Crappy Days

I have a pal who reckons "I will survive" could work with a male singer and some slightly changed lyrics... Something along the lines of:

"At first YOU were afraid,- YOU were petrified... kept thinkin' YOU could never live without ME by YOUR side..."

I dunno meself...I mean,- I get what he's at, that is to say— such a song could have its place and certainly might not sound quite as ridiculous as a person first might think that it would sound; still... What would be the 'point' of it?

Is it not just mean to hijack a feminine anthem ('Fenthem' anyone?) and turn the message from one of personal triumph to an unsympathetic 'Get over it love!'?

- I do get the sentiment behind reclaiming this song from one of exultant feminine independence to sneering male indifference: it's coz we're sick of it.
We're sick of that mocking and accusatory expression worn on the faces of strangers as they gloatingly sing it at us in nightclubs.

Luckily for me, I know all the words and can gloat it right back but still, it irks to be blamed by people you don't know for leaving Gloria Gaynor ( who, in fairness, probably dumped a plethora of broken-hearted chaps who were mad about her but who warrant no inclusion into her song as they are useless as fuel for her man-ire and would only serve to remind our Gloria that people dump people and that it's not always about her ).

I've had an idea that I've been toying with,- that's not a million miles from the suggested re-working of 'I will survive' and probably just as likely to catch on.
I can blather on about it here because I've decided not to do it.

This is why:

When I came back from Finland and was idealistic about getting 'A Load Of Rubbish' performed my preferred Director asked me a question that astonished me: she asked, "Who are your intended audience?" and I was stumped. .

Whether there ever was an audience for 'A loada'- I never found out.
But this idea is definitely audience-less and so I don't think I'll bother.


The idea was, to write a play inspired by Samuel Beckett's 'Happy Days' involving— not a woman chattering away while she is simultaneously and symbolically buried alive by the indifference of the world and her husband; but a man.

This man would be buried in newspapers and jazz mags and ash-trays and empty bottles and cans instead of sand and;- instead of a monosyllabic half concealed partner he would be alone. He would address someone who used to be there. His voice would be grumpier and more visceral,- he would sound like 'The Tropic of Cancer' by Henry Miller. The play would be bleak and depressing and completely unpopular with everybody.

I'd call it 'Crappy days'.



How are you feeling yourself?

Hi diddle de dee!

Well we went back to Clonmel and played our tragic tale once again to a higher but by no means incalculable number of patrons.

They gave us many compliments, many compliments indeed, and so I need hardly point out that they were a particularly discerning audience of unparalleled good taste.

Next week we'll be in Cork, but for the moment, I am as idle as the superannuated man. The end of ' Five kinds of Silence ' is in sight and I'm already grasping desperately around for some project to distract my brain and fill up my empty existence as soon as 'Five' is kindly silenced permanently.

I had hoped that the act of simply being in the room with an audience might give me an idea or two but so far, nada; nor have my e-mails R.E. Bloomsday in Oslo born fruit and so.... what to do, what to do?

I did have an idea before to organise a performance of 'The Beckett Lebowski' where nine characters ( trapped inside bowling pins in a similar fashion to the three people trapped in urns in Samuel Beckett's ' play' ) would act out all the dialogue of the Coen Brothers film: I love the way that phrases (beginning with George Bush Snr's "this aggression will not stand") reverberate from conversation to conversation in a constant language-echo-effect that I thought would suit the Beckett treatment,— but now that a chap has brought out a Shakespearean re-working of the fillum, well, The Beckett Lebowski looks like a load of copycat crapola.

The fact that Two Gentlemen of Lebowski is really quite well-written and works way-way better than my malformed idea does nothing to help matters.

Nothing at all.

Here's a sample where Sir Walter of Poland entreats Jack Smoke to "Mark it Zero":


Nay! I do protest, and draw my sword;
It shall teach thee to disobey my word.
Mark none but none into that bowler’s frame,
Else thou shalt enter to a world of pain.
A world of pain, think upon’t; unhappy world!
A lake of fire, rich with damnèd souls,
Gulfs of anguish ‘twixt vales of agonies.
Mark me; we stand at twisted, jealous gates
Of cast-iron, above which, in vulgar tongue, reads

“Here is a world of pain, thou enterest thus.”

My steel before thee, ‘tis the last of keys
I' faith, could lock these doors, and keep thee
From this world of pain, or with one flick
Ope its mashing maw, and summon winds
To cast thee down within; an excellent key!
Farewell to earthly delights, farewell to friends,
To fellowships and follies and amends.
The choice to spare thy passage through these trials
Is thine alone; take heed, I entreat thee,
And turn thy back upon this world of pain!


THE KNAVE
Walter, put up thy sword; tarry a moment.

WALTER
Hath this whole world been mired in madness?
Remain ye men of faculty complete,
Of full arithmetic and prudence fair,
Attending to our noble bond and contract?
Or does here stand the last remaining man
To give a fig for rules and order yet,
No noble savage, but a stave unbroken
Who loves the law and bids it no misdeed.
I’ll not be bent to lawlessness. Mark it nought, if we be men of honour.

THE KNAVE
Walter, too long we have tarried on public fields; the constable is notified. I pray you,
sheath thy piece.

WALTER
Mark it nought, else I’ll none.



JACK SMOKE
Good Sir Walter, speak with reason!

WALTER
Dost thou think I tarry idly? Mark it nought!

JACK SMOKE
Yea, I shall yield, and leave it to your pleasure.
Mark as thou wilt, in full and legal measure.

[Exit JACK SMOKE. WALTER sits]

THE KNAVE
In sooth, Walter, thou hast wounded me horribly.
Jack Smoke is cut of cloth alike my humour;
Peaceable men we, for peaceable times,
And Jack Smoke is a man of soft conscience.

WALTER
That he is conscious, I mark thee; I attend well.
In tender youth I dabbled in a course
To seek and hear moral philosophy.
Encount’ring pacifism on that road,
Though ne’er in Orient jungle, beshrew me; yet
I thought upon’t e’en on fields of war.

THE KNAVE
Thou markest that Jack Smoke hath woes of mind.

WALTER
Faith, beyond pacifism?

