Culture and Swearing

What with our impenetrable anonymity (see the final photo featured in the Marilyn’s first ever post: as I say, impenetrable), the following might surprise you. But we get asked all the time – literally all the goddam time – what ‘Culture and Swearing’, our subtitle, our tagline, our afterthought, our surname actually, y’know, means like. Is it mere pithily expressed provocativeness? Does it attempt to bridge a mutually exclusive binary? Is culture ordinary? Is swearing extraordinary? And so on.

And so forth.

Now, to answer such questions explicitly would be to miss the point rather – such coarse and unelaborate behaviour is the preserve of, I don’t know, fags obsessed with ‘books’ and ‘polemic’, fucking Welshmen like Raymond Williams, those sort of fags. We, on the other hand, concern ourselves with the elegant and the epigrammatical, responses that offer you, the reader, an opportunity to formulate meanings of your own within a broad intellectual framework constructed and, compassionately of course, policed by us, the fathers of your children, the masters of your literary wombs. So for the first in what may or may not become a regular feature, let us answer the question in a manner entirely our own:

What is ‘Culture and Swearing’?

‘Culture and Swearing’ is George Bataille’s Story of the Eye.

Aha! George Bataille – a fictional figure conceived by moderately successful willy-exposing weirdos Of Montreal as a means to facilitating easier rhyming within their twelve-minutes-long so-long-it’s-inevitably-regarded-as-a-masterpiece-masterpiece, ‘The Past is a Grotesque Animal’ (a hilariously weak acoustic version can be found here), I hear you cry. “I fell in love with the first cute girl that I met / Who could appreciate George Bataille / Standing at a Swedish festival – discussing Story of the Eye.” I see the culture – but where’s the swearing?

Oho, just you wait fucko. First, though, a bio (thank you Penguin Modern Classics – you didn’t actually think Of Montreal invented him did you? Have you any idea how ridiculous that thought of yours actually was? I hate you): "George Bataille, French essayist and novelist, was born in 1897. He was converted to Catholicism, then to Marxism and was interested in psychoanalysis and mysticism. As curator of the municipal library in Orleans, he led a relatively simple life, although he became involved, usually on the fringes, with the Surrealist movement. He founded the literary review Critique in 1946, which he edited until his death in 1962, and was also founder of the review Documents, which published many of the leading surrealist writers."

He led a relatively simple life? YOU DEGODDAMCIDE::::::::::

Passage the first – bottom of page 12 in the Modern Classics edition:

"Meanwhile, the sky had turned quite thundery, and, with nightfall, huge raindrops began plopping down, bringing relief from the harshness of the torrid, airless day. The sea was loudly raging, outroared by long rumbles of thunder, while flashes of lightning, bright as day, kept brusquely revealing the two pleasured cunts of the now silent girls. A brutal frenzy drove our three bodies. Two young mouths fought over my arse, my balls, and my cock, but I still kept pushing apart female legs wet with saliva and come, splaying them as if writhing out of a monster’s grip, and yet the monster was nothing but the utter violence of my movements. The hot rain was finally pouring down and streaming over fully exposed bodies. Huge booms of thunder shook us, heightening our fury, wresting forth our cries of rage, which each flash accompanied with a glimpse of our sexual parts. Simone had found a mud puddle, and was smearing herself wildly: she was jerking off with the earth and coming violently, whipped by the downpour, my head locked in her soil-covered legs, her face wallowing in the puddle, where she was brutally churning Marcelle’s cunt, one arm around Marcelle’s hips, the hand yanking the thigh, forcing it open."

Passage the second – top of page 17:

"She wanted to toss off in the wardrobe and was pleading to be left in peace.

"I ought to say that we were all very drunk and completely bowled over by what was going on. The naked boy was being sucked by a girl. Simone, standing with her dress tucked up, was rubbing her bare cunt against the wardrobe, in which a girl was audibly masturbating with brutal gasps. And all at once, something incredible happened, a strange swish of water, followed by a trickle and a stream from under the wardrobe door: poor Marcelle was pissing in her wardrobe while masturbating. But the explosion of drunken guffaws that ensued rapidly degenerated into a debauch of tumbling bodies, lofty legs and arses, wet skirts and come. Guffaws emerged like foolish and involuntary hiccups but scarcely managed to interrupt a brutal onslaught on cunts and cocks…I was pale, smeared with blood, my clothes askew. During the orgy, splinters of glass had left deep bleeding cuts in two of us. A young girl was throwing up…The resulting smell stench of blood, sperm, urine and vomit made me almost recoil in terror."

Thank you to Joachim Neugroschal, translator. Next week, The Marquis, John Rochester or the fuck scene from Season 1 of the Wire.

Vassell's World Update

So, top news on Darius’ blog: he’s grown a beard. Yes it’s true a beard. That’s all I’m going to say. Just read below.

