About Obama

In the light of the strangely half-assed military parade in Washington over the weekend, here’s something I wrote 17 years ago about how the American populist right perceives even a passing interest in anything foreign as weird and dangerous. The names have changed but very little else has.

Obama's weakness is not that he's black, or young, or left-wing, or that he used cocaine; it's that his background is dangerously cosmopolitan... Why would any sensible person go abroad, where they talk funny and you can't get Cap'n Crunch? What is he? Gay, or French, or something?... And this would explain the paradox by which the supposedly patriotic American right consistently attempts to undermine Vietnam veterans (John Kerry, Max Cleland, even John McCain), while lauding those who avoided serving (Bush, Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, the egregious Saxby Chambliss, et al). These guys weren't cowards, you see: unlike Obama, they just loved America too much to leave it...

Art is not a monologue

The last few days have been good ones for the anti-art brigade. First, a man in Miami smashed a vase by Ai Weiwei as a protest against the museum’s failure to promote local artists. Then came that reliable classic, the cleaning lady who thought the art was rubbish and threw it away; in this case, biscuit crumbs in Bari. Both actions provoked sardonic support from those who think it’s not proper art if you can’t make a souvenir tea towel out of it. And now a banal apology by President Obama has provoked a firestorm of Gradgrindian hatred, apparently directed at anything that has the word “art” in it.

What’s interesting is how quiet artists themselves are in all this. Ai Weiwei, not usually one to shy away from expressing his opinion, tutted lamely that he doesn’t think people should do stuff like this (although the pictures above suggests it’s OK to do it to your own art), but that’s about all. The thing is, as media becomes less top-down and more interactive, this is increasingly how criticism will be expressed and creators are going to have to learn how to stick up for themselves. Annie Slaminsky said on Twitter a few days ago that sites such as Flickr have become social media for visually oriented people, which implies that if you do pictures you can’t do words. I hope that isn’t true.

I’m reminded in some ways of what started happening to journalism in the mid-2000s. When I started writing for Comment is Free, there were seasoned journalists who appeared not to want to engage with the rabble below the line, allowing their articles to appear on screen and walking away. As Graham Linehan said, also with reference to Twitter, “You have in your possession a magic mirror, and you're just using it as a mirror!” It was those of us who descended into the pit who really got something out of it and for all the vitriol, the commenters seemed to appreciate it when we did, even if they still thought we were talking bollocks. And if modern art is to beat the austerity-era Gradgrinds, it can’t remain aloof any more. Rising above it is not an option.

PS: Here’s one example of an artist giving the haters a going-over, as photographer Derek Ridgers takes Jonathan Jones to task for his wrong-headed review of a David Bailey show.

PPS: And here are some thoughts about Comment is Free and its founder Georgina Henry, who died this month – in a form she would have appreciated.

PPPS: And it seems as if some of the details in the Bari story were exaggerated. I guess that’s an art as well.

Sticks, stones and tweets

Stephen Fry, discussing his on/off infatuation with all things Twittery, reckons that “it is a bit much that somehow people almost feel they have a right to be heard in their insulting of me.” Well, assuming they have the right to say it, I suppose that entails the right for it/them to be heard. Otherwise, Twitter (and by extension, pretty much the whole of Web 2.0) develops into a whole new strain of the Bishop Berkeley conundrum: if Stephen Fry is insulted on Twitter and nobody reads the tweet, is he still entitled to be upset?

But on a more general point, we’re back to the situation in which people who have multiple pulpits, many of them well remunerated, from which to say stuff to a wide audience, slap down those for whom blogs, Twitter, Comment is Free and so on are the only means of being heard. Talking of which, our blogchum Fat Roland gets a mention in CiF, and some of the comments are a bit unpleasant, but I think he’s fine with that. Take note, Mr Fry.

Destroying the economy, one hotel booking at a time

I did say I’d stop writing about the political situation in Thailand, because it’s turned into a modern-day version of the Schleswig-Holstein Question, but the Graun asked nicely, so I came up with this.

I pronounce thee

Haven’t had a good CiF rant for what seems like ages:

Maybe I shouldn't have been listening to Woman's Hour in the first place, and then it wouldn't have happened. But that's what I did, and that's how I came to hear presenter Sheila McClennon describe something or someone as "mis-CHIEV-yous"...

More holding-back-the-barbarian-hordes stuff here.

PS: And while we’re being pedantic, this is funny. (Thanks to HH.)

Nail biting

More Goddy stuff, I'm afraid. And, whether by coincidence or something spookier, this is my 666th blog post:

The lamented Bill Hicks used to imagine Jesus Christ returning to Earth and seeing his followers proudly wearing the instrument of his torture and execution; as Hicks pointed out, it's a bit like commemorating President Kennedy by wearing a little Carcano rifle.

