The Islanders - Pascal Garnier

 THE ISLANDERS - PASCAL GARNIER

I should by now have learnt my lesson and know not to be swayed into buying and reading a book based on the blurbs on the cover but what can you do? I'm a sucker for this stuff and though a hardened cynic when quotes from reviews are used to sell something, my defenses sometimes fall and in I go. In for a penny, in for a pound.

The Islanders by Pascal Garnier and no, I've never heard of him either but apparently he's the prize-winning author of more than sixty books and a once leading figure in contemporary French literature. Born in Paris in 1949 and died in 2010.

According to the Sunday Times, The Islanders is 'A dark, richly odd and disconcerting world... devastating and brilliant'. According to the Financial Times, it's 'A mixture of Albert Camus and JG Ballard'. Well, that did it. I was going to have to read it now.

Like in a Robert Altman movie, the main characters are introduced one by one and we see how their lives are either already entwined or become entwined. There's Olivier, whose mother has recently passed away and he's travelling to Versailles for her funeral and to sort out her estate. There's Roland, a young homeless man. And there's brother and sister Jeanne and Rodolphe who share an apartment together. Rodolphe is blind and Jeanne looks after him. When their lives collide, tragedy unfolds and murder is the game both past and present.

Beyond this, it's hard to say too much about the plot as it would give too much away. Too many spoilers spoil the broth, you might say? If, however, you like your noir as cold as a new razor blade then Pascal Garnier's your man. Cynicism, fatalism, moral ambiguity, it's all here.

I'd say there are echoes here too of Jean Cocteau's 'Les Enfants Terribles' and Gilbert Adair's 'The Dreamers' (perhaps more widely known by Bernardo Bertolucci's film version of it starring Eva Green?). It's in the way that civilization breaks down within four walls of a house and how another world is born bearing very little resemblance to what has gone before.

Pascal Garnier's The Islanders is a book of interest. Whilst not really on the same level as Camus or Ballard, it's still a good read. Noteworthy, might be a better way of putting it? A significant player.

John Serpico

Beautiful Chaos: The Psychedelic Furs - Dave Thompson

 BEAUTIFUL CHAOS: THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS -

DAVE THOMPSON

How to explain the Psychedelic Furs? How to put into words? Well, firstly let's break them down a bit because as with the life of many bands there are phases, usually dictated by changes in line-up. With the Psychedelic Furs I'd say there are three phases to them. The first phase being their early days, up to the release of their debut album. The second phase being their 'Americanization'  and their subsequent mainstream success following the Pretty In Pink movie. Their third phase is that which followed their splitting up and subsequent reunion - the phase they are still in to this day.

It's the first phase that I'm mostly interested in because during that time I believe the Psychedelic Furs were tuning in to something very special. Something that was beyond words. Something unspoken. The audience they were attracting was essentially a punk one, although the kind of punks who had a very refined taste in what they considered to be 'good punk'. And remember, this was at a time when punk was a broad church.

Those who appreciated the Psychedelic Furs might also for example like Crass, early Antz, Poison Girls, Crisis, early UK Subs, Chelsea and the Lurkers. The kind of bands that still possessed a punk spirit. Bands who like moths drawn to a flame, continued to orbit around the punk ideas of individualism, outsider art, and - for want of a better word - belief. Fundamental belief. Punk was a word trying to describe a feeling, as Mark Perry once put it, and the Psychedelic Furs in their early days were very much a punk band though to recognise this took a certain awareness of the fact that punk was multifarious, multifaceted and multidimensional.

Like all the best and most interesting bands, the music press hated them - which in itself was always a good sign. The abuse heaped on them by music journalists being at times the equivalent of what was always heaped upon Crass and early Adam And The Antz: 'Psychedelic Furs give being bad a bad name', as Sounds music newspaper declared, as a typical example.

Almost every time the Furs were written about there was also an inevitable mention of the Velvet Underground, as though to have been influenced by the Velvets was somehow a bad thing. Yes, the Psychedelic Furs wore their influences on their sleeves but when those influences are the Velvet Underground, Bowie and the Sex Pistols, then they are not only good influences but ones to be worn proudly.

