LYRICS

The applications are to blameAll the people do all dayIs stare into a phone (Placebo, Too Many people)

“Take nothing but memories, leave nothing but footprints!” (Chief Seattle)

When rock stars were myths (Sandi Thom, I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker)

Machines were mice and men were lions once upon a time, Now that it's the opposite it's twice upon a time (Moondog)

Time is an illusion (Einstein)

Wednesday 12 June 2019

Combination of the Two (14) - part 1


To what extent is fantasy a physical reality denied by modernity? Not only the heroic fantasy of a Howard, but also gaming. I don’t really know much about it, except that the pure physicality of gaming must be a hook to the body, the instinct for retaliation and kinetics. You wonder if it goes through the body owing to the realism, and puts one back in a physical universe of yore?

Admittedly, I have been saying up till now that realism goes via the head; but gaming is such a kinetic industry one wonders. This was sparked-off by watching a film called Royal Kill (Ninja’s Creed) which got generally appalling reviews. I thought the total opposite that it was the best I’d seen this century, admittedly with flaws that were probably budgetary.

Most reviewers were dismissive to the point of insulting of Babar Ahmed’s premise, which I’m not sure they really “got”. For a start, it has a Carpenterian feel and similar locations with hand-held cameras. Another connection is pro-wrestler Gail Kim plays an assassin; Carpenter employed pro-wrestler Roddy Piper in They Live! The assassin is after the last princess of a remote south Asian dynasty who has been hidden in America and lives with her American dad and the “royal maid”. A soldier (Alexander Wraith) from the far off kingdom must find the maid to preserve the princess and hopefully foment rebellion against the nefarious Scungy empire who have killed all the remaining royals.

The film’s ending leaves one wondering whether the entire plot ever took place, but along the way there are intriguing clues. Right at the start, her American dad (Eric Roberts) is palying chess with a neighbour and recites the line, “You..are the champion!” Is the entire film also a game? At the end of the film the soldier becomes a mere security guard, and recites the line, “To be ordinary.. the horror of modernity.”

There are other clues. Towards the beginning of the film dad disturbs his daughter (Lalaine) dressing and we see her nipples are exposed (briefly). This is a typical classical motif – usually of a goddess – a sign of physical luster and desirability (Hyborian Bridge 31)

Obviously, Babar Ahmed isn’t Greek or European, but I think the Asian deities have similar attributes. Added to the physicality is pro-wrestler Kim who wraps her legs round opponents’ heads, somersaulting in neck-cracking action.

If the film is a game, it’s a game of blood and desirability. These two attributes – strength and love – hark back to the heroic and irrational. We of the modern era – at least the elite – have a tendency to assume rational thinking (the likes of Hilary Mantel of Wolf Hall on Henry VIII).

What is much more likely is that men of the Middle Ages - and of course women like Jeanne  d’Arc - had conscience (religion) and a code-of-honour (chivalrous). You see this so much in Howard’s tales of Outremer and beyond; not only of Christian knights, but of valiant Saracens, particularly in The Sowers of the Thunder (Pictorial 11)




Rational thinking is more of a modern disease; a cold-blooded escape from physical constraints. If you take a medieval figure whose cause was seemingly just – 13th century knight Simon de Montfort against the corrupt Henry III – his cause was truly Christian, and he raided Jews, as often as not, for their coffers.

  Simon de Montfort by Edmond Mennechet
His cause may have been just but it was far from rational, depending on the oaths of barons to attend constitutional parliaments (which they often broke). The conscience of a knight was a thing of strength borne of the body. When Simon was eventually defeated by Henry III’s troops, he was decapitated, feet, hands and testicles cut-off.

To what extent, then, is our modern rational universe a thing of the head, unreal and immaterial? Dismemberments, whether of animal or man, are gory things as the history of the West tells. History is gory; Howard is gory; the cycle of lifedeath and the destiny of individuals. Simon de Montfort was a rebel and lived and died by blood. It may not be pretty, but it may be that, in an immaterial universe (of the head) the only rebellion possible is a physical one (of the body).

Victory of Simon de Montfort by Jean Fouquet
Defeat of the barons
That will implicate free conscience (belief) and codes-of-honour (blood sacrifice). If life is a game then it’s a bloody one. I just saw this photo of a 40,000 year old timber wolf head, preserved in Siberian permafrost.


 
fangs for the memory (Pleistocene)
What really struck me were the predominant cartoon-like fangs that could rend and tear. Cubs will play games, primarily to practice their moves on prey.

This raises the question of how predatory is the universe as a physical thing? What I mean is; is there a primeval rhythm that is strong and flexible? I mean the primordial serpent, basically (Pictorial 1)

A serpent is androgenous and requires no verifiable proof (of existence) since its shape is intrinsic to the universe – of sun and moon, polar opposites spinning in space. Therefore, the shape is a priori to scientific method; meaning all the facts we have been given dating approximately from Newton (“Opticks” or sun).

The universe is intrinsically bloody and proportionate, having a predatory shape, and with that comes meaning and structure – Hyborain Bridge 59 . To seek to deny that may be rational but that doesn’t make it right! It’s an escape from the constraints of the body into the immaterial head (of electromagnetic impulses).

It’s almost a case of the predatory Howard of poetic meaning, versus the meaningless mumbo-jumbo of the likes of Hameroff; physique versus immateriality.