GROUCHO MARXISM

Thesis on Groucho Marxism
by Bob Black

1. Groucho Marxism, the theory of comedic revolution is much more than a blueprint for crass struggle: like a red light in a window, it illuminates humanity's inevitable destiny, the déclassé society. G-Marxism is the theory of permanent revelry. (Down boy! There, that's a good dogma.)

2. The example of the Marx Brothers themselves shows the unity of Marxist theory and practice (for instance, when Groucho insults somebody, Harpo picks his pocket). Moreover, Marxism is dialectical (isn't Chico the classic dialect comedian?). Comedians who fail to synthesize theory and practice (to say nothing of those who fail to sin at all) are un-Marxist. Subsequent comedians, failing to grasp that separation is “the discrete charm of the bourgeoisie,” have lapsed into mere pratfalls on the one hand, and mere prattle on the other.

3. Because G-Marxism is practical, its achievements can never be reduced to mere humor, entertainment, or even “art.” (The aesthetes, after all, are less interested in the appreciation of art than in art that appreciates.) After a genuine Marxist sees a Marx Brothers movie, he tells himself: “If you think that was funny, take a look at your life!”

4. Contemporary G-Marxists must resolutely denounce the imitative, vulgar “Marxism” of the Three Stooges, Monty Python, and Bugs Bunny. Instead of vulgar Marxism, we must return to authentic Marxist vulgarity. "Rectumification" is likewise in order for those deluded comrades, who think that “the correct line” is what the cop makes them walk, when he pulls them over.

5. Class-conscious Marxists (that is, Marxists who are conscious that they have no class) must spurn the anemic, trendy, narcissistic “comedy” of comedic revisionists like Woody Allen and Jules Feiffer. Already the comedic revolution has superseded mere neurosis - it's ludic but not ludicrous, discriminating but not discriminatory, militant but not military; and, adventurous but not adventurist. Marxists realize that today you have to look into a fun-house mirror, to see the way you really are.

6. Although not entirely lacking in glimmers of Marxist insight, socialist (sur)realism must be distinguished from G-Marxism. It is true that Salvador Dali once gave Harpo a harp made out of barbed wire; however, there is no evidence that Harpo ever played it.

7. Above all, it is essential to renounce and revile all comedic sectarianism such as that of the equine Trots. As is well-known, Groucho repeatedly proposed sex but opposed sects. For Groucho, then, there was a difference between being a Trot and being "hot to trot". Further, the Trot slogan “Wages for Horsework” smacks of reform, not revelry. Trot efforts to claim "A Day at the Races" and "Horse Feathers" for their tendency must be indignantly rejected; in truth, National Velvet is more their style. The burning issue confronting G-Marxists today is the party question, which - naive, reductionist “Marxists” to the contrary - is more than just “Why wasn't I invited?” That never stopped Groucho! Marxists need their own disciplined vanguard party, since they're rarely welcome at anybody else's.

8. Guided by the Marxist leader-dogmas of "misbehaviorism" and "hysterical materialism", inevitably the masses will embrace, not only G-Marxism, but also each other.

9. Groucho Marxism, then, is the "tour de farce" of comedy. As Harpo is reliably reported to have said.

In other words, comedy is riotous or it is nothing! So much to do, so many to do it to! On your Marx, get set - go!

BORED AGAIN? Why not rattle your cage? I propose a dialog of the disaffected, a conspiracy of the equals, a politics of pleasure. Ours is the anomic power of negative thinking and corrosive laughter. The unruly amongst the institutionalized have only themselves - and possibly each other. Let's confer. The choice is sedition or sedation. Any number can play.

- Bob Black, 1979

Originally published in "The Abolition of Work and Other Essays" by Bob Black; with no copyright.

GET BLOGGED W/ STEVE MCP

GET BLOGGED W/ STEVE MCP

FORGETTING COLOURS

I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid. On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami. Years ago I discovered the meaning of life; but, I forgot to write it down. I have made extraordinary four course meals, using only a mouli and a toaster oven. I breed prizewinning clams. I have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka; and, spelling bees at the Kremlin. I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery; and, I have spoken with Elvis. But, I have not yet signed a lucrative recording contract. I attribute my success to the fact that there were some people, who slightly helped me with my accomplishments; but, I can't remember their names.


