No eye deer

Saturday. Snowing, cold. Staying in, apart from a quick trip out to buy provisions. What to do? Ah. Nothing can surpass twatting about with words for a quality distraction.

A Void, a magical book, originally and in translation, sought to avoid all invocation of a particular ‘prop of traditional syntax’, that which has its station with d and f at hand. In holding to its author’s constraints, it displays ‘linguistic virtuosity’, according to its bumph. For any fan of words, it is a publication worth noting, with fun, laughs, drama, and a scratching of scalps a distinct possibility.

In addition, it shows how taxing it is to any trying to copy its craft. It occurs to this aspirant wordsmith that his own work could stand polishing to such a high standard, on occasion. How difficult though! But how thrilling also to try, for a wordy sort. A stimulating inquisition of all skills that an author might hold! And so forth.

An additional Book, by Alan Watts, points us (‘us’ caring about such things, ‘us’ that honour scanning paragraphs, gazing upon word strings: us bookworms) at an intriguing conundrum arising in linguistics. In talking about dividing things into distinct parts, and its basic futility, Watts has an opportunity to imply that linguistics (particularly an Anglo-Saxon idiom) is:

full of spooks, such as “it” in “It is raining”…

His point, possibly, is that ‘raining’ should do. What is ‘it’? (“It’s it!” obviously).

A final bit of play: try avoiding primary pronouns also. Just for a day or so, do not allow that short, singular indication of individuality to pass your lips. Try to work around it. Stop waffling. Hungry? Simply say “Ah, food now.” Will that do? Possibly. Tough? It is diabolically imposing. But, an intriguing way to start changing round ways of thinking.

Although Watts was drawing on fashions of thought common to his days, holistic forms and so on, much of what is said in his book holds in 2013, at which point this writing is going on, in this author’s opinion.

So, what prompts such activity? This past fortnight saw words brought into publication by various sorts, on occasion paid for work, but much of it, mostly, rightly indignant back-chat from blogs and social forums. In short – and that is not to imply any diminishing of important affairs forming part of this back-and-forth, but to avoid wading again through commonly-known information – what was said was flippant and unthinking, unwitting, but to many ‘transphobic’. It was not a winning combination. A lack of apology from OP was inflaming a situation; attack hack Burchill wading in with customary unwitting, or fuckwitting, lack of tact; cuing continuous arguing, arguing, arguing. No gains, arguably, just barricading and dug-in thinking.

A maxim: do not go to Burchill anticipating impartiality or actual cogitation. Burchillian (Daily Mailish) writing is bombastic approximation, talking in a broad way with a lack of any thought as to its impact on individuals. Why sustain a voluntary affliction? “It’s shit, walk away,” as Bill Hicks might say.

And, ‘say good things or do not say things,’ as Yoda might say… finish of story, is it not? As a fact, though, just saying this is to start imposing what things humans can say, which is asking for anguish. But, ‘post-Burchill’ (snurk), many did do this. This antiphon was fascinating to catch sight of.

The projection of academic ideology on to minorities and marginalised groups, in denial of their own lived experience, is the very thing that feminists have been battling for centuries.

As quotation calls for invocation of prior-said syntactical prop, with no possibility of avoiding it, short of not quoting, sorry. Anyway, although outwardly aiming at ‘popular’ journalists, this point must apply also to thinking that claims to hold this journalism to account. By this, signifying authors who ‘call out’ Burchill and company.

An important part of this apt illustration is a notion of intruding. On both occasions so far that Mortal Bath’s author was at uni, it (voguish study) was all about no words having particular priority, or all words having similar priority, or both, a mix. Taking apart word formations and showing that, in all constructions, avoiding particular ways of thinking is formidably difficult, or painful, comparably. In fact, going as far as saying humanity is caging humanity with words, linking linguistic chains about its own wrists.

What is discomfiting about disputation to which this author is alluding is that much of it is not only an intrusion, but a circumlocution, a gassy arguing of connotations advancing nothing. Word juggling. Partly, slapping on ‘phobic’ as a suffix only prompts bristling – rightly or wrongly, but it is confrontational, in a way that might not start an optimistic discussion but maintain a war.

