28 Oct 2022

In Memory of Frances Farmer

Frances Farmer (1913-1970)
 
"She'll come back as fire / To burn all the liars 
Leave a blanket of ash on the ground ..."
 
 
The other day, a friend wrote to say she was watching a movie with Frances Farmer on TV and I had to confess that I didn't know who that was - even though, it turns out, the latter has cemented her place within the cultural imagination thanks not merely to her filmstar good looks and acting career, but her much discussed mental health issues and notorious drunken exploits.

At the height of her fame - and amidst reports of increasingly erratic behaviour, fuelled by heroic amounts of alcohol - Farmer was committed to psychiatric care, where she was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and, according to some of the more sensational accounts, subjected to insulin shock therapy and non-consensual psychosurgery; i.e., lobotomised. 
 
That last point may not be true and her experiences might not have been as grim as some have made out. But, even so, no one wants to be kept in a madhouse for several years and it can't have been a barrel of laughs being "raped by orderlies, gnawed on by rats [...] chained in padded cells, strapped into strait-jackets and half-drowned in ice baths" [1]
 
After her release in 1950, Farmer staged an acting comeback, mainly on TV and in local theatre. She died in 1970, from cancer, aged 56. Her (fictionalised and ghostwritten) autobiography - Will There Really Be a Morning? - was published posthumously in 1972. Since then, there have been several films made of her life story, including the 1982 film, Frances, directed by Graeme Clifford and starring Jessica Lange in the title role. 
 
Of course, being mad, bad and beautiful, ensured that Farmer would gain legendary status amongst the rock 'n' roll set - Kurt Cobain even named his daughter after her [2] - but what really interests me is the fact that in 1931, whilst still at High School, Farmer won an essay writing contest with a controversial text entitled God Dies

Essentially an attempt to reconcile her wish for divine order ruled over by a strong father-figure with the growing realisation that, actually, she existed in a chaotic and godless world, Farmer explains in her autobiography how the essay was very much influenced by a reading of Nietzsche:

"He expressed the same doubts, only he said it in German: Gott ist tot. God is dead. This I could understand. I was not to assume that there was no God, but I could find no evidence in my life that He existed or that He had ever shown any particular interest in me." [3]
 
And so, the question is:  
 
How could this woman - a Nietzschean with an idiosyncratic sense of style who shunned Hollywood, fought the law, and, like Garbo, combined sexual allure with cold aloofness - have remained entirely unknown to me for so long? 
 
It really makes me wonder who else I've never come across before, but should have - figures that I don't even know I don't know about! 
 
It's possible - and this is not a happy thought - that the ones we would love most in this life are also those perfect strangers about whom we remain entirely unaware ...      
 
 
Notes
 
[1] Frances Farmer, quoted in Sexual Abuse in the Lives of Women Diagnosed with Serious Mental Illness, ed. Maxine Harris and Christine L. Landis, (Routledge, 1997), p. 146.
 
[2] Kurt Cobain also wrote the song 'Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle', which can be found on Nirvana's third (and final) studio album, In Utero (DGC Records, 1993), or played by clicking here. The three lines of song lyric at the top of this post are taken from this song.
 
[3] Frances Farmer, Will There Really Be a Morning? (Putnam, 1972), p. 159. 
      It is with regret that I must also note that, towards the end of her life, Farmer finds God and converts to Catholicism - we might arguably read this as the final manifestation of her mental illness. 


This post is for Carrolle who brought the figure of Frances Farmer to my attention.


26 Oct 2022

From the Office of Malcolm McLaren


 
I. 
 
Whilst rummaging through a box of what I call treasures and others label junk, I came across some stolen stationery from Malcolm McLaren's first floor office at 25 Denmark Street ...
 
This included a few sheets of headed paper with the names of the two limited companies which McLaren traded under post-Glitterbest [1]; Tour D'Eiffel Productions and Moulin Rouge.     
 
The latter incorporates the figure of a can-can dancer into its logo, whilst the former includes a comic character who appears to have been taken from a saucy postcard. 
 
Both speak of McLaren's Francophilia, or, more precisely, his long fascination with the French capital; something I've discussed in an earlier post published on Torpedo the Ark [2]. And they also tell us something of his playful spirit and joie de vivre.  
 
 
II. 
 
According to biographer Paul Gorman, McLaren was working out of the office on Tin Pan Alley from the early spring of 1980 until moving full-time to LA in 1985 [3]
 
This was an incredibly creative period in which McLaren not only managed Bow Wow Wow, oversaw Worlds End and Nostalgia of Mud, but developed his own solo career as a recording artist - releasing Duck Rock in 1983 and Fans the following year.
 
I first went to the office on 30 March, 1983, having been invited to call up by Nick Egan [4] the day before (I was attempting to arrange a six-week work attachment as part of a degree course on critical theory, art and media):
 
 
Finally met Carrolle [5]: she looked great dressed in a McLaren-Westwood outfit with a big death or glory belt buckle holding things together; reddish-purple hair; multiple earrings. Very friendly; an East End girl. 
      Malcolm wasn't there, but the two black Americans hanging around were, apparently, the World's Famous Supreme Team [6] - so that was kind of amusing.
      Admired the large 'Zulus on a Time Bomb' [7] poster on the wall - next to a map of the world and some old movie posters, including one for the Elvis Presley film Love Me Tender [8].   
      Nick Egan arrived - he also looked great; very tall, slim, punky blonde hair, wearing striped trousers, a big jumper and a Buffalo-style sheepskin coat. He introduced me to a photographer, Neil Matthews, and gave me some names and numbers to call. This included Lee Ellen, the press officer at Charisma Records, who he was sure could find me something to do (unfortunately, he and Malcolm couldn't help directly, as they were going to be in New York).
      Even though Malcolm wasn't there in person - he had something wrong with his ear - it was clear everything revolved around him; Malcolm says ... Malcolm wants ... Malcolm needs, etc. That's understandable, as he's the star of the show, but it does reduce everyone else to the status of a satellite. 
      Left the office feeling happy. Went for a coffee on Old Compton Street. [9]   

 
Fourteen months later, however, and everything was rapidly coming to an end; the roof had fallen in at Charisma Records - literally and metaphorically, Tony Stratton-Smith having sold the company to Richard Branson - and McLaren had relocated to Hollywood, leaving me and Carrolle to close the office at 25 Denmark Street once last time ...