Very few journalists, however, seemed to pick up on and give much thought to the influence upon the Psychedelic Furs of the 1960s. The name of the band in itself would have rang alarm bells but it was hardly ever delved into. The music they played couldn't really be described as 'psychedelic' as such (putting aside the question as to whether The Stooges could be called psychedelic) as it was more a bass-driven, forward-moving wall of sound entwined with saxophone and rasping vocals.

The sound they created - the world they created, even - was that of the Sixties being waved goodbye and having the last word on the subject: 'This is the pulse of fools like you, who sound so red and turn so blue. The sound of uselessness in summer, the war is over if you want,' from the song 'Pulse'. Or putting to bed forever the hippy trail to India notion with the line 'Needles on the beach at Goa', from the song 'Fall'.

The summer of love was done. The dream was over. And if the Manson killings and Altamont were the cultural low points of the psychedelic Sixties, the Psychedelic Furs were providing the final comments along with the full-stop at the end of the exclamation mark.

This is all, of course, my own interpretation of what the Psychedelic Furs were about and it's one that differs somewhat from Dave Thompson's in his book Beautiful Chaos: The Psychedelic Furs. But then that's always the beauty of a band when they refuse to explain themselves, or to explain their lyrics. It leaves the audience free to apply their own meanings to the songs and to perceive the band on whatever level suits them.

Thompson's book tells the story of the Psychedelic Furs in a very A to Z manner, starting from the witnessing of the Sex Pistols at the 100 Club Punk Festival in 1976, to them achieving the American success they always sought. It is also, however, a classic case of 'For what good is it for a man to gain the world but to lose his soul'.

Come 1987 and there they are, all big hair and shiny suits, touring an album in America, on heavy rotation on MTV, girls down at the front of the stage, cocaine on tap - and coming to the horrific realisation that they are hating every minute of it.

There was always - in their early days in particular - a certain mystique around the Psychedelic Furs that added to them being somewhat apart from other bands of that time who also ended up throwing themselves at America. Think: U2, Simple Minds, The Cure, Depeche Mode, etc. A problem with Dave Thompson's book - though unavoidably so - is that it goes some way in dispelling that mystique. Weirdly, however, there are also a lot of contradictory quotes throughout its pages, so rather than revealing the truth about the Psychedelic Furs it somehow wraps the band up in barbed wire and protects them against too much invasiveness. 

Was vocalist Butler Rep an unacknowledged genius or a pretentious prat? Were the Psychedelic Furs important players in the story of music culture or just an accident of the times who sold their integrity for a swift one off the wrist down on the old main drag? The answer is that we'll probably never really know and it's probably even better if we don't ask because as with the Sixties, when the dream is over all that remains is the memory. And when the memory is tempered with the mother of all hangovers, all that is left is the wreckage and you crawling out from under it.

John Serpico

Fire And Flames - A History Of The German Autonomist Movement - Geronimo

FIRE AND FLAMES - A HISTORY OF THE GERMAN AUTONOMIST MOVEMENT -

GERONIMO

Politics has always been the playground for the rich but more and more it's becoming the courtyard of the prison where the rulers of the roost carve and stake out their areas, and woe betide anyone who crosses the line. There has, however, always been incursions into politics that are uncontrolled and often uncontrollable. One example of this is the Italian Autonomia movement of the 1970s that saw a uniting of students, the unemployed and unskilled workers organizing themselves independently of the traditional workers' unions. These bodies of people weren't interested in reformist mediation via the unions but rather a complete negation of the existing system and the holders of power at all levels within it. Rather than arbitration and moderation, what this led to in Italy was an embracing of militancy, riot and spontaneous revolt as a means to an end.

According to Fire And Flames - A History Of The German Autonomist Movement, 'the theory and praxis of the West German Autonomen of the 1980s can be seen as a second wave of autonomous struggles after the crushing of the Italian Autonomia movement in the late 1970s'. And yes, there is a lineage, and one that I would even argue goes way beyond Germany in the 1980s and into other countries in the 1990s right up to the present day - and England is included in that.

