Friday, March 10, 2017

Barbara Hugo



Her name was Barbara Hugo, and she was beautiful, and perhaps a touch otherworldly in her delicate loveliness. But let me make clear, she was no fragile, pretty-pretty China doll. Perhaps more like Pre-Raphaelite Alexa, a slender, exquisite mistress-model of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, really too good for the likes of him. She was very much flesh and blood, only her flesh was somehow soft-spoken, like her clear voice.

A light brunette, she must have been about five-foot-seven, and her bearing and walk were as graceful as bearing and walk can be. But it was all somehow understated without being wishy-washy, with the softness of a pillow, not an ice cream cone.

She was married to Richard Hugo, chunky and rather unprepossessing. A tolerable poet, he was at the University of Washington along with several other disciples or acolytes of the residing genius, the poet Theodore Roethke. I considered him a good minor poet, and was never forgiven for uttering it by the entire English department. I taught at the University for a year, and of course had some use for the library. The library whose librarian was Barbara Hugo. According to the poet J. V. Cunningham reflecting back, I managed to alienate everybody at U of W. But not Barbara Hugo.

It was enchantment at first sight for me, and something like it for her at second. We started seeing each other. I was subletting a one-room ground-floor apartment where Barbara started coming to me on afternoons. The window was always open, and I can still summon up the excitement of hearing the clickety-clack of her high heels approaching on the pavement. It was as lovely as any music I ever heard, perhaps even more so.

  Once in the room, she and I got on top of the bed, but never inside it. We indulged in all kinds of loving sexual play, but there was never any real intercourse. She disallowed any penetration, out of some weird kind of minimal fidelity to her husband.

This went on for most of my year at the university, an instructor in the English and Comparative Literature Department. It is curious how I have forgotten the details of our relationship (if that’s the word for it). I do remember, however, how she told me one day that she had dreamt of still being the unmarried Barbara Williams in her parents’ house, and me driving a car through all the walls to her bedroom. One did not have to be a Freudian to interpret that dream.

As I was headed back East to Cambridge and Harvard, I had to transport some of my stuff from somewhere to somewhere else, I cannot recall from where to where, but there was a lot of schlepping to do and Barbara very touchingly helped. We were both broken-hearted, only slightly comforted by the promise of writing to each other. Nothing more. She had her husband, and I had a sexy student mistress who called herself Cheryle, in incorrect imitation of Lana Turner’s daughter Cheryl.
She joined me in Cambridge and, huge mistake, I ended up marrying her.

  Still, Barbara and I continued our affectionate correspondence until Cheryle dis-
covered Barbara’s hidden letters and, I presume, burned them. In any case, they have vanished. Barbara remained a memory that could not compete with reality, however prosaic. But marriage to Cheryle ended in a not very distant divorce.

A few years later, I attended a reading at the 92nd Street Y by Carolyn Kaiser , a poet I had befriended in Seattle. After the reading, she remarked to me that Barbara Hugo, now divorced, was very lonely, and I should write to her. Carolyn must have known about my “affair” with Barbara.

So I wrote to her, and before long we were again immersed in a glowing correspondence. What made Barbara’s letters even more endearing were the misspellings, droll from a librarian and poet. We decided to meet again as her vacation from the library was imminent. We chose a midway point, Toronto.

I was waiting for her at the airport, and then there she was, as winsome as ever. On the bus to the city, she confided that she had been worried that I might have turned
worse with time; I had similar worries. But we were happily unchanged.

Downtown, she had to go for a haircut, and I could hardly spare her that long. We picked a place called (if I remember correctly) Beaulieu for our French  Canadian holiday, but first she had to buy a bathing suit. The store had only two that fit: a very revealing bikini and I demure black one-piece suit. Barbara asked me to choose, and I chose the latter, which made her extremely happy.

About Beaulieu I can recall only that we felt fulfilled, and one detail. On a bosky hillside, we went picking wild strawberries, and competed for who could gather more. They tasted sweet, we were side by side, and I was pleasantly reminded of Ingmar Bergman’s “Wild Strawberries.” If there was a fly in the ointment, it was Barbara’s smoking, which she did keep infrequent.

