Et In Arcadia Ego

Today's issue: cum militibus circumfudimus; movies; art at the National Gallery; appropriation;

On Sunday I went to yet another protest. You'll remember I was feeling a bit glum about the whole idea. I mean, standing up and shouting is "important" but won't basically change anything. Politicians et al won't listen - it's purely a symbolic act. The problem with this protest is that it was important, one of the ones in which making a visible symbolic act was incredibly meaningful. And also, by it's very nature, ludicrously dangerous. The English Defence League and Stop Islamification of Europe were protesting against a mosque in Harrow. So the good guys were going along to protest against them. The idea that walking straight into a potential street fight would be the most effective protest I'd ever attend was pretty demoralising. It was all Spirita's idea, and I was to meet her up there. She suggested we could be Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I warned her in advance that I couldn't swim.

Still, the tube journey to Harrow was lovely - right to the end of the Bakerloo line, up in the cold north - practically the Arctic. There were fields, trees and a huge wide sky - I read up on representations of cinematic violence. When I arrived, there was a sign up from the Mosque leaders politely asking the anti-protest to go home and not cause a fuss:

Our message to the young people who will be attending is not to fall into the trap from those who clearly want to provoke you into an angry response. Foremost, our message is: if you want to help, then stay away on the day. We have the fullest confidence in the Police to safeguard the mosque. If you are to attend we request that you are not disruptive. We should be open, proud of our faith and behave with the correct Islamic etiquette at all times.

Our message to anti-fascist groups is that we respectfully ask that you do not organize any counter-demonstrations. We value the goodwill of others but believe that a counter demonstration only sows more discord on the day.

Which was beautiful, and almost talked me into going home. But as I was there, I figured I should have an explore. I have never seen so many cops in one place - about 20 around the station itself. I went to see what was going down at the mosque and passed 41 police vans on the way. This naturally made me a little unsettled, but I figured I should find Spirita first. In front of the mosque itself were the usual crowd of nuts - misshaven lefties, various socialist newspapers, students from Harrow college. I made some cool single serving friends - including a Brief Encounter fan and a woman who'd had her teeth bashed out by fascists in the 70s. There were probably around 30 anti-protesters, flags and placards and the rest, and not a sight of the other team. It was 12:30, and apparently they were due to arrive at 2.

Spirita showed up at about 1, and we got very cold while chatting to the other protesters. Some media were on top of a building. There was a rally, with loudspeakers, and people wittering about how socialism was the only way. Apparently, the mosque had had letters of support from just about everyone - local Rabbis and bishops, Sikhs, Hindus, Humanists, the police, councilmembers. Very soon after this, Spirita had to leave - Sundance runs off to Bolivia with Etta and abandons me all on my own! What a fine pal. She suggested we could be Mr Orange and Mr White instead, which made me feel slightly better. At two, the lefties - probably now about 100 surged away from the mosque towards the barriers put up by the police in a huge car park. The idea was both teams would be corralled separately, and shout at each other over a wall. For the edification of concerned parentals, though it makes for a less dramatic story, I confess I was standing very much at the back. There's making a point and then there's being ridiculous. I was a good way away from the clumped crowd and ready to dash at the first sign of trouble. I'm not taking a punch for anyone.

Kickoff arrived at 2 - by which time I was perched on a wall away from the action, holding a placard and mentally trying to write an account of the day in the style of Caesar. This is a project I may still try - no one writes Latin prose quite like Caesar. After about fifteen minutes, I went to see if I could spot any fascists. I know they exist, intellectually, but I still felt a sense of curiosity - like viewing rare butterflies or something. The good guys were stretched about 3-men deep, so it was easy to get between them. About three meters away was the other corral, containing about 12 of the villains. It was hard to identify them for sure at first because they looked terribly ordinary. It's not like I expected them to have wings and horns, but all the same.
No, just caps and hoodies. They weren't shouting or anything - just shuffling shamefacedly and chatting with the police. Between the two corrals were six policemen with german shepherds. In keeping with the tone of the day, they weren't yapping ferociously and straining - one had rolled onto its belly and was having a nap.

At this point, everything became very clear. Via a loudspeaker, it turned out the baddies had claimed they would have 1,500 with them - which explained the huge police prescence. According to another single serving friend, there had been previous attacks on this particular mosque which had got very out of hand. It got very cold, started raining and I figured the point had been made and left them all to it.