How about implications of possibly difficult, unfamiliar words (to “Joanna Public”) such as ‘cisnormativity’? Sorry, what? That is confusing for an author with a liking for thinking that coins original (buzz)words, who has a First Class MA in lit, to blow a farty horn of scholastic fury signifying nothing. Prior to sampling intriguing columns as wrought by an ‘angry woman’, say, a word such as ‘cis-’, indicating an individual’s biology aligning with that individual’s social construct of ‘man’ or ‘woman’ (or both, a mix, or not), was an unknown, to this author. Always glad to add to his vocabulary and familiarity with original notions, and quizzing own norms is axiomatic also, so, thanks for that.

But, partly, what is driving this writing today is a wanting to withdraw from such constrictions, from impositions and contra-impositions, from word juggling that is not about play but about malignant magic mind control, imposing thoughts on humans. “Not just him, you too, dig?” Importantly, in fighting subjugation, anticipating and fighting subjugation, again, to modish ways of thinking. Humans might say that all that is wanting on occasion is anybody to hark, to pay mind, in tranquillity, not just hold out ‘solutions’, or to add on classifications. Saying ‘Such-and-such is cis-’or trans-anything is as ludicrous as saying ‘Such-and-such is Aquarius’. It is ‘is’ that stands gloating, confining all to its own box. ‘Damn cyclists!’ ‘Stupid non-cyclists!’ Shaking fists across an imaginary gulf. Is that it, truly? It is not clarifying, just adding strata of tagging.

Naturally (if words occur ‘naturally’… a figuration), it is vital that in disputing phrasing such as this an author avoids falling into a trap of appropriating linguistic ways of approaching structural domination by such-and-such a group and making a particular word array sound as if it is unimportant, or daft. That is not what this bunch of words is trying to do. As humans try to bring solutions to misogyny (or misandry) into play, common ways of phrasing must follow, or no grasp of what is going on can form.

BUT, and it is a big but (ha ha)… …in a world of taxonomical tyranny – patriarchal, matriarchal, or from transhuman archons, for all that – taxonomical diminution of humans into opposing or linking groups, almost as in a maths diagram, in as good or bad a faith as it may occur, cannot assist anything. Arguably, it is only additional dividing, amplifying an atomisation – particularly financial, social, but all to do with squashing human passion – that is, stupidly, so much a part of living in this world today. Maintaining ‘us’ and ‘not-us’ group thinking, particularly if its actual aim is inclusivity, is a major fault, ground cracks amid us all.

It should stand that Mortal Bath supports fully Stav’s convictions and aims at solidarity against structural subjugation of humans, as far this follows Stav’s aims and writing without misconstruing. And an apology, this instant, if this formal syntactical constraint, occasioning short-form dubbing of ‘Stav’, imparts lack of admiration. Fandom is what brung it all out, straight up. This is not trolling, although it is a bit whimsical in layout, nor at all aiming to railroad a discussion from its important ambitions, particularly not as such actions might bring on high-quality acidic insults, linking this author with syphilitic warts… although that is highly comic.

Concluding, following that long and winding road, this is about an individual’s caution in approaching kinds of linguistic filtration, which is an optical glass or straining analogy. Sharing a small rock in a big cosmos, it is crucial that humans work on compassion, solidarity and at bottom having sympathy for what all humans might go through in day-to-day activity. It is crucial also, though, that humans quiz programming of all kinds. Within limits, naturally (again ‘naturally’), this author posits that using argot obstruct this.

Although fun, basically, mainly, words can also just fuck things up.

Now, a proposal: that humans stop talking and start dancing.

 

Stop! Or I’ll… wait!

A diverting article about CyberCity, helpfully explained in the URL at fastcoexist as a-tiny-city-built-to-be-destroyed-by-cyber-terrorists-so-real-cities-know-whats-coming. This was drawn to my attention by Bruce Sterling’s Beyond the Beyond blog at Wired.

