"As the Prophet Mohammed once aptly put it,

a journey is a fragment of Hell*.
"The journey through the desert of elaboration
confronts the unwary traveller
with a whole array of fragments of hell."
 - Gottlieb Guntern - The Spirit of Creativity: Basic Mechanisms of Creative Achievements

*quoted in Bruce Chatwin, Songlines, 1988, 21

Change and Decay (mutandis, mutandis...)

The French have recently imported Hallowe'en
straight from the ritual-corrupting USA,
as a kind of harvest festival
with childish masks and silly, highly-flammable costumes,
unaware that it was once known
also as All Hallows' or All Souls' Eve,
a pre-Christian festival of the dead
moved a few hours to All Souls' Day
by the Catholic Church, and,
interestingly, moved six days forward
to Guy Fawkes' Night only by the English,
together with the apotropaic bonfires which were the centre
of the 'Celtic' rite, not the grinning lanterns carved out from
turnips/rutabagas/swedes - and now from pumpkins
no longer carried through the muddy lanes
by joyful, barefoot bumpkins.

Autumn has arrived in southwestern France.

Morning mist as seen from the balcony. Click to enlarge.

from "15 things airlines don't want you to know"

Next time you’re eating lunch off or otherwise using the pull-down tray in front of you -
remember that someone has probably changed a baby on it.
- So check it - don't lick it.

From what we now know

about just some of the recently-uncovered practices of the Catholic Church
in just a handful of countries - none of them African -
there is surely a case for indicting it (in the person of the Pope, "Christ's Vicar")
for continuing Crimes Against Humanity and Nature
since the reign of Constantine, the Roman Emperor.

God said :

Solitude is divine.
Sartre said :
Hell is the otherness of people.

But does God like eating alone ?
Does s|he eat ?
If so, what ?  Comet-tails ? Asteroids ?
Galaxies ?  Or just
devils' genitals
and the heads of animals ?

She saw god again the other day

Behind the bloody heap of thrones
Behind the house of money and decay
With grumbling sighs and wheezy groans
In a torn fur coat
Digging up bones.

Tourists and Terrorism.

Far from being the worst thing on the planet,
ISIS/Islamic State/Daesh/ الدولة الإسلامية في العراق والشام
 pales into insignificance compared with the terrorism
of the Syrian State under Bashar al-Assad
 and with the effect on populations and environments
of the zombi-masses of the world's tourists.

From the balcony: the trees are changing colour.

Click to enlarge

The main - if not the only - problem with socialism

is its historical attraction to centralisation
- which, sooner or later, destroys it.

Dark Heart of Conversation

Panning for Coltan in the Eastern Congo
so that the world can have mobile phones.

Click to read more.

Great is Death !

We are his urgent breath,
her eager pus.

Thinking
we're in the thick of living,
we do not smell him
stinking
in the thin of us.

Homage to al-Ma'arri.

Far too much of far too many

"news" reports is devoted to speculation
about what is going to happen next week, or tomorrow, or in a few hours' time -
as if we were incapable of waiting patiently.
And if we are incapable of waiting patiently
"news" is meaningless.

" The sin of television...

... proved irresistible for them…. On their rare appearances, they would invariably sit down and watch. Karp sat directly in front of the screen. Agafia watched poking her head from behind a door. She tried to pray away her transgression immediately—whispering, blessing herself…. The old man prayed afterwards, diligently and in one fell swoop..."


http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/for-40-years-this-russian-family-was-cut-off-from-all-human-contact-unaware-of-world-war-ii-7354256/?no-ist

Thus are we all corrupted.  But in the case of television and smartphones, why not I ?

Other people's generalisations

are always, inevitably exaggerated, odious
- whereas mine are always subtly, surely insightful :-)
All generalisations should be rigorously examined.

Cosmetic.

I have always hated make-up.
Thus I hated circuses not only for their irreverence
to beautiful animals, but for the horrible.
deeply distressing, depressing clowns.
Yet I did not dislike Punch and Judy shows on the beach.