Carrolle starts her new job tomorrow. I went over to help her shut up shop so to speak; took us several hours to take down shelves and pack everything away - books, posters, papers ... etc.
      Although Carrolle was upset, she laughed when she heard from Malcolm on the phone, complaining about an old biddy who had been appointed as his secretary at Columbia Pictures and who was driving him up the wall. Whilst I'm sure Malcolm will have fun in LA, I suspect he'll miss London. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if he returned sooner rather than later. The latter might be a muddy hole, as he says, but he's very much a Londoner at heart [10].
      Carrolle let me have the large map of the world off the wall as a souvenir. I also grabbed a copy of the Bow Wow Wow single 'Louis Quatorze' that was lying around. Left the office feeling sad: in many ways it really is the end of an era. [11]    


Notes
 
[1] Glitterbest - the Sex Pistols era management, publishing and production company founded by McLaren and his lawyer, Stephen Fisher, as co-director - went into receivership in February 1979, after Johnny Rotten successfully took legal action against the company.

[2] See 'Notes on Malcolm McLaren's Paris' (21 May 2020): click here
 
[3] See Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, (Constable, 2020), p. 451.
      Whilst Gorman mentions that McLaren was trading from 25 Denmark Street as Moulin Rouge Ltd, he says nothing of Tour D'Eiffel Productions Ltd. It would be interesting to know which company was registered first and how they differed (if they differed at all).    
 
[4] Nick Egan is a visual design artist and film director who collaborated with McLaren on many projects during the period we are discussing here. Probably he came up with the letterhead designs shown here.        
 
[5] Carrolle was Malcolm's PA and office manager at 25 Denmark Street. We had corrresponded prior to this first meeting.
 
[6] The World's Famous Supreme Team was an American hip hop duo consisting of Sedivine the Mastermind and Just Allah the Superstar. They found international fame when McLaren enlisted them for his 1982 single 'Buffalo Gals' and then featured samples from their radio show on Duck Rock (1983).
 
[7] 'Zulus on a Time Bomb' was the B-side of McLaren's second single 'Soweto', released in February 1983 from the album Duck Rock (Charisma Records, 1983), written by Trevor Horn and Malcolm McLaren.
 
[8] Love Me Tender was Elvis's first film; dir. Robert D. Webb (1956), starring Richard Egan and Debra Paget. It was named after the smash hit single of the same title (which Presley performs in the film, along with three other songs). 
 
[9] Entry from the Von Hell Diaries dated Wednesday 30 March 1983. 
   
[10] Indeed, even McLaren's vision of Paris was one shaped by London. As he says in the song 'Walking with Satie': "I first saw Paris in Soho when I was thirteen". This track can be found on the 1994 album entitled Paris
      McLaren would also explain to Louise Neri that he was fascinated by the ways in which England influenced French culture and history. See Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, p. 433. 
 
[11] Entry from the Von Hell Diaries dated Monday 13 May 1985.
 
 

18 Oct 2022

Sing Hello


 
 
I.
 
I've mentioned before on this blog how the word hello has long held a privileged place in my personal vocabulary: click here.  
 
It's disappointing, therefore, that the majority of songs that have the word hello in their title or lyrics make one wish to stop up one's ears like Odysseus, so as to never hear them again. And this includes some really well-known songs by much loved artists. 
 
For example: 
 
'Hello, Dolly!', by Louis Armstrong (1964) ...
 
'Hello, Goodbye', by The Beatles (1967) ...

'Hello, I Love You', by The Doors (1968) ...
 
'Hello', by Lionel Richie (1984) ... 
 
'Hello', by Adele (2015) ... 
 
In fact, the more I come to think about it, there is really only one great song containing the word hello - and that is Gary Glitter's smash hit single 'Hello! Hello! I'm Back Again' [1]
 
 
II.
 
1973 was a golden year for British pop music - particularly for the genre known as glam rock - and whilst I loved Sweet, Slade, and Suzi Quatro, Gary Glitter was my beautiful obsession at this time [2]
 
'Hello! Hello! I'm Back Again' - written by Glitter and genius record producer Mike Leander - was much loved not only by teeny-boppers, but by football supporters up and down the country. O what fun we had singing along to this ridiculously catchy song!    
 
Of course, that was then and this is now ... And Glitter's songs are today no longer played on the radio or sung on the terraces and his performances on Top of the Pops no longer shown - we all know why ... [3]
 
Without getting into the whole can we separate art from the artist debate [4], I think that's a shame. And ultimately mistaken. I suppose, push comes to shove, I remain of the Wildean view that there is no such thing as a moral or immoral pop record.     
    
 
Notes
 
[1] Gary Glitter, 'Hello! Hello! I'm Back Again', single release from the album Touch Me (Bell Records, 1973): click here to play. 
      Having said that this is the only great song with hello in the title and/or lyrics, I must obviously also mention Soft Cell's 'Say Hello, Wave Goodbye' (Some Bizzare, 1982): click here. And I have to give a nod to 'Public Image' (Virgin, 1978), the debut single by Public Image Ltd., which opens with Rotten repeating the word hello six times: click here.
 
[2] See the post 'Notes on a Glam-Punk Childhood' (24 July 2018): click here
 
[3] Glitter's career ended after he was imprisoned for downloading child pornography in 1999, and was subsequently convicted of child sexual abuse and attempted rape, in 2006 and 2015, respectively. The fact remains, however, that he is one of the UK's most successful performers, selling over 20 million records, including numerous hit singles (three of which reached number one in the charts). To deny him his place in the pantheon of pop is simply to whitewash our own cultural history. 
 
[4] It's not that this debate isn't philosophically interesting - involving as it does questions concerning ethics and aesthetics - it's just too big and wide-ranging to address here. What I would say is that whilst it's clear that bad people can make good art, it's less certain whether the morally virtuous can produce anything other than mediocre work (at best).      
 
  

15 Oct 2022

The Three Ruperts: Bear, Rigsby & Pupkin

 
 
I. 
 
