Yabba Dabba Doo! On Writing So As to Pleasure and In Praise of the Laughing Caveman

Betty, Wilma, Barney, and Fred enjoying a good laugh

The Flintstones (Hanna-Barbera Productions, 1960-66) 

 

 

A question I am often asked is: Why write?

 

I suppose I could answer as many other writers have answered and suggest it's to stave off death; i.e., one writes so as not to die [1].

However, as a nihilist who subscribes to the Nietzschean view that life is merely a very rare and unusual way of being dead [2], I've no reason to postpone a joyous return to the inanimate; a reconciliation with what is actual [3].    

So, why write, then?

 

Well, as a Barthesian, I remain keen to affirm the pleasure of the text and the posts assembled here - even those which are more readerly than writerly in character [4] - are intended to afford torpedophiles some degree of enjoyment by introducing an element of fun [5] in the field of critical blogging (a field that is all too often determined by those whose practice of writing is weighed down by the spirit of gravity). 

For fun is not only a crucial component of playfulness (i.e., hedonic engagement with the world), but it can also help one avoid what Wilde terms humanity's original sin, i.e., self-seriousness: If only the caveman had known how to laugh ... [6]  

 

Notes

 

[1] Writers - particularly poets and some philosophers - often overestimate the power of language. Unfortunately, whilst sticks and stones may certainly break our bones, I'm not convinced that words can ever save us. See the post 'Writing So As Not to Die' (27 Feb 2025): click here.

[2] See Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Book III, section 109. 

[3] See Nietzsche, Kritische Studienausgabe, Volume 9, 11 [70].

[4] Writing in Le plaisir du texte (1973), Barthes makes a distinction between two types of text; those that are readerly (lisible) and those that are writerly (scriptible). 

      The first, provides the kind of reassuring pleasure (plaisir) that doesn't challenge the reader's subjective consistency; whilst the second type of text induces a state of bliss (jouissance), which allows the reader to lose or step outside the self. Obviously, Barthes values the latter over the former, but he concedes that even the most readerly of text can still give some satisfaction, even if it doesn't make you cum in your pants and cause literary codes to explode.

      See the two-part post entitled 'Postmodern Approaches to Literature (3)', published on TTA on 2 August 2016 where I explore all of the above at some length. Click here for part 1; or here, to leap straight to part 2. 

 

[5] See the post written in defence of fun published on 3 June 2024: click here.

[6]  I've always loved this line from Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), even if the evolutionary origin of laughter - which can be traced back millions of years to our great ape ancestors - appears to be rooted more in survival and the formation of vital social bonds than merely enjoyment. 

      See Jordan Raine's article on this topic on the conversation.com (13 April, 2016): click here. 

Writing So As Not to Die

 

 

One of the questions I'm often asked is: Why write?

 

Well, in part, it's because, like Kafka, I think a non-writing writer risks madness [1].

 

But it's also because I subscribe to the (somewhat magical) belief that words have the power to protect us and can keep even death at bay. 

 

Not avert it indefinitely, but at least stave it off until such a time as I no longer have anything further to say and, like Prospero at the end of The Tempest, voluntarily decide to jack it all in; break my laptop, burn my books, etc.

 

What this implies, I suppose, is that there exists an essential affinity between language and death (or literature and evil), with the latter acting as both the limit as well as the core of the former. 

 

Those who think writing is merely about the communication of ideas or self-expression, have failed to grasp its true import: We write so as not to die ... [2]

 

 

Notes

 

[1] In a letter to Max Brod (5 July, 1922), Kafka wrote that "a non-writing writer is, in fact, a monster courting insanity." See Letters to Friends, Family, and Editors, trans. Richard and Clara Winston, (Schocken Books, 1977), pp. 332-335.

[2] In an interview with The New York Times (19 August, 1984), the Mexican author Carlos Fuentes said: "You start by writing so as to live, and you end up by writing so as not to die." The interview, by Nicholas Shardy, can be found online by clicking here.

      One might note, however, that in an essay entitled 'Language to Infinity', Foucault credits Blanchot with the idea of writing so as not to die; trans. by Donald F. Buchard and Sherry Simon, the essay first appeared in Tel Quel (1963), pp. 44-53. This text can also be found in Michel Foucault, The Essential Works 2: Aesthetics, ed. James D. Faubion, (Penguin Books, 2000), pp. 89-101. 

