"A CHILD'S CHRISTMAS IN WALES", BY DYLAN THOMAS

One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.

All the Christmases roll down toward the two-tongued sea, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky that was our street; and they stop at the rim of the ice-edged fish-freezing waves, and I plunge my hands in the snow and bring out whatever I can find. In goes my hand into that wool-white bell-tongued ball of holidays resting at the rim of the carol-singing sea, and out come Mrs. Prothero and the firemen.

It was on the afternoon of the Christmas Eve, and I was in Mrs. Prothero's garden, waiting for cats, with her son Jim. It was snowing. It was always snowing at Christmas. December, in my memory, is white as Lapland, though there were no reindeers. But there were cats. Patient, cold and callous, our hands wrapped in socks, we waited to snowball the cats. Sleek and long as jaguars and horrible-whiskered, spitting and snarling, they would slink and sidle over the white back-garden walls, and the lynx-eyed hunters, Jim and I, fur-capped and moccasined trappers from Hudson Bay, off Mumbles Road, would hurl our deadly snowballs at the green of their eyes. The wise cats never appeared.

We were so still, Eskimo-footed arctic marksmen in the muffling silence of the eternal snows - eternal, ever since Wednesday - that we never heard Mrs. Prothero's first cry from her igloo at the bottom of the garden. Or, if we heard it at all, it was, to us, like the far-off challenge of our enemy and prey, the neighbor's polar cat. But soon the voice grew louder.
"Fire!" cried Mrs. Prothero, and she beat the dinner-gong.

And we ran down the garden, with the snowballs in our arms, toward the house; and smoke, indeed, was pouring out of the dining-room, and the gong was bombilating, and Mrs. Prothero was announcing ruin like a town crier in Pompeii. This was better than all the cats in Wales standing on the wall in a row. We bounded into the house, laden with snowballs, and stopped at the open door of the smoke-filled room.

Something was burning all right; perhaps it was Mr. Prothero, who always slept there after midday dinner with a newspaper over his face. But he was standing in the middle of the room, saying, "A fine Christmas!" and smacking at the smoke with a slipper.

"Call the fire brigade," cried Mrs. Prothero as she beat the gong.
"There won't be there," said Mr. Prothero, "it's Christmas."
There was no fire to be seen, only clouds of smoke and Mr. Prothero standing in the middle of them, waving his slipper as though he were conducting.
"Do something," he said. And we threw all our snowballs into the smoke - I think we missed Mr. Prothero - and ran out of the house to the telephone box.
"Let's call the police as well," Jim said. "And the ambulance." "And Ernie Jenkins, he likes fires."

But we only called the fire brigade, and soon the fire engine came and three tall men in helmets brought a hose into the house and Mr. Prothero got out just in time before they turned it on. Nobody could have had a noisier Christmas Eve. And when the firemen turned off the hose and were standing in the wet, smoky room, Jim's Aunt, Miss. Prothero, came downstairs and peered in at them. Jim and I waited, very quietly, to hear what she would say to them. She said the right thing, always. She looked at the three tall firemen in their shining helmets, standing among the smoke and cinders and dissolving snowballs, and she said, "Would you like anything to read?"

Years and years ago, when I was a boy, when there were wolves in Wales, and birds the color of red-flannel petticoats whisked past the harp-shaped hills, when we sang and wallowed all night and day in caves that smelt like Sunday afternoons in damp front farmhouse parlors, and we chased, with the jawbones of deacons, the English and the bears, before the motor car, before the wheel, before the duchess-faced horse, when we rode the daft and happy hills bareback, it snowed and it snowed. But here a small boy says: "It snowed last year, too. I made a snowman and my brother knocked it down and I knocked my brother down and then we had tea."

"But that was not the same snow," I say. "Our snow was not only shaken from white wash buckets down the sky, it came shawling out of the ground and swam and drifted out of the arms and hands and bodies of the trees; snow grew overnight on the roofs of the houses like a pure and grandfather moss, minutely -ivied the walls and settled on the postman, opening the gate, like a dumb, numb thunder-storm of white, torn Christmas cards."

"Were there postmen then, too?"
"With sprinkling eyes and wind-cherried noses, on spread, frozen feet they crunched up to the doors and mittened on them manfully. But all that the children could hear was a ringing of bells."
"You mean that the postman went rat-a-tat-tat and the doors rang?"
"I mean that the bells the children could hear were inside them."
"I only hear thunder sometimes, never bells."
"There were church bells, too."
"Inside them?"
"No, no, no, in the bat-black, snow-white belfries, tugged by bishops and storks. And they rang their tidings over the bandaged town, over the frozen foam of the powder and ice-cream hills, over the crackling sea. It seemed that all the churches boomed for joy under my window; and the weathercocks crew for Christmas, on our fence."

"Get back to the postmen"
"They were just ordinary postmen, found of walking and dogs and Christmas and the snow. They knocked on the doors with blue knuckles ...."
"Ours has got a black knocker...."
"And then they stood on the white Welcome mat in the little, drifted porches and huffed and puffed, making ghosts with their breath, and jogged from foot to foot like small boys wanting to go out."
"And then the presents?"
"And then the Presents, after the Christmas box. And the cold postman, with a rose on his button-nose, tingled down the tea-tray-slithered run of the chilly glinting hill. He went in his ice-bound boots like a man on fishmonger's slabs. "He wagged his bag like a frozen camel's hump, dizzily turned the corner on one foot, and, by God, he was gone."

"Get back to the Presents."
"There were the Useful Presents: engulfing mufflers of the old coach days, and mittens made for giant sloths; zebra scarfs of a substance like silky gum that could be tug-o'-warred down to the galoshes; blinding tam-o'-shanters like patchwork tea cozies and bunny-suited busbies and balaclavas for victims of head-shrinking tribes; from aunts who always wore wool next to the skin there were mustached and rasping vests that made you wonder why the aunts had any skin left at all; and once I had a little crocheted nose bag from an aunt now, alas, no longer whinnying with us. And pictureless books in which small boys, though warned with quotations not to, would skate on Farmer Giles' pond and did and drowned; and books that told me everything about the wasp, except why."

"Go on the Useless Presents."
"Bags of moist and many-colored jelly babies and a folded flag and a false nose and a tram-conductor's cap and a machine that punched tickets and rang a bell; never a catapult; once, by mistake that no one could explain, a little hatchet; and a celluloid duck that made, when you pressed it, a most unducklike sound, a mewing moo that an ambitious cat might make who wished to be a cow; and a painting book in which I could make the grass, the trees, the sea and the animals any colour I pleased, and still the dazzling sky-blue sheep are grazing in the red field under the rainbow-billed and pea-green birds. Hardboileds, toffee, fudge and allsorts, crunches, cracknels, humbugs, glaciers, marzipan, and butterwelsh for the Welsh. And troops of bright tin soldiers who, if they could not fight, could always run. And Snakes-and-Families and Happy Ladders. And Easy Hobbi-Games for Little Engineers, complete with instructions. Oh, easy for Leonardo! And a whistle to make the dogs bark to wake up the old man next door to make him beat on the wall with his stick to shake our picture off the wall. And a packet of cigarettes: you put one in your mouth and you stood at the corner of the street and you waited for hours, in vain, for an old lady to scold you for smoking a cigarette, and then with a smirk you ate it. And then it was breakfast under the balloons."

