Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Some delightful Occupants.
After this shot, he took my name and wrote it on the back of the canvas, "You'll be VIP guestlist for my upcoming pop gig" he said.Big Rant '11
Five minutes later
Ten minutes.
Glamping
There's even a place for meditation. (Outside the church).
Dear General Public
Occupy St Pauls
My favourite shot, she told me how she had spent her life on with no money even with a diploma. Whether that's true or not..
Tacked to the railings.
Propaganda
Moon Duo Play Workman’s (as published on www.indiesight.com)
Words: Marguerite Murphy
Photos: Jill Quigley
Date: 13/05/2011
Venue: The Workmans
Rate: 8 out of 10
The San Francisco based hybrid consisting of multi talented Ripley Johnson (of Wooden Shjips) and Sanae Yamada have a cult following back in the US and are about to blow up in Europe. Forming in 2009, after Johnson departed from Wooden Shjips the paring 
provided a natural progression from his previous muddled psychedelic nuances to be filtered into what has become Moon Duo’s trippy sound of Yamada’s vocals coupled with the basics: keyboard, guitar and percussion. Last week the band made a stop at Workman’s Club, Dublin on their European tour, one which includes a key Primavera Festival slot (not to be missed) in Barcelona this coming Summer. Enchanting the Workman’s crowd with their ‘psychadelic krautrock’ the pair’s set on Friday 13th transformed the room into a space nothing short of magical as Johnson slowly soothed the soul with his haunting mumbles over entrancing dub beats. Moon Duo’s influences of avant garde Jazz figureheads John Coltrane and Rashied Ali really shone through in the up tempo moments that kept the crowd in full concentration. Swaying the room back and forth, Moon Duo hit a crescendo with their performance of Into The Sun and of course their breakthrough hit Mazes hit all the right spots. A very mentionable Kim Ki O supported and set the tone for the evening blasting out a fusion of hazy vocals set to Turkish lyrics, with hip hop themes, dub reggae and electronic dance undertones. All at once? You bet.
Moon Duo will be returning to Dublin Friday 23rd July, tickets can be purchased from WAV, City Discs and ticket outlets nationwide.
We’ve had a crackin’ time (as published on www.indiesight.com)
Marguerite Murphy mourns the loss of Crackbird, that pop-up restaurant we were all raving about.
Following the rules of pop up restaurants CrackBird opened its doors to the chicken lovers of Dublin in March and after 12 weeks of major business will shut once more until the business savvy and on trend Jo of previous Jo’s Burger fame will formulate another tasty brainchild. What was so brilliant aboutCrackBird was not just the great quality, delicious food it produces but how reasonable prices are and how clever the entire concept was. As a pop-up restaurant, the 60 seats that are open for guests 12 hours a day for these 12 weeks will project profits above rent and restaurant costs but fuel an excitement for any further pop up events orchestrated by the trend setting Jo Macken.
The key to contemporary markets was via the internet, web apps, facebook and twitter. And CrackBird has conquered the bloggers and tweeters of Dublin through the #tweetseats scheme in which 6 reservations for an entirely free meal can be made for everyday of every week the restaurant was open on a first tweeted first served basis. Hey presto, free meals for people to taste the food equals free advertisement through recommendation on the ole wide world interweb. The Irish Times published that CrackBird was run on €15,000 of credit-card financing of which E8,000 was for setup costs, making CrackBird an entirely tasty deal for both the customer and the owner.
All dishes are prepared and cooked on site, using fresh wholesome ingredients that satisfy your taste buds without the guilt of a greasy meal. On visiting CrackBird I was greeted by friendly laid back staff that lent to the aura of casual dining amongst the alternative interior design. Another lucky tweetseater and myself enjoyed the Semolina Crunch chicken (€4.95) (absolutely divine) and the buttermilk chicken (€17.95 for two sharing or €9.95 for half a chicken) that came with a little spritzer bottle of vinegar to provide not only an enjoyably sharp hit but a bit of a novelty as you ate your meal. Sides wise, I would avoid the chipotle beans and stick with the cranberry carrot salad and cous cous, and trying the honey sauce is a MUST as it is nothing short of decadent. Wine is the ‘waiter’s recommendation’ sold by the glass or bottle and Pilsner is offered for around €4 a pop (cheaper depending on buying in crates, bottles, four packs etc) and the non alcoholic lemonades and cocktails looked divine in their various colours sipped from oversized jam jars.
Crackbird shut it’s doors on the 22nd of May but fans have been encouraged to keep an eye on@JoburgerDublin On Twitter to find what happens next.
Consider how any two writers on this course critique, deconstruct or affirm the values of post-war consumer society and/or the concept of the American dream in their writing
An essay for a Post War U.S Fiction class:
This essay will explore how Vonnegut and Pynchon critique the consumerist values of post war society where the heights of commodity fetishism have overhauled religion and are presented as a means of spiritual solace for the masses.
Vonnegut parodies the idolism of corporations and their produce that festered into the domestic space in post war America by satirizing the effects they have on existentialist matters, as Billy Pilgrim muses, ‘We went to the New York World’s Fair, saw what the past had been like, according to the Ford Motor Car Company and Walt Disney, saw what the future would be like, according to General Motors.’ (p18 Slaughterhouse) It is important to observe that Vonnegut often uses a subversive comic tone when discussing serious issues in the novel, which, paradoxically, heightens the poignancy of these issues even more so. The sarcasm presents Billy’s exasperation at humanity, as though this ironic tone were the only means of digesting what is essentially the dictatorship of international corporations upon not only the present but the past and most definitely the future. Further, Vonnegut presents the omnipotence of technology and, the way in which it can aid mass production in smaller amounts of time mean that these corporations and systems of manufacture will rule over society, and only through their marketing plans can individuals perceive the future, ‘according to General Motors’ or other influential companies circa 1960’s America.