In Germany, one of the largest and most impressive manifestations of the Autonomia movement took place in June of 1987 when 50,000 people gathered in Berlin to protest against the State visit of Ronald Reagan, with 4,000 of them forming an autonomous bloc. Dressed mainly in black, sporting scarves, ski-masks and motorcycle helmets, the bloc made for a mightily impressive sight. Clashes with police and mass rioting, of course, ensued.

The bloc was a coming together of multiple political affiliations, bonding over one specific aim: to protest the Reagan visit in whatever way they saw fit and if that meant attacking police lines then so be it. It was collective, spontaneous, autonomous strength in action. To join and form such a bloc took a particular mindset, one that though organized was essentially anarchist in nature. A mindset that fully understood what Raoul Vaneigem meant when he spoke of the positive in the refusal of constraints.

Beyond the anti-Reagan protest, those in possession of this same autonomist attitude would also be involved in countless other campaigns, protests and alternative forms of living, with West Berlin being arguably the epicentre of radicalism during the 1980s. The strength and successes of the German Autonome lay in the fact that to all intent and purpose it was non-hierarchical. There were plenty of forms of organization, of course, but there was never any central organizing committee. As said in Fire And Flames in its reproduction of the 'Autonomous Theses' 'To this day, the movement has not produced any individual representative, spokesperson, or celebrity. That is, no Antonio Negri, Rudi Dutschke, Cohn Bendit, etc'.

To my knowledge, there hasn't been very many books written about the German Autonomist movement (or at least not in English) so for this reason alone, Fire And Flames is important. One of its strengths is that it's written from the personal experience of the author which means that whilst there are things that are obviously missed out such as cultural influences upon the movement and the involvement and the role of women, you know that what he does write of is more than likely to be factual. Or at least factual as in seen through his eyes.

Interestingly, the book ends in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall which to put it mildly, left everyone reeling not least the Autonomen. There comes a time, it seems, in the journey of every social movement that an event occurs or an impasse is reached and the only question to ask is 'What now?' The end of the (West) Federal Republic of Germany was one such moment: 'It seemed clear that coming to the defense of disappearing nation-states was not very autonomous. But was there anything else to do?'

Whilst all the many squats in Berlin were steadfastly evicted, the black bloc tactic of the German Autonomen - like a genie from its bottle - had been released and would continue to be utilised over the years and throughout the world, particularly in regard to the mass protests against the WTO and G8 summits.  As almost a prelude to these, the Stop The City protests in London during the 1980s can also be linked to the German autonomist movement in the way that both were excluded from the main organizing bodies of the anti-Cruise missile protests of that time.

According to Fire And Flames, in Germany the peace movement with its strong nonviolent ideology distanced itself from the Autonomen, choosing to collaborate instead with the police. In England, the CND leadership did likewise when it came to the Stop The City demonstrations, believing that because Stop The City was unregulated and without any clearly defined structure that it would be too unpredictable, potentially leading to a clash with the police. To have a protest take place in the heart of the financial district of London might also lead to antagonism from those who worked there as any disruption to 'business as usual' might have significant impact on the diverse range of business interests located there. The penny was being dropped but the CND leadership were failing to pick it up.

Fire And Flames is a good book because not only does it go some way in joining the dots between such things as industrial disputes in Italy during the 1970s and the social upheaval in Germany during the 1980s, but it also goes some way in recording a history that over time is being forgotten if not even being erased. 

Know your history, is what I say. For those who fail to remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

John Serpico

The Triple Echo - H E Bates

 THE TRIPLE ECHO - H E BATES

It's my contention that rather than Vanessa Redgrave it should have been Glenda Jackson who starred in Ken Russell's 'The Devils'. She would have made the perfect possessed nun and would probably have been down on the church floor with the rest of them, shedding her robes and cavorting for all she's worth around the pews. In fact, she may well have insisted on it even if it wasn't in the script. For authenticity. 

Oliver Reed and Glenda Jackson made for a good pairing when cast together in Ken Russell's 'Women In Love' though it wasn't until the following year after the release of The Devils that they came together again in the film adaptation of H E Bates' The Triple Echo.

