach to doing politics as punk rock (something that Johnny Rotten had pointed out years ago) [1]. 

 

Even those who loathe Trump concede that this picture is, in its simplicity, visually compelling. One that has not only historical but cultural significance; i.e., one that can be discussed in relation to art as well as politics. Zach Helfand amusingly - and rightly - discusses it within the context of work by Da Vinci, Henri Fantin-Latour, and Andy Warhol [2].  

 

Helfand also suggests that the Trump mugshot has a precedent in the arrest photograph of Hermann Göring, which, as I think readers will agree, is an excellent spot. For we see in this image of the president of the Nazi Reichstag the exact same mixture of indignation and contempt for his enemies as in the Trump photo; it's a portrait of a powerful man cornered, but unbowed.

 

One wonders, in closing, why it is exactly that good people never seem to produce such captivating images: Is is because they always like to smile and signal their virtue? Is it because they lack menace? Or is it simply the case, whether we like to admit this or not, that evil has a more photogenic quality?  

 

 

Notes

 

[1] See the Candace Owens podcast on the The Daily Wire (20 August 2023) in which she gives her take on the Trump mugshot and discusses the positive reactions of other black Americans: click here. 

      As for Johnny Rotten, the former Sex Pistol declared his support for Trump several years ago - and voted for him in 2020 - seeing in him something of a kindred spirit (anti-liberal, anti-establishment, anti-woke). See Drew Wardle's 2021 article in the online magazine Far Out, in which he expresses his disappointment with Rotten's MAGA brand of conservatism and offers a possible explanation for it: click here. 

 

[2] See Zach Helfand, 'The Trump Mug Shot's Art-Historical Lineage', in The New Yorker (28 August, 2023): click here. 

 

 

Video bonus: to watch Trump's own take on having his mugshot taken on Forbes Breaking News (1 Sept 2023): click here.  

Flaco the Owl and the Skeleton Tree

Photo by David Barrett of Flaco the Owl alongside 

Heide Hatry's Skeleton Tree

 

"If you hear him hoot, scoot / If you pass his tree, flee

If you catch his eye, fly / Don't wait to say goodbye." [1]

 

 

There are some stories in the news that you wish you didn't have to hear about; stories involving murdered babies, for example [2].

 

On the other hand, however, there are some stories which you wish you had heard about sooner and the case of Flaco, a male Eurasian eagle-owl who escaped his long-time enclosure at a zoo in New York City and took up residence in Central Park in February of this year, is one such story ...

Why? Because his story has not only captured the imagination of New Yorkers, but makes many other people, myself included, genuinely happy. I think we can all identify with this bird in some small way. 

 

Obviously there are concerns for his future safety and wellbeing. 

 

But, push comes to shove, I side with those who have petitioned for Flaco's right to freedom and oppose any further attempts to recapture him - particularly as he seems to be perfectly capable of looking after himself, successfully catching and eating prey, as evidenced by the bones of small mammals, mostly rats, found at the foot of his favourite elm tree and turned into a lovely work of art by Heide Hatry [3], which she recently posted on her Instagram account: click here.  

 

Originally taken to Central Park Zoo in 2010, when he was just a few months old, Flaco was kept in a small enclosure with steel mesh, fake rocks, and a painted backdrop, for more than twelve years and I can't see why anyone with a heart would want to lock him up again.

 

So, if zoo keepers want to monitor him, that's fine - but let them do so as he lives freely in the park, delighting visitors and fans around the world.  

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Lyrics from the song 'Foul Owl', written by Alan Bergman, Marilyn Bergman, and Quincy Jones. The song features on the soundtrack to the 1967 film In the Heat of the Night (dir. Norman Jewison) and is performed by Boomer & Travis: click here.

 

[2] I'm referring to the terrible case of Lucy Letby, a 33-year-old nurse found guilty of murdering seven babies (and attempting to murder six other infants) whilst working on a hospital's neonatal unit between June 2015 and June 2016.

