My Debt to Jewish-American Humour

Danny Kaye, Jerry Lewis, and Phil Silvers (as Sgt. Bilko)

 

 

I.

 

Humour, said Freud, is a means of obtaining pleasure from life, no matter what. 

 

In other words, laughter is a way of overcoming suffering as well as an antidote to that all-too-human tendency to take ourselves seriously. 

  

That's why the most profound comedy is often rooted in misery and self-mockery (even self-hatred). And that's why the best humour in the world is Jewish in origin ...

 

 

II.

 

I'm certain that the tradition of humour in Judaism can be traced way back, but I'm a late 20th-century boy and so I'm mostly interested in the humour that developed amongst the Jewish community of the United States and shaped the worlds of film and television in the last seventy years, rather than the subtle theological satire expressed in the Talmud, for example.

 

Antisemitic conspiracy theorists often claim that the Jews are overrepresented in the world of banking and maybe that's true, maybe not [1]. But what cannot be denied is that a disproportionately high percentage of American comedians and comic actors have been Jewish [2].

Of course, Jews have significantly influenced and contributed to the development of the modern world in many fields - art, philosophy, science, politics, business, etc. But I'm particularly grateful for their role within the world of entertainment. 

 

For my childhood was made happier by Danny Kaye, Jerry Lewis, and Phil Silvers as Sgt. Bilko. And today, the comic genius of Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld continues to exert a huge influence over my understanding not only of what constitutes funny, but of how I view the world (ironically and with curbed enthusiasm).

 

 

 

Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David

 

  

 

Notes

 

[1] The idea that Jews are good with (and greedy for) money is one of the oldest antisemitic stereotypes. It's undeniable, however, that Jews are well-represented in finance and business. See the article on Jews and Finance on myjewishlearning.com which nicely puts things into historical and cultural context, explaining why this is so. 

 

[2] In 1978, Time magazine claimed that 80 per cent of professional comedians in America were Jewish, even though Jews only made up 3 per cent of the U.S. population at that time. Click here to read the article 'Behaviour: Analyzing Jewish Comics' (2 Oct 1978).    

 

 

Notes on Charlie Chaplin's Closing Speech to 'The Great Dictator'

Charlie Chaplin as the Jewish Barber and 

Adenoid Hynkel in The Great Dictator (1941)

 

 

I. 

 

There's probably only one thing worse in the modern political imaginary than a great dictator and that's an evil tyrant. But even the former is bad enough in the eyes of those for whom power should belong to the people and not held by a single individual who, it is believed, will be invariably (and absolutely) corrupted by its possession. 

 

Any positive associations that the term may have had were lost once and for all during the 20th-century. Thanks to figures such as Hitler, Stalin, and Chairman Mao [1], dictators are now viewed by those within the liberal-democratic world as violent megalomaniacs who oppress their peoples and bring death and chaos in their wake [2]. 

Having said that, it seems they can also inspire laughter as well as moral hand-wringing and hypocrisy, as illustrated by the 2012 film starring Sacha Baron Cohen, The Dictator (dir. Larry Charles) and, seventy years prior, the equally unfunny work of satirical slapstick that many regard as Chaplin's masterpiece, The Great Dictator (1940) ...

 

 

II.  

I don't know why, but I've never liked Charlie Chaplin: this despite the fact that, according to Lawrence, "there is a greater essential beauty in Charlie Chaplin's odd face, than there ever was in Valentino's" [3]. For even if this gleam of something pure makes beautiful, that doesn't mean it makes good and true; and it certainly doesn't guarantee to make humorous. 

 

Chaplin is mostly remembered for playing an anonymous tramp figure - a character whom I regard as the antithesis of the bum as hobo-punk given us in the songs of Haywire Mac; for whereas the latter celebrates his life on the road and railways, the former is keen to improve his lot and dreams of one day living a comfortable middle-class existence.

 

But in the feature-length anti-fascist film of 1941 - which Chaplin wrote, directed, produced, and starred in - he plays both the nameless Jewish Barber and the Great Dictator of Tomainia, Adenoid Hynkel (a parody of Adolf Hitler that some find hilarious and uncannily accurate, others, like me, a bit lazy in that it perpetuates the idea that the latter was just a buffoon and an imposter).

 

Probably the most famous scene is the five-minute speech that Chaplin delivers at the end of the film [4]. Dropping his comic mask and appearing to speak directly to his global audience, he makes an earnest plea for human decency and human progress, encouraging people to rise up against dictators and unite in peace and brotherhood, whatever their race or religion. 

The thing with such romantic moralism is that it flies in the face of history and relies heavily on emotion and rhetoric for its effect, rather than argument - ironically, in much the same manner as fascist propaganda. 

 

"We all want to help one another, human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery We don't want to hate and despise one another." 

 

Is there any evidence for this ultra-optimistic belief that the "hate of men will pass"? 

 

I doubt it. 