THE KNAVE
He is a man of fragility, sir, and like to shatter.

WALTER
“Like”; yet I mark not his fragile dust,
Nor saw him break, nor melt, nor cleave in two.
The heated moment passeth, river-tide
Below a bridge in Exeter. Speak, Knave,
Are we not victorious in our sport?
We progress as do rakes; or be I wrong?

THE KNAVE
No, thou speakest true—

WALTER
Be I wrong?

THE KNAVE
No, sir, thy speech is straight and true. But yet thou speakest not, for thou hast not spoken
but brayed, in the manner of an ass.

WALTER
Fair; then I am an ass; let it be writ down that I am an ass. Then, mark well; the Knave
and his partner, an ass, shall play again at ninepins in half a fortnight, their skills match’d
against Joshua Quince and Liam O’Brien. They worry me not; they shall be o’er-pushed
with certitude.

THE KNAVE
An we play again in seven days and seven nights, I pray you, be of good humour.

WALTER
“Be of good humour!” ‘Tis thine answer to everything.
Mark: thy peaceable nature, while conceiv’d
In upright spirit, meant for noble deeds,
May cited be by devils for their purpose.
Mark the Arab king in foreign land,
The base Mesopotamian, who lieth with steed.
Thou present’st to me a wall to hide behind
‘Twas born of truce in fear and frighten’d mind.

THE KNAVE
I pray you, be of good humour.

WALTER
I am as calm as still waters, Knave.

THE KNAVE
As steel waters, I’ll warrant; put up thy
Icy blade! Crack not gory tales of war!

WALTER
My calmness exceeds thine.

THE KNAVE
Be of ease, I pray you! Be of good cheer,
And let us not repeat what happen’d here!

WALTER
My calmness exceeds thine. But hark; here comes a visitor.

[Enter BRANDT]




It really is quite good.
Two Gentlemen of Lebowski site.

Bishop Brennan and the percieved historocity of objects.

There are things in this world, important historical artifacts.

Much of the most valuable art in the world is valued, well..y'know.. not as 'Art' but actually as historical artifacts.



Their historocity, the idea that they were made by the actual hand of perceived genius is the understood basis for the value of, say 'Mona Lisa' as opposed to a perfect forgery of the Mona Lisa.



I dunno about this. I mean in a way, it's highly illogical captain.

I reckon whatever tangible experience that we actually get from our proximity to the actual brush-strokes of Picasso or whoever is debatable, surely.

If there was any real significant difference between the experience of looking at a perfect fake Warhol/Picasso/Constable and looking at an actual one then we wouldn't have either art-fakers* (they'd never fool anyone) or art-experts (to catch them out).

As Dolores O'Riordan of the Cranberries was wont to sing at one time: "It's in your heeeead in your hehehhhheeeeadd". It's that thing that we think is there but really aint.



If, for whatever reason, I decided to sell somebody my kitchen table, and if we imagine that the night before the removers came for it, it was stolen and replaced by an exact replica.

The removers take away the 'faux' table and no-one is the wiser.

Subsequently, history develops and it turns out that a very famous world-changing song was written on that table (by a guest at the height of their creative powers).

The table becomes extremely valuable as the very table that "Who put the boop on ma best brown boots" was composed upon, the person who bought it from me is able to auction it off for a bajillion eurodollah, it ends up in a museum.

I die, the person I sold it to dies, and then someone comes out of the woodwork to claim his grandfather was an eccentric who liked to steal things from people and replace them with exact replicas.



This grandson claims that he has the actual 'who put the boop' table. His claims are meaningless. Without a receipt, there is nothing to prove his story and so his table is worthless. The other table is priceless. Value is attached to it really just because that's the table that people, who cannot possibly 'know', have decided to believe in.

Up until the point that it can be proven otherwise people are in no way discontent with the fake. As soon as they are given this knowledge, they can no longer enjoy the object.

Madness.

Which brings me along to the point of Hitlers underpants.



Unless you are an evil pro-nazi scientist who needs access to his stained underpants (so that you can clone the great Shicklegruber from his origonal stain-cells), Hitlers' underpants have no more actual value than any other very old pair of underpants made by the same company and worn by another man during the same era.

However, in terms of antiques, if you have a pair of what were the Fuhrers 'actual jocks' and the documentation to back it up, there are people in this world who will pay you handsomely for them.

As is true of Hitlers' underpants is true of the relics of St.Van Gogh, Matisse, Dali and whoever. The art we value, we value as relics, markers, signposts in the development of our own culture/aesthetics perhaps,-
Its a strange kind of social ritual that we have and call Art when you think about it.

In my euro-million lottery winning dreams I don't want art and I don't want sports cars, I would happily spend whatever it took though to purchase something that I know exists and regard personally as a lost national treasure, I speak of the really giant photo of Father Ted kicking Bishop Brennan up the arse.



This has to be somewhere... I think it should be purchased for the nation.
It's an effective cultural signpost of our era, wherever it is, can we have it please?

As Indiana Jones used to say: "it belongs in a MUSEUM"

(It or an exact replica, obviously.)

Going for a song

Good ol' Momus.

Part of the fun of th'interveb is the ability to share... Here is an image BANG! No you don't have to queue up to the Guggenheim, or wait for the salon to host its grand exhibition; here it is BANG! Here's a bit of music I think you'd like, no there's no need to call around to my house and watch me pull out my vinyl LP's ...BANG! whatcha think? Good eh? Here's their influences BANG! Hear the similarities? It was used in this scene for that film BANG! Rick Astley did a cover of it...BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!

Okay the last bit was me shooting Rick Astley repeatedly in the nose but you get what I'm at: this is the world now and we spread the pop-culture 'round the web like so much manure. Methinks and mehopes that this manure will prove fertile ground indeed for the pop-pickers of tomorrow,- but I wouldn't be my anachronistic, crotchety curmudgeonly, Luddite self if some small part of me didn't think that back in the day of queuing outside record shops that the comparative inaccessibility of music meant that the music itself 'meant more'.

It must have, mustn't it?

