Happy to be Hopeless this Christmas

In his 1886 preface to the second edition of The Gay Science, Nietzsche speaks of the gratitude of the convalescent and by which he refers to the rejoicing of one who has resisted a terrible ordeal or period of sickness without complaint, without submission, and, crucially, without hope. 

I have to say, I find this idea - an old Norse idea - very attractive this Christmas; the refusal not only to give in or give up, but to accept the consolation of any teaching that promises a better time to come. It's easy - or at any rate, easier - to endure great hardship or pain if you believe that tomorrow will bring relief or even some form of reward (if not in this life, then in the next). 

It takes a more cheerful form of bravery and a more philosophical bent, to abandon all hope and put aside all trust in those ideals and sentimental illusions in which we may have formerly found our virtue and our humanity. 

For Nietzsche, we are born into what he terms the greater health when we realise that it is often sickness, suffering and, indeed, wretched failure, which best liberate the spirit; that is to say, it is pain and loss that make us not exactly better souls, but almost certainly more profound thinkers. 

Of course, it's true that such a pessimistic teaching means that one is no longer able to trust in life and life's goodness - that life itself becomes problematic (becomes a question of evil). Yet one should not assume that this makes gloomy or unable to love; on the contrary, love remains possible, but one must love differently "with a more delicate taste for joy". 

At the bottom of Pandora's box lies the unopened gift of hope - it can stay there!

Note: this post is dedicated with affection to Princess Kiran who thinks differently on this issue ...

Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence

December 1929: Lawrence and Frieda are staying at the Villa Beau-Soleil in the South of France; nothing too grand, just a little house with six rooms and a bath, but with central-heating and overlooking the sea. 

It will be Lawrence's last Christmas. His sisters have kindly sent a plum pudding, a cake, and some mincemeat, but he's not in the festive spirit: "Why make merry when one doesn't feel merry?"

Besides, the cat has attacked the goldfish and the madness of the world is "worse than ever".  

By the 23rd, the weather is "grey and sulky" following a great storm and Lawrence has taken to his sick bed. His bronchials have been "behaving very badly" all winter making him tired and irritable. 

Although Frieda is determined to enjoy "a certain amount of Christmas fun", Lawrence insists he wants nothing to do with it. In fact, he wishes the baby Jesus had been born a turnip and eaten by one of the animals standing by the manager. 

Besides, "there is nothing new in the world", so what's to celebrate. 

In one letter, written just before this, his final Christmas, Lawrence sadly informs Aldous Huxley that the cat has now killed and eaten the goldfish, leaving nothing but a few scales floating in the bowl. It is, says Lawrence, "nothing less than a tragedy".

On that note, all that remains for me to do is send warm seasonal greetings to Catherine Brown and David Brock. And, despite all his mock-tragic humbuggery, I'd also like to say ... Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence!

Note: Quotations are from The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, vol. VII, edited by Keith Sagar and James T. Boulton (Cambridge University Press, 1993). 

       

Oh, the Humanity!

There really isn't much to say about the atrocity carried out at a school in Peshawar by the Taliban earlier this week and certainly no need to ghoulishly go into detail here. 

But it should be stressed that this was not the act of monsters or madmen. On the contrary, this was an act that was all too human; one that was planned, executed, and justified with reason and moral conviction; an act of faith on behalf of devout believers in a creed and an ideology, proving yet again the wisdom of the Roman poet and philosopher, Lucretius, who wrote:

Tantum religio potuit suadere moalorum.

There are several translations possible of this line, but the key idea is this: Man is driven to the practice of evil by religion. In other words, as John Stuart Mill recognised, belief in God is not only a dangerous mental delusion, it's profoundly unethical. 

 
Those who wish to honour the memory of the murdered children and their teachers might do well to consider this rather than calling upon Allah (and the army) to avenge their deaths.      

These are a Few of My Favourite Things: Sounds of the Swinging Sixties

Although born in that ultimately most self-indulgent and self-satisfied of all decades, the sixties, I belonged - musically speaking - to the 1970s: first to glam rock and then to punk. Being a Sex Pistol meant never trusting middle-class hippies and despising their psychedelic drug culture.         

