whimsy ([info]lord_whimsy) wrote,
@ 2007-11-12 22:51:00
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Entry tags:dandyism

SEBASTIAN HORSLEY ON...
Music:




Sex:




Drugs:




Death:




Dandyism:




His Book:




Always preferred the Sex Pistols, too.


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[info]bricology
2007-11-13 04:15 am UTC (link)
Giving 'em enough rope, eh Whimsy?

I'd be hard-pressed to imagine a more vulgar creature than Horsley.

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[info]lord_whimsy
2007-11-13 04:59 am UTC (link)
Well, I'm not Horsley's particular flavor of vulgar, but plenty of people find me vulgar, too. Luckily, my particular strain of vulgarity keeps my life blissfully free of certain types that I find vulgar.

The truth is that Horsley and I are not all that different--we both know fully well what we're doing. We're both court jesters, of a sort, working opposite ends of the block.

An argument can be made that all contemporary so-called 'dandies' are vulgar in that they're modeled on a trope of some kind. You know: the JV league is full of goth goofballs and bowler-hatted kids with eyeliner who are really into Weimar Berlin cabaret nonsense. Likewise, the older ranks teem with metrosexualish fashionistas who can spot a Jay Kos jacket or Cloak trousers at sixty yards; the gay boys who model themselves on mid-century Julian and Sandy-type queer camp; the boring tightasses who want to be Cary Grant; the nerdy middle-aged provincial shut-ins who fancy themselves stylish, et cetera.

Edited at 2007-11-13 05:01 am UTC

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[info]bricology
2007-11-13 05:12 am UTC (link)
When I say "vulgar", I mean his character, not his personal style or his visibility in a crowd. Horsley's like a precocious, utterly spoiled child who has become convinced that his public expression of his self-degradation and his venom for others are some sort of gift to the world, if not a justification for his own existence. It seems to me that you're exactly the opposite.

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[info]lord_whimsy
2007-11-13 05:58 am UTC (link)
Well, I am. But some people find my gentle, polite, aspirational bourgeois sensibility tame and insipid--but I own it, and I offer no apology. To someone with my background it was something exotic (it blew my mind that people could actually own a greenhouse or a book collection), and it suited my nature.

I have a higher regard for someone who is at least openly reprehensible; be a poisonous goblin if ye must, but by Gawd you had better own it.

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[info]niddrie_edge
2007-11-13 11:32 pm UTC (link)
"it blew my mind that people could actually own a greenhouse or a book collection"
I take it this refers to humble origins?
If so it reflects the community activities I have been involved in over the past ten years and perhaps unconsciously for far longer challenging not just poverty but the "poverty of expectation" in the words of Edinburgh social activist, enabler and mother Helen Crummy.
This is perhaps why I felt an instant attraction to your world when I placed my first foot on the treacherous slope of blogging.

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[info]lord_whimsy
2007-11-14 02:33 am UTC (link)
Not as humble as many, but I do remember scraping through the dressers for extra change for milk, and reading a great deal under the check-out counter at the liquor store where my father worked a second job at night.

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[info]lord_whimsy
2007-11-13 05:17 am UTC (link)
"Vulgar" to my mind meaning an element of predictable schtick is present.

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[info]lord_whimsy
2007-11-13 07:35 am UTC (link)
An argument can be made that all contemporary so-called 'dandies' are vulgar in that they're modeled on a trope of some kind.

...Which is the reason why I've concluded that it is far better to borrow elements of dandyism rather than merely trying to actually become one. It's far less predictable and far more interesting. Better dandyish than dandy.

Pity I can't include that in the book, because I think it's a crucial point. Oh well.

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[info]jermynsavile
2007-11-13 07:40 am UTC (link)
I have decided that I want to be a nerdy middle-aged provincial shut-in. It sounds rather warm and cosy. Is there somewhere I can go to apply for membership?

I quite enjoy Horsley, though find him rather more enjoyable in theory than practice. The big problem with the types you list above, and with others in the 'dandy' firmament, is that they're more interested in being part of a gang than being individual. Both you and Horsley understand this and avoid it. Being artists helps I think.

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[info]lord_whimsy
2007-11-13 08:01 am UTC (link)
Oh, I'm convinced that dandyism requires an artistic temperament.

The paradox is that dandyism (or at least attempting to emulate or embody the dandy archetype) is in reality a far more vulgar undertaking than just being a "regular Joe", for the simple fact that there are a million ways to be average, which thus allows for far less predictability than the comparatively narrow dandiacal brief, despite any diversity it might have. Hence, the dandy becomes predictable in his perversity. As I said above: better dandyish than dandy.