"Were there Uncles like in our house?"
"There are always Uncles at Christmas. The same Uncles. And on Christmas morning, with dog-disturbing whistle and sugar fags, I would scour the swatched town for the news of the little world, and find always a dead bird by the Post Office or by the white deserted swings; perhaps a robin, all but one of his fires out. Men and women wading or scooping back from chapel, with taproom noses and wind-bussed cheeks, all albinos, huddles their stiff black jarring feathers against the irreligious snow. Mistletoe hung from the gas brackets in all the front parlors; there was sherry and walnuts and bottled beer and crackers by the dessertspoons; and cats in their fur-abouts watched the fires; and the high-heaped fire spat, all ready for the chestnuts and the mulling pokers. Some few large men sat in the front parlors, without their collars, Uncles almost certainly, trying their new cigars, holding them out judiciously at arms' length, returning them to their mouths, coughing, then holding them out again as though waiting for the explosion; and some few small aunts, not wanted in the kitchen, nor anywhere else for that matter, sat on the very edge of their chairs, poised and brittle, afraid to break, like faded cups and saucers."

Not many those mornings trod the piling streets: an old man always, fawn-bowlered, yellow-gloved and, at this time of year, with spats of snow, would take his constitutional to the white bowling green and back, as he would take it wet or fire on Christmas Day or Doomsday; sometimes two hale young men, with big pipes blazing, no overcoats and wind blown scarfs, would trudge, unspeaking, down to the forlorn sea, to work up an appetite, to blow away the fumes, who knows, to walk into the waves until nothing of them was left but the two furling smoke clouds of their inextinguishable briars. Then I would be slap-dashing home, the gravy smell of the dinners of others, the bird smell, the brandy, the pudding and mince, coiling up to my nostrils, when out of a snow-clogged side lane would come a boy the spit of myself, with a pink-tipped cigarette and the violet past of a black eye, cocky as a bullfinch, leering all to himself.

I hated him on sight and sound, and would be about to put my dog whistle to my lips and blow him off the face of Christmas when suddenly he, with a violet wink, put his whistle to his lips and blew so stridently, so high, so exquisitely loud, that gobbling faces, their cheeks bulged with goose, would press against their tinsled windows, the whole length of the white echoing street. For dinner we had turkey and blazing pudding, and after dinner the Uncles sat in front of the fire, loosened all buttons, put their large moist hands over their watch chains, groaned a little and slept. Mothers, aunts and sisters scuttled to and fro, bearing tureens. Auntie Bessie, who had already been frightened, twice, by a clock-work mouse, whimpered at the sideboard and had some elderberry wine. The dog was sick. Auntie Dosie had to have three aspirins, but Auntie Hannah, who liked port, stood in the middle of the snowbound back yard, singing like a big-bosomed thrush. I would blow up balloons to see how big they would blow up to; and, when they burst, which they all did, the Uncles jumped and rumbled. In the rich and heavy afternoon, the Uncles breathing like dolphins and the snow descending, I would sit among festoons and Chinese lanterns and nibble dates and try to make a model man-o'-war, following the Instructions for Little Engineers, and produce what might be mistaken for a sea-going tramcar.

Or I would go out, my bright new boots squeaking, into the white world, on to the seaward hill, to call on Jim and Dan and Jack and to pad through the still streets, leaving huge footprints on the hidden pavements.
"I bet people will think there's been hippos."
"What would you do if you saw a hippo coming down our street?"
"I'd go like this, bang! I'd throw him over the railings and roll him down the hill and then I'd tickle him under the ear and he'd wag his tail."
"What would you do if you saw two hippos?"

Iron-flanked and bellowing he-hippos clanked and battered through the scudding snow toward us as we passed Mr. Daniel's house.
"Let's post Mr. Daniel a snow-ball through his letter box."
"Let's write things in the snow."
"Let's write, 'Mr. Daniel looks like a spaniel' all over his lawn."
Or we walked on the white shore. "Can the fishes see it's snowing?"

The silent one-clouded heavens drifted on to the sea. Now we were snow-blind travelers lost on the north hills, and vast dewlapped dogs, with flasks round their necks, ambled and shambled up to us, baying "Excelsior." We returned home through the poor streets where only a few children fumbled with bare red fingers in the wheel-rutted snow and cat-called after us, their voices fading away, as we trudged uphill, into the cries of the dock birds and the hooting of ships out in the whirling bay. And then, at tea the recovered Uncles would be jolly; and the ice cake loomed in the center of the table like a marble grave. Auntie Hannah laced her tea with rum, because it was only once a year.

Bring out the tall tales now that we told by the fire as the gaslight bubbled like a diver. Ghosts whooed like owls in the long nights when I dared not look over my shoulder; animals lurked in the cubbyhole under the stairs and the gas meter ticked. And I remember that we went singing carols once, when there wasn't the shaving of a moon to light the flying streets. At the end of a long road was a drive that led to a large house, and we stumbled up the darkness of the drive that night, each one of us afraid, each one holding a stone in his hand in case, and all of us too brave to say a word. The wind through the trees made noises as of old and unpleasant and maybe webfooted men wheezing in caves. We reached the black bulk of the house. "What shall we give them? Hark the Herald?"
"No," Jack said, "Good King Wencelas. I'll count three." One, two three, and we began to sing, our voices high and seemingly distant in the snow-felted darkness round the house that was occupied by nobody we knew. We stood close together, near the dark door. Good King Wencelas looked out On the Feast of Stephen ... And then a small, dry voice, like the voice of someone who has not spoken for a long time, joined our singing: a small, dry, eggshell voice from the other side of the door: a small dry voice through the keyhole. And when we stopped running we were outside our house; the front room was lovely; balloons floated under the hot-water-bottle-gulping gas; everything was good again and shone over the town.
"Perhaps it was a ghost," Jim said.
"Perhaps it was trolls," Dan said, who was always reading.
"Let's go in and see if there's any jelly left," Jack said. And we did that.

Always on Christmas night there was music. An uncle played the fiddle, a cousin sang "Cherry Ripe," and another uncle sang "Drake's Drum." It was very warm in the little house. Auntie Hannah, who had got on to the parsnip wine, sang a song about Bleeding Hearts and Death, and then another in which she said her heart was like a Bird's Nest; and then everybody laughed again; and then I went to bed. Looking through my bedroom window, out into the moonlight and the unending smoke-colored snow, I could see the lights in the windows of all the other houses on our hill and hear the music rising from them up the long, steady falling night. I turned the gas down, I got into bed. I said some words to the close and holy darkness, and then I slept.