The modern English name Rupert is a truncation of the Latin Rupertus, which derives from Old High German Hruodoperht (or Hruodoberht), which also happens to be the origin of the name Robert. 
 
Meaning bright with glory, it is a name to be proud of, even if it has today taken on somewhat comical connotations, which is why - as we shall see - it was so suited to Leonard Rossiter's character, Rupert Rigsby, in the seventies TV sit-com Rising Damp; and Robert De Niro's character, Rupert Pupkin, in Scorsese's 1982 film The King of Comedy.    
 
Before discussing the above, however, I want to say a few words about the most famous Rupert of all - no, not Rupert Birkin [1] - but Rupert Bear ...
 
 
II. 
 
As a child, I never much cared for Rupert Bear ...
 
Even if I quite admired his colourful fashion sense - red jumper, bright yellow checked trousers, with a matching yellow scarf - he and his chums were just a bit too boring [2], living at home with their parents in an idyllic English village. No matter how exotic or magical their adventures, the fact was they always began and ended in Nutwood.    
 
However, it was the irritating theme song which opened the 1970s TV series The Adventures of Rupert Bear [3], that really turned me against him: I fucking hated that song - which added an erroneous definite article to the characters name - although the record-buying public obviously didn't share my feelings, as it reached number 14 in the UK charts in 1971 [4].  

Rupert, of course, started life as a comic strip character created by Mary Tourtel, who made his first appearance in the Daily Express in 1920. He soon became very popular and his since gone on to sell millions of books worldwide; the Rupert annual has been published every year since 1936. 
 
And so, like his rival, Paddington Bear - who first appeared on the scene in 1958 (and who I'm not keen on either) - Rupert is firmly entrenched in British popular culture; in September 2020, Royal Mail even issued a set of eight stamps to commemorate his centenary.   
 
Unfortunately, the stamps didn't make reference to the one great scandal that Rupert was involved in; the infamous Oz magazine case which resulted in the editors and publishers being prosecuted for obscenity and put on trial at the Old Bailey in June 1971 [5]
 
 
III.
 
Played (brilliantly) by Leonard Rossiter in Rising Damp - a British sit-com, written by Eric Chappell, which was originally broadcast on ITV from September 1974 until May 1978 - Rigsby's first name was only revealed in one of the final episodes. 
 
In 'Great Expectations' (S4/E3), having agreed to pose as his estranged wife, Miss Jones and Rigsby dress up so as to look the part of a married couple:


Rigsby: "How d'you think I look?"
 
Miss Jones: "Very nice Mr Rigsby - though I can't call you that, what's your first name?"

Rigsby: "Err, we needn't go to those lengths Miss Jones."

Miss Jones: "Mr Rigsby we're supposed to be married, what did she call you?"

Rigsby: "Everything really."

Miss Jones: "No, I mean at the beginning, when she was being affectionate."

Rigsby: "Well, we never went in for endearments very much, not even at the beginning. No, she used to smile quietly at me, put her hand on mine and say: 'Now then ratbag.'"

Miss Jones: "Well I can't call you that. Now what's your name?"
 
Rigsby (embarrassed): "Well, it's a rather silly sort of name".
 
Miss Jones: "What is it?" 

Rigsby (mumbling): "Rupert."

Miss Jones: "Robert?"
 
Rigsby: "Rupert."
 
Miss Jones: "Rupert!"
 
Rigsby: "Yes, Rupert Rigsby."
 
Miss Jones (hiding her face and laughing): "I'm sorry Mr Rigsby, you don't look like a Rupert."
 
Rigsby: "Well of course I don't look like - he's a little wooly bear with trousers and a check scarf, isn't he? That's why I stopped using it."
 
Miss Jones (kindly): "Well I shan't, I think it's a very nice name." [6]

 
As well as being a very funny (and rather touching) scene, it also reminds me of the sixth season episode of Seinfeld in which Kramer's first name - Cosmo - is finaly revealed, much to the amusement of George, Jerry and Elaine [7].

The irony, of course, is that Rigsby isn't bright with glory - as the name Rupert suggests - but seedy with failure. Nevertheless, he's a strangely likeable character; far more so than Basil Fawlty, to whom he is sometimes compared.


IV.
 
Rupert Pupkin, on the other hand, is a far more disturbing character; a struggling stand-up comedian with mental health issues, desperate to get his big break. 
 
Long story short, in The King of Comedy (1982) he kidnaps a famous late-night talk show host, Jerry Langford (played by Jerry Lewis), in an attempt to achieve the notoriety he confuses with stardom. As he tells the FBI agents who arrest him: Better to be a king for a night, than a schmuck for a lifetime. 
 
The film was admired by critics, but poorly received by the public who - at this date - preferred to see De Niro in what they understood to be more serious roles, little appreciating the amount of work he invested in the character of Rupert Pupkin. 
 
The fact that, by the end of the film, it's impossible to tell what was real and what was fantasy, also didn't go down well with moviegoers who, as a rule, like to know what's happening and not have to figure things out for themselves.
 
Further, Rupert Pupkin is a troubling figure because he obliges us as film fans to examine our own behaviour and complicity with celebrity culture. Travis Bickle might shock us - and Max Cady [8] might terrify us - but Rupert Pupkin is the one who unsettles us most.    

Perhaps that's why Scorsese has called De Niro's role as Rupert Pupkin his favourite of all their collaborations ... [9]

  
Notes
 
[1] I have referred to and discussed Rupert Birkin - one of the four central characters of D. H. Lawrence's greatest novel Women in Love (1920) - many times in posts on Torpedo the Ark: click here
 
[2] I make an exception for his peculiar pal Raggety, a woodland troll-like creature made from twigs, who is goes out of his way to be annoying. Sadly, in the 2006 TV revival Raggety was transformed into a friendly tree elf so as not to frighten the children of Gen Z (aka Generation Snowflake). Worse: Rupert is obliged to wear trainers! 
 
[3] The Adventures of Rupert Bear (known as My Little Rupert in the US) was a live-action puppet series, based on the Mary Tourtel character Rupert Bear, produced by ATV. It aired from 28 October 1970 to 24 August 1977 on the ITV network, with 156 11-minute episodes produced over four series, narrated by Judy Bennett. 

