Just Press The Right Button.

Vaught’s Practical Character Reader is an appalling little book on phrenology. I can’t imagine going around, staring at people, then feeling free to poke their head. Seems to me that would be an invitation to a facial rearrangement. There’s an insistence that anyone who doesn’t adopt their particular system is an idiot and worse, which  handily brings us to:

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The Relaxed Wife (1957).

Our nostalgia for the 1950s is tested with this strange and unnerving promotional film for the tranquilliser “Atarax”, in which a husband plagued by stress brought on by work and noisy children, is helped by his relaxed wife of the title. With her calming influence he learns not to focus on the problems of others or to worry about the rest of the world – “Let the world take care of its own worries. You’ll help yourself most by concentrating on your own affairs”. Named after ataraxia, the Greek word for relaxation, the tranquilliser is advertised through such rhyming lines as:

Today, medical science recognizes,

that some folks aren’t helped by relaxing exercises.

In cases of difficult tension, and nervous apprehension,

doctors are now prescribing an ataraxic medicine.

It makes those who fear they’re about to quit,

feel like they’re ready to begin,

bidding their darkened spirits goodbye,

for the calming peace of a cloudless sky.
Of all the states throughout this nation,

the happiest by far is the state of relaxation.

There’ll be fewer breakdowns and insomniacs,

when more of us have learned to be relaxed.

We’ll be free to relish the joys of life,

no longer tense over daily worries and strife.”

And it is medication, such as the Pfizer-produced Atarax, which is seen as the key to this panacea of relaxation. Although many think of anti-anxiety medication and anti-depressants as a rather modern way of life, housewives of the 1950s were frequent users of such drugs, the first and most popular being Miltown, named after the New Jersey hamlet in which it was first manufactured in 1955. According to Newsweek, just two years after it was first made available, “Americans had filled 36 million prescriptions for Miltown, more than a billion pills had been manufactured and these so-called ‘peace pills’ accounted for one third of all prescriptions.”

The narration is an eerie blend of Seuss and Stepford Wives. Oh, and Atarax is still going strong.  Via The Public Domain.

Apes and Deer.

The female monkey gives birth to twins, loving one and hating the other. When hunted, she carries the loved one in her arms while the other clings to her back. Eventually she tires, drops the favoured baby and the other one is saved. The ape does not have a tail.

The female monkey gives birth to twins, loving one and hating the other. When hunted, she carries the loved one in her arms while the other clings to her back. Eventually she tires, drops the favoured baby and the other one is saved. The ape does not have a tail.

The satyr, like the ape, has some similarities with man. He is partly like a goat with a beard, horns, and broad tail. His rather human body is covered with shaggy hair. He holds his thyrsus or wand, used in his lustful and disorderly revels. His face is quite attractive and he makes pantomime gestures.

The satyr, like the ape, has some similarities with man. He is partly like a goat with a beard, horns, and broad tail. His rather human body is covered with shaggy hair. He holds his thyrsus or wand, used in his lustful and disorderly revels. His face is quite attractive and he makes pantomime gestures.

Bodleian Library, MS. Bodley 764, Folio 20r. Two stags with a doe and fawns.

Bodleian Library, MS. Bodley 764, Folio 20r. Two stags with a doe and fawns.

In the upper register, a stag is wounded by a hunter's arrow. Below, the stag eats the herb dittany, causing the arrow to come out. British Library, Harley MS 4751, Folio 14v.

In the upper register, a stag is wounded by a hunter’s arrow. Below, the stag eats the herb dittany, causing the arrow to come out. British Library, Harley MS 4751, Folio 14v.

Text Translation:

Apes are called simie in Latin because the similarity between their mentality and that of humans is felt to be great. Apes are keenly aware of the elements; they rejoice when the moon is new and are sad when it wanes. A characteristic of the ape is that when a mother bears twins, she loves one and despises the other. If it ever happens that she is pursued by hunters, she carries the one she loves before her in her arms and the one she detests on her shoulders. But when she is tired of going upright, she deliberately drops the one she loves and reluctantly carries the one she hates. The ape does not have a tail. The Devil has the form of an ape, with a head but no tail. Although every part of the ape is foul, its rear parts are disgusting and horrid enough. The Devil began as an angel in heaven. But inside he was a hypocrite and a deceiver, and he lost his tail, because he will perish totally at the end, just as the apostle says: ‘The Lord shall consume him with the spirit of his mouth.’ (2 Thessalonians, 2:8) The name symia is Greek, meaning, ‘flattened nostrils’. Hence we call the ape symia because they have compressed nostrils and a hideous face, its creases foully expanding and contracting like a bellows; although she-goats also have a flattened nose. The apes called circopetici have tails. This alone distinguishes them from the apes mentioned earlier. Cenophali are numbered among the apes. They occur in great numbers in parts of Ethiopia. They leap wildly and bite fiercely. They are never so tame, that their ferocity does not increase. Sphynxes are also included among apes. They have shaggy hair on their arms and are easily taught to forget their wild nature. Of satyrs There are also apes that men call satyrs. They have quite attractive faces, and are restless, making pantomimed gestures. The apes called callitrices differ from the others in almost every aspect of their appearance. They have bearded faces and broad tails. It is not difficult to catch them but they rarely survive in captivity. They do not live elsewhere than under the Ethiopian sky, that is their native sky.