In a discussion with Valencia about the upcoming wedding, Billy relates how the worry on his fiancés mind is not that they shall have to spend their lives together forever, but that they should have to face the same commodity- a silver pattern for all of time. Vonnegut presents how a young wife to be in the post war age is more concerned with the pattern for her wedding than the lifelong vows she must make. Again the omnipotence of consumerism seems to have taken a religious role in the broken post war domestic space, as an attribute of religion: marriage, which traditionally states a couple should be bound permanently by law, is forfeited for commodity fetishism, ‘I mean, whatever we decide on, that’s what we’re going to have to live with for the rest of our lives’ (p111) This removal from spirituality allows commodity to take over as a means for solace, which, as Vonnegut juxtaposes this with the effects of warfare, appear to be symptomatic of a society suffering a trauma. One critic, Richard Hinchcliffe discerned that Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse is a parody of Bunyan’s Pilgrims Process and thus heightens capitalism to the powers previously held by Christianity in Western Culture. He writes:
‘A civilization dominated by Protestantism inherits a typological destiny, has its ideas, myths and rhetoric based on the telos, and in tune with other Christian doctrines, drives obstinate eschatological ideas deep inside the minds of all conditioned into Western Christianity. This threatens to make people, as Slaughterhouse Five reminds us, ‘the listless playthings of enormous forces’ (119). The city and the pilgrim, individuals and their goals, civilizations and their destinies, and the social purpose of capitalist economies, are thus bound together, reflected and strategically cultivated in narratives of history and fiction.’ (p 189 Richard Hinchcliffe, ‘Would’st thou be in a dream’: John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress and Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five.)
This is a viable argument as the references to Christianity are apparent throughout the narrative in estranged intangible ways as though the narrator, Billy Pilgrim has not only become unstuck in time, but in the clash of spirituality versus technology. His successful profession as an optometrist and marriage into wealth personify him as the culmination of a ‘Protestant work ethic’ (Hinchcliffe) which branches into an evangelism for science fiction novels by the illusive Kilgore Trout.
The allusions to wedding patterns and brand names such as ‘magic fingers’ (a vibrating duvet cover which becomes a large part of Billy’s post war life)appear incongruent with the surface narrative of cold blooded war, and this jarring contrast is symbolic of the capitalist values they project in this dehumanized post war American society Billy Pilgrim must relive eternally. The material objects Billy comes into contact with have a sense of autonomy that the characters of the novel cannot achieve. Although the commodities are mass produced in a peripheral nation and not necessarily American manufacturing they are a means for this unstable society to find purpose in times of tension. Time and time again objects are identified as an extension of character, forging an indistinguishable relation between the owner and the object. In Metropolis and Mental Life Georg Simmel discusses the ‘soul of the cultural body’ with ‘super individual contents’ at its locus. This negative sentiment describes how the consumerist values at the roots of new bred capitalist society eradicates all authenticity in the individual, when ironically, autonomy was what the individual strived to achieve through buying into consumerism. Although Simmel’s writing circulated in the early twentieth century, his meditations on society apply to the cyclical nature of civilizations war/consumerism cycle of destruction and production that can be observed through Western history. They are particularly applicable to Pynchon and Vonnegut’s novels in which characters are part of the mass movement searching for their ‘soul’ in the cultural body which must rebuild itself from the destruction of war via capitalist tendencies.
Repetition of death forms a sense of familiarity in Slaughterhouse Five which, primarily meditates upon the extensive sacrifices made for the second world war but also meditates upon the consumerist preoccupation in post war life. When Billy finds his champagne flat, he declares, ‘The champagne was dead. So it goes’ (p73) Here, the ritualized narrative mourning for Vonnegut’s long list of dead characters: ‘so it goes’, is offered to a material good, heightening the champagne to the funeral rites of all the human individuals and thus questioning the importance society imparts upon its commodities. This ‘reification’ of the champagne is relative to the way in which Billy Pilgrim has estranged himself from his body- claiming he is just a perpetual well of memories; this false perception of reality is discussed by Lukács in his deconstruction of alienation in consumerism.
Lukác’s ‘History and Class Consciousness’ defines the working class, or proletariat, as the first class of people to accomplish ‘class consciousness’ due to its realm in the ‘living negation’ (Communist Manifesto) of the capitalist core of society. Lukács dictated that all remaining classes were subject to a ‘false consciousness’ which prevents recognition of the sum of history. Like Billy Pilgrim, these classes ‘universalize’ it, observing an eternity between instances in the past present and future. If Slaughterhouse Five is read with the critical framework of Lukács’ writings, it could be observed that capitalism is the main preoccupation in Billy Pilgrim’s narrative, apparent not just from the reification that is implied through object identification, but also through the implementation of the ‘false consciousness’ Billy perceives through his eternal fourth dimensional time span. This “false consciousness” is key to the theories of commodity fetishism for Marx and reification for Lukács, which collectively can be considered the definition of the alienation an individual who manufactures produce feels in the cultural body and his estrangement from, as well as, the sense of ownership the buyer gains from the final produce.
What is particularly poignant in Vonnegut’s novel is that not only the addictive commodity fetishism finding itself amongst the homes of American society, but that it is the War, that ripped aspects of the society apart, has become a cause and effect of this capitalist symptom. Vonnegut opens his novel with an explicit critique of the consumerist benefits of warfare, stating that he would not allow his sons to take part in the wars or ‘massacres’ 1960’s American society effectively ‘sexed up’ with illusions of cinematic glamour and violence, and that he has ‘also told them not to work for companies which make massacre machinery, and to express contempt for people who think we need machinery like that.’ (p19) Throughout the novel, the shallow traps of corporations and unnecessary material goods are jarringly introduced into the narrative, consequently making a parallel in form between the events of intrusive warfare upon individuals and the implementation of consumerism upon society.
Marx’s Communist Manifesto warns subjects of society not to dwell on the fixed frozen relationships of the real or imagined past, claiming that the individual must now thrive on the mobility of mass production and industrialization; capitalism forces a pursuit of chaotic change which they must become part of. Civilisation is always changing. Marx outlines it as a perpetuation of self destruction which then rebuilds itself, only to self destruct later- he claims a stable society is no good for human potential or the development in the individual to overcome feudalism. Billy Pilgrim’s lack of stability in his fourth dimensional perspective of time is the only way of functioning in his world, linking to The Communist Manifesto’s discontent with consistency.
