Crossing A Picket Line, Abusing Striking Workers AND Littering, All Before 9am Smh. No One Deserved A

New fic: Under his carpet

Under his carpet: Linda Eastman McCartney reflects on the ups and downs her marriage to Paul in a series of snapshots between 1968 and 1990. Chapter 1 of 5 posted.

Plinda fans/Paul superfans dni (JOKING! No sugarcoating, but not a hatchet job on either. Most of it is based on fact, but plenty is invented - speculative fiction an' all that.)

While not shying away from the darker sides of the marriage, this story is primarily intended as a character study about flawed individuals, none of whom are villains. It also explores the tension between visually appearing liberated, as many Boomer women did, and the reality of their domestic lives. A tension which is still relevant today.

Hello to Berlin

On Saturday night BBC 2 broadcast a one-off feature length film based on Christopher Isherwood's biography of his early life in Berlin, the period that inspired Goodbye to Berlin. 'Christopher and his Kind, starring Dr Who's Matt Smith, followed the young Isherwood's sexual and political self-discovery in 1930s Berlin, against the backdrop of rising Nazi influence and power. It was an ambitious production, taking in Isherwood's exciting new gay relationships, his friendship with a drama-queen cabaret singer, his befriending of a prominent Jewish family and the continuing intrusion of politics into his life, despite his attempts to ignore the coming disaster.Smith's performance took a while to warm to - his no-doubt accurate rendition of Isherwood's camp voice was grating at the beginning, not helped by an opening scene involving a petulant row with his chilly mother (Rome's Lindsey Duncan), but once the action moved to Berlin, things picked up. In the company of friend and occasional lover WH Auden, Christopher throws himself into Berlin's gay scene, benefiting from the Weimar Republic's catastrophic inflation rate which lets him have his pick of handsome young men desperate for British money. The exploits of Isherwood and Auden with various German boys seem less like mutual self-discovery and more like sex tourism, especially, as Auden notes drily 'They're all rampant hetters, they only use our money to pay for cunt'. I've explored this theme of straight men from poorer countries performing gay sex acts on rich foreigners for money before, and it certainly casts a different, more economically driven light on Berlin's reputation as the gay capital of the world in the 30s. But that is literally another post.

Christopher falls quickly for Caspar, a young Polish man with limited English, and befriends the collection of eccentrics that occupy his boarding house. These include Jean Ross, a hyperactive young English cabaret singer who talks, smokes and drinks incessantly, and with whom Isherwood forms a friendship despite her tendency to tap him for money. Jean is somewhat over-played by Imogen Poots, but some little details ring true – her slightly-less-than cut glass accent indicates her middle-class origins, and her decidedly off-key but heartfelt singing captures the do-it-yourself appeal of cabaret. Christopher starts out amused by her but believes her to be vapid, only to be given an unexpected lesson on political awareness when he glibly announces he has been commissioned to write for Oswald Mosely’s magazine. Jean is just one example of a character who Christopher initially underestimates, only be to humbled by them. As Jean says 'I may wear green nail varnish, but I'm not completely vacuous'.

Christopher also gets to know Wilfrid Landauer, head of the German-Jewish department store range. Played to remote, mysterious perfection by Iddo Goldberg, Landauer is a man completely in control of his life at the beginning of the story, but by 1933 his stores are closed and ransacked and he is missing. Goldberg was underused in this role - in Goodbye to Berlin for example Landauer has a much more prominent role and provides much-needed political context. However he only appears for a handful of scenes in 'Christopher and his Kind' and his fate is left unresolved.

The key love story of the drama is between Christopher and Heinz, a young working-class boy who Christopher pursues after Caspar returns to his 'hetter' ways. Unlike the other boys, Heinz is not selling his body and seem genuinely to be in love with Christopher, but their relationship is complicated by Heinz's brother's antipathy to Christopher and to the nature of their relationship. This leads to a showdown when Gerhardt joins the Nazi party and demands Christopher leave. As the Nazis gain power, the British characters leave one by one, until finally Christopher persuades Heinz to join him in England. The attempt to keep Heinz out of Germany fails thanks to the obtuseness of the Home Office, but Heinz ends up surviving the war and marrying a woman who, as he puts it 'doesn't ask questions'. A postwar encounter with Heinz shows Christopher to have become hardened by his experiences - no longer is he willing to help his former love escape, leading his old friend Auden to damningly tell him "The only cause you really care about, Christopher, is yourself", ameliorating the sting with "But you've turned it into an art form."

