The cycle of a year is a wonderful thing. Trees grow and wilt, rivers ebb and flow, and every
winter, Gæa blankets Herself in a snowy coat. All across Europe, people
gather together, huddling around, exchanging gifts. Most would call it Christmas.
For us? Well… Io Saturnalia!
It’s time for the second annual Satyrs’ Forest Lords of Misrule! In the spirit of
the topsy-turvy season, i’m putting you in charge of the site.
If you write or put together something — absolutely anything — and email it to
misrule@satyrs.eu, come Saturnalia (that’s December 17 to 23, for those who aren’t up to
date with their ancient festivals) i’ll put it up on the site, both on the blog and on its own
dedicated, permanent subpage, etched in stone for all to see.
Like last year, i would ask that you refrain from political polemics or anything that would get this
noble forest in legal trouble. Apart from that, anything goes. Your gran’s chocolate cake recipe? An
impassioned defence of Freddy Got Fingered as an ironic masterpiece? Hell, i’ll even let
you vandalise one of the permanent pages for a bit if you ask me to. Whatever you — my lords of
misrule — want.
You can submit your entries from today until the 16th of December, 2021. Have fun, and don’t be
afraid to get weird with it!
The tail end of the room which houses the Central Library’s extensive music collection.
Manchester’s influences on British culture and life spread far and wide — music, politics, industry,
TV — but it’s fair to say it’s not exactly renowned for its literary
output. And yet, nevertheless, i found myself wandering the halls of two great libraries in
Cottonopolis.
The first and grander of the two is the Manchester Central Library, whose imposing
hall first squat itself upon St Peter’s Square in 1934. Upon walking in, there are a number of
things the discerning visitor might notice. Hir eyes might wander upwards to the expertly crafted
stained-glass window of Shakespeare and his protagonists, or all the way up to the ceiling,
generously coated with the arms of authorities priestly, princely, and popular. Or, if our
hypothetical visitor is a Geordie, shi might instead notice some things that the rest of the
country’s eyes would gloss over: clean, well-designed signage; sleek open space; swooshy modern
æsthetics… All paid for out of the council’s pockets.
There are no decaying bridges, no council computers running Windows XP,
no decade-old untouched brownfields. When ministers talk a big game about “levelling up the North”,
this is the North they’re talking about. Cumbria? Newcastle? Middlesbrough? Isn’t that in Scotland?
It’s best not to dwell on these things (for cynicism doesn’t do the mind good), but one can’t help
but feel like they’re rubbing it in.
The Central Library is a treasure trove. It houses an impressive collection of musical
paraphernalia, from sheet music to encyclo-glee-diæ to biographies of Saint Noel Gallagher. Its
central atrium is home to the “archives plus”, where Mancunians can drill into their city’s history
without needing to be fluent in acadamese. The reference library on the upper floors is so tightly
packed that it uses mechanical bookshelves which reveal themselves with the push of a button. By all
accounts, it serves the people of Manchester well. Perhaps that’s the problem: for a tourist like
me, it’s hard not to get jealous.
The Portico Library is an older, humbler affair, constructed at the height of the
industrial revolution and taking up but the first floor of its classically-inspired building. Anyone
can enter, but i’m afraid the full collection is a members-only joint; my group were just here to
check out a book a family friend had paid to be restored. (A page fell out while we were handling
it. Whoops!)
While the back catalogues might be off limits to us plebes, there’s still plenty to pique the
passing itinerant’s interest. The central hall is still decorated in its original homely Victorian
fashion, having a delightfully idiosyncratic way of catalogueing its books: “biography”, “travels
and voyages”, and “polite fiction” (a vestige of the time when the middle classes were still joining
“polite” society).
An exhibition of architectural art circles the middle seating area. While much of it was the usual
arty bollocks, i found myself captured by the adorable cardboard houses of Thu Le Ha, an artist and
volunteer at the library. Ms Ha has a vanishingly small online footprint, but i hope she keeps at it
— this is the sort of thing the world needs more of! Cute little whimsy.
And that’s all i wrote. Next up, some less wordy centres of Mancunian culture.
P.S. On the way back from the Sigur Rós gig, we bore witness to a throng
of teenyboppers and weary parents making their way back from a different gig held at the famous
Arena. What could possibly inspire such turnout from such a young crowd: Taylor Swift? Olivia
Rodrigo? Some K-pop act i’d never heard of? Nope — they were there to
see the Backstreet Boys.