If war is the cause of heightened industrialization and increased capital for weaponry factories, and is a form of destruction- something that is crucial to the capitalist model, it must be that war is at the root civilization, and is a projection of aggression at the core of all individuals who contractually agree to their participation in this civilization. War redefines consumerism of the post modern period, where society literally self destructs itself before rebuilding capital- it forges a place for employment, capital and therefore enhances economy while simultaneously destroying society. Arguably this exchange can be applied to culture- as after the war there is often a surge in artistic creativity and opens the marketplace for authors, artists, dramatists and poets. Freud declared a ‘hostility’ to civilisation, which is enrooted in an extensive discontent in regards to the evolution of society- a discontent that will develop into a condemnation and eventually betrayal of the civilised world. The futility of civilisation is that once it has been achieved it can never regress back to what individuals may perceive as a simpler idyllic habitat. This relates to the scientific advances of the 19th Century, whereupon a ‘subjugation of the forces of nature’ will only make for dissatisfaction- a similar paradox found in capitalism.
In The Metropolis and Mental Life, Simmel argues that ‘the deepest problems of modern life derive from the claim of the individual to preserve the autonomy and individuality of his existence in the face of overwhelming social forces, of historical heritage, of external culture and of the technique of life.’ With the use of factory to mass produce goods to fuel capitalism, modernist writings depict an alienation from the individual from their role in business, but Vonnegut’s post modernist writing depicts an even bigger crisis where consumerism has risen to the point where mass production is implemented in warfare, and weapons of mass destruction hold the highest capital value.
In Thomas Pynchon, Postindustrialist Humanist, Joseph Slade discusses the dualism Pynchon replicates through his oeuvre, and how in The Crying of Lot 49 he makes a particular reference to the American deception of man as machine, the reification of the individual from industrialism and the search for ‘wholeness’ through technology:
‘America and its industrialism have reached an impasse, a “cul-de-sac”, an “enigma” created by capitalism that has ordered its world so rigidly that only new and charismatic energies can forestall entropy and redeem America’s democratic promise. Again the metaphors exfoliate from physics (which Jacob Bronowski has called “the collective work of art of the twentieth century”), and they suggest collective energies can forestall entropy and redeem America’s democratic promise.’ (p53)
Oedipa Maas personifies this crisis of post-modernity and replicates post war America’s desire to find a sense of ‘wholeness’, as individuals, through systems. Modernism presented this crisis through lingual systems, but Pynchon’s post modern world has far more complicated systems of technology and industrial mechanisms which, as presented in The Crying of Lot 49, can only lead to a discontinuity of a ‘man-machine dualism.’ (p58 Joseph Slade Thomas Pynchon, Postindustrialist Humanist) Oedipa’s entrapment in domesticity makes for a viable host upon which Pynchon can use to present the pitfalls of consumerism and her opening introduction places her into the spotlight as yet another American wife who has failed the American dream: living life as a deadpan Tupperware fan, entertaining herself with phone calls to a shrink and reminiscing upon affairs of the past. With no spirituality or practical meaning to her life she embraces her mission to find a sense of self in the incarceration of modernity through the clues and systematic codes of WASTE. She is a symbol of society which, like those around her, has become so obsessed with materials and consumerist desires that only in dreams can they be released from their grotesquely cliché fairy tale tower via shimmying credit cards. The fairytale setting of Oedipa’s dream relates to the absurdity of the American dream which Pynchon juxtaposes against the reality of rigid industrial systems and electronic culture that create a false presence of ‘wholeness’ and ‘connectedness’(p58 Joseph Slade Thomas Pynchon, Postindustrialist Humanist) for individuals in society. Pynchon’s depiction of consumerism, rapidly developed through scientific advances is used in a way to question determinism. The increased industrialization and technology invented purely for mass production raises existential questions when considering a dualism between the man and the machine. Consider a conveyor belt, where the machine is placed in a system alongside individuals, the machine, as the button is pressed in various peripheral nations to manufacture different aspects of what will eventually become one product to be sold in a core market that is removed from the place in which it was made. As the machine has been ordered, repetitively it is determined by an exterior law, one which it (being a machine) has no possibility of choice. Likewise, all the individuals present in this system of consumer production and selling enter into a replication of what fatalists believe to be determinism, but of a capitalist mode. Further, Slade has argued that characters in Pynchon’s oeuvre generally fall into the systematic roles, bar occasional few who question their roles in the projection of ’life’ as an extension of their own minds, writing:
‘Most of Pynchon’s characters believe that the information comes from “outside” that their sense are like movie cameras recording what is there, but an occasional character worries that he is instead a projector, that something “inside” is responsible for the film he sees and hears. This fear of solipsism sharpens the analogy and permits Pynchon to extend its implications: human beings know for certain only that they are functioning, not who or what is in control and not whether they are true automata or mere servomechanisms.’ (p60 Joseph Slade Thomas Pynchon, Postindustrialist Humanist)
Even Oedipa’s perception of the world reveal the clash between artistry, creativity and spirituality and technology and industrial systems, in reminiscence of her trip to Mexico City, where she visited an exhibition containing a piece by Remedios Varo she is overwhelmed by its ‘connectedness’ which she longs for:
‘In Mexico City they somehow wandered into an exhibition of paintings by the beautiful Spanish exile Remedios Varo: in the central painting of a triptych, titled “Bordando el Manto Terrestre,” were a number of frail girls with heart-shaped faces, huge eyes, spun-gold hair, prisoners in the top room of a circular tower, embroidering a kind of tapestry which spilled out the slit windows and into a void, seeking hopelessly to fill the void: for all the other buildings and creatures, all the waves, ships and forests of the earth were contained in this tapestry, and the tapestry was the world. Oedipa, perverse, had stood in front of the painting and cried.’ (p13 The Crying of Lot 49)
This artistic triptych is later re imagined through electronic binaries, as Oedipa comes to the end of her quest the wholeness she longed for, and wept at when displayed through tapestry like embroidery is replaced with the computer matrixes and binaries of the new electronic culture she lives in:
‘For it was now like walking among matrices of a great digital computer, the zeros and ones twinned above, hanging like balanced mobiles right and left, ahead, thick, maybe endless. Behind the hieroglyphic streets there would either be a transcendent meaning, or just Earth’ (p 125 The Crying of Lot 49)
This world is not as moving as the artistic depiction, and as the novel has presented through Oedipa’s Quest, the search for such a ‘transcendent meaning’ looks likely to prove futile.