Loving the Alien: Nyah - the Devil Girl from Mars

 

Patricia Laffan as Nyah in the kinky sci-fi classic 

Devil Girl from Mars (dir. David MacDonald, 1954)

 

"They're scared of girls in the war of the worlds ..."

 

 

I. 

 

Some films you have to see to believe; and Devil Girl from Mars (1954), starring Patricia Laffan, is one such ...

 

 

II. 

 

A black-and-white British sci-fi, produced by the famous Danzinger Brothers [1], Devil Girl from Mars tells the story of Nyah, a stern but alluring alien dominatrix dressed in a shiny, black PVC costume [2], whose mission is to acquire Earthmen for breeding puposes; her home planet's male population having been severely depleted during a war of the sexes. 

 

Whilst open to the idea of a rational negotiation, Nyah is prepared if necessary to use advanced technological force - rayguns and robots - to accomplish her mission and thereby secure the future of her race. 

 

Intending to land in London, damage to her spacecraft - caused when entering the Earth's atmosphere - obliges Nyah to land instead outside a remote Scottish village, surrounded by moorland. Making her way to the public inn, she encounters a small cast of colourful characters, including an astrophysicist, a journalist, an escaped convict (in love with Doris the barmaid) and a fashion model [3].

 

The inn's landlord is played by everybody's favourite Scottish actor, John Laurie, who is perhaps best remembered today (despite a long and impressive film career) as Private Frazer from Dad's Army (1968-1977); sadly, he doesn't anticipate his later TV role and declare the above to be doomed, even when Nyah is threatening to kill them all, with the assistance of Chani, her menacing automaton.  

To cut a long story short - although, actually, the film is only 77 minutes in length - the escaped convict proves to be the hero of the hour, successfully sabotaging Nyah's flying saucer after take off and sacrificing himself in order to save the men of Earth from a fate worse than death; i.e., becoming sex slaves on Mars to a race of cruel superwomen, with a penchant for PVC and BDSM ... [4]   

 

III.

Obviously, almost everything about this film - made on an extremely low budget - is poor; the acting, the dialogue, the sets, the special effects, etc. And yet, paradoxically, as one critic said at the time: "There is really no fault in this film that one would like to see eliminated. Everything, in its way, is quite perfect." [5]    

 

And its way is - to use the slightly tiresome trio of words that have been central within critical discourse for some time now - queer, kinky, and camp. In their discussion of the film, Steve Chibnall and Brian McFarlane emphasise the perverse dynamic [6] at play within the film and how such has (supposedly) political implications. 

 

Nyah, they claim, is a "genuinely shocking figure in the staid world of British film-making of the time"; one who imparts an "eroticised threat to a patriarchy that was increasingly troubled in the post-war years", which is why Devil Girl from Mars is, therefore, "not only a camp classic but an ideologically significant moment in 1950s British cinema [7].

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Edward and Harry Lee Danzinger were American-born brothers who produced many British films and TV shows in the 1950s and early '60s, thereby having a significant role in shaping the popular imagination of movie goers and TV viewers during this period.

 

[2] I'm guessing it wouldn't be leather, as it's hard to imagine Martian cows, but I'm not sure and it could well be that Patricia Lafflan's costume - designed by Ronald Cobb - features both leather and vinyl elements. 

 

[3] I appreciate that readers who have not seen the film or checked out the IMDb page - click here - will think I'm making this up, but I can assure them I'm not. And as it says in the trailer, this is a story that might yet be true!

 

[4] Whether this atones for the (accidental) killing of his wife for which he was convicted, is debatable. As is whether all Earthmen would thank him for his actions; I know quite a few who would have happily returned with Nyah to Mars and submitted of their own free will to a life as stud males servicing nubile alien females.   

 

[5] Gavin Lambert, review of Devil Girl from Mars, in The Monthly Film Bulletin, Vol. XXI, No. 240 (1 January 1954), p. 83. 

 

[6] The 'perverse dynamic' is a theoretical concept developed by Jonathan Dollimore in Sexual Dissidence (1991). It refers to the production of perversion from within the very social structures that often seek to deny such. The pervert is thus revealed not to be a remote alien being, such as Nyah, but one of us after all.    

