Blurt Stuff

The god would threaten anyone who stole crops or meddled with gardens (he was the protector of gardens) with the following: "I warn you, woman, you will be fucked; boy, you will be buggered; and as for the bearded man, he can give me his mouth!" says the god. And he continues: "This rod shall enter the thief's guts as far as the hair and hilt of my balls."

And that's what I call Fascinating History.

How many wireless connections can be found in my local park? Seven. Does my local highstreet, with its long lines of lovely cafes and cosy pubs, have free wireless? Yes. When did I find this out? Today, as it starts to get cold, readying for winter, and the threat of rain.

Which means I'll be back soon, however. Off home now, because there's a dog on the loose in the trees.

Argh! Fizz fizz spark, and then smoke from the wireless adaptor. Flickering green lights flicker no more, and are gone, like lonely fireflies fading under cold cutting moonlight. Pain in my heart. So: Limited access to the internet for the time being, since broadband connection is in my housemate's room, and so is he for most of the weekend. (He's just nipped out to the shops.) They are posting us a replacement unit. Until then, don't miss me too hard.

In the post directly beneath this, I showed how an environmentalist divines environmental cause behind Katrina, and how a socialist sniffed out capitalism as the culprit. I have been curious to know how religious people explain Katrina. Religious people make up about 5/6ths of the world's population, and dominate the United States at nearly all levels of society.

Indeed, George Bush himself sees God's Will in acts of violence:

God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did.

and in general:

Events aren't moved by blind change and chance…[but] by the hand of a just and faithful God.

Logically, then, George Bush must see Katrina as punishment for New Orleans, the Big Easy, perhaps because the city is known for the naughty fun of the Mardi Gras (a wild carnival of French genealogy; French, and therefore opposed to Freedom, remember.) Certainly Bush's response has been variously criticized. In this interview New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin is moved by despair at the lack of response, he breaks down at the end of the interview, as does the New Orleans journalist interviewing him.

The Jerusalem Newswire certainly sees religious causality behind Katrina, writing that the hurricane is

the implementation of His judgment on the nation [i.e. the US] most responsible for endangering the land and people of Israel... Can’t you see the link, America? Won’t you see the link?

At least one American sees the link precisely the same way: that Hurricane Katrina is God's Fist, come for America because of the evacuation of Israelis settlers earlier this summer. !!UPDATE!! Here is a completely insane religious argument. Incidentally, did the images of so many cars in the post below persuade of a link between Katrina and global warming? Beware the image, else this creepy book cover will persuade you of a link between Katrina and Israel.

I would like to know how members of the Left Behind Prophecy Club see Katrina. (The Left Behind books are a series of best-sellers in the States, set in the near-future when God takes the Holy off to Heaven, and leaves the non-believers on earth to face his wrath, and what-not.) Apparently, many Americans believe these best-sellers books to be more fact than fiction, and so interpret the wars and environmental destruction that America is a part of as God's will. My hunch is they must see Katrina like that, too.

How about you?

Lyrics:

And my jam knock in the Mitsubishi
Girls pee pee when they see me, Nava-hoes creep me in they tee pee
As I lay down laws like I lay carpet
Stop it - if you think your gonna make a profit

TRANSLATION:

I enjoy playing my music loudly on my car stereo. Apparently, women enjoy this also because they become sexually aroused when they see me driving. Oddly enough, when I visit the Native American reservations, some of the more sexually promiscuous Indian women attempt to seduce me in their homes. Their intent is to divest me of my earnings. Such actions are unacceptable.

More here.

We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington. The terror campaign could be pointed at Cuban refugees seeking haven in the United States. We could sink a boatload of Cubans enroute [sic] to Florida (real or simulated). We could foster attempts on lives of Cuban refugees in the United States even to the extent of wounding in instances to be widely publicized.

Who said that?

The Joint Chiefs of Staff, in 1962.

How do I know that?

Via this blog post, which then details a number of related incidents, before concluding:

Terrorism is often described as a weapon of the weak ... On the other hand, the use of terror by powerful and relatively stable states - the UK, United States, Russia & Spain to name a few - indicates that the tactic of terrorism is an all too familiar tool for the powerful.

Lenin's blog in general is full of disquieting, powerful, well-researched posts, which is why I find it worth reading.

