The geniuses of intuitive genius

Headlining are the geniuses of Albert Camus and Salvadore Dali. Followed closely by Schwarzenegger in third place.

Society and its ills

“Society” and its ills

 

Man is no longer free to gaze at the heavens and feed his mouth with the fruits of the earth. He cannot lay down by the green pastures and sip from the flowing brook. He cannot use his cunning and might to cudgel a monkey to death and roast its tortured body over a fire, or by his choosing, spare it! He is not free to explore the jungle-earth in search of knowledge, bounty and riches. He cannot build his own house, and till his field with his own two hands! He is not permitted to murder his enemy in some bitter and honourable dispute. All these things are owed to man, and yet the wicked and greedy, the cowardly, the boastful, the arrogant, the self-seeking and the proud have mechanised existence. They have made a wall around their ill-gotten gains in the form of laws, precepts and duty. Man in society has become a schemer, a plotter and a fiend.

A MANIFESTO

THE ILLS OF RELIGION

Religion bends man’s lusts and inward and turns him into an unnatural sex pest, like a catholic priest.

-THUS Priests should be encouraged to engage in coitus

Religion rationalises by the medium of fear the natural wonder of existence that is proper to us all

- THUS Priests should be prevented from using fear as a coercive tool and must be compelled by law to use the Children's Bible, instead of the actual one.

THE ILLS OF THE LAW

The law prevents due revenge and vengeance which is every man’s right, by offering retribution by proxy.

- THUS a law should be in place that allows the wronged to punish the wrong doer. The boats, the breaking wheel, head crusher and crocodile shears are all possible legal punishments.

The rich and greedy own the land which belongs to all of us and take the food from our mouths!

- THUS a large tax should be levied against the rich and the gains distributed for the good of society.

- THUS the richest man in society must be made to toil in a rubber fist mine for a year

A man must pay for the very ground upon which to build his own house!

- THUS each man, without exception should be allotted a plot of land for his quarters

- THUS machines should till communal fields in place of man, and pick the orchards, and bring the food to him and the community.

THE ILLS OF THE FACTORY

Man utilises the means of production to sell useless items and indebt their owners

-          THUS man should create more drug factories, to create a cheap supply of products

-          THUS man should create a GM bird that he can ride and feed oats or some such cereal instead of building a car. 

The meaning of life

Gentlemen, I present to you with all due modesty, THE MEANING OF LIFE.

AND

THE ULTIMATE METAPHYSICAL NATURE OF BEING:

1.) Being, i.e existence itself has no inherent meaning

2.) It is our desire to create morality and meaning in the world

MAN URGES HIMSELF TO GIVE MEANING TO A MEANINGLESS UNIVERSE

MAN URGES HIMSELF TO GIVE MORALITY TO AN AMORAL UNIVERSE

As the sole enforcers of this type of behaviour, we could choose not to act in a meaningful way as there is no punishment for disobaying the rules. But this is to miss an opportunity.

Metanormative dialectic

I have of late been wondering how to roll the perfect joint. I told  the wizard Wolfram Alpha my query and this is the pith of the response:

raises more questions than it asks

Elton John's "and the house fell down" as commentary on Job

"The sun is up and the shades are all pulled down
I'm more paranoid with every little sound
Like the leaf blower blowing the leaves around
And a siren wailing on the other side of town"

The modest beginnings of the first verse does not betray any deep existential ponderment, a leaf blower, a siren, and pulling down are all mundane themes, John still invokes such timeless images such as the rising sun and the terror of the wind but they are most definately muted by the mundane. In the second verse John does introduce the theme of suffering, and remorse. John tells us that he could be in many places, but what is crucial is that here he is on the precipice, having followed a poor diet of cocaine and wine for three days.John then in this couplet of verses eases us into themes of suffering and angst, whilst backing the apparent misery with an upbeat and groovy piano composition. It is however the chorus that rivals Job, the wolf here representing suffering keeps blowing down his house and what can John do but shake his fist at God?

some riggidy rap

I hereby put my unborn seed on it.