[4] Rupert, written by Len Beadle and Ron Roker, was sung by the Irish singer Jackie Lee and released as a single in 1971: click here
      Funny enough, although not a fan of Rupert, I did like the theme song written by Michael Carr and Ben Nisbet for the English language version of the children's TV series White Horses (1968), which was also sung by Jackie Lee (and released as a single in 1968 - reaching number 10 in the UK charts): click here.   

[5] Oz was an underground magazine that flew the flag for the sixties counterculture. The UK version was published from 1967 until 1973, ed. by Richard Neville, a young Australian writer and hippie radical. Issue 28 (May 1970) of Oz was the notorious Schoolkids issue and featured a Rupert cartoon in which he is shown with a large erection and engaging in illicit sexual activity. After initially being found guilty of obscenity and sentenced to harsh jail terms, the magazine's editors were acquitted on appeal. 
      For an interesting recent article by Walker Mimms in The Guardian (4 Aug 2021), discussing how the Oz trial inspired a generation of protest artists, click here
 
[6] This lovely one minute exchange begins at 12:20 in the second episode of series four of Rising Damp. Entitled 'Great Expectations', it aired on 18 April 1978 and was written by Eric Chappell, directed by Joseph McGrath, and starred Leonard Rossiter as Rigsby and Francis de la Tour as Miss Jones. The episode can be found on YouTube, or viewed on Dailymotion by clicking here

[7] See Seinfeld, 'The Switch' [S6/E11], dir. Andy Ackerman, written by Bruce Kirschbaum and Sam Kass. The episode originally aired on 5 Jan 1995. The relevant scenes concerning Kramer's first name can be viewed here
 
[8] Max Cady was the psychopath played by De Niro in the 1991 remake of Cape Fear, also directed by Scorsese. 
 
[9] To watch the original trailer for The King of Comedy (1982), click here


13 Oct 2022

Spooks and Lovers: Halloween With D. H. Lawrence


 
Although - as far as I'm aware - D. H. Lawrence didn't celebrate Halloween, he did write a number of spooky tales with supernatural elements [1] and he had an abiding interest in the occult and things which go bump in the dark. 
 
And so, I thought it might be fun to look at what he writes in nine of his letters (and one postcard) dated the 31st of October ... 
 
 
[31 October 1903] [2]
 
On a postcard sent from Peterborough to his childhood friend Gertrude Cooper, Lawrence writes to say he is safe and sound and that he has been to visit the 12th-century cathedral, famous for its Early English Gothic façade featuring three large arches.
 
However, Lawrence will increasingly grow disillusioned with monumental religious architecture and reach the stage where he is weary of huge stone erections In other words, he will come to believe in the ruins [3] and will, like Deleuze and Guattari, seek to release desire from all that overcodes it, rejecting the myth of wholeness or completion [4]
 
And that is one of the reasons I so admire Lawrence as a writer: because he anticipates both punk and poststructuralism. 
 
 
[31 October 1913] [5]
 
In a letter to Henry Savage - a minor literary figure who had written a positive review of Lawrence's first novel The White Peacock (1911) - Lawrence sets forth his view that what women fundamentally want is sexual satisfaction:
 
"A man may bring her his laurel wreaths and songs and what not, but if that man doesn't satisfy her, in some undeniable physical fashion - then in one way or other she takes him in her mouth and shakes him like a cat a mouse, and throws him away. She is not to be caught by any of the catch-words, love, beauty, honour, duty, worth, work, salvation - none of them - not in the long run."
 
In other words - and in the long run - she simply desires a good fucking; a fairly conventional view which Lawrence holds too for the rest of his life. Less conventional, however, is the claim (and confession) that follows: "And an artist - a poet - is like a woman in that he too must have this satisfaction. [...] He must get his bodily and spiritual want satisfied [...]
 
Is it just me, or is there not an ambiguity to this sentence which invites a kinky interpretation ...? (Some readers might recall that I've written before on Lawrence's autogynephilia, his perverse tendency to be sexually aroused by the thought of himself as a woman being penetrated by a large cock: click here.)   
 
In this same long letter, written from Italy, Lawrence also admits that whilst he dislikes Charles Dickens for his mid-Victorian moralising, he's jealous of his characters. 
 
He closes, in typical Lawrence fashion, by requesting some books, giving an update on his health - he has a rotten bad cold - and by admitting that he wishes he had some money, so needn't work. 
 
 
31 October 1914 [6]

In a rather sweet note to his Russian friend S. S. Koteliansky, Lawrence asks the latter if he can do him a favour next time he's in Soho:
 
"I saw a necklace I wanted to buy for Frieda. It is in a shop almost at the south end of Wardour St near Leicester Square [...] a second hand jeweller's - a necklace of lapis lazuli set in little white enamel clasps - costs 30/- It hangs up at eye level near the doorway. I send you a cheque. If you find the necklace, please buy it me - round beads of lapis lazuli - you can't mistake it - marked 30/-"
 
Just to be on the safe side, Lawrence even enclosed  a sketch of the necklace. However, unsure of Kot's ability to locate the piece - despite his detailed description and drawing - he then adds a PS to the letter: "If you don't find it you can give me back the cheque."
 
I suppose that's fair enough - 30 bob might not sound like much, but it would be about £190 today and the averge coal miner in 1914 would only expect to earn about 9 shillings per daily shift. 
 
Lawrence, of course, had a thing for lapis lazuli - he had once given a piece to the poet Hilda Doolittle (or H.D. as she was known) and readers might also recall that Hermione smashes Birkin's skull with a beautiful crystal ball made of such [7].    
 
 
31 October 1916 [8]
 
Lawrence is in Cornwall and has just finished writing his latest novel, Women in Love. Along with a letter to his literary agent, J. B. Pinker, Lawrence encloses the final part of his manuscript - "all but the last chapter, which, being a sort of epilogue, I want to write later".   
 
He also encloses the short story called 'The Mortal Coil', which he is clearly proud of, although not optimistic about its commercial prospects:
 
"It is a first-class story, one of my purest creations, but not destined I fear, like the holy in the hymn, to land On the Golden Strand [...] I really grieve when I send you still another unmarketable wretch of fiction. But bear with me. I will write sweet simple tales yet."  
 