At the start of Joe Orton's 1969 play "What the Butler Saw", male psychiatrist Dr. Prentice interviews the young, attractive, and terrifically naive Geraldine Barclay for the post of his secretary, soon insisting that a full interview requires her to strip naked and jump up on his couch. The surprise return of Mrs Prentice thwarts this attempted seduction, while following her is Bellboy Nicholas Beckett, who in turn is attempting her blackmail with photos secretly taken of their entanglement the previous night. Then Mrs Prentice mistakes Geraldine's clothes for her own, thus leaving Geraldine naked and hiding behind a curtain in the Dr's office, as two of the main formulaic elements of the farce genre find the first of their many permutations in this play - mistaken-identity and clothes-swapping. Into the chaos soon comes two characters, completing the cast. One, a policeman, Sergeant Match, who is investigating both the Bellboy's activities with a party of school girls, and the disappearance of a part of a Winston Churchill statue, which was damaged in a recent explosion, and which is linked to Geraldine's mother. The other is a character less obvious nowadays as an establishment authority figure: crackpot senior psychiatrist Dr. Rance, springing a surprise inspection upon Dr. Prentice.

Whilst all the familiarly cosy conventions of the farce genre soon swing into action - with characters racing across stage, slamming doors, improbably hiding and/or disguising themselves and/or incriminating articles, with many misunderstandings and manic ideas and mistaken identities adding up to an extravagant and convoluted plot, as well as more direct comic moments involving cross-dressing, stripping down to amusing underpants, slapstick, physical humour - the play is not just some straightforward genre piece. One reason is that the script contains flashes of sub-Wildean wit alongside sharp, epigramic observations; two contrasting examples plucked from a choice of many: Dr. Prentice says to his nymphomaniac wife, "You were born with your legs apart. They’ll send you to the grave in a Y-shaped coffin," and, "The sane appear as strange to the mad as the mad to the sane." Equally distinctive is the inclusion of rape, paedophilia, incest, promiscuity, Winston Churchill's penis, transvesticism, all of which are treated lightly and rapidly, and which attracted Lolita-like controversy in Britain in 1969. (When Churchill was only a few years dead, incidentally, and was held in great affection as a Great Briton.)

The play, then, has great fun attacking or making light of social conventions, authority figures and mores, right down to the existence of the family itself. Psychiatry in particular is relentlessly lampooned, as Dr. Rance's diagnoses and analysis are revealed as increasingly maniacal. The great Nabokov, too, successfully collected some truffles at the expense of psychiatry - a target that post-Foucault and in our frank time, seems an unremarkable choice that is somewhat easy to hit. As a result, this central aspect of the play fails to transcend its historical epoch, and in general the outraged nature of its initial reception seems somewhat alien.

So - delivered by Director David Grindley as straight farce played for laughs, as it is - the once-fresh ironic contrast of form and content in "What the Butler Saw" no longer seems even remotely ingenious, and is devoid of shock-value and impact. Perhaps, then, a justified lack of confidence in the freshness of the play explains the machine-gun pace of the performance, in acting that successfully affects a comedic manner, but rarely achieves comic timing. In this respect Malcolm Sinclair as Dr. Rance is particularly poor, his deepening fantasies of psychiatric diagnoses - which are accompanied by dark, self-serving dreams of writing a book about Geraldine Barclay's case, for she is mistaken for an inmate of the institution, amongst others - is peculiarly delivered with the same straightforward directness as a brisk hello. Jonathan Coy as Dr. Prentice is more successful at modulating his character's mood and pace of speech to the confusions of thought and events, whilst Belinda Lang's Mrs Prentice amusingly maintains a poised air of aloof superiority in the face of all the insanity that comes her way. Huw Higginson as Sergeant Match is adequate, and in the most physical of the roles, has a suitably chunky presence for moments when his character is drugged up, and thus is required to walk funny. Joanna Page as Geraldine Barclay offers probably the weakest of the performances here, delivering every line in the same tense voice of bewildered appeal, which became increasingly tedious as the play wore on. Geoff Breton, meanwhile, gave the most nuanced, playful and interesting performance of the play as the bellboy Nicholas Beckett - albeit in a responsive part, with less opportunity for comic bravura. Other than that, the set of this production matches expectations, and the largish space of the stage is exploited especially skilfully; perhaps the only major directatorial slip coming with the excessively stylized treatment of the already excessive ending, which distracts further from events whose ludicrosity already undermines their command of attention.