 

[3] Heide Hatry is a German-born artist and a long-time resident of New York City. Her work has often featured and been discussed on Torpedo the Ark: readers who are interested can go to labels and click on her name. Her website can be visited by clicking here. 

Memories of Killing Joke (1984 - 1987)

Killing Joke in their mid-80s splendour

(L-R: Geordie Walker / Paul Raven / Jaz Coleman / Paul Ferguson) 

 

A correspondent writes: 

I got the impression from a recent post [1] that you were something of a Killing Joke fan back in the mid-1980s and I was hoping you might expand on this - did you, for example, ever see them live in this period, when, in my view, they were at their very best? 

 

Well, as a matter of fact, I did see them live on at least three occasions; as attested to by the following entries in the Von Hell Diaries (1980-89) ...

   

 

Sunday 1 Jan 1984

Hammersmith Palais: felt a bit like a hippie event with people sitting on the floor. Having said that, there were some fantastic looking individuals amongst the assembled freaks and morons. The support band were the March Violets: who were shit. An inferior Sisters of Mercy (who are also shit, by the way). Is there something in the water in Leeds?

      There was also a young male stripper prior to Killing Joke making their entrance on to the stage. All the punks began to pogo as if on cue (to the latter, not the former). To be honest, the set got a bit dull half-way through; I suspect that all gigs are at their best in the first ten minutes with the initial release of energy. 

      Mostly, the group played old songs and I was a bit miffed that they didn't play any of my favourite tracks from Fire Dances (although they did do a rousing version of 'The Gathering' as an encore). Jaz Coleman [2] is a captivating performer. The rest of the band are essentially just solid musicians (albeit ones who look the part and know how to create a magnificent noise). 

 

 

Sunday 3 February 1985

 

Off with Andy [3] to see Killing Joke at the Hammersmith Palais once again ...

      Lots of punks out and about on the streets of West London - and lots of police to keep 'em in line. Felt like a mug having to queue up for tickets. Met Kirk [4] inside as arranged, though he fucked off to watch the show from the balcony with some video director friend of his. A couple of support bands: Heist and Pale Fountains; neither of whom were much cop. Killing Joke came on to all the usual fanfare - and Gary Glitter's 'Leader of the Gang'. 

      The set was made up of tracks from the new album - Night Time - and the first two albums (nothing from Revelations or Fire Dances). Became separated from Andy and made my way to the front. Got so hot that I seriously thought I was going to spontaneously combust (though probably sweating too much for that). Brilliant night: almost tempted to describe it as a (neo-pagan) religious experience - song, dance, and Dionysian frenzy. Even Andy enjoyed it (I think).   

 

 

Sunday 28 September 1986

 

Back to the Hammersmith Palais for what seems to be becoming an annual event in the company of Killing Joke. Not a bad show, but nowhere near as good as last year. It also felt like a much shorter set; one which opened with 'Twilight of the Mortal' and closed with 'Wardance'.  

      Most - if not all - of the songs were from the first, fifth and (yet to be released) sixth album. The new tracks sounded great - and Jazz looked amusingly grotesque as he blew kisses to his brothers and sisters - but the performance never really took off. And so, I went home feeling a little disappointed.      

 

 

Finally, it might also interest my correspondent (and other readers) to know that I once met Jaz Coleman, at Abbey Road Studios:

 

 

Friday 7 August 1987

 

Lee Ellen [5] rang this morning: she said if I got over to Virgin by 1 o'clock, then she'd take me with her to the studio where Killing Joke were recording and introduce me to Jaz Coleman (having reassured him that I wasn't some lunatic fan). 

      Jaz was much smaller in person than expected and had strangely feminine hands, with long, slim fingers. He also dressed in a disconcertingly conventional manner. Geordie, the good-looking guitarist, was there, but the rest of the band, apparently, had been fired.

      Jaz played tapes of the new material (just the music - no vocals); sounded good (quasi-symphonic). He said the new album would be called Outside the Gate - which is a great title [6] - and that it would bring the Killing Joke project to perfection. After completing it, he planned to emigrate to New Zealand. 