Even with the request to stay away, I'm glad I went - it was nice to be out in the air and quite a lot of fun, and things didn't turn violent so no harm done, eh?



Calypso and I have seen the Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, and I'm pleased to report it isn't bad - in fact, it's really rather awesome. Beautiful, daft, dark - a tad random, but Gilliam does manage to hold it all together in a way I didn't expect him to. Also, some beautiful shots of Dark London. On the way home we discovered the Sherlock Holmes premiere had been going on. We asked the police, who told us we'd just missed it - but they encouraged us to take one of the huge cardboard posters that had been decorating the barriers. We spent the Tube home cooing about cravats! collar studs! canes! and the thing now has prize of place in the lounge. We are also considering going to see the film dressed as Victorians.

That was Monday - Tuesday was yesterday. I walked down to the National Gallery in the evening to see The Hoerengracht, a new installation based on Amsterdam's red light district. It's somewhere between the world's best A-level art piece and Disney's Pirates of the Carribbean. They have recreated a few streets, complete with bollards, bicycles, street signs, and Amsterdam's famous windows through which girls solicit clients walking past. It's brilliantly tawdry - the girls themselves are all dressed up shop dummies, each placed in a Fassbinder-esque room. You get a real sense of personality from all of them, even little things like the designs of their rooms. Everything is sticky - the installation has been thoroughly glooped, so it resembles something between a car crash and murder scene. Sometimes it looks like tears, other times rain, other times blood. It's uncomfortable, atmospheric, beautiful. In fact, the only thing it didn't inspire me to do was go get myself a prostitute. Even though some of the mannequins were inviting you in, and the act of looking at the art, of course, transformed into audience into unwitting voyeur, it didn't really look appealing. Particularly this woman (can't remember her name - they were all named), who had something horribly desperate about her. I also did some more carol singing in Trafalgar Square, with another churchy charity.

On the way home, Calypso and I appropriated a broken street bollard as found art, and it is now in the hall. That's what students are meant to do, right? Get drunk and pinch stuff? Unfortunately, while Calypso was fairly tipsy, I was both stone sober, and the one technically doing the appropriation. We've lit it up from the inside and it's now pointing up the stairs. Spirita believes, although it is an "effective use of the Space, we should probably recontextualise it on the street". Pretty edge and BarleyThink - get a piece of street junk and transform it into art, then put it back on the street so everyone thinks they're looking at street junk, when actually it's art. Ha! To my mind, however, the thing is obviously beyond repair - the base is misshapen, far from square. It's obviously been hit by a car, and I don't think fibreglass can be recycled. I would sort of like to inform the council that it's missing however. I don't know who I'd phone, though, just like I didn't last week when a hole in the road was SPEWING SMOKE. We have named it Magwitch.

To celebrate it's arrival, we had an impromtu party - lit up the room with sleazy lighting (Hoerengracht was still on the brain), dressed up and put jazz on - starring Spirita as Michael Yorke. After dinner, Calypso and I watched Guns of Navarone. I'd half forgotten how much I adore it. Unfortunately, the disc froze just as our heroes were surrounded by armed Nazis. The DVD player was a free one, so I suppose I shouldn't complain too much, but it was an inconvenient place to stop. We kept going on a laptop, and it occured to me for the first time that I am able to have an accurate guess at the year of a film from the style of violence presented. I've been reading this book by Stephen Prince about "Classical Hollywood Violence", and I must say it's fantastic. Expect a blog about it soon. All about what movies of different eras did or didn't show but from a purely stylistic perspective. This occured to me when Brown stabbed a Nazi, and both characters and the knife were clearly in shot, with no obscuring framing or anything.
From that alone, I figured it couldn't be any earlier than the 60s - and indeed turns out it was 1961.

It also occured to me that, while The Sea Wolves would be exciting - remember, reuniting the key cast of Guns of Navarone and sending them to Portugal? - war movies often tend to be massacres.If either got killed off I would be immoderately distraught,

Twin Peaks continues to be good. We've drawn a map of the characters so we can keep track. I think it's Donna and James on current evidence, but is probably going to be ultimately someone we haven't met. Calypso thinks its Diane.

Today was my essay consultation meeting with my film studies professor. We get to choose our own esssay title, which is what I've always wanted - yet after a decade of footnote snobbery I find myself terrified. The whole academic machine is designed to discourage originality. How can I possibly add something original? Most proper academics stay "in their place" by merely quoting Fanon, Freud, Malvey and the rest - but they only created something groundbreaking by ignoring everyone else and stating their own opinions.