Seen on the way back home from Manchester — why on earth would you call your logistics company
“Discordia”? It’s like calling an airline “Icarus”. Just asking for trouble.
Is there any song more melancholic, and yet, so hypnotically addictive, as
“Golden Brown”? Something about that
harpsichord just sends me to another world.
Hello. I’ve been to Manchester. I thought i might tell you about it. Wait no come back i promise
this isn't just showing you my holiday ph
The last time i went to that wonderful southern city, i was hardly ten years old, and hadn’t much of
a chance to explore — a mistake i was itching to rectify this go around. Over the next few days i’ll
be sharing some of the things i saw, heard, and third verb goes here.
First things first, our trip’s raison d’être: Sigur Rós were on a world tour, and though
they might not have been schlepping up to Newcastle, i sure as hell wasn’t going to miss the chance
to see them.
Sigur Rós are a post-rock band, and their gig made clear that it’s with a strong emphasis on the
“post-”. It was an all-seated audience, with vanishingly little banter from the band (one has to
imagine they’re not 100% confident in their English), excepting a brief pantomime bit at the end of
„Andvari”. No complaints from me, though: a laid-back, almost classical atmosphere quite befits
their ætheral soundscapes. I mean, could you imagine people going wild in the pit to „Vaka”?
As „Popplagið” came to a close and everyone shuffled out the venue’s doors, i noticed a curious item
at the merch table: an officially licensed Sigur Rós tea and incense kit. What a world we live in.
(I didn’t buy it — there was only one left, and i probably wouldn’t be the one to make the most use
out of it.)
MAN WAS NOT MEANT TO LIVE LIKE THIS
As an official, Lisa Nandy–certified resident of a Town™, i was left slightly dumbstruck and
intimidated by the dense forest of tall buildings that is Manchester’s city centre. Sure, it’s not
like i’m a stranger to the idea of a city, but of the two big cities i have most haunted
over the years , Newcastle only has a stumpy luxury apartment and a few council houses strewn about
the suburbs, while Amsterdam’s skyscraper district is sectioned off behind the other side of a ring
road, far from the centre of town.
But Manchester? Nay — Manchester is England’s second city, and they’ll show it any way they like!
Dozens upon dozens of architectural phalli jut up from the ground in all directions, a veritable
orgy of capital. I pray thee, have we as a species learnt nothing from the tales of Icarus and the
Tower of Babel? Nothing‽ This is hubris writ large, i tell you!
Or, you know, something like that. Their green spaces don’t even have cows.
They both serve the same purpose, really, but i just want to rub in that where we up north has a
fully-fledged metro, Manchester merely has to do with trams. Sure, ours might be
delayed every five minutes, and theirs might be uber-reliable and extend throughout the urban area,
but who’s really winning?
(I don’t actually know or care which Gallagher is which. Apologies.)
Manchester has no shortage of iconic residents — Morrissey, Danny Boyle, Burgess, Wanksy — but
Mancunians have taken it upon themselves to idolise two people above all else. Everywhere you look,
there are statues, plaques, and posters in their memory.
The first is Emmeline Pankhurst. An early leader of the suffragette movement, she and her allies
often used violent tactics to get their way, from breaking windows all the way up to arson. You can
see why the left-wing, industrial city, birthplace of the labour movement, would be proud to honour
her.
The other is Noel Gallagher.
Naturally.
Does anyone else think the guitar riff from “21 Guns” sounds like the Full House theme, or
am i just crazy?
Watching The Fifth Element1 recently had me thinking,
naturally, about Russian pop singer Vitas’ 1999 classic
“The Seventh Element”, which is far catchier than it really deserves to be. [4′]
ALRIGHT BUCKO IT’S FUCKING NOVEMBER, PUT YOUR GODDAMNED HANDS UP!
MARIAH CAREY IS DEFROSTING RIGHT FUCKING NOW AND THERE’S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT
THIS FUCKING HALLOWE’EN SHIT IS OVER MERRY CHRISTMAS I WANT YOU TO REPEAT
AFTER ME “MERRY CHRISTMAS” RIGHT NOW AND I’M NOT LETTING YOU GO UNTIL YOU DO IT
MERRRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU TOO
NOW YOU MIGHT BE WONDERING WHY I’VE BROUGHT YOU HERE TODAY AND THERE’S ONE SIMPLE REASON. THE WAR ON
CHRISTMAS? IT’S FAKE. IT’S A FUCKING PSYOP. WE’RE RECRUITING YOU INTO THE REAL WAR.