 

[7] Steve Chibnall and Brian McFarlane, The British 'B' Film (BFI / Bloomsbury, 2009), p. 212. Readers will rightly detect my scepticism about such claims of 'ideological significance' and sexual radicalism. 

 

 

To watch the trailer to Devil Girl from Mars, click here. 

 

And for those who simply must watch the whole film, it's available on YouTube: click here.

 

 

Musical bonus: Bow Wow Wow; 'I Want My Baby on Mars', Your Cassette Pet (EMI Records, 1980): click here.  

 

 

Be a Little Deaf and Blind ... How Cynical Pragmatism Secures Wedded Bliss

A mottoware jug made by the Watcombe Pottery (Torquay) [1]

For many years, my mother owned a little ceramic jug decorated with a picture of a cottage on one side and the words 'Be a little deaf and blind / Happiness you'll always find', on the other. 

 

Such proverbial folk wisdom greatly appealed to my mother; though whether she applied this particular teaching in her own life - and whether, if she did, it brought her the promised reward of happiness - I'm not sure. 

 

Anyway, my mother is dead now and the little painted jug made in Torquay is mine - as is the question of what to do with it ... 

I'm pretty sure my sister would either throw it away or attempt to sell it on eBay; throwing things away and selling things on eBay is her speciality and the sign of a woman who not only sees a price label attached to everything, but is dead to the mysterious allure of objects [2].   

 

I don't want the little jug to be thrown away or sold on eBay, however. 

 

And so I suppose I'll keep it; even if I don't necessarily endorse a message that might have been written by the Japanese monkeys Mizaru and Kikazaru [3] and which was offered as pragmatic advice to new brides in the 18th-century when confronted by their husbands' little indiscretions [4] ...

 

Notes

 

[1] The Watcombe Pottery was originally established as the Watcombe Terra Cotta Clay Company in 1869 by G. J. Allen, after he discovered a particularly fine red clay in the grounds of Watcombe House.

      In 1901, the business was acquired by Hexter, Humpherson and Co., who also owned the Aller Vale Pottery, and it began producing a wide range of pottery in the popular style associated with Torquay, including the motto wares, aimed at the emerging tourist market. 

      Sadly, the Watcombe Pottery was forced to close its kilns for good in 1962. 

 

[2] I have written on the allure of objects - and how this can make happy - in several posts; click here and here, for example. 

 

[3] These were two of the Three Wise Monkeys, famous for avoiding evil thoughts and deeds in the Buddhist tradition; Mizaru saw no evil and Kikazaru heard no evil. 

      Interestingly, in the West we interpret their story very differently and reference the proverb in order to pass moral judgement on those who intentionally ignore wrongdoing, preferring instead to turn a blind eye, cop a deaf ear, or remain silent when the right thing to do is speak up. 

      For my post on Mizaru and Kikazaru, published back in November 2013, click here. 

 

[4] See Jennie E. Batchelor, 'Be but a little deaf and blind ... and happiness you'll surely find': Marriage in Eighteenth-Century Magazines for Women', in After Marriage in the Long Eighteenth Century: Literature, Law and Society, ed. Jenny DiPlacidi and Karl Leydecker, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), pp. 107-127.

      And see also chapter 3 of Batchelor's book The Lady’s Magazine (1770–1832) and the Making of Literary History, (Edinburgh Univerity Press, 2022), pp. 112-113, where she discusses the case of one woman who wrote to the Lady's Magazine in 1774, seeking advice on how to deal with the discovery that her husband has a mistress. 

      Contrary to what she wishes to hear, the reader is told by the magazine's popular agony aunt, Mrs Grey (aka the Matron), that a (rather cynical) form of pragmatism is the best policy; neither seeing, hearing, nor speaking of any thing which may occasion marital discord. This is neither to condone the actions of her husband, nor exonerate him of wrongdoing. But it does recognise that it will not help matters to confront him, as roving husbands are never brought to heel by public reproach.    

