Reheated (40)
For newcomers, more items from the archives.
Novelist Brigid Delaney wants a nicer flat in order to write about those non-creative people. You, taxpayer, come hither.
As a member of our creative caste, Ms Delaney wants to capture the buzz and thrum of city life. She wants to inspire “recognition” and above all “empathy.” It’s just that she’d prefer not to empathise too much with those non-creative people. Say, by working for a living and paying her own bills. And who will write about those ordinary people and their non-artistic lives if we don’t encourage Ms Delaney and her peers to live way above their means, at our expense, in places they can’t afford? Places they can’t afford because what they create isn’t as vital to the public as they might wish.
Pearl-Clutching Pornographers.
Campus feminists combat “male-centricity” by making unerotic pornography and rubbing eggs on their breasts.
As some readers may be intrigued by the notion of all-female feminist pornography, here’s a brief description: “It begins with a group of girls sitting around a library table taking their shirts off. As the film progresses, the girls engage in activities including kissing, rubbing eggs on their bodies and twerking around a chicken carcass.” The finished political opus, titled Initiation, also features the somewhat lacklustre use of a riding crop and extended scenes of floor-wiping.
A San Francisco “nude-in” reveals more than intended.
Some may register a whiff of disingenuousness in exhibitionists accusing their critics of being repressive and stuffy. Exhibitionists may be eager to dispense with clothing in incongruous locations – say, a traffic island in the middle of a busy intersection – but they desperately need an audience, preferably one that’s embarrassed and unwilling. San Francisco is remarkably well-equipped in terms of nude-friendly clubs and amenities, including a nude beach and nearby nudist colonies. What’s revealing is that such venues weren’t deemed sufficient for our wrinkly radicals. And while I doubt many readers here are prone to fainting at the sight of withered genitals and subsiding buttocks, they may conceivably object to being made an accomplice to someone else’s psychodrama. As one young lady points out, “Unwanted exposure to scrotum is never okay.”
And I’m told it’s possible, if not wise, to while away an hour in the greatest hits, now updated.
And who will write about those ordinary people and their non-artistic lives if we don’t encourage Ms Delaney and her peers to live way above their means, at our expense, in places they can’t afford?
Oh yes, her. The woman who complains she can only afford to spend £50 a week –every week– eating in nice restaurants. We non-creative people really feel her pain.
We non-creative people really feel her pain.
And yet Ms Delaney expects you to, expects all of us to. And how could we not, given her self-evident brilliance, her enormous creative heft, and her no doubt pivotal role in Australian culture?
The “nude-in”- the legislator was a Mr. Wiener.
the legislator was a Mr. Wiener.
I’d forgotten that. Gosh, we learned so much in that thread. Almost as much as we learned in this second thread when the subject of confrontational nudism popped up again. And didn’t someone coin the phrase “arse towels”?
“Campus feminists combat “male-centricity” by making unerotic pornography and rubbing eggs on their breasts.”
That they think they can make any film including women in underwear and topless that won’t stimulate someone just shows how ignorant they are, in this case of human sexuality. Ironic really, as they would probably be obsessed by the same if someone tried to ban a sexual practice.
The spam filter is having one of its periodic fits of sensitivity. If anyone has trouble with comments not appearing, email me and I’ll shake them free.
The spam filter is having one of its periodic fits of sensitivity.
Considering the topics in this post, I’m not surprised. 🙂
I agree with Doubting Rich above. It’s a corollary of Rule 34 that whatever sort of porn is out there, somebody is going to get turned on by it.
David,
Michael Ezra on Laurie Penny:
“The Pennyettes might well raise their eyebrows when she tells them that she does not have the kind of high-flying job that allows her “to think in terms of ‘having it all.'” Here is Laurie Penny, private school, Oxford, and soon to be Harvard educated, 27 years old, beautiful, an author of a number of published books and a blog that was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize. She is a journalist for national newspapers, a contributing editor at New Statesman, has regular appearances on television and radio, and criss-crosses the Atlantic for work. She has a hundred thousand, many adoring, followers on Twitter, [and she] tells her readers that she does not have it all. One wonders what a twenty year old, working-class woman stacking shelves in Tesco with cans of own brand baked beans would make of that. The truth is such a person is not really Penny’s natural constituency.”
http://hurryupharry.org/2014/08/15/19th-century-marxist-mantra-in-21st-century-feminist-garb/
One wonders what a twenty year old, working-class woman stacking shelves in Tesco with cans of own brand baked beans would make of that. The truth is such a person is not really Penny’s natural constituency.
Quite. Mr Ezra seems less gushingly uncritical than he was a few years ago, when he rushed to applaud Laurie’s “coherent and well thought-out articles.” Just take a second to let that sink in.
Now, somewhat belatedly, he manages to register the fatuousness and incoherence of her writing – those endless question-begging pronouncements, piled on top of each other in a parody of thought – but he’s still much too forgiving of this generic leftist poseur, laughable hypocrite and chronic liar. He still feels a need to remind us of how “well” she supposedly writes. But if she’s dishonest and factually unreliable – which she is – and if her articles and books are filled with absurd assertions, wild distortion and things that simply didn’t happen – which they are – then I’m not sure how one could regard Laurie as writing well.
