Letters from the Habsburg dynasty, part 1: The organ-soul-communication-apparatus

Dear Readers, 

You may not know this, but quite recently, my friend, percussionist extraordinaire, lapsed aristocrat (we suspect) and, last but not least, fellow Mekanic, Arthur T. Habsburg, emigrated to Germany.

A triptych of Lord Habsburg from the rear

"Hello Chucky, ..."

Somewhat saddened by this fact which I learned just a few short weeks before his departure, I requested that he write me letters of his adventures in the country that I myself abandoned some years ago. 

Cut to 11th Septermber 2015. It had been a very long while since I last came home to discover a letter wedged in my postbox that I could not immediately guess the sender of. Maybe I should have inspected the stamp more carefully, but the temptation to rip it open straight away was stronger. 

And there it was, accompanied by a strange-smelling, jauntily laid-out typewritten poem that I have not yet managed to unstick from itself: The first installment of the soon-to-be-infamous Habsburg Letters, sent from Arthur's new, temporary home in Münster, and written by hand in his very own unmistakable vernacular, which I now present to you, transcribed in full and unedited:

[transcript start]

"Hello Chucky,
I write to you on day seven, and when I

say that I am breaking into Heaven it will

not be merely for rhyme's sake! All is good!

Münsterland is awesome in the original, not

overused sense of the word! It's a happy

Pretzel land. Rows of Hanseatic houses, 

ancient trademan's HQ, pocket size towns,

all surrounded by massifs of agriland, well off

farmers, wide cotton trousers, 'I am the emperor

of the cornfields' type, bouncing on street corners

in their super-mario tracktors! And all wear hats

and get burried in them. And the air SMELLS, but

is not polluted! 

I live with my relatives (1+1(8/12+7/100) in a house

that I dreamed I build for       kleine kinder   myself

but I may not ever be prepared to make the 

neccessary sacrifices (Lounge area, bathtub in

the bedroom, music in the bathroom/kitchen/every room,

subwoofers under the couch, automated blinds,

and sauna and cinema is (still unfortunately for me) under

construction). Cat still gets lost in the house 

and contemplates our situation in dark corners. 

We speak in a mixture of three languages, and

I am still afraid of the children.

On second day I bought a bycicle (Conrad) that

comes from the golden era of the bycicle family

(still unspoilt genes, no inbreeding or mental disorders)

and is very well maintained, making it hard not to

indulge in the stereotype regarding ze Jermans

and zeir mashinz. I pimped it out with a 

Japanese speedometer, that has now, unfortunately, 

stop working. During his short life he recorded overall

tracking distance of 127km. He has no name"

[page 2]

"I am yet to say anything about beer, {NOR will I} because

it is so commonplace in my system. I'd rather

talk about gloom as there is no grain sand

of it here. But nor shall I do that. BECAUSE

No condition is permanent!

For the first time in some years I feel

positevely happy (without pharmaceutecal stimulation),

without the feeling being grounded in any

form of achievement. It will not last.

I am still an alien, but the air smells

Good.

And I only miss weed when baby-Tv is on.

(Mad shit! Imagine if all TV was baby-TV,

as opposed to degenerateTV).

On Sunday I went to Lamberti Kirche

for Orgel Nacht. FULL HOUSE (was God

there?...) I came early and sat on the 

praying bench discreetly sipping southern comfort

(inappropriate choice of drink, I know) and

reading Isaak Asimov's essay on heretics

(complete coincidence). The concert was

in three parts plus bonus:

1.   Man-on-birch-mini-organ and 

      Woman-on-shiny-tamed-mini-saxophone.

Review:

Okay, but I suffer from gigantomania.

2.   Sameman-on-building-size-organ-soul-

      communication-apparatus

   Samewoman-on-regular-Santa-Barbara-

   saxophone-tamely-unchained.

Review: Jetpack for the mind, goosebumps

behind the ears and in places I did not know 

I had skin. Only the Santa Barbara made

me think of a staged sunset in Malibu

sometimes..."

