“What would Jesus wear?” and other last minute gift ideas…

Ideal gift for a young girl or gender confused boy: What Would Jesus Wear?

Magnetic dress-up set features a Jesus of Nazareth magnet and a full wardrobe assortment with outfits appropriate for a sermon on the mount, hip hop dance class, and everything in between….

For the bookworms there’s “Bug Butts“

Everything and more you ever wanted to know about Insect backsides…

“Every Zombie Eats Somebody Sometime
A Book of Zombie Love Songs” a must have this one.

Yes, it’s true, even the shambling dead love a love song! Contains classics like “Imagine (there’s no Zombies)” , “I want to eat your hand” , “Fifty ways to eat your lover” “Killing him swiftly” and many, many more!

Or what about this – “Little Book of Wanking: The Definitive Guide to Man’s Ultimate Relief”

Especially handy for those young men who aren’t sure if they’re coming or going….

Or for the Witches amongst you there’s “The Real Witches’ Book of Spells and Rituals”

Perfect guide for anyone who wants to perform seasonal spells…

And if you find yourself with a lot of time on your hands, what about: “Sexual Sorcery: A Complete Guide to Sex Magick” ?

Get together with the neighbours and give it a go….nothing better for developing a sense of community.

To A Bookshop That Doesn’t Stock My Books

Countless books by celebrities (1)
Untold numbers of political memoirs (2)
Nothing, save the paper they are written on
That could generate heat and light:
Sad if someone were to firebomb you in the night (3)

1. So they haven’t run out of shelf-space.
2. So they can’t have any objection to immoral content.
3. Just saying.

Michael Kelly

Powers of Horror…

“There looms, within abjection, one of those violent, dark revolts of being, directed against a threat that seems to emanate from an exorbitant outside or inside, ejected beyond the scope of the possible, the tolerable, the thinkable. It lies there, quite close, but it cannot be assimilated. It beseeches, worries, and fascinates desire, which, nevertheless, does not let itself be seduced. Apprehensive, desire turns aside; sickened, it rejects. A certainty protects it from the shameful—a certainty of which it is proud holds on to it. But simultaneously, just the same, that impetus, that spasm, that leap is drawn toward an elsewhere as tempting as it is condemned. Unflaggingly, like an inescapable boomerang, a vortex of summons and repulsion places the one haunted by it literally beside himself…”

“When the starry sky, a vista of open seas, or a stained-glass window shedding purple beams fascinate me, there is a cluster of meaning, of colors, of words, of caresses, there are light touches, scents, sighs, cadences that arise, shroud me, carry me away, and sweep me beyond the things I see, hear, or think, The “sublime” object dissolves in the raptures of a bottomless memory. It is such a memory, which, from stopping point to stopping point, remembrance to remembrance, love to love, transfers that object to the refulgent point of the dazzlement in which I stray in order to be.’”

Julia Kristeva
Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection

Thought for the day

“Reason, I sacrifice you to the evening breeze.”

Aime Cesaire

Scum

Valerie Solanas perhaps best remembered for her attempt to murder Andy Warhol, wrote that memorable play UP YOUR ASS about a man hating hustler (female), went on to write SCUM – MANIFESTO a plan for the creation of an all female society. Solanas once described as “a hotwater bottle with tits” said:

“Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex.”

“A true community consists of individuals – not mere species members, not couples – respecting each other’s individuality and privacy, at the same time interacting with each other mentally and emotionally – free spirits in free relation to each other and co-operating with each other to achieve common ends. Traditionalists say the basic unit of “society” is the family; “hippies” say the tribe; no-one says the individual.”

“After the elimination of money there will be no further need to kill men; they will be stripped of the only power they have over psychologically independent females. They will be able to impose themselves only on the doormats, who like to be imposed on. The rest of the women will be busy solving the few remaining unsolved problems before planning their agenda for eternity and Utopia — completely revamping educational programs so that millions of women can be trained within a few months for high level intellectual work that now requires years of training (this can be done very easily once our educational goal is to educate and not perpetuate an academic and intellectual elite); solving the problems of disease and old age and death and completely redesigning our cities and living quarters. Many women will for a while continue to think they dig men, but as they become accustomed to female society and as they become absorbed in their projects, they will eventually come to see the utter uselessness and banality of the male.”