At the hotel, we met a middle-aged couple who were driving back to Toronto and gave us a lift in the back seat. And then something happened reminiscent of Bergman. You may recall that in the movie the principal couple pick up a pair of young hitchhikers, who fight so vehemently in the back seat that they have to be ejected. Something similar happened to us. Barbara needed a cigarette for which we had to make a stop.

Acrimony ensued. Parting in Toronto (or was it Montreal?), was rather cool, but we professed continued correspondence. That, however, did not endure, and soon ended. There was no further contact.
 
I have now looked in Google, where in Richard Hugo’s bio there is mention of his marriage and of his divorce. No details about Barbara, of course. She could still be alive, but only namesakes can be found. Such delicate persons tend not to be long-lived.

Survival in memory is a melancholy business. So good-bye, Barbara, I loved you.



52 comments:

  1. Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet;
    She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet.
    She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;
    But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree.

    In a field by the river my love and I did stand,
    And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand.
    She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;
    But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I wrote a poem about William Butler Yeats kicking my ass after I went back in time to flirt with Maude Gonne.


      Halfway through the pane of glass,
      still making gaslight eyes at Maud
      Gonne,
      a leer crawled across your face.
      William Butler Yeats looked like he
      was going to cream your skinny
      ass,
      and you were glad Einstein was right
      about the Time-Space continuum
      because now you can bust a beer
      bottle
      over Bill's noggin. The pub became pell-mell,
      time slowing down like sap inside a frosty
      maple.
      It was 1916 like it's always been 1916
      with shattering glass twinkled against
      street lamps, and Maude's jacket slightly
      rimpled.
      I guess most times you'll land over there
      with the dandelions stuck in a cracked
      sidewalk trying to tickle your bloody
      nose.

      Delete
    2. "Virtual?" I would say downright weird.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCUmxjA-Xbs

      Delete
  2. Great story. Beautiful. My first love was Barbara. Why is it that the loves that failed are the ones we remember most fondly? I guess it's because the loves that succeeded in our life, most of the time, will wane. The intensity will fade. When that love fades a bit, it affects the memory of the beginning of the relationship. A love that was never able to come to fruition always has that mystery about it. What may have been, is forever on the back of one's mind.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Here is one weird but interesting little British movie hiding under a Spanish title. I had never heard of THE THIRD SECRET (1964) and can’t remember how I stumbled on to it on YouTube. It features Stephen Boyd, Pamela Franklin, Richard Attenborough, Jack Hawkins, Diane Cliento, and a very young Judi Dench. Direction is nothing special but the cinematography is by the legendary Douglas Slocombe. If you want to enjoy the movie, avoid the Wikipedia summary that will spoil your viewing.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xLHoq2PF9Y

      Delete
  3. What a crazy world we are living in

    http://takimag.com/article/the_week_that_perished_takimag_march_12_2017/print#axzz4b88K8PTS

    MALE MAKEUP ARTIST PLANS TO GO ON PLASTIC-SURGERY BLITZ TO BECOME “GENDERLESS ALIEN”
    Vinny Ohh is a 22-year-old alleged male from LA who has already shelled out an estimated $50,000 in plastic-surgery procedures to fulfill his quest to look like a “sexless alien being.” Such procedures have already included laser treatment, cheek, brow, and lip fillers, Botox sessions, facial peels, and cryo facial freezing.

    Ohh claims he plans to one day remove his genitals and adopt children.

    He plans to fork over an additional $160K or so to fulfill his quest to become the alien he always knew he was inside. Procedures yet to be undertaken include genital, nipple, and navel removal, ear pinning, forehead realignment, jaw and cheek implants, eyelid revision, and a nose job—all, of course, to become the natural-born Martian that’s just screaming to leap out of his false human body. And lest you get any funny ideas, this is all to be celebrated rather than mocked.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  5. "Once in the room, she and I got on top of the bed, but never inside it. We indulged in all kinds of loving sexual play, but there was never any real intercourse. She disallowed any penetration, out of some weird kind of minimal fidelity to her husband."

    Did she suck your dick? Did you lick her pussy? Did you dickslap her? Did you titfuck her? Did you do 69? Did she finger your ass? Did you give her a rimjob?
    Did she stretch out your dong like stretch-armstrong?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycumxKt1zFk



    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Gee whiz, P.L., let him reminisce!
      Remembered pats, a tender kiss...