The Anguish of Boredom: Original Sketches

The Preacher & Camel"

"The Aching of the Contact Lens"

"The Beurocracy vs. Dinosaurs"

Pandora's Urn Releases The Nymphs of Decadence

Yukio Mishima and the love of St Sebastian.

It's not my bag

It is Sebastian’s almost base physicality and masculinity that instantly strikes us, upon viewing this painting. The dark shadows, the harsh lines, the piercing gaze, the massive semi-erect penis. If not for the arrows one would imagine the image to be designed for the purpose of proudly displaying a person’s authority and achievement. Sebastian in the picture stands erect and exclaims ecce homo – behold the man!

Yet there is a white elephant in the room, Sebastian this symbol of masculinity is seen in the painting as being ravaged by a swarm of arrows, (an obvious reference to the traditionally dominant phallus). Why is Sebastian a paragon of masculinity so often portrayed as being humbled by the phallus? Why is this sadomasochistic perspective seen as so erotic by writer’s such as Mishima? For the answer to the latter we must look deep into the mind of the great poet and writer.

Mishima’s childhood was rife with difficulty, he was often sick with tuberculosis and and was only allowed to associate with “weaker” female relatives for fear he would be bullied by boys his own age. In the beginning of “Confessions of a Mask” Mishima often escapes the sufferings of worldly existence by escaping into a world of sadism and dominance. His actual sufferings giving rise to imaginary sadistic triumphs. As Mishima grows this striving for dominance takes on a sexual aspect, he writes:

“I cried sobbingly until at last those visions reeking with blood came to comfort me. And then I surrendered myself to them, to those deplorably brutal visions, my most intimate friends.”

It is logical to assume that in the case of Mishima this early repression of the will to power led to a rebound of the ID – an explosion of sadism. The will to power that had been repressed and denied him in his childhood grew exponentially more violent in adulthood. Yuko Mishima strives from his mid twenties to be a real-life Sebastian, ceaselessly exercising with heavy weights, each day trying to fit his ever bulging muscles into his spandex pants.  Tiring to become like the heroic and ever masculine Sebastian.

Sexy

We see in the life of St Mishima then a pattern, a childhood of submission, a rebound and an adulthood of sadism and dominance.

And yet like Sebastian Mishima wants to die, and indeed declares that it would gratify him, to "die among strangers beneath a cloudless sky".In November 1970 Mishima commits Japanese ritual disembowelment (seppuku) in the back room of a military compound. For the reason why we must look to Sebastian.

Sebastian is the key to Mishima's entire oeuvre. As Mishima plunges the blade into his abdomen. He is reduced once more to his childhood weakness and surrenders to the power of death.  Mishima who strove all his adulthood to become masculine is seen here secretly craving domination and the power of another man's willy (represented by death).  Thus Mishima the Sadist becomes the Mishima the Submissive in death, completing his darkest desires and finally creaming his pants. Mishima is not only a sadist but a masochist and indeed his masochism finally overpowers his potent sadism.

RIP

A Lesson

Kristos came and kristos went
Kristos saved and kristos spent
-the preacher spoke
So eloquent

Within his pulpit, as a nest
At voicing god he was the best
An eagle on the scriptures fed
Or vulture, as on man’s carrion read

A man of God in vestments pure
But fell unto the vestal’s lure
For in the crowd below did spy
A woman fit for heav’nly eye

And to this prey he did pursue
And by her scorn, his lusts, they grew
Until one sermon spent and wrecked
He came unto her, so bedecked
In rosen garb with golden crown
A wealth fit to upturn any frown

And in the shadows of the cloister
By his own art her loins grew moister
And at the climax, he gasped at last
“For I am man, from God I part”

And now he roves the world anew
For from this moment, passions grew
And now his want is never sated
For by this act, new want created.