“Friday 29th January 2010

MY BEARD


Ok folks i know, i look rough.. My beard is getting out of hand... I tried to sms message my hairdresser but my instructions in Turkish were obviously never going to cut it (pardon the pun) lol
I wrote -Husam, Vassell. Haydi lutfen. tiras eden elektriksel Makas. Sakal choc uzun....
It was meant to translate - Husam its Vassell, come please? bring electric shavers, my beard is too long...
At least im trying though..
One thing that ive been impressed with in Turkey are the Turkish shaves, my skin normally too sensitive for a razor i tend to get razor bumps but ive never once had that problem when being shaven by Turkish Hairdressers…”

On top of this a follower of the blog claimed Darius looked like Kimbo Slice. We're definately not sure, but it is funny so decide for yourselves:





Just great. The pain and empathy we feel only increases in time as we follow this blog. Oh, and in other news…

“25th December 2009

Merry Christmas!!! Today my Partner Amani agreed to marry me!!! Another major step in my life, our families anticipate all the good things as we plan our future together!!!”

We really, really help it works out.

Being nice about Artists instead of being mean about them.

Here at the Mansion we are well aware of our tendency to sneer and turn out digital noses up at everything and anything that crosses our path. We are also hyper-aware that everyone can recognise that this is but a thinly veiled defense mechanism, born out of a heady concoction of contempt, laziness and a crippling fear of rejection.

With this in mind, we thought it might be time to mention something that we actually like as opposed to loathe. Below are some video and digital artists/projects that get us hyped up. Some of these artists for people who know anything about video art in particular, may induce an eye roll coupled with a 'well duh' response, so consider this a small starting point and introduction to digital and media art.

Bill Viola

Bill Viola is probably the most influential video artist living today. His works spans from the mid seventies up to, well, now. Initially his work concerned the documentation and exploration of highly personal events in his life, such as his near fatal drowning and the death of his mother. The latter, entitled The Passing, became somewhat of a breakthrough and captured the traumatic event as it unfolded.

His work now uses high definition cameras that capture images in a highly detailed slow motion. The Passions, which invoke religious works of art, have been screened all over the world, often being held in Cathedrals. The work is then projected onto varying surfaces such as smoke and water. Anyway, here's Bill talking with The Tate about Ocean without a Shore from a few years ago.

The Reflecting Pool- Bill Viola.

 

Martin Arnold

Martin Arnold, the Austrian born filmmaker, has a background in psychoanalysis and fine art. He uses found material from classic Hollywood cinema and applies editing techniques as a means by which to reveal repressed and neurotic counter narratives. The most notable of his works are Piece Touchée, Passage a'lacte and Alone: Life Wastes Andy Hardy. He's been a little quiet as of late but these works still have us here scratching our heads. The strength of the work is that as apposed to presenting representations of madness, hysteria, and neurosis, he takes their very characteristics and undoes the original material with them as tools. Plus they're super funny in places.

UNSW: iCinema- T-Visionarium 

 This is a project established at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. This video explains the work fairly well so we won't go on too much. However, it is worth mentioning the importance of this work in the field of interactive digital art. It looks quite a lot like Minority Report except no Tom Cruise or drunk Colin Farrell. The user is able to interact with thousands of video clips from Australian television and reconfigure them together with others in any sequence they want. It's amazing and really pushes the boundaries of interactivity, combing both the digital and televisual.

Alex Roman- The Third, and The Seventh.

This is all C.G.I. Drink that in for a minute. Every bit of it is C.G.I. We're trying to think of something clever to say.......... Nope. This is going to take a while to get our heads round. Stunning work.

Chunky Move- Glow.

Chunky Move are a Melbourne based group who integrate advanced projection technologies and dance. Big Phil Auslander claims in Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture that Dance+Virtual=Virtual. We claim that Dance+Virtual=Awesome. In their work Glow the space between performer and the virtual is distorted inducing spacial disorientation. Their piece Mortal Engine is touring this year so check them out.

    

So there's a few Artists who we like. There's plenty of great new work coming out and with technology getting crazy there's a lot of potential for interactive art to really take on a new shape in the digital realm.

If you have any other suggestions, throw down some comments and link us to their work, we're always psyched to find out about new artists. 

The Marilyn Mansion on The River Cottage

Jerusalem artichoke and nettle gratin

Taken from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage Everyday (a great Christmas present from some thoughtful parents) this recipe seemed apt after—in true River Cottage style—we had got our hands upon some locally-grown Jerusalem artichokes, picked three days before from an allotment in Leamington Spa. Though, being few in number the artichokes were supplemented with potatoes sliced and cut in the same way. Also in this vein the walnuts taken from a tree in one of our gardens while the rest of the ingredients were taken from the Co-op next door. If we seem smug then that’s because, to be honest, it’s great. So here it is taken verbatim from Everyday (publication laws probably flaunted):

“Heat the oil and butter in a frying pan, add the onions and garlic and cook gently until soft and starting to take on a little colour. [Colour meaning brown.] Add the artichokes and thyme, [We only had dried sadly.] then season well with salt and pepper. Cook, tossing occasionally, for 5 minutes.