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"LIMITS", BY JORGE LUIS BORGES

Of all the streets that blur in to the sunset,
There must be one (which, I am not sure)
That I by now have walked for the last time
Without guessing it, the pawn of that Someone

Who fixes in advance omnipotent laws,
Sets up a secret and unwavering scale
for all the shadows, dreams, and forms
Woven into the texture of this life.

If there is a limit to all things and a measure
And a last time and nothing more and forgetfulness,
Who will tell us to whom in this house
We without knowing it have said farewell?

Through the dawning window night withdraws
And among the stacked books which throw
Irregular shadows on the dim table,
There must be one which I will never read.

There is in the South more than one worn gate,
With its cement urns and planted cactus,
Which is already forbidden to my entry,
Inaccessible, as in a lithograph.

There is a door you have closed forever
And some mirror is expecting you in vain;
To you the crossroads seem wide open,
Yet watching you, four-faced, is a Janus.

There is among all your memories one
Which has now been lost beyond recall.
You will not be seen going down to that fountain
Neither by white sun nor by yellow moon.

You will never recapture what the Persian
Said in his language woven with birds and roses,
When, in the sunset, before the light disperses,
You wish to give words to unforgettable things.

And the steadily flowing Rhone and the lake,
All that vast yesterday over which today I bend?
They will be as lost as Carthage,
Scourged by the Romans with fire and salt.

At dawn I seem to hear the turbulent
Murmur of crowds milling and fading away;
They are all I have been loved by, forgotten by;
Space, time, and Borges now are leaving me.

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"A CHRISTMAS CAROL", BY G.K. CHESTERTON

The Christ-child lay on Mary's lap,
His hair was like a light.
(O weary, weary were the world,
But here is all aright.)

The Christ-child lay on Mary's breast,
His hair was like a star.
(O stern and cunning are the kings,
But here the true hearts are.)

The Christ-child lay on Mary's heart,
His hair was like a fire.
(O weary, weary is the world,
But here the world's desire.)

The Christ-child stood at Mary's knee,
His hair was like a crown.
And all the flowers looked up at Him,
And all the stars looked down.
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JINGLE BONES

The Dodologist has the pleasure to announce the release of Knokkelklang nr. 4 - a blog magazine editetd by His Grumpiness. It's a terribly jolly read for Christmas.
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THE BEATLES - A THOUSAND YEARS FROM NOW

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"YULE HORROR", BY H.P. LOVECRAFT

There is snow on the ground,
And the valleys are cold,
And a midnight profound
Blackly squats o'er the wold;
But a light on the hilltops half-seen hints of feastings un-hallowed and old.

There is death in the clouds,
There is fear in the night,
For the dead in their shrouds
Hail the sin's turning flight.
And chant wild in the woods as they dance round a Yule-altar fungous and white.

To no gale of Earth's kind
Sways the forest of oak,
Where the sick boughs entwined
By mad mistletoes choke,
For these pow'rs are the pow'rs of the dark, from the graves of the lost Druid-folk.

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MUST BE SANTA, ONCE AGAIN

All this Christmas-stuff is making blogging a tiny bit difficult. Pressed for time and all that stuff.

While we do what we have to do before Santa comes calling, we tend to play Mr. Zimmerman's latest. I've already shared his video to Must Be Santa with you, my dear readers. That song made me search YouTube for more Christmas polka. And I found this, a live version of the same song, by the kings of modern American polka, Brave Combo:



You sort of hear where Dylan got his inspiration ...
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TO BE OR ... WHAT TO BE?

Brian Cox happens to be one of The Dodologist's favourite actors. He also turns out to be a great teacher. Here he is teaching young Theo a not entirely unfamous monologue by some Danish prince:



Priceless, isn't it? Though as someone points out in the comments on YouTube: "I don't know. Cute, yes, but his performance lacked substance. I had trouble feeling any real inner torment from him. I think Hamlet should be cast a little older, in my humble opinion."

Some of the discussions between teacher and student reminded me of this little dialogue, that I found on the website of Twitter favourite @lipstattoo.

– You remind me of the babe.
– What babe?
– Babe with the power.
– What power?
– Power of Voodoo.
– Who do?
– You do.
– Do what?
– Remind me of the babe.
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Thanks to Trond for bringing it to my attention.
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MUST BE MR. ZIMMERMAN (AND THAT SANTA DUDE)

The Dodologist isn’t among the biggest fans of Robert Allan Zimmerman. He has made some good records, by all means, but as being of his biggest fans means never listening to anything else, The Dodologist limits himself to liking Mr. Zimmerman.

But, as The Dodologist’s wife was very clear that Mr. Zimmerman's Christmas record was destined for The Nest, off His Grumpiness went, ho-ho-ho-ing.

And lo and behold what a good idea that was. It’s playing right now and it’s great fun. Yep, it actually sounds like Mr. Zimmerman is having fun. Now that’s a real surprise for Christmas.

Whatever, here is the man, singing William Fredericks and Hal Moore’s Must Be Santa. Now that’s what we needed: Christmas polka.



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FOUR POEMS BY DOROTHY PARKER

A Very Short Song

Once, when I was young and true,
Someone left me sad-
Broke my brittle heart in two;
And that is very bad.

Love is for unlucky folk,
Love is but a curse.
Once there was a heart I broke;
And that, I think, is worse.



Inventory

Four be the things I am wiser to know:
Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.

Four be the things I’d been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.

Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.

Three be the things I shall have till I die:
Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.



I Shall Come Back

I shall come back without fanfaronade
Of wailing wind and graveyard panoply;
But, trembling, slip from cool Eternity-
A mild and most bewildered little shade.
I shall not make sepulchral midnight raid,
But softly come where I had longed to be
In April twilight's unsung melody,
And I, not you, shall be the one afraid.

Strange, that from lovely dreamings of the dead
I shall come back to you, who hurt me most.
You may not feel my hand upon your head,
I'll be so new and inexpert a ghost.
Perhaps you will not know that I am near-
And that will break my ghostly heart, my dear.



Portrait Of The Artist

Oh, lead me to a quiet cell
Where never footfall rankles,
And bar the window passing well,
And gyve my wrists and ankles.

Oh, wrap my eyes with linen fair,
With hempen cord go bind me,
And, of your mercy, leave me there,
Nor tell them where to find me.

Oh, lock the portal as you go,
And see its bolts be double….
Come back in half an hour or so,
And I will be in trouble.


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ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS ...

Christmas is closing in, and it is time for those familiar sounds that create that very special Christmassy feeling:

Bing Crosby singing White Christmas, Eartha Kitt moaning Santa Baby, a bunch of adorable little boys singing carols in some English church. And of course this tender classic from the Australian folkie Kevin “Bloody” Wilson:



For some reason The Dodologist seems to be the only one who finds this funny …
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THEIR PALL FOOT FOOT

In a comment to my last post, my good friend, themostexellent Lord Bassington-Bassington, reminded me of the once existence of The Shaggs. I haven't heard them in years, so I just had to dig them up on YouTube and share this, their, eh ... best ... sort off ... in a weird sense ... track with you, my dear readers.