Ugh. Nasty. Academia regularly comes along with an "abstract", a summary of the essay to come. But I thought I'd introduce my topic with a slightly more entertaining literary convention from the Renaissance: "the argument".

My random-ethnic-food-sampling quest continues! I haven't yet cooked up the falooda or laveeza, mostly because both require a litre of milk. When am I likely to have a WHOLE LITRE of undrunk milk in the house?

But, joy of joys, this week I discovered frozen spring roll paper. A packet of 30 pastry sheets, the consistancy of beige felt, with which I could replicate the chocolate-banana spring rolls popularised by Ping Pong.

What fun! Spirita christened it "a uniquely Thursday night experiment", alluding to the fact Calypso tends to visit home on Thursday and thus wasn't about to correct my reckless lack of experience. She also suggested a saucepan with a centemeter of oil was the best way to cook my creations. Ten minutes of dodging spitting oil later (See! me dive tackle Vapilla to safety. Imagine! Spirita imitating Zhang Zhi. Conjugate! dire parental warnings to prevent it happening again.), I had produced a plate of most edible creations. The banana and dark chocolate was brilliant - so was the rice and fake-chicken and, joy of joys, the cheesy wantons I had produced. The only downside was they were all still slimey with oil, and tasted like heart attacks.

Still, it's a learning curve. I think next time, I will brush them with oil and oven bake them, to see if the result is less obviously unhealthy. Perhaps the greatest success so far has been the semi-fridgecake I have produced. I left a darkchoc+banana pastry, uncooked, in the fridge where it cooled and grew stiff. Gorgeous, and possibly replicating this technique will provide a great method for portable lunches. Sandwiches tend to disintigrate in my bag, as do wraps.

Yesterday was dubbed "the day of Faily Mc Fail" by Calypso, as I did a one man rendition of Black Hawk Down. My "coms" went down (well, my mobile battery ran out) and it threw the whole day out of kilter. I spent two hours walking up and down hills in Archway and Highgate trying to track down the rest of my "unit", all while being shot at by native militiants (sort of...). Calypso got stranded in Reading by strafing. Unlike Mogadishu, Highgate resembles a Victorian picture postcard. Little red houses, all it needed was robins and snow. I touched the statue of Dick Whittington's cat, which a passerby told me was "lucky". I returned to "base" at the Strand, and was most fortunate to run into Vapilla, then Calypso. So ultimately, the day wasn't a total disaster.

And today has made up for it by being lovely. I finished "The Power and the Glory" by Graham Greene this morning. I love him - a particularly English sort of quiet despair. All his characters are pathetically human - resignation, betrayal and cynicism all over the shot. No one can quite destroy a man the way he can - depressing, but in an entertaining way. "Power and the Glory" is about a rather sinful Catholic priest on the run in Mexico. I confess I sleepwalked through it, and didn't fully appreciate it, but enjoyed it all the same. The End of the Affair is meticulously constructed, to be unpacked by GSCE level students. The constant interplay of "love" and "hate" is beautiful. It's only let down by a third-act twist which requires a huge leap of faith to buy. The Third Man, Brighton Rock and The Quiet American are three of my very favourite films. I also enjoyed his book of short stories. In his youth, Greene attempted suicide several times by Russian Roulette: I take this as a sign that Art, or at any rate Providence, was taking care of him for a higher purpose. If only to produce books which, later, I would love.

And at lunchtime, I spent half an hour carolling at Bond Street station with Chislehurst Methodist Church. I was early to meet Ajax, and they were singing in a particularly querrelous, high-pitched, Methodist manner. I've missed all the carol services for this year and fancied a sing song, so asked if I could join in. I arrived just in time for all my faves. It was very pleasant - anyone can be Christian at Christmas - and religion has been on my mind ever since reading the book this morning. i feel rather wretched that, having not been raised Catholic, I am spared the depths of angst plumbed by Greene, Waugh, Scorcese and the rest. I think I'd rather have the complication of a confusing faith than a quiet, atheist life, if it meant I had something to write about.

I wish I was less timid. I'm fascinated in an area of cinema which I can never possibly explore to the full. You know - the violence, the censorship. Unfortunately, sometimes those images are censored for a reason, and it's then that I wish I had a bit more guts.

I've recently reviewed, or in any case talked around, Victim on Cinecism. It's the type of ground breaking movie I can watch (first English film to use the word "homosexual"; banned on that ground in America). But then there's a whole cabal that I would dearly love to watch, so I can think about their representations of violence, but can't face.