Is the man a machine? The crucial question Pynchon offers is whether man functions as autonomata; whether they are they privy to free will or subjects to the pattern of control that has presented itself throughout the history of Western culture and follows in the destructive/productive cycle of Marx’s model? Marx’s Communist Manifesto warns subjects of society not to dwell on the fixed frozen relationships of the real or idealized past, claiming that the individual must thrive on the mobility regardless of the instability they face in society; as capitalism forces a pursuit of chaotic change which they must become part of. Civilization is always changing. Marx outlines it as a perpetuation of self destruction which then rebuilds itself, only to self destruct later- he claims a stable society is no good for human potential or the development in the individual to overcome feudalism. In welcoming consumerism it seems that the individual falls further into the trap of the previously mentioned capitalist driven determinism. Vonnegut presents this crisis in a similar vein- the alien Tralfamadorians have knowledge of exactly when and how the earth is destroyed yet they continually encounter it and after allowing its termination to occur, loop back to a time before end of life in a perpetual cycle. This fourth dimensional time frame functions as an ominous representation of the capitalist model Marx defines in his manifesto. Similarly, Vonnegut alludes to both solipsism and fatalism in his novel, allowing his ‘somewhat telegraphic schizophrenic manner of tales’ to exist in a mind that continually must come to terms with the firebombing of Dresden, but also presents the peaceful Tralfamadorians who understand all of life to be deterministic.
Oedipa’s vision of the world is depicted as naïve, as are those who still strive for the American dream. Mike Fallopian and Metzger frankly clear this misconception up for her, and laugh at the idea of the ‘American Inventor’, claiming, ‘In school they got brainwashed, like all of us, into believing the Myth of the American Inventor- Morse and his telegraph, Bell and his telephone, Edison and his light bulb, Tom Swift and his this or that. Only one man per invention. Then when they grew up they found they had to sign all their rights to a monster like Yoyodyne; got stuck on some “project” or “task force” or “team” and started being ground into anonymity.’ (p61 Thomas Pynchon Crying of Lot 49) Although Fallopian explicitly states corporations as ‘monster’ he still accepts that this is necessary to the consumerist world America has become, and Metzger even reprimands him for this slightly sympathetic view, ‘You’re so right-wing you’re left wing,’ he protested. ‘How can you be against a corporation that wants a worker to waive his patent rights. That sounds like the surplus value theory to me, fella, and you sound like a Marxist’ (p61 Thomas Pynchon The Crying of Lot 49)
Mucho Maas projects the ideals of mass production, wanting ‘more, more, more’ appears to be symptomatic of a post war culture. The idea of ‘more’ is replicated in the seemingly semiotic lingual structure which is filled with intertextuality. Sadly for Mucho, his morals contrast to the ’grey sickness’ Pynchon places upon the dealings of consumerism, particularly Mucho’s own car trades. Mucho’s hatred for the commodity fetishism and object identification that is necessary for his livelihood projects the frustrating incarcerations that come with a capitalist society, ’he could never accept the way each owner, each shadow, filed in only to exchange a dented, malfunctioning version of himself for another, just as futureless, automotive projection of someone else’s life.’ (p8 Crying of Lot 49) Further, materialism offers nothing enriching to the characters of The Crying of Lot 49 even though they all impart objects with some form of spiritual satisfaction. Oedipa’s quest is likened to that of a pilgrimage when, in the ending lines, as the auction is about to begin, canonical imagery is awakened in the narrative, ‘Passerine spread his arms in gesture that seemed to belong to the priesthood of some remote culture; perhaps a descending angel.’ (p 127 Thomas Pynchon The Crying of Lot 49)
While Vonnegut parodies the absurdity of reification and commodity fetishism, particularly in regards to the atrocities of War, Pynchon exudes a more chilling sense of meaningless which both authors have perceived to be symptomatic of growing Capitalism in Post War America.
Works Cited
Giannone, Richard. Vonnegut: A preface to his Novels Port Washington, N.Y 1977.
Gyu Han K. Going Beyond Binary Disposition of 0/1: Rethinking the Question of Technology. Midwest Quarterly [e-book]. Midwest Quarterly; 2009:176-189. Available from: Academic Search Complete, Ipswich, MA.
Hinchcliffe, Richard. “‘Would’st thou be in a dream’: John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress and Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five.” European Journal of American Culture 20.3 (2001): 183. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 29 Apr. 2011.
JAMES S. HANS. Emptiness and Plenitude in “Bartleby the Scrivener” and The Crying of Lot 49 Essays in Literature v22 p285-99 Fall ’95http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com.eproxy.ucd.ie/hww/results/results_single_fulltext.jhtml;hwwilsonid=EWO23TUY4YKM5QA3DIMCFGOADUNGIIV0
O’Bryan M. Anarchist Withdrawal and Spiritual Redemption in James Joll and Thomas Pynchon. ANQ [e-book]. Taylor & Francis Ltd; 2008:57-62. Available from: Academic Search Complete, Ipswich, MA.
Palmeri, Frank. Neither Literally nor as Metaphor: Pynchon’s the Crying of Lot 49 and the Structure of Scientific Revolutions ELH Vol. 54, No. 4 (Winter, 1987), pp. 979-999 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2873106
Pynchon, Thomas. The Crying of Lot 49 Vintage Publishing 2000
RIGNEY A. ALL THIS HAPPENED, MORE OR LESS: WHAT A NOVELIST MADE OF THE BOMBING OF DRESDEN. History & Theory [serial online]. May 2009;48(2):5-24. Available from: Academic Search Complete, Ipswich, MA.
Slade, W. Joseph. ‘Thomas Pynchon, Postindustrial Humanist’ Technology and Culture Vol. 23, No. 1 (Jan., 1982), pp. 53-72 John Hopkins University Press Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3104443
Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse-Five Dell Publishing Random House inc, NY 2007.