I’ve been enjoying lots of Fringe on DVD recently, so it’s all about the cybergeddon at the minute. And, here in this reality, it’s intriguing to consider the need for such a project, never mind the whimsical toytown apocalypse aspects. However, I couldn’t help but giggle at the implications of this sentence:

“In another scenario, students must figure out how to simultaneously turn all of the traffic lights in town red, to halt the escape of terrorists fleeing the city.”

I presume the intent in this scenario is just to snarl up traffic, but I enjoyed the idea of an escaping terrorist sitting at red lights, drumming their fingers on the steering wheel, perhaps murmuring an uneasy ‘Come on!” and checking their watch, as hackers high-five each other in the bunker.

Next in my brain: Frank Zappa.

And it’s over there…

 

Key words

The BBC provides a comment piece, 2012′s pre-Pre-Budget Report report (“The Autumn Statement”).

In it, James Landale begins by wafting allusively at words by “Hilaire Belloc and the Mötley Crüe.” Belloc’s hapless Jim, who ran away from his nurse and was eaten by a lion, represents Conservative/Lib Dem policies. Labour/Mötley Crüe suggest it is ‘time for change’. The James Landale asserts that:

“It is through this prism that the politics of George Osborne’s Autumn Statement should be viewed.”

Somewhat disappointingly, the prismatic humorous verse/hair metal analogy is not sustained beyond the opening paragraphs. Indeed, sadly, there is precious little humour or rockin’.

The article is perhaps an attempt at aping the Daily Mail school of ‘New Rihanna Bum Outrage’ hit maximisation through extensive and (mis)leading headlines, URLs and carefully captioned images. Such cheap ploys are surely the mark only of desperate attention hounds.

RiRi feels bum underwear stage etc etc etc

Whatever the point was, aside from that, the James Landale commits a schoolboy error in assigning Mötley Crüe an unnecessary definite article. AND their first single was ‘Stick To Your Guns’. If you’re going to draw on stuff outside the ‘proper’ frame of reference to make a point, at least develop it properly.

A shame, then, the James Landale. A missed opportunity. It would be great if ‘serious’ commentators went absurdly pop-lit for no good reason all the time. I would find this sort of approach to political discourse much more agreeable.

One might look forward to future op. eds. such as Nick Robinson’s “Trident II: Stanley Holloway or the Iron Maiden?”

What, waste all our lives raising children? To feed ruddy lions? Not me!

 

Readers’ indigestion

As BenSix at Back Towards the Locus observes:

Our earnestness and energy is not, in many cases, produced by events but applied to them when it befits our whims and prejudices

Back to school, busy planning, getting to know the classes, etc, I’m not making as much time to post here as I’d like. However, BTTL and the article by Norman Geras to which he linked prompted a surge of energy and earnestness. Couldn’t just ignore it, as I normally do. Wound me right up, did Norm.

At some point, I will revisit/republish here the things I wrote 10 years ago against the impending wars in Afghanistan, then Iraq… maybe I’ll revisit the notes made in the years since, detailing feelings of profound misery, about the intransigence of the UK/US governments, the constant feeling that any second now someone was going to blow some shit up somewhere, then a news story noting that they had. Feelings of desolation, anger, frustration, alienation, rage or guilt (as Peter Thomas once narrated). This fading notion that instead of a springboard to constant conflict, the horrible attacks on the US in September 2001 could have been an opportunity to do things differently, better. Wasted years.

Yet war apologists and writers like Geras maintain this air of personal affront, aggrieved common sensibilities, which sounds more and more peevish as years go by, as their arguments for conflict ring more and more hollow, as things can only get worser. With his little digest, Geras merely lists straw man after slouching straw man. Citing human rights in defence of what we did to Fallujah is at best tasteless. The curiously contorted idea that democracy is crucial yet starts and finishes at the ballot box – point 5… MASSIVE global demonstrations, and “they” didn’t listen. One would expect some sort of acknowledgement, at least, but against urgent representations, logic, compassion and fact our governments went to war anyway. “Why should they go out to fight? They leave that up to the poor,” as Black Sabbath observed.