      Mr. Coleman also took great pride in showing me parts of a book he'd been working on for eight years and we talked, very briefly, about D. H. Lawrence's Apocalypse (which he liked) and Yeats's Vision (which he didn't like). 

      Before leaving, Jaz expressed his desire to converse at greater length one day and I very much look forward to that (should such a day ever in fact arrive) [7].   

 

Notes

 

[1] I'm guessing the post referred to was 'Musical Memories' (30 Aug 2023): click here - although I do mention Jaz Coleman and Killing Joke in several other posts on Torpedo the Ark. 

 

[2] Jaz Coleman; lead singer with post-punk British band Killing Joke.

 

[3] Andy Greenfield; friend and, at this time, a Ph.D student at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington.

 

[4] Kirk Field; friend and, at this time, lead singer and lyricist with the band Delicious Poison. 

 

[5] Lee Ellen Newman; friend and, at this time, Deputy Head of Press at Virgin.  

 

[6] In fact, I thought this was such a great title that I later borrowed it for my Ph.D - although the phrase outside the gate can be found in Nietzsche and D. H. Lawrence, and is also often used in occult circles.

 

[7] It hasn't so far. 

 

 

Although there were bootleg audio recordings made of all three gigs discussed above and these are now available on YouTube, they are of such poor quality that they don't give a fair representation of just how good a live band Killing Joke were (and to diehard fans still are). Readers are therefore invited to click here to watch a performance recorded live in Munich, at the Alalabamahalle, on 25 March 1985, for broadcast on German TV.     

 

Musical Memories

(E. G. Records, 1983)

 

 

It's amazing just how strongly certain songs from forty years ago still continue to resonate. For example, the Killing Joke single 'Let's All Go', released from the album Fire Dances in the summer of '83, still makes me want to take the future in my hands and find that feeling somewhere [1].

 

I'm not sure why that is, but I don't think it's simply related to the power of the music or the brilliance of the band. In fact, research indicates that most people tend to privilege songs from their adolescence and early adulthood and that this isn't merely nostalgia. 

 

Rather, the musical connections that become entangled with life experiences during this period will trigger vivid memories and strong emotions long into old age and - because these memories and emotions will for the most part be positive - this makes one happy in the present (not just yearn for the past). 

 

Interestingly, psychologists speak of a musical reminiscence bump - something that refers to the fact that people tend to disproportionately recall memories from between the ages 10 to 30 years old, which is precisely when many novel and self-defining experiences become deeply encoded in the brain and when people are most fascinated with pop culture and busy constructing the soundtrack of their lives [2].

 

This music-related reminiscence bump has been found to peak around age fourteen; songs popular at this age seem to evoke the most memories overall. For me, that would be the songs of the Sex Pistols in 1977. However, I would argue that the songs that I loved aged ten (in 1973) - such as those by Gary Glitter - and aged twenty (in 1983) - such as those by Killing Joke - mean just as much and are as closely linked to happy memories, happy days.

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The joyous track, 'Let's All Go (to the Fire Dances)', by English post-punk band Killing Joke, was released as the sole single from their 1983 studio album Fire Dances, on 7" and 12" vinyl by E.G. Records in June 1983. It reached number 51 in the UK Singles Chart and was the band's first single to be accompanied by a music video which can be viewed on YouTube by clicking here. 

      Fire Dances - the fourth and, in some ways, my favourite Killing Joke album, was released the following month (also on E. G. Records). It was first to feature new bass player Paul Raven, was critically well-received, and reached number 29 in the UK Albums Chart.   

 

[2] The reminiscence bump was identified through the study of autobiographical memory and the subsequent plotting of the age of encoding of memories to form the lifespan retrieval curve (i.e., the graph that represents the number of autobiographical memories encoded at various ages during an individual's life span). Not surprisingly, after the reminiscence bump flattens out, we tend to remember less and less vividly. 

