CULT BOOKS: Robin Jenkins, David Wheldon, Andrew Martin, Chandler Brossard and Gerald Kersh

'The Cone-Gatherers' by Robin Jenkins (1912-2005) is a strange, atmospheric Scottish novel, first published in 1955. Set on a private Scottish estate during the Second World War, most of the action takes place in the forest of pines which are due to be cut down for the war effort.

According to his biography on a BBC Writing Scotland website, Jenkins was a committed pacifist, who registered as a conscientious objector, and for his war service ,was directed to work for the Forestry Commission in Argyll from 1940 to 1946. This experience is reflected both in his first novel So Gaily Sings the Lark and in The Cone-Gatherers - the best-known of the thirty or so novels he wrote in his lifetime.

Two brothers, Neil and Callum have been hired to collect the pine cones in order that the forest can be regrown for the future. Callum is a hunchback with the face of an angel and a childlike mind, with a natural skill for tree climbing; Neil is his protector. The gamekeeper on the estate named Duror, a dark and twisted character, takes against them and from the first chapter onwards you know things are going to end badly. The atmosphere of the forest, beautifully evoked, creates an other-worldly backdrop to a dark and emotional tale, freighted with symbolism. One feels for Callum and his sensitivities and the book evokes a world lost in time, threatend by the shadow of war. It would have made a great Michael Powell movie and reminds one of the style of John Cowper Powys.

The novel is included in the list of 100 Best Scottish Books on The List : 'It would not be too demonstrative to claim that The Cone-Gatherers is Scotland’s Cherry Orchard, a great Chekhovian masterpiece that uses forests and the natural landscape to capture a moment of profound social change. It feels as eerily prescient today as it did when it was first published in the 1950s and is the kind of book that offers up new, modern meanings with every reading.'
Because the book was on the Scottish scholl syllabus for many years, there is a detailed site on the novel for students, with analysis and notes.

'The Viaduct' By David Wheldon is another strange British novel that haunts the imagination, first published in 1983 after it won the Triple First Award, established to encourage young writers.
It was selected from 641 tyepscripts and was the final choice of the two consultant judges, Graham Greene and William Trevor.

High amongst the clouds, standing on the abandoned viaduct which dominates the city far below, is a man known only as A, who we learn has recently been released from prison for writing a subversive manuscript. Chased by unidentified pursuers, he escapes along the tracks where he meeets other Travellers and
discovers a world of refugees and misfits who have their own private language and folklore and whose life and raison d'etre are tied to the abandoned tracks which stretch ever onwards across the hills. Food, tobacco and shelter are scarce and there is a sense of perpetual unease. Down below the elevated railway are small towns where travellers are sometimes helped, sometimes imprisoned. Gripped by the book's atmosphere, we follow A's strange journey unquestioningly until he reaches the metaphoric end of the line, where we are left unsure about what it all means but feeling one has been in the grip of a powerful literary imagination. The work it most closely reminds me of is that great film Stalker' by Andrei Tarkovsky.

Wheldon (b.1950), it turns out, is a novelist, poet and doctor - who believes multiple sclerosis is caused by a bacterium. His paper on the subject can be found here. An interesting short essay and on his life and work can be found here.

There is a lengthy review of this book, comparing it with the work of Kafka,
by Sam Penwill in 2007 on the website Fringe Report. A list of Wheldon's other novels can be found at Fantastic Fiction. There is not even a stub on Wikipedia.


'The Necropolis Railway' by Andrew Martin provides a subtle connection with the title above but is very different in its style, form and intention.

Set in Edwardian London, it introduces the character of Jim Stringer, a young railwayman who finds himself assigned to a mysterious line that only goes to a massive cemetry. Strange things begin to happen to Jim from the moment he arrives and the story expertly builds to a strange and satisfying climax. (The author points out in an introductory note, there still is a real-life London Necropolis Company, which ran trains from Waterloo to Brookwood Cemetry from 1850-1941. Full details of the company and the line can be found on this Cemetry Railway page. There is also a lengthy piece in Fortean Times.)

