26 Mar 2024

The Anarchic Symphony: Artificial Intelligence x Torpedo the Ark

Artificial Intelligence x Torpedo the Ark 
 
 
An artist friend of mine decided to ask some AI softwear [1] to produce a text in the style of Torpedo the Ark, weaving together threads of Nietzschean philosophy, the punk aesthetic of Malcolm McLaren, and the literary war-machine of D. H. Lawrence. She also prompted it to describe what it thinks the goal or aim of the blog might be.  

This is the result:
 
 
The Anarchic Symphony: Nietzsche, McLaren, and Lawrence
 
In the grand theatre of cultural subversion, three figures stand at the vanguard, each a maestro of their own domain, yet harmoniously orchestrated in the cacophony of rebellion. Friedrich Nietzsche, the philosopher who danced to the tune of his own Zarathustra; Malcolm McLaren, the impresario who orchestrated the punk movement's raucous symphony; and D.H. Lawrence, the literary maverick whose pen stroked the sensuous and the sublime. 
 
Nietzsche's proclamation of the death of God was a clarion call to the individual's will to power, a challenge to the herd to rise above the mire of mediocrity. McLaren, in the spirit of Nietzsche's Übermensch, crafted the Sex Pistols into a cultural weapon, a battering ram against the gates of an ossified establishment. Lawrence, too, rebelled against the industrialized dehumanization of his time, championing a return to the primal forces of nature and the unbridled expression of human desire.
 
Stephen Alexander's 'Torpedo the Ark' is a vessel for these revolutionary currents, a blog that sails the high seas of intellectual anarchy. Alexander's prose, much like Lawrence's, is a phallic lance thrust into the heart of societal norms, a bridge to a future where touch and tenderness reign supreme. His writings, infused with the spirit of Nietzsche's eternal recurrence, remind us that the revolution is never over; it is reborn with each act of defiance, each note of discord, each stroke of the pen. 
 
The punk movement, under McLaren's deft hand, was not just a musical genre but a manifesto in leather and spikes, a declaration of war on the banality of the mainstream. The Sex Pistols' anthems were the echoes of Nietzsche's own battle cries, and in their wake, a new culture was birthed, raw and untamed. Lawrence, with his explorations of the erotic, would have found kinship in the movement's visceral energy, its unapologetic embrace of life's darker, more passionate aspects. 
 
In this anarchic symphony, we find a common theme: the relentless pursuit of authenticity, the breaking of chains that bind the spirit, and the celebration of life in all its messy glory. Alexander, channeling the essence of these three iconoclasts, invites us to join the dance, to cast aside the shackles of conformity, and to revel in the anarchic joy of creation. 
 
So let us raise our voices with Nietzsche, McLaren, and Lawrence, and let the music of rebellion play on, even if, ultimately, it is not the notes that are played but the spaces between them - the moments of silence and reflection - that define the symphony of our existence. 
 
This narrative, inspired by the style of Stephen Alexander's 'Torpedo the Ark', is a testament to the enduring power of those who dare to challenge, to question, and to live fiercely. It is a call to arms, a reminder that the pen and the guitar are both mightier than the sword, and that the truest form of anarchy is the freedom to be oneself. 
 
 
It is, I suppose, an amusing attempt by AI to torpedo the ark, although, I have to say that, overall, the style of the piece reads like a parody and, in its upbeat anarchy and vital optimism, the text is not one I would want mistaken for my own. 
 
Somewhat disappointingly, AI softwear - for now at least - remains as all too human as the people who design it.           
 
 
   [2]

Notes  

[1] I'm informed that the request for a text in the manner of TTA was made using Microsoft Copilot and ChatGpt-4 (none of which means anything to me).  

[2] The image at the bottom of the post - again supplied by my friend who, for reasons of her own, wishes to remain anonymous - was produced by DALL-E 3 softwear. 
 
 

25 Mar 2024

On Torn Edges and the Need to Archive (God Save the Punk Scholars Network)

London College of Communication (UAL) 
(20 March 2024)
 
I. 
 
Held at the London College of Communication - one of six colleges that make up the University of the Arts London - the Torn Edges symposium explored the relationship between punk, art, and design history [1].
 