As it was the last time I heard it, some ten years ago, it is still fascinating and sort of catchy, in a very, very painful way. Enjoy! The lyrics are below.

If you don't know The Shaggs, read Wikipedias article on them.


My Pal Foot Foot

My pal's name is Foot Foot (Foot Foot)
He always likes to roam
My pal's name is Foot Foot (Foot Foot)
I never find him home

I go to his house
Knock at his door
People come out and say
Foot Foot don't live here no more

My pal Foot Foot (Foot Foot)
Always likes to roam
My pal Foot Foot (Foot Foot)
Now he has no home

Where will Foot Foot go
What will Foot Foot do
Oh, Foot Foot
I wish I could find you

I've looked here, I've looked there
I've looked everywhere
Oh, Foot Foot
Why can't I find you?

Foot Foot, where can you be?
Foot Foot, why won't you answer me?
Foot Foot, Oh Foot Foot
Wherever you are
I want you to come home with me

I don't have time to roam
I have things to do
I have to go home
Oh, Foot Foot, where are you?

If Foot Foot didn't like to roam so well
He would still have a place to dwell
Foot Foot, please answer me
I know where you are
You're behind that tree

Foot Foot, please come to me
Foot Foot, now that you're here
Won't you come home
Foot Foot, promise me this
That you will never again roam
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TOMORROW BELONGS TO ... ME?

Irony is difficult stuff – especially if you are really good at it – because people all to easily misunderstand.

Wikipedia defines irony as “… the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite”. In other words: Saying one thing, but meaning the opposite.

Over at Harry’s Place they are making fun of Swedish Neo Nazi folkstress Saga, because she sings the song Tomorrow Belongs To Me – from the musical Cabaret.

Making fun of Saga is always a good thing, not the least because her version of the song is unspeakably dreadful. (Though you’ve got to hand it to her: At least she sings in tune – in itself rather remarkable among Neo Nazi singers, as Prussian Blue time and again has demonstrated.)

For one thing Cabaret was an all out anti Nazi musical, and as such it is rather remarkable that Saga performs the song. For another, as Harrys’s Place enjoys pointing out, Fred Ebb, who wrote the lyrics to Cabaret, was Jewish. And gay. Not the most popular personality traits among Nazis. (So was John Kander, who wrote the music, by the way.)

The point of the song, as someone pointed out in a comment to one of many versions on YouTube, is that bad ideas don’t present themselves as bad ideas. They present themselves as – and more important: are considered by the people who hold them to be – good and noble. The Nazis were a bad lot – because their political ideas where really bad stuff. But they considered themselves brave defenders of nation, volk and family – and surrounded by enemies to on all sides.

As do Saga, Prussian Blue (or at least their mother) and most Neo Nazis of today. And they are right to consider themselves surrounded by enemies. At least we do our very best. Tomorrow do definitely not belong to them.

But the real irony of the story, I guess, is that the man who adopted Tomorrow Belongs To Me as a Neo Nazi hymn, in all probability knew exactly what he was doing. He was the skinmeister himself, Ian Stuart Donaldson of Skrewdriver, who recorded the song for their 1984 album Hail The New Dawn.

A lot can be said about Stuart Donaldson – most of it bad – but he wasn’t stupid. Recording Tomorrow Belongs To Me was an act of sheer arrogance: You may make caricatures of our beliefs, but we’ll adopt them and use them as our own. It was an act of real chutzpah, to use a very, very inappropriate term.

Some people within the Neo Nazi scene know this very well. I believe Joe Owens points it out in his autobiography. (Though I’ll be damned if I’m going to check. Reading it once was enough.) Others though, tend to speak of the song as traditional, as they do with The Green Fields Of France by Eric Bogle, another folkie tune Ian Stuart Donaldson recorded. (So does, by the way, Wikipedia's article on him. Funny that.)

There is probably some moral to this story, but I’m uncertain of what it may be. Except to beware of Nazis, even when they are singing gay Jewish tunes.

Here is the song from the movie version of Cabaret (a dubbed version, though that's hard to notice). And below that are the lyrics.




Tomorrow belongs to me

The sun on the meadow is summery warm
The stag in the forest runs free
But gathered together to greet the storm
Tomorrow belongs to me
Tomorrow belongs to me

The branch on the linden is leafy and green
The Rhine gives it's gold to the sea
But somewhere a glory awaits unseen
Tomorrow belongs to me
Tomorrow belongs to me

The babe in his cradle is closing his eyes
The blossom embraces the bee
But soon says a whisper, arise, arise
Tomorrow belongs to me
Tomorrow belongs to me

Now Fatherland, Fatherland, show us the sign
Your children have waited to see
The morning will come when the world is mine
Tomorrow belongs to me
Tomorrow belongs to me

Tomorrow belongs
Tomorrow belongs
Tomorrow belongs to me!


I don’t link to Nazis, even on YouTube. If you want to hear Saga’s version (and believe me, you don’t) search for it yourselves.
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BAD CHRISTMAS JOKES – THE RERUN

Last December, on a now extinct Norwegian blog, His Grumpiness ran a string of posts with Christmas jokes; all of them funny, though maybe not all of them in the best of taste.

To avoid the temptation to be too lazy and once again post them in bits and pieces, here are the ones worth repeating:


















If that did not make you laugh, you are on the wrong blog.
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FAVOURITE PAINTINGS: ECCE ANCILLA DOMINI

Click pic for larger version

Dante Gabrile Rossetti's Ecce Ancilla Domini (aka The Annunciation) was painted in 1850, and is thus one of the earliest Pre-Raphaelite paintings. The model for Mary is Rossetti's sister, the poet Christina Rossetti.

As so often in Rossetti's paintings, the perspective is rather weird. But the highly emotional portrayal of Mary makes it a stunning picture, one of Rossetti's best actually.

It is also, as often is the case with Pre-Raphaelite pictures, rather small: 73 x 41,9 cm.

Ecce Ancilla Domini is owned by Tate Gallery. The Victorian Web has an interesting analysis.
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IN MR. HILL'S GARDEN (OF LOVE)

Deep thoughts ought to be thought, but in the dodological corner no great thinking is being done at the moment.

As both love and horticulture are important to civilizations continued existence, The Dodologist instead presents the everfunny Benny Hill’s ode to both: My Garden of Love:



Great song, isn’t it? And in the tradition of the last days on this blog, there is of course a veryfunnuy fungus-joke.
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LOVECRAFTIAN JOKES

All this talk of Lovecraft and fungi, drove me to dig out some favourite lovecraftian jokes from my archives:


“You Goth?”

“No, I’m just a Fun Guy”


So Nyarlahotep pops across to the library where Cthulhu’s actually a bit more rugose and squamous then usual. And he says, what’s up?

And Cthulhu says “Rl’yeh fthagn, ahem! Blimey! Sorry, phlegm. Bit ill, actually.”