Martin has subsequently led Jim Stringer through a series of popular adventures but these completely lack the atmosphere of this first book which is a horse of a different colour. 'The Necropolis Railway' is, to my mind, top literature to be compared with the likes of Peter Ackroyd's 'Hawksmoor', whereas the sequels are much simpler detective-style novels, bathed in the world of steam. They are skilfully constructed and readable but lack the sense of real mystery, terror and dread that pervades the original; more 'Murder on the Orient Express' than David Lynch.



'Who Walk In Darkness' by Chandler Brossard (1922-1993) is a real find, a novel and writer completely unknown to me, of some significance. This novel, written in 1952, depicts the hip crowd in Greenwich Village in the 1940s

They hang out in bars, black clubs, go to a boxing match, go to parties. On the outer fringes of the parties they attend, hepcats are smoking tea, jazz is playing, a fight breaks out. Their conversations are tight and smart. They say of one of the characters that he's really underground. Everyone's still wearing ties at this time. A girl gets pregnant and has to get an abortion.

According to a biographical history, attached to an inventory of his papers held at Syracuse University: '[Brossard] worked as a journalist for the Washington Post before attaining a writing position with The New Yorker at age nineteen, where editor William Shawn encouraged him to write fiction. His first published novel, Who Walk in Darkness (1952), focused on the bohemian life of 1940s Greenwich Village and is sometimes considered the first beat novel, thus earning Brossard an association with early Beat Generation writers such as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg - an association Brossard neither sought nor desired. Reviewers who characterized Who Walk in Darkness as a beat novel, Brossard said, "totally missed getting the book. They thought it was a realistic novel, which of course it wasn't. The French critics knew better. They perceived it as the first 'new wave' novel, a nightmare presented as flat documentary."

It is generally considered that the first "Beat" novel was 'Go' by John Clellon Holmes (1926 -1988), which was also published in 1952. The book depicts events in his life with friends Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, and Allen Ginsberg. He was often referred to as the "quiet Beat," and was one of Kerouac's closest friends. He also wrote what is considered the definitive jazz novel of the Beat Generation, 'The Horn'. [Source: Wikipedia]

According to 'Proto Beat' by Blake Bailey: 'Brossard channeled the cool monotone of Camus's existentialist classic "L'Etranger," for his first novel, "Who Walk in Darkness" (1952), regarded by some as a pioneering work of Beat fiction. With its cast of artists and intellectuals manqués, its alienated narrator struggling for "authenticity" and of course its beatnik parties - "Another hipster came up to him and I saw him hand the tall one the already lit stick of tea" - the novel is a time capsule of postwar Greenwich Village. The French love hipsters and people who write like Camus, so it's not surprising that the book's first publisher was Gallimard in France. '

For the dispute over the book between himself and Anatole Broyard, who was portrayed in the book as the hustler and opportunist Henry Porter, see this extract from "The Passing of Anatole Broyard." by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Personally I would consider it the first 'hip' novel, which seems to fit in a continuum somewhere between F. Scott Fitgerald and Tom Wolfe and Jay McInnerney - the smart set with underground commections, having brittle conversations about smart things.

According to 'Hip: The History' by John Leland, several scenes in the book are set in a fictionalised version of the long-time boho hangout, the San Remo in Greenwich Village, which also appears in Kerouac's 'The Subterraneans.' Leland describes the movel as a 'semi-Beat, pretty hip, roman à clef...'

The book is a good read, made more interesting by the fact of the novel's relative obscurity. Almost despite myself I became intrigued by the situations. The narrative voice is strong and the prose style interesting. The novel is written almost entirely in short sentences. Its like a window on the period, eavesdropping through time,

This original paperback edition, with pages stained purple at the edges, has a great blurb which reads: 'TEA, POT, MARYJANE - or a benzedrine inhaler if things were tight. Promiscuous, joyless sex. Cool. Detached. Uninvolved, Quiet desperation. Alienation with a No Exit Sign. These are the words of the American existential generation. In this brilliant novel, Chandler Brossard arranges the words into a dictionary of desolation.'


First published in 1938, this paperback edition of 'Night and the City' by Gerald Kersh (1911-1968) was produced by Braniac Books in 1993.

It features on the cover a still from a movie version of the book, starring Robert de Niro and Jessica Lange, directed by Irwin Winkler.

It had previously been filmed in 1950 by Jules Dassin with Richard Widmark, Gene Tierney and Herbert Lom, which is considered a film noir classic. Kersh got paid for the film rights but then discovered when he read the script that they had thrown away the whole story, retaining only the title.