THE WAR ON SANTA CLAUS.
THIS RAT FUCKING BASTARD SANTA IS AGGLOMERATING CHRISTMAS INTO ONE CORPORATISED YANKEE MEGATRADITION
AND THIS CANNOT STAND! FATHER CHRISTMAS IS THE REAL ONE. SINTERKLAAS AND HIS WEIRD RACIST FRIENDS
ARE THE REAL ONES. SATURN IS WEIRD BUT WE KIND OF STOLE HIS SHTICK AND ALSO WE’RE PRETTY SURE HE’D
EAT US IF WE DIDN’T LEAVE HIM BE. DED MOROZ IS STAYING. BUT SANTA CLAUS? WE’RE KILLING THAT
ELF-ENSLAVING ASSHOLE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9jbdgZidu8
YOUR SOUNDTRACK FOR THIS MISSION WILL BE “FAIRYTALE OF NEW YORK”, PLAYED ON REPEAT FOR SEVENTY-TWO
HOURS STRAIGHT. THIS IS BECUASE SANTA IS HOMOPHOBIC AND YOU NEED TO GET ACCLIMATISED TO HIM CALLING
YOU A WELL YOU KNOW
WE HAVE LASER EYES POWERED BY THE MAGIC OF CHRISTMAS AND WE ARE NOT AFRAID TO USE THEM
AND AFTER WE’RE DONE, OH TRUST ME BUCKO, WE’RE NOT STOPPING THERE. YOU THINK NOVEMBER IS BAD? WE’RE
GONNA EXTEND CHRISTMAS SEASON TO ALL YEAR ROUND. HALLOWE’EN? YOU MEAN PRECHRISTMAS? SUMMER HOLIDAYS?
YOU MEAN CHRISTMAS IN JULY??? THAT’S RIGHT FUCKER IT’S CHRISTMAS EVERY DAY THE PROPHECY IS TRUE
MERRY CHRISTMAS
I was bored the other day, so i thought i’d go see a film. The problem, my dear readers, is that i
have this terribly unlucky habit: 70% of the time, when i go see a film at the cinema, it’s not very
good — and i can confirm that Don’t Worry Darling is, indeed, not very good.
If you’ve heard anything about Don’t Worry Darling, it’ll be about the juicy, juicy
behind-the-scenes drama, involving saucy affairs between director Olivia Wilde and the film’s
leading male star, an exasperated Chris Pine, and Shia LaBeouf. But we’re not going to be talking
about any of that — instead, we’ll be talking about the topic everyone is desperately avoiding: the
movie itself. Oh dear.
The film boils down to a thin Truman Show pastiche following a troubled couple in an
idyllic American suburb, wherein a 1950s housewife, imaginatively named Alice Warren, questions what
her controlling husband, the inexplicably British Jack Chambers, actually does at his mysterious
government job. The wonderful Florence Pugh, hot off of 2019’s Midsommar, gives her all with the
script she’s given as Alice, and is easily one of the standout parts of the film. Jack, on the other
hand… Jack is played by Harry Styles, a man who should not act. (Every pop star nowadays seems to
think they can walk the tightrope between music and cinema as easily as Lady Gaga does, and it never
quite seems to work out for them.)
So, let’s put ourselves in Ms Wilde’s shoes. You have one common plot structure, one brilliant lead
actress, and one so-so lead actor. How do you make this movie… good?
Well, first you load up the secondary cast with talented people. KiKi Lane and Chris Pine both
absolutely kill it in their respective roles — Margaret, a troubled neighbour to Alice, and Frank,
Jack’s hammy villainous boss — but neither character feels fully fleshed out; Mr Pine in particular
finds himself with not much to do despite ostensibly being the driving force behind the plot.
You can also pour piles upon piles of money into your film’s technical aspects. The quaint suburb in
which Jack and Alice live is designed to within an inch of its life, and every shot is clear, crisp,
and packed with colour while not being too overbearing — like a James Bond film or, if you’re being
unkind, a perfume commercial.
Alright. You’ve got your cast, you’ve got your style, now you just need to… ah, god, what was it?
You look down at the smudged writing on your hand — ah, yes, the script! You have to write a script,
with, like, a plot and stuff.
