Dandies skull-to-skull
Nov. 13th, 2007 10:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomus"I've concluded that it is far better to borrow elements of dandyism rather than merely trying to actually become one. It's far less predictable and far more interesting. Better dandyish than dandy," says Lord Whimsy, very sensibly, in his entry today about London self-promoter Sebastian Horsley.
Horsley, oddly enough, agrees. "Dandyism" completely fails as an idea," he wrote in his New Statesman pan of Whimsy's book. "How can originality replicate to create a whole movement? How can you dress alike to assert your individuality? How, on the one perfumed hand, can you talk about freedom when you willingly give it up with the other ungloved mitt? How can you be unique and yet part of the gang? ...Clownish eccentricity is often a mask for nonentity."
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Since there are none in the room, let's make no bones about dandyism. Dandies -- rather than people who are merely elegant and poised, like Whimsy -- are tiring to spend time with, because they really are larger than life. They glaze over when they aren't talking about themselves. They've arranged everything in their lives (except possibly their accommodation: Horsley lives in a tiny flat in Soho) to be bigger than yours, so the casual trading of anecdotes that happens in any normal conversation becomes a contest in which the dandy trumps you time after time. Eventually you just shut up and let them speak, and it's entertaining for a while because they've collected a lifetime's-worth of Wildean one-liners (common sense turned through 180 degrees to make it "interesting") and insist on repeating them to anyone who'll listen. (This, by the way, is why you should never, ever become a dandy's girlfriend. The repetition will drive you insane.)
Soon, though, you feel energy draining away from you. You start to feel the weight of your own skeleton. You'd rather take a walk through the dusky streets with the waitress, the cashier, the Filippino chef. You'd rather have someone say "I don't really know," and proceed to think things through in real time rather than tug an endless supply of handy, witty, polished me-axioms from their frilly me-sleeve.
That's not to say Horsley doesn't have some good riffs up his ruffs. The strongest are about the universality of artifice, the unavoidability of performance, and the realness of fakery. "Show me a man who doesn't paint himself a face," he says in the video below. "We all perform our lives. Look at the doctors, the lawyers, the accountants, the artists. They think they're real people. They're not, they're just face paint. The reason that I piss people off is that I make the joke explicit.... Because everybody else is just as phoney as I am. I'm just a real fake."
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Like all 180-degree inversions of common sense that depend on the very logic they seem to deny ("property is theft" is another example), this one self-destructs if examined too closely. But never mind, it entertains for seconds before dissolving in the mist.
What's -- for me, anyway -- most interesting about Horsley is his face. Turn the sound down and watch it. Somehow, his face in motion has inscribed in it the entire history of British dandyism, post-punk. He's every sacrificial dandy the British have ever ushered toward the pyre of destruction-for-amusement.
There are wide-stare flashes of his hero Johnny Rotten, and of Rotten's pantomime villain svengali Malcolm McLaren. That takes us neatly to the era of New Romanticism, in which Horsley is Adam Ant without the songs. Then there's the decline and fall of New Romanticism, hastened by Bowie as Screaming Lord Byron, Brideshead Revisited on TV, and Rupert Everett as, well, every English male lead that isn't Hugh Grant. And Horsley looks like Rupert Everett gone slightly Cro-Magnon, or a degraded Peter York drinking at the Coach and Horses with a permanently-queasy Jeffrey Bernard. Then Goth takes over, and you can see it all in Horsley's face, and explicitly in the snapshot of Nick Cave and Horsley in the desert, trying to get off drugs. Then of course Morrissey becomes the big star and Oscar Wilde and Quentin Crisp are everyone's heroes, including Horsley's.
In the 90s he fossilizes into a Dickens character just in time for BritPop, also headed by two fossilized Dickens characters called Liam and Noel. Then, for a blink, new Romanticism is back -- it's called Romo, it happens in the Melody Make for a few months in 1995, and it gives the world Dickon Edwards -- and Horsley can ride that wave too, before jumping off when he discovers Johnny Depp's belated discovery of Goth. By mid-decade, though, he's more interested in being a confessedly-crap YBA artist, collecting Damian Hirst-style skulls and sharks and staging self-crucifixions. As the millennium approaches he becomes a too-old Nathan Barley. Now, just in time for Retro Necro (and to go skull-to-skull with our own Lord Whimsy's Bloomsbury book), Horsley has published a memoir, "Dandy in the Underworld: an unauthorised autobiography" (Sceptre). And for this period, sinking elegantly into middle age, Horsley looks a bit like Retro Necro figurehead Jools Holland.