I don't know whether the Rev Ewen Souter is a devotee of the Hicks oeuvre, but he would appear to have been thinking along the same lines when he removed from his church in Sussex a sculpture of Christ writhing in agony and replaced it with an unoccupied cross, in stainless steel...

Further carpentry tips here.

Peppermints and daisy-chains

Adrian Mitchell, 1932-2008.

PS: An appropriately rabble-rousing tribute for CiF.

PPS: Uh-oh. Only caught bang to rights by Attila the Stockbroker.

History today

Who says bodice-ripping can't be educational?

The first piece I ever wrote for Cif was about Thailand; specifically about the coup in September, 2006. There were a few more articles along the same lines, but eventually I drifted away from the subject, because it felt as if I was wrestling with smoke. Every time I came to a conclusion, something bizarre happened that challenged all my previous preconceptions. Only last month, I wrote a feature for another publication, quoting a senior figure in the Thai tourist industry thus: "and so long as they don't blockade the airport, it doesn't matter". The day after the magazine went to press, the PAD – bitter opponents of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and all his works – blockaded the airport.

Deciding that I'll never understand this place, I watched the first couple of episodes of the civil war drama The Devil's Whore instead; at which point a dim lightbulb popped up above my head...

Further oaths, muskets and heaving bosoms to be found here.

(Picture from 2bangkok.com)

Abuse your delusion

So have you got yours yet? Your copy of Chinese Democracy, of course, the long awaited Guns N' Roses album that's been long awaited by everyone who makes a habit of waiting a long time for long-awaited Guns N' Roses albums...

More eagerly anticipated guitar heroics, and Nabokov and Jerry Lewis, here.

It's life, Jim...

In which I create a fictional detective who blurs the distinction between reality and fiction while covering the Haut de la Garenne case, but resist the temptation to call him Borgerac.

And while we're in the area, that Wire final episode effusion will be with you very soon, and I mean it this time. Oh, and Wyndham's pissed off again.

Guns and buns

In which I contrast American and British methods of registering disapproval of our elected representatives, and have a dig at a former NUS President while I'm at it:

I am of course delighted that the alleged plot to murder Barack Obama and over 100 other African-Americans has been foiled. And yet, deep down, I can't help thinking that at least it shows someone's taking this election seriously.

One nation separated by a common cheesecake recipe here.

Race uncertainty

The news media seem to be obsessed with a) the credit crunch; b) the US election; c) Tories on Russian yachts. So I decided to write something for Cif about a Mongolian accountant. In north Wales. Which sounds like a dire, yet lucrative fish-out-of-water memoir arriving in the grubby slipstream of Judith arsing O'Reilly. But don't worry, it isn't.

PS: Ooh hang on, it's gone.

PPS: ...aaand it's back again. Go here, if you fancy.

Widdecombe inna Babylon

I did think of writing this piece (about a Jamaican version of the Bible) entirely in patois, but I'm old enough to remember the eat-your-own-teeth embarrassment that was 'Informer', by Snow:

I'll put my (prayer) cards on the table. I really like the King James Bible. It's something about the mouth-feel of the language, like a dark chocolate or a potent Armagnac, dense with begetting and smiting and howbeit and whosoever. If God were ever to make my acquaintance, I'd prefer that he spake unto me in sonorous tones, rather than having a quiet word. I'm the same with hymns; give me To Be A Pilgrim or Dear Lord and Father any day, over happity-clappity singalongs that Barney the Dinosaur would condemn for their crushing banality....

Go here for the authorised version.

While I've got you, I'm planning to post my no-holds-barred neo-Brechtian analysis of the final episode of The Wire at some point this weekend. If you get all the box sets today, and throw a sickie for the rest of the week, you should be up to speed in plenty of time.

The ambassador's faulty reception

Harry Enfield suddenly finds himself reinvented as the Bernard Manning de nos jours:

These days it seems as if every government, every religious body, every charity has someone on the payroll whose sole purpose is to watch the telly, keeping an eye out for stuff by which they might advantageously be offended. The latest culprit is that monster of depravity Harry Enfield, whose show Harry and Paul has aroused the wrath of the Philippine ambassador to the UK, Edgardo Espiritu, with its allegedly racist depiction of a Filipina housemaid...

Full thing here.

Postmodern pleading

Just to disprove the notion that Ulster Protestants have no sense of humour:

The defence case of Michael Stone, accused of attempting to kill Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness in 2006, has raised eyebrows in political, legal and artistic circles alike. On the face of it, his claim that his actions constituted "performance art" is an attempt to claim kinship with those, such as the Dadaists and Situationists, who have sought to blur the boundaries between art and political protest...

Follow this link for the journalistic equivalent of one of those end-of-terrace murals.

VK computer

In which I tell Tim Berners-Lee that he doesn't know what he's talking about.

