Mavericks in a Metropolis of Millions…

Friday, 8th Nov, 2024 by Krilling for Company in 2SLGBTQ+ Community Issues, Aesthetics, Art, Über-Transgression..., Keyly Committed Core Components of the Counter-Cultural Community, Literature, Politics, Post-Transgressive Fiction and tagged anti-fascism, anti-fascist community, antifa, capital punishment, David Britton, death-penalty, deterrent, Dr Miriam B. Stimbers, Dr Samuel P. Salatta, fascism, fascist, hanging, hatred, in terms of, interview extract, interview with Jay Guinness, Jay Guinness, locus of values, Manchester, Manchester Arena Bombing, Manchester bombing, Mancunian, Michael Moorcock, Miriam Stimbers, Morrissey, pretty progressive bunch, prior to, Salman Abedi, Savoy Books, Savoy community, suicide-bomber, terrorism, terrorist, Titans of Transgression, TransVisceral Books | Leave a comment

Trump has won again.

I can’t believe I’ve just written those words.

I don’t wanna believe I’ve just written those words.

But I hafta.

’Coz they’re true.

Toxically, traumatizingly, tear-tappingly true.

So how’m I gonna respond to the toxic truth of tyrannical Trump’s triumph?

Welp… how better than by publishing some fiercely unbowed words of anti-fascist resistance from one of the core counter-cultural components at one of the world’s leading anti-racist publishing houses?

Yes indeedy, this Papyrocentric Performativizer is positively pulsating with pride and passion to present an exclusive antifa extract from arguably the best interview in Titans of Transgression: Incendiary Interviews with Eleven Ultra-Icons of Über-Extremity (TransVisceral Books 2024), which has just seen its third edition.

Please raise your revolutionary fists for Jay Guinness, Artistic Director and Ipsissimic Aesthetician at Manchester-locused Savoy Books, long hailed as England’s most transgressive publishing company…

Readers’ Advisory: Interview extract contains strong language and uncompromising counter-cultural contrarianism. Proceed at your own risk.

[…]

Miriam Stimbers: Manchester was in the headlines for all the wrong reasons in 2017 [editor’s note: Miriam is referring to the murder of twenty-two people by the homophobic and misogynist Islamist suicide-bomber Salman Abedi at the Manchester Arena].

Jay Guinness: It was, yes. Sadly it was.

Miriam Stimbers: How did you react at Savoy?

Jay Guinness: We in the Savoy community were badly affected. Clearly, we’ve engaged fictionally, artistically, aesthetically with issues around fascism, hatred, intolerance throughout our professional lives, but to have those issues strike on your own doorstep, as it were, strike for real, well, it’s something you could never be prepared for.

Miriam Stimbers: So you think what he did was fascism?

Jay Guinness: I think it was echt fascism, fascism pur sang. Pun not intended. Let’s not beat about the bush. It was fascism.

Miriam Stimbers: Much has been made of the fact that the terrorist––

Jay Guinness: I don’t think “terrorist” is the mot juste. Not at all. For me, he’s just a criminal with a diseased mind. And I don’t mean that as a compliment!

Steve Bell of The Guardian excoriates the Manchester Arena Bomber

Miriam Stimbers: Okay. Much has been made of the fact that the criminal was born and brought up in Manchester. Have you any thoughts on that?

Jay Guinness: You’re right, much has been made of it. But for me and my colleagues at Savoy what he did merely underlined the fact that Manchester is a state of mind far more than it is a physical and temporal Sitz im Leben. It’s about a locus of values, not about geography. I mean, I was born in Huddersfield myself, but I felt that I was Mancunian from the moment I first hung my hat here, because I subscribe to Mancunian values. People who were born here but don’t subscribe to those values aren’t part of the city. Not for me, not for the Savoy community, not ever. I think Dave [Britton] put it best when we were processing the news of what he’d done. Dave’s words have stayed with me: “He’s not a fucking Manc, he’s a fucking cunt. The fucker should be fucking strung up.”