The modernist fairytale: How Baum and Zola both criticise and reignite dreams of fortune and freedom through a subversion of fantastical folklore to the capitalist fairytale.
It may appear that Marxism and myth narrative are polarities, but the modernist fairytale has incorporated the growth of the city, the materialism of its inhabitants and the vilified alley way dwellers for the renewed myth narrative. Marx’s Communist Manifesto warns subjects of society not to dwell on the fixed frozen relationships of the real or imagined past, claiming that the individual must now thrive on the mobility of this instability they face in society; as capitalism forces a pursuit of chaotic change which they must become part of. Civilisation paradoxically is always changing. Marx outlines its perpetuation of self destruction to then build itself back up again, only to self destruct later- a stable society is no good for human potential or the development in the individual to overcome feudalism. Here is the modern fairytale- an individual who embraces the fluidity of this revolution cycle of the bourgeoisie will be able to ‘better themselves’ a notion often embraced in Dickens’s narrative fiction.
Around the time of Marx and Engels Communist Manifesto there was a growing disenchantment with the capitalist visions, particularly those ascribed to England and France, but also seen in the cities across the world. Here writers took upon the theme of class struggle fused with the time old tales of folklore- to embody the importance of breaking through the borders of class oppressions in the modern world. A migration to the city opened a new world to individuals, as consumerism, material wealth and the desire for commodities expanded as quickly as the city borders them. The fairytale of the modernist city lies within the reams of silk in Mouret’s shop window of The Ladies Paradise, and the emeralds of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
Zola’s novel is formally realism, but thematically centres on the fairytale elements of the new and exciting city, which turns out to be far from idyllic. Ladies Paradise presents the chaotic cityscape of Parisian life. It symbolises a new lease of life, where capitalism absorbs its individuals, teasing them into buying desires and commodity fetishism. Shop windows tease the flaneurs from the street to the till with evocative mannequins adorned with silks and fabrics of luxury. Zola presents the removal of the fairytale from Grandmothers cottage in the country, to the parades of desires in the metropolis. The Ladies Paradise itself builds itself as a spiritual temple for the likes of Denise, the sales clerks and its avid customers- which present a sacrilegious irony, as individuals who have migrated to the city now treasure fashion and commodity where they once held religion.
Influential theorist, Walter Benjamin places huge importance upon ‘erfahrung’ in the role of storytelling. The exchanging of commodity is slowly killing out the exchange of oral narrative, and so it is important to read modernist writers as storytellers of the new metropolis. In Der Erzähler Benjamin distinguishes the difference between fairytale and novel- the latter overpowering the narratives of folklore that were once so central to our culture, as they pass on the experience or the, ‘erfahrung,’ the story teller has found in his travels through life to youth. But it seems The Ladies Paradise is a grown up fairytale- our omniscient narrator stretches his gaze over the pitfalls and benefits of city life, lending a didactic theme to the novel. L Frank Baum’s tale, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz mirrors Benjamin’s thinking, as the Wizard tells his fearful followers, ‘You don’t need them. You’re learning something every day. A baby has brains, but it doesn’t learn much. Experience is the only thing that brings you knowledge and the longer you are on earth, the more experience you are sure to get’ (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz)
This new setting of myth upon industrialism presents the 19th Century’s discerning attitude towards the traditions of the past world, the countryside and the old, loyal means of business- usually passed through generation and built purely upon reputation, not good value for money. The wolves of this new forest- one of concrete and shop windows, replaces the nostalgia of the Germanic or French tales of Grimm and Perrault, who used imagery of snow upon rural cottages to warn youth of the traps in life. Zola’s fairytale, where Denise can make herself a wealthy woman builds upon the understanding that, As Marx describes, individuals and society are at once subject and objects of processes of change. They initiate change and are changed. Poor Baudu, fails to grapple with this and is demonstrated as a sector of society that will self destruct as it is thrust into the ever changing capitalist structure. He is symbolic of the fixed relationships of the real or possibly imaginary past- his ideology on business is frozen in the times of tradition, which extinguishes any hope of thriving as the world around him. He watches Ladies’ Paradise perpetually revolutionise, offering sales amongst other various ‘mechanisms of seduction’ (Brain Nelson Introduction to Ladies Paradise) The flaw in Baudu’s prized morals are shown to their full extent when he expresses horror at Denise’s hope at employment in his rival shop; morals which he believes will allow him to stay afloat in business, but are exactly what Marx outlines as problematic in the perpetual movement of society. In damning the Ladies Paradise, Baudu actually states what is so progressive and innovative in Mouret’s microcosm of Parisian lifestyle fashion and desires, when he claims, ‘He always puts his most beautiful dresses there, sat in a framework of various cloths, a real circus parade to catch the girls…I swear I’d be ashamed to use such means. The Vieil Elbeauf has been famous for nearly a hundred years, and it doesn’t need confidence tricks like that at its door. As long as I live, the shop will stay the same as it was when I took over, with its four sample pieces of cloth on the right and the left, and nothing else.'(p25) Sadly his pride in his compliancy to this ‘imaginary’ or possibly real idealization of the past is completely to his detriment, and he will not be able to progress in the fairytale Kingdom of capitalism, in this brief cycle of time where it awards its subjects.