[page 3]

"3.   A (German) Choir (singing English religious songs)

  Review: -----------"-------------------

Bonus:

A 1926 silent film Faust with

improvised accompaniment from Sameman-

on-building-size-organ-soul-communicat

ion-apparatus-only-even-louder-and-without

-sex-on-the-beach.

Review: Best of the Best.

The whole audience applauded Sameman for

NINE minutes straight! (And I am pleased to

say that that is longer than Kanye was dipped

into after his 'running-for-president' 'speech'!)

Fantastisch!

On the way back I encountered a distant

thunderstorm of Zeus-in-parties magnitude.

The emperyon was being zipped here and

there many times across, with glorious purple

afterglows! And it was total silence! As that was

a silent film project of gallactic HD quality.

Zip and glow, zip and glow. I stood in a 

field for an hour like a scarecrow realizing

the celestial power.

That day I've spent four hours in a 

place of worship, which is by a long distance

my record (my bedroom does not count here..)

And the clarity of mind I got from it was

unique. I now endevour to do my thinkings

and writing in a church, and use the bedroom

for only going-to-the-toilet purposes."

[page 4]

"Yesterday, a man (Frank) came to fit

in a (second) toilet and we got to talking.

He said, Hey, do you wants to come play

fußball, Ich spl sp bin in ein club? Hast du

shoes? I said yes. It's been 8 years

since I played in a club. He put my bike

into his van and we drove off to Ervinswinkel

(20km). I thought I'd die in 20 mins, 

but I lasted the whole two hours and at 

the end they wanted me to join. The all 

speak German and I try to soak it in. 

Frank invited me to a party next weekend

where he said we would smoke some ............

I said maybe, but it certainly is a dillemma. 

I just came back, with no legs, driving

20 km down interstate bikelanes laid 

thru cornfields in the dark with a 

faulty light. Tomorrow i will buy 

sportsgear and not forget to post this.

    How are your undertakings?

And how is everybody?

Ahrthuhr.

PS

   Attached is a poem gone glooey!"

[transcript end]

I will be soon be composing a detailed reply to herald the start of the Liverpool side of correspondence in this matter, and to request further writings from Prince Arthur.
The poem remains yet to be examined in more detail - a transcript/analysis may follow.

Happily,
Chucky x

Fear, Success and Taking Sides: Living in The Future of The 90s

The 90s: Brtain was a nation divided into Mockneys and Mancneys, Sports Casual was the dominant youth culture and everyone you met was either from Manchester or East London, even if they were from Surrey or Stoke. All of them seemed to be on some sort of nose dessert, even the ones that were deeply offended by that sort of thing.

Britain was becoming politicized, or polarized. It was all about taking sides. The English Elite - politicians, pop stars, media icons famous for simply being, were defending the Best of British 60s Mod Culture (conservative, drug-fueled, nationalistic, elitist), against an uncertain future of illegal drugs, Tory Rule and elitism. Erm...

Sports Casualties

In many ways, they succeeded. We're living in a future where even Labour are Tory, where Sports Casual is once again the dominant Youth Culture and the counter cultures - the Post-Punk, the Gothic, the Retro Rockers and Electronic Greyscale are populated by the best of the bourgeoisie.

Even that staple of Brit culture Doctor Who is back boldly gallivanting about the British universe in hip Modish clobber with women several hundred years his junior. Now that's what we call success!

Doctors Matt Lowe and  David Tennant

Once again, working class children won't be going out and getting ideas above their station by experimenting with higher education, unless their parents can afford it. That's one way to ensure that only the brightest, most intelligent people get the best opportunities. Erm...

You are safe because you are living in a future where your enemies are clearly defined: disabled people, poor people, single parents, asylum seekers - the weak, the needy, the humble: people clearly responsible for the state of this country, as opposed to the people that have all the power and resources.

They are people who have failed to succeed. It's not that the system has failed to meet their needs - because it's not the job of the people in charge to actually care about you if you can't take care of yourself. It's only fair. So fit in or fail.

Every decent British person knows: success is everything. And hard work is the key to success. Just look at all of the people born to wealth, they're so successful they don't even have to work at all!