 

I would dispute also that our cleverness has made us "hard and unkind" and what we need is to think less and feel more; again, such irrationalism and anti-intellectualism is ironically central to fascism.

 

Perhaps most interestingly, Chaplin echoes Oliver Mellors with his diatribe against "machine men with machine minds and machine hearts". But even Mellors knew that such people now make up the vast bulk of humanity, not just those who govern; that it is the fate of mankind to become-cyborg with rubber tubing for guts and legs made from tin; motor-cars and cinemas and aeroplanes sucking the vitality out of us all [5]. 

 

Chaplin rightly foresaw that the age of the great dictators would soon pass - in Western Europe at least - but has the triumph of liberal democracy resulted in a life that is free and beautiful and where science and progress "lead to all men's happiness" ...? 

 

Again, I don't think so. 

 

And, like Mellors, I increasingly find comfort not in the dream of a new human future, but in a post-human world: 

 

"Quite nice! To contemplate the extermination of the human species, and the long pause that follows before some other species crops up, it calms you more than anything else." [6]

 

 

Notes

 

[1] For an earlier post on these three great dictators (and one mad poet), click here. 

 

[2] Unless they happen to be allies, in which case they are said to be strong leaders providing stability in their region of the world, but we won't get into that here.  

 

[3] D. H. Lawrence, 'Sex Appeal', in Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 146.

 

[4] Click here to play this scene (I would suggest having a sick bag at the ready). Even some fans of Chaplin's concede that this spoils the film as a work of art. 

 

[5] See D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover, ed. Michael Squires, (Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 217. 

 

[6] Ibid., p. 218. 

      This is similar to how Rupert Birkin felt in Women in Love; see pp. 127-128 of the Cambridge Edition (1987), ed. David Farmer, Lindeth Vasey and John Worthen. 

 

 

Musical bonus: Penetration, 'Don't Dictate', (Virgin Records, 1977): click here for the studio version and here for a fantastic live performance of the song at the Electric Circus, Manchester (August 1977). 

 

   

Cor, Strike a Light! In Memory of the East End Matchgirls

 

Striking matchgirls (London, 1888)

 

 

I. 

 

Thanks in no small part to the Danish storyteller Hans Christian Andersen, the figure of the little matchgirl shivering bareheaded and barefoot in the street on a cold winter's day, desperate to sell her svovlstikkerne to passing strangers, is firmly lodged in the cultural imagination [1].

But the matchgirl is not merely a character who lives within the pages of a literary fairy tale; she has genuine socio-historical status and deserves recognition for the role she played within the English trade union movement; for the little matchgirls of London's East End didn't simply huddle in doorways dreaming of warm stoves and roast dinners, they organised and demanded fair wages and improved working conditions.  

 

 

II.

 

The matchgirls' strike of 1888 was an important victory for women and workers alike; for following the strike's success and the creation of a Matchmakers' Union, other industrial workers - male and female - were inspired to organise and take collective action.

 

In the late 19th-century, match making was big business; there were 25 match factories in Britain, employing thousands of workers, mostly female and almost half of whom were aged between fourteen and eighteen. 

 

But match making was also a dirty business, with serious health consequences for those involved in the production of little wooden sticks dipped first in sulphur and then into a composition of white phosphorus, potassium chlorate, powdered glass, and colouring.

 

Although the level of white phosphorus varied, there was enough of the stuff being used to ensure that many working in the matchstick industry suffered from the nasty occupational disease known as phossy jaw - i.e., necrosis of the jaw bone. As a rule, you really don't want to inhale phosphorus vapour. Doing so might only cause toothache and flu-like symptoms at first, but it quickly turns very nasty. 

 

The bosses were not particularly sympathetic or supportive; if a worker complained of having toothache, they were told to have the teeth removed immediately or face being sacked. 

 

So when the matchgirls working at the Bryant & May factory in Bow withdrew their labour, they were fighting not only for more money but for their health and safety; in fact, as phossy jaw proved fatal in around 20 per cent of cases, they were literally fighting for their lives.  

 

 

III. 

 

The match-making company Bryant & May was formed in 1843 by two Quakers, William Bryant and Francis May, who hoped to capture a significant chunk of the British market. It was estimated that 250 million matches were used daily in the UK at this time. 

 

In 1861, by whch time they were selling 30 million boxes of matches a year, they relocated their business to a three-acre site on Fairfield Road, in Bow, East London. Their young workers were mostly Irish girls (or of Irish descent). They worked long hours for shit pay; those under sixteen would be lucky to take home 4 shillings a week. 

The bosses also imposed a series of fines, with the money deducted directly from wages. These fines included 3 d for having dirty feet - many of the girls were bare-footed as they couldn't afford shoes - or an untidy workbench; 5 d was deducted for being late; and a shilling for having a burnt match on the workbench. 

 

The girls involved in boxing up the matches also had to pay the boys who brought them the frames from the drying ovens and had to supply their own glue and brushes. And some defenders of capitalism wonder why there's industrial unrest and so many employees despise their employers ...! It's things like this that justify class war. 