Ladies’ Paradise ‘mechanisms of seduction’ allow it to capture the bourgeoisie window shoppers with their better deals. Mouret recognises the pay off in what, at the time, seems preposterous- selling more at a cheaper price: a system Baudu cannot comprehend. Baudu’s family live in the same building as his family built business, they represent the emotional attachments to business, which contrast to the successful Mouret, who is cold and stoic- there is no love that goes through his produce, only false smiles and an emulation of pretence of buyer satisfaction amongst his shelves. But Baudu’s shop centres on pride and in keeping with what came before. Painfully readers are forced to and signify his dark, frugal shop with failure; he is the sinister liminal area of the Parisian fairytale, radiating death and decay. Zola juxtaposes this with the enchanting new experiences of Ladies Paradise which seduces readers along with the flaneurs and bourgeoisie shoppers with its sensuous window display, an icon of the new capitalist era and the jubilance of fetishising commodities- making the experience of exchanging goods for money one of indulgence. Just as The Communist Manifesto establishes as crucial to capitalist establishment, the Ladies Paradise embodies the inherent cycle of destruction which force the bourgeoisie to enjoy and then destroy- the goods are cheaper than Baudu’s ‘fifty centimes cheaper’( p26) Things can be bought cheaper, more readily thrown away and replaced with other things of the same nature, as satisfaction will not allow capitalism to grow. Baudu and Marx would not see eye to eye, Mouret, however, not only understands the indictments of the manifestos outline, but fully manipulates them to enthral his customers- particularly women- through ‘A display of silks, satins, and velvets spread out before them in a supple, shimmering range of the most delicate flower tones.’ He entices (and later on exploits) his customers with unashamed advertising, varieties of brands and commodities and business techniques employed by the first ever super stores in a bid to crash all standalone shops and competition around them. This fairytale is built upon darker elements, much like folklore always has been, but this new myth narrative embodies the cruelty of the modern metropolis which both devours and offers riches to its subjects, like the genies of past literature.
A striking feature of the phantasmagoria of Zola’s Parisian arcades is the salesgirl and the mannequin. The heroine of the metropolitan fairytale is one who does not succumb to the ease at which the female body is exchanged for money or promotion. Denise manages not to fall prey to Mouret’s mastery of women- she is fully in control while other women fall at the hands of buyer’s desire. But bar Denise, the symbolic figure of the woman is likened to the fairy of folklore, or the doll that was to become so popular for young girls. Benjamin’s collection of observances, The Arcades Project build a picture of the newly formed Parisian arcades, orchestrating the phantasmagorical scenes of female bodies as busts on display, all of which went on to inspire the ‘world famous Parisian dolls’ (p693) as discussed in The Doll. The Automaton. But these beautiful scenes of these The jarring juxtaposition of the prostituted body displayed in the same manner as the exquisite shawls explicitly presents the use of function of the female body, whether symbolically on shop floors (as a mannequin) or sexually in brothels, as a common commodity in the ever expanding city. As Beraud describes:
‘If it is a different sort of allure that you seek, go to the Tuileries, to the Palais Royal, or the the Boulevard des Italiens. There you will see more than one urban siren seated on a chair, her feet resting on another chair, while beside her a third chair lies vacant. It is a magnet for the ladies’ man…The milliners shops…likewise offer a multitude of resources for enthusiasts. There you dicker over hats- pink, green, yellow, lilac, or plaid. You agree on a price; you give your address; and next day, at the appointed hour, you see arrive at your place not only the hate but the girl who was positioned behind it, and who was crimping, with delicate fingers, the gauze, the ribbon, or some other frill so pleasing to the ladies.’ F.F.A Beraud, Les filles publiques de Paris; Precedees d’une notice historique sur la prostitution chez les divers peoples de la terre, by M.A.M vol I, pp cii-civ (Preface)
The female body in the radically altered cityscape of Paris is posed as a doll or a figure of luxury, of desire and commodity. Like the sirens of the Odyssey, women and men alike are allured by the adornments of luxurious fabrics upon the mannequins shaped in an hourglass figure to emphasize and the pinnacle of femininity, a sexuality which projects narcissism as the Parisians desire to buy in order to own and control. The rubric of fashion is now of utmost importance in the metropolis. All the ‘fairies’ of Paris must have the latest trends, and all little girls look up to the doll like mannequins that breathe life into these cultural trends as shopkeepers all over the town dressed their mannequins day to day. Karl Grober discusses the use of mannequin to advertise fashion in the arcade windows, and observes that, ‘the clever Parisiennes…,in order to disseminate their fashions more easily, made use of an especially conspicuous reproduction of their new creations- namely, tailors’ dummies…’ Karl Grober, Kinderspielzeug aus alter Zeit, Berlin, 1927 (emphasis added.) The word disseminate centres on the spreading capitalism, consuming as it rumbles through the streets of Paris, clearing small shops for Arcades of steel, glass and corseted frames of plastic flesh adorned with the fashions individuals must adhere to. It appears that these muted, often limbless replications of the female body represent the emaciated female as archetypal, a desire not only of men but of girls willing to grown into this effigy, these dolls which were so easily discarded as the trends changed, ‘given to little girls as playthings when their career as fashion figurines had ended.’ (Karl Grober). But this fairytale dream for little girls to become Cinderella, drowning in silk and pearls is foreshadowed by the rise in prostitution, presented in similar ways in these shop windows. Prostitution of the body was not subjected to liminal areas of the city- it was projected in the Arcades. The prostitute assimilates the feminine ideal in the modern city- her clothes, her attitude and her bodily exchange for money emanate this corrupt apotheosis of the modernized, fetishized woman. Although the dolls or mannequins are primarily described as the fairies of the city, Benjamin’s ‘The Arcades of Paris’ describes the darker descent under the pretence of the enchantment of the city:
‘Pimps are the iron bearings of this street, and its glass breakables are the whores… We followed a dark corridor to where- between a discount bookstore, in which coloured tied up bundles tell all sorts of failure, and a shop selling buttons (mother of pearl and the kind that in Paris are called de faintasie)- there stood a sort of salon. On a pale colored wallpaper full of figures and busts shone a gas lamp. By its light, and old woman sat reading. They say she has been sat there for years, and collects sets of teeth “in gold, in wax, and broken.” They are the true fairies of these arcades.’ (Benjamin, Walter Arcades Project p874)
These dark areas represent the vill
These dark areas represent the villains of the metropolitan fairytale, something Benjamin does not exclude from his Arcades Project, as he describes a charming image: ‘They <the Arcades> radiated through the Paris of the Empire like grottoes…The sirens of gaslight would be singing to him on one side, while oil lamp odalisques offered enticements from the other…’ This figurative presentation of the Parisian alleyways rapidly descends into the dark, shady areas where the unpleasant acts of the city take place, ‘with the kindling of electric lights, the irreproachable glow was extinguished in these galleries…Which wrought a black magic lit entrance ways.’