According to Fantastic Fiction: 'Gerald Kersh was born in Teddington-on-Thames, London and died penniless as an American citizen in Kingston, New York. He wrote over 1,000 articles, 400 short stories, and 19 novels. His account of infantry training They Die With Their Boots Clean (1941), became an instant best-seller during World War Two, and launched Kersh on a glittering career. '

According the biographical note in the above paperback, 'Kersh's life was as strange and varied as his writing. His many occupations included stints as a nightcoub bouncer, a short-order cook, a wrestler, a soldier.'

The entry in 'The Rough Guide to Cult Fiction' calls him 'a 20th century Edgar Allen Poe', a comparison and connection which I think would be hard to justify. It says he began writing novels on toilet paper in Soho bars and that Anthony Burgess considered his best-known work 'Fowler's End' to be 'one of the best comic novels of the century', yet his versatility and wierdness counted against him. 'His fiction included disguised army reminiscences, noirush underworld tales and short stories in which midgets fight for the love of a beautiful multiple amputee and a ventriloquist's relationship with his dummy takes a strange turn.'

The best source of information on the web about Gerald Kersh is 'The Nights and Cities of Gerald Kersh', which is hosted by a site devoted to the SF writer and anthologist Harlan Ellison. Kersh was Ellison's favourite writer. The Kersh material, assembled by Paul Duncan, has not been updated since 1999. It says that he is writing a biography of Kersh based on research assembled over the 'last six years.' I have sent him an e-mail to see what has happened.
[The Wikipedia entry on Kersh is drawn from the above.]

See what Kersh titles are available on Amazon.

THE LONDON TANTRA FESTIVAL

From Left: Pashet (one of the main artists exhibiting at the Festival), Mark A. Michaels and Patricia Johnson, Bernadette Vallely and Kwalilox (cyber burlesque fairy). The Kensington Rooms, London. 25th July 2008.

On July 25th, The Generalist was invited to attend the press launch of the London Festival of Tantra, which will be held at Chelsea Town Hall in London on September 27th this year.

This multi-layered one-day event will feature a range of speakers, workshops and rituals plus artwork, music and dance, massage and body painting. It has been organised by Bernadette Vallely, author of 'Sacred Sex,' and will bring together a broad range of people working within the tantra scene.

Full details here.

What follows is a layman's (possibly mistaken) first thoughts on the subject.

Tantra is an ancient branch of Hinduism, a part of which addresses itself to a sacred approach to sexuality. It is this part that is generally presented in the West.

Just to clear the air: the most famous tantra expert as far as the mass media is concerned is Sting which stems from his remarks years back about how he and Trudie could have sex for six hours using tantric techniques. Here's one quote on the subject: ''The Police singer insists his marathon, mystical sex sessions are not as intense as reports have suggested, and claims most of the time is spent cajoling, eating and watching a film. Sting said in an interview, "Yes, you can have sex for six hours, but it includes dinner, a movie and maybe a lot of begging! Tantra is a well-documented science, it's not just about sex. It's a devotional exercise to express adoration. Sex is a sacred act and incredible fun." [Source: ExpoSay]

Interest in tantra in the West dates back certainly to the early 20th century and the discovery and photography of the tantric temples with their marvelous erotic sculptures has had a profound influence on many Western artists. In more recent times, Tantra was very big in the culture of the 1960s and 1970s but is well overdue for a new revival of interest.

Sex in modern western societies is ubiquitous in the sense that is now used to sell almost every kind of consumer product. Sex is also a tabloid and internet obsession. But it is clear from the size of the huge self-help, advice and therapy industries that many people have unhappy sex lives and are seeking some kind of deeper fulfillment rather than just titillation. Which perhaps explains the new interest in burlesque - more artful and erotic than the other current symbol of our times, pole-dancing - and fetish and bondage - once cult, now part of mainstream fashion.

It is easy, in this climate, to understand the continuing attraction of Tantra, which offers not only a sacred dimension to sexuality but also practical techniques designed to help you achieve amore intense loving experience - a gateway to the higher thoughts that form the bulk of Tantric teaching.

