The Wind Whales Of Ishmael - Philip Jose Farmer

 THE WIND WHALES OF ISHMAEL -

PHILIP JOSE FARMER

One minute you're in one of the greatest books ever written chasing a whale named Moby Dick in which the author of that book, Herman Melville, has called the obsessed captain of the ship you're on Ahab and given you the name Ishmael.

'Call me Ishmael,' you're quoted as saying at the start of the book.

The next minute, the ship you're sailing on has been destroyed by Moby Dick and Ahab has been tangled up in a harpoon line and dragged away by the stricken whale. You're the only survivor but by some miracle the empty coffin that had been built for one of your shipmates but never used has bobbed up from under the surface of the sea and you're clinging to it for dear life. 

For a day and a night you float upon the coffin-buoy before being rescued by another whaling ship. You're taken on board and to earn your keep on this new ship you're told to keep watch up on one of he masts and it's there you begin to wonder if the events that have led you to being rescued from a watery grave have caused disorders of your brain?

First there are the St Elmo's fires that you spy before the sea turns into a writhing mass of black tentacles. Next there is sudden and total silence as all becomes strangeness and horror. Night is replaced by day and suddenly the ship you're on is falling through air. The sea has vanished and you're being catapulted through miles of atmosphere to finally crash-land into another sea but one that is deader than the Dead Sea of Palestine or the Great Salt Lake of Utah. 

There you float only to be saved once again by the reappearance of the same coffin-buoy that you once again cling to. The sea's slight current carries you to a shoreline and it's there that you try to understand what has happened and where you are.

You're on a jungle island where vines attach themselves to you and gently, almost lovingly suck your blood. Where under a blood red sun the sky is inhabited by colossal whales that feed on huge clouds of red brit who in turn are hunted not only by flying sharks but by wonderfully strange whaling boats that cruise through the air.

Time has evaporated and whether you're still on Earth or on some distant star, whether you've somehow been flung into the far future or if you're in the throes of a fever dream - it matters not. You're here and that's all there is to it.

The Wind Whales Of Ishmael by Philip Jose Farmer is a leap of imagination on a par with William Burroughs at his drug-fueled best. At times it's particularly reminiscent of Cities Of The Red Night by Burroughs, especially in regard to the boy pirates falling through time. On top of this, Farmer's book is really well-written, so much so that as you're reading it, it's a joy to re-read some of the sentences he composes. The major if not fatal flaw in it, however, is that Farmer veers off the rails half-way through and we end up in a jumble of a Robert E Howard's Conan The Barbarian adventure and Jason And The Argonauts complete with Ray Harryhausen stop-motion film effects.

It's a shame because this abrupt shift of tone and story-line alters the book irrevocably and reduces it to pulp fiction of the swashbuckling kind lacking any kind of substance. All is not lost though in the fact that the first half leaves you with a taste of something quite special going on with Farmer's style of writing and imagination unbound, leaving you wanting to explore more of his canon to see what else he's done.

John Serpico

101 Cult Movies You Must See Before You Die

 101 CULT MOVIES YOU MUST SEE BEFORE YOU DIE

The problem and the river to cross when it comes to calling a book 101 Cult Movies You Must See Before You Die is the defining of what constitutes a 'cult' movie. Who decides if a movie is a cult one or not? It's all subjective, of course, but ultimately it's the audience that creates that definition around a film rather than it being simply a label to apply. The one person excluded from the process is the director who on completion and delivery of a film can only wait and see what becomes of it. No director can intentionally set out to create a cult movie, no matter if the theme or the subject matter is obscure or the budget threadbare. If a movie does indeed fall within these parameters it doesn't automatically mean that it's cult. Just as easily it could mean it's simply puerile rubbish or indeed even brilliant - but never cult. 

The word 'cult' is mostly used as an accolade and imbues the thing on which the word is placed with a value beyond any established values of the mainstream. When it comes to movies, success is typically measured monetarily as in numbers at the box-office or increasingly nowadays the amount streamed. When a film becomes cult it means it's moved beyond financial considerations and is now being viewed from a different and somewhat more passionate perspective. A perspective though not necessarily of more value but arguably much longer lasting.

101 Cult Movies You Must See Before You Die certainly contains a good selection of classic films though whether they could be called 'cult' is debatable. What is clear, however, is that it contains no surprises. Moreover, there are many films and some directors of films that are noticeably absent. Where, for instance, is Silent Running, the 1970s eco-sci-fi film featuring Bruce Dern? Point Blank featuring Lee Marvin? The Friends Of Eddie Coyle starring Robert Mitchum? Where is there mention of Bruce Lee and any of his films, or any of the many spaghetti cowboy films of the 60s and 70s? And if we're talking 'cult', where is Debbie Does Dallas or Deep Throat, even? Or are these not cult films as such?

It's apparent that when compiling this book there was an eye on its saleability and what would make it appealing to a wide readership. Who would want to buy it (apart from me, maybe?) if it was just full of art house movies like Andy Warhol's Blow Job, or Chris Marker's La Jetee? And are art house movies even cult movies anyway? Maybe it's just best not to ask too many questions and to just enjoy 101 Cult Movies You Must See Before You Die for what it is? That being, essentially, a mini-coffee table-type book that's nice to read and pleasing to the eye. Nothing more and nothing less.