Poor Lawrence! Always hoping to strike it rich with his writing and find the philosopher's stone, if only so that he can escape to sunnier climes and find better health: "I am tired of being unwell in England." 
 
 
[31 October 1919] [9]
 
It would, however, be three years later before Lawrence was finally able to leave England and head south once more: in a letter to Martin Secker expressing his concern about the Women in Love manuscript which has been sent to the US, Lawrence also adds: "I shall be in [London] Monday, preparatory to going off for Italy". 
 
He left London on 14 November: to Turin via Paris on the train and then on to Florence (via Spezia). 
 
Unfortunately, poor health and money worries continue to dog him no matter where he travels, although at times Lawrence affirms his sickness - better than a bourgeois model of good health - and his poverty; for it is preferable, he says, to sit still on a large rock than ride in the car of a multi-millionaire.   


[31 October 1921] [10]

In a Halloween letter sent from Sicily to his literary agent Robert Mountsier, Lawrence says he's thinking of heading out West and trying his luck in the New World: "What's the good of Europe, anyhow?"
 
It was a particularly busy period for Lawrence as a writer:  
 
(i) Sea and Sardinia was about to be published, as well as the poetry collection Tortoises ...
 
(ii) he was rewriting some old short stories and finishing his novella 'The Captain's Doll' ...
 
(iii) Fantasia of the Unconscious had just been sent off to his American publisher ...
 
(iv) he was also busy working on Mr Noon, although he confessed that he didn't know whether he'd actually finish writing the novel: "I get so annoyed with everybody that I don't want to tackle any really serious work. To hell with them all. Miserable world of canaille."
 
Interestingly, this letter also gives us an insight into D. H. Lawrence the wine connoisseur:
 
"We have been trying the new Fontana Vecchia wine: though it shouldn't be tried till November 11th - I don't very much like it - it's going to be rough. I'm glad I had a barrel of last year's from the Vigna Sagnoula." [11]
 
 
31 October 1922 [12]   

The following year, on the same date, Lawrence again wrote to Robert Mountsier ... 
 
He was now in Taos, New Mexico, and thinking of moving into the ranch that Mabel Sterne was offering him and Frieda; somewhere they could they finally call home and make a real life together.  

Having already invited a friend of Mabel's - Bessie Freeman - to come and live with them, Lawrence now invited his literary agent to do the same:
 
"M.S. has got a ranch, 180 acres, on Rockies foothills, about 20 miles away, wild. We went there today. It is very lovely. There are two rather poor little houses [...] all rather abandoned. But we think of going there either this week or next, to try it. If we find it possible, move in there. The ranch is utterly abandoned now, so it will be a good thing for it to have somebody there. If we go, come there with us, and we'll make a life. [...] It's a wonderful place, with the world at your feet and the mountains at your back, and pine-trees. [...] You'd have one of the houses: they almost adjoin. We'd have to get a few repairs done."

Obviously, being neither impetuous nor insane, Mountsier wasn't tempted by this offer. 
 
And one might have imagined that after his experience in Cornwall with Mansfield and Murry, Lawrence would have abandoned plans for communal living, but apparently not; as he said in a letter to Koteliansky from this period, his idea had been sound, but the people invited to build Rananim were not up to the task [13] - which is the bitter conclusion that all utopian dreamers reach.  
 
 
[31 October 1925] [14]
 
And speaking of Jack Murry ... Lawrence wrote to him on Halloween in 1925, whilst staying at his mother-in-law's, on the edge of the Black Forest, which he loved, but always found somewhat spooky; like something from a dream (or nightmare). 
 
Although obviously a little bored and wishing he'd gone to Paris instead, he nevertheless offers the following observation on Germany at the time:
 
"Just the same here - very quiet and unemerged: my mother-in-law older, noticeably. I make my bows and play whist [...] Titles still in full swing here, but nothing else. No foreigners [...] and the peasants still peasants, with a bit of the eternal earth-to-earth quality that is so lost in England. Rather like a still sleep, with frail dreams."  
 
Murry by this stage regarded himself as a radical Christian - he would publish his Life of Jesus the following year - but Lawrence doesn't have much time for this:
 
"Don't you see, there still has to be a Creator? Jesus is not the Creator, even of himself. And we have to go on being created. By the Creator. More important to me than Jesus. But of course God-the Father, the Dieu-Père, is a bore. Jesus is as far as one can go with god, anthropomorphically. After that, no more anthropos." 
 
And that's the Lawrence which the pagan me still loves: anti-Christian (or, at the very least, post-Christian) and in search of queer, inhuman gods who inhabit the outer (and inner) darkness ...
 
  
31 October 1927 [15]

Not the best of days for poor Lawrence. He wrote to Koteliansky:
 
"Altogether the world is depressing - and I feel rather depressed. My bronchials are such a nuisance, and I don't feel myself at all. I'm not very happy here [Florence], and I don't know where else to go, and have not much money to go anywhere - I feel I don't want to work -  don't want to do a thing at all the life gone out of me. Yet how can I sit in this empty place and see nobody and do nothing! It's a limit! I'll have to make a change somehow or other - but don't know how."
 
And as he wrote to the German writer Max Mohr:
 
"I unfortunately can't yet promise to dance - my bronchials and my cough are still a nuisance. But I want so much to be able to dance again. And I think if we went somewhere really amusing, I should quickly be well. My cough, like your restlessness, is a good deal psychological in its origin, and a real change might cure us both. The sun shines here, but the mornings are foggy. And I no longer love Italy very much - it seems to me a stupid country."
 
Oh dear, when one falls out of love with Italy that's not a good sign ...


31 October 1928 [16]
 
Lawrence's final Halloween letter was again written to Koteliansky. 
 
In it, whilst still feeling poorly - this time with Italian flu given to him by Frieda - Lawrence sounds much perkier than a year ago; more full of fight and ready to take on the British press and customs officials who are united in their opposition to Lady Chatterley's Lover (which had been printed privately in Italy ealier that year).   

"What fools altogether!", writes Lawrence. "How bored one gets by endless mob-stupidity."