I’ll admit, I find that whole tail business a bit confusing. Before continuing with the deer, I’ll note that A drink made from the tears and the heart bones of a stag is a cure for troubles of the heart was a common belief way back when, the ‘heart bones’ of a stag being in the shape of a cross. This interesting belief is a main plot point in This Night’s Foul Work, by Fred Vargas.

Of deer The word cervi (deer) comes from ceraton, ‘horns’, for horns are called cerata in Greek. Deer are the enemies of snakes; when they feel weighed down with weakness, they draw snakes from their holes with the breath of their noses and, overcoming the fatal nature of their venom, eat them and are restored. They have shown the value of the herb dittany, for after feeding on it, they shake out the arrows which have lodged in them. Deer marvel at the sound of the pipes; their hearing is keen when their ears are pricked but they hear nothing when their ears are lowered. Deer have this characteristic also, that they change their feeding-ground for love of another country, and in doing so, they support each other. When they cross great rivers or large long stretches of water, they place their head on the hindquarters of the deer in front and, following one on the other, do not feel impeded by their weight. When they find such places, they cross them quickly, to avoid sinking in the mire. They have another characteristic, that after eating a snake they run to a spring and, drinking from it, shed their long coats and all signs of old age.

The members of the holy Church seem to have a mentality corresponding to that of deer, because while they change their homeland, that is, the world, for love of the heavenly homeland, they carry each other, that is, the more perfect bring on and sustain the less perfect by their example and their good works. And if they find a place of sin, they leap over it at once, and after the incarnation of the Devil, that is, after committing a sin, they run, by their confession, to Christ, the true spring; drinking in his commandments, they are renewed, shedding their sin like old age. Stags, when it is time to rut, rage with the madness of lust. Does, although they may been inseminated earlier, do not conceive before the star Arcturus appears. They do not rear their young just anywhere but hide them with tender care, concealed deep in bushes or grass, and they make them stay out of sight with a tap of the hoof. When the young grow strong enough to take flight, the deer train them to run and to leap great distances. When deer hear the dogs barking, they move upwind taking their scent with them. They are scared rigid by everything, which makes them an easier mark for archers. Of their horns, the right-hand one is better for medical purposes. If you want to frighten off snakes, you should burn either. If deer have few or no teeth, it shows that they are old. In order to tell their age, Alexander the Great ringed a number of deer; when they were recaptured a century later they showed no sign of old age. The offspring of the deer are called hinnuli, fawns, from innuere, ‘to nod’, because at a nod from their mother, they vanish from sight.

The rennet of a fawn killed in its mother’s womb is a marvellous remedy against poisons. It is known that deer never grow feverish. For this reason ointments made from their marrow bring down sick men’s temperatures. We read that many men who have regularly eaten a small amount of venison since their early days have lived for a long time unaffected by fevers; but ultimately it fails them as a remedy if they are killed by a single blow.

Folio 12v – Simie vocantur…; apes.

Yer So Trad…

Prairie Dress. Jumpinbloomers.com

I’m not entirely sure how to introduce this one. Okay, a bunch of Nazis were hanging out in a garage, drinking and smoking cigars, listening to Tom Petty, when they decided to write their own song, set to Petty’s Yer So Bad.

Before you click play, you might want to read the lyrics:

My girlfriend Stacy wants lots of babies
Maybe in five years or so
While I’m in the basement she larps as a peasant
Soon we’ll go live in the woods

In Fashy Dating she pretends she’s a lady
Yer so trad, liftin yer skirt for chad
In a world gone mad, yer so trad

She reads Evola, a lesbian chola
What kind of wheat fields are these?
A culture or fetish? A THOT with a purpose
Fishnets under the prairie dress

Oh Nazi Lady, oben bobs and vagene
Yer so trad, best lay I ever had
In a world gone chad, yer so trad

Incels and autists, virgins and kissless,
Too good to wed single moms

Oh Nazi Lady, oben bobs and vagene
In Fashy Dating (in fashy dating!), She pretends she’s a lady
Yer so trad, givin it up for a chad
In a world gone mad, yer so trad

Yer so trad, best lay I ever had
In a world gone mad, yer so trad

They described the song as “funnier than the original” and “about the scene of trad thoughts that are out there.”