 

 

That Time I Met Neneh Cherry (An Extract from the Von Hell Diaries: 1 March 1985)

Cover of the Float Up CP album  

Kill Me in the Morning (1985) ft. Neneh Cherry

 

 

It was only when reading a review of Neneh Cherry's recently published memoir, A Thousand Threads (Fern Press, 2024), that I finally twigged that she had been the lead singer with a band that I'd been to see back in the spring of 1985 ...

 

Without wishing to get too bogged down in rock history, Float Up CP were essentially Rip Rig + Panic playing under a new name, but still peddling a kind of funky, jazz-infused post-punk sound, over which Miss Cherry added her own soulful-pop vocals; all a bit too experimental for my tastes, I'm afraid. 

 

Nevertheless, I was persuaded by Steve Weltman (Managing Director of Charisma Records) to do a spot of A&R work on his behalf and check out the above group. My diary entry for Friday 1 March, 1985, reads as follows:

 

 

Went to see Float Up CP. I wasn't paid any extra to do so, but as I had a car to take me to and from the gig - plus ten quid spending money for drinks - I can't complain, I suppose ...

      Dragged Andy [1] along, as he had called over with a (belated) birthday present - a copy of the Bhagavad Gita - and a bottle of wine. I suspect I'll enjoy drinking the latter more than reading the former, being as I am pagan-punk rather than Hindu-hippie in nature!

      The car arrived at 10pm. After initially taking us to the wrong venue, the driver eventually managed to get us to the gig on Holloway Road, just in time to see the band come on stage. They were, to be fair, actually quite good; especially the singer - a slightly plumpish, but very lively girl with a hitched up skirt and falling shoulder straps. Ultimately, however, despite her charms, they were not really my cup of tea.  

       After the show, spoke briefly with Nils [2], whom I like, as he's always friendly to me. Also managed to say a quick hello to the inimitable Jock Scott [3], who was up on the stage at some point during the gig. Then Andy and I walked all over North London trying to find a fucking phone box, so we could arrange our ride home. 

      Ended up in Kings X, where we walked into a Wimpy Bar 'to have a rubber bun' - as Poly would say [4]. Funny enough, we bumped into the singer from Float Up CP, so chatted with her until the car arrived. Turns out she was born in Sweden, but grew up from an early age in New York. Seemed like a really nice girl. And very sexy! Unfortunately, if she told me her name - which I'm guessing she probably did - I can't for the life of me recall it.     

       

 

Readers will not be surprised to discover that I did not go on to become either a great talent spotter or a great diarist; whatever unusual abilities I may or may not possess, it seems that hyperthymesia is not one of them [5]. 

 

As for Float Up CP ... well, they would go on to release a studio album nine months later - Kill Me in the Morning (Rough Trade Records, 1985); a track from which - 'Joy's Address' - released as a single the previous year - can be played by clicking here. 

 

And Miss Cherry would, of course, go on to become a huge solo star who remains very much respected and admired within popular culture (not only by fans and critics, but by her fellow artists). Her smash hit single 'Buffalo Stance', released in November 1988 from her debut album Raw Like Sushi (Virgin Records, 1989), which reached number 3 in the UK, but went all the way to number 1 in her native Sweden, can be played by clicking here.

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Andy Greenfield; longtime friend, who is now an internationally respected biologist, but who back then was a Ph.D student at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington.

 

[2] Nils Stevenson; former road manager of the Sex Pistols who had renewed his working relationship with Malcolm during the Duck Rock period. I'm still not quite sure if he was officially managing Float Up CP, or simply acting as a kind of mentor to the group.    

 

[3] Jock Scott; a punk performance poet and well-known man about town and face on many-a-scene. I wrote a post in memory of him published on 18 April 2016: click here.    

 

[4] Poly Styrene; singer-songwriter and front woman of X-Ray Spex. The line I'm quoting is from the song 'The Day the World Turned Day-Glo', which was released as a single in March 1978 (on EMI Records), reaching number 23 in the UK singles chart. 

 

[5] Hyperthymesia - also known as highly superior autobiographical memory - is an extremely rare condition that enables individuals to spontaneously recall a large number of life experiences in vivid detail. The term was coined by American neurobiologists Elizabeth Parker, Larry Cahill, and James McGaugh in 2006. I may spend an excessive amount of time thinking about my own past - one of the signs of hyperthymesia - but, unfortunately, I have the memory of a goldfish.