So Nyarlahotep rubs three of his pseudopods together and says, “I have just the thing!”

And he leads the mighty Elder One across the non-Euclidean town sqaure, down a dodgy back alley, where an eldritch couple of debt collectors are lurking.

And Nyarlahotep says:

“Here’s that sick squid I owe you.


“Waiter! Waiter! There’s a dead squid in my soup!”

“It’s not dead, Sir. It’s just dreaming.”


HP Lovecraft and August Derleth are sitting at an al fresco cafe on the abominable plateau of Leng. Sipping absinthe, as you do. It’d be a nice place if it wasn’t for the maddening cyclopean architecture with the obviously alien non-Euclidean geometry, but it’s the only spot for unthinkably vast distances and it’s got a lovely view, so you make do.

As they sit there, the ground before becomes disturbed by the passing of a great Dhole, burrowing beneath the earth, space rippling around it as it goes.

They sip their absinthe as the Dhole is followed by a Mi-Go, flapping and screeching – the noise driving several nearby patrons mad.

A shoggoth comes after, shambling along. It takes some time to pass, so they order another round of absinthe.

Then a long train of the spawn of Shub-Niggurath, the Black Goat of the Woods, ooze, crawl and tilt their way past – the locomotive systems reminiscent of slime running down a rock… but sideways… unthinkably sideways.

Then for a moment, there’s quiet and the plateau is empty… and Derleth turns to Lovecraft and says…

“Good Lord, Howard. Today it’s just one damned thing after another.”


Necrotelecomnicon: the book of dead phone numbers.
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"THE COURTYARD", BY H.P. LOVECRAFT

It was the city I had known before;
The ancient, leprous town where mongrel throngs
Chant to strange gods, and beat unhallowed gongs
In crypts beneath foul alleys near the shore.
The rotting, fish-eyed houses leered at me
From where they leaned, drunk and half-animate,
As edging through the filth I passed the gate
To the black courtyard where the man would be.

The dark walls closed me in, and loud I cursed
That ever I had come to such a den,
When suddenly a score of windows burst
Into wild light, and swarmed with dancing men:
Mad, soundless revels of the dragging dead -
And not a corpse had either hands or head!

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"The Courtyard" is poem no. IX from the cycle Fungi from Yuggoth.
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THE EMO VAMPIRE SONG

Some things ... some things really need no comment:


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THE SEASON TO BE JOLLY

It's first Sunday of Advent today, and hereby starts the season to be jolly. The Dodologist promises lotsa Christmas fun, but starts out by recommending some really rather tasteful Christmas music: Christmas Carols by Dutch viola da gamba player Ralph Rousseau Meulenbroeks:


Christmas Carols by Ralph Rousseau Meulenbroeks
You can download this CD from the most excellent people at Magnatune, one of The Dodologist's favourite sources of legal downloads. The deal is thus: You pay a minimum of 10 $ a month (through PayPal), and then can download anything you like from Magnatune's catalogue. Or, if you prefer, stream it without those annoying messages at the end of each song that you get in the player above.

It is, to tell the truth, a jolly good deal. And thereby perfect for the season.
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THE BIG ONE

Judge Dread was one of the big ones. In his own, curious way, he was the biggest – the rudest of the rude boys. For one thing, he was BIG, for another he had a string of "Big" hits, starting with Big Six in 1972. According to Wikipedia, he “He was the first white recording artist to have a reggae hit in Jamaica, and has the most banned songs of all time”.

The thing was that the judge was a naughty boy. He was the Benny Hill of ska, only lacking Mr. Hill’s subtle humour and sophisticated jokes. Where Hill remained in the land of the double entendre (though veering dangerously close to its far border from time to time), the judge was an all out, in your face spokesman for pure, joyful vulgarity. The joke – and it is a mighty funny one – was to be obviously vulgar, while pretending to be subtle. As in the hilarious Up With The Cock:



The Dodologist tend to use the judge’s music as a test of peoples sense of fun. It they look away in sheer embarrassment, they are found wanting. You may not find him funny, but if you are embarrassed by him, you probably take yourself a bit to seriously. The judge’s humour may be a stupid one, but we should all find the time to honour our inner blockhead.

And for all his “music hall gone bad” sense of bad taste, it is quite intelligent humour from time to time. As in his version of Je T’aime (Moi Non Plus). The punch line still has this extinct bird roaring with laughter, ten years after he heard it for the first time:



Dread was born Alexander Minto Hughes in 1945, and had a colourful past when he finally became a recording artist. He had worked as a bouncer, a bodyguard, professional wrestler (under the moniker "The Masked Executioner") and a debt collector. He took the stage name from a Prince Buster song, and the title Big Six is a reference to Prince Busters 1969 hit Big 5. Here is a, eh, live version:



For a time Judge Dread really was big. He had eleven chart hits in the UK during the 70s – more than any other reggae artist, including Bob Marley.

The Beeb didn’t like him, though. You just didn’t record songs like Up With The Cock and get away with it. So they banned him. Even when he recorded entirely innuendo-free songs, they still banned him. It was Dread, so it had to be dreadful. If they heard no innuendo, it was probably just because he was speaking in code.

As the 70s came to an end, so did the judge’s career. He died in 1998, on stage in Canterbury – but his was definitely no Canterbury sound. And while we today might see him simply as vulgar, this kind of vulgarity had an important element of counter culture in the still righteous and self-satisfied cultural climate of the 70s.

He died before I ever heard him. I still miss him though. The world is poorer without men like Judge Dread in it. Here he is in his soft mode, Bring Back The Skins (aka The Last Of The Skinheads – it's the best version of the song, the pictures are completely absurd, though):


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"MAY", BY CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

I cannot tell you how it was,
But this I know: it came to pass
Upon a bright and sunny day
When May was young; ah, pleasant May!
As yet the poppies were not born
Between the blades of tender corn;
The last egg had not hatched as yet,
Nor any bird foregone its mate.

I cannot tell you what it was,
But this I know: it did but pass.
It passed away with sunny May,
Like all sweet things it passed away,
And left me old, and cold, and gray.
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GOODNIGHT KEITH MOON

The thing about spending too much time on Twitter, is that from time to time you come across some true oddities. Like the internet version of the not-exactly-children's book Goodnight Keith Moon. (Thanks, @Glinner.)

It's sad. It's funny. It's a gem. Go ahead, say goodnight to Keith.
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DON'T STRAY ON THE PATHS OF ABNORMALITY

OK folks, this is a serious blog, discussing important issues in a time of cultural decline and spenglerian regress. Still, The Dodologist has to admit that from time to time it does seem like the abnormal ones are having a good time. Sometimes they even have an important message for us upstanding citizens.

My friend, the most upstanding citizen of Little Storping in the Swuff, the ever well dressed Lord Bassington-Bassington, brought to my attention the popular music singer Gay Pimp and his joyful song Soccer Practice, about young, healthy men playing sports. And even though Gay Pimp is a pervert, The Dodologist cannot deny that he enjoys this youthful and innocent ode to youth and healthy frolicking on the field.