Era I dunno... Either way the availability of all this musical output does make me feel perversely pleased if ever I go looking for summat and can't find it... It's like somehow the Borg haven't assimilated it yet, or something. But whose not there?
Once upon a time I couldn't find any MOMUS, but those days are gone.
Nobody is not there anymore it seems. 10 years ago maybe, but now everything's pretty much everywhere.

Today's blog, is an act of gratitude to the people* who reached into their vinyl collection and put the needle on the record so that they could introduce me to this work, (*you know who you are).
In the pantheon of pretentious 1980's pop-musicians; MOMUS makes Morrissey look like a member of Status Quo. Which is why you have to love him and also why nobody seems to have heard of him.

I searched the whole wide web, I searched the whole wide web just to find him, well one song in particular. Might not be your cup of tea, but it's my favourite by him and I do think he has some crackers.

In this one he uses the conceit of taking the wars of the 20th Century and making them just one persons life: They live, stuff happens, they die...as a story it's a bit like that film 'Synechdoce New York' I spose.

Please check it out 'coz it's worth the listen.

Clicky here for the song

Here are the words:

Three Wars


The first war, the war of 14 to 18
Begins with an uprising of adrenalin
The first war begins with the testicles descending
And desire assassinating the child

that you once were

The war begins at school
when you rebel against the maths teacher
Who touched you up behind his desk
And ends
when you've failed your final maths exam
And had your first success with sex
The war brings new discoveries
How to make dog fights
with your thyroid and pituitary glands
How the Zeppelin can fly at your command

And a generation lays down its life
When after all they've done for you
The good parents
The good parents die
Resurrected

as your enemy

And when the girl you've started wanting
More than all you've ever wanted says no
She is
She is your enemy too
But you survive

And from the trenches of your newly found opinions
Quickly dug, quickly abandoned
The white flag waves
for an armistice on Christmas Day
Then your voice rings round the family front room
Like a drill sergeant's in front of his platoon
Broken
Broken too soon
But you survive



The second war, the war of 39 to 45
Begins when you identify your own inner Third Reich
The second war begins with a sudden hypochondria
A visit to a doctor who waves a piece of paper and says
'This time...
it's just a false alarm'
The war begins at work
with some intoxicating news
When the letter comes that offers you promotion
And ends
when you decide to let them offer it
To younger men with more ambition
The war brings new perspectives
when you suddenly see through
The politics of power which possessed you
Through all your waking hours

And a generation lays down its life
When the whizz kids of the industry
Slow down
Slow down and die
resurrected

as your enemy

And when the woman who accepted you
When all the rest rejected you goes
She is
She is your enemy too
But you survive

And at weekends you get custody of an only child
Already adolescent and unreconciled
Who laughs at you,
you and your new-found piety
And his laugh rings round your faint desire for god
Like an order from an inner firing squad
Breaking
Breaking the ties of blood
But you survive



But the third war is the war that never comes
The war that never comes to everyone
Begins the second after next by accident
Ends everything except itself
The war brings nothing,
the unimaginable
That the old imagine all the time
Imagine
imagination dying

And a generation lays down its life
When it refuses the creation
of new ways
new ways to live
And when the great invention falls apart
Ripping through the atoms of your heart
The third war will start

Which no-one survives












Not exactly 'Walkin on sunshine', but I love it.

The Male Feminist pt 3

And so ends this journey, most definitely with a whimper rather than a bang.

I think 'the compliment of rational opposition' is a compliment always, and one to be all the more treasured when it's in response to a statement that wasn't all that rational to begin with; so I want to earnestly say thanks for any heckling from the wings on this one. I hope my general half-bakedness doesn't enrage anyone too much, as for meself,-I really have enjoyed faffing around the interweb and trying to get a fuller picture of this Marston chap.

'Feminist' as a term seemed to be the major flag-raiser but there aint no way around that because that is the word associated with Mr Marston I took exception to and really didn't realise took much defining.

So, seeing as the horse has bolted, and there's a bit of a draught in here why don't we close the door:

Feminism defined (via five minutes and a search engine):

.....

#1.a doctrine that advocates equal rights for women. wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn #2. Feminism refers to movements aimed at establishing and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women.[1][2][3] Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights. Feminism is mainly focused on women's issues, but because feminism seeks gender equality, some feminists argue that men's liberation is therefore a necessary part of feminism, and that men are also harmed by sexism and gender roles.[4][5][6][7] Feminists—that is, persons practicing feminism—can be persons of either sex. wikipedia #3. Feminism does not have a single fundamental definition. Feminism refers to the belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes; that each individual is a valuable human being in his or her own right. The goal of feminist work is broader than simply a stronger emphasis on women; the goal is to revise our way of considering history, society, literature, etc. so that both male and female are seen equally conditioned by the gender constructions of their culture. Magaessays.com

Feminism from the above definitions is grounded in a desire for equal rights for all people regardless of gender. In other words all that is good and right and every civilised society should be aiming for so: what on earth did I think I was talking about?

Okay. Back when I was a gorsoon in Art college, I came in one day and this poster was on the wall:



Whatever section I had in my head under the word 'Feminism', this poster was the thumbnail for it. 'Feminism' was, for me, whatever put that poster up and thought it was a good thing.
The 'Male Feminist' whom I did not trust, is the person ( with their genitalia mainly outside their body ) who is not offended by it.

Now that's a simplistic and uninformed way of thinking as it turns out, and I really oughta no better -but it's good to be learning at this stage in my life.

When I read Marstons' interviews, my own reaction is that the man was essentially 'White-knighting',on a grand scale- I could be wrong, but his notion of the perfect society with loving, nurturing, females incapable of aggression at the helm is one I find shockingly patronising.

In spite of all this was he a 'feminist'? -Well he definitely tried to make a positive contribution, and although her readership has always been 90% male and although when she joined the Justice Society of America superhero group they only took her on as club secretary ( I kid you not), Wonderwoman was probably over-all a better role model for young women,( and what they might be), than what was out there before.

Gloria Steinham considered her the right gal for the cover of issue#1 of 'Ms' Magazine:


And it's probably unfair to judge the Marston by today's standards (that the F.B.I. under Hoover administration had no time for him doesn't actually tell us much about the mans character either).