So brothers, here this warning wicked
The devil had his weakness tricked
Thus heed not the damsels fine
Or face the toil of Satan’s mine.

a story

“Gimp”, yelled Badger to one of the local school boys. The boy was scared by the badger, with its big teeth and beady little eyes, and Badger knew it and took great pleasure in his ability to scare school children. As tears began to well up in the child’s eyes the badger turned and proudly walked away. Badger could play saxophone very well and performed two nights a week in the village jazz bar, his band Jazz Badger and the Supremes performed a mix of soul and early jazz music, not unlike the style in which the human Barry White performs, though his violent essence personified in the music often led to misplaced shrill, high notes and dull heavy drones.He also took pleasure in this aspect of his being.

Surreal Poetry

The sandman eats his own sand

The snake eats its own tail

Schism of a boneless hand

Sea buoyant shores derail

Unborn folly of the gods

Old and dying  flame

See Kaiser to his subject nods

Sew whips unto his name

Crumbling wall and drying blood

Dark path and close'd door

The ever present virgin would

But for the present whore

A Mallard, Caught in Situ

I was happening to amble about the district park the other day, when in the corner of my eye I took vision of a most singular bird. This fine example of the avian form lingered only to allow me to snap one picture, before flying off into the sky, trailing stardust and mumbling indistinctly to itself. I present this one image here, for you delectation.

How fly is Nate Dogg?

The is no question that Nate D-o-double-g is indeed fly. But how fly? That is what I wish to examine in this post. Through a few thought experiments.

"Thought experiments are devices of the imagination used to investigate the nature of things. Thought experimenting often takes place when the method of variation is employed in entertaining imaginative suppositions. They are used for diverse reasons in a variety of areas, including economics, history, mathematics, philosophy, and physics."

We shall now assess the most probable outcomes in the following imagined situations.

Peter Jackson's Movie Trilogy Lord of The Rings: A Fertility Parable

 Argument

Just Friends, OK.

Any study of The Lord of the Rings will always be coloured by the obvious controversy that still abounds regards the relationship between the primary protagonists, Frodo and Sam. As People Magazine famously quipped, ‘did they do it?!?!’ However, I believe under this flaming tale of unrestricted gay desire there is something deeper, even more elemental than a mere craving for Hobbit booty. Therefore leaving the explicit commentary of Frodo and Sam's relationship concerning the fluid boundaries between homosocial and homosexual behaviour in a male-male partnership to one side, here I shall instead consider the implications of Lord of the Rings as a Genesis-type fertility parable, if you will.

This analysis will primarily focus on the mortal races; it is clear the elves in Tolkien's strict catholic prose are allegories for and synonymous with the Nephilim, an immortal, angelic race possessing superior physical capabilities from a far off location (The Heavenly Firmament, The Grey Havens) who mate with mortal mankind (consider Aragorn and his hot elf ho.)

Despite this, there is still much argument in the academic community at how far such an argument can be taken. Is this epic a thinly veiled portrayal of overcoming infertility, represented by the forces of darkness, the orcs who cannot love or make dirty coitus, who are birthed from the earth itself? Sex is everywhere and nowhere in Tolkien, omnipresent and yet denied even when at it's most obvious.

Genesis 6:1-3 When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose, then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years."

Therefore here I will consider both an argument for, and an argument against a reading/viewing of Lord of the Binge as an ancient Mesopotamian Fertility Epic.  First Sam the inseminator will be considered, and then an opposite argument using Éowyn as an example of female independence.




An Argument For Fertility: Samwise "The wise" Gamgee, Professional Gardener, Gimp and Fatty.

Brooding

Sam is perhaps not the most obvious character with regard to fertility within The Lord of the Cock Rings, given his oft regarded romantic relationship with his 'employer' Frodo Baggins. While this commentary on social exploitation of the working classes through a subliminal BDSM narrative implicit in their relationship is fodder for a separate analysis, it may be productive to consider it briefly here.