'Tantra is an ancient South Asia tradition that recognises sexual energy (not necessarily sexual activity) as a source of personal and spiritual empowerment. It is a pragmatic, non-materialistic technology of mind and body, a practical way to loosen the bonds of unconscious, habitual behaviour and thereby live more freely and fully.'
- Michaels & Johnson

These thoughts and others were largely triggered by conversations held that day, in particular with the two people who are key keynote speakers at the conference - Mark A. Michaels and Patricia Johnson, who have been teaching Tantra and Kriya Yoga together since 1999 and are the authors of 'The Essence of Tantric Sexuality' and 'Tantra for Erotic Empowerment.'
See them on YouTube here.

Like many of you no doubt, I have a high intolerance of new age speak and psychobabble, so it was a refreshing and rewarding experience to meet this couple who speak simply, openly and sensibly about their ideas, approches and beliefs without pretension. We also discovered a mutual interest in the Beats.

In the States, it seems, Tantra is still slightly underground in the current climate, in a society where zoning laws are invoked to stop people living together in communes, and professionals
risk losing their jobs and reputations if they participate in any kind of sexual activity that is not mainstream - or worse, custody of their children. In Texas, if you own more than six sex toys, you can be charged with possession with intent to supply.

They call themselves 'pleasure activists' (which is a nice turn of phrase that could catch on and almost certainly will) and hold salons for others of the same mind in New York on a regular basis.

They are both musicians: Mark was heavily into punk rock, the first band he saw being Talking Heads at CBGBs, and was in London during the height of punk in the late 1970s, seeing Siouxie and the Banshees, the Adverts and many others and was in a punk band himself called The Relaxors. He subsequently became a lawyer, holds a master's degree from New York and Yale, and is a playwright and translator.

Patricia is an opera singer who has toured throught the US and Europe and perforrmed with the New York City Opera and many other companies. She tells me that much of her musical training and intelligence anticipated what she was to learn from tantra, or provided at least a grand preparation for same.

Both are students of the Australian Dr Jonn Mumford, a Tantric pioneer in the West, now known as Swami Anandakapila Saraswati, who in his Afterword to their 'Essence' book writes that 'the crux of Hindu Tantra in regard to sexuality may be summed up from this simple phrase from the English marriage ceremony in the 'Book of Common Prayer: "With my body I thee worship." Nothing more and nothing less!'

Mark subsequently sent me a post from the couple's Tantra PM blog entitled 'Punk Tantra' which reads as follows:

Punk Tantra may seem like an oxymoron to some, but my Tantric sensibility was shaped by my involvement in Punk. Just as we started getting active on myspace, I received a couple of CDs of material my first college band, The Relaxors, recorded in 1978 or '79 in Ann Arbor and learned that our old manager had set up a page for the band. When the package arrived I had already added a few of my favorite groups to our friends list. It was an odd synchronicity, and it encouraged me not only to revist my roots but also to dig through my archives. Some of the material I find may show up on the Relaxors page in the near future.

Patti Smith's Bottom Line show in December of 1975 was a life-changing experience for me. I'd seen plenty of rock bands by that time but had never experienced something of such transcendent power. About a month later I ventured into CBGBs, where Television and Talking Heads were on the bill. I knew I had found a home. This was before the crowds there got huge, and before Punk got codified, either as fashion or as a sonic style. Back then the scene was diverse, tolerant and accepting. I had the sense that we were all outsiders seeking freedom from received social norms -- whether musical, social or political. We were seeking intense experience, or as Patti Smith put it:

"I seek pleasure. I seek the nerves under your skin. The narrow archway; the layers; the scroll of ancient letters. We worship the flaw, the belly, the belly, the mole on the belly of an exquisite whore. He spared the child and spoiled the rod. I have not sold myself to God."

Anyway, Tantra. It's really the same thing. No need to sell yourself to God when you can find God inside yourself, but I digress. Contrary to popular myth, Tantra's got very little to do with sexual technique, and it's certainly not all new-age sweetness and light. It's about finding the divine through experience, wherever you are, including in the gutter. And those transcendent moments in the dirty dank and sweaty rock 'n' roll clubs in New York, Detroit and Ann Arbor were truly Tantric. The ego dissolved, and I became one with the sound.'