I can’t believe an actual Professor actually considers the facile points or arguments addressed in his piece as worthy of mention. That it was published as an “11 for 9/11″ kind of anniversary belch, a pop bullshit Greatest Moans, an excuse for tossing off some beermat opinions, just makes it worse, somehow. Geras using a solemn occasion as a crucible for more simplistic yet potent logomancy, the sort that has sustained just over a decade of war and global tension. It is an insult to everyone’s intelligence.

Gah. GAH!

 

Casino Royale by Ian Fleming

Previously in The Mortal Bath… ‘Fasten your lap-strap’.

Casino Royale (CR), the first James Bond novel, was published in 1953. Here, from the lavish ianfleming.com website, is the original Jonathan Cape jacket blurb:

The dry riffle of the cards and the soft whirr of the roulette wheel, the sharp call of the croupiers and the feverish mutter of a crowded casino hide the thick voice at Bond’s ear which says, ‘I will count up to ten.’

Anyone who has ever gambled will find this tense and sometimes horrifying story of espionage and high gambling irresistible. So will readers who have never entered a casino. Connoisseurs of realistic fiction will particularly note the careful documentation of the Secret Service background, the chilling portrait of Le Chiffre, the authentic menace of SMERSH, and the sensual appeal of the girl in ‘soie sauvage’.

These bumphtious references to conoisseurs and raw silk barely begin to gently stroke the surface of the sensual appeal of the Bond books. Post-war gastronauts, label Mabels and petrolheads would also find much worthy of note within the pages of this landmark novel.* Bond’s reputation as a bon viveur is a significant aspect of the series as a whole, and it’s in CR that many of his predilections and prejudices first surface. He is, to put it bluntly, an aggressive snob in matters of what to eat, drink, drive, smoke, hump.

The cover of the Pan paperback captures the green baize excitement, the essential appeal of Bond, with the cashier’s cheque for an astronomical sum in francs panting continental exoticism, never mind the p’tite wink from the graphics department with the handwritten ‘soixante neuf’…

This consumption with relish of what must have been mostly unattainable pleasures for rationing book Britain appears throughout the Bond canon. Let us take the infamous Vesper cocktail, the ‘vodka martini, shaken, not stirred’ immortalised in the flicks. This bland order does no justice to the thing of alcoholic wonder, ordered with colonial vigour, in the book:

“Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel. Got it?”
“Certainly, monsieur.” The barman seemed pleased with the idea.

Booze pedants will point out that Gordon’s has diluted its recipe since, and so on, that shaking ruins the drink, but Fleming is creating a man who is the measure of all things, knows what he wants and dam’ well gets it. Bond is comfortable adding an absurd proviso regarding grain over potato vodka, lessening the poncery with a ribald crack in the local lingo. He later names the drink after a girl, showing his romantic, perhaps even a sentimental side.

We shall return to Bond’s prodigious consumption in Thunderball, although it is worth noting now that as well as this cirrhotic excess, the gambling and the gorging, Bond smokes around 60 cigarettes a day. However, while there is a lot of this airplane magazine catalogue of ‘cool’ GQ How-To-Guide stuff in the books, Bond’s absurd intake highlights what JCG at Ten Minutes Hate refers to as ‘a… sometimes out-of-control human being.’ Bond is, without doubt, a vehicle for communicating Fleming’s fashionable tastes in the name of excitement and escapism, but he is also a complex character, a haunted one in many ways.

This makes perfect sense given Fleming’s intriguing life story (soon to be filmed again by super Duncan Jones, it says here at ScreenJabber) and the historical context of the book, released a few years after World War II with its own well-rehearsed litany of horrors. Bond is a soldier who, in the absence of a Great Cause, is really just a blunt instrument, a man apparently with a death wish being used to visit it on others, something deliberately worked with by Fleming throughout the novels.