 

IV.

 

The 1888 strike wasn't the first time the matchgirls had taken action; they struck for better pay and conditions in 1881, 1885, and 1886, but were unsuccessful in achieving their aims. But in 1888 they were better organised and more united. After the unfar dismissal of a matchgirl at Bryant & May in the summer of that year, 1,400 of her co-workers withdrew their labour.

 

The management quickly offered to reinstate the sacked employee, but the matchgirls demanded additional concessions, particularly in relation to the unfair fines which were deducted from their wages. 

 

A deputation of women led by Sarah Chapman presented their case to the management, but received an unsatisfactory response. By 6 July the whole factory had stopped work. That same day a large group of the women went to see the social activist Annie Besant to ask for her support (which she gave). 

 

Initially, the management wanted to take a hard line, but the factory owner, William Bryant, was a leading Liberal and nervous about the publicity, so agreed to the strikers' terms, which included the abolition of unjust deductions from wages and the establishment of a canteen area where meals could be enjoyed in a phosphorus-free environment [2]. 

 

The strike has since been celebrated within popular culture and an event to commemorate the 125th anniversary was held in Bishopsgate, in 2013. 

 

This was followed, in July 2022, by English Heritage sticking up a blue plaque honouring the struggle of the matchgirls at the site of the former Bryant and May factory in Bow [3]. In a nice touch, the plaque was unveiled by the actress and East Ender Anita Dobson, the great granddaughter of strike committee leader Sarah Chapman.

 

 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Hans Christian Andersen's 'The Little Match Girl' was originally published as Den Lille Pige med Svovlstikkernein in December 1845, in Dansk Folkekalender for 1846.  

[2] In 1901, fearful of more strike action and further bad publicity, Bryant & May announced that their factory would discontinue the use of white phosphorus (replacing it with the less harmful red phosphorus).  Then, in 1908, the House of Commons passed an Act prohibiting the use of white phosphorus in matches after 31 December 1910.

 

[3] The building was redeveloped in the 1980s as part of an urban renewal project (i.e., the gentrification of the East End) and is now part of a gated community known as Bow Quarter in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It  consists of 733 one- and two-bedroom flats and penthouses, plus a handful of workers' cottages built around the late 19th century, and is set in 7 acres of landscaped grounds. Amenities include a residents' gym, a convenience store, and a 24-hour concierge service. Price for a one-bedroom flat begins at around £320,000. 

 

 

Readers who enjoyed this post might also like another East End tale: click here.  

Mark Gertler: Merry-Go-Round(el)

Mark Gertler: Merry-Go-Round (1916) [1]

Keith Bowler: Spitalfields roundel in memory of Mark Gertler (1995)

 

 

I. 

 

If you ever take a walk around Spitalfields in London's East End, you might notice a fancy series of cast iron roundels [2] designed by the local artist Keith Bowler [3] and embedded at various sites, commemorating the long history and many different peoples who have called the district home. 

 

At the corner of Brushfield Street and Commercial Street, for example, one finds a roundel decorated with apples and pears; a nod both to the Cockney character of Spitalfields and to the old fruit and veg market.

 

On Brick Lane, meanwhile, there's a roundel decorated with buttons and four pairs of scissors in honour of all those - be they French Huguenots, Irish Catholics, East European Jews, or Muslims from Bangladesh - who have traded in textiles and worked in the rag trade.  

 

Whilst, on Hanbury Street, you'll come across a roundel celebrating the matchgirls who worked in appalling conditions for outrageously low wages at the Bryant & May match factory in nearby Bow [4].

 

Fascinating as these roundels are, the one that really interests me, however, is located outside the house at 32, Elder Street, celebrating the life and work of Mark Gertler who lived at this address ...

 

 

II. 

 

Mark Gertler was a British artist, of Polish Jewish heritage, born in Spitalfields, in December 1891. 

 

He is perhaps best remembered today for a 1916 painting entitled Merry-Go-Round  [5], about which his friend D. H. Lawrence - who had just received a photograph of the work - was to say this:

 

"My dear Gertler,

      Your terrible and dreadful picture has just come. This is the first picture you have ever painted: it is the best modern picture I have seen: I think it is great, and true. But it is horrible and terrifying. I'm not sure I wouldn't be too frightened to come and look at the original. 

      If they tell you it is obscene, they will say truly. I belive there was something in Pompeian art, of this terrible and soul-tearing obscenity. But then, since obscenity is the truth of our passion today, it is the only stuff of art - or almost the only stuff. I won't say what I, as a man of words and ideas, read in the picture. But I do think that in this combination of blaze and violent mechanical rotation and complex involution, and ghastly, utterly mindless human intensity of sensational extremity, you have made a real and ultimate revelation." [6]    

 

Lawrence continued:

 

"I realise how superficial your human relationships must be, what a violent maelström of destruction and horror your inner soul must be. It is true, the outer life means nothing to you, really. You are all absorbed in the violent and lurid processes of inner decomposition: the same thing that makes leaves go scarlet and copper-green at this time of year." [7] 

 

And added as a PS:

 

"I am amazed how the picture exceeds anything I had expected. Tell me what people say - Epstein, for instance.