 

 

Candy Flower

 

 

 

I suppose it's due to the red and white design, but the flower on the left makes me think of my mother - or, more precisely, of my mother's favourite sweet; the creamy strawberry and yogurt flavoured hard candy made by the German company Storck [1] and sold under the brand name Campino ...

 

Launched in 1966, Campino, like its equally delicious caramel-flavoured stablemate, Werther's Original (1969), has given pleasure - and, as a dentist might depressingly add, tooth decay - to untold millions of adults and children ever since.

 

Why these individually wrapped delights were mysteriously discontinued in the UK, thereby obliging British sweet lovers to buy them at an inflated price from the US or Canada, I don't know [2]. But it's a damn shame, as Vincent Vega would say.

 

Although, as much as I miss these sweets, I miss my mother more.  
 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] August Storck KG, trading as Storck, is a German confectionery manufacturer headquartered in Berlin. It is owned by Axel Oberwelland, the billionaire great-grandson of the eponymous founder (who later changed his surname from Storck to Oberwelland). The quintessentialy British chocolate brand Bendicks, has been a subsidary of August Storck since 1988. 

      For more info, please visit their website by clicking here.      

 

[2] I suspect it was probably something to do with concern over so-called E-numbers (i.e., substances used as food additives).   

 

 

Black Sun Flower

Black Sun Flower (SA/2023)

 

 

Is it just me, or is there not a suggestion in the flower on the left of the sun-wheel symbol [1] that Nazi occultists had such a fondness for? 

 

I think there is: and it makes one wonder whether it serves to illustrate Oscar Wilde's anti-mimetic contention that life imitates art [2]; or, alternatively, proves that even a flower can be fascist?  

 

Either way, I think we can all agree that at the core of every flower burns something obscene and evil, like a tiny black sun, and that this is something that many poets, philosophers, and gardeners remain deeply uncomfortable with. 

 

In fact, Bataille is one of the few writers who dares to stare into the heart of vegetal darkness, affirming the inexpressible reality of the flower and rejecting the sexless and sunless descriptions traditionally offered [3].

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The schwarze Sonne symbol originated in Nazi Germany and is now employed by neo-Nazis and other far-right individuals and groups. 

      The symbol consists of twelve radial sig runes and was used as a design element in Heinrich Himmler's SS castle at Wewelsburg. It is uncertain whether it held any particular significance for Himmler, but the black sun later became linked with neo-Nazi occultism and used as a substitute for (or variant of) the classic swastika design. 

      For a Lawrentian take on this concept of the black sun, see the post entitled 'Excessive Brightness Drove the Poet into Darkness' (3 Oct 2021): click here. 

 

[2] See Wilde's essay 'The Decay of Lying', Intentions (1891). An earlier version of the essay was published in the literary magazine The Nineteenth Century, in January 1889.

[3] I'm paraphrasing here form an earlier post entitled 'Fleurs du Mal' (25 April 2015): click here. 

 

 

Readers might like to see a related post to this one on how Jamie Reid's Cambridge Rapist motif haunts the natural world: click here.

The Malcolm McLaren Estate Vs The Vivienne Foundation

 

 

I. 

 

Once upon a time, as everybody knows, Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood were lovers, creative collaborators, and business partners. But then they fell out, went their separate ways, built solo careers, began to bore everyone, got old and died.   

 

 

II. 

 

The Malcolm McLaren Estate was established by his sole heir and executor - as well as his girlfriend and business partner for the last twelve years of his life - Young Kim. 

 

Its primary purpose seems to be to advance the idea that Malcolm was a visionary genius and pop cultural icon: "An artist in the most post-modern sense of the word, working in every conceivable artistic and intellectual medium ..."

 

 

III.

 

The Vivienne Foundation was launched as a not-for-profit organisation following her death in 2022 [1]. 

 

It exists not merely to honour, protect and continue the legacy of Westwood's creativity and activism, but in order to implement "Vivienne's plan to save the world" by halting climate change, stopping war, defending human rights, and protesting capitalism. 

 

IV.