Lawrence is holed up on the tiny French island of Port-Cros; only four miles across and covered in pine trees; there's a hotel, a port, and a handful of houses. Nevertheless, Lawrence says that, were it not for his cold, he should like it: "I feel very indifferent to almost everything."
 
Interestingly, that's not something one expects to hear from Lawrence, who often contrasts indifference negatively with insouciance, arguing that whereas the latter is a refusal to be made anxious by idealists gripped by a moral compulsion to care, the former, indifference, is an inability to care resulting from a certain instinctive-intuitive numbness (often as a consequence of having cared too much about the wrong thing in the past) [17].
 
Of course, this is just another false dichotomy. At any rate, I'm quite happy to view indifference more positively (within a transpolitical context, for example).
 
 
Notes
 
[1] Perhaps the best known of these tales is 'The Rocking Horse Winner', which can be found in The Woman Who Rode Away and Other Stories, ed. Dieter Mehl and Christa Jansohn, (Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 230-244. My take on this story can be found here.
 
[2]  D. H. Lawrence, letter to Gertrude Cooper, [31 Oct 1903], in The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. I, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 1979), p. 23.
 
[3] See The Rainbow, ed. Mark Kinkead-Weekes, (Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 188-91, where Lawrence writes of Anna's experience of Lincoln Cathedral and see 'Sketches of Etruscan Places', in Sketches of Etruscan Places and Other Italian Essays, ed. Simonetta de Filippis, (Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 32-33, where he writes in favour of small wooden temples rather than enormous stone buildings. I have discussed this material in the post entitled 'Believe in the Ruins' (16 April 2019): click here.
 
[4] See Deleuze and Guattari; Anti-Oedipus, trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane, (University of Minnesota Press, 1983), p. 41, where they write in favour of partial objects, fragments, and heterogenous bits, rather than any kind of totality. 

[5] D. H. Lawrence, letter to Henry Savage, [31 Oct 1913], in The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. II, ed. George J. Zytaruk and James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 94-96
 
[6] D. H. Lawrence, letter to S. S. Koteliansky, 31 Oct 1914, in The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. II, p. 228.    
 
[7] See Women in Love, ed. David Farmer, Lindeth Vasey and John Worthen, (Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 105. Hermione uses the ball as a paperweight, when not using it as a weapon. 
 
[8] D. H. Lawrence, letter to J. B. Pinker, 31 Oct 1916, in The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. II, pp. 669-670.    
 
[9] D. H. Lawrence, letter to Martin Secker, [31 Oct 1919], in The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. III, ed. James T. Boulton and Andrew Robertson, (Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 408. 
 
[10] D. H. Lawrence, letter to Robert Mountsier, [31 Oct 1921], The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. IV, ed. Warren Roberts, James T. Boulton and Elizabeth Mansfield, (Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 106-108. 
 
[11] To describe a wine as rough means that it has a coarse texture. It would usually refer to a young tannic red wine, before it has had time to soften or round out.  
 
[12] D. H. Lawrence, letter to Robert Mountsier, [31 Oct 1922], The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. IV, p. 334.
 
[13] In 1916, Lawrence invited Katherine Mansfield and John Middleton Murry to come and live in a cottage next door to him and his wife Frieda, in Zennor, near St. Ives; a tiny place, near the moors, full of black rocks, and overlooking the sea. 
      The idea was to establish an artists' colony or commune of some kind, that Lawrence wanted to name Rananim. Of course, it soon led to tension and conflict and ended in tears and tantrums.
 
[14] D. H. Lawrence, letter to John Middleton Murry, [31 Oct 1925], The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. V, ed. James T. Boulton and Lindeth Vasey, (Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 328.
 
[15] D. H. Lawrence, letters to S. S. Koteliansky and Max Mohr, 31 Oct 1927, The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. VI, ed. James T. Boulton and Margaret H. Boulton with Gerald M. Lacy, (Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 203- 205. 
 
[16] D. H. Lawrence, letter to S. S. Koteliansky, 31 Oct 1928, The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. VI, p. 604. 
 
[17] Readers who are interested in this might like to see the post entitled 'Dandelion' (10 Dec 2015) which addresses the question of care in the thought of D. H. Lawrence: click here.  


10 Oct 2022

Loony Tunes

Clockwise from top left: 
Haywire Mac / Napoleon XIV / Jaz Coleman / Siouxsie Sioux
 
 
There are almost as many songs about being mad or going insane as there are about falling in love; so many in fact, that attempting to compile a full and definitive list of such would probably drive you crazy. This, therefore, is simply a short post in which I discuss a few of my favourite songs on the subject. 
 
I'm not saying they're the best four songs ever recorded to do with madness, but they are the ones that have most struck a chord with me. Note that they're arranged by release date and not in order of preference.
 
 
'Aint We Crazy?' by Harry McClintock (aka Haywire Mac) (Victor, 1928): click here to play.
 
"Ain't we crazy, ain't we crazy / This is the way we pass the time away  
Ain't we crazy, ain't we crazy / We're going to sing this song all night today."
 
Malcolm McLaren dedicated his 1983 album Duck Rock to Haywire Mac and insisted that I get hold of Hallelujah! I'm a Bum, (Rounder Records, 1981), a remastered compilation of some of McClintock's greatest songs - including 'Ain't We Crazy?' and 'The Big Rock Candy Mountain', for which he is probably best remembered today [1].
 
'Ain't We Crazy?' is a type of nonsense song, in which the singer is the kind of anti-Socratic hero whom Roland Barthes celebrates; i.e., a figure who abolishes within himself all fear of being branded a madman via an amusing disregard for that old spectre: logical contradiction [2]:
 
It was midnight on the ocean, not a streetcar was in sight 
And the sun was shining brightly, for it rained all day that night 
'Twas a summer night in winter, and the rain was snowing fast
And a barefoot boy with shoes on stood a-sitting in the grass.
 
Such a man, as Barthes says, would be the mockery of our society, which subscribes to a psychology of consistency and says firmly that you can't have your cake and eat it
 
 
'They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!', single by Napoleon XIV (Warner Bros. Records, 1966): click here to play.
 
"They're coming to take me away, ha-ha! / They're coming to take me away, ho-ho, hee-hee, ha-ha! 
To the funny farm / Where life is beautiful all the time ..."
 