DIRT POOR CRAZY PEOPLE
by Stephen McPhail

YOU COULD HURDLE EVERY SUNBEAM
LIKE DANCERS DAYDREAM...
& END UP JUST THE SAME
DIRT POOR CRAZY PEOPLE....

YOU COULD ALWAYS BE RIGHT
EVEN WIN EVERY FIGHT...
& STILL BE
DIRT POOR CRAZY PEOPLE...

COULD YOU EVER LIVE FOREVER
JUST BECAUSE YOU WILL IT SO...
WILL GOD FORGIVE YOU, LIKE YOUR FRIENDS DO
OR, DOES HE EVEN KNOW...

SET YOURSELF UP FOR A FALL
BUT, DOES THAT MEAN YOU WON’T...
ARE THE PLANS YOU THOUGHT YOU BOUGHT
FOR RENT OR OUT ON LOAN...

YOU COULD HAVE EVERYTHING YOU SEE
EXPLAIN EVERY MYSTERY...
& FIND YOURSELF
DIRT POOR CRAZY PEOPLE...

YOU COULD HAVE EVERY SUCCESS
ELIMINATE ALL STRESS...
& STILL BE
DIRT POOR CRAZY PEOPLE...

YOU COULD KEEP ON KEEPING ON
YOUR PATHWAY TO THE SUN...
& NOT MIND BEING
DIRT POOR CRAZY PEOPLE...

YOU COULD THINK HAPPY THOUGHTS
LIVE WITH WHAT YOU GOT...
SO WHAT IF YOU ARE
DIRT POOR CRAZY PEOPLE...

COULD YOU EVER LIVE FOREVER
JUST BECAUSE YOU WILL IT SO...
WILL GOD FORGIVE YOU, LIKE YOUR FRIENDS DO
OR, DOES HE EVEN KNOW...

SET YOURSELF UP FOR A FALL
BUT, DOES THAT MEAN YOU WON’T...
ARE THE PLANS YOU THOUGHT YOU BOUGHT
FOR RENT OR OUT ON LOAN...

SOLITARY OUTLAW - reborn

Well, after a day to recover from New Year's eve, I finally picked up B.W. Powe's inspiring book; and, finished the last few chapters, some of which I must share, "to whom it may concern":

After Marshall McLuhan suffered his stroke and his speech paralyzed, the University of Toronto shut down his "Centre for Culture and Technology". The universities largely continue to ignore his thinking. McLuhan was once omnipresent in discussions about technology, literacy and the global village. He now stands in the solitude of a reputation that is nowhere.

Something else that haunts me: people travelling at the speed of light. The self is dissolved like a note in an accelerating run of music. Musicalized being. The monotype becomes the stereotype; when everyone is moving too much or too fast to touch or remember.

"Does the interiorization of media, such as letters, alter the ratio among the senses and change mental processes? The print-made split between head and heart is the trauma which affects Europe from Machiavelli till the present. The portability of the book, like that of the easel-painting, added much to the new cult of individualism. The twentieth century encounter between alphabetic and electronic faces of culture confers on the printed word a crucial role in staying the return to the Africa within."
The Gutenberg Galaxy" by Marshall McLuhan

"The Africa within" is the heart of darkness. This is, McLuhan knew, a central metaphor in the modern journey to the dark side of human nature. While McLuhan's perceptions and intuitions are urgent; they were not tragic in their implications. His response was to turn to public alert through satire and laughter; the exposure of the power of all media, electric and literary.

Marshall McLuhan's and Elias Canetti's perception of the end of the Book Age, or of the transformation and displacement of the Book Man, signals what followed in their complex thinking processes. McLuhan may have experienced some sort of blinding; he worked with flashes of intuition. However, I've never found a reference to an event that inspired the illumination. There may not have been one event: rather, a series of successive re-cognitions. Still, after decades in print, The Gutenberg Galaxy remains a daring, unsettling book. Fact: McLuhan and Canetti continued their intuitions with attempts to illuminate the irrational mass movements of the century.