But it is another song of Mr. Pimp that truly brought on The Extinct Ones admiration – a warning to young women not to stray on the paths of perversion. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: Don’t Fall In Love With A Homo:



Such style, such grace, such a charming tie. No homo. Obviously.
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HARD ROCK. NO HOMO

My friend, the utterly Mad Mullah, recently posted a joyful celebration of the upcoming CD of Norwegian nazi odinist black metal guru Burzum (though Burzum himself denies all charges of … more or less everything except the CD).

The CD is due next spring, according to a press release. It will be something entirely different than that low life black metal stuff:

”The 'black metallers' will probably continue to 'get loaded,' 'get high,' and in all other manners too behave like the stereotypical Negro; they will probably continue to get foreign tribal tattoos, dress, walk, talk, look and act like homosexuals, and so forth.”

As an advice to the black metal community on how to avoid being accused of homosexual tendencies, the mullah now has posted a video about the “no homo” phenomena in hip hop culture. It’s both instructive and rather funny, and has some great advice for the emotional poets in corpse paint.

Not to be outdone, The Dodologist offers another introduction to the same phenomena, by hip hop blogger Jay Smooth (who has been exploited by The Extinct One before):




There ought to be some good advice for the spiked leather boys here. Though, as The Extinct One has pointed out before, you should consider dropping the gay couture, boys. Even it those spikes are long … and hard. Just as hard as your music.

No homo, of course.
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NO WAY TO TREAT AN ENT

It’s autumn. Late autumn, actually. Last time I wrote about autumn, there were still a few leaves on the trees. Not so anymore.

And, as it’s autumn, I have gotten the urge to return to Middle Earth. I picked up where I left off – as Merry and Pippin enters Fangorn forest.

I read Tolkien like that: Read a few chapters, then stay away for a long time, sometimes a year, then pick up again from wherever I left. I know the story, after all.

And Tolkien himself left the company outside the gates of Moria for more than a year. Now, that’s a bleak place to spend twelve months or more. (There was a war coming in Europe.)

Though Merry and Pippin doesn’t know, entering Fangorn is the start of great things – for them personally and for Middle Earth. It rouses the ents, as Treebeard realizes he can no longer stay out of worldly things. Which spells the end for Saruman’s dreams of power. Which again means that Gondor is not threatened from two sides at once – and that the forces of Rohan are free to ride to Gondor’s support.

All this because of two hobbits that only want to get away from their orc(ish) captors.

We can none of us know the whole story of our times. We are all part of the great narrative that is history, but we have no way of knowing what – if any – influence we will have on it. An ethics that focuses on consequences only is pointless. Because we have no way of knowing the consequences. And sometimes our actions are of importance for entirely unintended reasons. For good – or for bad.

Merry and Pippins actions are of pivotal importance for the victory over Sauron, but they cannot know that as they enter Fangorn – or as they meet Treebeard.

Neither can we know the ultimate consequences of any single action.

All of this just to state my annoyance at Peter Jacksons’ movie. There are three things in the movie that still annoy me. One is the compressing of time at the beginning, where 17 years turns into a few months. Which means that a lot of things go slightly unfocused in the story.

Like Saruman, who uses those 17 years to go from bad to worse. Or the ring wraiths, which must already be at the gates of The Shire as Bilbo gives Frodo the ring (by way of Gandalf). Or Gandalf himself, who should have spent some of those years to uncover the secret of the ring – and now has to do it in mere months.

It simply doesn’t add up. And all that Jackson had to do was put up a poster that said “17 years later”. He could even have kept Frodo looking like a German disco kid, as he doesn’t age much in those 17 years – thanks to the power of the ring.

The two other tings that really rile me about the movie, is the treatment of two of its heroes: Faramir and Treebeard.

Faramir, who in the book is a noble man – one of the few that instantly sees the dangers of using the ring – in the movie becomes a silly, scared kid. And all because they needed a cliffhanger to end the second movie.

It is an ending alien to the book – that also gives us the unbearably stupid scene were Frodo actually waves the ring in front of one of the ring wraiths. So much for a secret mission.

And poor Treebeard. He is the tree herd. OK, we have to repeat that: He is the tree herd of Fangorn. He knows what goes on in his own forest.

Instead of deciding to go to war at the entthing, they decide to stay away. And Treebeard only changes his mind after Pippin (all of this is done simply to make it seem like Pippin is getting smarter) lures him to follow them towards Isengard. Only when he comes to the edge of Fangorn does he see the destruction which has been done to his forest.

He roars with anger, and seconds later a whole gang of ents (that have no reason whatsoever to be there) come out from Fangorn and they march towards Isengard.

His anger tells us one thing: That he didn’t know of the destruction until this moment.

Once again: He is the tree herd. And he doesn’t know that thousands of trees have been cut down to fuel Saruman’s war machine? That is utter nonsense.

I can forgive the compression of time at the beginning. I dislike it, but I realize that it was important for creating the urgency that drives Jacksons’s version of the story. I can almost forgive what is done to Faramir. It is a disgrace, but I understand the need for a cliffhanger at the end of the second movie – even if it is a stupid one.

But I really can’t forgive what is done to Treebeard. Ents have been in Middle Earth almost since the world began. They are a proud race and a truly original one – together with hobbits one of Tolkien’s great feats of true sub creation.

To imply that Treebeard doesn’t know what is happening in his own forest – he has, after all, known some of the cut down trees since they were acorns – isn’t merely to change the plot a bit. It is to fundamentally change one of the races in Tolkien’s world.

It’s an insult to Treebeard, an insult to ents and an insult to Tolkien. It is, in truth, quite unforgiveable, Mr. Jackson.
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"ALBUM", BY R.S. THOMAS

My father is dead.
I who am look at him
who is not, as once he
went looking for me
in the woman who was.

There are pictures
of the two of them, no
need of a third, hand
in hand, hearts willing
to be one but not three.

What does it mean
life? I am here I am
there. Look! Suddenly
the young tool in their hands
for hurting one another.

And the camera says:
Smile; there is no wound
time gives that is not bandaged
by time. And so they do the
three of them at me who weep.
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WAHRHEIT MACHT FREI

As the evil conspiracy of Illuminati and their, ehr, Zionist allies, tries to poison us all with the ”vaccine” against the swine plague – a disease every thinking person knows was invented in the basement of the UN building – it is heartening to see that someone is willing to stand up for truth.

Today 70 brave friends of freedom marched in the streets of Oslo, carrying torches to bring light to our darkened hearts, speaking out against the lies of our government, and their jewi…, sorry, Zionist puppet masters.

The Dodologist raises his hat to such bravery. And heartily recommends extinction.
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ZE GERMAN PROFESSOR

Man, this is annoying. The Dodologist was writing this great post on one of his favourite recording artists, and then he figured out it was even better suited for this blog magazine of which he is the editor. It’s called Knokkelklang, which in English means something like Bone Song. Though, being a word play on the Norwegian title of a rather famous Christmas tune, it’s better translated as Jingle Bones.