 

 

On Torpedo the Ark as a Form of Digital Hypomnema and Honey Making

Stephen Alexander: Hypomnema (2025)

 

 

I. 

 

Is blogging really so different from the ancient Greek practice of providing a written commentary on the self and the keeping of a singular (if fragmentary) record of events? 

 

I would rather like to think that it isn't; although it depends of course on the blog and the blogger. 

 

Here, I shall offer remarks only with reference to Torpedo the Ark (TTA), which may not be the best or most popular blog in the world, but which nevertheless provides - in my view - a contemporary example of what Plato and friends referred to as hypomnemata ...

 

 

II. 

 

Neither offered as intimate diary entries, nor a series of spiritual confessions designed to purify the soul, the posts on TTA are intended as an intertextual form of ethopoietic writing based upon an assemblage of literary quotes, artistic images, gay philosophical reflections, and other heterogeneous elements.

 

And that's the key: however personal they may seem, these posts do not merely provide a narrative of the self and the primary aim is to "capture the already said, to collect what one has managed to hear or read" [1] in order that one may detach oneself from the constant buzz of the present and the uncertainty of the future.

 

In other words, blogging allows one to find a little untimely peace and quiet, via contemplation of the past. 

 

However, before one leaps to the conclusion that blogging is thus essentially conservative and nostalgic in character, my writing of posts is also (and always) a radically disparate practice, which doesn't wish to unify ideas into a doctrine or system; nor attempt to know an author's body of work in depth and in detail.  

 

It doesn't really matter, for example, if I haven't read every last word written by Nietzsche and Lawrence (the two authors who have most shaped my own thinking); and it makes very little difference to the success or failure of a post whether I have fully grasped what they meant to say, or whether I am able to faithfully reconstruct their arguments. 

 

 

III. 

 

Ultimately, TTA is governed by the same two principles that Foucault says determine the ancient Greek notebook: (i) the local truth of the precept and (ii) its circumstantial use value. I thus feel free, like Seneca, to take what I want from where I want and relate it to my own life however I like:

 

"Writing as a personal exercise done by and for oneself is an art of disparate truth - or, more exactly, a purposeful way of combining the traditional authority of the already said with the singularity of the truth that is affirmed therein and the particularity of the circumstances that determine its use." [2]      

 

Some critics are annoyed by this and accuse me of all kinds of things; I had a charming email the other day, for example, informing me that TTA is 'an infuriating mix of narcissism, plagiarism, and wilful misreading'. 

 

Fortunately, I'm not too bothered by such accusations. For again, like the great Stoic philosopher mentioned above, I feel at perfect liberty to select (and steal) ideas from other authors and then shape them into what is needed: "'This is my own custom; from the many things which I have read, I claim some part for myself.'" [3]

 

After all, isn't that what bees do when they promiscuously gather nectar from a 1000 different flowers in order to make honey?      

 

Notes

 

[1] Michel Foucault, 'Self-Writing', in Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth, Vol. 1 of The Essential Works of Foucault 1954-1984, ed. by Paul Rabinow, trans. Robert Hurley and others (Penguin Books 2000), p. 211.

 

[2] Ibid., 212. 

[3] Seneca, Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium, Letter II, section V. Quoted by Foucault in the work cited, p. 213. 

 

 

This post is for a friend who asked: 'Do you regard blogging as a form of life-writing?'

In Defence of Diary Writing

Messrs. Stevenson and Wobble back in the day

 

 

I recently came across a book review by Jah Wobble which opens with the former PiL bass player expressing his suspicion of - and, indeed, his very evident scorn for - people who keep diaries: 

 

"If one is truly involved in events as they unfold, is there the time or inclination to take notes?" [1]

 

Wobble answers his own question by suggesting that diary keeping is the kind of anal activity that only those who seek to influence the future interpretation of events (often magnifying their own role in said events) engage in.   

 

There may, of course, be an element of truth in this. 

 

But it's not the whole story and as someone who kept a diary throughout the 1980s, I rather resent Wobble's sneering tone and his privileging of lived experience over the recording and retrospective analysis of events. 

 

For some of us - perhaps of a rather more philosophical predisposition than Mr Wobble - there is no distinction between writing and life. 