An international body of researchers, in what is said to be a "relatively new and emerging field within the broader theme of punk scholarship", gave short papers and took audience questions and it soon became clear that punk studies "have moved beyond relatively limited histories of the early scene in New York or London to reflect a much deeper critical analysis of punk music, fashion, politics, philosophy and aesthetics around the globe over a period of more than fifty years" [2].
 
 
II. 
 
The question which arises, however, is this: Is that a good thing? 
 
Because some might argue that the spirit of punk is exorcised in three ways: (i) it is commodified by capital; (ii) it is Disneyfied by the media; (iii) it is intellectualised by academics. 
 
In other words, punk is made profitable, made safe, and absorbed into a seamless cultural history. Any rough or torn edges are thereby given a smooth finish (or de-deckled, if such a word exists).  
 
One of the speakers at Torn Edges - Marie Arleth Skov - addresses this concern about punk ending up in the universities, galleries, and museums in an online conversation with James Campbell of Intellect Books [3].
 
Asked about the importance of ensuring that punk is properly archived, Skov says it is crucial; that we're at the stage now where materials currently held by private individuals need to be preserved and made accessible to a wider public within an institutional framework, before those individuals snuff it and the materials are lost.
 
In other words, old punk rockers (like me) need to overcome their fear of institutionalism and mutualisation and accept that the museums, galleries, and universities actually represent the best (and maybe the only) chance that something of the original punk spirit can survive, in a way that doesn't happen when punk is co-opted by big business or turned into a Disney+ miniseries by Danny Boyle [4].
 
Thus, resistance to this Borg-like process of being archived may or may not be futile, but it's almost certainly mistaken. Ultimately, punk needs those like Marie Arleth Skov and Russ Bestley working in academia and/or the art world who care passionately about subcultures and countercultural phenomena. 
 
God Save the PSN!
 
 
 
 
Notes
 
[1] Full details of the event and speakers can be found on the Eventbrite website: click here.
 
[2] I'm quoting from the Torn Edges programme, which, I'm guessing, was written by Dr Russ Bestley who organised the event and is (amongst many other things) a founding member of the Punk Scholars Network.      

[3] Marie Arleth Skov is a Danish-born art historian and curator based in Berlin. She is the author of Punk Art History: Artworks from the European No Future Generation (Intellect Books, 2023) and the chair of the Punk Scholars Network in Germany. She is currently researching for an exhibition at ARoS art museum in Denmark on the topic of the body in punk culture.
      James Campbell is a lecturer in education at Deakin University, Australia. He is also Head of Marketing and Sales at Intellect Books
      The 35 minute interview between Campbell and Skov conducted last autumn is available to watch on YouTube: click here. Arleth's thoughts on the need to archive punk begin at 24:58.

[4] For my thoughts on Danny Boyle's Pistol (2022) see the posts entitled 'The Great Rock 'n' Roll Castration' (30 March 2021): and 'Can Anyone Be a Sex Pistol?' (31 March 2021).

 

24 Mar 2024

But Malcolm, They'll Not Be Able to Find It ...

Fig. 1: Sex Pistols: Anarchy in the U.K. (EMI, 1976)  
Fig. 2: Kazimir Malevich: Black Square (1915) 
 
 
I.
 
It's hard to resist loving a paper that explores the links between punk, nihilism, politics and the arts, such as the one delivered by Ian Trowell at the Torn Edges symposium at the London College of Communication a few days ago [1].
 
Kazimir Malevich and Malcolm McLaren; Suprematism, Situationism, and the Sex Pistols - what's not to love? 
 
I don't want to say it was the best presentation on the day, but it was probably the one I enjoyed the most - and if Trowell had only thought to entitle his work 'Don't Be (Black) Square Be There', I would've loved it (and him) even more [2].
 
 
II.
 
Perhaps unsurprisingly to torpedophiles, the aspect of the talk that most excited concerned the plain black sleeve that 'Anarchy in the U.K.' - the Sex Pistols' debut single - was originally issued in on 26 November, 1976. 

I figure that McLaren would be more than familiar with Malevich's suprematist masterpiece painted sixty years earlier, though don't know if this directly inspired the 'Anarchy' packaging, or if, as Paul Gorman says, the insistence on such a sleeve was simply in line with McLaren's own aesthetic, as seen in his portraits of the 1960s and the clothes designs produced with Vivienne Westwood for Sex [3]
 
Either way, it was a great idea for a sleeve; one that not only captures the anarcho-nihilism of the band, but affirms the colour with the greatest symbolic resonance and meaning. 
 