But the character of Isherwood is less selfish in those early days in Berlin. True, he is not particularly politically engaged - but then how many people really are, even in times of upheaval? Like many people, he wants to be able to pursue his own literary and romantic interests uninterrupted, but despite himself he cannot but become caught up in the events of the day. The rise of Nazism in Germany is somewhat simplified for the purposes of the film, with some characters engaging in clunky 'background' dialogue describing the Treaty of Versailles and the Weimar Republic. Urban working-class support for the Nazis (as personified by Gerhardt) is emphasised at the expense of the more politically powerful middle-class and clerical (both Protestant and Catholic) support the party enjoyed, giving the impression that the Nazis rose to power chiefly as a party representing the urban working classes when in fact it was often the opposite that was the case, particularly in Berlin.

Perhaps the nature of political change in the period is best summed up by Christopher’s philosophical landlady who said ‘The Kaiser, Herr von Baden, Herr Hitler… the names they change, life goes on’. This could well have been the viewpoint of many ordinary Germans who just wanted some kind of stability, and who, without necessarily supporting Hitler, just saw him as another name in a long list of leaders.

The production values were beautifully done, though an understandable reliance of interior shots didn’t give much of a feel for the city. But considering a set for 1930s Berlin would literally have to be built from scratch the interiors that were used seemed perfect for the period.

The necessity for Christopher to get out of Berlin due to the Nazi stance on homosexuality is made more urgent with Gerhardt’s threat ‘We don’t want your kind here’, the word 'kind' echoing the title. But the title perhaps refers less to homosexuality than to the type of people who inhabit the boarding-house – oddbods, eccentrics, people who could not find a home anywhere else but in the freewheeling, wild world of pre-war Berlin.

Aside from some clunky dialogue, over-acting and historical simplification, 'Christopher and His Kind' is a moving, affecting and intelligent drama. 

A city melting into air

Spy tower, Teufelsburg

I was recently in Berlin, staying near Alexanderplatz in the old East, and was struck by the still-unfinished look of the city, even 65 years since the war and 20 since reunification. The picture-perfect reconstructions of 19th-century streets in Oranienburgerstrasse and Auguststrasse contrast strongly with random patches of debris-strewn grass and fenced, abandoned building sites. The city’s long history of artistic occupation of abandoned buidings is still visible in the admittedly touristified Tacheles complex, but other buildings further from the centre, especially abandoned GDR edifices, are keeping the ad-hoc nature of Berlin’s urban settlements alive. This super slideshow presents some highlights, including an abandoned GDR amusement park, a spy tower built by the West in the wonderfully named Teufelsburg and the remains of the hastily exited Iraqi embassy. These images reveal Berlin to be a fine example of how Marshall Berman famously described modernity:  ‘this maelstrom…..in a state of perpetual becoming.’

Literature and 'authenticity'

Reading Patrick Hamilton's Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky, I was struck by this passage:

"Bob conceived it his duty to get wildly drunk and do mad things. He had no authentic craving to do so: he merely objectivised himself as an abused and terrible character, and surrendered to the explicit demands of drama... In deciding to get wildly drunk and do mad things, Bob believed he was achieving something of vague magnificence and import, redeeming and magnifying himself - cutting a figure before himself and the world."

So funny and true! And considering this was written in the 20s, film and TV has had a thousand times more influence over what we often suppose to be spontaneous expression of joy or anguish since then. Something to think about....

Twenty Thousand Streets... is full of astute observations like this, and is an unnerringly true and compassionate look at the lives of early 20th-century working-class people. A good review of The Midnight Bell, the first volume of the trilogy, can be found here. 