So, to finish up then here is a modern male self-proclaimed feminist who's attitude I complete agree with, this is from a blog called atopthefourthwall. The subject is Wonderwoman's new costume 2010, and the author is not in favour.


....'But wait,' many of you have asked me, 'Aren't you a feminist? Aren't you happier now that she isn't wearing a sexist bathing suit and is actually wearing pants and showing less skin?' Well, let's address that last part first - she's not really all THAT much more covered up. She's still got exposed cleavage and frankly most comic book artists draw pants on women as skintight to the point that it might as well be spray-painted on anyway. And even then, as I said, the Project Rooftop examples had plenty of costumes with pants, but they weren't black. And in case you're wondering if I'm just misinterpreting the colors and it's really dark blue, check out the article or buy Wonder Woman #600 for yourself - they're black.

Now let's address my feminism. This is once again a misinterpretation of what feminism is - the thing is, showing skin is not the problem. I mock it in a lot of books because it seems like a lot of women's costumes are designed to show as much skin as possible for titillation reasons. Instead of designing costumes that are logical for a character based on who they are, their origins, or their thought process, they're designed so that they can ride up a woman's ass and heterosexual men can drool at it. Part of feminism is that you don't have preconceived notions about a person simply because of how they dress, how society might look at a girl or a woman in a mini-skirt and think to themselves, "they must be a slut," when in reality they could just really like mini-skirts.

Costumes themselves are not necessarily sexist one way or another and the same goes for Wonder Woman (though I continually groan in frustration whenever an artist decides that Wonder Woman's lower half rides up her ass like a thong). How the characters are written and how their body language is portrayed is what makes things sexist one way or another. Frank Miller writes Vicki Vale to be obsessed with superhero penises and put in the script that he wants Jim Lee to sexualize her for titillation, making her into nothing more than an object to be gazed at, describing in detail that she should be in skimpy attire and that her ass should be front and center for the reader. THAT is a sexist portrayal...



This is a point of view I find perfectly valid and have no problem agreeing with, (a short skirt is simply a short skirt and what is depicted is different from how it is depicted e.t.c.) Personally, I'm for equal rights for everybody and I think objectification doesn't do much for human dignity of any gender, race or creed,

but I wouldn't call myself a feminist.

The Male Feminist pt2

Right so, where were we?

I began this thing with notions and prejudice. My notion was: "that Marston fella who invented Wonderwoman is constantly referred to as a feminist*, - I doubt it! (says Croker) - I'll just pop a couple of juicy facts down here and look up a couple more, and then we'll see how feminist he is!" a foolproof plan, which, like many the foolproof plan before it completely underestimates the ingenuity of fools.

Being neither a social scientist nor a true aficionado of DC comics in the post-war era; it turns out that there's a lot I don't know, and some of the stuff I do know and had wanted to talk about I don't really want to talk about any more, as it turns out.

Big Eeejit.

Anyway, by way of illustration I set before you an illustration: The last post began with a black and white photograph featuring Marston and Olive among others and so it is today. Observe:



Now I know it's only a photograph, and that the most hideous domestic situations are never revealed in the eternally smiling holiday snaps but something about this photos general wholesomeness puts me right off commenting on William Marston's home life.

It makes me feel frankly that it's none of my business. There was one sketchy report from a friend of his describing it as a patriarchal set-up but that hardly means anything, I mean; what does a visitor ever know? Upon reflection, I can't actually draw from his polygamy that he was a feminist or he wasn't a feminist, and as a blog commentator has so kindly pointed out, I have yet to even define feminist so I suppose that I should simply slap my forehead now and say, "Umm..Err.. I don't know what I'm talking about and it's none of my business anyway...".

But I'm not really smart enough for that folks.

Rather than commenting too much on several peoples' private lives, or attempting to define feminism, I think a wiser tactic might be to see what there is to support my original prejudice that a male feminist is, in some sense, a phoney.

There's a fantastic piece of phonyism in the 1941 article of 'Family Circle' where he's interviewed by Olive on the subject of the Wonderwoman comic and the doctrine of female supremacy which I have to link here and I strongly recommend reading as a delightful bit of hocum. The theories he propounds are not in spirit anyway different from the quotes in yesterdays blog, but what reads so strangely in the light of what we actually know of their relationship, is the fiction invented to give context to the article.



Our intrepid female reporter, comes back from a friends house. The friend has been widowed by recent events in Pearl Harbor, and is weary of all this talk of war, when she spots a comic-book on the table, and is suddenly inspired to visit her avuncular friend; the source of the comic-book heroine and a sage for her troubled mind.

She finds him, in his office of course, reading the exact same issue she noticed at home on the table: and then it's pretty much Harry Potter in Dumbledore's Study from there but instead of 'a scar', it's Olives' femininity which has marked her out for greatness. She remains incredulous and signs off in a tone that's more wistful than inspired as a result of her encounter with this delightful old dreamer.

Phony? check. Baloney? with extra slices, but to be fair it is Olive's phoney-baloney and it is for Family Circle magazine and it is the forties and the Japs have just bombed Pearl Harbor so it's not like an honest and direct version was ever going to be considered for publication. It's a piece of journalistic Hokum, but so what? So nothing really, I just felt I had to include it because I enjoyed it so much. It does illustrate another problem with any conclusions to be drawn from Marstons living arrangements because clearly it wasn't anything that he or his spouses could ever comment on at that time.

Still, she does lay it on a bit thick.

While Marston may or may not have been in favor of the fictional element of the article, and therefore by association, a 'phony'; he was, ironically enough for the man who invented the lie detector, an actual convicted criminal.

The article, "Will Give Hearing to Alleged Mail Defrauder," the Bridgeport Telegram, Wednesday, 7 March 1923, p. 13: WASHINGTON, March 6. -- Dr. William Moulton Marston, Jr., Professor of legal psychology at the American university and inventor of the sphygmomandmeter [sic] or "lie detector," has made $3,000 bond and will be given a hearing March 16 on a charge he "lied by mail."