 

Journal keeping - or, indeed, blogging - is for us a vital form of scripting the self [2] and I prefer those like Nils Stevenson who creatively construct disparate truths about actual events, rather than those who, like Wobble, simply boast they were truly involved, but far too caught up in the excitement of the moment to reflect upon their own experience [3].  

 

Notes

 

[1] Review by Jah Wobble of Vacant: A Diary of the Punk Years 1976-79 by Nils Stevenson, with photos by Ray Stevenson (Thames and Hudson, 1999), in the Independent on Sunday (11th April, 1999). The review is archived on the PiL fansite Fodderstompf: click here.

 

[2] By this term I refer to a reflective and voluntary practice via which individuals are not only able to gain a degree of ethical self-understanding, but also to "change themselves in their singular being, and to make their life into an oeuvre that carries certain aesthetic values and meets certain stylistic criteria". 

      See Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality 2: The Use of Pleasure, trans. Robert Hurley (Penguin, 1992), pp. 10-11.

 

[3] It might be noted that Wobble did, in fact, publish his memoirs in 2009. A new and  expanded edition of this critically acclaimed work was published under the title Dark Luminosity: Memoirs of a Geezer by Faber & Faber in 2024. So maybe he was taking notes all along ...  

Shadows Are the Means by Which Bodies Display Their Form

Malcolm McLaren, photographed by Bob Gruen in NYC, 

jumping in front of a Richard Hambleton Shadowman,  

whilst an amused Andrea Linz looks on (1983) [1]

 

 

I. 

 

I have to admit, for a long time I was one of those people who (mistakenly) believed that the human death shadows left behind at Hiroshima were due to the vaporisation of bodies after the Americans detonated an atomic bomb over the city on 6 August, 1945, killing tens of thousands of people (mostly civilians). 

 

I now know, however, that the shadows are not the vaporised remains of the dead, but were caused, rather, by the flash bleaching of the surrounding area behind the bodies located directly in the path of the blast and that, as a matter of fact, it would take a huge amount of energy to instantly vaporise a living body (far more energy even than released by Little Boy) [2].

Nevertheless, this doesn't rob them of their macabre interest and poignancy. 

 

 

II.

 

I don't know if the Canadian artist Richard Hambleton was thinking of the above when he came up with his idea of the Shadowman, but when I look at his work I'm certainly reminded of what happened in Japan (just as when viewing the Human Shadow Etched in Stone exhibition at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, I can't help thinking of Hambleton's work).

 

Along with Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, Hambling emerged out of the vibrant NYC art scene in the 1980s, although he considered himself a conceptual artist rather than merely a street artist, even if he often graffitied his images on to the walls of public buildings.

 

Early work includes his notorious series of Mass Murder images (1976-78), in which he painted what appeared to be a chalk outline around bodies of volunteers pretending to be homicide victims and then splashed some red paint around to complete the bloody crime scene. These scenes were reproduced on the streets of numerous cities across the US and Canada and would often startle passersby.  

 

But it's the mysterious (somewhat scary) Shadowman paintings for which he is now best remembered [3]; each one a life-sized figure splashed with black paint on hundreds of buildings and other structures across New York City (and, later, other cities, including London, Paris, Berlin, and Rome). 

      

Again, Hambleton often selected locations calculated to have maximum impact on those who encountered a Shadowman - frightening some and delighting the imagination of others; including Malcolm McLaren, who persuaded the artist to license a design for his and Vivienne Westwood's final collaboration together: Witches [4].

 

It was during this duck rocking period that I first met McLaren and I vaguely remember him telling me that 'shadows are the means by which bodies display their form' (though I've since discovered that he was, in fact, quoting Leonardo da Vinci).

 

 

Notes 

 

[1] The photo of Mclaren, his talented muse Andrea Linz, and Hambleton's Shadowman was taken by the American photographer Bob Gruen on Bethune Street, in the West Village, in April 1983. This and many other photos of Malcolm can be found (and purchased) on Gruen's website: click here.

 

[2] On the morning of August 6, 1945, the Little Boy atomic bomb was detonated at an altitude of 1,800 feet over the city of Hiroshima, exploding with an energy of approximately 15 kilotons of TNT.