Written and performed by Jerry Samuels (aka Napoleon XIV), this curious record was an instant smash in the US and UK and I loved to sing it to amuse myself and entertain friends as a child [3].
 
However, I very much doubt it would be made, released, or played today, living as we are in an era that is far more sensitive to issues surrounding mental health. Indeed, even at the time several radio stations stopped playing the song in response to complaints about its content. Predictably, the BBC also refused to play the record.  

The joke reveal at the end of the song is that it is not a departed lover who has caused the song's narrator to lose his mind, but a runaway dog ... 
 
 
'Happy House', by Siouxsie and the Banshees, single release from the album Kaleidoscope (Polydor, 1980): click here to play.
 
"This is the happy house / We're happy here in the happy house [...] 
It's safe and calm if you sing along ..." 
 
I was never a big Banshees fan, but I used to love to hear this song on the radio back in the day and as it was a Top 20 hit - peaking at number 17 in the UK Singles Chart - one heard it fairly often.    
 
I assumed at the time that the title was a synonym for an insane asylum - like funny farm, or loony bin - but later read in an interview with Siouxsie - who wrote the song with Steve Severin [4] - that, actually, it refers to a conventional family setting; to home, sweet home and the madness that unfolds therein beneath the veneer of normality and domestic bliss. 
 
It's interesting to note that the follow-up single, 'Christine' (released in May 1980 and also taken from Kaleidoscope), again dealt with the theme of madness; the lyrics being inspired by the story of a woman who reportedly had 22 different (often conflicting) personalities [5] - which explains why she is referred to in the song as a banana split lady (i.e., it has nothing to do with her having a sweet tooth).
 
 
'Madness', by Killing Joke, track 6 on the album What's THIS For ...! (E. G. / Polydor Records, 1981): click here to play the 2005 digitally remastered version.  
 
"This is madness / This is madness / This is madness / This is madness / This is madness ..." 
 
This track, despite the title, isn't actually about madness in general, but, rather, about Christianity as a very specific form of religious mania; the product of sick minds in which there is a need to believe in a dead God and life itself is interpreted as a sin. 
 
It is, if I'm honest, quite a challenging listen and will appeal only to a few. But then, as Nietzsche might say, to appreciate this track, the listener must be honest to the point of hardness so as to be able to endure the seriousness and intensity of Jaz Coleman's passion [6].

 
Th-th-th-th-that's all folks! [7]


Notes
 
[1] One of the very earliest posts on Torpedo the Ark - 5 May 2013 - was on Haywire Mac and his hobo vision of an earthly paradise (i.e., the Big Rock Candy Mountain): click here
 
[2] See Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text, trans. Richard Miller, (Hill and Wang, 1998), p. 3.
 
[3] The song was re-released in 1973, when I was ten-years-old, and that's probably when I remember it from - not 1966, when I was still singing nursery rhymes. However, I was a fan of at least one pop song released in that year; 'Yellow Submarine' by the Beatles.
 
[4] Guitarist John McGeoch (previously of Magazine) and drummer Budgie (previously of the Slits) also play no small part in creating the distinctive and atmospheric (post-punk) sound that makes this track so unforgettable.
 
[5] Christine Sizemore (née Costner) was an American woman who, in the 1950s, was diagnosed with what was then termed multiple personality disorder, but which is now known as dissociative identity disorder. Her case was depicted in the book The Three Faces of Eve (1957), written by her psychiatrists, Corbett H. Thigpen and Hervey M. Cleckley. The film of the that name, directed by Nunally Johnson and starring Joanne Woodward, was based on this work. Readers interested in hearing the track 'Christine', by Siouxsie and the Banshees, can click here
 
[6] I'm paraphrasing from Nietzsche's Preface to The Anti-Christ (1888).
 
[7] I have borrowed this closing phrase and title for the post from the animated short film series produced by Warner Bros. between the years 1930 and 1969, starring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, et al
      Readers might be interested to know that the famous Loony Tunes theme was actually based on a crazy-sounding love song written in 1937 by Cliff Friend and Dave Franklin entitled 'The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down': click here for the version by the American jazz pianist and bandleader Eddy Duchin, with Lew Sherwood on vocals. And for an additional treat, courtesy of Larry David, click here.
 

8 Oct 2022

Black Daisies for Lorrie Millington (Or One Flew Over the Duck's Nest)

 
"I remember nights when we were young / They weren't very good they were rubbish   
Running round Highroyds isn't fun / Just teenagers testing their courage" [1] 
 
 
I.
 
Exactly 134 years ago today - the 8th of October, 1888 - High Royds Hospital was opened on the 300-acre estate that had been purchased three years earlier just south of the village of Menston, in West Yorkshire, approximately 11 miles from Leeds. 
 
The large stone complex, designed by J. Vickers Edwards in the High Gothic style that many Victorian architects favoured, was built to house those individuals who had the misfortune to be both poor and insane - as indicated by its original name of the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum. 
 
High Royds was intended to be a self-contained and self-sufficient community; there were in-house butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers and there was also a cobbler's workshop, a dairy, and a farm-cum-market garden. 
 
Patients were expected - if able - to earn their own keep by providing labour, either on the farm, in the kitchens, or in the laundry room. They were also encouraged to learn various handicrafts, such as basket weaving, or make use of the extensive library.
 
In other words, it was the sort of place that Michel Foucault writes of in Madness and Civilization, his classic study of insanity in the Age of Reason [2]. And it was to become the sort of place that depraved sexual predator Jimmy Saville loved to visit [3]
 
The administration building, which is now Grade II listed, features a beautiful Italian mosaic floor in the main corridor, intricately decorated with the white Yorkshire Rose and - somewhat macabrely - black daisies [4].  
 
 
II.
 
Some of you might be asking at this point what any of this has to do with me ... 
 
Well, it just so happens, that I spent some time at High Royds in 1984 - not as a patient (fortunately), but as a visitor to my quasi-girlfriend Lorrie Millington [5], who was, unfortunately, confined there for two-and-a-half months.   
 