After "The Blinding", Canetti abandoned the novel form. He devoted himself for more than fifteen years to the researching and writing of his non-fiction magnum opus, "Crowds and Power" (German: 1960; English: 1962). Throughout Crowds and Power, Canetti attempts to appeal to the Plain Reader, as if conversing with us outside the claims of government, corporation, university or lobby group. A crowd will always show the intelligence of its least intelligent member. Tyrants turn their subjects into undifferentiated mass. Rob a tyranny of the sting of command and the Plain Citizen cannot be coerced into corporate service. For Canetti, every case is unique; we are all exceptions. True communication, he suggests, takes place between individuals.

The fear in Crowds and Power comes from someone who was a witness to mass hysteria in Europe during World War II. That fear of the mob disturbs populist democrats; who see in the emotion, a nostalgia for absolutes or a secret yearning for dictatorship. This is not Canetti's point. Without the ability to stand apart and read patterns in history; we are open to being channeled into distruction.

Crowds and Power is a challenge to read. When Canetti studied crowd formations; he explored actual physical movements. This makes the book intensely metaphoric. Sociologists dislike the method. They call it poetry. Crowds and Power is authentically poetic; it asks the reader to see, think, feel, hear and touch, in a sensuous apprehension. It uses art and intuition as a way of knowing.

"Man has always listened to the footsteps of other men; he has certainly paid more attention to them than to his own. Animals too have their familiar gait; their rhythms are often richer and more audible than those of men: hoofed animals flee in herds, like regiments of drummers. The knowledge of the animals, by which he was surrounded, which threatened him and which he hunted, was man's oldest knowledge."
"Crowds and Power" by Elias Canetti

Canetti and McLuhan radically diverge in the intensity of their moral visions. Canetti has not shown an interest in reading the images of pop culture, the North American ground. Canetti perceives the collapse of literacy and perspective in tragic-absurd terms; he is catastrophe-haunted. He has described his writing process as resembling a running for cover in a bomb raid. Canetti's urgency, however, is hounded by ghosts of viciousness and violence.

"Even after the first war, some writers were still able to content themselves with deep breathing and crystal polishing. But today, after the second war, after gas chambers and atomic bombs, being human requires more in its utmost imperilment and degradation. One must turn to brutality as it always was; and, coarsen one's hands and mind on it. One must grab man as he is, hard and unredeemed. But, one must not permit him to lay his hands on hope. Hope can flow only from darkest knowledge; otherwise, it will become a derisive superstition and speed up the destruction, that looms more and more ominously."
"The Human Province" by E. Canetti

Marshall McLuhan was a North American intellectual involved in the contract with the New World. He extended the vision of Cosmic Man and the global village, that Wyndham Lewis himself had first described. McLuhan is also in the tradition of Canadian thinkers and artists fascinated by communication signals and reception. He was realistic about any attempt to shut off electric input and influence: it was impossible. In the post-literate society, literacy could function as a DEW line: the Distant Early Warning about overload, saturation and dissolution of individual integrity. Literacy kept you critically conscious: it could restore the balance to the imbalance of instantaneous information. The printed word could be a weapon against unconscious drift. The eighteenth-century focus on language, education and debate could work like a still point in the electronic wave.

McLuhan, like Lewis, believed you could laugh your enemies to death. His puns, put-ons and probes were charged with cosmopolitan hilarity. "I would not," Lewis says in Blasting and Bombardiering, "have you think that I am shut out from what is called by the Japanese 'the Ah-ness of things". But, there is a ho-ho-ness too; to proceed with a protracted comedy, which glitters against the darkness." To outwit the forces of surveillance and death; let the critical "I" become a private eye.

McLuhan's wit was self-protective. "If any person became totally aware of what is going on today; he'd go instantly mad." And: "The young people of today undergo a psychic torture through media bombardment and fallout that is unprecedented." His approach is comic-apocalyptic; though we can see him as a chronicler of disintegration and reintegration. McLuhan constantly referred to Edgar Allan Poe's "The Descent into the Maelstrom"; because, it served him as a metaphor for the inner necessity of creating a calm "I", in the midst of terror and turbulence.