      Delete
  6. News is so full of BS. NY elite schools fill up with Asians, but there is no 'diversity'.

    http://www.unz.com/isteve/dont-mention-the-asians-ny-times-vs-ny-post-in-covering-who-gets-into-selective-high-schools/

    ReplyDelete
  7. "I do remember, however, how she told me one day that she had dreamt of still being the unmarried Barbara Williams in her parents’ house, and me driving a car through all the walls to her bedroom. One did not have to be a Freudian to interpret that dream."

    Why? does Simon have a 10-inch dick?

    ReplyDelete
  8. "She had her husband, and I had a sexy student mistress who called herself Cheryle, in incorrect imitation of Lana Turner’s daughter Cheryl."

    Wow, women really are a bunch of whores like Black Pigeon said:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxpVwBzFAkw

    ReplyDelete
  9. "On the bus to the city, she confided that she had been worried that I might have turned worse with time; I had similar worries. But we were happily unchanged."

    Yeah, you were both still degenerates fucking anything that moves.

    ReplyDelete
  10. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  11. "You may recall that in the movie the principal couple pick up a pair of young hitchhikers, who fight so vehemently in the back seat that they have to be ejected. Something similar happened to us. Barbara needed a cigarette for which we had to make a stop. Acrimony ensued."

    So, this is how the refined and sophisticated elites act.

    Like stupid petty little children who break off relationships over trifle. Who cheat on spouses. Who marry bimbo student mistresses. Who remain neurotic or nasty all through life.

    Yet, Simon thinks he's above us Deplorables who prefer Trump to Hillary.

    At least Trump is honest about his boorish side.

    Simon may never use a term like 'bigly', but he's been a bigly jerk.

    YOU DO NOT MESS WITH A MARRIED WOMAN, NO MATTER HOW WELL SHE SUCKS YOUR DICK.

    If, with all his erudition and intelligence, Simon can't figure out the basic alphabets and simple math of morality, what good is he and others like him?

    You gotta be like George and Mary in IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAERYfeiYBc

    ReplyDelete
  12. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  13. The maniac beside me

    To a Barbara I have marriage,
    Who is also smokin' hot,
    And the cigarettes she's got.

    When we're tripping in our car cage,
    Quick rest-stopping will be found,
    Whene'er she makes a nic-fit sound.

    I am old enough in age,
    To know to pull off to the side,
    When my ass she starts to ride.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I watched me 'Two Lane Blacktop',
      Dennis Wilson and James Taylor,
      And Oates as Norman Mailer.

      Delete
    2. Good movie. Taylor didn't do much acting, did he?

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyY0zvXSZyM 00.51 minutes

      Delete
    3. Not much acting, and not any singin' or rhymin';
      Dude's been married to Kathryn Walker AND Carly Simon!

      U.K., do you know the 1970s telefilms of Mike Leigh? 'Abigail's Party', 'Nuts in May', 'Grown Ups', etc. A sainted soul put up this link to 'Nuts in May':

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pxN2BADHwk

      Delete
    4. Not much acting, and not any singin' or rhymin';
      Dude's been married to Kathryn Walker AND Carly Simon!

      U.K., do you know the 1970s telefilms of Mike Leigh? 'Abigail's Party', 'Nuts in May', 'Grown Ups', etc. A sainted soul put up this link to 'Nuts in May':

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pxN2BADHwk

      Delete
    5. The first 30 minutes of 'Nuts" is hysterical. I'll watch the rest later. Love love love Mike Leigh. I go back as far as 'High Hopes' and I've seen everything since. I haven't watched any of these old TV shows, though. A new project for me---Find the old Mike Leigh shows for tele.

      Delete
    6. I highly recommend the 6-DVD set 'Mike Leigh at the BBC' --- all 8 telefilms, plus a brilliant short --- but the DVDs are region 2, you need an all-region DVD player to watch 'em:

      https://www.amazon.com/Mike-Leigh-BBC-Collection-anglais/dp/B001UHNXOC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1489883649&sr=8-1&keywords=mike+leigh+at+the+bbc

      I advise you to pick up a copy fast, you can still get a set for under $40, but I see a steep price rise on the horizon.