Irreversable is the notable one. If I were given courage for 97 minutes, I would watch this legendary exercise in "cinema vomitif". Infamously presented in reverse order, it begins with the most realistic murder ever commited to screen, and if you sit through that, serves up a nine-minute, single-take rape scene as a main course. You might well ask, "why on earth would you want to watch this?". It's a reasonable question, and probably the reason I've yet to put myself through it. Perhaps because disgust should be the reaction of a human viewing violence, and because (in cinema) it so very rarely is. I am interested in a film which does it "properly", as it were. The director's intent was artistic (representing one unfortunate evening in the life of a happy couple), and is notorious for causing walk outs - 200 of the 2,400 viewers at Cannes to begin with. One possible reason is the use of sound - the first 30 minutes uses almost inaudible background noise, fluttering at a nausea-inducing frequency of 28Hz, just like an earthquake. It's just one of the ways this film seeks to make the audience feel extremely uncomfortable.

You can see why this might give me the jitters, a film designed to be unwatchable. I hope you also understand why the temptation is so very strong.

Another one which keeps twitching at the corners of my conscience is Funny Games. Equally irresistable as Irreversable comes this film, made as a comment on the way we enjoy violent cinema. A happy family are visited by two young men from next door, who make themselves at home. Bloody hilarity ensues. It deliberately breaks the fourth wall throughout, with one of the tormenters winking, addressing or otherwise making the audience complicit in the violence - at one point, he lets off killing because he realises the film is not yet feature length and he has to draw it out a bit longer. Michael Haneke (remember Cache, family?) by all this intended us to question violence in the media, and indeed accompanies the film with an essay entitled "Violence + Media".

So far, so fascinating. But Haneke didn't feel the arthouse film reached its intended audience. So he remade it three years back in America, shot-for-shot, using a translation of the script and the result was also named Funny Games. Equally fascinating, and a film I also intend to watch...but not quite yet...

In the same line is Man Bites Dog, about a documentary crew trailing a serial killer. Obviously also commenting on participating in violence you view. And finally, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, also treading this water, but also because most cine-violence studies reference it. Unlike classic groundbreakers (Clockwork Orange and the like), these films have all been made in the last two decades, making them potentially quite nasty.

What a curse! Accidental research means I know exactly what is contained in each of these films, but I feel unable to sit through them - even in the name of academia. Crying shame, though, because the temptation will keep tickling till I do.

In other news: why have I only just heard about "The Sea Wolves"? Another men on a mission flick from the team that created The Wild Geese - a good if obvious film. It's nicely constructed, exciting and pleasantly dark, but signposts far far too early on which of our heroes is going to get it. And the political soapboxing stuck in my throat too ("I bleed red like you, white man" e.t.c. Someone get Ed Zwick on the line, we've found his stolen stilton).

So far, so average - but this new zoological outing stars Gregory Peck and David Niven. Gregory Peck and David Niven. You mean there has been what what is basically a Guns of Navarone sequel floating around for decades, and I only just heard about it? Surely, if someone was filming Guns of Navarone/Wild Geese crossover flicks, I should have been informed? Plus, both films are set in 1943, making it vaguely plausible that The Sea Wolves features Miller and Mallory under cover names.

Keeping you all updated is impossible! So much great stuff is going on, and the more stuff which happens the less time I have to type.

I attended the climate protest on Saturday. I had intended to go, then decided not to bother (what the hell difference is it going to make? And I hear a girl got assaulted on Reclaim the Night, so my faith in protests is even lower than usual), and then ended up going by accident. I was hunting down posh origami paper on Carnaby Street when I heard the unmistakeable sound of a protest-monitoring helicopter. I crossed into Piccadilly Circus and bumped into a huge number of blue protesters, with , mercifully, only a scattering of socialists.

(Socialism is causing me problems. All the ones I encounter in London offend me. They're like the world's worst stand up comics, concluding every joke with a single punchline (i.e. "The enviroment/economy/civil rights is in chaos! Become a Socialist!), and like the world's worst gatecrashers, show up for whatever protest action is going. I feel very sympathetic to their cause - capitalism, commercialism, there's so much wrong with it - but am doubly depressed by my leftie leanings. Everyone becomes a socialist at university, then stops when they have a mortgage. The inherent hypocracy of this, and knowledge that it's a phase even while I'm in it, is very demoralising.)