You're a pink paintbrush, I'm a blue paintbrush

Carrying on with the art/sex dialectic that seems to have taken hold in recent days:

One of the more tedious responses to that which the Daily Mail still persists in calling "political correctness" is to demand equal treatment for majority and/or privileged groups. If a students' union has a women's officer, the argument goes, we should have a men's officer. If there's a Black Police Association, why not a White Police Association? Which leads inexorably to heterosexual-only nightclubs, although if you extracted all the gay influences from modern club culture, you'd be left with two blokes called Dave headbanging to Hi Ho Silver Lining.

So what happens when this sort of reactionary pointscoring becomes flesh? What happens when someone stages, let's say, an exhibition of male art?

Unless a certain popular philosopher has sneaked in when I wasn't looking, you can read the rest of it here.

The piece of God that passeth all understanding

This is the second time in less than a month that I've been gazumped by Julian Baggini. CiF ran his piece on the Baltic-Jesus-erection kerfuffle on Wednesday; at least this time they elected not to use my take on the same thing (submitted before his appeared) which would have created a slightly wonky stereo effect.

I'm starting to feel like Pat Boone to Baggini's Little Richard. But I still reckon mine has a better opening sentence, so here it is. If I'm going to hell, I may as well take the rest of you down with me:

Jesus had a penis.

I'm sorry if such information disturbs you, but it is so. This is not just a historical fact, but a theological truth, if one subscribes to orthodox Christian belief. Jesus was God made human flesh, and as such he had the full complement of male body parts: not just the arms, legs and beard, but the bits that most representational art tends to cover with a flowing robe or, in extremis, a skimpy loin cloth. I'm talking cock, balls and bumhole, people.

Now, if Jesus had these bits and pieces, surely they had to be in full working order: otherwise he would have been in some way defective, which isn't really what you want from the earthly manifestation of the Godhead. And the Nazarene was not immune to temptation; he explicitly resisted it, which means it was there to start with (see Matthew, chapter 4). In which case, is it so disturbing to contemplate the notion that Jesus' gentlemanly bits occasionally became tumescent? He urinated and defecated as well. So there.

Sorry for that detour into the no-man's-land between theology, biology and plumbing, but these issues are crucial to the private prosecution being brought by one Emily Mapfuwa against the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art. Last year, the Baltic displayed Terence Koh's plaster depictions of cultural figures in a state of engorgement. Jesus was one of those represented, and Ms Mapfuwa, with the backing of the Christian Legal Centre, alleges that this particular piece outrages public decency and causes harassment, alarm and distress to the public.

Well, surely only if erections (and by extension, sex and sexuality) are inherently bad things. Most members of the public have willingly submitted to various forms of carnal naughtiness in their time, so if they find themselves outraged, harassed, alarmed or distressed by such references, they're bloody hypocrites. Ms Mapfuwa and her friends are simply reinforcing the notion of Christians as joyless Puritans who are scared of sex, while giving kudos to a lame, derivative, "ooh-look-at-me-I'm-outrageous" bit of schlock, two parts Jeff Koons to one part Da Vinci Code.

But that's not what it's all about, is it? Oh no. Ms Mapfuwa also insists that the gallery would not have dared to display an image of Muhammad in such an up-for-it state. Which is true, but probably more due to a reasonable fear of swivel-eyed suicide bombers than any doctrinal preference. While we're at it, though, the evidence is even more compelling in the case of the Prophet. With his thirteen wives and seven children, it's pretty clear that Muhammad had one as well.

PS: I've just remembered, the lovely Dr Julian also beat me to the punch when Baudrillard died last year. Maybe I'm actually Baggini's simulacrum...

Expletives deleted

It's all getting pretty potty-mouthed over at Cif, I'm afraid:

It's a pretty basic tenet of fiction writing: where possible, don't tell us, show us. Rather than state baldly that a character is bad, allow him or her to demonstrate that badness through word and deed. One of Shakespeare's darkest creations is at first described by his unwitting boss as "Honest Iago"; only in his first soliloquy does he make his own "double knavery" evident.

Of course, just because Shakespeare put those words in Iago's mouth, it doesn't mean he agreed with them. Sorry if that seems bloody obvious, but it's a point that appears to have eluded two recent contributors to Cif...

For more blimmin' flip and crikey, click here.

Filling the bucket

A thought: do public exams undergo such an intense media dissection simply because the results come out in August, when there's so little else on?

Amid the inevitable kneejerk denunciations of "dumbing-down" and "grade inflation" that surrounded this year's GCSE results, the most cogent response came, of course, from the Guardian. Not, sadly, the editorial, which makes some sound points on the attainment gap between the richest and poorest students, but still obsesses over the minutiae of A*-C pass numbers without contemplating what the letters actually mean. No, the most insightful analysis comes in an article that doesn't even mention GCSEs at all...

More, including obligatory Yeats quote, to be found here.