28 Oct 22 | Issue 39
When I was 13 my mother joined a cult. We're talking Barnes, London, so it was more bring-a-dish dinner party cult than sex cult ascension. At least as far as I know.
The thing about cults is you can not escape. Eternal return.
It's 2011 and I'm an editor at the website FlashGlamTrash, where we curated a selection of imagery bordering salaciousness and art. A highpoint was starting a gallery called lomoporno. Some background — the word "lomography" is derived from the Lomo LC-A, a 35mm film camera made in Russia in the mid 1980s. It was rubbish, but, loving its quirks, a small group of Viennese students formed The Lomographic Society International.
We received a letter from them, informing us of legal action if we didn't change the name. To this day I'm not sure how they can lay claim to the word lomo, given they didn't actually manufacture the camera. Also, rather rudely there was no reply after I wrote to them asking if they could remove rule #10 of their Golden Rules — Don’t worry about any rules — as this appeared to be blatantly untrue. Try the shot from the hip (rule #4) indeed, but please don't shoot any actual hips.1
In the end we pulled the shutters down because Tumblr's star had gone supernova. These days it's lost its shine to Instagram and TikTok. Of all the social media platforms, Tumblr served a purpose, the building of a personal identity and sense of aesthetics unavailable elsewhere. There were heated debates with Anne about curation, her bone of contention, which still stands, and Pinterest is particularly guilty of, is lack of accreditation. Fully customisable, queer and trans people in particular were able to define themselves, and be part of a wider community. The anonymity within a shared space gave it a safe public/private harbour. Pinterest is too 'look at my gingham lidded homemade jam' scrapbook, without a collated dashboard it reeks of smugness and middle-class Martha Stewart sans Snoop Dog (in case you've missed this, this is actually a thing www.thelist.com/253544/the-truth-about-martha-and-snoop-is-out).
Let's be honest, Facebook still looks like a University newsletter steered by a governor and student board. Nothing has ever looked cool on Facebook, and no-one has ever risen to fame through it. Except Cambridge Analytica. Limp Bizkit used message boards to talk directly with their fans, building a huge following. Both Arctic Monkeys and Lily Allen came up through MySpace. What of Tumblr?
Perhaps the surprise star of Tumblr is Bas Jan Ader. “Who?” you’re probably asking. Bas Jan Ader was an obscure video and performance artist. I know he's obscure because Anne in a previous life was a renowned video and performance artist, and she'd never heard of him. Bas is better known as "The Crying Man".
Stills of him, tear streaked, taken from his 1970 video performance "I'm too sad to tell you" starting popping up on Tumblr's dashboard. Soon it became iconic shorthand for knowing, sensitive, nuanced hipsterdom. Jam jars with handles hadn't been invented yet. Someone upped the ante and reverse image searched. They could say they knew who the still was. The still became the video, the video became his other works. He now has recognition, with a growing number of artists, particularly from 2013 onwards, citing his influence. 2
The reason that he remained in obscurity isn't just waiting for Tumblr to be invented. In 1975 Bas Jan Ader set sail from Cape Cod, to cross the North Atlantic single handed in what can only be described as a fucking tiny boat. A choir sang sea shanties in a gallery in L.A. (this is the kind of shit performance art is about, just ask Anne), while another choir would sing upon his arrival in a museum in Groningen, Netherlands, two and half months later. Somewhat unsurprisingly he never made it. In fact his body has never been found. Somewhere in Brazil Elvis and Bas are crying together into their pints.
Google "artists who died making their art". Here, www.google.com/search?q=artists+who+died+making+their+art. Yves Klein lied, his was a leap into mattresses. Chris Burden was only shot in the arm, and crucified to a Volkswagen Beetle. Bas Jan Ader is the only artist to have actually died making his art. Everyone else is a pretender. Remember this next time you feel tired and wanting to go home early. Am I giving my all? Would Bas Jan Ader go home? Or go hard?
(Kudos to Chris Burden though. Bowie's "Joe the Lion" is about him, "A couple of drinks on the house an' he said. Tell you who you are if you nail me to my car". Extra points for the dad joke pun of calling the piece "Trans-Fixed".)3
Due to being lost at sea, Bas Jan Ader’s work "In Search of the Miraculous" was never completed. Titled after P.D. Ouspensky's mystical book of the same name.