Inevitably, as we look to strengthening our own national identity through arts and culture, immigration becomes the hot topic of the day. Everyone is understandably worried about all those people coming over here from all the places we bravely invaded or helped defend us from invasion, taking up all the jobs that decent honest hard working English people don't want to do.

Because they're not like us: they worship in places that are different to the churches we don't worship in, and they are taking homes from the poor English homeless people (that we suddenly seem to care about but still work damn hard to ignore). There just aren't enough new homes being built.

The million of existing uninhabited properties in Britain don't count because they're old and far less money will be generated by allowing people to inhabit them. Plus, they don't pay their taxes - you can read all about it in the right wing tabloids, edited by good honest successful men who don't pay taxes because they're hard working enough to have foreign passports. It's the English way.

Don't get us wrong, we're passionate about our cultural diversity, providing it's celebrated by well-educated, heterosexual, properly Cis-Gendered, Christian white people, obviously.

But our 90s future is creatively strong: everyone you meet is in a fun little Afrobeat band or an arts collective or putting on events and running workshops. Plus, these people are really passionate about transforming those quirky old venues into quirky luxury homes for needy bohemians. They just want to give something back to the most successful elements of the local community.

Oasis

In the 90s, Oasis were particularly successful (popular) because they fulfilled the establishment's fetish for over-confident working class men with big mouths. They love a bit of rough because the confident working class person is exactly the kind of thing the upper-class should be afraid of.  So it's important to tame them by celebrating the dumbest, most easily controlled and recuperated manifestation of that.

Oasis fitted a well-established stereotype and the image and music were easily recognizable (familiar, safe, marketable) to anyone between the ages of 6 and 76. They weren't even the best of their kind. There must have been a dozen or more arrogant Dad Rock bands in bowl haircuts, Christmas jumpers and saggy jeans in every town in the country at that time.

Blur were similarly plucked for success because they fulfilled an equally familiar cliché: the vaguely arty but ultimately harmless middle-class rebel. Equally safe, equally marketable.

Blur : The Bee Gees to Oasis's Savage Garden

When the music journos (celebrating good old fashioned cultural binaries) set them up as warring factions - they were indulging in the same old nostalgia and fetishism of The Beatles versus The Stones, The Sex Pistols versus The Clash, Take That versus West Life, or Elvis versus Baby Jesus. It's great for business. Even people with no interest in music were obliged to have a preference.

West Life: The Clannad to to Take That's Weezer

The industry was doubling its money by suggesting taking sides was somehow akin to national service. As if choosing one thing you have no relationship with over another thing you don't care about will in someway validate your existence, save the planet, or defend Britain from Evil.

The idea that you are making some essential political decision in choosing sides was a total fiction: The Beatles were just as equally clean-cut and laddish as The Stones; The Sex Pistols were perceived as art-school despite being working class and hopelessly under-educated, The Clash were art-school and very well fed (hell - Joe Strummer was an upper-class hippie!). And it was certainly never really about class war was it? Blur were as popular with working class people as Oasis were with middle-class students.

The more middle-class, privileged Stones, Clash and Blur played up to the working class stereotypes the industry was fetishizing over. Rebellion and youth culture were mere spectacles, pornography rather than the real thing.

The Shamen: E's a Drug

For better or worse, there were a myriad of 90s bands embracing a broader spectrum of music from the past (Pulp, The Happy Mondays, Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, Garbage, The Stone Roses, Elastica), sounded vaguely contemporary (The Prodigy, The Shamen) or even genuinely innovative (Aphex Twin, Autechre, My Bloody Valentine). 

The Happy Mondays

And people embraced these acts equally, if not more passionately. But all that tech-savvy, drug-fueled, Sexual Questioning stuff was a little bit too un-British, a little bit too Marxist for the establishment.

Garbage

Today, Oasis are a distant memory, sitting on shelves and dusty external drives. Like Titanic, War of The Worlds or 'Haunted Shortbread' by Stephen King, you'll find a Best Of in almost every home. They sound like they sounded then: safe, overblown, vaguely irritating, something your grandparents would like.