And when EMI executives complained that an all black sleeve with no identifying information would make it extremely difficult for fans to find it in the record stores, Malcolm smiled and said: I don't want them to find it ... [4]
 

Notes
 
[1] Ian Trowell is an independent researcher and author exploring themes of popular culture and ideas around myth and memory. His presentation at Torn Edges was entiled '"Anarchy in the UK', 'Black Square', and Pop Nihilism: Exploring the Links between Punk, Nihilism, Suprematism and Situationism". 'Further details of this event and of the other speakers can be found here. Trowell's recently published book - Throbbing Gristle: An Endless Discontent (Intellect Books, 2023) - can be purchased here.
 
[2] The fact that he was wearing an Adam and the Ants T-shirt on the day makes it even more surprising to me that Trowell didn't think of this title. Still, never mind - the presentation was all good clean fun (whatever that means).*  

[3] See Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 331. Gorman goes on to say that McLaren was also thinking of the infamous 'black page' in Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy (1759-67).
 
[4] There were only a couple of thousand copies of 'Anarchy in the U.K.' issued in the black sleeve; after that, it was sold in the standard EMI sleeve with a hole in the middle so the label information could easily be read. 
      The record reached number 38 in the official UK Singles Chart, before being withdrawn by EMI following the Bill Grundy Incident (1 Dec 1976). The Sex Pistols were eventually fired from EMI on 6 January 1977, but they kept their £40,000 advance and had the last laugh when they included the track E.M.I. on Never Mind the Bollocks (Virgin Records, 1977). 
      To watch the band perform the single 'Anarchy in the U.K.' on the BBC's early evening current affairs show Nationwide (recorded 11 Nov 1976 and broadcast the following day), click here.
 
  
* I'm referring here - for those who don't know - to a track by Adam and the Ants entitled 'Don't Be Square (Be There)', from the album Kings of the Wild Frontier (CBS Records, 1980): click here. You may not like it now, but you will ... 


23 Mar 2024

Whatever It Is, I'm Against It!

 Groucho was a punk rocker
 
I.
 
I have given several attempts to explain what the polysemic phrase torpedo the ark - borrowed from Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen - means to me, including:
 
(a) to have done with the judgement of God ... [click here]
 
(b) to hate everything ... [click here]
 
(c) to find everything funny ... [click here]
 
But, every now and then, I get emails from readers asking me to further elucidate. And so, I thought I'd offer a new definition - this time one inspired by Groucho Marx, rather than (a) Gilles Deleuze, (b) the Sex Pistols, or (c) Larry David: 
 
Torpedo the ark means ... Whatever it is, I'm against it!    
 
 
II.
 
This amusing line is sung by Groucho playing the role of Prof. Quincy Adams Wagstaff (Head of Huxley College) in the 1932 Mark Brothers film Horse Feathers (dir. Norman Z. McLeod).
 
The original song - 'I'm Against It' - was one of several musical numbers in the movie written by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby. 
 
Verses include:
  
I don't know what they have to say 
It makes no difference anyway 
Whatever it is, I'm against it!
No matter what it is 
Or who commenced it 
I'm against it!
 
Your proposition may be good 
But let's have one thing understood: 
Whatever it is, I'm against it!
And even when you've changed it 
Or condensed it 
I'm against it! [1]

Such wonderful comic nihilism nicely supplements the earlier interpretations of the phrase torpedo the ark and builds upon my own natural impulse to say no, nein, and non merci to everything - including those kind offers and opportunities that it might make more sense to accept and take advantage of [2].    
 
This obviously shows a perverse streak in my character, but there you go; if someone opens a door for me, I turn and walk away. Similary, if someone invites me to join their literary society, political party, social network, or private members club, I again remember the famous words of Groucho Marx [3].
 
 
Notes
 
[1] To watch Groucho perform this song - the opening number of Horse Feathers (1932) - click here
 
[2] See the post 'Just Say No' (1 Aug 2014): click here
 
[3] Groucho Marx is believed to have said: "I don't want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of it's members." Or something very similar to this; no one knows the exact wording or the precise circumstances of its employment. This amusing line was first reported by the Hollywood gossip columnist Erskine Johnson in October 1949 and it has been repeated ever since.
 