      Get somebody to suggest that the picture be bought by the nation - it ought to be - I'd buy it if I had any money." [8] 

 

It took some time, but, eventually, Gertler's Merry-Go-Round  - a detail from which can be seen on Keith Bowler's roundel - was purchased for the nation; the Tate Gallery acquiring it in 1984. 

 

And now anyone can buy a fine print of this work to hang on their wall from the Tate Shop, kidding themselves that it's simply an anti-War image, rather than a work which discloses their own coordination - and their own complicity with this coordination - within a great and perfect machine; i.e., "the first and finest state of chaos" [9].   

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Gertler's painting was acquired by the Tate in 1984. Visit their website for more information: click here.

 

[2] Also known as coal hole covers, roundels are sturdy metal plates typically found on pavements in older urban areas. Originally, as the name suggests, they provided access to underground coal cellars, but they are now purely decorative and serve as historical reminders of the past. 

 

[3] For more information on Keith Bowler and the Roundels of Spitalfields click here.  

 

[4] Such low wages and such poor conditions in fact, that the matchgirls working at the Bryant & May famously went on strike in 1888 and formed the Union of Women Matchmakers. The largest union of women and girls in the country, it inspired many other industrial workers across the country to organise and stand up for their rights. For a post on this topic, click here.

 

[5] In some ways, it's a shame that Gertler has become so associated with this one picture - brilliant as it is - for it means the wider body of his work is often entirely overlooked. For the record, I think Gertler produced many fine canvases and was an interesting figure, right up until he committed suicide in his Highgate studio in 1939. I particularly like the fact that he entered a competition run by Cadbury's for a series of chocolate box designs and that his still life design of a fruit bowl was among the winning entries. 

 

[6] D. H. Lawrence, letter to Mark Gertler (9 October 1916), in The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. II, ed. George J. Zytaruk and James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 660.

 

[7] Ibid. 

      It was by developing such a line of thought - one which unfortunately veers into metaphysical antisemitism ("It would take a Jew to paint this picture.") - that Lawrence (in part) created the character of Loerke, the Jewish artist who features in Women in Love (1920); although, in a letter dated 5 December 1916, Lawrence attempts to reassure Gertler that Loerke is not in fact based on him. See The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. III, ed. James T. Boulton and Andrew Robertson, (Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 46.  

 

[8] Ibid., p. 661. 

 

[9] D. H. Lawrence, Women in Love, ed. David Farmer, Lindeth Vasey and John Worthen, (Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 231.   

 

Notes from a Chimps' Tea Party

Chimps' Tea Party at London Zoo (1927)

London Transport Museum

 

 

The chimpanzees' tea party was a hugely popular form of public entertainment in which our simian cousins were provided with a table of food and drink. 

 

The first such party held at London Zoo was in 1926 and was then put on almost daily during the summer months until its discontinuation in 1972, thanks to changing attitudes and a diminishing supply of young chimps being caught in the wild [1].

 

Initially, an amusing set piece was anticipated in which the juvenile chimps - sometimes dressed in clothes for the occasion - would cause (controlled) chaos by throwing things around, jumping on the furniture, fighting over the last slice of cake, etc. Being subhuman, the expectation was that they'd commit acts unacceptable in polite society. 

 

However, things did not go as planned; being intelligent tool-users, the chimps quickly mastered the art of serving  tea and instead of amusing those watching with their antics, they would quietly sit at the table enjoying a cuppa - essentially making a monkey out of us and our expectations.  

As Martha Gill writes: 

"The chimps had done something unnerving in those early days. Their display of competence challenged not only the egos of their audience but the very premise of the zoo itself. If animals were capable of sense or even sensibility, this collection of cages and cells might start to look a little sinister. Less like innocent entertainment, perhaps, and more like a sadistic sort of prison." [2]

 

And so, it was decided to train the well-mannered chimps into behaving badly; drinking from the spout of the teapot, playing with their food, etc. In other words, their comic routine was scripted by their keepers and not a spontaneous display of animal tomfoolery. 

 

This enabled (and encouraged) human visitors to the zoo to go on believing in their own social superiority and higher intelligence; to think of other apes as essentially a grotesque parody of Man rather than sentient, sensitive beings in their own right (and certainly not creatures made in God's image) [3]. 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Although the first chimps' tea party held at London Zoo was in 1926, the origins of such probably date back to the mid-nineteenth century (chimps were first exhibited at London Zoo in 1883). It's certainly true to say that primates have long had a role to play in popular forms of entertainment, such as travelling carnivals and fairs. 