 

Unfortunately, but perhaps inevitably, relations between the Malcolm McLaren Estate and The Vivienne Foundation are not exactly cordial. 

 

And this week, they have taken a significant turn for the worse following an article by Young Kim in which she reveals the truth about Vivienne's creative relationship with Malcolm and Westwood's unrelenting animosity towards the man who enabled her to become a celebrated fashion designer [2].

 

Kim's main complaint - and it's a serious charge, for which she has a good deal of evidence and justification - is that The Vivienne Foundation is continuing the process (started by Westwood) of revising cultural history and trying to erase McLaren's fashion legacy. 

 

Whether that justifies Kim's description of Westwood as uneducated and provincial, is debatable. 

 

And, to be fair, Westwood was a lot more than McLaren's assistant during their time together at 430, King's Road, although I absolutely believe it to be the case that the majority of ideas - certainly all the best ideas - were Malcolm's; not Vivienne's, not Bernie's, not Rotten's, but Malcolm's.   

 

Finally, Kim is also angry about the fact that many of the McLaren-Westwood designs sold as authenticated originals - with the Vivienne Foundation's blessing and support - are, she says, inferior copies, or fakes.

V.

 

Not surprisingly, Joe Corré - co-creator and director of The Vivienne Foundation - has defended his mother and responded to Young Kim's accusations. 

 

In a letter to Gill Linton [3], he claims, for example, that there "never was a 'McLaren Westwood' brand or label", which, if technically true, is more than a little disingenuous: the actual label designed (by McLaren) for the Seditionaries personal collection contains both their names (his first; then hers).

 

More astonishing, to me at least, is the fact that Corré would argue that his mother was in professional partnership with his father, McLaren, only for a "relatively short period" and that this (twelve-year) period is of minor significance compared to "the later parts of her creative career", when she produced items "of much greater interest and value".

 

Corré concludes his letter by saying that it is laughable that items sold from the McLaren-Westwood period - 1971-1983 - should first be authenticated by the Malcolm McLaren Estate: "Appraisal and authentication relies on the knowledge and credibility of experts. The McLaren Estate does not have anyone in this area and we certainly do not require their help." [4]

 

It is, as I say, all rather unfortunate ... And strangely depressing.   

 

It's also, essentially, a family feud; as evidenced by the fact that even Joe's daughter - the model and activist Cora Corré - is enlisted to defend the four pillars and help claim the moral high ground for her dear departed grandmother, whilst hardly stopping to give a tinker's toss for her equally dear, equally departed, but infinitely more interesting and amusing grandfather [5].

 

  

Notes

 

[1] I am reminded that The Vivienne Foundation was initially launched - by Westwood herself - as The Vivienne Westwood Foundation in 2018, but it's the Foundation's current existence, following Westwood's death in December 2022, that mostly interests me. Although a not-for-profit organisation, it should be noted that it is not a charity. 

 

[2] This article can be found in the Evening Standard (25 Aug 2023): click here to read online. Young Kim had originally written to Gill Linton (see note 2 below) claiming there were serious problems with the Westwood concession on Linton's Byronesque website.

 

[3] Gill Linton is the founder and Chief Executive of Byronesque, an online boutique selling contemporary vintage fashion, with whom The Vivienne Westwood Foundation work closely: click here. The letter Joe Corré sent to Linton in response to Young Kim's email to Linton - which the latter forwarded to Corré - can be read here on the Byronesque Instagram account. 

 

[4] In his letter to Linton, Joe Corré also takes an unnecessary (possibly libelous) pop at McLaren's esteemed biographer and the man who arguably knows more about the sound of fashion and the look of music than anyone else, Paul Gorman, much to the latter's understandable - slightly weary - outrage: click here.    

 

[5] In an interview on the Byronesque website entitled 'From Seditionaries to Saving the World', Cora Corré says of Westwood: "I feel incredibly privileged and lucky to have had her as a grandmother and a teacher. [...] In a way I feel her fight will always continue through me shedding light on issues and speaking up for people that don't have a voice." 