Blur revealed themselves to be the old-school upper-middle class men they always aspired to be become: schmoozing with Tory MPs, running farms, validating themselves as more than mere pop musicians by jamming with black people and members of The Clash, writing operas.

Take That's Robert and Gareth

Both bands, like their real contemporaries Take That, Robbie Williams from Take That and The Spice Girls - will ultimately be forgotten. They cling to life now only as a form of nostalgia - because they always sounded like the past.

The Spice Girls: Mel Baby and Mel Orange

My Bloody Valentine, Autechre and The Prodigy didn't re-invent the wheel, but there is still something vaguely other-worldly and futuristic about their sound.

If the key to success is to play it safe, to recreate the sounds of the past, then success dooms our culture to a slow death. There are only so many times you can copy a copy before the degradation become irreparable and the meaning and intentions of the original are lost.

In the 90s, the idea that choosing sides, between Rock or Electronic music was equally unhelpful. The reality was that the best of the bands from both camps, and everything in between were just as much influenced, motivated and interested in both.

By creating these false choices, the establishment - whether in the form of a corporation, a magazine or a political party - merely keeps us all that little bit less empowered, by keeping us distracted and divided.

Next time: Negative Romanticism, Radiohead and The Art of Faux-Depression

Gilbert and George

If a performance artist started going on about England and our culture like that-in fact that's happened to Gilbert and George... It seems to me that (American) artists can talk about flags and America and all this… you can play such a close game with them without anyone being offended. - Rob La Frenais

I have a headache

This is the cat that owns the entirety of Ventnor Road, Wavertree.

Hardly anyone knows that this creature alone controls who may access the road and who may not.

Like a guardian at the gates, it sits - a power immeasurably greater than mere human strength. But there are no gates here.

Do not yield to the images inevitably flooding your mind, images of an aggressive animal scaring people off its territory by physical means - for this being is far more cunning.

Ventnor Road may appear on maps, and it may exist in the actual world based on scientific evidence. People live there, after all.

But not everyone can actually see it. 

If you are persona non grata in the eyes of the Cat, then you will drive, cycle, walk, even saunter past Ventnor Road without registering its existence. Hence, you will not use it. Ever.

It will be there, but your brain will not allow you to see it.

Worse still, if you start looking for it, the blockage becomes more extreme, and your vision may become blurry, or even black out.

It is therefore not advisable, if you have not used this road before (and are therefore accepted), to start looking for it now. Serious health issues may occur.

Then again, I'm not seriously worried that you'll use Ventnor Road against the Cat's better judgement.

Because how can you use a road you don't know exists?

Liverpool is my cousin

The sky was spotty on the day I decided that Liverpool was my cousin. Matted, dotted, ruffled. Rippled. Stippled. Like a light drizzling of rice pudding on a sky-blue plate.

It was a long day; it had lasted almost a week at this point already. I had just discovered my second ever friendship toilet and was extremely excited by the idea of this mode of relieving oneself in the company of a friend becoming a veritable trend in the city I had learned to love. 

The thought of performing pieces of my mind to a public audience had been occupying the edges of dreams and the fringes of possibility. To this end, I had attempted to organise some words of fiction in a paper-bag-brown notebook. But everything that dribbled onto the pages in red ink was a semblance of the actual truth and not at all fictional enough. Truth not in a sense of a lesson to be learnt or a moral to be taken away, but truth in a crude sense, in that all the words on paper were also words in my mind.

Around the middle of this week-long day I mused that I might need a different canvas, and broke several pencils attempting to pen poetry on one of the walls enclosing my modest back yard.
Two days later, when the evening had finally arrived, the black lines on the back of my hand seemed to suggest that sleep was indeed a viable option.

Whilst I was furnishing my night-water with ice, however, I suddenly realised that the word bedtime had become increasingly meaningless over the last week or so (was it still just a day? I could no longer be sure), prompting me to stay sedentary in the back yard on a wicker chair that pressed its intricate pattern into the backs of my bare thighs.

A whole week later, the day was still ongoing; the sky refused to turn dark and instead alternated pleasing shades of pink and red in a display I was quite sure was intended expressly for my viewing pleasure.