The word Cosmetic comes from the Greek word Kosmos,
which means 'the appearance of things'.
I think that when I was a baby,
some woman in grotesque cake
make-up might have frightened me.
And thus, eventually, I made the mistake
of drifting towards an æsthetic and hence
superficial homosexuality.

This is the room

and the day-bed in which I would like to die.

'The Good Life.'

Accept nothing unquestioningly.
Especially not your teachers, your parents.
Re-think everything for yourself.

On Synæsthesia.

Probably
the commonest and most-overlooked
form of this gift is
listening to music while sipping wine
(or cognac)
and fondling one's groin.

An Excellent Epitaph.

'Never Employed
His Life he (mostly)
Enjoyed.'

Croquet

- a game which, like tennis, was invented in mediæval France, and,incidentally, gave its name to another originally-French game now called cricket -
became popular in the English-speaking world in the 1860s,
because it was the first sport that women could play
on the same terms as, and against, men.

It is one of the few sports that can be played while drinking,
texting and smoking (though not all at once)
or eating bread and caviar or honey. 
I have played it fewer than five times,
though it is the only sport that I have ever enjoyed.
Here is a photo of a famous criminal
who probably played it for money.

Billy the Kid (left). Click to enlarge.

Since Mr Chiqui Tiki

has come to live with me
I have come to understand
how people can believe
that idols contain spirits,
in this case, a very calming one.
Believing, thus, is seeing.

Perhaps you think it strange,
dear reader,
that I would rather kiss
a wooden idol
than a human being.

Exciting new polytheistic religion coming up fast.

Asked about Albert Caraco

(nihilist-pessimist writer in the tradition of Cioran and co.)
I came to this baffling paragraph (which I have split up into lines) in the middle of his essay

On Sexual Desire and Death :

« We are too numerous, number is the source of all that is evil.
We committed our species to the sink-hole of a labyrinth,
we forgot joy and, blind and deaf, we ran after chimæras.  
Judging us guilty, our masters disliked us
and their teaching was their revenge:
they were mad and they made us mad;
they knew they were sick and they forced us to imitate them;
they poisoned us and their instruction turned the sun black,
the world into a slave-pit, love into a stinking midden, and our bodies into sewers.
Tomorrow we will challenge them
and I am sure that they will collapse of their own accord. »

I think Señor Caraco should have got himself a nice hard, fleshless Cheeky-Tiki [see previous blog] to cuddle...

Read his original essay here. Then pick up your old copy of Portnoy's Complaint
(by another Jewish author)...

Extracts from his writings are included in my friend Karl's blog here.

Suddenly I am interested in Tikis !

Tiki was 'the first man' in Māori cosmography, and squatting statues named after him, all more or less pleasingly grotesque, are found throughout Oceania (the Eastern Pacific) - from New Zealand to Hawaii and from the Marquesan and Tahitian archipelagoes to the Cook Islands and New Caledonia.

                    Here is a typical Tiki.

In September I went to a rather ramshackle, non-professional 'antiques fair' at a castle a few miles away.  Amongst the usual welter of porcelain, cutlery and knick-knacks, I saw this very cheerful and charming Tiki.

I fell in love with his toothy grin, his beautifully-striated wood, and his gorgeous buttocks - evidently worked by a master-woodcarver.  He was not at all expensive (less than 100 euros/£75).  His only 'provenance' is that he was sold as a 'Statue from Oceania' at the Drouot auction-rooms in Paris.

I bought him, knowing nothing about Tikis but the much-abused name, which is attached to squatting/seated human figures which range from a couple of centimentres high (in greenstone, nephrite - or plastic - properly known as hei-tikis) to large stone statues.
Click on the photos to get a larger picture.
 

He is 60 cms (2 feet)  high and carved from a beautiful piece of heavy but soft, striated wood in such a way that the buttocks are emphasised. The long thin penis in low relief is so discreet and delicate as to be almost invisible above a small (very high) anal hole.  It is less than half the length of his banana grin. His hands rest on his knees. Some toes have been knocked away in each foot, but he is otherwise fairly undamaged.  He weighs nearly 12 kgs.