      Click here to read the interview in full (if you can stomach the virtue signalling, the self-righteous hypocrisy, and political naivety that the Westwood family and foundation seem to specialise in).  

A Brief History of Bingo

britbingo.com

 

According to the animated bulldog who fronts the launch ad on TV for Brit Bingo, the game is "as British as fish and chips, the orderly queue, afternoon tea, village cricket, and barbecues in the rain" and people in the UK have loved playing it "for over 200 years" [1].

 

That's not quite true, however ... 

 

For the game itself - not originally called bingo - is thought to have had its roots in the Italian lottery of the 16th-century. From Italy, this game of chance migrated to France and was popular amongst members of the aristocracy. It only spread to Great Britain later, during the early 18th-century, via the Royal Navy [2]. 

 

As for the first modern version of the game, this emerged on the American carnival circuit in the early 1920s, and is attributed to Hugh J. Ward, who secured a copyright in 1924 and wrote a book of rules in 1933. When, for marketing purposes, he decided to come up with a catchy new name, Bingo was born [3].    

   

Following the Betting and Gaming Act of 1960, which legalised certain forms of gambling, bingo became insanely popular across the UK - indeed, I remember playing bingo with my mum and dad at the seaside, when I was a young child in the early 1970s. 

 

Since 2005, however, bingo halls have seen a marked decline in revenues and many have been forced to close; high taxes, the smoking ban, the covid pandemic, and the rise of online gambling - including bingo sites such as Brit Bingo - proving to be a fatal combination of factors [4].   

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Click here to watch on YouTube. The ad was made by Brit Bingo in collaboration with Double Dice Films, a London-based video and animation production company.

 

[2] Cultural commentators believe that the Maltese introduced the game to British sailors in the early 1800s (at this time, the Royal Navy housed their Mediterranean fleet in Malta). By the end of the 19th century, Tombola - or Housey-Housey as it also became known - was the game of choice throughout the military.

 

[3] The origin of the English slang term bingo is uncertain, though it is said that customs officials used to employ it as an exclamation of triumph after a successful search for smuggled goods. Some credit toy salesman Edwin S. Lowe - and not Ward - with adopting this name for the game (and it was Lowe who was awarded the 1942 patent for the modern bingo card design). 

 

[4] Having said that, it should be noted that there are still a few hundred bingo halls in the UK, more than twenty of which opened in 2021-22. So, going for a night out at the bingo with your mates is far from being a thing of the past. However, in the 1980s, there were over 1,600 bingo halls operating, so obviously there has been a significant fall in the number of people playing. Those who wish to know more about this decline of bingo halls since the 1980s, should click here.   

 

 

I on Sports: One Guy's Opinion of Football as a Televised Global Spectacle

 

According to Roland Barthes, professional sport in general - and perhaps football in particular - is a modern phenomenon cast in the ancestral form of spectacle:

 

"At certain periods, in certain societies, the theatre has had a major social function: it collected the entire city within a shared experience: the knowledge of its own passions. Today it is sport that in its way performs this function. Except that the city has enlarged: it is no longer a town, it is a country, often even, so to speak, the whole world ..." [1]

 

That's true, I suppose - and even more so now, 60-odd years after Barthes was writing, when football is played, watched, and talked about in almost every corner of the planet; from Timbuktu to Tipperary. 

 

Only the Olympics comes close to capturing the huge global audience that the World Cup attracts every four years; we're quite literally speaking about billions of (mostly poor) people enthralled by the sight of 22 millionaire-idiots kicking a ball about for 90 minutes in the attempt to score a goal. 

 

It's arguable, of course, that the fans in the stadium are more than mere spectators; that everything that the players on the pitch experience, they also experience; that unlike theatre or cinema goers, football supporters actively participate in the spectacle and may even help to determine the outcome of the game. 

 

But then, the vast majority of fans are not actually pitchside; they're watching the game on TV and I would suggest that's a whole different kettle of fish; this is football that is no longer sport in the old (noble) sense of the term, but sport as choreographed entertainment and commercial product; sport in an age of hyperreality and hypercapitalism.