When it comes to films based on books and vice versa, the question always rises as to which is better: the book or the film? Nine times out of ten the book wins but when it comes to The Triple Echo I'd say it's a draw. Both have their merits but then both have their shortcomings. The merits are in the compactness and brevity of the main characters playing out their respective roles against a background of a wide open landscape under a vast sky. The main problem of both is in the story's central premise.

It's World War Two and a 'war widow' whose husband has been taken prisoner by the Japanese is living alone at subsistence level on an isolated farm somewhere in the English countryside. She one day comes upon a young soldier out wandering around on his day off from the local Army barracks, and after no time at all they become lovers.

Together, rather than him going back to his regiment it's decided he should stay with her at the farm, disguising himself as a woman with fake breasts and all. To quell suspicions when anyone asks, she tells them that it's her sister who has come to stay a while.

Into the mix enters another soldier (in the film played by Oliver Reed), a very uncouth and brutish man who takes a shine to the woman's 'sister' and gets 'her' to go to a Christmas Eve dance being held at the barracks. It's at this point that everything starts to unravel. 

On one level, The Triple Echo can be read as a description of one of the more unusual sorrows of war but on another level it can be read a bit more lightly: War! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing apart from men dressing as women only to then invite the amorous advances of Oliver Reed.

Was H E Bates an inhibited and repressed cross-dresser, I wonder? A would-be sweet transvestite? Was him writing The Triple Echo a way of safely coming out of his closet under the guise of fiction? Everyone likes a bit of cross-dressing, for sure. It's only natural. So is The Triple Echo the equivalent of H E Bates sending a message in a bottle, with the hope that it might one day wash up on a shore and lead to his rescue? I think it might be.

John Serpico

Breaking Convention - A Seismic Shift In Psychedelia

 BREAKING CONVENTION -

A SEISMIC SHIFT IN PSYCHEDELIA

And there was I thinking nobody takes drugs seriously these days and that it was all now purely recreational. That all the psychonauts of old have been there and back again, up the hills and down the valleys, through the avenues and alleyways of your mind, my mind and out of their minds. Where the likes of Timothy Leary have been in, out, shaken it all about and done the Hokey Cokey just to find that actually that's what it's all about.

Well, it seems I was wrong and the Breaking Convention symposiums are the proof positive of this, these being biennial events where presentations are given by people of an academic bent in regard to research into psychedelic science and culture. After each symposium a book is then published of essays based on talks given by their authors, Breaking Convention - A Seismic Shift In Psychedelia being one of them.

So what do we have? Well, there are eleven essays here in total, all acting almost as teasers in regard to the specific subject each is alighting on. Acting as precursors to further discussion, consideration and exploration. Adding fuel to the fire and greasing the wheels to keep the train rolling and the party rocking.

As might be expected, the subjects are varied though still all falling under the psychedelia umbrella. Have you ever heard of Psychedelic Feminism? Me neither, but it's a thing and actually it's pretty interesting, the essay here covering Charlotte Bronte, Maria Sabina, and Anais Nin - psychedelic feminists all.

Not so good is the essay regarding the approximation of the near death experience via the consumption of magic mushrooms, it being the ultimate ego death. You might well indeed come out of such an experience a better person but it's still a bum trip, man.

And then there's one about the decline in the growth of peyote as demand outstrips supply, that kind of links to another essay about how psychedelics might help in tackling climate change and other earth crises. If the root cause of the world's environmental crisis is arguably consumer capitalism held in place by the 'reality principle', the suggested solution would be if a total shift to a new reality principle was to happen, brought about through drugs. In essence, to save the world we need to blow our minds.

This all leads on to what is one of the best essays in the book where the author considers the so-called psychedelic community itself, in particular its social make-up:

'Much of the psychedelic community identifies as spiritual but not necessarily political. Politics is simply the organization and structuring of power within a society. When we belittle the importance of recognizing those power structures, they don't go away - they simply become invisible to us. It is particularly easy to ignore them when many of us in the community don't feel negatively impacted by them - often because we sit at the intersections of multiple forms of privilege, whether it be race, class, education, physical ability, gender identity and more.