The Worker's Struggle

Sam is subservient, oppressed, scorned, and yet loyal like a lobotomised cocker spaniel to his master Frodo. He is the only one shown cooking, or performing many of the other necessary activities on their extended camping trip. Meanwhile Frodo sits on rocks or tufts of earth, sweating, mewling, and looking into the middle distance. Is this, as Wilde put it, "the love that dare not speak it's name"? Or is it instead a comment on the exploitation of lower classes by a fundamentally weak and unstable oligarchy, here represented by Frodo. Once the police and army break down (here symbolised by the Fellowship, particularly Aragorn, and the spilt at the end of the fist book/film) little stops these two polarised groups from coming into conflict, culminating in Frodo's dismissal of Sam. Like the horse Boxer in Orwell's Animal Farm, Sam is loyal to the last, even when it conflicts with his own interests. Perhaps this is a comment on modern media's ability to be used to penetrate and manipulate the masses into voting against their interests, or perhaps it is too early to say.

However, Frodo finds that, abandoned by Gollum, representative of decedent and unrestrained desire, he needs his 'dear Sam.' At this moment the typically passive Sam comes to the fore, and slays the spider Shelob. Is it any wonder that such a brazen allegory for the web spinning ability of contemporary middle and upper class consumerist culture is a giant spider? It seems facetious to think otherwise. Here, unlike Boxer's fixation that "Napoleon is always right," Sam has finally transcended the yoke of the lower classes, and taken control. However, he has done so to rescue his educated master. The masses cannot survive, it seems, without some educated elite to guide them, though this elite must be now weakened, as the ring weakens Frodo. Now, as in Mordor, it is the masses who drive the nation forward, as Sam carries the feeble Frodo to Mount Doom.

With this brief aside in mind, it is now time to turn to the case of The Lord of the Onion Rings as a parable primarily concerned with Sam's fertility, and his claiming of Phallic privilege and exclusivity of procreation with the hobbit slut barmaid Rose "Rosie" Cotton.

Before Sam's adventure he desires this woman Hobbit wench, but is unable to act. His fear and his subservience overcomes his masculine urge for coital intimacy. Here Frodo is seen as the a-typical 'bro' at the party. Beer is flowing, the wenches are dancing and Brodo tries to convince Sam of the virtues of making a move. Frodo is a capable wingman, but he fails. Sam does not get lucky. He is paralysed by fear of the female, especially in it's most seductive of forms, Rosie. Paradoxically it is her very appeal to him that causes him to be unable to approach her.

Bro-do and Sam Mid Party

On his return. however, Sam is a transformed man. He asserts his masculine phallic authority by siring thirteen children from his woman while she is of healthy mating age, and, not content with his dominance over the female other, he asserts control over the male population through his long career as Hobbit Mayor, a role equitable in contemporary terms with the powers of the Deputy Prime Minister. Though he is arguably in a position of power of the 'little folk' of the Shire, in reality his influence is negligible on the wider Middle Earth stage.

Nevertheless Sam has asserted himself as fertile, although like Abraham it took a journey and many hilarious adventures to achieve it. This is in direct contrast to Frodo, who returns a celibate monk compared to his prior bro-ishness. The two roles have become inverted by associated and overexposure; just as proximity to the Ring warps Frodo closer to it, the time Frodo and Sam spend together, huddled together for warmth on cold and rainy nights gives rise to a mimetic transformation. They come to emulate each other, and slowly become each other. Frodo becomes the feminine, whimpering supplicant to Sam's proactive masculine heroics.

However, a spiritual transference with Frodo is not the sole source of Sam's new found fertility; that alone has not given new life to his withered seed like Elisha in the Valley of the Dry Bones. While in the Shire, Sam is exposed to the endless and bountiful exuberance and vitality of the Hobbits, and their undeniable fertility. As a result he feels lost, unable to compete with their happy harvests, another sign of fertility, in the very earth itself. As a gardener Sam understands this; he can nurture flowers and vegetables to maturation, yet he cannot create life himself. His very profession is an endless reminder of his impotence. No wonder he takes to practicing it outside Frodo's window in the middle of the night; in the daylight, his flaws are too apparent for him to be able to stomach.