 

The agony and the ecstasy of the football fan is not so much liberated any longer, as cynically exploited and I woud suggest that the game has now lost its beauty, its innocence, and its meaning. But then, as Sam Malone would say: This has been just one guy's opinion ... [2]

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Roland Barthes, What Is Sport? trans. Richard Howard, (Yale University Press, 2007), pp. 58-59.  

[2] See Cheers, season 6, episode 2, 'I on Sports' (Feb 1988), dir. James Burrows: click here to see all of Sam's sports editorials. 

 

For a related post to this one on football and the (lost) art of time-wasting, click here. 

Powertooling with Heide Hatry

 

Heide Hatry at the School of Visual Arts (New York)

 using her Fein Multimaster

 

 

There are many reasons to admire the German-born artist Heide Hatry. 

 

In no particular order, these might include:

(i) She's talented ...

 

(ii) She's intelligent ...

 

(iii) She's good-looking ...

 

(iv) She wears interesting footwear ... 

However, I think the thing I love the most is that she seems genuinely excited by her discovery of the Fein Multimaster; an oscillating power tool for cutting, sanding, and grinding [1].

 

In a recent post on Instagram, Heide gushes that the Fein Multimaster "opens up thousands of new possibilities" and thrills at the fact that it vibrates at a speed of up to 20,000 oscillations per minute! She even includes a short video of herself using the Fein Multimaster to create one of her smuggler bibles: click here.

 

Whether we might characterise Hatry's fascination with the Fein Multimaster as fetishistic is, of course, debatable; as far as I know she doesn't identify as a mechanophile and doesn't have a kinky attraction to machines, nor gain sexual satisfaction using hand tools. 

 

But she might do: although, even if she does, that would hardly be something unusual within a culture wherein everybody is enframed by technology and besotted with mechanical devices to a greater or lesser degree. 

 

Of course, it might be that I'm the one with the fetish; not so much for machines and power tools - I hate DIY, and my idea of Hell involves wandering for all eternity inside a giant B&Q - but for women operating machines and wielding power tools. 

 

Partly, it's a class thing; I've always been attracted to factory girls, particularly those of the 1940s, like Rosie the Riveter. 

 

But it's mainly due to the controversial music video for Benny Benassi's debut single 'Satisfaction' [2], featuring six sweaty young women in skimpy outfits in what is essentially a pervy ad for a range of power tools: click here.  

 

 

 [3]

 

 

Notes

 

[1] C. & E. Fein GmbH is a manufacturer of high-end power tools located near Stuttgart, Germany. Founded in 1867 by brothers Wilhelm Emil Fein and Carl Fein, the company invented the hand-held electric drill in 1895 and was responsible for many other innovations. Fein became best-known, however, for its Multimaster, the original oscillating multi-tool. 

      Readers who wish to do so can visit their website by clicking here. Or for more information specifically on the Multimaster, click here.  

 

[2] Italian DJ and record producer Benny Benassi is widely regarded as a pioneer of electro house, a genre brought into the mainstream with his 2002 summer club hit "Satisfaction", taken from the album Hypnotica (2003).  

      Initially, a music video was made featuring three men and a woman and consisted of one three-second take of the four people turning to face the camera and smile, played in slow-motion to match the length of the song. Various animations were overlaid, including close-up pictures of the lips of a man and a woman singing along to the song. It was rarely shown and is now barely remembered. Nevertheless, anyone interested in watching can click here.

       The second - and some would say infamous - video, directed by Dougal Wilson, and featuring the models Jerri Byrne, Lena Franks, Rachel Hallett, Natasha Mealey, Thekla Roth, and Suzanne Stokes, is, however, firmly lodged in the pop cultural (and pornographic) imagination.

 

[3] This collage features Rosie the Riveter, a model advertising the Fein Multimaster, and an actress from the music video for Benny Benassi's 'Satisfaction'. 