      Among its other effects, it subjected the ground area to an extremely high radiant temperature for several seconds; high enough to set clothing alight and cause extensive damage to human flesh, but not high enough to vaporise a body so that no physical traces (such as carbonised tissue and bones) would remain. Nevertheless, the belief has persisted that the shadows are the traces (or even the souls) of people killed, quite literally, in a flash.  

 

[3] I say remembered for rather than known for as Hambleton died on 29 October 2017, aged 65.

 

[4] A Shadowman design was used on a roll top jersey skirt that formed part of the McLaren-Westwood Witches collection (A/W 1983): click here to view on Etsy. 

 

 

This post is for Andrea.

 

Reflections on the Art of Ruby Neri (With an Additional Note on Mark Rothko)

Ruby Neri: The Wheel of Life (2024)

Soft pastel on paper (182 x 131.5 cm)

massimodecarlo.com

 

 

I. 

 

Last month, a series of wildfires affecting the LA metropolitan area and San Diego County, killed 29 people, forced 200,000 to evacuate, and destroyed more than 18,000 homes and other structures in an area over 57,000 acres in size.

 

Most of  the damage was caused by the two largest fires: the Eaton Fire in Altadena, and the Palisades Fire in Pacific Palisades; the second and third-most destructive fires in California's history, respectively.

 

Now, whilst I didn't revel in seeing the homes of the rich and famous go up in flames, nor gloat at their suffering, I have to confess I experienced - like many other people - a certain feeling of schadenfreude, because - like many other people - I really do not care for (or about) Hollywood celebrities. 

 

I don't want them to be burnt alive; but neither do I feel much sympathy for those who were able to escape the fires by flying on a private jet to one of their other multi-million dollar homes, pay for a high-end rental property, or check into a suite at the nearest luxury hotel, whilst many other people in far less fortunate circumstances literally found themselves with nowhere to go and desperately seeking temporary accommodation.

 

Obviously, even the super-rich can experience loss and trauma, but they can afford well-paid therapists to help them cope, and so, again, it's hard to feel too sorry for those who, like the actor James Woods, went on TV to bemoan the fact that 'one day you're swimming in the pool and the next day it's all gone'. 

 

Having said that, I was sorry to hear that the LA-based visual artist Ruby Neri, known for her work as a sculptor and painter, was one of those affected by the Southern California wildfires and was thus unable to attend the opening of her first solo exhibition here in London ...

 

 

II. 

 

Ms. Neri uses a wide array of materials to create figurative works that draw inspiration from many different sources, including German Expressionism, street art, and forms of popular culture such as comic books and cartoons [1]. 

 

Whilst a student in the eary-mid 1990s at the San Francisco Art Institute, she and her friends became associated with the so-called 'Mission School' [2]; an art movement that enabled highly-educated, middle-class young people to graffiti the city in the belief that they were sticking it to the Man.    

  

In 1994, Neri moved from the Bay Area to Los Angeles, and would obtain her Master's of Fine Art from UCLA in 1998. Whilst there, she gradually transitioned away from painting to sculpture, claiming she found the history of the former oppressive.

 

To me that's regrettable, because, from what I've seen of her work, I much prefer her pictures to her 3-dimensional figures made from clay and ceramic. 

 

Certainly when I went yesterday to Neri's new exhibition at the Massimo De Carlo gallery in Mayfair [3], the paintings made a far more favourable impression upon me than the sculptures; particularly the large pastel on paper image entitled 'The Circle of Life', reproduced above, which has the most amazing depth of colour and radiates the sheer joy of movement [4]. 

 

According to the gallery's press release, the exhibition is intended to suggest a surreal garden scene invested with funky feminine vitality and a Shakespearean sensibility. 

 

I can't say I quite picked up on the latter, but I'm happy to acknowledge the former, even if, after a while, it all becomes a bit too much and one rather longs to contemplate the non-funky serenity of a late Rothko - more muted and composed, certainly, but no less vital and, arguably, far more intense [5].       