Conspiracies and arson - St Patrick's Day in 1741

The Bowery Boys are two guys with a blog and podcast who serve up regular helpings of truly fascinating New York history. With erudition and infectious enthusiasm, they present the histories of countless New York landmarks, from the famous (Central Park, the Brooklyn Bridge) to the obscure (the African Burial Ground and Famous Dogs of New York). Today on the blog they remember a shameful episode of the city's history from 1741, where the authorities became convinced, seemingly on no conclusive evidence, that the local slave and freed black community of the city were planning its destruction, and executed over 30 almost certainly innocent people. The Patrick's Day link reveals how the soldiers patrolling Fort George outside the city were so hungover this very morning in 1741 that they didn't catch a mystery arsonist who burned down the camp and almost let the flames spread to the city. In the febrile atmosphere of the time, when the authorities were whipping the white populace into a panicked frenzy about supposed plots, it didn't take long for blame for the fire to be put on the black population.Whoever the arsonist was, if the soldiers had been on the ball that morning the arson could have been stopped and the fire of paranoia dampened. There really are some jobs you can't turn up hungover for! 

Read the full article here. And subscribe to the podcast, it's brilliant!

"You must take up your well-shaped oar and go on a journey until you come where there are men living who know nothing of the sea, and who eat food that is not mixed with salt, who never have known ships whose cheeks are painted purple, who never have known-well-shaped oars, which act for ships as wings do. And I will tell you a very clear proof, and you cannot miss it. When, as you walk, some other wayfarer happens to meet you, and says you carry a winnow-fan on your bright shoulder, then you must plant your well-shaped oar in the ground, and render ceremonious sacrifice to the lord Poseidon, one ram and one bull, and a mounter of sows, a boar pig, and make your way home again and render holy hecatombs to the immortal gods who hold the wide heaven, all of them in order. Death will come to you from the sea, in some altogether unwarlike way, and it will end you in the ebbing time of a sleek old age. Your people about you will be prosperous. All this is true that I tell you.” The Odyssey

A couple of fics I wrote

I got an ao3 account this year and have 2 3 fics in the Beatles fandom that I'm a little proud of. Both character studies focused on late 1970s John in NYC. Have a read if you're so inclined. Username bodhbdearg.

Where I would be: Househusband era John is very depressed and disengaged from music, but is nudged out of it by folksinging lesbians & NYC queer culture.

Singing a song of ruin: Writing DF-era John is no longer depressed, and spends a night trying to talk someone out of jumping off a bridge.

Update, new WIP:

3. Under his carpet: Linda Eastman McCartney reflects on the ups and downs of her marriage to Paul in a series of snapshots between 1968 and 1990.

Victorian sexplorer and cross-cultural relationships

Richard Burton

Last night I watched a documentary on Richard Burton presented by Rupert Everett (The Richard Burton in question was the 19th century explorer, writer and translator of the Kama Sutra, not, as Everett put it, ‘Elizabeth Taylor’s fifth and sixth husbands’). Unsurprisingly, considering its lubricious presenter, the documentary focused on Burton’s exploration of sexuality in various parts of the world and his rejection of hypocritical Victorian mores.

I’ve seen Everett in presenter mode before, in a documentary on Byron a few months ago, and while he can be insufferably irritating, I’ve always quite admired his consistency of personality, This was even more evident in this programme, where he was filmed wandering around Egypt, India and Goa among other places. Whether talking to old ladies in the Indian streets, bantering with nuns in a Goa convent or quizzing an Egyptian masseur on his sexual preferences, Everett didn’t substantially change his personality or delivery to fit in with his surroundings. Even when quizzing an imam on the position of homosexuality in Islam (unsurprisingly, verboten!), he was still himself, understandably a heavily dialled-down version for his own safety, but essentially unchanged. The almost jarring sight of a Western person just being relaxed and normal in foreign countries shows us how most TV presenters (and many travellers) take on a fake, simplified persona to interact with ‘natives’. Does this spring from lack of confidence in one’s own personality, or a persistent Western concept of darker-skinned people as eternally ‘other’? Probably a bit of both.