As the first entry in the series, CR establishes some reasons for why this might be. There is the Freudian field day (Field Day is a good name for a Bond girl) start of the infamous series of “Bond babes”, with the dark, quixotic French waft of mystery that is Vesper Lynd. The lemony twist to the tale (such as it is) is of course that Bond’s sentimental attachment to Vesper nearly emasculates him, actually and figuratively. Again, this fallible Bond is far more brutal, and brutalised, than any of the films prior to the Craig reboots, or arguably Pierce Brosnan with a beard in North Korea, managed. The chilling carpet beater scene is convincing and terse.

It also introduces a first ‘new enemy’ for Bond, early Cold War political uncertainty represented in the wonky Cyrillic letter Щ carved into the back of his hand by a heavily-accented Soviet agent. (Check out the excellent Commander Bond website for some far more detailed research and exegesis.) This scene makes explicit Bond’s helplessness in the wider game of history, and the long coda to the novel, with Bond and Lynd’s doomed relationship playing out through convalescence, elaborate meals, empty sex and finally betrayal, is doubtless a metaphor for British involvement in wartime and post-war Europe in some way. The book begins and ends nihilistically; it is a damaged world, full of damaged people, including the protagonist. As Fleming perhaps saw it, life is about the way the cards fall, and how you play them… and the house usually wins.

It is a satisfyingly dark book. Bond has only some of the insouciance and confidence one associates with him, the Secret Agent Man, the suave and apparently indestructible force of justice. His uncertainties and flaws in CR are what make him such a compelling character for the rest of the series. That and the exciting drinks, card games and violence. As a scene setter, and as a standalone work, CR is indeed in many ways irresistible.

*Yes, it is a landmark novel.

 

5×5 Part 7: Dead Kennedys – Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables

The excellent 70 Day Weekend blog features well-considered posts on musics past and present. A regular feature, ‘Throwback Thursday’, last week was about Dead Kennedys. My joy at that article prompted me to my ’25 albums that changed your life’ list. At number 7 is ‘Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables’.

Dead Kennedys tapes were passed around excitedly when I was in second year at High School, about age 13, 1988 maybe? 8th grade for Americans, Year 8 in the UK – 3rd Year in old money.

The albums were not only on tape, but taped copies of taped copies of vinyl, sort of bootleg bootlegs.

I remember ‘Fresh Fruit…’ and ‘Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death’ in particular being on side A and B of a cassette I wore out.

PAH! to iPods, 800 folders with one track in each, never to be heard again, solitary confinement for music. We used to listen to EVERYTHING til it WORE OUT. This is why we could hiss the words of b-sides like ‘In-sight’ at each other in class, sat in the back of the room.

The PMRC/Frankenchrist court case, and the later ramifications for Biafra, 2 Live Crew and other artists, had a big impact on my thinking. I was baffled that people could take music (art) so personally that they would want to warn other people about it, by putting stickers on albums. I wrote one of my first proper essays, about censorship and expression, under the influence.

“…small groups of opinionated reactionaries…” Go, 15-year old self, go!

DKs! We used to scribble that all over our books. Growing up in a fairly conservative town in North Yorkshire, UK, they were important context. A crucial bit of political/musical education. Sarcastic anti-fascist hardcore surf punk from America? Yes please.

Once you heard this song, that was it.

 

galaxy merger

[by guest writer Dr Anna Logie]

People sometimes view crises such as breakdowns or heart attacks as externally-imposed events. There may often be a period of denial, yearning to return to how it was before. Drinking, drug taking, smoking, eating whatever you want, running up the credit card, watching telly all night, the pub after work… why would one not want to pursue activities that bring pleasure? Who wants to live a boring life? Yet it should be clearly understood that whatever combination of actions were being taken led to this particular point of ill health. Environmental and personal, it is all connected, suggesting that different behaviour is required to avoid a continuation of the symptoms.

It is important to emphasise, with reference to behaviour, that there should be no unnecessary extrapolations of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ behaviour. This kind of polar terminology is likely to exacerbate any stress, worry or symptoms someone may be experiencing. Perhaps it is more sensible to talk of probabilities, in that x behaviour is more likely than y behaviour to cause z action. One can then ask, ‘is z a desirable state?’ It would be perfectly possible to continue behaving in the same ways, but consequently more likely that the same outcomes continue to occur.