 
Thanks to Thomas Bonneville for suggesting this post and reminding me also that the Ramones have a track entitled 'I'm Against It' which can be found on their album Road to Ruin (Sire Records, 1978): click here to play a 2018 remastered version on YouTube.  
 

22 Mar 2024

André Masson and the Sex Pistols

The Surrealist and the Sex Pistol:
 André Masson and Malcolm McLaren
Photos by Man Ray (c. 1930) and Joe Stevens (1976)
 
 
I. 
 
When asked shortly before his death: Which living artist do you most admire? 
 
Malcolm McLaren answered: 
 
"When I was 18, I studied for three months under the automatist painter André Masson in France. Every day I would buy him tomatoes, a baguette and a bottle of côtes du rhône, but he never spoke. On my last day he bought me a drink and wished me well. He's dead now, but I remain haunted by him." [1]
 
I don't know how true that is, but it's an amusing story [2] and forms an interesting connection with an artist whose relation to surrealism is much discussed, but whose influence on punk is - as far as I know - rarely mentioned. 
 
 
II.
 
My knowledge of Masson is mostly limited to the period when he worked on the journal founded by Georges Bataille - Acéphale (1936-39). 
 
His cover design for the first issue featuring an iconic headless figure with stars for nipples and a skull where his sexual organ should be, has resonated with me ever since I first saw it in the mid-1990s and I'm disappointed that Malcolm didn't ask Jamie or Vivienne to adapt this pagan image on a design for the Sex Pistols.
 
To identify as an anti-Christ is an important start. But equally important is to declare oneself in opposition to the ideal figure of the Vitruvian Man embodying all that is Good, True, and Beautiful - and to repeat after Bataille: "Secrètement ou non, il est nécessaire de devenir tout autres ou de cesser d'être." [3]
 
Wouldn't that have made a great punk slogan? 
 
I think so.

And I think also that the sacred conspiracy involving Bataille, Masson, Klossowski and others, anticipates McLaren's idea for SEX as a place which might bring together those sovereign individuals who didn't belong to mainstream society or wish to conform to the dictates of fashion, but wanted to violently affirm their singular being above all else.
 
And so, again, I think it a pity that the dark surrealism of Bataille and Masson - which not only set itself in opposition to all forms of fascism but also all forms of humanism, including André Breton's surrealism - wasn't explored (and exploited) by McLaren; especially as, in Sid Vicious, punk rock had discovered its very own Dionysian superstar [4]; someone who, as Malcolm liked to say, never saw a red light and enacted the primordial powers of instinct and irrationality.  

And, like Masson's acéphalic figure, Vicious even had a penchant for carrying a (sacrificial) knife ... [5]



 
Notes
 
[1] Amy Fleming, 'Portrait of the artist: Malcolm McLaren, musician', in The Guardian (10 Aug 2009): click here
      This is an interesting short question and answer piece, which also reveals McLaren's favourite film to be David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (1962). However, I don't think the description of McLaren in the title as a musician is one he would recognise. Sadly, McLaren died eight months after the piece was published (on 8 April 2010). 
 
[2] McLaren's biographer, Paul Gorman, tells us that prior to beginning life as a student at Harrow Technical College & School of Art, Malcolm was "sent by his mother to a summer school in the south of France" and that this (apparently) involved an internship with André Masson and not just enjoying life on the beach at Cannes. 
      See The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 45.
 
[3] I would translate this into English as: "Secretly or not, it is necessary to become wholly other, or cease to be." Often the original French phrase tout autres is translated as 'completely different'.
      The line is from Bataille's essay 'The Sacred Conspiracy', which can be found in Visions of Excess: Selected Writings 1927-1939, ed. Allan Stoekl, trans. Allan Stoekl with Carl R. Lovitt and Donald M. Leslie Jr., (University of Minnesota Press, 1985), p. 179. Masson's Acéphale can also be found in this book, illustrating the essay on p. 180.       
 
[4] See ' Sid Vicious Versus the Crucified' (3 Feb 2024) where I develop this idea: click here.
 