      See John S. Allen, Julie Park, and Sharon L. Watt, 'The Chimpanzee Tea Party: Anthropomorphism, Orientalism, and Colonialism', in Visual Anthropology Review, Volume 10, Number 2 (Fall 1994), pp. 45-54: click here to read online or download as a pdf.  

      Readers who are interested can click here to watch a tea party at London Zoo filmed in 1955. During the post-War years, London Zoo effectively became a training (and distribution) centre for tea party chimps, who were sent off all over the world.  

 

[2] Martha Gill, 'Zoos are the opposite of educational: they construct fictions about their captives', The Guardian (22 Oct 2023): click here.  

[3] This, despite the fact that in terms of comparative anatomy, behaviour, and biochemistry, chimpanzees, for example, are remarkably similar to human beings, sharing a common evolutionary history and over 98% DNA with us.

      Allen, Park, and Watt argue that adult white Westerners can be particularly smug; their anthropomorphic conceit containing as it does an element of racism, seeing the chimp as they do as an essentially uncivilised creature - childlike and primitive - i.e., much as they once commonly viewed indigenous peoples. See 'The Chimpanzee Tea Party: Anthropomorphism, Orientalism, and Colonialism' ... op. cit. 

 

 

Bonus video: a scene from Carry On Regardless (dir. Gerald Thomas, 1961), featuring Kenneth Williams and friends having tea: click here.          

Memories

Public Image Ltd: Memories 

(Virgin Records, 1979)

  

"Blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better even of pain."

 

 

I. 

 

Looking back, one of the admirable things about 22-year-old John Lydon, after he left the Sex Pistols in 1978, is he had no time for rosy retrospection. 

 

Indeed, if anything, he viewed his own punk past and Rotten persona negatively - as something to be abandoned or overcome, rather than desperately clung to or fondly remembered:

 

I'm not the same as when I began  ... This person's had enough of useless memories ... [1]

 

 

II.

 

However we attempt to configure it, the nature of one's relationship to one's own past remains an interesting question ...

 

Is it best, for example, to simplify one's own history and, in the process of simplifying it, also give it a positive gloss; are good memories (and reshaped lies) vital in maintaining self-esteem and happiness? 

 

Or is it best (if possible) to never look back; to regard nostalgia as a dangerous disease; to tie innocence and becoming to forgetfulness and/or an active denial of the past? 

 

It was, after all, because of Lydon's refusal to rest on his laurels or bullshit about his experience as a Sex Pistol, that he was able - in collaboration with Keith Levene and Jah Wobble - to deliver unto the world his Metal Box [2]. 

 

Arguably, with this album Lydon proved himself to be a genuinely creative artist (or a true star as he once signed himself to me) and not merely a derivative talent or copycat; i.e., one who uses memory to mimic ability and as a resource to plunder. 

 

As Nietzsche says, original artists and great poets seek to counter the deadening effects of an all-too-faithful memory (i.e., a mere recording capability that is of no value creatively speaking).

 

Sadly, however, Lydon never quite succeeded in getting rid of the albatross and he became a monster of passive memory, increasingly consumed by ressentiment. 

 

Now, his entire being revolves around having the last word, settling old scores, slagging off everyone he's ever known or worked with; a grotesque (and bloated) parody of his former self, it should be clear by now that he's the one who makes us feel ashamed ...

 

We let him stay too long.  

 

And he's old.    

 

Notes

 

[1] Lines from the singles 'Public Image' (Virgin Records, 1978) and 'Memories' (Virgin Records, 1979), by Public Image Limited. 

      Cf. Lydon's attitude to the past (and the importance of memory) in the single 'Hawaii' - taken from the album End of World (PiL Official, 2023) - in which he remembers all the good times shared with his wife, Nora Forster. For a discussion of this song, click here.    

 

[2] Metal Box, was PiL's second studio album released by Virgin Records in November 1979. The album is a million miles away from Never Mind the Bollocks (1977) and, indeed, a significant departure from PiL's debut album released eleven months earlier; the band moving in an increasingly avant-garde direction. Metal Box is widely regarded as a landmark of post-punk. An alternative mix of 'Memories' appears on the album - click here to play the 2009 remastered version.  

     

 

For an earlier post in which I discuss Johnny Rotten as an artist in decline, click here.

 

 

One for Sorrow ...

One for Sorrow (Or The Murder of Murgatroyd) 

Stephen Alexander (2023)

 

 

I. 

 

It's striking how the death of an individual creature can have far greater emotional resonance than news of an entire species dying out. 

 

Thus it is that when I came across the body of a dead magpie this morning it filled me with genuine sorrow, whilst discovering that the Chinese paddlefish was declared extinct in 2022 left me almost entirely indifferent. 

 

That's not because I value our feathered friends more than our aquatic ones, it's just due to the fact that death only becomes real (conceivable) when reduced in scale and given a face, as it were. 