P.D. Ouspensky wrote a novel called "Strange Life of Ivan Osokin", part Groundhog day (and inspiration for), part Nietzsche's theory of eternal return (long-term subscribers to this newsletter will recognise these names as semi-regular C&E motifs). He was really into the fourth dimension (sings theme song from The Outer Limits), Aldous Huxley and T. S. Eliot were fans. More importantly he was a disciple of the Fourth Way Philosophy.
The Fourth Way is a merger of methods by fakirs, monks and yogis to awaken your consciousness, developed by the somewhat alarming looking mystic George Gurdjieff (think The Hood from Thunderbirds).
I was brought up with Gurdjieff.
Not literally of course.
Gurdjieff died in 1949. But the bookcases at home were lined by his silver books "Meetings with Remarkable Men'. My mother wore a kaftan. With a huge tear in the side that seemed to fascinate my male school friends. Whose mothers did not wear revealing kaftans and read Gurdjieff.
Once a week, along with her friend Leslie, my mother would convene with the leader of the Barnes Gurdjieff Cult, a chap named John Kongos. I, aged 12, would be dragged along. Each week a different colour would be picked (no idea if this was chakra related) and all food would have to adhere to that hue. Green bread is fine but pink bread tastes sweet. The mind plays games. He had a record studio at the back of the house. Which in those days was very unusual. There was a snooker tournament which I, aged 12, won. I got to take a bottle of Amarula, a cream liqueur made from the fruit of the South African elephant tree (Sclerocarya birrea). My first taste of alcohol. 4
I am a professed dilettante. I also learnt recently, I was gullible as a child. I rang up my mother to ask her about Gurdjieff, recently having developed an interest in philosophy. Last year in homage, I owned the domain remarks-with-meetable-men.com which I was going to use to publish photographic portraits of people I met. I started this column instead.
It turns out that I did not win the snooker tournament, but was allowed to win. Nor did anyone expect I would actually take home the prize bottle of Amarula. Let alone drink it. There are advantages to having a liberal kaftan wearing mum.
John was always very hospitable to me, I never felt like the 'whose kid is that', he even gave me a copy of his single. Which I've always loved. Although no-one I knew had ever heard of him.
I also was given a copy of The Happy Mondays "Wrote for Luck" when it came out, by the press officer of the band I was working for, and became an instant fan. I think Gurdjieff would probably have something to say about spiritual circles when they not only covered and sampled, but got to #5 in the pop singles chart (that was a thing back then) with, yes, a John Kongos song.
The thing about cults is you can not escape. Eternal return.
When I rang up my mother to ask about Gurdjieff I was told "Gosh darling. I have no idea. I never actually read any. I just had a phrase I used that made it sound like I knew all about him". Who knew dilettantism was passed on genetically?
I wanted to post the single he gave me "I No. 7 (Only Wants To Get To Heaven)" but would you believe it is possibly the only song never to be digitised on the internet. I said this to my friend Nick, who made scoffing you-can't-Google noises, only to have to concede, it is true. So please thank Zac, and in particular Alex, for digitising my copy of the 7" vinyl. Here, is the only place to hear John Kongos's "I No. 7 (Only Wants To Get To Heaven)" in all its glory. If you're reading John, or your lawyers, this is posted with love, gratitude and thanks for introducing me to George Gurdjieff, who, like my mother I've never read but has influenced my life in unforetold ways.
John Kongos - I No. 7 (Only Wants To Get To Heaven)
And kudos to Kongos (sorry). When I say he was always nice to me (he must have been an actual pop star then, I was unaware at the time of such things), he later went on to father four sons. All of which are, in the present day, members of a group called, yes, Kongos. And, they sound exactly like their dad. If you wanted an example of myparentswereawesome.tumblr.com could you do better?
KONGOS - Come with Me Now
No recommendations as such this week, but I’ve purchased a copy of P. D. Ouspensky’s “Strange Life of Ivan Osokin” on the Kobo for the bargain price of 99p
Strange Life of Ivan Osokin by P. D. Ouspensky | Buy book here | Kobo
Illustration by Fatima Fletcher
The amazing artist Fatima Fletcher is artist in residence.
Please show Fatima your love by following and liking every single one of her posts at www.instagram.com/fatima.fletcher, and visiting fatimafletcher.com, where her work is for sale, she is available for commissions.
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This week featured
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bas_Jan_Ader
http://www.artnet.com/artists/chris-burden/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._D._Ouspensky
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gurdjieff
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kongos
References
This column is just supreme. I No. 7 on repeat
"Somewhat unsurprisingly"????? Excuse me? Let it be known that I was more than surprised. Absolutely LOVE the art, FF!