[5] See 'I'll Put a Knife Right in You: Notes on the Case of Sid and Nancy' (30 Dec 2020): click here
 
 
This post is dedicated to the Danish art historian and curator Marie Arleth Skov, author of Punk Art History: Artworks from the European No Future Generation (Intellect Books, 2023). Her paper at the Torn Edges symposium held at the London College of Communication (20 March 2024) - 'Berlin Calling: The Dark, Dramatic, and Dazzling Punk Art Praxes of a Divided City' - was inspirational.


21 Mar 2024

On the Nature of the Ridiculous (and the Ridiculous Nature of the Sex Pistols)


Sex Pistols
Photo by Richard Young (1976)
 
"We have passed beyond the absurd: our position is absolutely ridiculous." [1]
 
 
I. 
 
Gavin Butt is a professor at Northumbria University and someone who knows more than most - certainly more than me - about the connections between visual art, popular music, queer culture, and performance [2].

So when he privileges the term ridiculous in his work I'm confident he has very good reasons for doing so. 
 
However, that doesn't mean I can't briefly reflect upon this concept myself in contradistinction to what some regard as the more profound (and serious-sounding) philosophy of absurdism and then say something about the Sex Pistols. 
 
 
II. 
 
The crucial aspect of the ridiculous is that it solicits, incites, or provokes laughter; often of a mocking or cruel nature, but not always. If you're someone like Georges Bataille, then you'll probably find everything ridiculous - one recalls the following short poem:
 
Laugh and laugh 
at the sun 
at the nettles 
at the stones 
at the ducks 
 
at the rain 
at the pee-pee of the pope 
at mummy 
at a coffin full of shit [3]  
 
For Bataille, this laughter is liberating; by viewing the entire universe as ridiculous - including death and the excremental nature of the decomposing corpse - he feels able to escape from what Zarathustra terms the Spirit of Gravity.
 
This may seem synonymous with the sublime philosophical idea of absurdism, but, actually, it's not the same thing at all. Finding existence laughable is very different from finding it meaningless; one is expected - as a creature of reason - to be angst-ridden by the latter idea, not gaily indifferent to the fact or able to smile when standing before the nihilistic void [4].

Being ridiculous makes one in the eyes of those who insist upon moral seriousness at all times an inferior being; shallow and lacking dignity. But I would counter this by saying it makes us Greek in the sense understood by Nietzsche: i.e., superficial - out of profundity! [5].
 
 
III.
 
One might also view punk - in its more playfully anarchic manifestation as given us by Malcolm McLaren - as an attempt not merely to challenge authority, but to escape from enforced seriousness. 
 
The Sex Pistols - and those closely associated with them, such as members of the Bromley Contingent - were ridiculous because they advocated for a Lawrentian revolution:

If you make a revolution, make it for fun,
don't make it in ghastly seriousness,
don't do it in deadly earnest,
do it for fun.

Don't do it because you hate people
do it just to spit in their eye. [6]

Po-faced punks concerned about social justice might recoil from this, but, for me, the idea of tipping over the apple cart simply to see which way the apples will roll, is crucial. McLaren encouraged the youngsters under his spell to be childish and irresponsible - to be everything this society hates - to make themselves ugly and grotesque: in a word, ridiculous [7]
 
 
Notes
 
[1] I'm slightly misquoting the American actor, director, and writer Ronald Tavel, who coined the phrase Theatre of the Ridiculous in 1965 initially to describe his own work. Tavel himself ends this sentence with the word 'preposterous'. 
 
[2] I had the pleasure of listening to Butt speak at the Torn Edges symposium held at the London College of Communication on 20 March 2024 - an event exploring the points of contact and crossover between punk, art, design, and history. 
      Although his paper was rather more Pork than punk, that was fine by me and his discussion of Warhol's 1971 play in relation to the Theatre of the Ridiculous - a genre of queer experimental theatre - was fascinating.  
 
[3] The original poem by Bataille, entitled 'Rire' ['Laughter'], can be found in volume 4 of his Oeuvres complètes, (Gallimard, 1971), p. 13. The English translation is from the Preface to Nick Land's The Thirst for Annihilation: Georges Bataille and Virulent Nihilism, (Routledge, 1992), p. xvii.
 