Dr. Marston was arrested on a warrant charging use of the mails to defraud and was taken before United States Comissioner McDonald, who fixed the date of the hearing. He was indicted last November in Boston on complaint of a number of creditors who charged that as treasurer of the United Dress Goods, Inc. he misrepresented the financial condition of his firm and thus obtained considerable bills from them. Prominent among the complainants are A.D. Julliard & Co. and C. Bahnsen & Co. of New York. Another is his ex-furnace tender, of Boston, whom it is alleged he owes more than $100.

So what's goin on here? Well in all honesty I don't know and any further facts of this case other than what you see here elude me. On the face of it, Marston was found guilty of mendacity by correspondance to the tune of a hundred dollars; a hundred dollars may well have been a lot in those days but it was only a 30th of the bond he had to pay. There were two federal indictments and a number of creditors.
He was obviously strapped for cash and tried something he didn't get away with.

I think this makes him perhaps poor and desperate, but not necessarily a phony of any great degree and it certainly tells us nothing about his attitude to women.

The F.B.I. actually had a file on him, which is now a matter of public record. And although there isn't that much in it; I think it's fair to say that they definitely did regard him as a bit of a phony.

E.P. Coffey, who headed the FBI's Technical Laboratory,- had Marston's book reviewed for the bureau:

Re: Review of book entitled, Lie Detector Test by Doctor William M. Marston. The above-entitled book was reviewed by Mr. Quinn Tamm of the Technical Laboratory who reports that in his opinion the book is typical of all the work done by Doctor Marston in that it is written in an extremely egotistical vein and that the sole purpose of the book seems to be to establish the fact that Doctor Marston was the first to use the blood pressure test in the detection of deception. The first three chapters in the book deal with the subject of pointing out how Doctor Marston discovered the blood pressure test as a deception detector and also ridicules all other psychological attempts along this same line. The balance of the book is devoted to the various uses to which Doctor Marston has put the so-called lie detector test such as actual use in police cases, examination of employees in banks, a chapter entitled "Love and the Lie Detector" in which Marston points out how he has settled marital difficulties by the use of his psychological test. It is noted that throughout the book the author points out that the blood pressure test for the detection of deception in the hands of a trained operator is infallible and that once the deception has been detected it has been his experience that if this is pointed out to the subject he will admit his guilt and it will have the psychological effect upon him of making him always in the future tell the truth. This to Mr. Tamm, exemplifies the same egotistical ridiculous strain in which this book is written.

So they weren't exactly blown away.

Here's another illustration, not unusual for the era I suppose, where Marston has convoluted the application of his lie detector to demonstrate the sharpness of the Gillette blades:



Now, to yourself and meself, this seems like just another ludicrous forties advertisement, but the vast majority of its audience took it absolutely seriously.
So it seems did the F.B.I. They seem to have had an informer and have a full report on Marston's Gillette tests in Detroit. According to the report he interfered with test results to provide data the advertisers wanted and encouraged his colleagues to share the deception.
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2

Scribbled at the bottom of the first page is the comment:
"I always thought this fellow Marston was a phony & this proves it!"

Well I always thought that fellow was a phony too, Special Agent John. S. Bugas!
Unfortunately for me though, discovering that on more than one occasion Mr Marston was willing to bend the rules in order to secure cash for both his families isn't enough for my purposes.

I've come nowhere near outing the man as a phony feminist.

But if he was a genuine feminist, he was also a a bit of a phony too.


I've a bit more to say about this, but you can all shag off until tomorrow because I'm turning into some sort of hunch-backed translucent skinned web-wraith.

*Anyone who doubts exactly how often William Moulton Marston is described as a feminist can do a Google search of his name and the word 'feminist' he is given this title in every bio I could find.

The Male Feminist pt1

Okay I admit it, I bit off more than I can chew. I've really bitten off more than I can chew this time and the worst of it is that you; denizens of the data flow, you are the ones who have to digest it.

Upon reflection, perhaps things aint all that bad after all.
Because, (after all,) the interweb is an infinite menu and and instant click will take folk far away from this rubbish and onto something more palatable in an electronic nano-thrice.

Well today shall be one of them sloppy posts, so: If the urge should strike you, as you scan the pixels before you, to do this: then my advice is to obey that urge, (instantly).

Still here?-Okay then, I'spose that I might as well begin:

Have a look at this picture. This picture is from 1938 and depicts, in a fairly stagy way, the use of the first systolic pressure lie detector test. The gentleman on the far right is William Moulton Marston. The Lady taking notes is his student, Olive Byrne.

Have a look at Olive; Look familiar? Yes/No? Well there's no real reason why she should, except that, as you may or may not know, as well as inventing the stystolic pressure lie detector test, William Marston also created Wonderwoman, and cited Olive as one of his inspirations.


So let me say that once again:
Mr Marston invented the pre-cursor to the modern polygraph and he also invented the most well-known female super-hero of all time, based on Olive, (observe the bracelets!). How cool is that?

Marston is often referred to as a kind of 'proto-feminist', and at a time when women were regarded almost as children (and granted about as much self-determination), Marston was envisaging a new dawn of female supremacy. His most common quote (on the interveb) is from the American Scholar interview of 1944 where he said:

"Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, and power... ...Women's strong qualities have become despised because of their weakness. The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman."

Now that's a pretty cool thing for anyone to be coming out with back in 1944, I think you'd have to admit. Also, on the absolute fabbo-ness front, this man deserves respect for championing comics.

Marston examined comics when other psychologists were queueing up to blame them as a contributer to illiteracy and juvenile delinquency. It was when this intellectual crusade, ( which lead to the infamous 'comic-codes authority'), was in full 'Spanish Inquisition' mode, that Marston celebrated the popularity of the comic book form; seeing it as an opportunity to get kids to read -- and a platform to circulate his feminine supremacist ideal.

Here he addresses it in the same interveiw:

"It’s too bad for us ‘literary’ enthusiasts, but it’s the truth nevertheless -- pictures tell any story more effectively than words....If children will read comics...why isn’t it advisable to give them some constructive comics to read?"