Miriam Stimbers: Metaphorically speaking?

Jay Guinness: No, not metaphorically. Literally. We in the Savoy community are a pretty progressive bunch. We’re not instinctive supporters of the death penalty, to put it mildly. But if you took a vote at Savoy in terms of whether people who do things like that should be hanged, it would be a unanimous yes. No dissenters.

Miriam Stimbers: I’m taken aback. It seems a little extreme. A lot extreme, to be honest.

Jay Guinness: The Savoy community might be progressive, but we’re not bleeding-heart liberals. As Dave said, the fucker should be fucking strung up.

Miriam Stimbers: But what could you hope to achieve by it?

Jay Guinness: Well, for one thing it would be a deterrent to others. Just as importantly, it would ensure he doesn’t do it again.

Miriam Stimbers: But he won’t be doing it again. How could he?

Jay Guinness: Very easily. And he will do it again. We in the Savoy community are confident of that. Leopards don’t change their spots.

Miriam Stimbers: But how could he do it again? He’s dead.

Jay Guinness: I’m sorry, you’ve lost me. Who’s dead?

Miriam Stimbers: Salman Abedi, of course. The suicide-bomber at the Manchester Arena. Who else?

Much More Mucking Maverick Than You, Monkeyfunker!

Jay Guinness: Oh no, no, no, you’ve got entirely the wrong end of the stick. I wasn’t talking about that poor British-Muslim boy. He was quite possibly the biggest victim in that unfortunate business at the Arena.

Miriam Stimbers: Then who were you talking about?

Jay Guinness: That despicable creature Morrissey, of course. Those comments of his about immigration and Salman’s background were utterly unforgivable. Utterly. But no more than one would expect. As Dave went on to say: “That fucking crypto-fascist cunt’s just a fucking attention-seeker, always fucking has been, always fucking will be. String the fucker up!”

Miriam Stimbers: And you really think there’d be a majority at Savoy in favour of executing Morrissey?

Jay Guinness: I don’t think it, I know it. But it wouldn’t just be a majority, it would a unanimous vote, nem. con. What has Morrissey ever done but bring Manchester into disrepute with his dire music, his shitty fashion sense and his toxic racist agenda? As Michael Moorcock once said: “Fascism never sleeps and nor must the anti-fascist community.” In terms of saying it all, it does. Definitively.

[…]

Interview extract © Jay Guinness, Dr Miriam Stimbers, TransVisceral Books 2024

• Jay Guinness is a Huddersfield-born artist and aesthetician, and the subject of Dr Joan Jay Jefferson’s incisive and exhaustive biography Art-Bandit: Interrogating the Outlaw Aesthetics of Über-Maverick Gay Atelierista Jay Guinness (University of Salford Press 2012). See reviews of Art-Bandit at: Pink News, The Guardian, London Review of Books, Quietus, and Huffington Post. Visit Jay’s website for news of his latest projects.

• Miriam Stimbers is a Glasgow-born psychoanalyst, literary scholar and cultural commentatrix whose most recent book is the updated edition of Morbidly Miriam: The Mephitic Memoirs of Miriam B. Stimbers (TransVisceral Books 2023). See a review of Morbidly Miriam at Papyrocentric Performativity. Visit Miriam’s website for news of her latest projects.

Previously pre-posted on Papyrocentric Performativity…

• Il Nano e il Necrofilo… – an earlier exclusive extract from Titans of Transgression…

• The Hurt Shocker – an even earlier exclusive extract from Titans of Transgression…

Prior Analytics

Friday, 12th Oct, 2018 by Krilling for Company in English Usage, Guardianistas, In Terms Of and tagged after, Aristotle, bad English, bad writing, before, English Usage, Guardian and Observer style guide, Guardian English, Guardian-readers, Guardianese, Guardianistas, in terms of, ito, liberal English, posterior, posterior to, prior, prior to | 2 Comments

In terms of ugly, pretentious phrases used by members of the Guardian-reading community, the “signature” phrase is undoubtedly “in terms of”. But there’s another phrase habitually deployerized by Guardianistas that is perhaps even worse in terms of its core Guardianisticity. To get to it, let’s first engage issues around the title of this post: “Prior Analytics”. I took it from the title of a book on logic by Aristotle, Prior Analytics, known in Latin as Analytica Priora.