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The truth is that we British and Americans can't really do dandyism. We're too cuddly, too eager to please, too unscary, too self-deprecating. Our dandyism, as a result, becomes self-sacrificial. We mount the cross before we're asked.
When the British dress up in old clothes they look like genteel imperialists, and when Americans do it they look like traitors to a republic which broke away from Britain's genteel empire. The people who do dandyism best are the Germans. Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria is the perfect dandy, because to be a real dandy you need unlimited power and wealth, unbridled egomania and bad craziness. Recent German dandies include Klaus Kinski and Jonathan Meese. Oh, and mustn't forget that wretch Adolf Hitler. Lots of skulls on his mantelpiece too.
Horsley, oddly enough, agrees. "Dandyism" completely fails as an idea," he wrote in his New Statesman pan of Whimsy's book. "How can originality replicate to create a whole movement? How can you dress alike to assert your individuality? How, on the one perfumed hand, can you talk about freedom when you willingly give it up with the other ungloved mitt? How can you be unique and yet part of the gang? ...Clownish eccentricity is often a mask for nonentity."
[Error: unknown template video]
Since there are none in the room, let's make no bones about dandyism. Dandies -- rather than people who are merely elegant and poised, like Whimsy -- are tiring to spend time with, because they really are larger than life. They glaze over when they aren't talking about themselves. They've arranged everything in their lives (except possibly their accommodation: Horsley lives in a tiny flat in Soho) to be bigger than yours, so the casual trading of anecdotes that happens in any normal conversation becomes a contest in which the dandy trumps you time after time. Eventually you just shut up and let them speak, and it's entertaining for a while because they've collected a lifetime's-worth of Wildean one-liners (common sense turned through 180 degrees to make it "interesting") and insist on repeating them to anyone who'll listen. (This, by the way, is why you should never, ever become a dandy's girlfriend. The repetition will drive you insane.)
Soon, though, you feel energy draining away from you. You start to feel the weight of your own skeleton. You'd rather take a walk through the dusky streets with the waitress, the cashier, the Filippino chef. You'd rather have someone say "I don't really know," and proceed to think things through in real time rather than tug an endless supply of handy, witty, polished me-axioms from their frilly me-sleeve.
That's not to say Horsley doesn't have some good riffs up his ruffs. The strongest are about the universality of artifice, the unavoidability of performance, and the realness of fakery. "Show me a man who doesn't paint himself a face," he says in the video below. "We all perform our lives. Look at the doctors, the lawyers, the accountants, the artists. They think they're real people. They're not, they're just face paint. The reason that I piss people off is that I make the joke explicit.... Because everybody else is just as phoney as I am. I'm just a real fake."
[Error: unknown template video]
Like all 180-degree inversions of common sense that depend on the very logic they seem to deny ("property is theft" is another example), this one self-destructs if examined too closely. But never mind, it entertains for seconds before dissolving in the mist.
What's -- for me, anyway -- most interesting about Horsley is his face. Turn the sound down and watch it. Somehow, his face in motion has inscribed in it the entire history of British dandyism, post-punk. He's every sacrificial dandy the British have ever ushered toward the pyre of destruction-for-amusement.
There are wide-stare flashes of his hero Johnny Rotten, and of Rotten's pantomime villain svengali Malcolm McLaren. That takes us neatly to the era of New Romanticism, in which Horsley is Adam Ant without the songs. Then there's the decline and fall of New Romanticism, hastened by Bowie as Screaming Lord Byron, Brideshead Revisited on TV, and Rupert Everett as, well, every English male lead that isn't Hugh Grant. And Horsley looks like Rupert Everett gone slightly Cro-Magnon, or a degraded Peter York drinking at the Coach and Horses with a permanently-queasy Jeffrey Bernard. Then Goth takes over, and you can see it all in Horsley's face, and explicitly in the snapshot of Nick Cave and Horsley in the desert, trying to get off drugs. Then of course Morrissey becomes the big star and Oscar Wilde and Quentin Crisp are everyone's heroes, including Horsley's.
In the 90s he fossilizes into a Dickens character just in time for BritPop, also headed by two fossilized Dickens characters called Liam and Noel. Then, for a blink, new Romanticism is back -- it's called Romo, it happens in the Melody Make for a few months in 1995, and it gives the world Dickon Edwards -- and Horsley can ride that wave too, before jumping off when he discovers Johnny Depp's belated discovery of Goth. By mid-decade, though, he's more interested in being a confessedly-crap YBA artist, collecting Damian Hirst-style skulls and sharks and staging self-crucifixions. As the millennium approaches he becomes a too-old Nathan Barley. Now, just in time for Retro Necro (and to go skull-to-skull with our own Lord Whimsy's Bloomsbury book), Horsley has published a memoir, "Dandy in the Underworld: an unauthorised autobiography" (Sceptre). And for this period, sinking elegantly into middle age, Horsley looks a bit like Retro Necro figurehead Jools Holland.
