Click Click

Apparently, some bloke called Terry Richardson has been shaking things up in the world of photography. He is a notable figure, photographing such people as President Barack Obama and Arnold Schwarzenegger for various magazines. He also takes very erotic photographs, most of the time with him in them with various models. Young models. Which is interesting because Terry isn't exactly a very attractive guy. This may be why some people have a problem with what Terry is doing. That amongst other things. Anyways, look at his work and judge for yourself. You can find his stuff littered around the internet, so I'm not going to link to anything specific.

Nowadays, Terry finds that he is the subject of a witch-hunt. For some reason I knew that this debate was just around the corner, due to a current fascination and proliferation of these varieties of erotic photography. Terry is just the one they chose probably due to the fact that his is such a visible figure.

There are many questions that this witch-hunt brings up. An artist in a similar vein, Clayton Cubitt (whose work is quite good), has just posted some interesting questions about the situation and the artistic value such work conjures or dispells.

What do you think?

Rhino of the sorrowful countenance

I've never seen a living rhinoceros but I have spent some time in the company of a dead one. It's not so bad, he still looks good, his improbably solid body still exudes a strength and vitality that impresses and intimidates. His name was Bull and he lived for almost half a century by some estimates. Occasionally I'll sit beside him, preferably by his right side, because then I do not have to see his melancholy face, which the taxidermists have banked off to the left. From what I've learned Bull was born to a comely she-rhino in the wilds of South Africa, his father was undoubtedly a handsome stud, but also a negligent one if my friend's sad visage can be speculated upon. Bull likely ate some unforgettable grasses down there, and I can only imagine the immense size of his boundary-marking excrement piles. The potency and linearity of his urine must have been a sight to see, and if I could, I would have fashioned a comfortable saddle on which I would perch, and accompany my unhappy friend as he tended to the sovereignty of his territory. I wish that this were so because then I would understand what has caused this great animal to express such sorrow.

Eventually, Bull was captured by some well-meaning conservationists, no doubt alarmed by and moved to offset the stupidity and greed that was then motivating idiots to reduce these animals to a memory. He was a teenager at the time, still far from his prime. Still, there can be no doubt that his territory was well marked and tended, I suspect even the old bulls would have thought twice about dousing one of his shrubs with their own pungent calling cards. I also wonder how Bull was captured, what was he doing at the time? Perhaps he was grinding his horn against a rock or tree, hoping that the ominous sounds would dissuade these feeble un-horned creatures from trespassing. I imagine that his last thought, before the darts sent him to sleep, was something like, "You got to be kidding me! I'm going to trample these hairless dogs into the ground if they neglect for another moment the inviolability of my property." The next thing he knew he was on a ship, hopefully a large one to offset the rhino's tendency to seasickness, being shoveled batches of stale grasses by more of those hairless dogs. "These bitter grains do not allow me to forget the injustice done to me," he likely thought.

Soon enough Bull was plunged into the profound solitude of zoo life. Undoubtedly the hairless, hornless dogs who tended to his well-being loved him and patted his considerable flanks with a gentle empathy that was understood by his singular wisdom. After some trial and error, it is likely that he was provided a steady supply of choice grasses, which went some lengths in calming the rancor of his lonely heart. His immortal prowess was lost on none, and zoos from around the continent dispatched their best rhino maidens to his pen, where he would court them and mount them, doing his duty among the last of his massacred species. But was his passion diminished by these brief affairs? No, though Bull carried out his duties beyond the expectations of rhino maidens and hairless dogs, still his inner eye gazed back in time to the geography of his homelands, and the herds of free maidens that would be coaxed into his domains by the pungency of his urine and excrement piles. At these reminisces, Bull would emit a low bellow, a peculiar sound whose meaning was lost to all except the two bison in an adjacent paddock. They and they alone knew well the depths of the sorrow contained in Bull's primordial lament over his lost world.

Lonely Tree

Splat.