      The uptight control freak in 'Nuts...' is played by Roger Sloman, whom all the Brits know from his many TV appearances "over there"....

      Delete
    7. Getting it. ASAP.

      Hey, I thought Simon was going to start doing his theater reviews on here? I haven't any lately. I saw where he did a couple of film reviews for 'Heat Street' Excellent reviews they were too.

      Shame about Chuck Berry. He was one of the greats.

      Delete
    8. It's tough to find a DVD copy of 'Chuck Berry - Hail! Hail! Rock N' Roll', the 1987 documentary directed by Taylor Hackford (Mr. Helen Mirren!). Amazon has a used copy from $130 --- Facets.org has it available for rental, but not Netflix....

      I've been watching 'The Tenant', you're right, it's great --- I apologize for putting it on my slimed-by-70s-films list....

      My set of the 'Mike Leigh at the BBC' box shipped today! Be sure to watch 'Grown-Ups', Brenda Blethyn is brilliant --- look for her lines about teatime: "Mandy, d'ja have ya tay?" "I haven't had ma tay!" "I'm just tryin' to have ma tay!" --- and the scene on the neighbors' staircase is unforgettable....

      Delete
    9. The Berry doc used to be on YouTube. I can't find it now. Great footage of Keef and him arguing about how to play certain songs, and Berry winning the argument every time.

      Polanski is one of the greats. I'd put him in my top 10. Or close. He directed the greatest film of all time (Chinatown), so that has to put him near the top. Lesser known Polanski gems: Ghost Writer, The Ninth Gate, Carnage. All of these are must sees.

      Leigh is another that's close to the top 10 (Top 20). I have 'Another Year' in my queue on Netflix. Never got a chance to see it in the theater. Here's my Netflix queue (I doubt if it format correctly, but here goes. . .)


      TITLE RATING SHIPPING
      Bridge of Spies
      rated 4.0 stars
      4.0
      Rate 5 starsRate 4 starsRate 3 starsRate 2 starsRate 1 stars
      Shipped 03/17/17
      Est. arrival 03/18/17
      Report
      Queue (9)
      TITLE RATING
      1
      Hell or High Water
      rated 4.3 stars
      4.3
      Rate 5 starsRate 4 starsRate 3 starsRate 2 starsRate 1 stars
      MOVE
      REMOVE
      2
      Searching for Sugar Man
      rated 4.5 stars
      4.5
      Rate 5 starsRate 4 starsRate 3 starsRate 2 starsRate 1 stars
      MOVE
      REMOVE
      3
      The Beat That My Heart Skipped
      rated 3.8 stars
      3.8
      Rate 5 starsRate 4 starsRate 3 starsRate 2 starsRate 1 stars
      MOVE
      REMOVE
      4
      Another Year
      rated 3.7 stars
      3.7
      Rate 5 starsRate 4 starsRate 3 starsRate 2 starsRate 1 stars
      MOVE
      REMOVE
      5
      Osama
      rated 3.5 stars
      3.5
      Rate 5 starsRate 4 starsRate 3 starsRate 2 starsRate 1 stars
      MOVE
      REMOVE
      6
      The Sorrow and the Pity
      rated 4.6 stars
      4.6
      Rate 5 starsRate 4 starsRate 3 starsRate 2 starsRate 1 stars
      Short wait
      MOVE
      REMOVE
      7
      Hail, Caesar!
      rated 3.6 stars
      3.6
      Rate 5 starsRate 4 starsRate 3 starsRate 2 starsRate 1 stars
      MOVE
      REMOVE
      8
      Barbarosa
      rated 3.6 stars
      3.6
      Rate 5 starsRate 4 starsRate 3 starsRate 2 starsRate 1 stars
      MOVE
      REMOVE
      9
      Toni Erdmann
      rated 3.4 stars
      3.4
      Rate 5 starsRate 4 starsRate 3 starsRate 2 starsRate 1 stars
      Releases 4/11/2017
      MOVE
      REMOVE
      Saved (4)
      These titles are unavailable or not yet released.
      TITLE RATING AVAILABILITY
      Two Women
      rated 4.2 stars
      4.2
      Rate 5 starsRate 4 starsRate 3 starsRate 2 starsRate 1 stars
      Unknown
      REMOVE
      The Eel
      rated 4.1 stars
      4.1
      Rate 5 starsRate 4 starsRate 3 starsRate 2 starsRate 1 stars
      Unknown
      REMOVE
      Behind the Lines
      rated 3.6 stars
      3.6
      Rate 5 starsRate 4 starsRate 3 starsRate 2 starsRate 1 stars
      Unknown
      REMOVE
      Breaker Morant: Masterworks Edition
      rated 4.3 stars
      4.3
      Rate 5 starsRate 4 starsRate 3 starsRate 2 starsRate 1 stars
      Unknown
      REMOVE