They happened to be going the same way as me, so I grabbed a placard and walked from Piccadilly to Whitehall, then left them to their futile shouting and jumping about in favour of the uni library. The placard is now next to the anti-BNP one in my room.

Then I spent a lovely afternoon folding in the Maughan. There's something enjoyable about using glue in a place like that. I'm making some dragons as a favour, and enjoying it immensely. There's a debate in the world of origami as to what the point should be. I am of the school of fun folding - I believe the finished product isn't so important, so long as the folding process was entertaining. I rarely have the excuse or inclination to produce something beautiful. Which is strage when you consider we are basically talking about Art here, and I'd (probably) sink a ship for the most beautiful song ever written.

Normally, folding shapes is purely to amuse my hands - folding to amuse someone else's eyes is a slightly different dicipline, and I'm enjoying the oppertunity. Particularly to use proper Japanese patterned paper. I don't bother with it usually, and it is an extra challenge - you've more room for mistakes in one-colour paper. The finished product is incredible, much better than in that photo.

I've got myself a Doctor Who lunchbox using some of my birthday cash. I hope this will encourage me to make lunch in the mornings - instead of considering it, then feeling guilty about using a plastic bag; or forgetting, then being too cheap or lazy to hunt out food. Also, it says "exterminate" when you press the front. It's pretty huge, so I have packed it with non perishables as if I were going on arctic expedition, on the grounds that I will doubtless forget to refil it.

Sunday's treat was Fyfe Dangerfield (Guillemots frontman - keep up, keep up!) playing in a park. I headed on down to Bethnal Green, and spent fifteen minutes rooting around in trees trying to find him. Finally, I spotted a crowd in front of a bandstand - I climbed through one fence, and over another to get there. Fyfe wrote up the playlist in chalk, like a specials board, and captioned it with "all served with chips and salad". "Does anybody here have pliers?" went up the call, as one of his guitar strings snapped. It was quickly fixed though. I spent the entire thing wedged between the ear and cheek of a sitting woman, and the bum cheeks of an incredibly irritating one or two cameramen, sound-recordists or people who were sufficienly "with" the event, that none of the 20 or so fans standing behind them could tap them on the shoulder and punch them in the face. This was very frustrating, more so when the singing began.

Playlist:

Faster than the Setting Sun (as the sun was setting, aptly enough)

Livewire

She Needs Me (lovely chunky chords! I liked this one most)

Any Direction

It was just him and the guitar, with the light playing off the trees - and also, his foot on his keys to create a beat. Always the improviser, he ditched the guitar after Any Direction and continued singing, chinking along on the two chalk sticks. They snapped almost instantly, which brought a laugh, then a huge cheer and an end to what was almost a nice afternoon. Then I went down to a table by the lake (complete with a fountain and all sorts of waterfowl) and did Latin there till the sun set. Lovely!

I wanted to tell you about Beautiful Thing, Hamlet and Inherit the Wind, but I'm posting this from the library and am running out of time.

But one thing I have to mention is Chinatown, oh Chinatown! The final film in the Kings noir series. I have attended almost all of these - free, on Monday evenings, accompanied by about five minutes of academia and on a massive screen. And usually, featuring the projectionist screwing up. I'll talk about the program as a whole when I have time.

And to cap it off, the topic was neo-noir - of which Chinatown is a perfect example. I was reminded of L.A. Confidential all the way through - same location, same stylised story, and also the same composer using the same lonesome trumpet theme. I was interested by it's use of sunlight. L.A. C, notably, takes place entirely at night - it's a shock when the sun turns up in the final scene. Chinatown is almost more dark and threatening for being set mostly in day, under an unforgivingly cheerful sky. When I came out I was thinking one was as good as the other, but as I thought about it more I've come around to thinking Chinatown might be better. Which is a scary thought, because L.A. Confidential has always been my benchmark "great movie". And I did think about it, I have been thinking about it constantly. I couldn't get to sleep for running it over in my brain. I'm not sure what about it has caught my attention so fully, but you heard it here first, folks (off the record, on the QT and very hush hush...) - this is a love affair blossoming into life.

Oh, and the knife + nostril? Best reaction EVER from an audience. I felt sure the scene was sufficently famous that everyone would know about it, but apparently not. There was a hugely satisfying gasp, of a kind I've never experienced. Maybe the last time something similar was when Bilbo leaps for the ring in Fellowship - at which point the audience, myself included, lurched in their chairs.