It was one of the strangest things to happen to the old girl. Mind you, she's much older now and such a thing occurring these days may have scared her to death. Her guards were equally scared, for her protection of course. Their mouths would be open wide as they dropped their lances and rushed to intervene. She would of course have no idea at all what the hell was happening. Neither would the crowd, who could only watch as a large red sphere was hurtling toward Queen Elizabeth's head.

Backtrack. May 7th, 1981. It has been two days since the death of Irish Republican Bobby Sands. After 66 days, Mr. Sands body had just given out. The Irish prisoners who joined him in a hunger strike all shared the same values, the grandest of which was an Ireland free of British rule. The United Kingdom was furious, they called Sands a lunatic and a terrorist. The Irish citizens stood by Bobby, even electing him a member of the House of Commons while in prison. It was a political hunger strike, a showdown between criminals and Margaret Thatcher. The 'Iron Maiden' stood fast, making speech after speech about the crimes of the Irish and the ridiculousness of the Hunger strike. Every word she spit brought sympathizers to the Irish cause- Has this woman no heart? Weeks went by, the doctors would shake their heads at the horrible visage of Bobby, lying on his back in the cot, looking disdainfully at a plate of scrambled eggs, sausage and toast, steaming on a table beside him.

Eventually, Bobby Sands passed away. His body a shell of nothingness save but a heart full of conviction. The leader of the strikers was the first to go. Ireland rightfully mourned. England mourned as well, with the death of Bobby Sands came the death of the idea of a kind United Kingdom. Thatcher had murdered it with her rhetoric and lack of compassion. To the Irish, the Sands' withering away was the beginning of the end for the English in Ireland. For one day, the world turned it's eyes to one nation, and in particular, to the life and death of one man. Reactions were damning. There were worldwide protests. Protests of sadness for Bobby's death, and protests of anger towards Thatcher and more specifically; the country of England.

The sovereign of this nation found herself to be enjoying a trip of goodwill in the country of Norway on the seventh day of May. She had decided to get out- to meet the people. Her advisers advised against this, but she blew them off with the flick of a wrist. She was the queen, everybody loved her. Or so she thought. Once out amongst the commoners, there was indeed a great many admirers, but every so often could be heard 'You killed Bobby!' and 'Murderer!' Of course she was aware of what was happening in Ireland at the time, but that had nothing to do with her. She was but a symbol of a nation which was now a boogieman. Nervousness crept into the minds of her guards. They began to crowd around the queen.

'For Bobby!' came a cry. The queen heard this and prepared herself. A large round red object was lobbed from somewhere in the crowd. She stepped aside as this object hit the ground and ruptured, spilling red liquid all over the cobble stones of the street. The remnants of a balloon could be seen. The queen was hurriedly shuffled into her car by the guards.

A shallow gesture to be sure, throwing a balloon full of tomato sauce at the Queen of England. But Bobby meant something to some people. To the republicans of Ireland, he was their martyr. To the English, he was their shame. To the world, he was a man who died for his belief that sometimes all it takes is one action, to change a great many things.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day - May your home always be too small to hold all your friends.

Unusual things for sale. Cheap!

It is no secret that I am a lazy man. Even though I walk around with my eyes open and regularly scratch at the innards of my infernal nostrils, I'm basically sleeping. My reason for this is because, 1. Life is tiring, and 2. There are too many details. If I might flesh out this last point, please humor me and listen to my plight. Now take the time to look around you, at all the stuff in your immediate vicinity. Though you might be sitting in a padded cell, still you will notice the extravagant plenitude and variety that characterizes life on the earth. Allow your eyes to settle upon a certain, small area of the wall. What is happening there? While at first you will demur, "Erasmus," you will think, "Are you a ridiculous idiot or what? Why should I expend my finite energies in such fruitless enterprises?" But I tell you: wait a moment and soon the noisy din will quiet in your ears, the dramatic complexity of the slightest most seemingly meaningless thing will take possession of your senses. Here's a concrete example of what I mean. An example so precise and tangible that you can take it to a pollster who will fashion out of it an immortal fact, an exact measure of this slippery reality. To the example then:

So I'm at this moment "cooking" some rice. You'll notice I've placed the term "cooking" in quotation marks, which indicates that I'm not comfortable throwing that term out there so casually. This is because it's really the pan, water and heat that are truly responsible for the cooking, while all I'm doing is sitting here attacking the ghosts of boogers which are forever disturbing my peace. Which brings me to my ripe and low-hanging example: Basmati rice could not smell better. When I pull my finger out of my nostril even for a moment (a moment of neglect is all I can suffer) the sweetest fumes dance wildly upon that abundance of nostril hairs that guard this portal to my skull. Or more simply, with less verbiage: Basmati rice smells sweet. Now this is just one example, a tiny one, of the offensive quantity of sensory experiences that could not be properly described in thousands of volumes of the most exacting prose. That is why life is so tiring.

But what of this not terribly unusual insight? The thing is, I am plagued by the weight of such detail and it is for this reason that I find life so tiring. What of this not terribly unusual confession? Well, since I'm being so nosy I guess I'll reveal more: I'm not wearing pants. But I lie, I am wearing pants. The thing is, I shouldn't be so lazy, and so what if the world is filled with so much that cannot be experienced or imagined? Maybe it's for us to accept our minute, laughably small, glimpses at the vastness of the world and get on to assaulting our nostrils? Probably. But here's my pledge. And being a fully modern man, I mean next to nothing by this promise: I pledge to do my part and describe the idiotic things that I experience and imagine to the best of my modest talents, though they be often trapped in my lethargic indolence, ahem, laziness. So the next time the rustic bouquet of that sweet grain from the Indian subcontinent distracts me enough to stop picking my nose, you can bet the house that I'll have a lot to say about it.

Flashman vs. The Masses

I had just read recently that last winter in England, used bookstores were selling five times as many paperbacks as they had at any point. They were delighted of course, used bookstores are one of the toughest enterprises you can get into. Most fail, all struggle. But new life was breathed into these wonderful markets of loved and sold literature. You can just see the smile on the face of some plump sixty year old shopkeeper after just having sold his collection of Flashman paperbacks to an eager twenty-something for about five pounds. 'Goodness' he'd chuckle to his customer, 'I remember reading those as a lad.' To which his patron's reply would only be a mere shrug and exit of the shop. 'Ahh. Job well done.' he'd say to himself, 'Still, not the priciest book on the shelf'. And in a few moments later the bell would ring anew bringing in more souls craving the soft paper novel.

The main reason for this upsurge in book purchase was, dare I say it, not some Harry Potteresque revitalization in people sitting down and reading. Nay, the reason for this occurrence is more than simple and just a bit interesting.

You see, England and Europe has been having one dastardly winter. By our standards we would surely scoff at such temperatures, alas; they are made of softer stuff. There were weeks on end in London which would dip below twenty degrees. Many of the houses and 'flats' as they splendidly call them, are not very well heated. Yes, you probably see where I'm headed here. It would appear that the fine folks of jolly old England- those Kraut-defeating, Nazi-squashing, Bosh-bashing citizens- have been burning books en masse. Now now, they're not doing it for ideological reasons, that would be outrageous. Streuth, the people of the United Kingdom are just cold. Literally.

Where's the problem with this? Is there a problem? I know of many that would be aghast if they knew this was happening! 'Books are sacred!' they would retort, 'the written word will be all we have once everything has fallen away!' Well yes, paper does last a long time. But it also burns pretty good. Especially the earlier works of Ray Bradbury. There are many great books in the world. The greatest works of art are arguably in written form, and even some of them can be slipped into the pocket of your jeans. However, there is also a great deal of books that really don't need to exist. Yes, it sounds harsh, every once in a while somebody will read something from the past that has been passed, and discover something magnificent. No doubt it happens. But for every one of those is a million books that would be better served as mulch. We just publish too many books.

The great thing about the fastened sheet is their timelessness and the fact they are a physical object. Film fades, music deafens to the ages, paint cracks and fissures. Books are here and real and you can hold them in your hand whenever you want to. And should you be cold and you are out of wood, a book really can be your best friend. For a couple of minutes.