Pour over cream and water or stock and simmer gently until the liquid has reduced by half. [This took a surprisingly long time—around twenty minutes.] Stir in the nettles or spinach, then transfer everything to a greased gratin dish, levelling out as you go. [We did the whole thing in a large Le Creuset so no transfer was need—this seemed to work out fine.]

Mix all the topping ingredients together. Sprinkle over the artichoke mixture and bake in an oven preheated to 190°C/ Gas Mark 5 for 25-30 minutes, until golden and bubbling.

Serves 4:

1 tablespoon sunflower oil

A knob of butter

2 onions, finely sliced

3 garlic cloves, sliced

500g Jerusalem artichokes, peeled and cut into 3mm thick rounds

1 teaspoon chopped thyme

200ml double cream

100ml vegetable stock or water

100g fresh nettle tops or spinach roughly chopped

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the topping:

A handful of porridge oats

3 thick slices of stale bread, torn into little pieces

½ handful of walnuts, toasted, bashed, skinned into rough pieces [We didn’t have a nutcracker and our attempts to crack the walnuts on each other really quite hurt our palms so a hammer was employed. With effective results.]

25g butter, melted

30g Cheddar cheese, grated”

A pleasantly filling meal that adequately did the trick for 4 Mansion-dwellers as a main course. The topping worked to give some crunch to the softer base which led to the description of the dish as a “savoury crumble” by the diners. The dauphinoise-equse roots took up the creamy texture of the sauce in which they stewed, however some potatoes seemed to be noticeably harder than others. Whether we needed to stir more when the sauce was reducing to ensure they were covered we’re not sure—but this really is nit-picking in retrospect. It's all a pretty cheap dish and taking into account the substitutions should be readily available to everyone.

[Oh, also an interesting anecdote came up during conversation: did you know that seaweed in Chinese restaurants is more often than not just salted cabbage? What a fucking jip.]

We’ll be continuing this focus on our culinary practices in the future. Watch this space to expand your digestive horizons as we do the same.

Two Videos from the Vault

The internet is a place for video-picture. So much so, its easy to forget that computers before the internet sometimes did things too, and that those things were often being done by a skilled technical operator, working hard on the other end of a mouse or keyboard, often for whole days without sleep.

bpNichol was a poet of computers - old computers. Modern computers couldn't translate what his scheme was, until it was recently converted and made suitable for the eyes OF TODAY. Now, you just have to press play. Genuine information on this man, bpNichol is available here, on your friend, Wikipedia.

Here is a video of his making:

bpNichol - First Screening from Anon. on Vimeo.

For interested people, this blog has more information on bpnichol.

Compare and contrast with this video of a cat eating spaghetti. Skip to 40s and BE AMAZED!

On Fashion: Male attire (finally) arrives in the 21st Century

Men's suits have long failed to provide invention. The adage that one can simply arrange the (very few) pieced jigsaw together and it's all done has proven true--until recently. Take these few examples:

#1- That guy from those coffee adverts has gone for the 'two shirt-buttons open' look combined with the bursting beard one would normally see on an itinerant folk singer, or perhaps a manchild with the hormones of a Jamaican youth sprinter:




#2- Then there's the sheen-coated, different coloured collar that this staid-dressed Birmingham bar manager has chosen. Note the bored face that bespeaks of a man dissatisfied with his suit:




#3- This haggard old man from--we think--Steptoe and Son has gone for the 50s nostalgia look, sadly it's pretty terrible:




#4- However, a few years past a half-man/ half-leprechaun hinted at the future. Many laughed at this goblin-man's choice of clothing. They guffawed as how this humanoid parodied our boring suits so well, how this comedy genius hit the zeitgeist. Little did they know that he was the harbinger of the future:




#5- Holy Piss-Fuck! We said when this under-21s Angolan football star emerged for training during the on-going 2010 African Cup of Nations. With a blazer the colour of a rich Bordeaux and 3 day-old bruises; lapels so thin and straight kept so with inset 30cm rulers; a pair of trousers high enough to tickle his nipples thus ensuring (beneath the jacket) they are always fiercely erect to denote heightened masculinity:



So, here be the future men of the world. Be aware. You heard it here first.

Warren Beatty: 12,775

So, it appears one Warren Beatty in his life had been up to-, or with-, a lot (nudge, nudge, wink, wink [sorry]). In fact it is claimed has has slept with over 12,ooo women in his life. Ponder that if you will...

Other 12,000s:

• A girl that sneezes over 12,000 time a day...
• The world is now the hottest that it has been in 12,000 years...
• Apparently, 12,000 Gurkhas could arrive in the UK with "nothing"...
• Lockheed Martin are cutting 12,000 jobs it was announced today...