Funny thing is that when my man Wynd (of Last Tuesday Society fame) visited this September to amass information and enlist assistance for an installation he is putting together next year in Manhattan, he had mentioned that Sebastian had asked him to tell me that he had hoped that I not taken his review of my book personally. Maybe Wynd was merely smoothing the way, since Sebastian is involved with the project and we'll likely meet at some point. All fine and well, but god help him if he messes with the moths I supply.

Have to admit that coming from a punk background myself, I have a weakness for aspects of his schick. I did find these quite funny. Bugger's growing on me.

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[info]lord_whimsy
2007-11-13 08:11 am UTC (link)
(Not sure I'd let him use my bathroom, though.)

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[info]sarmoung
2007-11-13 09:22 am UTC (link)
Until fairly recently, I'd not put together Horsley the artist (I knew some of the past work, but not the name) with Horsley as dandy (and sometime Whimsy reviewer). I've not met him, but I've certainly warmed to him through anecdotes from various shared acquaintances. And, yes, his Clash/Sex Pistols tirade over Notting Hill certainly strikes the mark. I was lent a copy of his autobiography yesterday, but I've yet to start reading it.

I'll be in Manhattan myself with Wynd come February (in my role as faux-Japanese avant-garde folk singer for the night he's running. I'm already nervous at the prospect!) and do hope that we may have a chance to meet up during my week there. I also must apologise for the protracted non-appearance of a recording I promised sometime ago. The initial handmade run ran out and I've been rather too peripatetic and caught up in cherchez la femme over the last few months to remake it. It shall be done! Eventually.

With a low bow...

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[info]lord_whimsy
2007-11-14 02:36 am UTC (link)
Look forward to it, and you!

I've sent Wynd info on the beasties, and await his orders.

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[info]niddrie_edge
2007-11-14 12:13 am UTC (link)
I don't know Horsley personally but its all an act isn't it? He knows exactly what he is doing.
I like his failure is something good angle.
He reminds me of all those bourgeois junkies I met during punk who never quite fell into the shit. They could bore the pants of you AND use you while stealing your girl with their little boy lost thing.
As for the Pistols/Clash thing, I won't defend the Clash re the class issue but I think the Pistols anti-NY stance was hypocritical (though the middle calss one Sid couldn't get enough of it).
I was genuinely more intrigued by some NY acts in '77 than I was by the Pistols who became like the Flagholders of Punk with a setlist of something like 20 songs and a great mouthpiece.
Lydon's rant at the Q awards about being the real "Arsenal", real working class is worth a watch on YouTube. I haven't made up my mind but the comebacks are like a bad joke.

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[info]lord_whimsy
2007-11-14 07:17 am UTC (link)
Well, I understand this impulse and have had it many times myself, usually when undeserving entitled twats who tormented me for years would be visiting home from their very expensive colleges and smile with satisfaction upon seeing me as I unloaded trucks or cleaned public toilets at the local low-end mart to help pay for my shoddy state college education.

However, I don't feel that my background makes me any more "authentic" or worthy, other than the fact that I've had to work longer, harder and take more chances in order to attain the things others take for granted. Not a day goes by that I don't thank my lucky stars.

The undercurrents of working-class resentment and aggression Johnny has nursed and traded heavily on for decades is something I've always found a bit alienating--at least the British strain, which is an altogether different animal than the one in the States.

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[info]fredchook
2007-11-13 10:40 am UTC (link)
Julian and Sandy! Ah, I loved them when they used to be on the local radio all the time. Everyone is trying so hard to be someone else, though - and good lord are the Carygranters ever boring.

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[info]odin_za_vseh
2007-11-13 06:59 pm UTC (link)
In regard to the last paragraph of your comment, I have a question. Why is Weimar Berlin nonsense, and why is liking it, in your opinion, vulgar?

When I read your book, I was warmed by its kind nature and good feeling, and very much inspired by the fact that though you spoke with a passion about dandyism, aesthetecism, nature and all things that modern pop culture undermines or drags through the gutter you did not do so in disaggreable or rude terms (unlike someone of the Horsley type).

So I find it strange that from this comment you seem to pass rather harsh judgement on the fellows that aspire to something out of the ordinary and beautiful in life, even if it isn't something you might find agreeable to your person. I hold the German and American 1920s and 30s near and dear to my heart, and feel a sort of kinship with that age that for me is more than a passing trend or a small effusion of a "vintage nostalgia erotiglam" subculture, but even if it were, I think it calling it vulgar in a negative sense would be unfair.