You wake up from a terrible dream. You are no longer Olivia Wilde. You are once again the handsome
reader of the blog of an even handsomer webmixter, who politely informs you that the film’s
one-block-wide Jenga tower of a storyline, while it seemed to be setting up for an interesting
conclusion, falls apart completely in the third act. The film’s writers pull out every cliché in the
book — “it was all in VR!” “our protagonist’s best friend was in on it!”
“if you die in the game you die in real life!” — in the space of about ten minutes, with barely any
of it given room to breathe. (In fact, that third revelation comes after a pivotal death
scene.) Just as the audience wonders what impact this will have on the plot going forward, the film
just… ends, with a distinctly unsatisfying resolution to our hero’s story, and an air of “well why
did they even bother?” about the villainous plot.
All in all, i really can’t recommend watching Don’t Worry Darling — perhaps catch it on
streaming when it comes out if it piques your interest, but don’t spend your heard-earned Lizzies on
going to the cinema to watch Harry Styles gaslight his wife for an hour and a half. (5/10)
Pass notes: some other films of note
See How They Run is a fun, Wes Anderson–lite romp of a mystery story that
gets in and out and does what it needs without making too much of a fuss about itself. Saoirse Ronan
and Sam Rockwell drive around in a tiny blue ’50s police car; what more could you possibly want?
(7½/10)
The Woman King is a fine enough (alternate-)historical epic carried on the
backs of some terrific performances by Thuso Mbedu and Viola Davis. (6/10)
I wasn’t expecting to be so spellbound by a seventy-year-old drama film of a bunch of people talking
in a room, but i absolutely could not take my eyes off of 12 Angry Men, which you should really just go watch right now. (9/10)
I’ve decided that HRT, and all other
drugs and techniques which can be used to express one’s right to freedom of form, should not only be
available over-the-counter, but government-subsidised to ensure equal access for all.
I have to say, it gets on my nerves when, on my regular surfing sessions across the high seas of the
web, i see a cool-looking website… and then its only content is just about how much its creator
misses Le Old Web before they invented capitalism or whatever.1
There’s certainly room for meta-puffery about the internet (i wouldn’t have made this site what it
is without Kicks Condor doing exactly that), but after a
dozen sites in a row all moaning the same moan without an original insight in sight, it starts to
get tired. I’m begging you, just write about gardening or the Bible or Zootopia fanfiction
or something!
What makes the free web beautiful is the sheer diversity in the topics covered and how people’s
little idiosyncracies and quirks and interests shine through — it saddens me how most sites in the
“old web” (did it ever really go away?) revival movement are doing nothing but lamenting their own
existence.
Pleased to say that the new 1975 album is
indeed the greatest album ever made.
I was originally going to post this excerpt from William Shatner’s new memoir, printed in
Variety, alongside the usual link roundup, but something about it touched me enough to give
it its own post.
Mr Shatner, in his own words, on his first trip to space:
I continued my self-guided tour and turned my head to face the other direction, to stare into
space. I love the mystery of the universe. I love all the questions that have come to us over
thousands of years of exploration and hypotheses. Stars exploding years ago, their light
traveling to us years later; black holes absorbing energy; satellites showing us entire galaxies
in areas thought to be devoid of matter entirely… all of that has thrilled me for years…
but when I looked in the opposite direction, into space, there was no mystery, no majestic
awe to behold … all I saw was death.
I saw a cold, dark, black emptiness. It was unlike any blackness you can see or feel on Earth.
It was deep, enveloping, all-encompassing. I turned back toward the light of home. I could see
the curvature of Earth, the beige of the desert, the white of the clouds and the blue of the
sky.
It was life. Nurturing, sustaining, life. Mother Earth. Gaia.
And I was leaving her. […]
It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered. The
contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me
with overwhelming sadness. Every day, we are confronted with the knowledge of further
destruction of Earth at our hands: the extinction of animal species, of flora and fauna … things
that took five billion years to evolve, and suddenly we will never see them again because of the
interference of mankind. It filled me with dread. My trip to space was supposed to be a
celebration; instead, it felt like a funeral.
Upon returning to earth, and trying to put his story into words for the first time, he was, as you
may remember, bluntly cut off by Jeff Bezos, asking for more champagne:
Holy shit, they found silphium!
I hope some day, many years down the line, when cultivation comes to fruition, we can all
finally taste this ancient spice.