 

 

Notes

 

[1] It might also be pointed out that, as the daughter of a famous sculptor (Manuel Neri) and a graphic designer (Susan Neri), Ruby Neri was exposed to art and encouraged to be creative from a very young age. The influence of both parents can be seen in her work and it doubtless helped having the family background she did when it came to building her own career as an artist (though one hesitates to use the resentful term nepo baby as it clearly originates in envy). 

 

[2] The Mission School is an art movement of the 1990s and 2000s that emerged in the Mission District of San Francisco, associated with a core group of artists who attended (or hung around with those who attended) the San Franciso Art Institute (where Neri's father taught). 

      It is closely aligned with the lowbrow art movement which takes its inspiration from urban culture and likes to use non-traditional art materials, such as house paint, spray paint, correction fluid, ballpoint pens, and various found objects. Perhaps not surprisingly, therefore, the Mission School artists cultivated a neo-hippie anti-establishment, anti-consumerist perspective on the world.

 

[3] Neri's exhibition, entitled, Chorus, runs until 22 Feb 2025 (having opened on 9 January) at Massimo De Carlo, 16 Clifford Street, Mayfair, London, W1. For full details and to view all the works on display, go to the gallery website: click here.

 

[4] Despite having both feet on the ground, the central blonde figure in a blue dress carrying a white flower reminds me of the young woman skipping along Piccadilly about whom I published a post earlier in the week: click here.  

[5] Rothko was always adamant that his paintings were not as calm and peaceful as observers often thought: 'I would like to say to those who think of my pictures as serene [...] that I have imprisoned the most utter violence in every inch of their surface.' 

 

 

White Sky, White Earth: On the Dangers of Solar Radiation Management and Geoengineering

Photo by Angela Boehm from the Minus 30 series [1]

I. 

 

According to Rupert Birkin, there are two contrasting forms of abstraction via which human beings might annihilate themselves and, ultimately, destroy the entire world: those who belong to the global south find their fatal fulfilment in the "putresecent mystery of sun-rays"; whereas those who have the arctic north behind them "fulfil a mystery of ice-destructive knowledge" [2].

 

His friend Gerald, for example, was one of those wilful, white-skinned, blue-eyed demons from the north destined to find death by perfect cold and plunge the earth into the universal dissolution of snow and ice.   

 

Now, I understand that quite a few readers will probably be asking themselves: So what? What has Lawrence's thinking on this question of abstraction tied to his racialised metaphysics got to do with us?

Well, the answer my friend is blowing in the wind from a northerly direction - and that answer is geoengineering ...

 

 

II.

 

Geoengineering is the intentional large-scale alteration of the planetary environment that scientists have proposed as a method to counteract anthropogenic climate change. Some wish to capture carbon; others wish to deflect sunlight in order to keep the earth cool, either by brightening the clouds, the use of giant space mirrors, or stratospheric aerosol injection.

 

It's solar radiation management that most interests and, to some degree, concerns me, as well as others like me who, having read their Lawrence, fear a new ice age or global whiteout in which nothing casts a shadow, the horizon disappears, and even dark objects are barely visible beneath a permanently white sky.

 

For whilst ingenious technological solutions to the problem of global warming may appear attractive, such large scale interventions also run a greater risk of causing unintended disruptions to natural systems. In other words, we might just fuck things up even more than simply allowing the temperature to rise a couple of degrees over the next century. 

And who wants to live on a white earth beneath a white sky? There may be a tragic irony in the fact that our fear of global warming results in such a scenario, but, no one will be laughing when vast ice sheets cover the surface of the earth and, push comes to shove, I'd rather sweat than shiver.

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Angela Boehm is a Canadian photographer who grew up in rural Saskatchewan, so knows all about long hard winters. In 2021, she began photographing the conditions when the temperature fell to -30c or below in order to convey something of the silence, stillness, and unearthly beauty of a world that has been whitened almost to the point of invisibility. 

      See her book Minus 30 (Hartmann Projects, 2024) or visit her website to view more images from the book: click here.

 

[2] D. H. Lawrence, Women in Love, ed. David Farmer, Lindeth Vasey and John Worthen, (Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 254. 

      I published a post on this topic of fatal abstraction back in August 2020: click here. See also the related post entitled 'Psychrophilia: On Love (and Death) in a Cold Climate (27 Feb 2019): click here. 

 

 

With thanks to Síomón Solomon for suggesting this post.