      Guess what? It didn't format correctly.

      Delete
    10. I just viddied 'Of Freaks and Men', Russian flick from 1998. Hyper-weird and maddening, but unforgettable for weirdos comme moi:

      http://old.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/review/464

      Delete
    11. Nooch, stay away from "Hell or High Water." The worst movie I've seen in quite some time. 98% Tomatometer, and an Academy Award nominee. What??

      Just putrid!

      Delete
    12. Thanks for the warning! I've lately been watching the '3 by Cheever' telefilms from the late 1970s, PBS used to show them--esp. liked 'The Sorrows of Gin' with a radiant Sigourney Weaver, and an amazing child actress who went on to play the daughter in 'Mommie Dearest'. The DVDs have no captions or subtitles, but the sound quality is pretty good.

      http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2403092/episodes?ref_=tt_ov_epl

      Delete
    13. U.K., I got one for ya: 'The Square', directed by Nash Edgerton -- Aussie film noir:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7DHO_HK_OA

      Plus check out his shorts at YouTube -- this is the most famous, 'Spider':

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jmbv8kevQ-E

      Delete
  14. "Gender Studies" in a nutshell.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98NRO1qmKLY

    Islaminatrix is the latest 'perversion'.

    http://english.onlinekhabar.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Shepard-GreaterThanFear1.jpg

    In a way, all this gender-madness sort of makes sense. No matter what the race, religion, nationality, ethnicity, cult, or community, all humans are sexual beings, and we all exist because of sex(of parents). For most of humanity's existence, sexuality was animal-and-functional. People went into heat, had sex, and produced life, and that is why humanity survived. It was on the level of eating raw meat and veggies to survive.

    But with civilization, order, and more freedom, sexuality became like cooking. Not just animal and natural but cultural and complicated. Also, the need for moral order and social repression made sexuality go in the closet or remain in the bedroom. Sex became associated with moral-social-cultural duty or with romance & cult of beauty.

    Some spiritual systems even forbade it because flesh got in the way of spirit. Jainists and Shakers. Buddhism and Christianity didn't forbid it but preferred that their followers gave up on sex and marriage and become totally spiritual.

    Also, intellectualism also worked against sexuality or at least against basic sexual drive. To be an intellectual is to elevate the mind over the stomach and the groin, even above the heart. It is as if the mind is separate from the body mired in the primal stew of base drives and desires. So, philosophy tackled the Higher Subjects of life and sought 'meaning' and 'significance'. Mind moved upward whereas body plowed downwards. As the mind advanced into new loftier realms, it sought closer proximity to the gods of wisdom. In contrast, as the body sought freedom and release, it slid back into the primal soup of instincts and drives.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Their professions are either un-sexual or above-sexual, but they are still humans, and who knows what lurks in the hearts and loins of people? So many parents trusted Sandusky as an elderly coach and mentor to young boys, but...

      For most of civilizational history, the ideas moved upward and upward, toward greater complexity and higher meaning. (So did classical music.) Consider the trajectory of rational philosophy in the West or moral philosophy in the East. Since it favored the mind and/or the heart, the animal drives of loins had to be suppressed. Sexuality was something to tame, control, and keep in the cage, like the 'lovebirds' in Hitchcock's THE BIRDS.

      And this repression directed human energies toward higher forms of thoughts, values, and expressions in the arts. Though Western Art has lots of nudes, they are not pornographic. That's where Paglia is wrong. Sure, some are sensual and have elements of eroticism but beauty is manifested in sublime graceful ways that anesthetize animal feelings.... though Caravaggio was edgier. Classical Western nude art, especially in Christian era, is sensuality spiritualized. It's like Adam of Michelangelo's SISTINE CHAPEL is NOT like a Playgirl model.