Shrike by Quentin S. Crisp

Here you might catch fleeting glimpses of Haruki Murakami, Kafū Nagai – or other influences, like unexpected but subtle spills from Monkey Brain Sushi, or perhaps the haunting and emotive verse of Izumi Shikibu:

“There is not even a moment of calmness…
In the heart that loves the blossoms,
the wind is already blowing…”

Blowing in deed for Brett Stokes as he meditates on life, death and literature: convinced that a Shrike inhabits the garden of the recently widowed Mrs. Kunisada; and the Shrike, as we all know, loves to impale its prey upon thorns – thus enabling it to tear the flesh in nice beak-size potions for its immediate consumption; when suitably replete, the bird will simply leave uneaten flesh on its thorny larder and return for a fresh peck at a later time…not for nothing is it nicknamed the “butcher bird”.

It is late Autumn, a time when Fujiwara no Tameie tells us:

“I let go the autumn
at the edge of the broad sky,
among the fleeting clouds”

But Stokes in that garden finds the spectacular colours of the Autumn leaves quite fascinating; in the soft Autumnal light it is quite apparent that soon this splendor will fade to arboreal nakedness; but for now the colours working upon his imagination blur the edges of reality; and just as the morning dew drips from the tips of branches to the shaded roots, so his existence is like a simple delay between birth and death; where the central relationship between Stokes and the widow develops, and his obsession with the Shrike grows…

A fascinating, quite unique work blending motifs from Japanese and English literature in a wholly original way. Quentin S. Crisp, the man who told us: “Life was a funny thing that happened to me on the way to the grave.” And “Never keep up with the Joneses. Drag them down to your level.” Has produced a startling novella, which Peedeel recommends to one and all of you – Quentin’s is certainly a unique voice in this world of plastic pap, and one that should be more widely recognised.

Go purchase his book NOW. Hardcover HERE. Jacketed Hardcover HERE.

Unpublished drawings and Uncompleted novel of Kafka at the centre of Israel Legal Battle….

There is a struggle going on between Israel and Germany, between a Jewish refugee family from Prague and Israeli public opinion over a collection of papers that might include unpublished works by the celebrated 20th Century writer Franz Kafka.

Kafka became famous in spite of himself. Just before he died in 1924, the young novelist, who suffered from various mental and physical illnesses, entrusted his friend, Max Brod, with a collection of handwritten documents.

He asked him to destroy the unpublished manuscripts after his death. Brod ignored his friend’s last wishes, allowing the world to enjoy great works such as The Trial and Metamorphosis.

The rest of the papers, possibly including great literary treasures – no-one is quite sure – are locked in safety deposit boxes in Switzerland and in Israel along, it is thought, with money and other private belongings of Esther Hoffe.

Scholars believe the deposit boxes contain unpublished drawings by Kafka. Maybe even the original manuscript of Kafka’s uncompleted novel, Wedding Preparations in the Country.

See more HERE.

Alice, Lewis Carroll, and those “ambiguous photographs”…

Fancy a party? You could join the Mad Hatter, the Dormouse and March Hare – who no doubt will offer you wine, then tell you there isn’t any – just as they did to poor sweet Alice…

“Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it,” she says to them, prior to an argument about whose behaviour is worse!

Ah, I was going to write something about Lewis Carroll on the anniversary of his birthday (at the end of January) but forgot, or was doing something else – impossibly intoxicated, probably, who can now say? Anyway, having seen this cool but very disturbing picture (see HERE) I thought straight away of Alice, you know? With the Queen angrily shouting: “Off with her head!”

I first encountered Alice at five years of age. I have a particularly vivid memory of that time. I was ill, with a soaring temperature, and a bed had been made up for me in the living room, for ease of access during the day. The doctors wanted me in hospital, but then decided the risk of moving me was too great. I would live or die in that living room. And as a concession to the seriousness of the situation, my father would read to me (an event almost unheard of under normal circumstances) from “Treasure Island” or “Coral Island”, both books I loved; and then, one evening, he commenced reading Alice in Wonderland to me…

What can I say about it? Already afflicted by high temperatures, I was feverish to say the least, at times delirious, and Carroll’s prose was confining…yes, confining: claustrophobic, a trap in which there was little or no room to move. The story was like the worse possible nightmare you could have.

One night after listening to Alice’s adventures down the rabbit hole I had a dream where, confronted by an eighteenth century footman in full panoply (I mean, of course, livery), I declined to surrender my brand new grey overcoat to his care. I did not trust him. Something about the eyes, and that powdered wig was deeply disturbing to me. That same night, apparently, I tiptoed to my parents bedroom where I opened the wardrobe and tried to hang-up my glass of water on a coat hanger – my mother’s dresses were soaked by the resulting spillage, of course. Totally oblivious, I was bundled up and rushed back to bed – and all the while, I’d believed I was secreting my overcoat in a place where that damned footman would never find it!