 

This applies to people as well as animals; reports of atrocities involving multiple fatalities don't move as much as the image of a single dead child (a fact often exploited by those looking to influence or emotionally manipulate public opinion).   

 

 

II.

 

Magpies, of course, belong to the crow family - widely considered to be the most intelligent of birds - and are famous for their beautiful black-and-white colouration and (in the European imagination) the fact that they love to steal shiny objects, such as wedding rings and other valuables.      

 

They are also thought to have an ominous aspect; to be a portent of good or bad fortune. According to English folklore, one is for sorrow, two for mirth; three for a death and four for a birth. The popular nursery rhyme builds upon this ornithomantic idea, albeit with different lyrics:

 

One for sorrow, 

Two for joy, 

Three for a girl, 

Four for a boy, 

Five for silver, 

Six for gold, 

Seven for a secret never to be told. [1]

 

There are many variants of this, but the key fact remains - as any fisherman will tell you - that a solitary magpie is never a good sign ...

 

In Piero della Francesca's painting of the Nativity scene, for example, a lonely magpie can be spotted on the roof of a ruined stone stable presaging the pain and sorrow that lies ahead (aguably for all mankind, not just Mary and her son).     

  

 

Piero della Francesca The Nativity (1470-75)

Oil on wood (124 x 123 cm)
National Gallery (NG908) [2]

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Like many of my generation, I know this version of the rhyme thanks to the children's TV show Magpie, (1968-80). Sadly, the popularity of this version - performed by The Spencer Davis Group as the programme's theme song [click here] - displaced many regional variations that had previously existed.

 

[2] Click here for more information on the work and its recent restoration. Keen-eyed birdspotters will doubtless also note the goldfinch - a symbol of redemption in devotional art - sitting in a bush on the left of the picture.

 

 

Dancing With the Devil in the Pale Moonlight (A Brief History of Scandalous Dances)

Witches and devils dancing in a circle (1720)

 

 

Although some trendy vicars and heretical hymn writers may pretend that Jesus is the Lord of the Dance [1], we all know that, historically, dance has long been problematic within Christianity. 

 

Indeed, numerous records exist of prohibitions issued by Church leaders, usually on the grounds that dance, as a physical (non-spiritual) activity, is associated with paganism and/or promiscuity; the sort of sensual and sinful practice that witches engage in accompanied by devils (see the woodcut image above).    

 

Unsurprisingly therefore, 17th-century Puritans in England and New England who believed it was their duty to enforce moral standards and who opposed drunkenness, gambling, blood sports, and extra-marital sexual relations, also vehemently opposed dancing - particularly around a Maypole or a Christmas tree. 

 

At best they thought dancing to be a frivolous distraction from the serious business of worshipping God and at worst a dangerous form of immoralism in and of itself [2] - which, arguably, it is; or, let us say rather, it's an activity that has always been controversial at some level and often invited misunderstanding and disapproval (even harsh penalties and punishments).

 

For the fact is, the way that men and women move and shake their bodies to music has always had the potential to challenge the conventions of the day, thereby concerning the authorities and scandalising the more conservative members of what we used to term polite society.    

 

Thus, when Miley Cyrus (and Robin Thicke) sparked media outrage with a routine in 2013 which showcased twerking (see below), this was merely the latest dance to set tongues (and fingers) wagging. Earlier dances which were seen to threaten social conventions of gender, race, and/or class include:

 

 

La Volta [click here]

 

La volta is a dance for couples that was popular during the later Renaissance period. Associated with the galliard, it was performed to the same kind of music. La volta was considered to be risqué in the royal courts of England and France, as it required close bodily contact between the sexes and was very much in contrast to the slow, stately routines usually performed at court:

      

"In the dance, the man pushes the woman forwards with his thigh, one hand grasping her waist and the other below her corseted bodice as she leaps into the air. Opponents thought this quick, energetic dance to be immodest and even dangerous for women, fearing it could cause miscarriages." [3]   

 

The Waltz [click here]

 

In the early 19th-century a new dance craze took off in Britain - the waltz. 

 

Performed face to face, with the man holding his female partner tight in his arms as they whirled rapidly and shamelessly around the floor, it caused quite a stir and even though Queen Victoria danced the waltz it was in the minds of many critics associated with lewd behaviour, including Lord Byron who wrote a satirical poem about the dance, in 1812, which is suprisingly censorious considering the mad, bad, and dangerous reputation of the author [4].    

 

 

The Cancan [click here]

 

In the late 1820s working class Parisians began dancing an improvised quadrille by kicking their legs in the air ... Et voilà! the cancan was born - much to the outrage of middle-class citizens who thought it lacked both decency and dignity (as did members of the English press, when it was introduced to London audiences in 1868).

 

An energetic, physically demanding dance that became popular in the music-halls of the 1840s, it is now almost exclusively associated with a chorus line of showgirls lifting their skirts and petticoats and performing high kicks, splits, and cartwheels.  