As the post has been in progress for a few days, it has effectively eaten up all the time The Extinct One had for meaningful posting, leaving only time for YouTubeing and junk blogging. Something has to be done. It has to be done right now.

What is one to do?

Oh, bugger it, another Benny Hill video will carry us over to a new shiny day of blogish geniusness. Meet Ze German Professor:




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HOW TO PLAY THE RACE CARD

The Dodologist knows a thing or two about being a repressed minority. No one is standing up for the rights of the extinct these days. Bloody vitalism, that's what it is.

Anyway, well … it’s not too fond of racism either. And on the third hand, neither is it all that fond of accusations of racism being used as a stick to beat ones opponents with. How then is one supposed to discuss racism without falling into the trap of stick beating? Here’s how:



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ONE READS MORE

Three very different blogs have been added to the list of What One Reads. They are A little ray of sunshine, the blog of English pagan folk musician Paul Newman, Nothing To Do With Arbroath, one of the greatest purveyors of nonsensical news on the infamous internet, and Magia Posthuma, a blog dedicated to the traditional vampire, written by fellow Scandinavian Niels K. Petersen. They are all well worth a visit.
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RIP EDWARD WOODWARD

Must watch out for the danger of YouTubeing. But still, there really is only one way to mark the death today of Edward Woodward. Sending you on, ladies and gentlemen, to The Death Scene from Wicker Man.
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POETRY, HILL-STYLE

Due to popular demand, more Benny Hill. This time in a poetic mode ...


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THE VAMPIRE AS VICTIM

The vampire lecture I’m giving this Thursday carries the title “Poor Vampire. The bloodsucker’s development from monster to victim” (it sounds better in Norwegian). I will air some of the things I’m going to talk about here, to see if I actually agree with myself when I see my opinions published.

The subject is one that has interested me for some time. It is the logical conclusion of a development that started with Anne Rice’s Interview With The Vampire: When the vampire becomes the protagonist (or a close ally of the protagonist) only a short step is necessary to see it as a victim.

It can be seen as a victim in two senses: Because it is an addict and simply because it is a vampire.

The vampire as addict
The vampire as addict is among the metaphors I find most interesting of all things vampirological. The vampire is not simply addicted, as an alcoholic or a drug addict desperately needs his drink or her fix. Its addiction runs deeper – because it is fatal. Without blood, it will die. This makes it the perfect metaphor of drug addiction as many see it: The moment you are “addicted” you are lost.

For the vampire there is no way out. Except through death, of course. It is best seen in my perhaps favourite vampire movie: Lost Boys (or “The Just Say No”-movie, as I sometimes call it).

It is a schizophrenic movie indeed: The vampires in the movie are the cool guys (being fought by nerds), who “sleep all day, party all night, never grow old and never die”. But they have to feeeeeeeeeed. And that makes them, after all, the bad guys. Cool, but bad. And always “the others”. To become one of them is to be lost. They are, as the title says, Lost Boys.

When they finally die (for instance by being burned to death in a bath tub filled with holy water), they revert from grown, cool men into innocent boys. In death, they are once again human.

Being addicts, it is in this day and age natural to focus on vampires as victims. And they are the perfect victims, as they cannot stop being addicts. There is (outside of Terry Pratchett’s books) no Anonymous Bloodsuckers, for those who want to overcome their addiction. It can’t be done. There is no point in talking about personal responsibility. They either feed, or they die.

The dilemma is very well shown in the South Korean movie Thirst: A priest becomes a vampire, a very introspective and ethical vampire. But he makes his lover a vampire too, and she is anything but introspective or ethical: She is a jolly vampire, a vampire that enjoys her vampirical existence to the full. She is, in other words, a lunatic killer – a vampire that kills for food, but also simply because she can. She is lost anyway, so why not enjoy the ride?

Hers is an impossible existence. A vampire that fully enjoys “life” is simply too dangerous to exist. She has to die. And she does (sorry about that, but it’s not much of a spoiler really), in one of the most elegant endings of any vampire movie I have seen.

The vampire as victim of abuse
But there is also another sense in which vampires are victims: They are victims merely through being vampires. Or rather: Through having been made vampires.

If we accept the premise that being a vampire is a bad thing – you do, after all, have to cause other people’s deaths to stay alive – then being made a vampire must be considered a rather extreme kind of abuse. And every vampire has at some point in its history been made. Which means that the lot of them are abuse victims.

They are predators. But once they were prey. They are murderers. But once they were themselves “murdered”. In this sense, vampires are parallel to sexual offenders, who often themselves have been victims of sexual abuse.

The one exception to this rule, are vampires like the woman in Thirst: She is made a vampire at the point of dying. Making her a vampire is a way for her lover to “save” her life (and boy, does he regret).

The book (and movie) which takes both these concepts of victimhood the furtherest, is the Swedish Let The Right One In, where Eli is both a victim of vampiric violence and abuse and very obviously an addict. She is a killer, but argues that she is not any different than the rest of us: She simply does what she has to in order to stay alive. Wouldn’t we all?

Like the female vampire in Thirst, Elis existence is an impossible one. You simply cannot kill that many people in a fairly small area and expect to get away with it. She has to stay on the run more or less constantly.

The absurdity of it all
And here we approach the absurdity of seeing the vampire as a victim. Because even if it is one, it is also by nature (or un-nature, if you prefer) a killer. People must die for it to stay alive. Others may murder for them, but they are still, essentially, responsible for their deaths.

In my neo-reactionary view of the world, this is where the vampire teaches us something about ourselves. We may all be victims, one way or another. But we are still responsible for our actions. We may have reasons for hurting others, reasons related to our own claims for victimhood, but we are still hurting them. It is still wrong.

It is no point in feeling sorry for the vampire, even if what brought them to their present situation was a road of pain and hurt. Because they are, by their very nature, murderers.

All of this is of course a fairly ridiculous line of reasoning. They don’t actually exist. They are figments of imagination.

True enough, but entertainment – even slightly arty entertainment, like True Blood – tells us something about ourselves. Because entertainment, unlike art, appeals to what we hold dear, rather than, like art, challenging our view of the world. And what we seem to find entertaining these days, is to feel sorry for the vampire. They are the ultimate bad guys, but, we seem to ask ourselves, maybe – just maybe – they are redeemable after all.

This is absurd. Vampires are what the Victorians thought them to be: Demonic murderers. We may no longer fear that they will cost us our salvation and eternal life – which was the real horror of the 19th century vampire – but they want our blood. No, more than that, they need our blood.

There is just one thing to do. We must bring out the hammers and stakes. We must light the pyre. We must defend ourselves. That our entertainment tells us otherwise, tells me that something is truly rotten at the very centre of our culture.
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THE HILLS ARE ALIVE WITH THE SOUND OF BENNY

As the news arrive that the Royal Mail have found Benny Hill unfit for a stamp, because "... concerns were raised by our public relations team as it was in direct opposition to company's policies on harassment in the workplace", it is as good a time as any to remind oneself of the greatness of one of the funniest men in television.