[Error: unknown template video]
The truth is that we British and Americans can't really do dandyism. We're too cuddly, too eager to please, too unscary, too self-deprecating. Our dandyism, as a result, becomes self-sacrificial. We mount the cross before we're asked.
When the British dress up in old clothes they look like genteel imperialists, and when Americans do it they look like traitors to a republic which broke away from Britain's genteel empire. The people who do dandyism best are the Germans. Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria is the perfect dandy, because to be a real dandy you need unlimited power and wealth, unbridled egomania and bad craziness. Recent German dandies include Klaus Kinski and Jonathan Meese. Oh, and mustn't forget that wretch Adolf Hitler. Lots of skulls on his mantelpiece too.
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-14 07:54 am (UTC)Thats a very controversial statement. You have to elaborate.
"'impliment (sic) it effectively? what does that mean? please elaborate."
China and Bolivia are countries who are kidding themselves that communism actually works. So what we're seeing is are government half-hearted adopting capitalist policies like privitization of major institutions and the like that are clearly the road the capitalism. America and Britain and countries that are both economically prosperous and politically stable thanks to capitalism.
"whether or not you agree with china's silde away from communism towards a class system and free market, responsibility for the damage to the environment must be shared by those in the west who demand an unceasing supply of cheap consumer goods in the pursuit of profit "
Again, this is the slightly different issue. You can be a capitalist who believes in enviromentalism, and you can be communist who has no regard for enviromentalism. It's not a requirement that to be capitalist you rape the planet so your gripe isnt with "capitalism" its with the callous implementation of it. I agree with you that we shouldnt be so callous, but to scrap capitalist systems all together is nonsense.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-14 01:26 pm (UTC)ok. the vast bulk of the world's wealth is concentrated in a handful of rich western nations, whilst elsewhere populations live in dire conditions and suffer invasions as the said nations move in, economically , politically or militarily, to sustain that system of inequality known as capitalism. (Iraq is currently a battle for control of petrol and an opportunity for capitalist defence contactors, as is Israel; most of resource-rich South America has been suffering at the hand of US-led dictatorships for decades; Indonesia was a golden chance for imperialist Britain and the US to sell weapons in the 80s, etc...need I go on?)
"China and Bolivia are countries who are kidding themselves that communism actually works. So what we're seeing is are government half-hearted adopting capitalist policies"
come on, you're too intelligent not to see the blatant inconsistency of that last argument. what you're saying it they're so ocnvinced communism works they're changing to capitalism? hardly the action of a convinced marxist, is it? capiltalism policies are a move away from communism to inequality, not the other way round!
"It's not a requirement that to be capitalist you rape the planet"
No, but when profit is the bottom line, NOTHING can stand in its way, including the environment, which is precisely why we need a strong state in the face of deregulated global corporate power. Experiences shows that, left to themselves, corporations would never adopt environmental protection procedures, don't kid yourself. The ideal you mention of being a eco-capitalist is one I applaud, but sadly history shows us that it is unlikely to transpire in reality....
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-14 04:01 pm (UTC)Like I said, it's not the west's responsibility to bail the rest of the world out because they cant manage themselves properly. When Britain ruled Zimbabwe, it was known as the breadbasket of africa. Then we gave it back to them and they turned their economy to shit through corruption and mismanagement. Some societies are better than others at prospering, thats just the way it is. 'White man's burden' is what you're talking about.
" suffer invasions as the said nations move in, economically , politically or militarily, to sustain that system of inequality known as capitalism."
I dont agree with the war on Iraq. It was a mistake, it's none of our business. and yes, Corporate America has taken complete advantage of it's position in Iraq now, that I'll agree with you about, but implying that the entire war was a big scam to get oil is pushing it into the realms of conspiracy theories.
"come on, you're too intelligent not to see the blatant inconsistency of that last argument. what you're saying it they're so ocnvinced communism works they're changing to capitalism? hardly the action of a convinced marxist, is it? capiltalism policies are a move away from communism to inequality, not the other way round!"
This is what I'm arguing: Communism doesnt work. Take china. It used to be communist, but then it started to adopt capitalist policies under the guise of "socialism with chinese aspects"... everyone can see what they're doing is no longer communism, it's a mixed economy under the guise of communism so the ruling parties dont lose power.