Could just be me, but I don’t find that to be funny at all. Then again, I’m not a Nazi. You can read more at RWW.

oooOOOoo Liberal Lesbian Brain Eating Dominatrix ooOOOooo.

Aristotle and his lover Phyllis. Phyllis is riding on the great philosopher, which is used to symbolize the power of the women. C. 1515.

Oh, batshit does not even come close to covering what’s to follow. Before we delve into the overwhelming bonnaconshit of Alex Jones, a bit of clarification about the word Dominatrix.

Dominatrix is the feminine form of the Latin dominator, a ruler or lord, and was originally used in a non-sexual sense. Its use in English dates back to at least 1561. Its earliest recorded use in the prevalent modern sense, as a female dominant in S&M, dates to 1967. […] The profession appears to have originated as a specialization within brothels, before becoming its own unique craft. As far back as the 1590s, flagellation within an erotic setting is recorded. The profession features in erotic prints of the era, such as the British Museum mezzotint “The Cully Flaug’d” (c. 1674–1702), and in accounts of forbidden books which record the flogging schools and the activities practised. You can read more here. Thus ends sanity…

I don’t think Alex Jones believes so much as a fraction of all the delusional, conspiracy theories he pushes so hard, but whether or not he does, enough people who listen to him do swallow it all whole, and that’s bad enough. I’d be willing to bet, given this most recent, um, screed, that Jones is relying on his audience to be people who don’t read much, if at all. I did not watch the video, and I’m not going to, it’s difficult enough reading this nonsense, and I give great credit to the team at RWW who do watch these things.

On today’s Infowars broadcast, Jones claimed that “most of the so-called liberal lesbians” are women who want men with a “duck’s ass haircut and the James Dean outfit” to physically slap them around, and that if they can’t find men who fit the bill, they will turn to women who do.

“Most of these butch lesbians, they want to be the guy smacking the hot chick around. They think that’s manly. And a lot of the chicks, they like it, see, because no man will do that to them, and I’m not saying it’s good if a man does that, but some women like it. And if they can’t find a man to smack them around, well they found them a girl gonna do it real good—knock them upside their head and have ‘50 Shades of Grey’ about the sexy rich guy that’s going to chain you up,” Jones said.

Could we please dispense with the idiotic stereotypes, pleeeaaase? I don’t think it ever dawns on people like Jones that the stuff they come up with says more about them than anyone else. I guess Jones has a thing for James Dean. There are a whole lot of people who did not read or watch 50 Shades of Grey, and it did not portray BDSM correctly, to say the least. There was a great deal of conflating BDSM with abusive behaviour. [I did not read it; I did read reviews.] I can easily imagine Jones reading such dreck, and thinking it was all Trufax. Note Jones’s weaseling about when it comes to a man smacking a woman around. “It wouldn’t be good if a man did it, but y’know, some women like it!”

“Of course, you’re gonna go get chained up one time. They’re gonna put that devil mask or that piggy mask on. They’re gonna say, ‘Now I’m gonna torture you for about six weeks, so start begging for your mommy and your daddy.’ That’s the liberals. They want to get you in a dungeon. They want to strap you down and take a buzz saw and cut the top of your head off like a pumpkin and pull it off and get a little spoon and go, when you’re looking in the mirror—this is one thing I know they like to do—they go ‘I’m going to eat your brain now.’”

Jones then devolved into an impression of his imagined liberal lesbian dominatrix torturing a captor that is difficult to explain.

“Let’s start at the side areas here, because we don’t want to take away your sight at the back or your thinking in the front. I’m gonna eat your cerebral cortex last,” Jones said, beginning to scream in his studio.

Yeah, no. I am pretty sure that Jones lifted all this from Thomas Harris’s novel Hannibal. That book has scary pigs, a lesbian bodybuilder, and brain eating. Now in the book, the prefrontal cortex is eaten, so Jones changed that up a bit, while displaying a complete ignorance of brain anatomy. I have to say, I’m a bit disappointed the screed did not explain where all the corpses ended up. That’s not the way to do good narrative. Could have done a soylent green thing or something.