* * * WARNING : SPOILERS * * *

Perhaps the play's biggest and most interesting connection with the present comes with its treatment of identity and sexuality, which (albeit in comic guise, necessitated by events) are treated as playful, fragmented, frank, changeful, and fluid. Unfortunately this treatment is more glib than penetrative. In the final scene, for instance, it emerges that Dr. & Mrs Prentice are the parents of Geraldine Barclay and Nicholas Beckett. The four members of the Prentice family are united in clichés of love and hugs, in true farce style, and in spite of the accusations of paedophilia hanging over Beckett, in spite of his incest with his mother, and in spite of the fact that the twins were in fact conceived in rape. This happy resolution does make a mockery of the complex, garbled, psychiatric discourse aimed at all the characters in the rest of play - and the authority figures of Rance and Match are nicely excluded from the image of a family bonding. (It also takes a swipe at the conventions of the farce, but the plays only weapon for this is frankness.) Anyway, we no longer live in a world where such figures and discourse represent prevalent forms of knowledge and power, and so the opposition now seems limp, an act of mere negation, and obscure. It's like a debate of whether the dragon or the unicorn exist, where the possibility that neither are a part of reality are overlooked. The human content of the play is sadly a void, (or more charitably, at most to be found under the shadows of black comedy) and because of this, perhaps the decision to direct this performance as a relentless attack of gags and no more was correct.

* * * NO MORE SPOILERS * * *

This is a fun, enjoyable, but largely unremarkable production of a play that is perhaps most interesting for the reactions it no longer elicits, and thus provides a measure of how our time differs from the recent past. It runs until the 22nd October 2005, at the Criterion Theatre in central London - nearest tube is Piccadilly - with tickets from £10 to £40, available via 0870 145 1163 or from here.

"Can you smell cat pee?" Jane, my newish office colleague asked. I told her no - but that I'm also still a bit blocked up, with the thing I've had all summer.

"I can," she went on. "And I could smell it this morning. You know what? Honestly, I'm worried one of my cats has pee'd a bit in my wardrobe! If you can smell something, I really want an honest opinion."

"I can't," I said - and then a lightbulb pinged on above my head. "But I know how to find out." I turned my phone on to speaker mode and called up Daniel, who'd been in the office only a moment ago.

"Daniel!" I say, flicking over a cunning smile at Jane. "Just wondering if you could smell cat pee around Jane's desk just now. And if so, whether you think I should say something. She's just popped out of the office, incidentally." That last bit with a wink over.

"I thought she was a bit better today, actually," boomed back Daniel's voice. "But don't say anything, Adam. You must have noticed what she's like."

Speaker phone off. Mumbled goodbyes. A sniff from me but at the next desk, a flood of tears.




* * *

I thought about posting this little office incident on my old blog, starting up its polite little tales of everyday nothings once again. But I don't know, it's just not me, it's just not true.

"The fourth member of the party, however, was too excited to be genuinely happy," is how James Joyce describes his main character Jimmy in this short story, as Jimmy races in a car with three companions. Excitement soon comes up again: "Rapid motion through space elates one; so does notoriety; so does the possession of money. These were three good reasons for Jimmy’s excitement."* And again at the end of the story, long after the race and into the night, during a game of cards Jimmy plays with his companions: "What excitement! Jimmy was excited too; he would lose, of course," - just before the clarifying light of daybreak crashes around his aching head and emptied pockets.

Life valued according to speed, fame, cash, life valued according to excitement: such culture was seen coming with the car into Dublin by James Joyce in 1904, and now is visible almost everywhere from here. Fermat's Last Theorem is solved; the mathematician describes the feeling of solving it as akin to being on certain drugs. When English footballers win a medal, more often than not they will gush to the cameras about the buzz of victory. Bragging over drugs themselves embody such things more than anything; raw physical pleasure, devoid of content, measures achievement here amongst us: I've had the best high.

Me? The months of drugs out in Holland, the fist fights late on tube trains, the drunk driving around empty car parks at midnight: excitement, happiness, something entirely different? I do not know - although such things did not do for me, and I do not do them now. And look, I don't even valorize them any more.





* - with total stupidity, imbecile Dan Lienert moronically describes the short-story as

a story about insouciant young race car drivers [which] includes such pro-racing statements as, "Rapid motion through space elates one."

O Lord, may he soon be run over.

Quite. (From here.)

I've worked with psychologists, and whilst most of them were dumb, I think 'weird' is probably the main issue. My hunch is that if you are a psychologist, then you find the character of other people mysterious. If you find other people mysterious, it's because you lack intuition into or understanding of others. Too insecure, or too lacking in self-understanding to admit this and do something about it, by reading great novels say, psychologists call themselves scientists, dream up barmy theories, pat each other on the back, and live from tax-payers money up in dusty university rooms.