PHOTOGRAPHING POSTER ART

Its Saturday 21st June 2008 - Solstice night at the The Basement in Brighton for an exhibition of rock poster art. I was there with my camera.

Two SF posters artists - Ron Donovan and Chuck Sperry (left back) from the Firehouse Studios have just arrived together with their friend and tour manager Marc Malakie (right). Theyare getting some welcome beers down.

Here is Ron doing what he does best - charging the place up with some righteous energy.

The occasion is a co-exhibition of their work alongside that of the Brighton-based British Rock Artists Group (BRAG).

The connection began a couple of years ago when Chuck & Ron came to the Brighton Festival in May 2006, with an all-American show called 'Sub-Screen Sonic' and did master classes for a group of local artists who went on to form BRAG.





















See Previous Posting: LATEST ART/SubScreenSonic
Original programme see above. I was there.

Some of them visited SF for further experience and now BRAG is a thriving silkscreen crew in their own right, with their own well-appointed studio.

The Brighton show was just one date on a six-city tour that the energetic Chuck and Ron undertook, inspiring local artists and having fun wherever they went.
For full details see their MySpace site.

On the Sunday, at BRAG's studio, Chuck gives a practical demonstration of the silk-screening art. [See below.] They've promised to come back for more next year.

I am a great admirer of Chuck and Ron. They are fantastic communicators, happy to share their hard-won skills with others.

It appears to be largely thanks to them that the art of producing silkscreen music posters for gigs in Britain is being reawakened.

Unknown to most people over here, this tradition of silk-screening music gig posters never died out in America, and continues to this day in cities across the US. Why it died out here is an interesting question.

The explosion of rock posters in the 1960s was a key part of the culture and a powerful art form of the period. Most of these were gig posters, designed to be pasted on walls. But these ephemeral items were so beautifully produced that they quickly became collector's items and originals are now extremely valuable. Many of the surviving poster artists from that period are now selling limited editions of their originals plus new work.

PHOTOGRAPHING LIGHT

The 'Statues Alive' event, featuring a series of light projections and sound effects by Quadratura, was staged at the Chelsea Embankment, London on the evening of the 23rd June 2008.

Shown below are five light installations, projected on a beautiful bronze boy and dolphin statue, a monument to Dante Gabriel Rossetti, a bronze female nude, an Epstein, and a statue of the painter Whistler.

PHOTOGRAPHING MUSIC

This summer have been totally focused on learning how to photograph music. Trying to find a fresh approach, to capture the mood of the music and the interactions between musicians on stage. Using a Nikon D40.

From the top: Dave McCabe of The Zutons and Eddi Reader (performing with the Jools Holland Rhythm & Blues Orchestra) at Bedgebury Pinetum; Jomo James and His Boogie Chillum Band at The Brunswick in Hove plus DJ Ras Ric at the Lansdown Arms; Tongue & Groove at an open air gig at the Pells Pool; the blues rock whirlwind that is the brilliant Bex Marshall at the Constitutional Club - all in Lewes

THE AUDIO GENERALIST: NEW POSTING

Check out the fresh interview with David Anderson,
one of Britain's most creative animators
on The Audio Generalist

THE BLACK WORLD

Trevor Paglen, an artist and photographer finishing his Ph.D. in geography at the University of California, Berkeley, is fascinated by the 'black' world of secret US military programmes in all its aspects and has recently published a book containing 75 patches, the kind worn on military uniforms. The book is called “I Could Tell You but Then You Would Have to Be Destroyed by Me." Mr. Paglen says the title comes from a patch designed for the Navy Air Test and Evaluation Squadron 4, at Point Mugu, Calif. Its mission, he says, is to test strike aircraft, conventional weapons and electronic warfare equipment and to develop tactics to use the high-tech armaments in war. “The military has patches for almost everything it does,” Mr. Paglen writes in the introduction. “Including, curiously, for programs, units and activities that are officially secret.”

Accorduing to William J. Broad, writing in the New York Times: 'The classified budget of the Defense Department, concealed from the public in all but outline, has nearly doubled in the Bush years, to $32 billion. That is more than the combined budgets of the Food and Drug Administration, the National Science Foundation and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Those billions have expanded a secret world of advanced science and technology in which military units and federal contractors push back the frontiers of warfare. In the past, such handiwork has produced some of the most advanced jets, weapons and spy satellites, as well as notorious boondoggles.'