 Many tikis have penises, some are sexless and some are female.  Most have their hands meeting on their belly on which the navel is prominent. Many have protruding (minatory) tongues.  All have enlarged eyes, which in pendant examples are often of mother-of-pearl or a similar shell.  Most are leaning forward.  Some in the Marquesan Islands (thought by some researchers to be the original home of the statues) have emphasised buttocks, and most in the Marquesas do not have the tattoos that are such a feature of the Aotearoan tikis, nor the threatening Caliban-Cannibal teeth that are elsewhere almost universal.  Mine has, on the other hand, a very winning toothy grin which makes me smile as I pass him on the stairs.   On balance, I think he is probably Marquesan - and if not, then Tahitian.

 click here to see a slideshow of Tikis >>>

Some statues seem to have been minatory protectors (with frightening teeth) while others represent guardians of the Underworld, or legendary or historical warrior ancestors.  The (tattooed) Marquesan islanders were extremely fierce and cannibalistic.

My cheery chappie is almost certainly modern (mid to late 20th-century ?), but classier than mere tourist tat such as is ubiquitous on the Hawaiian islands.  He now stands on my stairs as benevolent protector, blessing all who pass.

============================

Quite unrelatedly, there is in the Marquesa island of Fatu Hiva a bay  known as the ‘Baie des Vierges’ (Bay of Virgins). This was originally named ‘Baie des Verges’ (Bay of Penises or, if you will permit, Hard Dick Harbour) by the first French settlers, in celebration of the large phallic rock formations that line it. Unsurprisingly the name was later and quickly changed by the usual loathesome Christian missionaries keen to suppress any sensual thoughts in this voluptuous and remote place.  It was in 1842 that the French took over the islands from the Spanish (though the USA claimed them in 1813, Congress never ratifying the claim) and established a settlement which was abandoned in 1859. The French returned in 1870 and later incorporated the islands (some 1200 sea-miles NE of Tahiti) into French Polynesia, still a colony of the French Republic.

For Seventy-plusses' paraterminal elation :

More and better masturbation !

Female Genital Mutilation

(the removal of clitoris and labia, and sewing up of what little remains
for fake religious reasons) is an utterly appalling thing, beside which
mere male circumcision is quite benign.
But Mass Cerebral Mutilation, performed on everyone, over many years
throughout the world, to bind and amputate and sew up the brain
in the continual, relentless, totalitarian
worship of the One True Work-Ethic Mindfuck,
is at least as bad - and no-one has the will or wherewithal
to desecrate a single shrine.

Autumn colours

have not yet appeared in the forest opposite my balcony.

But on the driveway up to my house there is rich October colouring.

The gable is that of the former nun-run nursery school, now defunct.
Some people dump garden rubbish here, and worse, so this winter
my neighbour and I plan to plant four or five nice big shrubs
to delight the eye of the several locals who take their dogs
on a circular walk past here and down the drive or lane
to the artificial lake,
and along the coombe floor to the house in the first photo,
then back up to the village again.

(My house is about 150 metres farther on.)

The Childish and Depressing Optimists

never tire of telling us that our moral sensibilities have undergone progressive evolution,
and are still evolving.
But as TH Huxley pointed out more than a century ago,
sheer nastiness and the means of performing it on a massive scale have likewise evolved apace.
Even if there were something that might be described as social evolution,
the forces of bloodcurdling and gut-spraying psycho/sociopathy
would be as much a part of it as liberal and multicultural tolerance.

Solitude

is perhaps the greatest gift
and like any such can become an art or craft

for life
has no meaning, just sensation
and the enjoyment and interpretation of sensation.

One of several insoluble problems

with the idea[l] of Democracy
is that it - if ever achieved - might very well be illiberal
and lacking in 'decency' (a word even more nebulous
than 'democracy'), and in general and generous good sense.
In what I would consider to be a true (and probably depressing) democracy
I would not have been allowed to pursue my life of disengagement
from 'society' at society's expense.

