on sex, sun, and sugar
Some things never change, MC Buzz B, and Halina Reijn's Bodies Bodies Bodies
1 Apr 23 | Vol 2 Issue 11
I screwed the barmaid
Graffiti, anonymous
We tend to think of ourselves not as animals. There is a branch of philosophy called Animalism that says we are [1 ]. Don't worry, this week isn't going to be all old men philosophers. Who are always yammering on about mind and body dualisms. I'm a light animalism. I acknowledge that we hold a greater collection of the characteristics we define as making us human compared to other animals, but nothing unique. Dolphins and monkeys can recognise themselves in mirrors.
If you have more time on your hands than me, you can ponder whether a monkey looking at itself in the mirror is thinking is this me, or merely the meat vessel that carries my soul. Don't mock. Once Jeff Bezos has perfected downloading his brain activity into Amazon's copious server space, we will all be worrying about whether we are still us, after waking up in a new BezosBody™ post death.
Philosophers also like talking about progress, and killing people tied to railway tracks. Us human animals only tend to think about progress on our birthdays or New Year. Thirtieth and sixtieth birthdays are particularly progress orientated.
Francis Fukuyama's famous statement, the end of history, is often misinterpreted. It's not that nothing will change, but he thinks we can't really get a better society than liberal democratic states tied to market economies. I do agree that for a lot of non-rich people it's better to be alive now, than any time in the past. Black Americans are no longer psychical slaves. Your landlord can no longer rape your newly wed wife as some sort of hereditary right.
But largely things remain pretty much as they always have been for us human animals. Sex, sun, and sugar. The three things that motivate us far more than ethics or locating the seat of the soul.
I have only had two profound moments. The sort of quasi mystical experiences we normally take drugs for. I flew over the Grand Canyon in Arizona. It wasn't one of them. People say they are awed by the vastness of geologic time, an awareness of our fleeting passage here on Earth. A memento mori carved from the flow of water. I flew over it in a small plane. What they don't tell you about small planes is they are prone to lurch, drop, and tremble in the slightest gust of turbulence. The Grand Canyon is a long snaking gulley of hot air draughts.
The only mystical experience I had was hugging the ground after landing back at Las Vegas airport. Literally. Full Pope style. On my hands and knees kissing terra firma, repeatedly, coated in a cold sweat.
I did experience something like the profundity people express over the canyon, when I holidayed in Tunisia. Standing at the beginning of the Sahara desert. Realising I was stood at the end of the civilisation. That it was impassable. A huge swathe of space without people, without society, in front of me was an enormity where I did not belong. The feeling of being at the edge of the known world. Give me some poetic licence here, don't ruin my moment by saying GPS, or Tuareg, or Easy Adventure All Saharan Holiday Safaris Limited.
The other was visiting Pompeii. The thing about Pompeii is it's really fucking normal. Apart from the stone beds being really short, it's just a normal town. On one street, there hangs signs for a baker and for a brothel. Being a Baker myself, this combination filled my heart with a happy recognition of family values. I felt right at home.
I felt right at home as two thousand years ago we were bumbling about doing exactly the same shit. Sun, sex and sugar. Some chemistry here for you smart-arses, carbs, as in bread, breaks down into glucose, the simplest sugar. Bakers are all about the sweet.
That graffiti I opened with? It's from the Bar of Athictus. In Pompeii. Around 70 A.D., which I think we can allow to be rounded to a neat two thousand years ago. Two millennia previous they were writing I screwed the barmaid on the bar wall.
So next time you are bemoaning the state of the world, or feeling you aren't getting on as fast as you could. Feel assured. You're doing just as well as your counterparts two thousand years ago. Except you're not covered in red hot ash and being suffocated by sulphur fumes. Winning.
In case you think I'm building a case out of a single scribbling on a wall, here's the earliest known daub from Pompeii’s walls Gaius Pumidius Diphilus was here, dated October 3, 78 B.C.
Enjoy this selection from Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, Volume 4, with reference to the region, insula, and door number [2 ]
Weep, you girls. My penis has given you up. Now it penetrates men’s behinds. Goodbye, wondrous femininity!
I.2.20 (Bar/Brothel of Innulus and Papilio)Restitutus says: “Restituta, take off your tunic, please, and show us your hairy privates”.
I.2.23 (peristyle of the Tavern of Verecundus)Amplicatus, I know that Icarus is buggering you. Salvius wrote this.
I.4.5 (House of the Citharist; below a drawing of a man with a large nose)Theophilus, don’t perform oral sex on girls against the city wall like a dog
III.5.3 (on the wall in the street)Daphnus was here with his Felicla.