Only now, with Malcolm gone and Rotten having become what he's become, can I concede that, as a matter of fact, there was much to admire and enjoy about the art, politics, fashion and sensibility of the sixties - not least some of the music.

And so to a list of my favourite pop tunes from this period. I still prefer the sounds (as well as the fashions and TV shows) of the seventies, but these songs, few in number, increasingly mean something to me. Obviously, there's still no mention of The Beatles ...

Scott MacKenzie - San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair) (1967)

The Mamas and the Papas - California Dreamin' (1965)
Barry McGuire - Eve of Destruction (1965) 

The Monkees - Daydream Believer (1967)
Harry Nilsson - Everybody's Talkin' (1969)  

The Rolling Stones - Paint It Black (1966)

Sonny and Cher - I Got You Babe (1965)

The Turtles - Happy Together (1967)

Notes: 

Songs are not listed in order of preference nor following a critical assessment of artistic value, but alphabetically by the name of the singer or group that I associate most closely with the track: for compiling lists should not be simply another excuse to exercise judgement and construct hierarchies. I love all of these records - not equally, but in any order that one might choose to play them - and the only logic that links them is the fact that they continue to give pleasure and make me want to sing, dance, fuck, cry, or start a revolution.  

The dates refer to the year of release as a single and not year of composition, or first appearance on an album.

All these songs (with accompanying videos) can be found on YouTube if interested. Enjoy!

Carry On Facesitting

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The Case of Old Eguchi

Photo by Akif Hakan found on artclit.tumblr.com

Back - once more - in the House of the Sleeping Beauties and the case of old Eguchi ...

What is he hoping to find in bed with drugged and naked teenage girls and why do his fantasies invariably involve violence and a desire to physically abuse the young bodies that stimulate such sweet memories, rather than treat them with tenderness and affection?

Is it because male sexuality is inherently aggressive? Do all men dream of rape and incline towards tyranny as soon as they have a hard-on? I don't think so. Nor do I believe that Eguchi's anger towards the sleeping beauties is born of impotent frustration, or the ugly resentments of age (though he is acutely aware of his declining powers and his lust is doubtless driven to some degree by the approach of death).

Rather, I think we must look elsewhere for why it is Eguchi repeatedly thinks of strangling the girls, or placing his hand over their mouths and noses and so preventing them from breathing. He is aware that such acts constitute evil, but he can't help contemplating them; of sacrificing virgins, rather than merely deflowering them.

His thoughts, in other words, are atrocious rather than sensual; Eguchi wants to leave his mark on the girls and - above all - he wants to waken them and imagines that he might have a better chance of doing so were he to tear off a limb or stab with a knife, rather than place kisses on a breast or his flaccid penis between soft lips.  

Ultimately, it's not the astonishing beauty of the young women that drives Eguchi mad; it's their radical passivity. He cannot bear the fact that not only do the sleeping girls not speak, but they do not know his face or hear his voice either. In other words, the girls - who have volunteered to become perfect objects - negate his subjectivity so that not even the smallest part of his existence is acknowledged.   

It's the desire to still be recognised as a man and a living being in the eyes of the world that is uppermost in his heart - and this is precisely what is denied him. And so, even when sandwiched between the naked bodies of two women, Eguchi knows himself to be fatally isolate and alone - just like the rest of us at last.     



Note: 'House of the Sleeping Beauties', by Yasunari Kawabata, can be found in House of the Sleeping Beauties and Other Stories, trans. Edward Seidensticker, with an introduction by Yukio Mishima, (Kodansha International, 1980).     

The Case of Kristina Pimenova

Whether nine-year-old Kristina Pimenova is the most beautiful girl in the world is debatable, but I'm more than happy to concede she's a serious contender for the title. 