Are you surprised to learn that Prior Analytics has a companion called Posterior Analytics, or Analytica Posteriora? No, of course you aren’t. “Prior” and “posterior” are high-falutin’ words that go together: when the first appears, the second naturally follows. And you might think that this obvious pairing would alert Guardianistas to the ugliness and pretension of another of their signature phrases, “prior to”:

• Foreign press warn over dangers of new UK media laws prior to Leveson report — headline in The Observer, 24xi2012
• “Prior to its emergence the trend was not to talk truth to power but to slur the powerless.” — The Great Gary Younge in The Observer, 6xi2011
• “Prior to a prang outside Tesco which, for insurance purposes, wasn’t actually my fault”… — The Great Zoë Williams in The Guardian, 8ii2005

Why do I think “prior to” may be even worse than “in terms of”? There are times when “in terms of” isn’t particularly bad English. I don’t like to admit it, but there are even times when it’s the best phrase to use. But “prior to”? It’s almost always just an ugly and pretentious way of saying “before”. I say “almost always” because you can make an exception for a technical usage like “Existence is logically prior to essence.” But that’s a rare exception, so I repeat: “prior to” is almost always just an ugly and pretentious way of saying “before”.

And guess what? You’ll find this in the Guardian and Observer style guide under “P”:

prior to, previous to

the word you want is “before” (see Guardian and Observer style guide: P)

Guardianistas should be able to realize that for themselves, because “prior to” naturally suggests “posterior to”. However, even Guardianistas don’t habitually say “posterior to” instead of “after”. Even a Guardianista’s ugliness-and-pretension-o-meter is tripped by “posterior to”. But only in the flesh, as it were. Guardianistas are apparently incapable of two-step logic: first, noticing that “prior to” rather than “before” naturally suggests “posterior to” rather than “after”; second, deciding that because “posterior to” is ugly and pretentious, they shouldn’t use “prior to” either.

Elsewhere other-engageable:

• All posts interrogating issues around “in terms of”
• All posts interrogating issues around the Guardian-reading community and its affiliates

A Counter-Cultural Conundrum

Saturday, 10th Mar, 2018 by Krilling for Company in Über-Transgression..., English Usage, In Terms Of and tagged 23 minutes, counter-cultural community, counter-culture, English Usage, in terms of, Keyly Committed Core Components of the Counter-Cultural Community, prior to, twenty-three | Leave a comment

If three keyly committed core components of the counter-cultural community say “in terms of” 105 times in an hour, how many times will one keyly committed core component of the counter-cultural community say “prior to” in terms of 23 minutes?

Elsewhere Other-Accessible:

• Ex-term-in-ate!
• Titus Graun: Heresy, Homotextuality, Hive-Mind
• All O.o.t.Ü.-F. posts engaging issues around I.T.O.

Are U Worthy?