 

 

On Football and the (Lost) Art of Time-Wasting

 

Today, we live in an era of universal Fergie time; one impatient of stoppages 

and which threatens to extend a 90-minute game indefinitely.

 

 

I.

 

I don't like football. I used to, when I was a child, in the '70s. Back then, I used to love playing football on the green and watching big match highlights on TV. But not now. I suppose I've changed. But so too has football changed. As one commentator writes:

 

"The sport that we loved so much as children no longer exists. It has been replaced with a Narrative of Football; a new game deeply entrenched in analysis, code, writing, superfluous discourse, and orchestrated controversy." [1]

 

This is football in the age of hyperreality and hypercapitalism. And it's also football played at such a manic pace that it has lost all sense of sporting rhythm; hyperactivity has destroyed the ebb and flow of the game and that most vital (and complex) aspect known as time-wasting. 

 

II.

 

In an excellent piece for The Guardian, Barney Ronay describes how in the latest version of what was once the beautiful - often boring and profoundly frustrating - game, everything is now micro-engineered to produce maximum effective playing time. 

 

Referees, argues Ronay, are now no longer present "simply to keep the mechanics of the game working, to understand handball and fouls and offside, but to police how football should feel and look, to decide what exactly can be deemed entertainment" [2]. 

 

This is the referee as television floor manager - that is to say, as the one who ensures that a TV production goes smoothly and that everyone involved in the on-field action - players, managers, supporters - knows exactly what they have to do and when they have to do it. Keep the ball moving! Keep the noise levels high! Ensure there are plenty of talking points for the pundits to analyse! And above all, don't ever forget the cameras are rolling!

 

This season, referees have been empowered (and instructed) to take aggressive action against time-wasting. And Ronay is right to say this is "a profound and quietly sinister little tweak, a value judgment taken without any broader consultation on what the game should look and feel like, with some deeply undesirable implications" [3]. 

 

Of course, on the face of it, this is an entirely reasonable change to make; in fact, the laws of the game have always discouraged (and allowed referees to punish) time-wasting. But, what is going on here is really something quite radical, driven by purely commercial considerations: 

 

"As ever, follow the money. The drive to increase active 'game time' (itself a vapid, ill-defined concept) comes directly from Fifa. And Fifa is essentiality a TV rights distributions agency, its entire model based around increasing screen revenues. What we have here is the laws of the game being employed as a tool to doctor the perceived TV entertainment value of the product ..." [4] 

 

If it risks player fatigue or injury, never mind! If it risks pissing off the fans in the stadium, who understand how the art of time-wasting is an intrinsic part of the game, who cares? The people who count are the big name sponsors and the punters who pay to watch the match live on TV - and they won't tolerate dead air. 

Ronay concludes:  

"Football is not a gameshow. This is not choreographed entertainment. The reason this thing has survived and flourished is precisely because it is messy and feverish, made up of both piano and forte, moments of fury interspersed with interludes of vital, brain-mangling boredom. And yes, time-wasting is part of the game, an ugly, maddening part, but a source of beauty in its referred effects; not to mention an entirely legitimate tactic in a 90-minute game." [5]

Unfortunately, however, football is now choreographed entertainment; played by millionaires, owned by billionaires, and watched by a global TV audience who expect non-stop action and plenty of goals, i.e., exactly the same kind of idiots who think one-day cricket is superior - because faster and more sensational - to test match cricket and want to see six after six after six.  

Ronay's hope that in this burnout society we will once again allow sport to catch its breath, is, sadly, in vain ...  

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Luke Alex Davis, 'Football Is Dead' (3 April 2022), on the website Playrface: click here. 

 

[2-5] Barney Ronay, 'Time-wasting in football is ugly, maddening - and absolutely vital', The Guardian (17 August 2023): click here. Those who are interested in this topic might also like to read: Cameron Carter, 'Football has elevated time-wasting into a sophisticated art form', The Guardian (19 Oct 2022): click here.  

 

 

For a related post to this one on football as a global televised spectacle, click here.