'This stuff is a huge industry, I mean a huge industry," says Paglen. "And it's remarkable that you can develop these projects on an industrial scale, and we don't know what they are. It's an astounding feat of social engineering."

See complete article here: Inside the Black Budget

JOHN "HOPPY" HOPKINS SHOOTS FROM THE HIP

Just when you think we've seen everything there is to see from the 1960s, along comes this superb book of photos by John Hopkins to add fresh lustre and give new insights to our vision of those times.

"Hoppy" as he is known by one and all, is of course now in the history books; in the words of Jonathon Green, in his book 'All Dressed Up', he was 'involved centrally in virtually every aspect of the counter-culture. '

A former nuclear reactor scientist, Hoppy became an inspiration, an instigator, an alternative impresario, a cause celebre. He was involved in the birth of the alternative scene in Notting Hill Gate, was the co-founder of Britain's first underground newspaper International Times, initially funded by Paul McCartney. He established, with Joe Boyd, the legendary UFO Club in Tottenham Court Road, where the house band was the Pink Floyd, where light shows were pioneered and where Hendrix strutted his stuff. He took acid in 1964, went to America, got busted in December 1966, served six months in Wormwood Scrubs. That's just the start of it.

His godfather gave him his first camera on the day he graduated from Cambridge in 1958 and he spent the next years learning the tricks of the trade. He arrived in London on January 1st, 1960, black and white camera in hand, to work as an assistant to a commercial photographer and by the following year was established as a Fleet Street freelancer, working for the Sunday Times and The Observer and also freelancing for Queen (a style magaxine of the day, for which he did one of the first feature ever in the UK on cannabis), Melody Maker (for which he shot jazz) and for Peace News and the CND magazine Sanity (for which he documented the protest movement against nuclear weapons).

His photographic career was to last just five years, from 1961 to 1966, but during this period he captured beautiful black and white images that are now considered iconic, of the music, culture and politics of the time. He then abandoned photography for life. Three years later, in 1969, he picked up his first video camera and became a pioneer in that field also - a story that has yet to be told.

For some thirty years or more, these photos remained lost and forgotten, were rediscovered by accident, and had their first-ever screening at the Photographer's Gallery in 2000. This book is their first proper publication - happily in an edition of great style and beauty, thanks to a great piece of design work by Sartoria Communications and a first rate production and publishing job by Damiani Editore in Bologna. The book, ironically or not, is discreetly sponsored by the jean company Lee.

Hoppy's great passion was jazz so it is appropriate that his wonderful intimate portraits of that world form the largest part of the book. The greats are here in force - John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, Raasan Roland Kirk, Ornette Coleman and more - revealed in all their sartorial splendour. These are pictures of great class, style and distinction.

I particularly love the shot of Lee Morgan - The Sidewinder, with his herringbone suit, white shirt and slick hair, leaning back and blowing on his muted trumpet, holding a cigarette carelessly in his left hand, the smoke drifting upwards as the notes pour out - a gem.

The book opens with coverage of the emerging teen cultures: stunning studio and live shots of the Stones, some beautiful Beatles photos, Dusty Springfield and Marianne Faithful, Soho coffee bar scenes and bikers at the Ace Cafe.

His coverage of The international Potry Congress at the Albert Hall, on the 11th June 1965, features lively portrayals of the massed poets on the steps of the Albert memorial, Ginsburg in the nude, Burroughs staring into the camera as if he's trying to melt the lens. From there straight into CND marches, Martin Luther King at a 1963 Oxford Peace Conference, Malcolm X in Notting Hill, marches against racism and pics from Hyde Park's Speaker's corner.

The book concludes with a lengthy section showing the underbelly of Notting Hill - tattooists, fetishists, prostitutes - and the culture of old London - poverty and street kids, pearly kings and queens, bus and dole queues. A view of an England lost and gone.

The book contains short essays by record producer Joe Boyd, Barrie Miles (one of Hoppy's great collaborators of the period), the great jazz photographer Val Wilmer, and the photo curator Addie Vassie, who first brought Hoppy's pictures to light. They all speak fondly of him. His photos attest to his ability to put people at their ease. His talent shines out.