The fairytale often presents the virginal girl who is figured with white imagery of innocence, one who must overcome the entrapment of maligned men to live happily ever after. In Ladies Paradise, and the new city life the women can embrace their dreams of wealth and fashion by entering into these entrapments in exchange for their own desires. This is different from the prostitution that occurred in the Parisian brothels, but with a new liberation for females in the workplace, there also came a sexual revolution- these sales clerks who do not adhere to a patriarchal household of marriage embrace their freedom. But truly, these fairies of the department stores are not really independent; they only believe to be- much like the narcissistic buyers who are playing at the hands of the commodity magician Mouret. At first it seems to be a choice (sexual favours to further them in workplace or make sure bills are paid) but we see that Denise is fired when she refuses to adhere to this normative sexual exchange. In an age where buying is now revolutionized to allow returns on goods, the body is rises above commodity as a return of sexual relations is impossible, and it is the non returnable, virginal and untouched female body that is desired most.
L. Frank Baum’s fairytale, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz repudiates the capitalist city, and places values on self sufficiency- a removal back to the basics of harvesting the talents of the individual rather than ascribing to a capitalist dream of business and wealth accumulation, a notion which Marx so adamantly rejects. This wonderful wizard Dorothy, the Lion, the scarecrow and the tin man hold in such great esteem is a disappointment, a lie and a farce. Much like the false promises of consumerist desires. Unlike Zola, Baum’s tale is allegorical and explicitly presents characters of fantasy emulating a didactic tone for younger audiences alongside adult individuals in society, where Zola rewrites a fairytale through realism, for an adult reading.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is often interpreted as allegorical of the American politics circulating in the 1900’s. Although it can be examined as a racial exploration epitomized by the North and South divide; for the purposes of this essay it is necessary to discern the aspects of Baum’s fairytale that relate to the fear, excitement and benefits of the new metropolitan life- something that is navigated through Dorothy’s migration from rural Kansas to the built up Emerald City.
The Emerald City bares resemblance to the glassy panes of the Parisian Arcades, both spectacles of city life, as Baum writes:
Dorothy and her friends were at first dazzled by the brilliancy of the wonderful City. The streets were lined with beautiful houses all built of green marble and studded everywhere with sparkling emeralds. They walked over a pavement of the same green marble, and where the blocks were joined together were rows of emeralds, set closely, and glittering in the brightness of the sun. The window panes were of green glass; even the sky above the City had a green tint, and the rays of the sun were green. (Baum The Wonderful Wizard of Oz)
Everything in the Emerald city reflects the window panes of the emerald buildings transferred to the eyes of the fantastical creatures, and similarly, yet symbolically, Zola’s window panes are equally reflected in the eyes of the flaneurs that are so eager to purchase the goods behind the glass. Baum presents the fantastical elements of wealth literally encrusted upon a city, whereas Zola presents the triumphant shops of Paris as overspilling with stock, the adornments are not emeralds but ‘a profusion of knitted goods being sold for a song, gloves and woollen scarves, hooded capes, cardigans, a whole winter display of many colours, mottled, dyed, striped, with bleeding stains of red.’ (p4 Zola The Ladies’ Paradise)Here it appears Baum appeases the capitalist structure of the city, as he describes, ‘Green candy and green pop corn were offered for sale, as well as green shoes, green hats, and green clothes of all sorts. At one place a man was selling green lemonade, and when the children bought it Dorothy could see that they paid for it with green pennies.’ (Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz)
Baum’s fairytale subtly introduces the issues of class struggles in America- namely democratic populism, and so the fairytale meditates upon the clash between the elitist and those from a farming background, or the majority who formed what Marx would have called the bourgeoisie against the proletariats, although this is problematic when using European political philosophy on American history. The Scarecrow represents the farmers who Baum perceived as taken advantage of in the political agendas of the state, a central part of the social order of America who were envisioned as the ‘average joe’ decent, and self sufficient- a problem for the rule of social and political elites in the influential cities of America. At the closing of the story, the Scarecrow is offered rule of Oz, which functions as suggestive of Baum’s politics.
Baum’s tale presents the lack of individuality in capitalist city life- as Georg Simmel critiques in The Metropolis and Mental Life, where he argues that ‘the deepest problems of modern life derive from the claim of the individual to preserve the autonomy and individuality of his existence in the face of overwhelming social forces, of historical heritage, of external culture and of the technique of life.’ With the use of factory to mass produce goods to fuel capitalism, modernist writings depict an alienation from the individual from their role in business. The tin woodman in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz represents this, just as much as the headless busts of the women that collect in the Parisian shop windows; as he tells Dorothy how he was a worker from the East, who came across the Wicked Witch of the East who turned him into a machine of the bourgeoisie. ‘I thought I had beaten the Wicked Witch then, and I worked harder than ever; but I little knew how cruel my enemy could be. She thought of a new way to kill my love for the beautiful Munchkin maiden, and made my axe slip again, so that it cut right through my body, splitting me into two halves. Once more the tinsmith came to my help and made me a body of tin, fastening my tin arms and legs and head to it, by means of joints, so that I could move around as well as ever. But, alas! I had now no heart’ The wicked witch symbolises the structure that eats up the individual to make them a machine in the capitalist system. As Marx describes:
Meantime the markets kept ever growing, the demand ever rising. Even manufacturer no longer sufficed. Thereupon, steam and machinery revolutionised industrial production. The place of manufacture was taken by the giant, Modern Industry; the place of the industrial middle class by industrial millionaires, the leaders of the whole industrial armies, the modern bourgeois.
Modern industry has established the world market, for which the discovery of America paved the way. This market has given an immense development to commerce, to navigation, to communication by land. This development has, in its turn, reacted on the extension of industry; and in proportion as industry, commerce, navigation, railways extended, in the same proportion the bourgeoisie developed, increased its capital, and pushed into the background every class handed down from the Middle Ages.
The tin wood man represents the heart of manufactured markets, which he was forced to become a part of to buy his munchkin lover the house she desired.