      Also, the sexual element in art was also restrained by flaccid penises on sculptures and rounder figures than sexy hourglass figures on the women. Flaccid penis gave the impression that even a nude man had something on his mind other than the beavisy boing. And the rounder figures on the women made them look maternal than babe-ish.

      Because ideas were separated from the 'boing factor', the trajectory of Western Civilization was once unpredictable. The mind has countless permutations of possibilities in theory and speculation. In contrast, the human body has a basic formula. Let it free, and it just settles for a few variations of 'boing'. Mind like a Boeing plane. It soars and explores all sorts of new terrains. Loin is like 'boing'. There isn't much difference among dogs, chimps, and humans when it comes to basic sexual drives. In our shameless culture, the trajectory of culture has been easy to predict since the 'sexual revolution'. More Afro-jungle-ism and more homo-decadentism. So, from ass-shaking to bumping-and-grinding to 'twerking'. What's next? Nude musical stars screwing while performing. It's the simple trajectory of shameless sexuality. Homomania is more complex than Afromania. If black men and women wanna be crazy studs and ho's, homos have this aristo-mentality that wants to be revered and worshiped. If Afromania couldn't be contained the church and came out of the church(like homos came out of the closet), homomania wants to enter the church and take over as the new god. Black gospel singers used to sing and dance wild in the church until the realized their minds were more about partying with ho's than praising da lawd. Because white 'racists' of the past sought to contain black savagery, they forced Christianity on the blacks, and Church life defined black culture. But as time passed and blacks got more freedom, they figured it's more fun to be dancing in the streets than in the church. In contrast, even though homos remained in the closet, their orientation was never thought of as holy or good. If anything, the Bible says homos are wicked. But homos being creative, sensitive, refined, and vain, were not satisfied with mere raunchy and wild sexuality. As natural aristocrats in emotions, they want to be adored and revered. So, once the homos got tired of prancing in the streets, they began to preach from the pulpit as the new holy icons of decadent christianity.

      Delete
    2. Anyway, sexuality is a basic drive, like hunger and thirst. As such, it has a considerable hold even on people with respectable occupations like professor, priest, rabbi, scientist, statesman, judge, and etc. It's like that Mishima short story, "Priest and His Love". It's like the homo military commander in MERRY X-MAS MR. LAWRENCE.

      http://www.101bananas.com/library2/priestshiga.html

      While some people just settle for basic sexual morality of love, courtship, and marriage, the fact is modern freedoms have allowed all sorts of people lots of leeway to 'explore' their sexuality. And this is where 'gender' identity becomes crucial. It's not just about male and female but all sorts of variations in between depending on one's leanings, neuroses, hangups, fetishes, obsessions, and etc. (Gender-Quest has become a kind of rite of passage among millennials. The difference between the past and now is this. In the past, genuinely weird sexual types were marginalized or persecuted, and therefore, they had to pretend to be normal or find subtle or subversive ways to express their true nature. In contrast, most people who go on Gender Quests today are perfectly normal and would be happy with real sexuality, the kind where men and women like one another. Or like the All in the Family Song where men are men and women are women. BUT, because kids are hit with Gender Politics and Homomania from such a young age --- and bombarded with pop culture filled with deviant images cooked up by homos and decadents --- , even the normal ones think maybe there's more to their sexuality or 'gender' than normal stuff. Besides, you earn extra pokemon points the less normal you are. So, it's no surprise that over 40% of British millennials say they are unsure of their 'gender'. Just feel what you have between your legs, idiots.)

      Also, as noble as high-minded or complex ideas may be, ideas are easily lost or forgotten. Maybe Kant and Descartes were great thinkers, but ideas are dead unless people are constantly disseminate them and keep them alive. Ideas don't spring from one's basic nature.

      Also, high ideas are understood only by a few. How many people read the great works of western philosophy or understand them?

      In contrast, there is something 'democratic' and spontaneously-generating about 'gender' since everyone, from the most intelligent to the most dumb, shares in sexual drives. Granted, 'gender politics' has become associated with elite academia and culture, but sex culture, like food, is 'understood' and experienced by everyone, rich and poor, smart and dumb. So, even though Western folks may not get much of Islamic religion or philosophy, the image of Islamic woman in hijab as sexy babe has immediate appeal. If Muslim woman is reduced to a sex object, even non-Muslims 'get' it.