Colourfully, maybe, or stridently, or in a way that’s unrestrained by evidence, consistency or basic moral proportion. But not well. And yet Mr Ezra claims to “admire Laurie’s writing.” Her hyperbolical, incoherent, dishonest writing. Writing in which reality, facts and logic are bothersome and largely neglected, or simply inverted, and in which pretentious attitudinising is apparently enough.
Re: Modern Feminist Non-erotic Pornography.
Sorry. I prefer the classics.
Sorry. I prefer the classics.
No, it didn’t do much for me either. I found my mind kept wandering.
At first I tried watching it as pornography, but despite heroic efforts on my part that was pretty much a doomed endeavour. Then I tried watching it purely as a piece of student cinema, and that was boring as hell, even by the standards of student cinema. Finally, I tried watching it as a political manifesto, a “guerrilla action” and bold “feminist statement.” And that wasn’t quite so boring, in fact it made me laugh contemptuously.
Which is perhaps not the effect the ladies were hoping for.
. . . the legislator was a Mr. Wiener.
I’d forgotten that. Gosh, we learned so much in that thread.
Lesseee . . . Yes, Scott’s last name is pronounced as it looks, with the occasional situational giggle among the more usual Yeah, it’s his name, language happens.
The militant extremists of the right and left wing variety did indeed go flopping up and down over How We!!!! i.e., basically they alone Are Being Oppressed!!!!
Yeah, yeah, see the violence inherent in the system, Etc.
The general overall reaction rather tended to be of the variety of; By all means, yes, go ahead and drop the clothes whenever, And, as long as assorted random grocery or other errand runs don’t have to involve a random slalom just to get past assorted body parts . . . .
And thusly, Wiener’s legislation got set up quite handily, where the legislation Does Not ban public nudity, Whatsoever . . . . What the legislation bans is standing around randomly naked on random streets at random times of day. And that is all that is banned.–Haven’t read the actual text, but after enough summaries . . .
Soooo. Being in a status of legally dressed in SF involves having an opaque triangle over the lower front, having a one inch strip up the lower back, and for women, having tape over the nipples. Period.
Why, yes, reasonably dressed in SF involves layers of clothing, to borrow from League of Extraordinary Gentlemen(1).
In turn, when attending formally declared street events, when on site at said street events, by all means absolutely shed all clothing if so inclined—some events even have clothing check-in, to alleviate having to carry stuff about . . .
. . . and when the legislation passed, quite handily, the conservatives all chorused Oh, Cool!!, we don’t have to be the bouncers any more, we can go back to focusing on basic event administration!!!
And the militant extremists of the right and left wing liberal variety still indeed go flopping up and down over How We!!!! i.e., basically they alone Are Being Oppressed!!!!
(1)”Pack for an English summer.” (Next scene: London, downpour)
http://hurryupharry.org/2014/08/15/19th-century-marxist-mantra-in-21st-century-feminist-garb/
That was looking like it was going to be an interesting review/skewering until I got to
“Desire,” she claims, “is socially constructed.”
whereupon I realised that I am so unspeakably bored with the intellectual posturing and vacuous rhetoric of postmodernist “discourse” that I can’t even be bothered any more to read entertaining “deconstructions” of it.
The Humble Among Us.
Novelist Brigid Delaney wants a nicer flat in order to write about those non-creative people. You, taxpayer, come hither.
Over the weekend, I did manage to have a conversation with a local community bandleader and finally managed to get him past what he’d encountered before . . .
The conversation, rather paraphrased for inclusiveness . . .;
Me:
. . . . and so with [Mutual Friend] calling me in to record his awards show, that was several more short movie bits, or the several parts of one, whichever, so all those movies got made and are online . . .
Bandleader:
So you just got those movies done?
Me:
Well, as I’ve been commenting, I have the camera, so I can just go in and record, this is the early 21st century, that is all that’s needed . . . . So would you want a movie telling about the band?
Bandleader:
Err, well, y’gotta do the fundraising, so mebbe in some years, we mebbe—
Me:
Yes, Or, No, Do You Want A Movie About The Band?
Bandleader:
Well, yes, Bu—
Me:
Fine.
Would I like to get paid a really massive amount of money to make a movie? Oh, Hell Yes!!!!
Do I need the money to get the movie done?
No.
Bandleader:
. . . . . . . . . !?!???!?!!!!!!!! OH!!!!!!!!!!! OH!!!!!!!!!!!
Me:
Exactly. [Mutual Friend] says that I can not take a commercial gig for less than Massive Amount, because I really am that good, and, Do I Need the money for a movie on the band, No..
Bandleader:
Oh!!!!!!! You’ll do this out of the goodness of your heart!
Me:
No, I have no heart. I’ll do this because it’s an interesting project where I get to make the damn movie.
Bandleader:
Gimme your contact info!!!!
Me:
And gimme your contact info, let us talk.