Go on ya good thing Marston me boyo! So is it possible perhaps that William Moulton Marston was simply a brilliant and fantastic person, years ahead of his time and totally under-appreciated? Well.. um.. er... Okay this is where I get into the area of having bitten off more than I can comfortably chew... The answer to the above question is 'Yes!': but, it is a 'Yes!-but...'




As I admitted in the earlier post, I started this whole thing from a position of prejudice. It doesn't show much faith in human nature I guess, but I'm wary of folk who champion causes. I'm even more wary of folk who champion causes that do not seem to further their own self interest in even the smallest way. And a 'male feminist' kinda strikes me as likely phoney.



When I decided yesterday, to have a closer look at William, I was hazily aware that he lived in a menage e trois and that his second 'wife' ( Olive, incidentally): had been one of his students. I also knew that that 'gold-rope-that-made-you-tell-the-truth' didn't come out of nowhere and there was a huge aspect of bondage to his comics and to his psychological philosophy; I knew that an early study with his lie detector was to ask girls ( who, had been through a humiliating 'hazing' ritual,) whether they had enjoyed being beaten up and spanked. Conclusion: 'They loved it really the little tarts!'.

Alright I paraphrase, but my point being that when I decided to have a wee scratch on the surface; I wasn't really expecting to find what you'd call a 'feminist' and certainly, by today's standards, I didn't. But I didn't get a sense of a straight-forward fake either.

I shall have to finish this tomorrow, the computer's acting up and it's too late for me to continue.

I told you I bit off more than I can chew didn't I?

With Extreme Prejudice ( male feminist pt 0.5)

I'm not prejudiced but...

I am of course.

Human brains are pretty much hard-wired for it. Evolving as we did, in far smaller groups than the super-tribes of millions we interact with now, we just don't have the mental capacity for dealing with all the other people as individuals.

The brain takes short-cuts. These short-cuts lead to prejudice.

Case in point, if you had your lunch money stolen by a green-haired person at school; if you got mugged and badly beaten in your teens by a green-haired gang; if your green-haired neighbour poisoned your dog, and the one time you dated a green-haired person, they ran off with your best friend and all of your money; then the next time you meet a green-haired person, that person is going to have to work harder to gain your trust.


All the statistics in the world demonstrating that green-heads are no less moral than any other hair colour wont mean a damn to you in comparison to your own experience.

Green hair is a hypothetical physical characteristic, but there are millions of others. There are accents we don't like, ways of dressing that set off warning signals, even a persons age or gender is going to affect the way you view them. I think it's wrong for anyone to claim they are entirely without prejudice; it is never true: we constantly divide people in our minds into groups: 'Golf-drivers', 'Squash Players', 'Students', 'Scumbags', 'Suits', 'Emos', 'Mods' and 'Rockers'.

Anyway, my point being, that despite my best efforts; I notice what gender/age/skin-colour/clothes and accent people have, and that affects to some extent how I interact with them. I'd rather it didn't but it does. The phrase is :'To Keep an Open Mind', but I see 'closed' as the human mind default setting.

I would say that I don't Keep an Open Mind; I keep a closed mind, same as everyone else.

I try and open it as often as possible, but the sad fact is that the older you get the harder it is not to dismiss that green-haired person (or girl called 'Bláithín', or whatever the detail, that your own experience has led you to despise about people who share it, is ) and even if you do make friends with a green hair later in life, ( or you do come across a Bláithín who has a soul,) it's hard to dismiss all those years of having a contrary opinion, and the brain makes excuses to accommodate the original world view:

"No. The man who saved my life had kind of 'bluey green' hair"...

"She's not like all the other Blathins, I think of her more as a Sandra"...

My point is I'm prejudiced. I believe in the same rights and opportunities for all types of people but there are some types of folk I'm pre-disposed to more than others, and I'm probbly not gonna change at this stage. I believe that as soon you notice that someone is green-haired you have in some way categorised them in a different way.

All this is the pre-amble for the extremely prejudiced comment I am about to make:

Okay here goes.

Might as well just say it, and be done with it.

Right.

Here we go:

Any man who claims to be 'a feminist':I don't believe him.
I think he either actually thinks that he's something he's not,
Or he's pretending to be something he's not.

Todays post is only the intro,

In the next post I'll be having a look at one self-claimed feminist chap in more detail, but I just thought that I'd let you know by way of a heads-up.

I am completely prejudiced.

And if you think that it's in anyway typical of a white heterosexual male to be so judgemental:

Then so are you.

Fond De L'Etange (internat)

Tonights viewing was ‘The Chorus’; a foreign fillum no less. French- if you don’t mind,- a story about a teacher and a school full of hard-chaws in post-war France. It was in the grand tradition of : ‘to Sir with Love’ and ‘Dead Poets Society’, ‘Dangerous Minds’ and a little bit of ‘Scum’ thrown in.

I think it’s a fact, of any artistic endeavour, that people respond well to it if they can see themselves in it.

An aspect of all school-days-based-operas is that everybody has been to school and remembers the dynamic of that system and the operators within it: so they should be able to see themselves, or at least their younger-selves, easily enough.

For me though, these films have an extra angle because I have spent time and energy and years of my life going back in to those rooms and playing to that tough crowd not only as the messer, but also as the bloke who's 'sposed to be in charge. So what can I say of this fillum?



I was moved (as if that means anything). Well alright it is French, and what with it being all'n all French'n all, I feel inclined to let it away with things that would absolutely rankle in an English-spoken equivalent.

It was sacharrin in some ways, yes. But although the story had many of the clichéd and upbeat markers of the genre, it didn’t have the standard happy ending and it didn’t have the eventual redemption of ‘the bad kid’ either and so deserves praise for that. Also, as one might expect from the premise, there is some truly, truly beautiful music and I feel worthy also of mention is the casting.
Casting is a small thing, and it doesn’t account for much by way of work, but it does have an inordinate effect on one’s perception of things; when a film is cast and some body plays the main character as a boy and somebody else plays him as the teenager and somebody plays the adult and somebody plays the old man- they have to look like each other.



In this film, the only match-up to be done was between a twelve-year old boy and a man in his sixties and, I kid you not, they were the most perfect inter-age coupling of two actors to play one person I have ever seen. Also the ‘bad kid’ the rough nut, whatever you-call-him; he just had a completely believable head for that part. I’m sure he grew up on the Donaghs,- and tried to sell me a stolen mountain-bike one time. I’m sure of it.