 

 

The Tango [click here]

 

Even though in the Edwardian era social conventions were gradually beginning to relax, a new dance - the tango - was to test boundaries of what was and was not acceptable behaviour to their limit. 

 

The tango arrived in Britain (via France) around 1913, although its roots lie in the ports of Buenos Aires. Lurid descriptions soon apeared in the press, where it was condemened as a dance only fit for prostitutes and their pimps to perform. Unfortunately, this only excited the attention of young dancers keen to scandalise their elders. 

 

Its reliance on sexy Latin rhythyms and the fact that the tango also allowed for individual interpretation only added to its popularity. 

 

 

The Charleston [click here]

 

The Charleston emerged in the so-called Jazz Age (aka the Roaring Twenties) in the USA, allowing young women - known as flappers - to express themselves on the dance floor for the first time without having to follow the lead of a male partner.    

 

It had evolved from the music and dances of African-Americans living in South Carolina and marked the beginning of what would become a crucial feature of popular culture in the 20th-century; i.e., black influence on white arts and entertainments.

 

As with the other dances we have mentioned above, thanks to its fancy footwork the Charleston was considered by all the usual suspects - parents, teachers, church leaders, etc. - as immoral and provocative.

 

 

The Jitterbug [click here]

 

First popular in the US in the 1930s, American soldiers exported the jitterbug to Britain during World War Two. Like the Charleston, it was based on an earlier African-American dance (the lindy hop).  Again, concerns were voiced for both the physical and moral well-being of those who jitterbugged to the new sound of swing music (and, later, in the '50s, rock 'n' roll). 

 

With its underwear exposing lifts, twists, and other improvided moves, the jitterbug left the English ballroom dancer Alex Moore spluttering in his tea, calling it disgusting and degrading (although he eventually allowed a sanitised version - known as the jive - into the ballroom repertoire).  

 

 

The Twist [click here]

 

Before the 1960s really began to swing, they twisted thanks to Chubby Checker and other rock 'n' rollers. Whilst dancers barely move their feet (and hardly touch one another), they sway their upper bodies back and forward whilst twisting their hips and shoulders and making odd mechanical movements with their arms. 

 

Despite the usual controversies and medical concerns, the twist was a worldwide dance craze which inspired many other dances (including the jerk, the mashed potato, and the funky chicken).

 

 

The Lambada [click here]

 

Originally banned by the Brazillian president when it emerged in the 1930s, because he was shocked by its immorality, the lambada didn't really take off in a big way outside of South America until the late 1980s (largely due to the huge hit single released by the French group Kaoma in the summer of 1989) [5].  

 

Just as once the tango had scandalised by bringing couples closer than the waltz, the lambada also shocked some by insisting that hips were pressed together as dancers performed a series of spinning steps. 

 

 

Twerking [click here] 

 

Finally, let us return to twerking - another dance which is to a large extent all about hip action (and booty shaking). It is summarised thus on a BBC website:

 

"Originating in West African dance moves, twerking is believed to have arrived in the USA via Jamaican dancehalls. The dance was mostly performed in the African-American community but former child star Miley Cyrus's performance at the MTV Video Music Awards (2013) pushed it into the mainstream. She caused a social media meltdown. Her performance divided opinion, raising many questions on sexual exploitation, cultural appropriation by white artists, as well as artistic freedom and feminism." [6]

 

I have to admit, this is a dance that seems almost designed to bring out the inner Puritan; one that might make even the Devil himself look away ... Make up your own mind by clicking on the link above.

 

 

Notes

 

[1] See the recent post on Sydney Carter: click here.  

 

[2] To be fair, the Puritans only banned mixed dancing (i.e., dancing which involved close physical contact between both sexes) - something described by Cotton Mather as promiscuous dancing - because it was thought this would lead to fornication. Folk dance that did not involve such intimate contact between men and women was considered acceptable. 

      It is also worth noting that conservative Islamic and orthodox Jewish traditions still prohibit contact between the sexes in public and thus in these societies men and women either dance separately or not at all.

 

[3] See 'Dirty dances: A timeline of the moves that shocked' (BBC Teach): click here. 

      Readers should note that a lot of the following information in this post concerning dances that have scandalised was adapted from this site.

 

[4] It has been suggested that Byron disliked most forms of dancing due to a physical malformation affecting his right foot that made such activity almost impossible; he could walk, ride, swim, and even run with difficulty, but he couldn't dance. On the other hand, Byron was a strange mix of conservative and radical - said to be prudish even in his libertinism - so his dislike of the waltz may have had nothing to do with his disability. Readers who are interested can read Byron's poem here.

 

[5] 'Lambada', by Kaoma, was released as a single from the album World Beat, (CBS Records, 1989). It featured guest vocals by Brazilian vocalist Loalwa Braz and sold more than 5 million copies worldwide in the year of its release. The accompanying music video featured the Brazilian child dance duo Chico & Roberta. Just don't mention the lawsuits ...

 

[6]  'Dirty dances: A timeline of the moves that shocked' (BBC Teach): click here. 