'From The Hip' [Damiani. 2008] ISBN 978-88-6208-018-7

INTERVIEW WITH HOPPY: NOW AVAILABLE AT The Generalist audio site.

BLOODAXE AND JANET FRAME: THE POETRY REVOLUTION

Very pleased indeed to mark the celebration of the 30th Anniversary of Bloodaxe Books, a marvellous success story in publishing, who have pioneered a revolution in poetry in the UK and beyond, producing popular works that reach out beyond the barricades to find an enthusiastic audience.

Founder Neil Astley gave this controversial speech at StAnza, which bills iteslf as 'Scotland's Poetry Festival in 2005, which captures the spirited defence of a new approach to poetry which Bloodaxe have fostered and nourished succesfully for three decades - a huge achievement.

This post was triggerd by by my friend Lin Heyworth, whose poems have appeared in The Generalist, who lent me Bloodaxe's recent publication of Janet Frame's poems. (See Previous Post CULT MOVIES: COEN BROS & VHS ADVENTURES on the movie of Janet Frame's life by Jane Campion)

I phoned Bloodaxe to ask for permission to reproduce a poem. Apparently these poems are handled by the Andrew Wylie Agency, to whom I would have to apply for permission - but I could reproduce six lines but not a complete six-line poem.

I was torn between two quotes but have chosen this extract from 'Some of My Friends Are Excellent Poets.'

Poetry has not room for timidity of tread
tiptoeing in foot prints already made
running afraid of the word-stranger glimpsed out of the corner of the eye
barking in the wilderness. Poetry is the time for the breaking of habits good or bad
a breaking free of memory and yesterday
to face the hunting that is.

(the column width on this blog doesn't allow lines 3 and 4 to stretch out to their full extent)

Most poetry I find hard to comprehend. Janet Frame's work speaks to me.

THE MILITARY ENTERTAINMENT COMPLEX

'Using the shareware tools, the Marines rewrote the code for the commercial game DOOM II. Instead of employing fantasy weapons to face down monster-like characters in a labyrinthine castle, real-world images were scanned into the game’s graphics engine along with images of weapons such as the M16(a1) rifle, M-249 squad automatic weapon, and M-67 fragmentation grenades. In place of the monster characters, 3D scans were done of GI-Joe action characters. The game was also modified from its original version to include fighting holes, bunkers, tactical wire, “the fog of war,” and friendly fire.'

- Tim Lenoir and Henry Lowood

'Speaking about the big-budget, live-action blockbuster Transformers (2007), Ian Bryce, one of its producers, characterized the relationship this way, "Without the superb military support we've gotten… it would be an entirely different-looking film… Once you get Pentagon approval, you've created a win-win situation. We want to cooperate with the Pentagon to show them off in the most positive light, and the Pentagon likewise wants to give us the resources to be able to do that."
-Nick Turse 'The Golden Age of the Military-Entertainment Complex' (March 2008) [Anti-War.Com]

CREATED BY SOLDIERS. DEVELOPED BY GAMERS
'In July of 2002, the Army turned on the servers for the America's Army game and watched as thousands of gamers rushed to download our America's Army: Operations RECON version. Since then, more than 9 million players have registered to join the America's Army experience. These players have participated in over 205 million hours of online play exploring Soldiering as members of elite U.S. Army units. These devoted fans catapulted America's Army into the top five online action games at its launch and have kept America's Army in the top ten on the charts ever since.'
- Letter from Leadership.
[The game is intended as a recruiting device.]

What ya need is what they sellin'
Make you think that buyin' is rebellin'
From the theaters to malls on every shore
Tha thin line between entertainment and war
Rage Against The Machine - 'No Shelter'


Back in 1961, in his farewell speech, US President Eisenhower warned of the dangers of the military-industrial complex. In a famous quote, he said:

'Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry...we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

'This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

'In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

'We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.'