The young Russian is certainly very lovely to look at (if perhaps a little too angelic for my tastes) and has been modelling since the age of three; landing contracts with several of the big names in fashion and a cover of Vogue Bambini. She also has a large following on social media, which, unfortunately, exposes her to some unsavoury individuals and a raft of lurid comments and fantasies.  

But it's unfair and ludicrous to blame Miss Pimenova for this; or, indeed, her mother, Glikeriya Shirokova, who, despite successfully managing her daughter's career and profile with all due care and diligence, has recently found herself subject to criticism; accused not only of exploiting her child, but of wilfully turning Kristina into an object of illicit desire.

I think that Shirokova is justified in rejecting claims that she has prematurely sexualised her daughter and thus made her vulnerable to predators. I also think she is entitled to suggest that, just as equally damaging and dangerous ideals of innocence and purity are projected onto Kristina by enchanted strangers, obscenity too is in the mind of the beholder.

That is to say, in order to find pictures of children sexually arousing or provocative, you need, in Shirokova's words, to think like a paedophile and must therefore examine your own secret thoughts and desires. The problem, of course, is that we all live today in a profoundly pornified culture of images and so cannot help viewing (and judging) everyone and everything as a sex object. 

My Night in Raval with Ken and Barbie - A Guest Post by Katxu

El Raval is a notorious neighbourhood in the Ciutat Vella district of Barcelona. A place where - I'd been told - anything goes and gender is completely fluid. This, apparently, placed me under a compulsion to visit. And so, despite my doubts concerning the validity and, indeed, desirability of such a claim, I decided to venture forth one night and take a peek. 
 

The first liquid bodies I encountered were puddles of piss left by drunks and stray dogs. Sidestepping these and the unfortunate beings that made them, I made my way to a restaurant which boasted haute cuisine on the menu and low-life outside its doors. Wealth and poverty never really meet; they simply ignore one another even whilst living side-by-side (though sometimes the rich like to slum it and the poor like to riot). 
    

I watched the parade of people pass by: tourists from the UK; immigrants from South America and Asia; prostitutes from Eastern Europe; and a colourful assortment of home-grown queers. I suppose the latter best exemplified the fluidity of gender I'd been promised, but I couldn't help thinking that they seemed more fixated by - and fixed in - sexual rules and roles than the most conventional boy and girl next door.

I also thought of all the writers who have described such scenes and the painters who have depicted these very streets - the Carrer d'Avinyó is in the nearby Gothic quarter. Is it really so transgressive and so liberating to celebrate all that mushrooms beneath a red light and to unconditionally love everything that flows like Henry Miller?

Feeling a little tipsy, I went to powder my nose in order to clear my mind. When I got to the washrooms, I found that the doorknobs on the two doors facing had been replaced with dolls' heads; an ironic gesture of postmodern barbarism. One had long blonde hair and one had short dark hair - I'm not sure, but I think it was Barbie and Ken, both looking decidedly worse for wear. 

As I was in a hurry and in no mood to try to puzzle out which head to turn, I decided to reach for Barbie. But before I could place my hand on her poor battered head, a man shouted and said that the Barbie cubicle was reserved for cross-dressers and transgender individuals only; that I should wait for Ken's cubicle to become free.      

I was going to challenge the curious reasoning - I was going to ask about fluidity - but instead I just decided to turn on my heels and go home with my un-powdered nose in the air. 

Katxu is a keen observer of life in Barcelona. Originally from Burgos, she likes to read, to paint, to cook, and to enjoy the company of her plants on the balcony of her apartment overlooking Sants Estació and from where she can smile at the Sony sign.

Katxu appears here as part of the Torpedo the Ark Gastautoren Programm and I am very grateful for her kind submission of a text written especially for this blog, and, indeed, for permission to use the photo taken of her last year in Sitges.  

Is Revisting the Past Ever Worth the Effort? - A Guest Post by Afiya S. Zia

In the beginning, it may even be flattering: emails from boys you hardly knew in fifth grade who seek you out on the web from across decades and oceans. It's sweet to have them recall their little crushes. 