Needless to add, that for many years after, Carroll’s Alice filled me with unaccountable dread. Not until my early teens and the chance discovery of the HUNTING OF THE SNARK, did I find courage enough to return and finally face Alice and her claustrophobic wonderland.

Enough of these personal anecdotes. Let’s get back to Carroll, a.k.a Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, one of the first post modernists – his influence on James Joyce is all too apparent: FINEGANS WAKE is literally awash with allusions to Carroll’s works. And Nabokov – yes, certainly, there are a number of references to Carroll/Dodgson’s work in LOLITA, despite Nabokov’s claim: “some odd scruple prevented me from alluding in LOLITA to his wretched perversion and to those ambiguous photographs he took in dim rooms. He got away with it, as so many other Victorians got away with pederasty and nympholepsy. His were sad scrawny little nymphets, bedraggled and half-undressed, or rather semi-undraped, as if participating in some dusty and dreadful charade.”

Well, to give but one example, look at chapter 29: the line “A breeze from wonderland” is most obviously a reference to Alice, and there are many others. Nabokov, for whatever reason, wasn’t being honest with us.

He translated Alice into Russian while in Berlin (1923). With his usual modesty he recalled “it wasn’t the first translation, but it was the best…”

References to Alice also occur in other Nabokov works: THE REAL LIFE OF SEBASTIAN KNIGHT and in ADA, for example. In fact, Sebastian Knight’s book shelf contains copies of ALICE IN WONDERLAND, side-by-side with ULYSSES. Certainly no coincidence.

One might also argue that allusion to Carroll in LOLITA continues through photography: it’s Quilty’s hobby, after all; he makes those unspeakable films, too, of nymphets.

Tim Burton’s film of Alice reminds us of the continuing life in Carroll’s creations (though I’m not sure if people still give Alice books as gifts to children – I’d have thought not?).

For my part I remember well the 1966 television adaptation directed by Jonathan Miller which cast Leo McKern as the Ugly Duchess, Michael Redgrave as the Caterpillar and, unforgettably, Malcolm Muggeridge and John Gielgud as the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle. Delightful. I seem to recall viewing a film adaptation, too, Czech I believe it was, which showed off Alice’s black cotton knickers at every possible opportunity…not quite the thing, really. Too Freudian, too blatant. My Victorian Granny would have had apoplexy at sight of it…and I feel certain Dodgson would have been very disapproving, too.

Returning to his books, are they really for children? They are complicated books, aren’t they? Full of “abstruse philosophical ideas and learned vocabulary”. For sure, the ideas and logic (or non-logic) in the books, as well as many of the allusions, “sail right over children’s heads. Probably not one reader in 10,000 now recognises what any of the many poems are parodying.” The appeal to kids, I’d guess, is the totally “disrespectful attitude to anything resembling authority”. Alice, for her time, was a child with attitude. A Victorian punk.

But what of Dodgson? Was he a “wretched” pervert? Did he get away with it?

We can never know with full certainty. I’m sure that in our world he’d be on a sex offenders register by now – especially after photographing so many of his young “friends” in the nude, even if he did have their parents’ permission to do so. Obviously, he must have had doubts about his actions. If not, why did he destroy all the “nude” studies and their negatives? The three or four nude photographs (all hand coloured) that have survived (copies given to the parents of the young models) are totally sexless, not particularly notable as photographs or works of art, yet disturbing just the same. That Dodgson was in “love” with Alice Liddell, I feel is a certainty. The modern argument that his affection for Alice was a cover for his affair with her mother is, for me, unconvincing. I’m not even sure if Dodgson was capable of a “sexual” relationship, in the modern sense of the world. Other than the questionable photographs, his behaviour with his young “friends” was always beyond reproach; they in their turn regarded him with nothing but respect and admiration.

So, living as we do in the age of Guantánamo Bay, of widespread use of CCTV, of identity cards and bludgeoning police powers, with a corresponding decline in individual rights and freedoms, the Queen of Hearts’ instruction: “Sentence first – verdict afterwards” perhaps seems less evidently nonsensical today in comparison to 100 years ago? It may be these books still have something to teach us…?

Black cats

“Black cats are only the showy properties of magic, easily materialised, even by beginners, at will. It must be confusing for such an orderly animal as the cat to exist in this intermittent way, never knowing, so to speak, whether it is there or not there, from one moment to another.”

“LIVING ALONE”

Stella Benson

Something to read?

Fancy a book at bedtime?

Nice review HERE.

”cut the two zombies with 
savage yet dignified movements. He then made quick work of beheading the slaughtered staff, upon which 
 Mr. Bingley politely vomited into his hands.”

Sounds just the thing for Granny.