" Experiences shows that, left to themselves, corporations would never adopt environmental protection procedures, don't kid yourself. The ideal you mention of being a eco-capitalist is one I applaud, but sadly history shows us that it is unlikely to transpire in reality...."
So, because corporations cant be trusted to do whats best your advocating the entire upheavel of an entire society? its economic and political stability? Im not as callously radical as you. I believe we can work towards ecologically responsible capitalism through government policies.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-15 12:11 am (UTC)here we go, the daily mail clichés get trotted out to defend the indefensible. Ok, so you claim under the whites, zimbabwe was 'organised' - what disgusting doublespeak that is. You call it organized, I call it repressed: thousands of Africans were driven off their land and herded onto communal “reservations”, or into forced labour in mines and factories. A racial land division preventing Africans from owning farmland in white areas; denial of rights and votes. And despite having to deal with the chaos left by the departing white supremacist regime, between 1980 and 1985 infant and child deaths fell by about half. Education spending more than doubled between 1979 and 1990. So please stop repeating this white power nonsense.
re.iraq - so, you dismiss the idea the US sought to get control of the area and its oil resources? what was the war for then, do you take the official line that it was to spread democracy and find WMD? I think you need to start looking at history a bit more: there are many other countries on the 'axis of evil' ,but coincidentlly they don't have oil and weren't invaded.
what a surprise.
"Im not as callously radical as you."
callously radical, thats the nicest thing anyone's said to me all day ;-) still, if that term is applied to someone advocating a firm line against explotative global interests then yes I qualify. apologies to those poor CEOs who may have to buy one less private jet....
" I believe we can work towards ecologically responsible capitalism through government policies."
when the main parties such as those found in our representative democracy are owned and operated by big business, thanks to the concentrations of wealth in few hands under capitalism, it is pie in the sky to believe that governments can afford to challenge those forces in any but the most trivial ways. These corporations have enough loose cash to buy up chunks of a nation on a whim! take a recent example: look at all the hoo-ha about recycling. it isn't the corporations who are being forced to toe the line, and stop producing more overpackaged, aggresively marketed shit - the onus falls on the people and taxpayers to pay through the nose for recycling schemes to offset the damage caused by the consumer industry. There is so little ideological variety to differentiate the main parties
that they will follow the neoliberal agenda and make only cosmetic changes to the system as it stands. And profit is far higher on the priority list than ecology and always will be.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-15 11:17 am (UTC)It's not a cliche, its a fact regarding Zimbabwe's past economy. I dont read the daily mail, but I dont read the Independent either... some people's politics arent as simple as that.
" Ok, so you claim under the whites..."
slow down there Skippy, dont start dragging race into this. youre trying to imply that I'm saying is "White people = capable, black people = incapable". thats not it at all. I'm pointing out that Africa has the capacity for change as has been shown, but it's failing because of mismanagement and corruption. You however, decide to take grossly oversimplified self-hating radical liberal view of "ALL THE WORLD'S SUFFERING IS BECAUSE OF CORPORATE AMERIKKKA!!!"
so, you dismiss the idea the US sought to get control of the area and its oil resources?"
Its hard to say. For example, other nations made special deals with Iraq to buy its oil, and if the US were interested primarily in oil, it could have made a deal as well, a much easier route than war. Oil was also more instrumental in creating opposition to the war than support for it, since many nations in Europe wanted to maintain the oil supply they were receiving from Iraq.
I believe that 9/11 happened, Bush kneejerked over "the war on terror" and targeted Iraq and Afghanistan, other nations got dragged into it... they soon found out there were no weapons of mass destruction, there shouldnt have been a war, but instead of holding their hands up they tried to put a human liberation spin on it. That war shouldnt have happened.
"if that term is applied to someone advocating a firm line against explotative global interests..."
No, its about people who advocate communism. Thats what this debate is about. I dont agree that capitalism as it stands is perfect, but it works much better than communism. The upheavel of capitalism isnt gonna create this magical land of pure streams and rainbows, all you have to do is look at communism everywhere else -- the best we can do is protest and vote.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-15 01:07 pm (UTC)Wrong. If you're going to slide into this line that a lie repeated 1000 times becomes truth, you still have 999 copies to go. Zimbabwe 's economy in the 90s suffered more AFTER the country was opened up to the IMF, at the pressure from international bankers. I saw this for myself in fact, in 1996, on a visit there.