A film to end all films? A film to rock your world? A brainless roller coaster ride with a decent bit of blood and snots flyin' round in it? 'The Chorus' was none of the above, but it was good and... I dunno... honest (in a stylised French way).
A good film for ex-ideological educators who like kids singing in French.

There are people who would see it on a par with 'The Mighty Ducks' and...



I'm one of them.



Mind you: I love 'The Mighty Ducks'.



Most under-rated fillum. ever.



And I mean that now.

Easily suede.

Can you imagine if there had never been Elvis?

Do you believe that agoraphobics would suffer less in solitary confinement?- or more?

Have you ever dreamt of Jeannie?

Does Elvis strike you as a magnificent, or tragic figure?

If you were confined inside a bottle for a thousand years and then one day you were liberated and could grant a wish to the person who freed you, and the wish that they asked you for, was to speak and understand a language, that they didn't know, absolutely fluently, and you said "yes no problem,- what language is it?"
and if they replied "Irish",
- would you consider it a bit of a waste of a wish?

Do you think that if Elvis had not been around to be Elvis, that someone else might have gotten the job?

Do you believe that the language used to express a thought changes it?

Do you believe that in a universe devoid of Elvis, Marylin Monroe or James Dean that the walls of Abra-kebabras would be adorned with representations of other icons of the era or do you think that there would be people you've never heard of on those walls:
stars that 'didn't make it' to take their place?

Do think Elton John's a bit crap?

Do you think any of his songs would be improved by translation into Irish?

If you were confined inside a bottle for a thousand years and then one day you were liberated and could grant a wish to the person who freed you, and that person was Elvis, and the wish that Elvis asked you for, was to live a normal life free from the constraints of fame and success, would you consider it a good or a bad thing?

If upon granting that wish, you no longer had to be a Genie and could now walk the earth, and you decided to spend your first night at the first gig of the 'no-fame or success' Elvis, and you went there, and he played and sang beautifully to a room of people that kept talking and completely ignored him; would you find that sad or smile and think 'job well-done'?

Do you see what I'm trying to do?

Do you think that buildings become especially beautiful as they are destroyed by fire?

Do you think a song of sadness would sound more, or less poignant if sung by an Elvis that nobody but you could hear?


Do you think that this is how Irish songs sound to those who speak Irish?


Can you tell what I've been reading recently?

Did you enjoy it yourself?

post haste

Okay, I have been drinkinanidge, and it's not a good ideato be abloggin' at this late hour: but I've been thinkinanidge, on my long walk back from Bentley's,- about how best to explain things about a child-centered and over-analysed science-fiction film series as I see it:

and I have this to say:

In terms of creating a good story, full of elements that serve to enhance it and make it interesting, and then returning to that story and trying to pretend that the elements of the origonal story were part of some 'bigger picture' that you had in your mind all along and that those elements had some other function apart from making the origonal film cool:

StarWars prequels = HighlanderII












StarWars prequels=HighlanderII

remember that people

images stolen from b3ta

When Fembots Dream of Electric McGuffins:original

Okay folk, first download this mp3 and while you're doing that, I'll explain:


I'm trying something different today; having sworn off flesh and blood women, for obvious reasons;- I took a couple of food-pills, hopped into my flying car, and went out and bought myself a couple of sexbots, (why not? after all this is 2011).

They're working out so well, in fact, that I have even let them write the blog:
So, without further eloquence; todays' 'Things and also Stuff' was inspired by the fembots' horror when they heard R2D2 described as a 'McGuffin' on the commentary of the Star Wars DVD.

You can listen to their version or read my version, but I recommend you do both at the same time

When Fembots dream of Electric McGuffins

'Sense and Sensibility' is a meaningless title, it just more or less means the same thing twice. This was not always so.

It seems to be that 'Sensibility' used to mean something more akin to 'Sensitivity' and vice versa.*, so the title of the Jane Austen novel: 'Sense and Sensibility' would be more readily comprehensible in modern English if it were re-named 'Sense and Sensitivity'.( One sister is all prudent and careful-like: 'Sense', and the other is all about emotions feelings: 'Sensitivity').

Why and how the words 'Sensible' and 'Sensitive' so dramatically changed meanings since the 1800's ,I have no idea. But they definitely did, and they retain their original meaning in their French, Spanish and Italian counterparts; leading to occasional confusion.*

I'm only bringing it up today to demonstrate that I am aware that words can dramatically change their meaning over a fairly short period of time.

So, you may ask; if I can accept that language is organic and fluid, and that words change meaning over time; can I ever accuse anyone of using a word 'incorrectly',- simply because they attribute a different meaning to it than the one that I have assigned?

Yep. I think I can.

I mean, I think dictionaries are there for a reason: it's all well and good for language to develop, but I do think we should take some pains to slow down this process.
We should slow it down as much as possible so that language maintains it's comprehensibility for as long as it concievably can. We should resist the temptation to happily bounce along tolerating lazy writing, just because it feels less formal.

Don'tcha think?

Getting back to Jane Austen again, isn't it wonderful that we can read something as bitchy and as perfect as:

"Elinor agreed with it all, for she did not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition."

and understand it perfectly?

So I wish today to discuss the sad corruption of one the loveliest elements in the modern story makers' jargon; the 'McGuffin'( corrupted and abused by such greats as George Lucas and Harrison Ford, no less).

We all know what a McGuffin is, right?
Well at least we've all heard of one ,No?
Well at least the term is half-way familiar, Yes?

Oh sod it.

Okay books and films and plays and comics have stories, and, as well as 'lost love' and 'personal relationships' and 'punishment from the gods for saying or doing something silly in the first act', sometimes stories have 'McGuffins'.


The McGuffin is the name for a story element coined by Alfred Hitchcock, the importance of the McGuffin lies usually in its' perceived importance; a McGuffin is... a McGuffin should be....ummm ...er... they get the figs and they get the dough and they kind of....