Yet one only has to look around the room at a 'psychedelic' event to see the dynamics at play. Who is in the room and who isn't? Who has the mic and who doesn't? Who is facilitating the research study? Who is more often criminalised for engaging with these substances? Who has the disposable income to attend an ayahuasca retreat? Whose cultural traditions of knowledge are recognised and valued and whose aren't?' 

Of that last line I would humbly include myself, as in being among those whose cultural traditions of knowledge are not recognised nor valued. I have no academic background in the slightest so who am I to pass comment upon those who have? Who am I to criticise? Criticise, however, I will because I have now read this book although it's not so much criticism I give but reflection.

Are the Breaking Convention symposiums and the publication of this book an indication of a seismic shift in psychedelia? Personally I think not. It is, rather, a coalescing of elements within academia who share a common interest but a shared interest does not a seismic shift make. If anything it's more an affinity group, although that's no bad thing and I don't say this to belittle it.

Can drugs change the world? They can certainly change a person's perception of the world but that doesn't necessarily mean in a good way. There is no tipping point as in if enough people turn on then the world will become a better place. There is, however, such a thing as tilting at windmills. In fact, tilting at windmills is what the world and everyone in it does. I do it, you do it, the academics involved with Breaking Convention do it.

Drugs are all things to all people. They can be good, bad, happy, sad, positive, negative or even all these things all at the same time. For some, drugs can be food for thought, even. And that is what we have got here with this book: food for thought. To bring ethnobotanist Terence McKenna into the conversation, it's food for thought in regard to the food of the gods, and seriously so in the way that academics always try to be. And again, that's no bad thing at all.

John Serpico

Satori In Paris - Jack Kerouac

 SATORI IN PARIS - JACK KEROUAC

Satori In Paris, or 'what I did on my holidays', by Jack Kerouac. Written in 1966, that's nine years after the publication of On The Road and just three years before Kerouac's passing. It's a memoir, essentially, of Kerouac's trip to France in search of his ancestors, what with him being French Canadian and wanting to trace his roots. 'Satori' is the Japanese word for 'sudden illumination', 'sudden awakening', or simply 'kick in the eye'.

To be truthful, it's unclear what his 'sudden illumination' was or when precisely during his ten days in France did it take place because when he's not quaffing cognac he's mostly being given the runaround by all the locals he's meeting. For most of his time there he's also wet from the rain and he even manages to lose his suitcase by missing the aeroplane it's been loaded on to. His stay in France is more akin, in fact, to Withnail And I, particularly the part when they plea for help from the farmer after telling him they've "come on holiday by accident".

There are obvious signs in Satori In Paris that Kerouac is on a decline and that he feels the world is set against him. His only joy and his only solace, it seems, is found in drinking. And of course, that's how he died, wasn't it? From cirrhosis of the liver due to alcohol abuse.

At the time of writing Satori In Paris, Kerouac was world famous though it doesn't seem to have done him much good or to have been of any use. He obviously has enough money to fly to France and to travel around a bit by train and taxi but he's still counting his pennies because he's not a wealthy man in the slightest. His fame back then only really stretched to younger generations which meant that to older people in France he was just some American tourist who by some freak of nature happened to speak French. Again, this would probably have been belittling to Kerouac, accentuated by him being unable to even get to meet his French publishers for a business chat as they're all 'out to lunch'.

Satori In Paris is a quick and easy read. It's a postcard from the edge. It's Kerouac as a Reuters war correspondent reporting that all is not well. There's movement on the borders and trouble in the hills, and Kerouac is letting us know that he's running out of tape. This is Kerouac drowning, not waving.

John Serpico

Tearing Down The Streets - Adventures In Urban Anarchy - Jeff Ferrell

 TEARING DOWN THE STREETS -

ADVENTURES IN URBAN ANARCHY -

JEFF FERRELL

There is much that Americans get right and that they fully understand but there are also some things that Americans just have no understanding of at all and so get totally wrong. Irony is the classic example of course but also certain aspects of culture and politics - especially when it comes to British culture and politics. Jeff Ferrell, author of Tearing Down The Streets - Adventures In Urban Anarchy is American. In fact (at the time of writing this book at least) he's a Professor of Criminal Justice at Northern Arizona University. Hold your horses for a moment though and don't with a roll of your eyes instantly dismiss this because to be fair, Ferrell's heart is in the right place and his intentions are honourable. He's been doing some thinking and researching the subject, and has come to the conclusion that our cities and urban areas are being compromised, homogenized, sanitized and 'Disneyfied'. Or to put it another way: gentrified.