Not only that, you have completely ignored the stuff about zimbabwe's repression under the racist colonial regime, which served only the economic interests of oligarchial white ruling class. Instead you are at pains to point out that Zimbabwe was a better /more 'organised' place under such a system. If that is the criterion which seems to demonstrate a respectable, functioning state to you, the only conclusion I draw from such comments is that you are sadly adherent to a colonial mentality which was responsible for the suffering of millions (black) so that a white colonial class could profit.
then you try to wriggle out of it by saying :
"dont start dragging race into this. youre trying to imply that I'm saying is "White people = capable, black people = incapable". thats not it at all."
That is precisely what you are saying.
just read your earlier comments on how under white, racist, european rule Zimbabwe was better until 'we gave it back' to the natives who 'ran it into the ground' (competely untrue as it happens, as the evidence shows). Either you are deliberately being contradictory or are too stupid to realise the inconsistency of what you say.
"I dont agree that capitalism as it stands is perfect, but it works much better than communism. The upheavel of capitalism isnt gonna create this magical land of pure streams and rainbows,"
This really comes down not so much to an argument about capitalism versus communism, but one's ability to respect the rights of others, especially the right to be treated as equals and participate in a society, which is incompatible with suffering unnecessarily so that a minority can profit. This is where we disagree: You clearly feel that 'capitalism works' , as your definition of what 'works' seems to be 'generates wealth for a small quantity of the worlds population'. You conveniently ignore the millions at whose expense the western economy is propped up. The 'first world' are the parasites. a recent study showed that the Uk lives off its own resources for only THREE MONTHS of the year. To sustain capitalism continual economic exploitation of the southern hemisphere and its resources is required.
And we do agree on one thing - protesting and voting are essential. But beyond this is where a crucial worldview difference arises. I believe that society and power structures can and should change and inequality can be tackled. history has shown this. You seem to feel the reverse: that this is pure utopia and capitalism and colonialism are the best way forward. Shame you don't seem to have any empathy with the millions who lose out in that stare of affairs.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-15 01:55 pm (UTC)...the British gave Zimbabwe independence in the 1980s. What are you trying to prove by pointing out bad decisions made after the British werent in charge?
"Not only that, you have completely ignored the stuff about zimbabwe's repression under the racist colonial regime, which served only the economic interests of oligarchial white ruling class."
More like youve chosen to hi-light it when its not entirely related to what I said. Britain was capable of making a much better economy for Zimbabwe than its currently government. Does that mean I necessarily advocate their colonial methods? No. It means that the resources and potential for success are there, but arent being met because of corruption and mismanagement.
"This really comes down not so much to an argument about capitalism versus communism, but one's ability to respect the rights of others, especially the right to be treated as equals and participate in a society"
Never going to happen unless you strip humanity of everything that makes it human. We're animals and we arent all born equal. Some are born more beautiful some are born more intelligent. Are you also arguing that people should be stripped of their individuality to create equality? What you're ultimately advocating is we create a society of clones and robots.
There will always be someone with "more" than the next person. Life isnt fair.
"You conveniently ignore the millions at whose expense the western economy is propped up."
Whos mouth are we stealing food from exactly? You havent given any examples. Just because we're rich enough to import our energy resources doesnt make us parasites, infact some what argue that stopping trade with the 3rd world would be detrimental to them.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-15 11:04 pm (UTC)sorry, should have clarified that point a bit. I was trying to illustrate how things went downhill (again) after the IMF got involved and zimbabwe moved away from socialism. that move to capitalist values probabbly did more damage to their economy than anything else.
"Britain was capable of making a much better economy for Zimbabwe "
Not true. it enriched the few at the cost of the many. that is not a 'better economy'.
"Are you also arguing that people should be stripped of their individuality to create equality? What you're ultimately advocating is we create a society of clones and robots."
It's not about reaching the extremes you paint where everyone is identical and has the exact same amount of wealth. it's about self determination, participative democracy and not allowing big business to do what it wants. That is not the same as promoting 'clones' and uniformity. the first world has to stop treating the rest of the planet as if it were its personal property.
"Whos mouth are we stealing food from exactly? You havent given any examples."
European and US corporations have been exporting all the wealth from south america for decades if not centuries. Banks have been getting richer off third world debt. UK, French and US arms industries continue to get fat off the back of conflict in the middle east, iraq and elsewhere.
as for stopping trade with the third world, even oxfam have complained that those countries don't export hardly any of their products and food due to the perverse form of 'socialism for the rich' in place in the richer countries which impose high tariffs and subsidies in their little 'club'. and then, (when the third world is not competing on a level playing field), the hypocritical right wingers call africans scroungers who can't 'sort themselves out' and live on handouts!