      Delete
    3. The strange case of Freud was that his 'philosophy' moved up while plowing down. Freud came up with highfalutin theories and played the role of scientific thinker to the hilt. He was a mental Boeing soaring high and mighty... but on the subject of Boing. He was like a bomber. Not flying higher and higher to reach the stars but flying just high enough to gain respectability in bourgeois society to drop Truth Bombs of Boing on society.

      This contradiction of Freudianism was very much in keeping in modernism where ultra-intellectualism reconnected with primitivism, like Picasso's complicated artistic expression inspired by African sculptures.

      Freudianism was useful in its time because society was still moralistic and respectable. If someone like Howard Stern had come along then, he would have been locked up(maybe in a loony bin) in most civilized places. But Freud could get away with his stuff on sexual drive of Boing because he maintained the proper composure as an intellectual Boeing. Sure, he was talking about base drives BUT from a scientific perch to understand it better.

      But with the passing of yrs, as modern society became more permissive and shameless, the need or the pretense of serious thought was no longer necessary to deal with Boing. No need to soar to score with the whore. Just go boing in a straight and direct way. We now live in a world of massive homo celebration festivals in big cities. We now have high school dances where young ones dance like prostitutes aping African tribal women.

      And there is rap culture and afromania. If the cultural trajectory of the West was difficult to ascertain in the past because mind-centricism cooked up many ideas, values, and visions --- consider the differences among various philosophers among Greeks, Romans, French, German, Anglo, Russian, Jewish, etc. --- , the trajectory is now easy to predict since the Rule of the Body is pretty simple: hunger, lust, comfort, fun.

      So, in music, sex, pop culture, movies, and etc., we are moving toward more raw sexuality and more perversion, or perversion as the reversion.

      Delete
    4. It used to be the West was about conversion to higher truth, spirit, or values.

      Now, it's about reversion to animal drives and sensual fetishes.

      Afromania tends to be raw and raunchy. It's like African tribal behavior. It's a world gone bongo.

      Sensual fetishes tend to be more complicated because, despite their excesses, they feed on taboos, repressions, and subversion. Afromania is about shamelessness. It's about black man and black woman on the dance floor hump-dancing without complexes or worries.

      In contrast, sexual fetishes are vestiges of repression or anxieties. And we see this in the Islaminatrix. Islam is sexually repressive. It is highly moralistic, even puritanical.

      And yet, its anti-sexualism poses a challenge and 'delicious' possibilities who seek to go under the veil. It spices things up if handled in a 'creative' manner. It's not about the reversion to jungle-ism but artful game of repression & release toward 'creative' perversion.

      Without such taboos, fetishes are not possible. As society becomes more libertine and permissive, can fetishes survive? In a way, yes, IF there are new modes of repression.

      Indeed, even Afromania can become fetishized. White Liberals are repressed in their own way due to their 'anti-racism'. They tell themselves that race is just a social construct, and there are no racial differences among races, which is all pseudo-science cooked up by 'nazis'.

      But they can't help noticing differences despite their ideological puritanism.

      White liberal men can't help noticing that Jack Johnson whupped white butts and that blacks dominate NFL and NBA. They can't help noticing that their white female friends express interest in the Negro as Superfly.

      But how can that be when race is just a social construct and there are no racial differences?

      According to Liberalism, a Japanese is just a yellow Nigerian, and a Nigerian is just a black Japanese. And a Jewish person is just a Semitic Peruvian Indian, and a Peruvian Indian is just a mesoAmerican Jew. The problem is reality doesn't play out that way.

      In a way, the white liberal male is both approving of and perplexed by interracism. After all, if all races are the same, why shouldn't white females mix with black males? People are people. But if some white females prefer black males over white males due to racial differences, then interracism undermines the liberal narrative and proves that racial differences do exist and account for why some women prefer men of certain races over others. This leads to anxiety that leads to fetishism.