Jones then devolved into an impression of his imagined liberal lesbian dominatrix torturing a captor that is difficult to explain.

“Let’s start at the side areas here, because we don’t want to take away your sight at the back or your thinking in the front. I’m gonna eat your cerebral cortex last,” Jones said, beginning to scream in his studio.

“I’ve got power. I love Satan,” Jones yelled, growing louder and louder. “And I’m gonna suck you dry and I’m going to torture you to death. And you’re going to follow my liberal orders, and you’re going to talk like I talk, and you’re going to be guilty when I say you’re guilty. And you’re gonna bow to me.”

Sigh. C’mon, there’s got to be a little bit of plausibility somewhere. Just how is anyone going to follow orders, liberal or no, and talk like they talk if they are missing mass amounts of their brain, and then being tortured to death? Honestly, there’s no point there. That is not any way to go about getting yourself a bunch of liberal slaves. And, it’s a bad story, dude. Really bad. Unfortunately, I imagine Jones’s audience isn’t terribly keen on all thinking business.

There’s video at RWW, if you want the full performance.

Hyena and Bonnacon.

The hyena should not be eaten because it is dirty and has two natures, male and female. Both sexual organs are clearly shown. It dwells in the tombs of the dead and devours human bodies. Its spine is rigid and it must move its whole body in order to turn.

The hyena should not be eaten because it is dirty and has two natures, male and female. Both sexual organs are clearly shown. It dwells in the tombs of the dead and devours human bodies. Its spine is rigid and it must move its whole body in order to turn.

This is one of my all time favourite Medieval Bestiary depictions. I love that external spine. Wish I had one to wear.

Detail of miniature of a lioness, a crocote, and a bonnacon, Harley MS 3244, f. 41r.

Detail of miniature of a lioness, a crocote, and a bonnacon, Harley MS 3244, f. 41r.

The bonnacon is an Asian beast whose head is like a bull but his horns curl inwards so that they do not harm the victim. When the bonnacon is chased he expels dung which burns a wide area.

The bonnacon is an Asian beast whose head is like a bull but his horns curl inwards so that they do not harm the victim. When the bonnacon is chased he expels dung which burns a wide area.

Text Translation:

Of the hyena. There is an animal called the hyena, which inhabits the tombs of the dead and feeds on their bodies. Its nature is that it is sometimes male, sometimes female, and it is therefore an unclean animal. Since its spine is rigid, all in one piece, it cannot turn round except by turning its body right around. Solinus recounts many marvellous things about the hyena. First, it stalks the sheepfolds of shepherds and circles their houses by night, and by listening carefully learns their speech, so that it can imitate the human voice, in order to fall on any man whom it has lured out at night. The hyena also [imitates] human vomit and devours the dogs it has enticed with faked sounds of retching. If dogs hunting the hyena accidentally touch its shadow behind, they lose their voices and cannot bark. In its search for buried bodies, the hyena digs up graves. The sons of Israel resemble the hyena. At the beginning they served the living God. Later, addicted to wealth and luxury, they worshipped idols. For this reason the prophet compared the synagogue to an unclean animal: ‘My heritage is to me as the den of a hyena.’ (see Jeremiah, 12:8) Therefore those among us who are slaves to luxury and greed, are like this brute, since they are neither men nor omen, that is, neither faithful nor faithless, but are without doubt those of whom Solomon says: ‘A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways’; (James, 1:8) of whom the Lord says: ‘You cannot serve God and mammon.’ (Matthew, 6:24)

This beast has a stone in its eyes, called hyenia; anyone who keeps it under his tongue is believed to foretell the future. It is true that if the hyena walks three times around any animal, the animal cannot move. For this reason men declare that the hyena has magical properties. In a part of Ethiopia the hyena mates with the lioness; their union produces a monster, named crocote. Like the hyena, it too produces men’s voices. It never tries to change the direction of its glance but strives to see without changing it. It has no gums in its mouth. Its single, continuous tooth is closed naturally like a casket so that it is never blunted.

Of the bonnacon In Asia an animal is found which men call bonnacon. It has the head of a bull, and thereafter its whole body is of the size of a bull’s with the maned neck of a horse. Its horns are convoluted, curling back on themselves in such a way that if anyone comes up against it, he is not harmed. But the protection which its forehead denies this monster is furnished by its bowels. For when it turns to flee, it discharges fumes from the excrement of its belly over a distance of three acres, the heat of which sets fire to anything it touches. In this way, it drives off its pursuers with its harmful excrement.

Folio 11v – Ibex, continued. De yena; the hyena.