This is pretty self-evident and no great revelation of course, but the question that it begs is whether it's a good or a bad thing? The answer - as with most things in life, really - is all dependent upon what side of the fence you're sitting. If money is your god and you're fully invested in the capitalist system and the societies it creates, unable or unwilling to think outside the box, then gentrification is alright. For sure, you might like things to be a bit edgy and you like a bit of Banksy but no-one wants to live in a slum and run a gauntlet of muggers every time you go to a cashpoint.

If, however, you have no real investment in capitalist society and even such a thing as getting on the property ladder is a dream too far, then gentrification doesn't really have a lot to offer. In fact, gentrification is going to be set against you. It's going to exclude you and push you further to the sidelines because you have nothing to offer it and it has nothing to offer you. You are surplus to requirement.

Though probably enjoying some privileges that come with being a professor at Northern Arizona University (and there's nothing wrong with that, I might add), Jeff Ferrell is on the side of the surplus people. Not only this, he's also on the side of those who seek to challenge if not destroy the authoritarian, corporate, exclusionary model of community that gentrification enables. He's on the side, even, of the Mikhail Bakunin epithet that says the passion for destruction is a creative passion.

Tearing Down The Streets records a potted history of opposition to spatial control. A history of those who in the author's eyes have fought back against the regulation and closure of public space. It's a long, winding path that's very fractured and ultimately unfinished, with no clear starting date and no clear end point. For all that, however, Ferrell proffers a suggested starting point of 1871 and the Paris Commune, which is actually a pretty good call. From there he mostly focusses on America, going from The Wobblies, Emma Goldman, Jack Kerouac and so on, right up to his own activist lifestyle as a busking, bike-riding, graffiti artist.

The main portion of Ferrell's book is set around his own activities and activist scenes he's been directly involved with such as Critical Mass, pirate radio and graffiti art during the 1990s. Noticeable by its absence is any mention of Seattle 1999 and the mass protests that took place there against the World Trade Organization but that's because he says he didn't go. But also noticeable by its absence is any criticism of any of the things he's been involved with or even any post-mortem analysis of it all.

When writing about Reclaim The Streets, I'd hazard a guess he wasn't there in England either and he's picked-up all his information from the Internet because some of what he's written isn't quite true. It's an example also of (being American) failing to understand British culture and politics though this is exemplified each time he mentions the Sex Pistols as if they were some hardcore anarchist gang espousing hardcore anarchist ideology. The Clash as well to some extent. For example: 'Anarchy In The UK, the Sex Pistols' howling punk anthem, offered a dead-on account of anarchist practice.' I mean, really?

It's always been a bit unclear as to how the Pistols were perceived in America because even though they famously did the tour there that ultimately led to their demise, the nuance and even the irony of the Pistols would have been somewhat twice-removed and lost in translation, buried under the hype and the shock horror headlines. For sure, the Pistols were one of the greatest rock'n'roll bands of all time but even more than this they were an idea trying to describe a feeling. They were a vibe. And as Johnny Rotten once said of Anarchy In The UK, anyone who doesn't understand that (song), doesn't understand anything. 

Tearing Down The Streets is good but it's not brilliant, but being just 'good' isn't quite good enough. The stuff of which Ferrell writes is of some importance, and it deserves and demands better. If anyone is going to write a book about it with full annotations and a comprehensive index like this one, then I'd like them to be bringing something to the table so as to try and add to it all. Rather than simply record (and wrongly in parts) a history, I'd like them to try and bring forward the ideas that things like punk and Reclaim The Streets were once exploring. I'd like them to show a bit more vitality. A bit more imagination. As the Bob Hoskins gangster character in The Long Good Friday says to the American Mafia representatives: I'd like them to contribute with 'something a little bit more than a hot dog. Know what I mean?'

John Serpico