Obviously, I speak only on behalf of the "goth goofballs and bowler-hatted kids with eyeliner who are really into Weimar Berlin cabaret nonsense" (though I never thought I'd get on their defence) and not the other types.

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[info]lord_whimsy
2007-11-13 07:26 pm UTC (link)
So easily hurt from a mere opinion? I'm sorry if you take offense, but as a forty-year old man, I don't actively dislike it, but please don't ask me to take that stuff too seriously. Don't get me wrong--have a lovely time, but as someone who lived through thirty years of popular culture which includes the punk and post-punk eras and the first incarnation of goth in '81, it all seems like revivalism without further innovation, greasy kid stuff. Chances are when you reach my age, you'll feel the same way--so laugh it off, and look back on this time in your life fondly in the years to come.

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[info]odin_za_vseh
2007-11-13 07:41 pm UTC (link)
It wasn't so much the opinion itself that hurt me, but rather the fact that your spoken opinions contradicted your written intentions, which I admired and respected when I read them.

I will take your advice and hope to look back on my youth with a sense of good humor, but I don't think I, or anyone, will ever think back fondly of being talked down to merely on the basis of age.

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[info]lord_whimsy
2007-11-13 07:45 pm UTC (link)
Not age--experience, which is a precious commodity.

No contradiction at all, from my point of view. Besides, the idea of being fossilized by whatever one has written in the past does not appeal to anyone, least of all myself.

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[info]lupoleboucher
2007-11-13 06:59 am UTC (link)
Didn't you used to go to Rodericks chamber? He reminds me the most of mosquito boy. Though Horsley is a little more original and genuinely tortured (rather than being the guy that everyone beat up at school), and has a much cooler tie.

Also, how many hack artists have you wanted to nail to a cross? At least he did us the favor.

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[info]bricology
2007-11-13 07:58 am UTC (link)
No, I had already lost most of my interest in gothy stuff by the time Roderick's Chamber started. I do miss seeing a lot of the goths that used to be here in town, tho' -- they had more flavor than the gutterpunks and slobs we're stuck with today.

As for Horsley being tortured -- I think much of that has been self-inflicted, so I can't afford too much sympathy. Self-destruction + self-indulgence ≠ salvation by necktie. But of course you're right -- he saved us the trouble of literally crucifying him.

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[info]bifteck
2007-11-13 04:29 am UTC (link)
Ah, what a charming little cat turd.

He's like a "high class" version of Nathan Barley.

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[info]imomus
2007-11-13 07:50 am UTC (link)
Or Adam Ant without the songs!

But I must say I admire his courage. And, like Malcolm McLaren, he's collected a number of good one-liners and isn't afraid to use them.

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[info]lord_whimsy
2007-11-13 08:03 am UTC (link)
I'd be curious to know if we're really dealing with courage or a species of compulsion.

"Adam Ant without the songs" sounds like me in '83, sadly.

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[info]lord_whimsy
2007-11-13 08:26 am UTC (link)
I mean, I too could adopt a "controversial" or "outrageous" pose, but to me that seems too easy--everyone knows what buttons to push to get noticed. Perhaps I lack the "courage" to debase myself, but I do have the courage not to--which in our shrill culture that rewards outrageousness and increasingly marginalizes or trivializes the humane, may very well be the greater of the two. Or not.

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[info]mr_bad_example
2007-11-13 05:17 am UTC (link)
For just a moment, I parsed that name as Sherman Hemsley.

What an improvement that would have been.

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[info]sm255
2007-11-13 01:42 pm UTC (link)
I quite liked watching his act, but I found it hard to look at his tie.

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[info]niyabinghi
2007-11-13 02:10 pm UTC (link)
Why are all his facial expressions conveying a sense of painful constipation?

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[info]electricwitch
2007-11-13 02:33 pm UTC (link)
Goddamnit, I don´t have the energy to troll two posts.

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[info]that_cad
2007-11-13 03:04 pm UTC (link)
Do you think if the Sex Pistols were at a party in Notting Hill — not that they would, but just as a hypothetical — and invited him that he wouldn't go?

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[info]murcury
2007-11-13 06:09 pm UTC (link)
I am more of a PiL man myself.

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[info]lord_whimsy
2007-11-13 06:28 pm UTC (link)
Even better! First two albums for me.

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