As the world started to fold in on itself, I realised I had ceased to be the centre of my own universe, and that I may just end up outside of the fold. The gaping abyss slowly and appreciatively swallowed up chunks of the city, and the only group that could be seen to be paying any sort of attention was a drove of passing fire extinguishers. I think I even heard some applause as two tiny streaks of dark blue finally crept into the darkening sky, and it was only then I decided that Liverpool was my cousin.

The End x

(All photos by Chucky)

My Favourite Toilets

"These are the most interesting and dirtiest walls in Derbyshire"

A public toilet (also called a bathroom, restroom, latrine, comfort room, powder room, toilet room, washroom, water closet, W.C., public lavatory, lav, convenience, loo^[1]) is a room or small building containing one or more toilets and possibly also urinals which is available for use by the general public, or in a broader meaning of "public", by customers of other services.[1]

Pictured: a private bathroom
(for the purpose of comparison)

The public toilet is a deeply interesting place. I carelessly like to assume that no one really has a particular fondness of public bathrooms. But they are a necessary evil when you are not within the vicinity of your own home-based private bathroom, or indeed, a friend’s, acquaintance’s, or arch enemy’s inside outhouse.    

For this reason specifically, I decided a while ago that The International Cheese-Fries Review should rise to the challenge of reviewing a handful of Liverpool City Centre’s public bathrooms. Being of a female persuasion and as the sole researcher in this venture, I have to apologise in advance for the fact that I was only able to sample the respective locations’ ladies’ rooms; and thus, any evidence I can give will necessarily be heavily skewed and biased. Whilst I am apologetic about this as mentioned just now, I am also revelling in this state of affairs for absolutely no reason whatsoever and to a perfectly ridiculous degree.

Public toilets are typically found in railway stations, schools, bars, restaurants, nightclubs or filling stations as well as on longer distance public transport vehicles. [1]

As you can see from the above, public toilets are clearly social animals. This goes some way toward explaining why they can usually be seen hanging out in groups.

With a modest sample size of 6 locations, my extremely limited selection (please take note: 3 of the host properties, that is: half of the sample size, are situated on Hope Street), most of which can be illustrated and underpinned by completely useless pictorial evidence, will surely make for a highly scientific review and is sure to have a great impact on the academic and political community both locally and globally.

However, please rest assured that I have personally visited and used all of these toilets at least twice (i.e. a minimum of 2 (two) times) in order to account for variances in weather, air/water pressure, alignment of stars as well as myriad other factors which may impact the rating of said shithouses.

Here, then, are my findings, arranged in order of oh-who-even-cares (bathroom selfies are to be viewed with caution and at your own risk):

The Pen Factory, Hope Street

At Hope Street’s Pen Factory, the Ladies’ rooms – if you can stretch to calling them that – will strike any visitors as somewhat basic and makeshift. So much so that I am still uncertain as to whether this is in fact more of an art installation than an actual bathroom (which would explain why I always seem to find myself alone in these particular facilities). Paper-thin wooden boards separate potential lady urinators from one other, while the floor displays generous stains of unknown origin.

There is a certain charm to this rustic simplicity, however. An added benefit is that you don’t have to walk through the actual bar/dining space to access the toilets, so you are able use them at your leisure without anyone asking questions. And isn’t that something we all really want in our lives? To not be spoken to when we go to do our business?

Overall rating – 7/10

The Philharmonic Pub, Hope Street

I have heard many people speak fondly of the lovely toilets in the Phil, citing them almost as a tourist attraction of sorts. Although I’m fairly sure that this was always in reference to the men’s rooms, which I have not been able to see to this day for reasons cited in the above introduction. In any case, the female sector is way above average for what you expect from a pub toilet – fresh flowers especially are a nice touch. But then... the pub in question is the Phil, so I would never really have expected the floors to be flooded with wee or anything. The only negative point I can think of is that the air sometimes seems a little stuffy. For that reason, I may not be able to move in after all.