We know that McLuhan referred to Canetti's books; but, can we picture Canetti reading McLuhan? It is hard to imagine Canetti reading any of his North American contemporaries with pleasure. Canetti would have been appalled by McLuhan's lack of a sense of darkness; his temporary identification with the media forces, that McLuhan himself privately criticized. Canetti's writings, however, are unobservant about electric force fields and masses: he seems unaware of the effect of hyper-speed, the hyper-society that interrupts and corrodes awareness.

Canetti's humourless humanism and rigorous skepticism do reject the technological Ubermensch, the super-being beyond criticism and beyond physical reach; the being that wants to dominate and program its surroundings. Canetti rejects a strain of satire because he will not use letters to kill; he will not be part of the pack. He will defy those who force us into brutality; and, he will side with the creature. He is not interested in overcoming human nature, making man a god, a hero, an angel. He has grasped that the problem of our time is, simply, the definition of the human contract.

"In the age of the organ transplant," McLuhan writes, "the definition of 'death' has become problematic." We are already superhuman through our on-line computers, amplifiers, home-video reproductions; our fantasy systems that can mesmerize and duplicate our imperfect selves. A crowd cannot speak out; it can only groan, cheer or wave. But, to speak in a singular voice; and, treat others as real, becomes more and more difficult. It is their efforts for the maintenance of a humanism in the vortex of mass society that unites Canetti and McLuhan.

A nightclub, after hours.
"Fuck, man," a man said.
"Yeah?" his buddy said.
"Ah y'know. Fuck this, fuck that, fuck me, fuck you!"
"Yeah, I know."
"Yeah. And I got another fuckin' problem."
"What's that?"
"The only fuckin' thing I can say any more is fuck."
"That's too bad."
"Fuckin' right."

The literate person is an outsider today. Yet, this exile, as it were, may give the literate person an advantage. To read and write may be as unique an accomplishment,as it was in pre-literate societies, in the 13th century, the time of Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose". Readers and writers will have the role of maintaining the freshness and ferocity of language. They will have the job of staying out of tune: to make certain that human beings remain complex. The post-literate state may tell us why those writers, with 19th century views of the Heroic Author, sound like anachronisms. When an author exerts the same mass-public appeal on his time as a Romantic-Heroic author; then, the relationship with the audience is based on a sentimental nostalgia. The word can too easily be dismissed.

Canetti has said that we cannot permit ourselves the luxury of a sentimental hope. Instant meltdown looms. What form can an eccentric literary influence take? To go beyond the wordlessness, the cynicism and the shining surface of society and recover the power of words. There is no way out from a critical confrontation with our world. We must probe at issues, ideas and popular fronts; even at risk of losing a voice in the consuming-consumer rush. Even at risk of having the questioning cheapened, forgotten and flattered for the wrong reasons. Even in Canada, in the midst of post-literacy.

McLuhan never withdrew; he remained available. He said in his characteristic way: "In the age of the information hunter, feedback yields to feedforward; the point of view becomes the probe. Problems become discoveries."

Canetti supplied a credo in 1955 for any writer: "To the administrator of words, whoever he may be: Give me dark words and give me clear words; but, I want no flowers, you can keep the fragrance to yourself. I want words that don't fall away; words that don't wither. I want thorns and root; and occasionally, very occasionally, a translucent leaf."

"The Solitary Outlaw"
by B.W. Powe

SOLITARY OUTLAW - the sequel

"Pushed into an unlighted room,
the door banged (shut) and locked for ever;
I shall then have to light a lamp
of aggressive voltage in my mind,
to keep at bay the night."
Wyndham Lewis
from "The Solitary Outlaw"
by B.W.Powe

"But, the winds of power routinely snuff out such egoism. Differences and dissent, tolerated in theory, pose a threat to those, who want to shape opinion. Lewis' independent flame, which he believed resembled a blow torch, was almost blown out.