This week I saw a Hitchcock film I actually liked - his first, The Lodger, or, A Story of the London Fog, with a live score improvised by Minima. The story is based on the Jack the Ripper murders, and concerns a mysterious "lodger" whom, we begin to suspect, has some very interesting nocturnal activities. There will be spoilers below, but for this very rare silent film you are never going to see. So I advise you keep reading.

I adored it, start to finish, but my feelings exploded into a bit of a wordvomit, part justification and part exploration revolving around Jack the Ripper. My least favourite obsession - I know, in part, where it came from, but I'm not particularly proud of it. The way I see it is: at least I'm honest. And it's not so much the history that fascinates me, as the way the world at large has attempted to make their obsession reasonable. And it's this in turn, I like to tell myself, that makes my interest acceptable. All those ideas are coming out in a splurged, tinged with the reek of academese, but do try and keep up as I think I'm attempting to say something valuable.

There are no footnotes because these are all my ideas, but you can take it as given that many of them have been expressed more eloquently by people with careers.

People love nosying into violent murder. It's hidden between the respectable sheets of the "London Lite", or made "OK" by the ten o'clock news - but secretly, everyone is fascinated. The interesting thing about Jack is the way this fascination is allowed to be public. There are Ripperology conventions, and the fella's had cameos on Twilight Zone, Star Trek, Babylon 5, Smallville, X-Men - even a namecheck in Doctor Who - in a way I can't see Ed Geind doing any time soon.

It's an example of cinema (and more widely, of course, fiction) mediating images and making it "safe". Smoking looks pretty cool on screen, so do car chases, gunfights and all sorts of behavior we should find reprehensible. Another example would be how we can watch the news impassively, almost on autopilot, without engaging with the reality of any of the stories. Poor Saucy Jack has been mediated in this way for a good century now - we are safe from engaging with the real life corpses of five real, dead women because he has been made successively more fictional, more and more safe.

One example of the "fictionalisation" process is the use of Ripperologist terminology. Those five victims are popularly referred to as the "canonical" five, to separate them from other deaths attributed to him (sometimes up to 20). But the use of the word "canonical" is telling - a word which means not only correct, but someone has decided its correct. An aspect of fiction - someone has decided how we're going to pass this story down. Medea kills her children, and all pre-Euripidean versions where the kids make it are non-canonical.

Of course, there's time and decency. And all serial killers go through a version of this - because we are also piecing them together from news reports - but because Mr Jack remained a mystery, there's room for us to write whatever we like straight over the top of him. The Jack we have is a heavily romanticised figure: The Lodger portrays him as beautiful and sad - Gotham by Gaslight makes him maladjusted, but intelligent. This is another way of rendering him "safe" - as Oscar Wilde puts it, "we praise the banker that we may overdraw our account, and find good qualities in the highwayman in the hope that he may spare our pockets. "

The looping together of history and fiction finds it's home in the Gothic Horror genre, and so he inherits many of the vampire traits. Dangerous, but also sexy - aristocratic - villainous, but on some level a heroic social rebel. The Lodger in particular portrays him with waxy pale skin and a huge black cloak, while Anno Dracula reveals he is actually Jack Seward of the original novel. Dracula. The Last Sherlock Holmes Story melanges him with that other great Victorian Gothic figure - as does Exit Sherlock Holmes. The animated Van Helsing preview also takes Jack on - this time, he's actually Mr Hyde. You can bet he's in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen too. Magic and sorcery get their turn also- From Hell figures him as a Freemason trying to...do whatever Freemasons do, Matrix is using the killings to power some sort of super-magic-McGuffin, and Yours Truly, Jack The Ripper has them as an attempt at immortality (more of that later). He's mixed up with Crippen, Spring Heeled Jack and Sweeney Todd - appropriately, those three figures are in turn are real, sort-of real and fictional.

So he also gets constructed as part of the archetypal Gothic-Victorian landscape: taxidermy, heavy mahogany, gas lights, cobbles, shadows, and in particular, fog. The Lodger is subtitled "a Story of the Londern Fog", as if the fog were somehow implicated in all that ripping - similarly the Buffy the Vampire novel which takes him on is called "Blood and Fog". In the Doctor Who novel Matrix, the Fog decends when Jack does. The novel is set in an alternate London where the killings never stopped, ultimately plunging the country into chaos as the paranoia and killing turn into a sort of epidemic:

"Following the Ripper murders, the citizens of London rose up against the authorities who were unable to protect them, and a period of civil unrest followed. Then, during World War One, rumours of atrocities drifted back from the front lines -- and when the shell-shocked veterans returned, something evil returned with them. Ever since, London has been under siege from the walking dead, social order has broken down, and gangs of youths who worship Jack as the new Messiah roam the streets. The Americans took control after the war with Hitler and put London under quarantine, but all they've done is contain the problem"

Army crackdowns, Jacksprites everywhere, zombies and rationing. And fog, lots of fog: in the universe where Jack's spectre never left, neither did the Fog.