Overall rating – 9/10

Marks & Spencer (Mahrks n Spahrks innit), Church Street

This one is standard department store fare in terms of lavvies – bonus points are awarded for efficient hand dryers (the type that you have to stick your hands in vertically downwards) – but this IS Marks after all – as well as the warning sign on one of the cubicles which informs the attentive reader that the door upon which it sits opens outwards (shock!). Health and Safety reigns supreme in this country and M&S is clearly its proudest stalwart.

Overall rating – 6/10

The Everyman Theatre, Hope Street

The washrooms at the Everyman are very stylish indeed. It’s almost... too much. They are: colour coordinated, industrial, and crisp. Just look at the pictures. It's everything you could ever want from a shitter, really.

Seriously, though: The taps and hand towel dispensers are fitted with sensors so you don’t have to touch them (but of course you do anyway, if you’re me, and adopt a slapping rather than a waving technique). I don’t feel good enough for these toilets. I'm currently in talks with the proprietors of the building to negotiate an assured shorthold tenancy on this particular restroom, but to be honest, I don't think I stand a chance.

Overall rating – 9.5/10

Debenhams, Lord Street

About as bog-standard as they come. Not enough confusion.

Another boring, standard, but mostly clean department store lot. I have to give minus points here simply because someone else is always in there with you. Obviously, the location can be found too easily by the general public. It must be too obvious, too well signposted – although you do have to walk past the tiny-children’s clothing section to get there, which may well prove disturbing for some unwilling or unwitting (non-)customers.

With regards to these premises, I am planning to petition for a maze to be implemented over several of the store’s floors which would take even the most shrewd of solvers roughly 20 minutes to complete before the sweet relief of bladder-emptying may begin, in order to ensure exclusive use of these premises for myself only.

Overall rating – 5/10

The Met Quarter, Whitechapel

I found the toilets at the Met Quarter shopping centre to be surprisingly large and spacious, and thus somewhat reminiscent of an expansive set of public toilets I once frequented at Manchester airport around 11am on Christmas Eve, when I believe I was the only person in this farm of about 50 cubicles, which immediately made uncouth possibilities come to the very front of my mind (It was Xmas after all. I didn’t follow through on any of these inappropriate ideas, but I have fond memories of that day nevertheless). The Met Quarter’s loos are posher than those at MAN airport; also, and this is a good thing, they are somewhat hidden away and only accessible by an elevator, so for the first-time visitor a sense of adventure is included in the price (which is a handsome £0.00 to the penny)! So why don't you go there next time you're in the area and have a posh pee. Go on, treat yourself.

Overall rating – 9/10

*UPDATE: Special bonus contender:*


The Kazimier, Wolstenholme Square

Well, isn't it always the way that you find the very best thing only after you think you've concluded your studies in a satisfactory manner.
Here, then, is the best thing: I like to call it "The friendship toilet". Spotted in the legendary Kazimier's ladies' rooms (whether it is the Kaz that is legendary or its ladies' rooms is for you to decide), this toilet displays an uncomfortable and yet exciting lack of boundaries and ensures you can still chat and hold hands with your bestie even whilst weeing to your heart's (and bladder's) content.

Overall rating - Out of this world

***

At the end of my exhaustive review, let me just say that if you were looking for a winner of this competition - there is none, despite what the numbers may suggest. As the saying goes, all's fair in love and toilets and you should go out there and find the one that works best for you.

Nature calls x

---

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_toilet

Welcome... in Blue Jam

***DISCLAIMER: Rather than writing a distracted review of something picked at random, I have, for once, decided to write a straightforward recommendation about something I love.***

[..] and when you are inside the infinite misery jumper, pulling it over and over your head, with no hope of ending, cause it replicating at the waistband, and you never get out... then ee welcome... oh, then ee arth welcome... in Blue Jam. (from the intro of Series 1, Episode 1)

Experimental radio show Blue Jam combines the wonderfully weird and sometimes sick-minded with the absurdly funny, with a tone provided by a backdrop of dreamy, strange and just downright good music.