John Serpico

Spirit Of '69 - A Skinhead Bible - George Marshall

 SPIRIT OF '69 - A SKINHEAD BIBLE -

GEORGE MARSHALL

Published in 1991, Spirit Of '69 - A Skinhead Bible by George Marshall is essentially a scrapbook of cuttings centred around skinhead culture from its birth in the late Sixties to its globalisation in the Nineties, all woven around its story as seen through the eyes of the author. Apparently it's a highly collectable book nowadays and can go for silly money on eBay...

Marshall is a skinhead enthusiast and writes passionately about all aspects, all phases and all off-shoots of skinhead culture. He knows his stuff and it shows, marking out music and clothes as primary factors though also giving equal attention to other aspects such as violence, violence and er... violence.

Does anybody remember the Millwall Brick and knuckledusters made from coins? George Marshall does. Does anybody remember hippy-bashing, queer-bashing, and paki-bashing as racially aggravated attacks were once called? George Marshall does and this was all long before skinhead morphed into Oi! and skinheads became boneheads. This was back when skinheads listened only to reggae, ska and maybe a bit of soul. Long before the advent of Sham 69 and the intervention of right-wing political parties into the scene.

So, skinhead violence has always been a tradition right from the get-go and whilst it's enabled the culture to maintain a pariah status and engendered it with a sense of danger that repels the casual observer, it's also acted as an attraction to some and interestingly as a great indicator of class background and position.

There's nothing wrong with skinhead violence and the potential for it per se, it's just when it comes loaded with ignorance, prejudice, discrimination and right-wing politics that it becomes a problem and the intersection where class consciousness and violence divides. None of these aforementioned traits are implicit within the working class and are in fact diametrically opposed to actual and genuine working class values such as community and solidarity - the very values that Thatcherism sought to put an end to and that all right-wing politics of whatever extreme ultimately betray.

A personal gripe of mine with skinhead culture is its embracement of the Union Jack and all that comes with that flag - the monarchy, subservience, empire, and conservatism. The England that the Union Jack represents is the England of the Old Guard that belongs in the dustbin of history. It's the England that views its inhabitants as fodder. A regressive, repressive England that died in the trenches of Flanders but continues to stumble around like a zombie blinded by mustard gas.

A much truer England is that of Albion and is one that won't be found on the playing fields of Eton or in the mansions of the rich, nor in the fox hunts, the Cambridge Balls, the boardrooms of big business or behind the gates of Downing Street. It's the difference between Rule Britannia or God Save The King and William Blake's Jerusalem. Albion, however, is the country that's been thrown to the dogs, strangled with fences and stuck with knives. Fuck the Union Jack I want my country back, as the Irish rebel song goes. I want Albion back.

Nazis became skinheads rather than skinheads became Nazis, Marshall writes and to a point he's not wrong though it's a lot more involved than that. You have to wonder why the extreme Right made a play for skinheads and why they had so much success, particularly as a lot of the skinheads they attracted weren't even old enough to vote? Was it because the extreme Right saw skinheads as being a representation of the white working class constituency they were gunning for and that skinheads were potential shock troops? The idea being that if they controlled the streets then control of the ballot box would follow? Well, Anti-Fascist Action successfully put paid to that by physically attacking any attempt at Far Right organisation on the streets and making it near-impossible for them to congregate.

And talking of Shock Troops, if only more Oi!/skinhead-type bands had taken the stance of Cock Sparrer as expressed in their song Watch Your Back where they sang "All they want is total power, climbing on the backs of the working class. Well we don't wanna fight because you tell us to, so watch your back when you attack cos we might just turn on you."

Saying that, however, it must be stressed the vast number of the bands that fell under the Oi! umbrella were really good and not racist or fascist in the slightest. Sham 69, Angelic Upstarts, Cockney Rejects, The Business, Blitz - all good, solidly anti-racist bands, all covered by George Marshall along with less savoury coverage of the blatantly racist bands such as Screwdriver. It's a fine line he treads. A delicate balance he tries to strike though whether he succeeds is debatable and probably decided on where it is you're coming from.

'Politics has never done the skinhead cult any favours and it's doubtful it ever will,' Marshall writes 'And that goes for the Left and the Right. Somehow it has managed to worm its way into the very heart of skinhead, and by doing so has bastardised the cult. And the media's constant portrayal of skinheads as extremist political animals has simply reinforced the fallacy that to be a skinhead you've got to either be a fascist or a fascist hater.'

Spirit Of '69 - A Skinhead Bible makes a bid for a middle ground though without any thought given to how easy it is in doing so to enable fascism. Mensi of the Angelic Upstarts would physically fight fascists. The Cockney Rejects would beat fascists up. Sham 69 stopped playing live altogether at one point so as to put a halt on fascists gathering at their gigs. If there ever was a so-called middle ground I'm sure these bands would have taken it but the cost, unfortunately, might well have been too high.

For all this, it's not to say of course that these things shouldn't be written about and in fact it's probably important that they are, hence why a book such as this as written by George Marshall is of some importance. Some relevance, even, because as they say - those who fail to remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

John Serpico