Here is the wonderful avant garde cinema sketch:



What is of course really funny about it, is that it is not making fun of French movies, but of the pretentious drivel fans of such movies come up with to "analyze" them. It is not the director, but the journalist that is the laughing-stock of the sketch.

And just notice, at 1 minute and 37 seconds, how he ...

True genius!
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THE DODOLOGIST, VAMPIROLOGIST

Not only is The Dodologist well versed in the way of dodologism, he is also a folklorist by education and a (self declared) vampirologist.

Back in the early years of the decade, he wrote a book on vampires in his native Norwegian, and, as the bloodsucking monsters once again are frolicking on a screen near you, his publisher has, in their infinite wisdom (i.e. need to make some money), decided to release it as a paperback. Which is nice.

That again means he has to do things like debating vampires in a panel at the Oslo Science Fiction Festival (which was fun), talk to journalists (which mostly isn’t) and give talks (which very well may be, at least for him).

Being a board member of Oslo’s Heretic Basement, he said yes to himself when he asked if he would like to give a talk there. So he will. This thursday, November the 12th, to be precise.

In the words of the formidable C.M.O.T. Dibbler: “Bee there orr bee a rectangular thyng!”
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The picture, by the way, is from the Spanish language version of the classic Dracula, filmed at night at the set where the English one, with Bela Lugosi, was being made during the day. Carlos Villarias is Draula.
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"WE HAVE MADE FICTION TO SUIT OURSELVES"

"... a man with a definite belief always appears bizarre, because he does not change with the world; he has climbed into a fixed star, and the earth whizzes below him like a zoetrope. Millions of mild black-coated men call themselves sane and sensible merely because they always catch the fashionable insanity, because they are hurried into madness after madness by the maelstrom of the world."

"Truth, of course, must of necessity be stranger than fiction, for we have made fiction to suit ourselves."

Quotes from G.K. Chesterton: Heretics, chapter 4
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SUPPORT THE GREATEST SWIM TEAM!

As a man of class and style, The Dodologist obviously prefers cardigans, tweeds and bow ties. But sometimes, just once in a rare while, he puts on a t-shirt. And as he enjoys supporting great athletics, there was no way around ordering this one:


There simply wasn't.

Click pic for a chance to support some really great athletics. Like running for your life ...
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THE FALL AND RISE OF THE WALL

The Dodologist is a lover, not a hater... Yeah, right!

Well you wouldn’t be all that perky yourself, if extinction was a fact of your daily life. And, after all, being a neo-reactionary is more than simply being gloomy. It’s being gloomy with an axe to grind.

Whatever. The Dodologist loves irony and hates – and he really, really means hates – those Irish wannabe messiahs – U2. You know, the great enemies of greed and capitalism that fled Ireland to skimp on taxes. Smug bastards.

Now, this is wonderfully absurd: Because U2 are such great lovers of freedom, they celebrated the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall by playing a free concert for 10 000 people in front of the Brandenburg Gate. And for safety reasons they obviously had to put up a huge fence around the bloody thing, blocking the sight for everybody else.

So, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, they … put up a new wall!

Oh, the irony.
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THE BIRD SEX SONG

The Dodologist presents an old favourite, by the veryveryfunny Garfunkel & Oates.

It is hardly strange that it is a favourite: Beautiful women singing about sex with birds (even if they’re not dodos). What’s not to like?


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IRONICALLY SPIKED

The Dodologist is listening to classical music. Judas Priest, to be precise. Something he is hard-pressed to do without being reminded of one of the great jokes of rock´n´roll couture. To quote Wikipedia:

"Distinct aspects of heavy metal fashion can be credited to various bands, but the band that takes the most credit for revolutionizing the look was Judas Priest, primarily with its singer, Rob Halford. Halford wore a leather costume on stage as early as 1978 to coincide with the promotion for the Hell Bent for Leather album. In a 1998 interview, Halford described the biker and leather subculture as the inspiration for this look."

Anyone who has seen pictures of the performers of that great Norwegian cultural export, Black Metal, knows where this would end: In sheer, ridiculous absurdity. The spiked leather gauntlets grew steadily spikier, until they were more than sufficiently long to spike their leather clad, vampiric looking wearers.

Now, you can say a lot about the Black Metal scene – most of it strongly sarcastic – but they do, like many of their metal cousins, tend to be more than a little bit homophobic.

And here’s the joke: Halford, who came out as gay in 1998, was rightly inspired by the “leather subculture”. And though that subculture was not exclusively homosexual, to a large extent it was. Which means that when the homophobic metal-heads of today prance around in leather and metal gauntlets, they are sporting a style largely taken from the homosexual leather scene.

Now, how is that for irony?
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THE DYING SPIDERS

The spiders in our basement are dying.

They are young males, I hear, gone astray on their search for a mate. And they are, at least for Norwegian spiders, big fellows. They show up every year, signalling the end of summer.

Mostly, it must be said, they are dying through unfortunate run ins with The Dodologists wife. But even if they manage to steer clear of The Wife – and whatever she may happen to, eh, drop upon them – they are dying.

We find them crouched up, with their legs pulled up underneath them; very, very dead. Which means autumn is coming to an end.

Not that I need the spiders to tell me winter is on its way. A week ago, the trees were yellow. Now it’s the ground underneath them that is. The trees are almost naked; skeletons awaiting the inevitable cold.

I like this time of year, even if I’m not all that fond of the spiders. It’s a time of death and decay. But it’s also a time of hibernating indoors, with a pot of tea and 39 Chesterton-books on my Kindle. It’s a good time.

Unless you’re a spider of course.
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THE DODO DECLARATION

The dodo bird is extinct.

It was a big, slow and peaceful pigeon – entirely unable to fly – that had adapted perfectly to the conditions on a group of islands where it didn’t have a single enemy.

Then humans showed up. They brought dogs and pigs.

And suddenly it was a really bad idea to lay one egg, once in a rare while, directly on the ground – and then mock about doing other stuff while it hatched itself.

Suddenly the dodo bird was extinct.

The Dodologist is a project in the spirit of the dodo. While reality runs its course around us, we drink our tea and take note of the sufficiently unimportant with our virtual fountain pen.

These notes may cover a large area of subjects, but stuff like music, literature, religion and politics may show up.

Consider yourself warned.

The Dodologist is male and middle aged, rude, annoyed and elitist. He does agree than no one has invented a better political system than democracy – but still doesn’t like it.

The Dodologist is a self declared reactionary, but realizes that the best thing about the past is that it is past. It's not that they did everything well back then, but the past being past means we can focus on the good stuff.

And at least they didn’t have gangster rap. Or “psychics” solving crimes on television.

People are people, and mostly annoying, but if you have the dignity not to reduce yourself to a group membership or your own victimhood, there is every chance we may interact in a civil way.

This being the internet, though, the chances are good that we won’t. That is probably for the best.
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