From immediate and extended family and friends, support and understanding, rather than judgement or interference, are crucial. Be involved. On a personal basis, people should avoid reacting radically, for example with crash dieting, a new religion or other strenuous activity. With a knee injury, you cannot have a knee-jerk reaction. If one’s body is used to being used in a certain way, shocks of sudden difference or enforced variation may cause further trauma.

Insinuate and instigate lasting change, in physical and mental behaviour. It may be for as little as one hour a week, initially, exercise of some kind, discussion, meditation. However, if someone has serious physical/mental problems, if they survive and overcome crisis, it must change their life.

 

Lies, evasions, etc.

Salutations to Julia at ten minutes hate, keeping calm and carrying on in Japan. Scanning the telescreens this morning, I read with dismay that we (The UN), principally the US, UK and France, are once again lobbing cruise missiles into Libya. The precise reasoning for ‘our’ involvement here and not in Bahrain or Yemen, for example, remains unclear.

What might George Orwell have thunk, I wondered?

When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases — bestial, atrocities, iron heel, bloodstained tyranny, free peoples of the world, stand shoulder to shoulder — one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy: a feeling which suddenly becomes stronger at moments when the light catches the speaker’s spectacles and turns them into blank discs which seem to have no eyes behind them.

(From Politics and the English Language, George Orwell, 1946)

M. le Président

 

All about getting that ca$h money

A nod to this deja-vu post by the ever-wonderful Julia Smith of “10 minutes hate” blog. I grew up in the 1980s and seem to recall it being the Golden Age of Acquisition in some quarters.

Embedding disabled for Pet Shop Boys ‘Opportunities’

Etc, etc, etc. Of course, there are always artistic fingers crossed behind backs when people sing pop songs for or against the dollar (or the pound). As I’ve noted elsewhere, for many, many years we have been a society of the spectacularly compromised. YET, I always have and always will harbour a hope that maybe we can get on with doing It better, y’know, exploring space (inner and outer), instead of re-treading the same ground politically, economically, culturally…

Meanwhile, as the toffs gavotte round Downing Street to familiar tunes from our folk heritage, I say pick up thy guitar and play, just like yesterday. And to reiterate Julia’s point, best of luck!

 

Iran contra

The wider the spread of this story, reported using remarkably similar phrasing and poorly-punctuated translation by the BBC, New York Times, Guardian and others, about the Iranian cleric who suggested that immorality could provoke a judgment from god, no shock or horror, through Facebook groups and so on…

…and the more I read the same tiny quotes from what was probably a lengthy sermon which seems, on the basis of the sections I have been able to find, to have used ‘earthquakes’ at least a couple of times as a trope, again, not particularly shocking or horrifying in the context of a religious sermon in a region given to earthquakes (physical and social), or particularly worthy of comment given the sheer eye-swivelling wrong-headedness of the suggestion that actually, physically, promiscuity in women, whatever that means, might cause tectonic plates on the earth to shift (… in fact what the headline should have said was ‘cleric says promiscuity makes god cause earthquakes’ which is a not at all shocking statement for a cleric to make, as noted by “Sabretooth” at LucasForums)…

…the more I grow uneasy that there is some kind of black propaganda at work, perhaps intended to make everyone in Iran seem atavistic, not quite the full shilling, clearly unworthy of being allowed anywhere near fissile material, nay READY to be invaded, perhaps destroyed in order to be saved.

Almost like the misquoted speech from Ahmedinejad about “wiping Israel off the map” was.

I am not in favour of repressive regimes or religious fundamentalism, but neither do I favour one-sided conversations. In fact, my unease is supported by a colleague just then reading the story aloud and suggesting that Ahmedinejad and Sedighi’s quotes were both from Ahmedinejad. Because those mad mullahs all look the same from here, presumably. People get as far as the leading headline and then go off on one.

Full transcript please, and stop trying to wind people up with half a quote.