      Thus, there are three levels of fetishism in the white Liberal cuck. On one level, he tries to exorcise his own 'racism' at the discomfort of a white woman going black. After all, even white Liberal men admit that, despite conscious rejection of 'racism', they may be unconsciously 'racist'. On another level, he is turned on by the superior Negro with the white woman. But then, the idea that the Negro is superior to the white man as humper undermines the Liberal narratie of racial equality. It means racial differences are real. And that leads to third level of anxiety.

      With Afromania and Homomania such a big part of Western popular culture and sexual iconography, maybe the only to add spice and flavor is to somehow tie Islam with sexual licentiousness. It is surely a challenge given the nature of Islam, but then, sexual perversion and fetishism feeds on problems and obstacles.

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    5. Islaminatrix, who woulda thought?
      A Domme in a burka---a dream that can be bought...

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    6. A nice remembrance, such is the messy stuff of life.

      How you attack these barely human types to your comments page,
      is quite a mystery.

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  15. Oh, get off this blog, you racist bottom feeder.

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  17. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zC8DBgtqIHU

    THIS is why John Simon hates Trump. Simon is a closet-Turk. He wants to see the Islamization of Europe. He is an agent of Erdogan, just like Merkel is.

    Trump wants Europe to remain European. He believe in Western Civilization even though he uses terms like 'bigly'.

    In contrast, Simon the Turk wants Europe to be taken over by Muslims and Turks and Africans. He wants to see the destruction of white/European civilization.

    So, he sides with Merkel and Hillary in the erasure of all borders and the flooding of the West with non-white hordes.

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  18. THIS is why John Simon hates Trump.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zC8DBgtqIHU


    Simon is a closet-Turk. He wants to see the Islamization of Europe. He is an agent of Erdogan, just like Merkel is.

    Trump wants Europe to remain European. He believe in Western Civilization even though he uses terms like 'bigly'.

    In contrast, Simon the Turk wants Europe to be taken over by Muslims and Turks and Africans. He wants to see the destruction of white/European civilization.

    So, he sides with Merkel and Hillary in the erasure of all borders and the flooding of the West with non-white hordes.

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  19. Replies
    1. Good stuff. Relevant. Buckley's TV experience is noticeable. I love how, time and time again, he puts words in Macdonald's mouth and then uses that to show how Macdonald is wrong. Dwight then looks/sounds exasperated, and lights up another smoke. Classic.


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  20. I think Ulana's observations are generally correct. What's interesting about John Simon is that he is known, rightly, for being "incorrect" about so many of the shibboleths of political correctness; and yet, when it comes to Muslims, he tends to lapse back into the comfort zone of the Age. And Simon isn't alone in this; I've seen similar examples all over the map, where non-"Leftists" unthinkingly succumb to the politically correct script, obediently enough to make Pavlov proud.

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  21. Anyway, back on topic: I like it when John Simon expatiates with such disarming honesty about his life, invariably (and variably) bound up with the fascinating career of art.

    On another note, from the comments here of late, Mr. Simon must think the Blogosphere, unavoidably, is autochthonously contiguous with a seamier underside worthy of the men's room stall at the 14th Street Y.

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  22. I like these vivid strolls down Memory Lane, but Simon's powers of recall fail him when he contemplates one of his other great loves (the films of Ingmar Bergman). In "Wild Strawberries," it was not the young hitchhikers who had to be ejected for fighting but the acrimonious middle-aged couple whose car had earlier flipped over on the road (while they were in mid-fight). This is an important scene, and I'm surprised that Simon, Bergman lover as he is, garbled it.

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    Replies
    1. I seem to remember the kids got thrown out. I may be wrong, though.
      Maybe you're thinking of 'Five Easy Pieces' when Bobby and Rayette pick up the stranded women whose car had turned over. Bobby had to put them out because the one woman wouldn't stop running her mouth about 'crap' and 'filth.'
      She says a funny line in the movie about it.

      "I don't mind dirt so much, it's the filth I can't stand"

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKWckZxpPBk

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRL0-JQk-Qg

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    2. My apologies to Aldo. The middle-aged couple gets the boot. Here is the scene. I copied the video at the point of the fight.

      https://youtu.be/NFsU0QA7-M4?t=2265

      I just watched a lot of this movie on YouTube. I had forgotten about Max von Sydow as the gas station attendant. Even in that very small role he makes a strong impression.

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