Originally broadcast in the late 90s on Radio 1 (!) - albeit late at night - its otherness is still striking. People with a certain sense of humour and penchant for strangeness will feel immediately at home when dropped into Chris Morris' world of doctors who kiss their patients where it hurts, mentally unstable human art exhibits and bosses who offer lewd gestures instead of payrises, all swirling in and out of a sea of songs that sound like they were made for this sole purpose.

From the Pidgin-English intro poetry to whole minutes of complete or near-silence, to jagged fragments of pop songs that cut in and out - even if it does nothing else, it is likely to take you by surprise and show you what radio can be.

If you share my love for this particular blend of sound art, and hear it for the first time, you will probably cry out: "Finally! I have been waiting for this for so long and didn't even know it. Why isn't there more of this?!"

Proudly weird people, please try to make something as excellent as (not: exactly like) Blue Jam. I know I'm certainly trying. Just you watch this space.

But first, if you haven't yet, listen for inspiration. Where? The YouTube channel Cook'd Bomb'd hosts the entire two series of Blue Jam for your enjoyment.

And if you have listened, and know all about what I mean, listen again, and feel at home in your head.

x

Image credit: http://static.flickr.com/38/82190977_a889b98803_o.jpg

STAR WARS - You Know, (Not) For Kids...

It seems inescapable. Just when you think it's all in the past, it rears its ugly head like the pain from an old injury. That's right folks, Star Wars is back.

Another reboot or a preboot of a film that gets that little bit more tired and vacuous with every retouch, off-shoot, fleshing-out of this authoritarian, xenophobic, quasi-spiritual and massively derivative franchise. 

I don't know what I find stranger: the way the films never seem to go away, or the fact that they remain so popular with supposedly liberal people.

My main issue with Star Wars is that most of its themes were lifted wholesale from Frank Herbert's much more inventive, far less politically dodgy Dune novels.

Star Wars carries the paternalistic messages of almost all generic adventure fiction (may the Force never arrive on your doorstep at three o'clock in the morning) and has all the right characters. It raises 'instinct' above reason (a fundamental to Nazi doctrine) and promotes a kind of sentimental romanticism attractive to the young and idealistic while protective of existing institutions. It is the essence of a genre that it continues to promote certain implicit ideas even if the author is unconscious of them. In this case the audience also seems frequently unconscious of them. - Michael Moorcock, Starship Stormtroopers

But while Herbert's Dune warned that all political parties, religious organizations, superstition and faith are dangerous and doom all involved to failure, Lucas romanticizes them.

Where Dune boasts a cast of genuinely weird and wonderful characters - including a host of strong and striking female characters; an on-going dialogue about the perils of dogma and rulers and a culture of spiritual (without being enslaved to religious rule); nomadic, perfectly respectful and in-tune with their environment, non-materialistic outlaws (Fremen) pitted against power hungry oligarchs; Lucas's rebels are lead by a Princess, a Prince, and a gang of one dimensional snooty assassin-monks who are doing it all for the good of Queen and Country!


In Star Wars, even the Good Guys are on the Wrong Side!

Where Herbert's Fremen use spirituality (and narcotics) to unify their community, seek comfort from the cruelty of one dictatorial overlord after another, and potentially route out a brighter future for themselves, Lucas's Jedi are elitist and privately educated; a kind of posturing Knight's Templar going around spouting dodgy fundamentalist musings whilst casually hacking off people's limbs in pubs.

Where the Fremen are anarchistic rebels doing their best to avoid / survive political rule, The Jedi jet off around the galaxies in sleekly expensive space craft acting as security guards for Royal families.

The Fremen keep to themselves, and they like a good party. By comparison, The Jedi come across like a bunch of snooty bigots. Is it really surprising that they have a racist, right-wing fan-base?

The Jedi are all about acting on instinct - and this is where it gets really dodgy: 'trust your feelings' they advise, rather than what you are actually seeing with your own eyes... So the Jedi are swanning around acting like Nazi SS Officers (shoot first, decide why you did it later), working off animalistic instincts. If that sounds a bit more like Paganism than organized religion, keep it in mind that the Nazis loved a bit of Paganism.