Anyway, for those who are interested, here are excerpts from several diary entries written at the time:
 
 
Monday 30 January, 1984
 
Received a letter from Lorrie. It turns out the reason I hadn't heard from or seen her around town lately is because she's been banged up in a mental hospital for the past three weeks! Happily, she says she's recovering, but still has to take a lot of pills (for epilepsy and various other things). 
      In the evening, I telephoned the hospital - High Royds - and asked to speak to her. After some initial confusion - it turns out her surname is Gatford, not Millington - they put her on the line. It was great to hear her voice and she sounded well. I think she was happy to hear from me, too; asked if I would visit her tomorrow and I agreed. I do hope she's going to be okay and can get out of the hospital soon. Very much looking forward to seeing her. 
 
Tuesday 31 January, 1984    
 
Having agreed to get to the hospital at 6-ish, I was obliged to skip yet another lecture.
      Bought some tulips for Lorrie en route; no idea if that's appropriate when visiting a patient in an asylum, but surely no one can object to flowers -? They might make you sneeze if you're allergic to pollen, I suppose, but unlikely to trigger a psychotic episode (though, having said that, one thinks of Vincent and his sunflowers). Just to be on the safe side, also got her some chocolates (After Eights). 
      The 731 bus took me straight to High Royds. Forbidding place - it took me ten minutes to find the entrance (and another five minutes to find the courage to pass through it). Couldn't help wondering how easy it would be to escape if ever confined in such an institution. Inside there were patients and staff wandering around - not sure who made me feel the most uneasy. 
      Found Lorrie - and she looked well, though very different with her natural hair colour. She didn't approve of the fact I'd recently dyed my hair orange, but she did appreciate the flowers and chocolates. Drank tea and chatted for three hours. She has such a lovely voice and soft accent; find it very sexy. Funny enough, she was probably more coherent than I've ever known her. Maybe we should all have a stay at a happy house! Kissed her goodbye and agreed to visit again soon.    
        
Thursday 2 February, 1984
 
Back to High Royds. Found Lorrie sitting with Keith, one of the people she shares a house with [6]. He's okay, but a bit quiet and uninspiring; always dressed in all black and likes indie music. Don't think he appreciated my being there, but fuck 'im, as they say; he's not her boyfriend after all ...? 
      Lorrie looked good, but was far more manic this evening. Before leaving, she insisted that I take some photos of her - and made Keith take one of me and her together. As well as the pics, I also took a greatest hits album by Rolf Harris that was lying around the recreation room. When I got home, sat playing that until after midnight ... 'Two Little Boys', 'Tie Me Kangaroo Down', 'Jake the Peg', etc. Not sure these are the kind of songs that assist with mental well being, so convinced myself I had done a good thing by stealing it from the hospital.                
 
Tuesday 7 February, 1984 
 
On an absolutely freezing evening, made my way once more to High Royds. Keith was there again, but soon left. I respect the fact that he visits Lorrie regularly (maybe he is her boyfriend).
      Lorrie was in a bad mood, but insisted on going to a disco event that was being held for patients. That was certainly an experience - literally a lunatics ball! Deeply disturbing, although it made Lorrie laugh when someone came up to me and made violent stabbing gestures in my direction with both fists. A member of staff assured me that he was only doing the monster mash!
      Back on the ward, Lorrie was much more loving. She's desperate to leave the hospital now and I don't blame her. But I'm not confident they'll discharge her at the end of this week as she hopes; experience has taught me to never trust what doctors say. Went home feeling depressed and - as much as I want to continue seeing and supporting Miss Millington - not sure I can face going back to High Royds [7].   
 

High Royds Hospital (2 Feb 1984)


Notes
 
[1] These lines form the first verse of the song 'Highroyds' by the Kaiser Chiefs, an indie rock band from Leeds. The track can be found on the album Yours Truly, Angry Mob, (B-Unique Records, 2007). Three members of the group - Nick Hodgson, Nick Baines and Simon Rix - used to attend a school that was opposite High Royds Hospital. The lyrics, written by Ricky Wilson and Andrew White, are © Universal Music Publishing Group. Click here to play.
 
[2] This work - translated into an abridged English edition by Richard Howard in 1964 - was originally published as Folie et Déraison: Histoire de la folie à l'âge classique in 1961. 
      Foucault traces the rise of the modern asylum in which those designated as crazy are confined under the supervision of medical professionals, so as to be studied and subjected to therapeutic procedures in an attempt to cure them of their illness (whilst also protecting the society from which they were removed).
      Although seemingly more enlightened and compassionate in the clinical treatment of insane people, Foucault shows how the modern mental hospital nevertheless remained as cruel and controlling as any other institution established and run on similar lines - be it a boarding school, a workhouse, or a prison.  
 
[3] The official report into the Saville case reveals that he did in fact commit an act of sexual assault at High Royds Hospital in the 1980s, during a fancy dress fun run. It has also been alleged that he groped patients and members of staff on other occasions.
 
[4] These fleurs du mal provided inspiration for the title of Tony Harrison's 1993 screenplay Black Daisies for the Bride - a beautiful but disturbing work using verse and song to examine the lives of three women coping with Alzheimer's. The work was filmed in High Royds (dir. Peter Symes) and shown on BBC Two in 1994: click here to watch on YouTube via the High Royds Hospital digital archive.       

[5] I have written of Lorraine Millington (aka Lori Gatford) several times on Torpedo the Ark; see here, for example, or, more recently, here
 
[6] Keith Gregory went on to become the bass guitarist in The Wedding Present, a band he formed with vocalist and guitarist Dave Gedge in 1985 and who I tried (unsuccessfully) to get signed to Charisma Records (I was informed their jangly guitar sound was passé ... the band, however, went on to have 18 Top 40 hits).    
 
[7] As a matter of fact, I made three more visits to see Lorrie at the hospital - Tuesday 14 February, Thursday 1 March, and Thursday 15 March - before she was finally discharged on Monday 19th of March, 1984. 
 
 
High Royds Hospital 
(as I still see it in my nightmares)
       
 
Afternote: Readers might be interested to know that, following numerous complaints about conditions at the hospital, High Royds was eventually deemed unfit for purpose (i.e., no longer  able to provide proper care); this was acknowledged by the chief executive of Leeds Mental Health in 1999. After services were transferred to other hospitals, High Royds closed in 2003. It has since been converted into a residential development called Chevin Park.