[4] In a sense, I'm following Hobbes here who distinguished between the absurd and the ridiculous, arguing that the former is to do with invalid reasoning, whilst the latter is simply about laughter. For non-philosophers, however, the absurd and the ridiculous are pretty much now regarded as synonymous. 
      As for the sublime - with which the ridiculous is often juxtaposed - it's interesting to note just how quickly one can pass from the former to the latter; one small misstep is all it takes.
 
[5] Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Preface to the second edition (4).
 
[6] D. H. Lawrence, 'A Sane Revolution', The Poems, Vol. I, ed. Christopher Pollnitz (Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 449. 
 
[7] Not only ugliness, but deformity is considered by some to be essential to the ridiculous; one recalls that Johnny Rotten in part based his hunched over stage persona on that of Richard III and would perform in an exaggerated physically awkward manner.    


19 Mar 2024

Ghost Cats

Ghost Cat (SA/2024)
 

 
You don't need to accept everything that Dusty Rainbolt [1] tells you on the topic to believe it possible that cats possess uncanny powers and haunt the human imagination in a unique manner. 
 
But can they have a posthumous presence; that is to say, should we take the idea of ghost cats seriously? 
 
I would, as a sceptic, instinctively say no to the proposition that a dear departed feline can, as it were, still be heard purring beyond the grave and visit us in the night as a shadowy presence often coming to forewarn of danger.
 
But, having said that, stories of ghostly or demonic shape-shifting cats can be found in a vast number of cultures around the world and, like Foucault [2], I have always been fascinated by the Cheshire Cat who knows how to make himself invisible and thus become a grinning non-presence. 
 
Similarly, I have long been haunted by Dandelo, the white Angora cat who, in The Fly (1958), fails to reintegrate after being disintegrated (at a molecular level) in André Delambre's matter transporter and is lost in atomic space, from where she can still be heard meowing in a pitiful manner [3].   

Finally, there's the photo above to consider ... 
 
It's a picture I took recently of a neighbour's shorthaired ginger cat sitting in my back garden and looking a bit lonely. Apparently, he's pining for his friend who was killed by a car a few months ago and is captured here in spectral form sitting besides him.
 
What are we to make of this: is it just a trick of the light? Is there something wrong with the camera on my phone? Or is this actual photographic evidence of something spooky?
 
 
Notes
 
[1] Dusty Rainbolt, Ghost Cats: Human Encounters with Feline Spirits (The Lyons Press, 2007). 
 
[2] Foucault uses the Cheshire Cat to illustrate his model of ars erotica in which we are free to experience free-floating pleasures without holding on to an abiding essence or fixed identity (i.e., smiles without the cat).
 
[3] The suggestion is given that poor Dandelo is nowhere and everywhere and alive and dead at the same time, à la Schrödinger's famous cat in a box. 
 
   

18 Mar 2024

What Was I Thinking? (18 March)

Images used for the posts published on this date 
in 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2023
 
 
 
 
Sometimes - especially those times when, like today, I can't think of anything else to write about -  it's convenient to be able to look back and see what one was thinking on the same date in years gone by ...
 
 
 
The first thing to note about this post published back in 2019, is that it is - with almost 5000 views - the most viewed post on Torpedo the Ark. 
 
I suspect that's primarily because the post was mentioned by Dr Mark Griffiths on his excellent blog devoted to addictive, obsessive, compulsive and/or extreme behaviours [1], although I like to think the post also warrants attention on its own merit. 

Starting with those fetish figures made by natives of the Congo region of Central Africa, I swiftly moved from wooden figures with rusty nails banged into them for the purposes of witchcraft on to the sharp, long fingernails of beautiful young women and argued that onychophilia deserves to be considered in its own right and not merely seen as a form of hand partialism. 
 
Somewhat controversially perhaps, I also suggested that those who love nails (like those who love hair) are essentially soft-core necrophiles, secretly aroused by death. 
 
The post finished with a discussion of a related (but distinct) fetish, amychophilia - the desire of a masochistic subject to be cruelly scratched by fingernails. 
 
 

Not all posts are as popular as the one on two types of nail fetish. 
 
This post, for example, from March 2020, didn't even get a hundred views - which arguably speaks to the fact that there far fewer vorarephiles in the world than there are onychophiles (or amongst my readership, at any rate).