And of course, like so many Sci-Fi movies, Star Wars is heavy on the negative romanticism: the dark military uniforms, the goose-stepping troops and the creak of black leather.

See, I get knocked for slagging off politics in science fiction, along the lines of 'it's just escapism, it's not supposed to be Humanitarian, Feminist or Punk'. But the fact is sci-fi has always been massively political. From Heinlan's misogynistic sci-fascism to Moorcock's Psychedelic Feminist Anarcho amorality-plays - it's always been about gender, tribe, power and class.

In his defense Lucas has claimed that it was his intention to tell the Star Wars story from the perspective of the slaves (the robots). But the films simply do not pan out that way. You've got the big existential struggle of the blonde blue-eyed Prince, coming to terms with the fact that his father turned evil (or rather: turned into a black, pro-Industrial cyborg) and murdered a load of innocent people. The big old fashioned romantic rescue mission to save the Princess. Right wingers are romantic for Royalist, pre-industrial culture because it was a time when the peasants were powerless.

Movies like Star Wars get praised for owing so much to fairy tales and folk lore. But there's so much that is conservative and superstitious about sci-fi and fantasy, it ain't the kinda thing you want to raise your kids on: trust your feelings, not your perceptions or knowledge? 'Ugly people are evil, beautiful people are good.'

From Tolkien to George Lucas, mainstream fantasy and sci-fi have always been about a conservative, Christian desire for a return to a pre-Industrial existence where the good, kindly, Conservative middle classes don't have to have dealings with the ugly, industrious working class goblins...

"Tolkein and that group of middle-class Christian fantasists who constantly sing the praises of bourgeois virtues and whose villains are thinly disguised working class agitators -- fear of the Mob permeates their rural romances. To all these and more the working class is a mindless beast which must be controlled or it will savage the world (i.e. bourgeois security) -- the answer is always leadership, 'decency', paternalism (Heinlein in particularly strong on this), Christian values..." Michael Moorcock, Starship Stormtroopers 

Which reminds me of the way so many, many Hollywood megablockbusters always seem to have the same central premise: a central character motivated by good old fashioned family values. How many times have you seen the likes of Arnie stick it to a bunch of thugs as revenge for the death / kidnapping of wife / child?

There is a great interview with Peter Chung (creator of Aeon Flux, another great anarchist character recuperated by the establishment) where he points out that this kind of motivation tells us almost nothing about the personality and essence of the protagonist:

"Aeon has no family, or ties to anyone. Any dramatic points a screenwriter can score by holding family members hostage (or killing!) reveal nothing about her as a unique individual. Too easy. It's shorthand. We assume anyone is going to feel an emotional attachment to their sibling. That tells me nothing about her." Peter Chung

I just think that in the 21st Century, failing to be aware of the potential to empower ALL PEOPLE with good storytelling is just not fucking acceptable.

OK so the Princess gets a gun, but she has to be rescued by the mens; the sneering Space Cowboy and the moody boy Prince... Lucas just loves his stereotypes. All his villains are true to form too. 


You can always spot the bad guys in these kinds of movies because they are all either hideous monsters with working class accents or the perfectly modulated un-American English of the stony-faced, grey-clad board members of the big-business Empire; or they'll have a Disability and /or a European Accent. All of these things apparently signify EVIL in the hearts and minds of good, decent middle class American Sci-Fi fans.

If you're going to be subconsciously championing Far Right Politics, at least try and do it with a bit of imagination?

If however you do fancy getting your paws on some genuinely subversive, anarcho-romantic science fiction, check out The Stars my Destination by Alfred Bester (a novel massively ripped-off and re-tooled to the macho vein in the Riddick movies):

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/333867.The_Stars_My_Destination

Any of the Cornelius books by Michael Moorcock offer a seriously experimental, politically charged Gothic Psychedelic trip (where a cast of genuinely unique characters regularly swap time, space, gender and political motivations):

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1054357.The_Cornelius_Chronicles


The original animated series of Aeon Flux presents the central character as a far more subversive (and humorous) anarchist trouble-maker and has a distinctly Moorcock / Cornelius vibe to it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UQyPXbjL-A