The lingering spectre is a powerful image, because it's not altogether incorrect. The fascination hasn't left. Perhaps it's the draw of an unsolved mystery. That's the significance of the fact he was never caught, nor even found - because he hasn't left either. Those novels with immortality attempts are perhaps deeper than they intended to be. Certainly, he's been regarded as the father of the modern serial killer (more because he was the first to be widely reported by a hysterical Victorian newspaper machine). From Hell gives Jack an out-of-body experience through time, where his spirit literally inspires Peter Sutcliffe, Ian Brady and William Blake.
And much like Matrix, From Hell at one point claims that he kickstarted the entire 20th century, and was the culmination of the Victorian period. "Jack" says:

"It is beginning, Netley. Only just beginning. For better or worse, the twentieth century. I have delivered it."

And Alan Moore says:

"the Ripper murders — happening when they did and where they did — were almost like an apocalyptic summary of... that entire Victorian age."

I mean, for goodness sake! Remember what we are actually talking about: one very pathetic fella who diced five women in gory detail. Yet the cling he has on the popular imagination is immense - he was voted "The Worst Briton in History" - when we can'tt even know for sure if he is a Brit.

Ah, all I want is half a year to construct a proper essay on this theme!


As for the film.

I had suspected from the start that the Generic Production Code Thingy would impact the movie's ending. I can't recall exactly what the rules were in 20s Britain, but I assumed it would be similar to America's of the same time. Bad must be punished, and the audience's sympathy must not be with crime. The downbeat ending is a relatively new innovation in screen terms.

In actual fact, the Lodger cops out not once but twice. Our Jack can't get away with it, and is inevitably caught by the police. But then, in a second startling twist, we discover that he's not guilty at all but is an innocent party also tracking the Avenger. Which is pretty limp and unexpected given what's gone before. But by the time this is revealed, the damage has been done. You've already had the thrill factor of seeing a beautiful girl seduced by a monster - the "spectacle", if you like - and of sympathising with a vicious killer, because it's been so heavily hinted it is him throughout. The Lodger has as good as done the crimes - or, by the end of the movie, it doens't matter that he hasn't. It may as well have been him. The shock twist almost makes it all more obvious. IMDb confirms what I'd already guessed: Hitchcock wanted an ambiguous ending to the film, but the studio wouldn't allow it to be implied that the lodger might actually be the murderer. I still think it's pretty ambiguous, or perhaps I just wanted it to be. There are also strong overlaps with Psycho - blondes in bathtubs, rented rooms as dangerous spaces, or spaces disjointed from conventional morality, not to mention twisted sexuality and an innocent on the run.

Innocent. Pah.


A good essay on the Lodger is here:http://www.cinemademerde.com/Essay-Lodger_Hitchcocks_First_Film.shtml

I'm 20 - Hurrah!, or something like it. I'm now officially older than Rose was in Series 1 of Doctor Who, and I haven't even saved the world once yet. Wikipedia tells me that...

• Twenty is the age of majority in Japanese tradition. Someone who is exactly twenty years old is described as hatachi.
• Twenty is the atomic number of calcium
• Age 20 is the age at which Levites in the time of King David were allowed "to do the work for the service of the house of the Lord", the Temple in Jerusalem.
• The Twenty Year Curse refers to the pattern of presidents of the United States who were elected to office in 1840, 1860, 1880, 1900, 1920, 1940, and 1960 to die in office. This pattern ended with the 1980 presidency of Reagan, who survived his time in office and, notably, an attempted assassination.
• In the 1974 sci-fi film Dark Star, Exponential Thermostellar Bomb number 20 threatens to detonate in the Dark Star's bomb bay
• A 20-minute-long program of advertisements and trailers shown before some films playing in American movie theaters is called "The Twenty" (spelled "The 20wenty"). Ironic, as it seems to take far longer than that.
  