Similarly Zola depicts the female body as an automaton of this growing industry- as a means of advertisement for commercial goods the mannequin only consists of a maimed upper half- there is no head to ensure no identity. In Breaking Frame: Technology and the Visual arts in the nineteenth century, Julie Wosk writes:
‘Artist’s images of automatons became the central metaphors for dreams and nightmares of societies undergoing rapid technological change. In a world where new labour saving inventions were expanding human capabilities and where a growing number of people were employed in factory systems calling for rote actions and impersonal efficiency, nineteenth century artists confronted the most profound issues raised by new technologies: the possibility that peoples identities and emotional lives would take on the properties of machines.’ The Tin Woodsman needs to find the Wizard to gain his heart- his identity back, after being turned into a cold instrument of industrialization.
Both Zola and Baum present the fairytale elements of migrating from a small town to the buzzing metropolis and unravel the journey Denise, and Dorothy must take to not fall prey to the pitfalls of capitalism yet involve themselves in the thriving prosperity it generates in a careful manner. Although Baum’s tale is, literally, more fantastical and explicitly fairytale-esque, Zola incorporates the elements of enchantment or magic, and more crucially the disenchantment, of the ever expanding metropolis in his realist novel.
Works Cited:
Baum, L Frank. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz http://www.literature.org/authors/baum-l-frank/the-wonderful-wizard-of-oz/index.html
Benjamin, Walter. The Arcades Project (trans Howard Eiland and Kevi) 1892-1940
Marx, Karl and Engels Friedrich. The Communist Manifesto Oxford World’s Classics 2008
Ritter, Gretchen. Silver Slippers and a Golden Cap: L. Frank Baum’s “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” and Historical Memory in American Politics Journal of American Studies
Vol. 31, No. 2 (Aug., 1997), pp. 171-202
Wosk, Julie. Breaking Frame: Technology and the Visual arts in the nineteenth century. Rutgers University Press New Brunswick 1992
Zola, Emile. The Ladies’ Paradise (trans Nelson, Brian.) Oxford World’s Classics 2008
‘Courtney Loves Couture’ but not as much as me.
Previously, the smell of desperation has lingered through the Z list who have found themselves cashing in on their heyday with costumes at extortionate rates on online auction sites a la Jordan, Lindsay Lohan, Tori Spelling, Oprah and Kim Kardashian. New to the mob is none other than Courtney Love. Unabashed by her highly criticised style blog, ‘What Courtney Wore Today’, Love has created the slightly evasively named ‘Courtney Love Couture’ store on Ebay. Alas, Love’s own creations are not up for bidding, but one lucky customer can expect a couture gown that the punk singer was once photographed in.
The auction features pieces from Vivienne Westwood, Anna Sui and Marc Jacobs amongst others with prices starting from $200 for Louboutin pumps and highest selling item peaked at $3000 for a Gucci gown.
The independent reported that ‘around a third of the shop’s items hadn’t been bid on at all after three days of hitting the web’. Ouch.
But don’t let this put you off, Ebay is a melting pot of vintage, retro and costume jewellery finds for purse friendly prices. Often people find online shopping, and particularly auctions like Ebay, daunting- but it couldn’t be easier. Once you have your account set up, start browsing the fashion categories, entering detailed descriptions of the items you want into the search bar. Found something you like? Check the price, including delivery, and hit ‘watch this item in my Ebay’. Make note of when the auction is ending, and nearing to the final hours, enter the highest amount you can bear to part with for these one of a kind brogues/sapphire brooch/Broderie Anglaise blouse (delete as applicable.) Then it’s a case of letting the magic happen. On occasion you do lose out to a higher bidder, but the more you play around with Ebay the better you can master your auctioning techniques- the timing of your bid is essential.
One of the best things about Ebay is that it allows access to small independent shops worldwide, and as sellers do not have to fork out the funds necessary for running a normal store, they are able to maintain a buyer friendly retail price all year round. Incidentally, you can find a whole number of independent designers who are only able to sustain their creative hobby through Ebay, meaning you get a one off creation in exchange for fund maintenance of an artistic pursuit. Stylish and conscientious.
Even better, Ebay is the best way to make a quick buck, and it couldn’t be simpler. It’s granted that readers of this article are not Hollywood wannabes, so any ridicule is spared if you plan to sell your wardrobe, sorry Courtney. First, gather everything that just isn‘t being worn anymore, give it a sprucing with an iron, and find a well lit room to hang the items against a wall to take snapshots of. Take one shot from the front, the back and then zoom to highlight specific detailing on the item you are selling. Alternatively, get a friend drunk and convince them they’d make a great mannequin. Organization is key here, so ensure that you keep all items together and in the same sequence as the photos so you don’t get mixed up. Upload shots to Ebay, enter item description, and give it a fair price. Insertion fees are tiny and occasionally non existent depending on the category the item fits into, so don’t be put off by them. Handy hint: start bidding low, as the price will be more likely to attract a number of bargain bidders who will have to wage a bid war against each other, raising the selling price for you.
With your winter wardrobe shipped out to the far seas, there is plenty of room for those one off Ebay treasures to bring in the Summer season. Delish.
Chic/Eek as published in College Tribune April 2011
Chic
- Swedish Hasbeens are collaborating with H&M to present environmentally friendly footwear to the masses. Cute and Conscientious the red clogs in particular are a great staple to a spring/summer wardrobe. Hitting stores 20 April 
- Blunt haircuts. If you’re going for a trim, be it short, mid length or long ask your hairdresser to cut straight across. Not only does this give the appearance of volume to finer hair, but it emulates the minimalesque blunt look that is the perfect accessory for your spring summer wardrobe.
- Boy chic- colour block this summer in all black. Black shorts and shirts with blazers seen on Balmain and Dolce and Gabbana are very becoming for the urban gentleman.

Eek
- Weather madness- combining sun glasses and gladiators with a parka? Confusing. Please weather, either rain or stay sunny, as I like to wear my coat, not drag it around in a sweaty palm.
- Photoshop. Maybe she’s born with it? Yeah, or maybe it’s a computer wizz earning their wage. Fortunately, Make Up Forever’s newly released foundation poster promises to be ‘the worlds first unreduced makeup ad.’
- As we all know, the UCD Ball line-up is pretty dire, prompting distressed UCD students to plead that Jonny Cosgrove might ‘stop this casserole of nonsense.’ Hmph.
Marguerite writes Blog 