And what about those comrades with whom you lost touch and who - now that their children have left and spouses are about to follow - seek out the comfort of old feminist networks ...?

Then there's the return to unfinished intellectual projects that invariably leads one back to academia; this time in the vain attempt to prove that citizenship in the real world affords more valuable lessons than all the theory churned out by those who remained as permanent residents within ivory towers. There's an undeniable sense of righteous joy in exposing those who like to pretend that they never sold out to the corporate world; in showing how they too are complicit with capitalism because knowledge is an expensive business after all.

But is revisiting the past ever really a good idea, or even worth the effort?    

Overeager ex-boyfriends from school showing all sorts of interest in your professional development and the intimate details of your personal life, quickly start to become a bit creepy; nostalgic curiosity ends in cyber-stalking. 

And old comrades are now often just old and troubled by the spectre of loneliness. They used to ask what could be done to overthrow patriarchy; now they simply want to know where all the good men have gone and how they might find one for themselves.  

Meanwhile, the path to redemption via further academic accomplishment leads nowhere; one is little different from all those others who scramble up career ladders and chase success. We all conform and play the same game at last.

Having said that, there remains, of course, the shining hope of revisiting the past; i.e. that one just might reconnect with someone whom one should never have let go in the first place.

Also, crucially, it affords one the opportunity not to put things right, but, rather, to repeat mistakes - only this time without regret. For one looks back and travels back not in order to correct the past with the benefit of hindsight, but to make an affirmation of all that's been and of one's own life to date, complete with all its many errors and multiple stupidities.

Afiya S. Zia is a feminist scholar, activist, and provocateur based in Karachi. She is the author of Sex Crime in the Islamic Context (1994) and has also published numerous essays and articles. She is currently completing a new work entitled Faith and Feminism in Pakistan, whilst studying for a Ph.D. at the Women and Gender Studies Institute (University of Toronto). 

Ms Zia appears here as part of the Torpedo the Ark Gastautoren Programm and I am very grateful for her kind submission of a text written especially for this blog and, indeed, for the recent photo taken in Chelsea Market, NYC. 

And Winner, of the 2014 Torpedo the Ark Award, Is ...

... third-year journalism student, Vicky Chandler.

Vicky wins the award for her successful campaign to have a gig at her university by Dapper Laughs, the comic alter-ego of comedian Daniel O'Reilly, cancelled on the grounds that his act infringed upon the university's own policies concerning the right of students and staff to live and work in an environment free of all forms of discrimination and free from any form of violence or bullying - including incitement to hatred. 

O'Reilly first came to fame via social media by posting six-second videos in which he, amongst other things, ridiculed rape victims and glorified sexual abuse. He quickly built up a large (mostly male) following and, impressed by the numbers and his "risqué brand of humour", he was offered his own prime time dating show on ITV2 in September of this year entitled Dapper Laughs: On the Pull. The theme of the show was essentially how to fuck (and humiliate) women, all of whom, apparently, were gagging for it.

However, after Vicky's campaign against O'Reilly was picked up by the national news media, an online petition was launched urging ITV to pull the plug on his show. This they duly did in November, by which time the petition had gained almost 70,000 signatures. A forthcoming Dapper Laughs live tour was also cancelled.

To be fair to O'Reilly, he did go on Newsnight and apologise to Emily Maitlis for causing offence and being such a prick; indeed, he even announced his intention to immediately kill off the character of Dapper Laughs. This, however, hasn't stopped many of his fans and followers from continuing to direct vile and threatening abuse towards Ms Chandler. 

She, for her part, accepts that whilst O'Reilly has played a significant role in encouraging such behaviour, he too is basically just a symptom (one might even say a victim) of what is known as rape culture (i.e. a culture in which rape is pervasive and has been normalized or made in some manner acceptable, on the back of received ideas and socially reinforced attitudes about gender, sexuality, and power).

There can, I think, be saucy innuendo and affectionate teasing between the sexes; but sexism is never innocent and laddism, unfortunately, is never more than a couple of lagers away from something far more sinister.