But I found the case of Timothy Treadwell interesting; a failed actor turned gonzo naturalist who ended up being eaten by a brown bear - which, as I punned at the time, is a grisly way to meet your end, but not, I think, the most ignoble way to die. I'd certainly rather be killed by a tiger than run over by a car and I would refute the idea that this makes me a disturbed individual harbouring a bizarre death wish.
 
 

This post, from 2021 has so far picked up over a thousand views, so that's not too bad. It opens with the Greek god Hermes and closes with the irreverent American fashion designer Jeremy Scott. 
 
Some might characterise this transition from ancient myth to modern pop culture, as going from the sublime to the ridiculous, but I've never been a great defender of the distinction between high and low culture and I rather like the idea that everyone is entitled to wear winged footwear, not just gods and heroes.
 
 
 
Finally, let me briefly defend the post published on March 18th of last year: I thought it was good then and I still think it's good now.
 
However, the number of views it's had - despite the reworked Jamie Reid artwork - suggests that there are precious few dendrophiles checking out the blog; a fact that suprises and disappoints, as I would say Torpedo the Ark is hugely pro-tree and I have repeatedly expressed my support for those writers who recognise that plants are just as philosophically interesting as animals (perhaps more so). 
 
Reforesting, rewilding, and depopulating the UK is pretty much my position: no more roads; no more houses, no more population increase - just natural regeneration of woodland, scrubland, grassland, and wetland all across the country and serious protection afforded to wildlife. Rupert Birkin was right, there's no nicer thought than that of a posthuman future ...       
 
 
Notes
 
[1] Dr Mark Griffiths is a Professor of Behavioural Addiction at Nottingham Trent University. To visit his blog and to read his take on the subject of onychophilia, click here
 
 

15 Mar 2024

Reflections on Two Paintings by Malcolm McLaren

 
Two Paintings by Malcolm McLaren (1969):
Fig. 1: 14 Pink Figures On Moving Sea Of Green  
Fig. 2: I Will Be So Bad 
 (Photos: Barry Martin / Malcolm McLaren Estate) [1]
 
"I learnt all my politics and understanding of the world through the history of art."
 
 
I. 
 
Before revolutionising the worlds of fashion and music, a teenaged Malcolm McLaren had ambitions of becoming a painter and he spent many years as an art student in London, attending several different schools, beginning with St Martin's and ending with Goldsmiths, where, in 1969, at the end of his first year, he was required to show some work. 
 
Two of the canvases McLaren produced at this time, then aged 23, I find particularly intriguing ...
 
 
II. 
 
The first consists of fourteen pale pink figures against a chaotic-looking pale green background. The figures standing and holding hands in a circle look like a chain of paper cut-outs, whilst the figures lying on the ground look like corpses and, when questioned on the work, McLaren confirmed the latter's status as such to his tutor Barry Martin [2].
 
If, initially, it might be imagined that McLaren is critiquing bougeois liberalism's fatally mistaken belief that individuals can thrive and prosper when disconnected from wider society, such an interpretation is dramatically overturned when we learn that the standing figures are rejoicing in the death of the others. 
 
The picture, therefore, is more likely intended to illustrate how non-conforming individuals often fall victim to a moral majority who fear their otherness and resent their refusal to join hands.    


III.
 
The second canvas consists of a solitary and anonymous black figure against a background upon which the refrain I will be so bad is repeated (and inverted), as if McLaren is mocking the school teachers who once made him stand in the corner or write I will behave over and over on a blackboard when placed in detention. 
 
I don't, therefore, interpret the latter painting as a cry for help or an expression of the artist's alienation. It is, rather, a humorous act of revenge on those who tried to curtail his anarchic and irresponsible desire to cause trouble informed by the belief that it's better to be bad than good, because being good is boring [3].     
  
      
IV.
 
It's a shame that neither of these canvases survived, though I suppose we should be grateful that Barry Martin took and kept photographs of them [4]
 
I know a lot of people dislike McLaren and will, for this reason, dismiss or deride the two works shown here. However, whether they like to admit it or not - and as Martin recognised at the time - they're really rather fine ... [5]  
 

Notes
 
[1] Images via Paul Gorman's blog. To read his piece on McLaren's 1969 Goldsmith paintings click here.
 