But in his travels, Sam passes through lands barren, or ravaged by war. Weathertop, Moria, Icthillion, Gondor, Osgiliath, The Misty Marshes, Emin Muiel, Minas Morgul and finally Mordor itself. All of these locations have been made infertile, unable to support or produce life any longer. They are simply places of death, of perpetual conflict. As Homer puts it in the Iliad, 'war never ends.' The war in these barren climes is total and immortal, and in the face of all this destruction of life Sam becomes aware of his own life and fertility that he carries within himself. A sense, perhaps, of 'heroism' this becomes more and more pronounced in Sam the more adversity he faces. Sam discovers his internal fertility when set against the bleakness of Middle Earth, it is the only way his psyche can survive the trauma of war he witnesses. To escape the effects of PTSD, Sam externalises his inner peace, his inner goodness, and is able to conquer the darkness. Furthermore, when he gets home, he brings this fresh ability with him, and is able to seduce and procreate with a vigour that would put a rabbit to shame.

"Mister Frodo, she's at least an eight. Dibs."

 An Argument Against Fertility: Éowyn, The Sterile Warrior Mother

However,  Éowyn seems to turn this fertility narrative on it's head, or at least provide a female counterpart to Sam's 'male mothering' of Frodo. Her repeated attempts to penetrate masculinity and overcome her natural femininity and the prejudice that occurs see her struggling against the very idea of fertility and the female role as a vessel for procreation. Her people are 'horse lords' and the horse has long been a symbol of unfettered virility and masculine expression. She is a (frumpy) woman cut loose in a patriarchy where a man's worth is measured by the length of his beard and his ability to shout.

What a Horse

 However, Éowyn blends masculine and feminine gender roles to create a hybrid persona which fits both her ambition but also her maternal urges. Against her father's wishes she sallies out to battle, and, as well as slaying many disgusting (totally not Moor allegory) orcs, she kills a motherfucking Oliphant. The destruction of this masculine symbol of phallic compensation shows her triumph over the patriarchy through emulation. She acts like a man, she fights like a man, she is a man.

And yet she achieves something more. By bringing along the small, boyish Hobbit Merry, she plays the role of his surrogate mother. Under her influence he transforms from a foolish young rapscallion into a man, a warrior in his own right. She guides him in a second childhood, and both of them act out the child-mother relationship.  This is a relationship that oozes in Freudian tensions and desires. Merry is clearly in love with his mother, and sexually desires her, but, due to his tiny Hobbit manhood, is unable to meet her demanding needs, finding himself eventually replaced by Faramir, another Surrogate she nurses back to health from near death. Here she is able to project her maternal desires onto a male of the same race, and as a result is also able to finally consummate her otherwise sick and twisted desires. Merry is left jilted, but learns from this experience. His true love lies with Pippin; both Hobbits, though in rival factions like Romeo and Juliet in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, have achieved martial prowess, and as such affirmed their masculinity. No longer in crisis and feeling emasculated and vulnerable due to their diminished stature. they are able to consummate their love without these insecurities which previously prevented them from opening up their hearts to one another.

Another Hobbit Fantasy

However, by finding and rearing a surrogate son, Éowyn forgoes coitus in preference to an immaculate conception of sorts. She will not submit to the patriarchy, and as such will not suffer to be made vulnerable by the sexual act or by pregnancy. Her role is sexually gendered masculine at all times, hence the penetrative sword she brandishes. This is the sword with which she slays the dreaded Witch King, itself an gendered oxymoron playing on concepts of the evil (fe)male monarch, providing an empty 'other' onto which she can project herself and her virtues as she now becomes a female monarch with the death of Theoden.

Finally, by severing the phallic neck of the Fell Beast and removing it's aggressive, drooling head, Éowyn is asserting a new type of female masculine virtue. She is both an emasculator, a castrator of men in the mould of the bride from Kill Bill, but also very much a woman, protecting herself and the king from a violent 'rape' at the maw of the Beat. There is no need for the phallus in the new word Éowyn creates for herself, the final symbol of the patriarchy has been undone. She has made herself wilfully sterile, and yet also a mother. Men have no control over her or her reproductive ability, instead she is the commanding mother to men.

Pre Castration