Oh never mind: here's a couple of definitions culled from the electric tube omni-brain we call the web:

"a plot element that catches the viewers' attention or drives the plot of a work of fiction"
^ MacGuffin, Princeton University, WordNet 3.0


" a device or plot element that catches the viewer’s attention or drives the plot. It is generally something that every character is concerned with."
^http://www.essortment.com/all/alfredhitchcoc_rvhd.htm



"a term for a PlotEnablingDevice, i.e., a device or plot element in a movie that is deliberately placed to catch the viewer's attention and/or drive the logic of the plot, but which actually serves no further purpose - it won't pop up again later, it won't explain the ending, it won't actually do anything except possibly distract you while you try to figure out its significance. More specifically, it is usually a mysterious package or superweapon or something that everyone in the story is chasing."
^http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?McGuffin

Main Entry: McGuffin
Part of Speech: n
Definition: in film, a plot device that has no specific meaning or purpose other than to advance the story; any situation that motivates the action of a film either artificially or substantively; also written MacGuffin
Etymology: Alfred Hitchcock's term, based on a story where this device was used in a story set on a Scottish train
^Dictionary.com's 21st Century Lexicon


I could get more but I'm sure that basically you get it by now.I'm also sure that you've noticed that definitions of this word fall into two types: a general one and a specific one, and that these differ on one important point,i.e. is a McGuffin a catch-all term for all plot devices such as diamonds, the microfilm, unobtainium e.t.c.? - or does it only refer to things which seem important but never are?In other words; to qualify for true Mcguffin status, must they invariably transpire to be not as important as they seemed?

A dictionary will not help us here, because the fact is this is contested ground. Hitchcock invented the word, but he did not give it a specific definition.

He said:

"It might be a Scottish name, taken from a story about two men in a train. One man says "What's that package up there in the baggage rack?", and the other answers "Oh that's a McGuffin". The first one asks "What's a McGuffin?". "Well", the other man says, "It's an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands". The first man says "But there are no lions in the Scottish Highlands", and the other one answers "Well, then that's no McGuffin!".

So you see, a McGuffin is nothing at all..."

Oh Hitch, you lovable old wind-bag. Only you could be so maddeningly enigmatic and so completely specific at the same time. Don't give us such a great word and such a central term to your whole philosophy of storytelling and then tell us that it means nothing at all! Unless...

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, what I believe to be of paramount importance in this anecdote, is the setting. Why? I ask you, did Alfred set his illustrative parable on board a train? Perhaps you feel that it's for no other reason than that's as good a place as any for strangers to discuss luggage. You may be right.

I do not concur.
Let us listen to the evidence again and consider the setting and the interchange in situ:

"It might be a Scottish name, taken from a story about two men in a train. One man says "What's that package up there in the baggage rack?", and the other answers "Oh that's a McGuffin".

Clackety-clack, Clackety-clack, Clackety-clack, Clackety-clack,Clackety-clack,...

The first one asks "What's a McGuffin?". "Well", the other man says, "It's an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands".


Clackety-clack, Clackety-clack, Clackety-clack, Clackety-clack,...



The first man says "But there are no lions in the Scottish Highlands",
and the other one answers

Clackety-clack,Clackety-clack,Clackety-clack,

"Well, then:

Clackety-clack,Clackety-clack,

that's no McGuffin!"

Clackety-clack, Clackety-clack, Clackety-clack, Clackety-clack,...

Whistle and steam

The train enters a tunnel and the carraige is plunged into darkness.

When it emerges back into the light, the scotsman, his mysterious package and his interrogative companion are nowhere to be seen: in their stead, a portly middle aged man in a black suit with a large bow fiddle case. He undoes the clasps on the case and opens it revealing... nothing. Not even a bow fiddle. He turns, looks directly into the camera and with a dead-pan expression says:

"So you see, a McGuffin is nothing at all..."

Okay so I overdid it on the end bit, so really just consider the MacGuffin as far as the tunnel. From the time that our Caledonian traveller places his strange parcel on the rack it becomes the focus of the story.
We are then told a name and we get to wonder what the name means.
We anticipate new knowledge, and not until we hit that tunnel are we aware that we've simply met a Scotsman who has a roundabout way of telling people to mind their own business.

It matters not a jot.

Why? Because simply speculating on the elusive McGuffin has already taken us miles into our journey.

That, as I see it, is the true nature of the Hitchcockian McGuffin. To simply lend an interest and focus as the story begins; simply to get us past those first few train stations,and suburbs and deep into unknown territory.

With this in mind as a McGuffin we can see what a perfect example we have in Psycho. A woman steals money and skips town. The audience wonder:'Will she get away with it?', 'Will she just bring it back?','Will she get caught?', nobody wonders 'Will she get chopped up in the bathroom by a lunatic transvestite when she's taking a shower?'
This is because we are every bit as distracted by the McGuffin, as the traveller was intrigued by the parcel.

It's like telling someone to pay specific attention to the fact that 'T.S. Eliot' is an anagram of 'toilets', and that when T.S. Eliot described the the ‘meaning’ of a poem - he compared it to a bone thrown by a burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind while the poem goes about its own, deeper business: he was describing his version of a McGuffin and the anagram of his name is of no importance.

I hope I have gone someway to illustrate the McGuffin as I interpret it and why I believe it is erroneous of George Lucas to describe the plans for the Death Star as a McGuffin.

And why neither 'the Ark' nor 'the crystal skull' nor the 'holy grail's is a McGuffins no matter what Harrison Ford claims.

Hitchcock left us with a parable, not a definition, so the borders of McGuffindom are hard to patrol; between 'diamonds', 'rosebud', 'secret formulae' and 'letters of transit' there are a lot of maybes and few 'pure' examples of what he was getting at, but one thing I am sure of:

Death Star plans aint it. Whatever the man on the train was up to, he wasn't looking for Ould Ben Kenobi.

It can be argued that McGuffin has been so widely mis-used for so long that the word no longer actually means what it meant and that it has now gone the way of 'sensibility'.

If this is true, I can think of nothing more tragic:
The McGuffin gone: the loss of a great word, from a great man, for a great concept


and a victory to ignorant indifference.