Friday, 10th Mar, 2017 by Krilling for Company in Über-Transgression..., English Usage, Guardianistas, In Terms Of, Keyly Committed Core Components of the Counter-Cultural Community, Transgression... and tagged 23 working days, Alan Moore, Are U Worthy?, counter-cultural, counter-cultural community, counter-culture, daily basis, dot dot dot, Genesis P-Orridge, Guardianese, Guardianistas, in terms of, issues around, J.G. Ballard, Jeremy Corbyn, Kathy Acker, Keyly Committed Core Components of the Counter-Cultural Community, Michael Moorcock, nagged by doubts, Norman Foreman B.A., phantasmagoric phrase, prior to, Stewart Home, The Guardian, transgression, transgressive, twenty-three, Vote Corbyn, Will Self, William Burroughs | Leave a comment

If you’re nagged by doubts as to whether you really are a keyly committed core component of the counter-cultural community, then simply engage issues around the following issues…

1. In terms of “in terms of”, how often do you hear this phantasmagoric phrase in terms of a daily basis?

2. Please hierarchialize the following core components of the counter-cultural icon community in terms of their “in-terms-of”-usage metrics: Will Self, J.G. Ballard, William Burroughs, Alan Moore, Miriam Stimbers, Michael Moorcock, Kathy Acker, Genesis P. Orridge, Alan Ginsberg, Stewart Home, Hubert Selby Jr., Norman Foreman (B.A.). (I.e., if you think Foreman uses “in terms of” most in terms of usage metrics, put him first; if you think Acker uses it second-most, put her second; etc.)

3. Engage issues around 1 and 2 again, replacing “in terms of” with “prior to”…

4. Engage issues around 1 and 2 again, replacing “in terms of” with “issues around”……

5. Engage issues around 1 and 2 again, replacing “in terms of” with “Vote Corbyn”………

Once you’ve engaged issues around the above issues, email your answers to Evaluator!@NakedKrunch and you should have your doubts laid to rest within 23 working days…

Previously pre-posted on Overlord of the Über-Feral…

• Les Sez
• Don’t Do Dot…
• Terminator!
• Metricizing Michael…
• Terminal Breach
• More Termination…

Don’t Do Dot…

Thursday, 10th Dec, 2015 by Krilling for Company in English Usage, Guardianistas, In Terms Of, Linguistics and tagged "Stories I Have Tried to Write", bad writing, core, core metric, counting syllables, dot dot dot, dots, ellipses, ellipsis, English language, English Usage, Guardianese, Guardianistas, headlines, in terms of, key, key indicator, Keyly Committed Core Components of the Counter-Cultural Community, linguistics, M.R. James, on a permanent basis, polysyllables, pretentious and polysyllabic, pretentious writing, prior to, simple English, simplicity, spike, stylistic trick, syllables, trailing dots, urgently throbbing monosyllables | Leave a comment

It’s a mistake to think that Guardianese, the optimal dialect of keyly committed core components of the counter-cultural community, mandates optionizing on a permanent basis for the pretentious and polysyllabic. Yes, Guardianistas are addicted to phrases like “in terms of” and “prior to”, but they also like urgently throbbing monosyllables like “key”, “core” and “spike”.

These are unnatural words, taken from headlines, not from normal English. They reveal an important truth: simplicity can be pretentious too. The two aspects of Guardianese come together in phrases like “key indicator” and “core metric”. I would say that “vital sign” and “important statistic” are better and more natural English, but you can’t tell that by counting syllables.

And sometimes Guardianese doesn’t use any syllables at all… Guardianistas also like the stylistic trick of trailing dots. I find it cheap and irritating, so I’m glad that one of my favourite writers thought the same long ago. In his essay “Stories I Have Tried to Write”, M.R. James (1862-1936) said this:

In parenthesis, many common objects may be made the vehicles of retribution, and where retribution is not called for, of malice. Be careful how you handle the packet you pick up in the carriage-drive, particularly if it contains nail parings and hair. Do not, in any case, bring it into the house. It may not be alone… (Dots are believed by many writers of our day to be a good substitute for effective writing. They are certainly an easy one. Let us have a few more……) (“Stories I Have Tried To Write”, 1929)

In short: Don’t do dot…

Elsewhere other-engageable:

• Ex-term-in-ate!
• Titus Graun
• Reds under the Thread

Overlord In Terms of Core Issues Around Maximal Engagement with Key Notions of the Über-Feral

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