"Immigrant Problem" - what problem ?

Village School and Medical Centre saved by refugees
- in remote, rural Lozère (France). 
Both were scheduled to close, until refugees were invited
to come and live in the little village.
In France, refugee status confers social security benefits and rights.
Thousands of French people have offered temporary lodging
(from two weeks to nine months) to refugees from Syria.

Morality

derives its meretricious prestige mainly from
the attractiveness of what it deems immoral.

Luxe, calme et volupté.

Despite my high-minded veneer
the motto of my life could be
Luxe, calme et volupté -

part of a refrain in a celebrated poem by Baudelaire
(set to music by Duparc) :
L'Invitation au Voyage :
            Là, tout n'est qu'ordre et beauté,
            Luxe, calme et volupté.
There [in the the desire-dream-world] there is only order, beauty,
luxury, tranquillity and sensuality.

It is also the title of a "divisionist" Matisse painting of 1904
which looks far too crowded and heterosexual for me -
a sort of Seuratesque hybrid between Manet's Déjeuner sur l'herbe
and Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon
(via Cézanne's Les Grandes Baigneuses),

But I digress.
Provided that one is not tinged with vulgarity
or sleazy erotic desire,
Luxe, calme et volupté
is a triple state to which one can nobly - and even honestly - aspire.

More bizarre car-names

If the well-known Renault Trafic was designed for smuggling large quantities of drugs,
what markets were the Citroën Bipper and the Dacia Dokker aimed at ?

The debate

on whether or not to acknowledge the right to euthanasia
seems to boil down to the question of
Respect for Life (abstract, religious)
versus
Respect for People who feel that their lives are over
or unbearable (particular, empathetic).

Of course it mirrors the debate over abortion.
 

Five lines in memory of al-Ma'arri (Abu 'L-ala Ahmad ben Abdallah al-Ma'arri, 973-1057)

Prophets have come and gone, humanity to teach,
And priests and imams from their pulpits preach.
They pray, exhort and pass away;
their congregations listen, mumble, slay.
And I am a buried pebble on the beach.

The vagaries of fashion.

In 1860
it was quite acceptable in England
for men and women to bathe together naked,

but by 1880 it was unacceptable
for the leg even of an elegantly-carved table to be seen,
much less a woman's nether limb.
Today Englishwomen parade more than half-naked
and want only to be slim.

Living alone

without desire
without regret
life is no longer
drama
but a poem.

The oft-quoted 'Chinese' curse

 “May you live in interesting times”, 
does not exist in China itself,
according to the Financial Times.
It is just another canard or hoary chestnut
like Zhou Enlai's misreported comment
on 'The French Revolution'.

Of course there is such a thing as a Free Lunch.

My last one was in Dublin Airport (Terminal 2)
on my way to France, where I sat down at a table
on which was abandoned
a whole plate of rather good Belgian Fries,
which I washed down with my delicious,
journey-soured litre of milk.

I love those French photographers.

Doineau (left) and Atget.

The Pitfalls of Religiosity are Legion.

An extreme (and extremely visible) hermit
- say a Stylite atop a column like the original
Simeon Stylites
or the present Maxim of Georgia
depends on foll-
owers for his
(they seem to be always male)
existence,
which means that he is not
cut off from 'society' at all,
but is an egomaniac fraud
worshipping a false god.
And what happens to his shit ?
I guess his followers treasure (or market) it...

The names of vehicles.

In the not-so-Good Old Days
cars could be aristocratically named
Sceptre, Cavalier, Consul.
Or they suggested bravery Mustang, Husky, Lancer...
though, strangely, never Buster.
But now some make the mind boggle.
Citroën have a Jumpy and Dacia a Lodgy.
Soon there may be a Renault Rusty.
to accompany their Duster.

Another (but dizzying) photo of my balcony.

Nature-morte | Still-life