 

Dancing Jesus

 

 

I. 

 

'Lord of the Dance' is one of those hymns we were expected to sing when I was a young child at school which I truly hated.

 

The problem was, I had a difficult time accepting such a groovy Jesus; even as a six-year-old, I could sense that Our Lord and Saviour, weighed down as he was by the sins of mankind - not to mention a heavy wooden cross - wasn't likely to be light on his feet.

 

The song was thus revisionist at best; fraudulent at worst. 

 

For the fact is, there is no record in scripture of Jesus laughing and I'm pretty sure he didn't dance (or sing) a great deal (if at all) either; he wept, he prayed, he agonised over things, but the Man of Sorrows didn't get down and boogie nor strut his funky stuff. 

 

And I'm sure Sydney Carter, who wrote the lyrics to the hymn - having adapted the melody from an old Shaker song - knew this perfectly well. 

 

Indeed, according his own account, 'Lord of the Dance' was only partly written with Jesus in mind; a statue of the Hindu deity Shiva that sat on his desk also inspired him; as did the idea of Jesus as some kind of Pied Piper; as did the possibility of a cosmic Christ who inspired alien races in far away galaxies to dance the shape and pattern which is at the heart of reality. 

      

It is astonishing, when one considers this, that the song became such a huge and immediate hit with Christians all over the English-speaking world: I mean, the tune is quite catchy and it has an optimistic message at its heart - as well as an antisemitic verse [1] - but as at least one commentator has pointed out the underlying theology is unorthodox to say the very least.

 

Even Carter was surprised by the hymn's success. He later confessed: "I did not think the churches would like it at all. I thought many people would find it pretty far flown, probably heretical and anyway dubiously Christian." [2] 

 

 

II. 

 

In some ways, thinking about the hymn now, Carter's dancing Jesus reminds me of the resurrected figure in Lawrence's The Escaped Cock (1929) and there's the same interesting mix of Christianity and paganism in the lines "I danced in the morning / When the world begun / And I danced in the moon / And the stars and the sun" [3] which one finds in the latter. 

 

Thus, although the song still irritates the hell out of me - it's just so impossibly upbeat - I acknowledge its heretical character and the fact that it counters the puritanism of those who would reject song and dance as a vital part of religious worship.    

 

To paraphrase Emma Goldman: If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your religion. 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The third verse of Carter's hymn implies collective Jewish responsibility for the death of Jesus. This dangerous idea of Jewish deicide - which conflicts with Catholic doctrine - is central to much religious antisemitism. 

 

[2] Sydney Carter quoted in his obituary in The Telegraph (16 March 2004): click here. 

     

[3] Sydney Carter, opening four lines of the first verse of 'Lord of the Dance' (1963). For full lyrics and further information visit the Stainer & Bell website: click here.  

 

Why I Love Aleksandra Waliszewska

Aleksandra Waliszewska

waliszewska.blogspot.com
@aleksandrawaliszewska

 

 

I would like to express my affection and admiration for Polish artist Aleksandra Waliszewska ... 

 

I like the fact that she's a bit Old School in her influences and points of reference: early Renaissance painters and Slavic folklore. And I love the fact that her queer gothic vision is often more amusing than terrifying. 

 

For the fact is, whilst the nightmarish symbolism and perverse sexual violence of her work might be dark and often gruesome, the mood seems strangely lighthearted; even the monsters, devils, and demons who populate her pictorial universe alongside fabulous beasts, creepy children, and often mad-looking women make smile.

 

I don't quite know why that is, but suspect it has something to do with her technique, which is detailed and precise, but retains a certain childlike innocence and nonchalance: I think she cares a great deal about her work, but not about what people might think of it (or her); she paints what makes her happy, even if what makes her happy happens to be what others describe as macabre or obscene (or even evil).

 

Below is a (typically) untitled work from 2018, but I like to think it's a self-portrait with her green-eyed cat, Mitusia (who so often acted as her feline muse).  

 

 

 

Notes

 

(i) Readers who are lucky enough may still be able to find a limited edition two volumed collection of work by Aleksandra Waliszewska entitled PROBLEM / SOLUTION (Timeless, 2019), with a foreword by David Tibet and an afterword by Nick Cave. 

      A short promotional video (of sorts) with the same title was made by the artist in collaboration with Jacek Lagowski, featuring Kaja Werbanowska: click here.

 

(ii) Alternatively, those interested in knowing more about Waliszewska and her work might like to purchase a new book published by the University of Chicago Press (2023); The Dark Arts: Aleksandra Waliszewska and Symbolism, ed. Alison M. Gingeras and Natalia Sielewicz.

 

(iii) Waliszewska's imagery has inspired many other artists working in many different fields, including musicians. Here are two short pieces readers may enjoy: the first by Andrea González (2019): click here and the second by Jeff Pagano and Ben Zervigon (animation by Wiktor Striborg): click here.