Somebody like Everett, who is clearly an unapologetic egoist, simply doesn’t think to behave any differently – he does not seem hamstrung by post-colonial guilt, which ironically causes many British travellers to be more condescending to their former subjects than if they weren’t plagued by it. The only other TV personality I can think of who displays the same unselfconsciousness is Hector Ó hEochagháin, who shares Everett’s qualities of being intensely annoying and deeply engaging. I remember seeing him in a travel programme where he crossed part of the Sahara, and was struck by the ease with which he interacted with the men accompanying him, drinking and bantering around the campfire. It shouldn’t be striking to see a group of people from different countries interacting normally, but western attitudes and the disparity of wealth between the First and Third Worlds usually places a stranglehold on normality.

Burton found it very easy to interact in the various countries he lived in, mainly due to his skill in assimilating. Local prostitutes (male and female) and mistresses taught him about a world of sexuality miles away from the whalebone corsets of his upbringing. However the key issue of sexual relationships between people of vastly differing wealth appears to have changed little since his time. In the documentary, an unnamed Egyptian masseur gave insight into this as he tried to entice Everett into a ‘hard sex’ or ‘soft sex’ massage. Politely deflecting the proposition, Everett asked the man if he liked men or women, who replied that he preferred women. When Everett asked how he could perform sex acts on men if he was not homosexual, the man seemed confused and replied ‘it’s my job.’ Therein lies the key issue in relationships that cross these kinds of boundaries. Even outside the world of prostitution, how often do the people from the poorer countries actually love their richer partners, and how much of the attachment is driven by monetary need? Is their even a division in the mind of a very poor person between loving attachment and financial security? How much does the richer partner even mind if their lover really cares for them or not? Is a separate homosexual identity a purely western invention, when a married man with children living in a poor country sees no discord in performing sex acts on other men for money?

There’s no doubt that some cross-cultural relationships work very well, but it seems that in many of them a certain amount of delusion is required on the part of the richer partner that they won’t be abandoned if the money runs out. This sounds like an offensive cliché, but I don’t mean it that way at all – primarily it’s not cultural reasons that lead to this disparity in expectations, but simple economics. It’s impossible to underestimate the effect poverty has in shaping personality, and the same for wealth. Coming from a middle-class background, there are dozens of things I used to take for granted – the idea that people can follow any career they wish, that the norm for romantic relationships is financial and gender equality, that only ‘bad’ people commit violent crime – but these assumptions are founded on the comfortable base of coming from generations of professionals who worked hard to give me such an easy view of the world. There’s no shame in coming from such a background, but it’s crucially important to recognise that our views on life are often hopelessly narrow and things sometimes assumed to be universal are impossible for thousands of people, due to the financial inequality of the world. I could be biologically the same person but I would have vastly different views of the world, life, work, marriage and my sense of self if I had been born in Calcutta, Burundi or even deprived parts of Dublin.

The scandals involving the poet Cathal Ó Searcaigh and his Nepalese boyfriends showed how little has changed since Burton’s day. From watching the documentary, it seemed fairly obvious that few, if any of the young men would have identified as homosexual in the Western sense, but they were happy to play that role (and the role of obsequious, shoe-cleaning servants) for their rich white benefactor. Again, the lines between avarice and affection seemed blurred – the men were not in love with Ó Searcaigh, but they had affection for him nonetheless. From the poet’s point of view, it didn’t seem to matter a great deal to him whether they cared deeply for him or not. The documentary on Ó Searcaigh was keen to portray the Nepalese boys as helpless victims of an evil predator, but this was simplistic and condescending – it seems unlikely they were not at least partly driven by personal gain. The relationships were essentially exploitative, but not hugely more so than many so-called ‘equal’ Western marriages. Maybe the real scandal should be that an economic situation still prevails in the world that allows such relationships to thrive.

It makes sense that Little Lamb Dragonfly, a certified j/p pining tune, contains a musical echo of a Beatles song.

It's considerably less clear why the song in question is..... Rocky Raccoon