Risking the powers allied against you: this is the code of awareness. Lewis demonstrated that freedom of speech is a matter of who manages the media, who controls access to the public. He dramatized throughout his cantankerous career that debate matters; and, that if you talk truly to others as individuals, those who overhear will, however briefly, be powerless. He stated again that the worst crime for a citizen is to be unobservant, petty, asleep. He tested the limits of the intellectual's liberty, in the post-war west.

Now, the problems he spotlighted are more insidious. The drama of the word plays to an empty house. The solitary outlaw is both the writer and the reader. They are engaged in a strange exchange that is clandestine, even subversive; not at all in the best interest of an impulse-driven society, suspicious of privacy!"
B.W.Powe

SPIRIT WARRIORS
by Stephen McPhail (inspired by Black Elk)

FROM THE CENTRE OF THE WORLD
CLEARLY SEE THAT WHAT WE DO...
IS LIKE A SHADOW ON THE GROUND
WHILE OUR VISION IS WHAT'S TRUE...

OH GREAT SPIRIT, HELP US TO SWAY
AS BLOOMING BLOSSOMS ON YOUR TREE...
WE PERFORM OUR DANCE OF POWER
NOURISHED BY LIFE'S MYSTERY...

SEASONS RAIN FOR CRYING THINGS
HELP THEM GROW TO STAND UP TALL...
SPIRIT WARRIORS LAUGH AT THOSE
WHO KEEP TRYING TO MAKE US SMALL...

FROM THE CENTRE OF THE WORLD
GROWS AN ETERNAL FLOWERING TREE...
FULL OF LEAVES & SINGING BIRDS
IT'S THE SOUL OF BEING FREE...

SPIRITUAL TREASURES

Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin, from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello; I was scouted by the Mets; I am the subject of numerous documentaries. When I’m bored, I build large suspension bridges in my yard. I enjoy urban hang gliding. On Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical appliances free of charge. I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst; and, a ruthless bookie. Critics, worldwide, swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don’t perspire. I am a private citizen; yet, I receive fan mail. I have been caller number nine and have won the weekend passes. Last summer, I toured New Jersey with a travelling centrifugal-force demonstration. I bat 400. My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles. Children trust me.

I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once read “Paradise Lost”, “Moby Dick”, and “David Copperfield” in one day; and, still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed several covert operations with the C.I.A. I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in New Zealand, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists, who had seized a small bakery. The laws of physics do not apply to me!

But, as my mum love's to say: "If you're so smart; how-cum yr not rich?"
"It's all for the spiritual treasures, mother dearest!"

I have volunteered, off and on, since 1998 (they pay me when they can) working as a project coordinator; with a non-profit Aboriginal organization, called Frontiers Foundation Inc. Part of the earlier years was spent in Northern Canada, working with rural folk, who got Frontiers' "Operation Beaver", new construction or home improvement grants. Then, I was involved with the development of Frontiers' first urban (supportive) affordable housing complex, called "Project Amik", here in Toronto, on Coxwell Avenue; where Frontiers now has its head office. (http://www.frontiersfoundation.ca).

Despite having been under-funded and under-marketed, Frontiers Foundation has persisted in challenging the government, to address the affordable housing crisis in Canada (The Planet?). Though housing is number one on Frontiers' agenda; they also find volunteer teachers for northern communities. Before there was "Habitat for Humanity"; for 45 years, there has been Canada's own "Frontiers Foundation".

Today, was the staff Christmas party, like many happening this week. It was a fabulous feast; which, as usual, prompted a good turnout. Congrats to Frontiers' fearless leader, Charles Catto, for following his good wife, Barbara's able directions and producing her famous chili; supplementing Marilyn's fabulous turkey and ham, with all the many fixings & trimmings. A tip of the hat to office manager, Pat, for her remarkable punch. ("Really, I just threw in whatever was at hand!") Roland, the super at Project Amik, circulated with his digital camera; getting evidence on all the usual suspects. Thank you, Santa; for all the gifts to the Project Amik children.