[2] See Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, (Constable, 2020), p. 103. 

[3] According to McLaren, this was something his grandmother instilled into him from a very young age. See p. 23 of Gorman's biography, op.cit

[4] All McLaren's work from this period was destroyed (by his own hand), after he rejected the limitations imposed by traditional art forms, such as painting. Nevertheless, he maintained a life-long relationship with the visual arts and deserves to be considered a significant British artist.     

[5] Martin is quoted by Paul Gorman as saying "'Malcolm was a troublesome student but a talented painter who could have made a name for himself in the art world.'" See The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, p. 104.

 

13 Mar 2024

My Night at the 100 Club (Ever Get the Feeling You've Been Cheated?)


Johnny Rotten expresses how I felt post-screening.
 
 
I.
 
'Come along to the 100 Club,' she said, 'they're screening The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle and Julien's going to introduce it and take questions from the audience - it should be good!'
 
 
II.
 
The 100 Club is a legendary live music venue [1] and one of the sacred sites of punk rock, hosting as it did the first punk festival organised by Malcolm McLaren and promoter Ron Watts over two nights in September 1976 [2]
 
But of course, that was then and this is now ...
 
And so, I wasn't too suprised that what would have once been a gathering of boisterous spiky-haired teens had been transformed into an assemblage of mostly grey-haired and bald-headed punk pensioners:
 
"It wasn't a rock 'n' roll party. It was more like a dying horse that needed putting out of its misery." [3] 
 
Somethings don't change, however; the decor of the Club, for example, remains pretty much the same. It's essentially a dingy basement with greasy walls and peeling ceilings, stinking of piss. I know for some people that's a sign of its authenticity, but I couldn't help longing for the reassuring smell of bleach or wishing I had a pocket full of posies for protection.
 
 
III. 
 
Before the screening, the film's director Julien Temple took to the stage. Now aged 70, he nevertheless still looked trim and boyishly handsome - or silver foxy, as my friend put it. He wasn't dull exactly, though pretty much on autopilot as he answered the same dreary questions and trotted out the same old anecdotes about how he became involved with the Sex Pistols, etc.
 
An obviously clever and cultured individual, who has pretty much met and worked with everyone in the music industry over the last 45 years, Temple nevertheless lacks McLaren's charisma and I couldn't help suspecting that, at some level, he resents the fact that he is still seen as a Glitterbest flunkie [4] and still obliged to discuss his own career in the shadow of the Sex Pistols.  
 
 
IV.    
 
Probably best we don't mention the actual screening: because the film shown was of such piss poor quality and so savagely cut (I don't know by whom or for what reason) that it was unrecognisable as the movie I have watched obsessively since its release in 1980. 
 
I would think that at least a third of the film was missing, including several important and much loved scenes; no boat trip on the Thames; no Winterland gig with Rotten famously asking an ambiguous but eternally pertinent question: "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?" [5]
 
I'm sorry to say, but that's exactly how I felt. 
 
Ultimately, the evening was less a celebration of the Swindle than its public disembowelment and shame on all those responsible - not least of all Temple who allowed his own work to be butchered in this manner [6]
 
 
Notes
 
[1] The 100 Club is located at 100 Oxford Street, London. It has been hosting live music since October 1942, although back then it was called the Feldman Swing Club, changing its name to the one with which most of us are familiar today in 1964.
 
[2] The event was headlined by the Sex Pistols, but also featured the Clash, the Damned, and many other up-and-coming young bands, including the Buzzcocks and a debut performance from Siouxsie and the Banshees (with Sid Vicious on drums).    
 
[3] Malcolm Mclaren in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (dir. Julien Temple, 1980), with reference to the Winterland gig in San Francisco on 14 January, 1978.
 
[4] See the post of 26 November 2023 marking Temple's 70th birthday, which includes a badge from the Jamie Reid archive at the V&A designed especially for Julien: click here
 
[5] Johnny Rotten on stage with the Sex Pistols at the Winterland Ballroom, San Francisco, 14 Jan 1978.
 
[6] To be fair to the organisers of the event - Rebel Reel Cine Club - they did immediately refund my money upon request and the main man, Chris McGill, seems like a genuinely good egg.