Nick Turse's recently published book The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives' was reviewed in 'The Pentagon is Everywhere' by Noah Shachtman, a post on the excellent Wired blog DANGER ROOM: What's Next in National Security. The book was was less enthusiastically reviewed by the Chris Barsanti on the excellent Pop Matters site. Also see extract from the book on TomDispatch.com

Turse writes: 'Looking at the situation in 1970, almost 10 years after Eisenhower's farewell speech, Sidney Lens, a journalist and expert on U.S. militarism, noted that there were 22,000 prime contractors doing business with the U.S. Department of Defense. Today, the number of prime contractors tops 47,000 with subcontractors reaching well over the 100,000 mark, making for one massive conglomerate touching nearly every sector of society, from top computer manufacturer Dell (the 50th-largest DoD contractor in 2006) to oil giant ExxonMobil (the 30th) to package-shipping titan FedEx (the 26th).... But the difference between now and then isn't only in scale...Pentagon spending is reaching into previously neglected areas of American life: entertainment, popular consumer brands, sports. This penetration translates into a remarkable variety of forms of interaction with the public.'


















This post was inspired initially by this diagram from the Near Future Laboratory website. The diagram is appended to a downloadable pdf of a keynote talk delivered at the 2006 ACM SIGCHI International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology, 14-16 June 2006, Hollywood, California.

Read this exceptional paper -
THEATERS OF WAR: THE MILITARY-ENTERTAINMENT COMPLEX
Tim Lenoir and Henry Lowood/Stanford University, which begins:

'War games are simulations combining game, experiment and performance. The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has been the primary proponent of war game design since the 1950s. Yet, commercial game designers produced many of the ideas shaping the design of military simulations, both before and after the advent of computer-based games.

'By the 1980s, the seeds of a deeper collaboration among military, commercial designers, the entertainment industry, and academic researchers in the development of high-end computer simulations for military training had been planted.

They built “distributed interactive simulations” (DIS) such as SIMNET that created virtual theaters of war by linking participants interacting with distributed software or hardware simulators in real time. The simulators themselves presented synthetic environments—virtual worlds—by utilizing advances in computer graphics and virtual reality research. With the rapid development of DIS technology during the 1990s, content and compelling story development became increasingly important.

'The necessity of realistic scenarios and backstory in military simulations led designers to build databases of historical, geographic and physical data, reconsider the role of synthetic agents in their simulations and consult with game design and entertainment talents for the latest word on narrative and performance. Even when this has not been the intention of their designers and sponsors, military simulations have been deeply embedded in commercial forms of entertainment, for example, by providing content and technology deployed in computer and video games.'

They conclude that: 'Military technology, which once trickled down to civilian use, now usually lags behind what is available in games, rides and movie special effects.'


One of the hotbeds of military/entertainment research is the Institute for Creative Technologies in Los Angeles. Their website reads: 'Collaborating with our entertainment industry neighbors, we are the leaders in producing virtual humans, computer training simulations and immersive experiences for decision-making, cultural awareness, leadership and health. Engaging and effective. Powerful and portable. Our innovations help save lives, resources and time.'

'ICT was established in 1999 with a multi-year contract from the US Army to explore a powerful question: What would happen if leading technologists in artificial intelligence, graphics, and immersion joined forces with the creative talents of Hollywood and the game industry? The answer is the creation of engaging, memorable and effective interactive media that are revolutionizing learning in the fields of training, education and beyond. We are leaders in an international effort to develop virtual humans who think and behave like real people. We create tools and immersive environments to experientially transport participants to other places.... Our work has made such an impact, that our founding contract was followed up in 2004 with a new five-year commitment to allow us to continue our innovative work.'

Leonard and Lowood report that in August 1999 the Army pledged '$45 million to the University of Southern California over the next five years to create a research center [ITC] to develop advanced military simulations....The idea for the new center...reflects the fact that although Hollywood and the Pentagon may differ markedly in culture, they now overlap in technology. In opening the new Institute for Creative Technology Secretary of the Army Louis Caldera said, “We could never hope to get the expertise of a Steven Spielberg or some of the other film industry people working just on Army projects.” But the new institute, Caldera said, will be “a win-win for everyone.”

Check out this 2003 story from DocBug:Intelligence, media technologies, intellectual property, and the occasional politics: 'The CIA's Counter-Terrorism Center (CTC) is working to develop training simulations with the help of the Institute for Creative Technologies, a center within the University of Southern California that specializes in combining artificial intelligence, virtual reality and techniques from the videogame and movie industries to create interactive training simulations. The company recently received accolades for their "Full Spectrum Warrior" project, which was designed as a training aid for the US Army but has also lead to a commercial videogame for the X-Box.'