• Cigarettes are usually packaged with 20 in each pack.
• "T" is the 20th letter in the alphabet.
• Twenty, a village in Lincolnshire
  

For future reference:

Twin Peaks: Series 1 (materque pater)
We've watched the first episode, and it's - well. I've always known it was creepy, but it is going to take some serious effort on my part to get through the entire series - possibly waiting to watch it during the summer, when it doesn't get dark at 2 in the afternoon. And the dwarf hasn't even shown up yet. It looks like the David Lynch phase will have to be a very short one, because my tolerance for threatening television is low. Still, I am going to persevere because it is so very good - well directed, a wonderful atmosphere of menace, wonderful use of mundane/"dead" spaces, and I'm already fond of the characters. Coming from a "small place" myself, I loved the depiction of how the discovery of a body ripples through the community. I also like the way the crazy unfolds slowly over the course of the 90 minute pilot. Oh, also - one of the main music cues is almost identical to Garth Merenghi's Darkplace: Romford, twinned with Twin Peaks.

"I Lick My Cheese" and other notes from the Frontline of Flat Sharing (soror meis)
I wonder why my sister thought this would be appropriate? I myself am a serial note-writer, and brought post it notes specifically for the purpose. The highlight of our kitchen at the moment reads "Where Now For Man Raised By Puffins?"

"Querelle" and "Victim" (Avus meis)
I picked up my two most-want to see movies, courtesy of cash from my grandpa. Can't wait to watch them. I picked them up from a cute independant bookshop too, which made me feel like a happy liberal.

Number 3 (aviaque alterus avus meis)
My grandparents sent cash and instructions - and I got something I'd been ogling for some time. If a cardigan was a frock coat. Half purple spiderweb, half stagecoach greatcoat, half woolly wings. Three halves because it's a fairly big item of clothing. I'm in love.

Socks, underwear, more socks (avunculusque amita)
Just as I was running out! Means I can delay doing the washing for another few weeks at the very least.

Donations to the Emily fund (alterus avunculusque altera amita)
Yet to be spent, but I'm eyeing up an Oscar Wilde tour of London.

It's late and I want to go home, so everyone else gets generic squeeing:

Pete Atkin Songbook vol 1 (amica Calypso)
Music of Big Finish: Sylvester McCoy (amicus Jeremiah, signed no less :D)
food! (amicus Ajax)

The one I've doubtless forgotten, and will be offended that I forgot. Parce, mea culpa.

Sorry about the Latin - I figure using more casual Latin will improve my knowledge quickly. So you'll have to just keep up.

The powers that be are sitting in session over my future as we speak. Cross your fingers.

Finally, the bullshit of the week award goes to this website:

Very, very bad baby name site

1. Should you be encouraging anyone to name their child "Galaxy", whether male or female?

2. The fact you could name the pitiable puella a variant such as Galaxia or Galaxie does not make it any better. Neither does persuading the deluded parent to nickname them "Gala"

3. "Galaxy is either a spaced-out airhead or a future astronomer." Actually, I think you'll find it's neither. I think you'll find it's a GRAVITATIONALLY BOUND SYSTEM OF STARS, STELLAR REMNANTS, GAS, DUST AND DARK MATTER.

4. Is Galaxy really from Latin? I think you'll find it's Greek, adopted into later Latin. And it doesn't mean "universe": technically speaking it means Milky Way.

I'm tempted to believe the website does have it's tongue in the right place - they have a list of "preppy and socialite names", "musical names" - including the deligtful Jazzmyne, Ballad and (what else?) Music - names for Harry Potter fans, Trekkies, and Hippies. But I'm rather terrified that someone might take it seriously...

I know I get pretty scornful about lots of popular female institutions, but sincerely daft baby names irritate me more than any other. It's up to you if you want to wear ludicrous little pointy heels for every occasion; get paranoid if you don't wear makeup every waking second, even for a quick dash to the shops; or spend so much on your wedding that you miss the point of the marriage, and are still paying it back by the time you get a divorce - and it's up to me to snigger at you for being a sucker. Different strokes for different folks.

But it's seriously unfair to inflict pretentious names on innocent little designer babies. At least when I declare I'll be naming my sprogs Sierra Leone and Vespasian, I know I'm mostly joking.

Have a scroll through this List of Lists and tell me your favourite parricide-inducing baby name.

(and to be fair, Vespasian was one of the cooler Roman emperors, and you could abbreviate it to Ian without anyone batting an eye...)