V.1.18 (House of Valerius Flaccus and Valerius Rufinus; right of the door)Staphylus was here with Quieta.
V.1.26 (peristyle of the House of Caecilius Iucundus)Aufidius was here. Goodbye
V.3.9 (House of Cosmus and Epidia; right of the door)Marcus loves Spendusa
V.5 (near the Vesuvius Gate)Rufus loves Cornelia Hele
VI.15.6 (House of Caesius Valens and Herennius Nardus)Atimetus got me pregnant
VII.2.18 (vicolo del Panattiere, House of the Vibii, Merchants)Figulus loves Idaia
VII.2.18 (vicolo del Panattiere, House of the Vibii, Merchants)Secundus likes to screw boys.
VII.9 (Eumachia Building, via della Abbondanza)I screwed a lot of girls here.
VII.12.18-20 (the Lupinare);Hermeros screwed here with Phileterus and Caphisus.
VII.12.18-20 (the Lupinare); On June 15th,Sollemnes, you screw well!
VII.12.18-20 (the Lupinare)I have buggered men
VI.14.20 (House of Orpheus)
I saved you from the more scatological ones. One must admit they really aren't that different from the messages left today on the back of the bar's toilet door. Remember, we're animals, and as long as there's sun, or sex, or sugar, you're doing fine.
To finish things up neatly, Descartes argues that each of us is an immaterial thing, a soul or a mind, rather than a physical thing, like a body. Animalism is the view that we could not exist except as animals, we exist only as long as our biological life goes on. Or as one Pompeiian scrawled
Once you are dead, you are nothing
IX.8.3 (House of the Centenary; interior of the house)
Back in the early nineties I did the record sleeves for Shorn Braithwaite, AKA MC Buzz B. I remember being sent over a cassette of his song that seems entirely appropriate to drop here, Never Change. I loved it on first play, only to be gutted when he found out it couldn't be released due to Bruce Hornsby’s refusal to clear the sample. Apparently he hated the speeded-up nature of the vocal sample, and thought it was taking the piss in a Chipmunks sort of way. Shorn managed to speak to him, explaining the speed change was purely to fit the structure of the chorus, he was in fact a fan, which is where the desire to sample Some Things Never Change came from. The song was re-recorded with Hornsby's vocal kept at original pitch. Between you and I the original was way better, but only exists now on a cassette in a shoebox somewhere. In case you're thinking Tupac, nope, it was MC Buzz B, seven years earlier who brought Bruce Hornsby to hip hop.
MC Buzz B - Never Change (PROMO MIX)
This week's heroes are French volcanologists Maurice and Katia Krafft, who are simply awesome. Drawn with passion by our artist in residence, Fatima Fletcher who is almost as obsessed by volcanoes as they were. Why do you think I was at Pompeii? Show Fatima your appreciation by following fatima.fletcher on Instagram. Her work is for sale at fatimafletcher.com, where she’s available for commissions. Her wonderful orchid place mats are for sale at fatima-fletcher.square.site/s/shop.
I'm still reading Dantiel W. Moniz's Milk Blood Heat. I've forgotten how effective a great short story can be, so recommending this again.
Last night I watched Bodies Bodies Bodies, directed by Halina Reijn, with a screenplay by Sarah DeLappe, based on a story from Kristen Roupenian. Three women. Which is pertinent.
It was picked for movie night as Anne loves a horror flick, I get scared, so not such a fan. But this is an A24 offering, who rarely put a foot wrong. The link between society's current fears and horror films is well established, radiation and the cold war breeding giant lizards, AIDs creating body horror, zombies standing in for communism, racism, or consumerism, all the enemy within.
Described as a comedy horror thriller, it's really rather clever and nuanced, you just don't realise that until the end reveal. No spoilers, which makes analysis a little tricky. What I liked is it's female gaze horror — it's not even really horror, there's hardly any jump scares — and uses current Gen Z slash Millennial concerns and vocabulary to examine what happens when the things we trust betray us. The way self-help and therapy speak have become almost mainstream, the ideas of gaslighting, supportive female friendship in the age of #metoo, privilege, being triggered, all have a part to play, or slay.
You may think the trailer gives everything away, but it doesn't. The film is a smart play on all the cliched one-of-us-is-the-killer-on-our-holiday-retreat films. If you're willing to watch what looks like a dumb teenage slasher horror to the end, you realise it's been a different beast all along, causing you to reevaluate what you’ve just seen.
Bodies Bodies Bodies | Official Trailer 2 HD | A24
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References
love the record sleeve design!