Jonathan Bowden’s Correspondence with Greg Johnson, September-October 2010

8,038 words

Edited by Greg Johnson

Editor’s Note:

What follows is all my extant correspondence with Jonathan Bowden from 2010. Once he started sending me articles for Counter-Currents, Jonathan would typically send the entire article as an email. For brevity, I have included just the titles. The articles themselves are found on Counter-Currents. There is one exception: the play Straight as an Arrow as well as Jonathan’s introductory note are included in their entirety, because I did not publish them at Counter-Currents.

***

Greg Johnson to Jonathan Bowden

To: Jonathan Bowden and Others
From: Greg Johnson
8/29/2010, 6:43 PM

Subject: [David Irving]

[On August 29, 2010, I included Jonathan in a list of people to whom I sent a letter arguing that David Irving would be a very bad person to invite to a conference. I can’t include the letter without violating a number of confidences. Jonathan’s subsequent remarks on Irving are in response to this letter.]

September

 Jonathan Bowden to Greg Johnson

To: Greg Johnson
From: Jonathan Bowden
Thursday, September 02, 2010, 8:06 AM

Subject: Future Articles, etc…

Dear Greg Johnson,

Thanks very much for putting my Nosferatu article up on your Counter-Currents website (as arranged). I am more than appreciative because I know that many purely political types will say—what’s the point of all this, then? Speaking of which—I should be in a position to send you a review of one of my books by John Michael McCloughlin relatively shortly. He’s an all-round A-Grade character in every way!

On the point you raise about David Irving, yes, I understand what you mean. He is a highly gifted and driven individual, but there is also a streak of semi-autism in his make-up. If this isn’t a clinical judgement (who can confirm or deny the rigour of that?) then there’s a metaphorical or deeper, artistic truth. In the arts (my area) an enormous number of individuals are ‘unpleasant’, manipulative, polymorphous, power mad, sociopathic, et al. Of course, a great number of them get by through using the most quotidian and ‘politically correct’ slogans. Nonetheless, in DI’s case I have never had any problems and (in a strange way) he has a certain respect for me (amid a generalised and cursory misanthropy, you understand). The way to deal with him is to be relatively ‘off’, insouciant, slightly bored, forgetful of others’ rights, et cetera, and then he responds to you reasonably well. The trick is to break into Misanthropy’s Golden Horde—he only respects individuals who behave with him the way he proceeds to devour all those who surround us. Isn’t there that old ‘sixties hippy slogan—what goes around comes around?

I seem to recall that Scientology refers to prospective members of their cult as ‘raw meat’. I fear that a certain British Historian takes a similar view.

Anyway, there are quite a few people on the Right who consider me to be an utter Monster—but I never behave the way Irving does. Sam Dickson once said that my paintings are the sort of things a serial killer might do. HA! HA!

All the best.

Yours ever,
Jonathan Bowden

Greg Johnson to Jonathan Bowden

To: Jonathan Bowden
From: Greg Johnson
September  2/2010, 7:54 PM

Subject: Future Articles, etc. . .

Jonathan,

Irving writes important books, and I buy them and recommend them to people. I even attend his dinners around the country (at my own risk), because I want to meet people at them. Sam has known Irving personally for years. He knows what a treacherous and vindictive man he is.

Sam knows nothing about art or serial killers.

Best,
Greg

Jonathan Bowden to Greg Johnson

To: Greg Johnson
From: Jonathan Bowden
9/3/2010, 4:08 PM

Subject: Future Articles, etc.

GOODBYE, HOMUNCULUS!
by Jonathan Bowden

A Review by John Michael McCloughlin

Jonathan Bowden to Greg Johnson

To: Greg Johnson
From: Jonathan Bowden
9/10/2010, 4:53 PM

Subject: A Review

LILITH BEFORE EVE
by Jonathan Bowden

A Review by John Michael McCloughlin

Jonathan Bowden to Greg Johnson

To: Greg Johnson
From: Jonathan Bowden
Sent: Friday, September 17, 2010 8:03 AM

Subject: REVIEW

LOUISIANA HALF-FACE
by Jonathan Bowden

Reviewed by John Michael McCloughlin

Greg Johnson to Jonathan Bowden

To: Jonathan Bowden
From: Greg Johnson
9/18/2010, 11:24 PM

Subject: A Review

Thanks, this will be up on Sunday.

Jonathan Bowden to Greg Johnson

To: Greg Johnson
From: Jonathan Bowden
9/10/2010, 5:10 PM

Subject: Erratum

Dear Greg Johnson,

The first line of paragraph three in the ‘Lilith Before Eve’ review should be:

Superficially speaking, Lilith before Eve concerns a ventriloquist who loses control…

(i.e., not looses…)

Yours ever,
Jonathan Bowden

Jonathan Bowden to Greg Johnson

To: Greg Johnson
From: Jonathan Bowden
Sent: Friday, September 24, 2010, 8:23 AM

Subject: NEW REVIEW

A BALLET OF WASPS
by Jonathan Bowden

Reviewed by John Michael McCloughlin

Greg Johnson to Jonathan Bowden

To: Jonathan Bowden
From: Greg Johnson
9/26/2010, 9:32 AM

Subject: New Review

Jonathan,

Thank you for this, the most interesting of these review so far. It will go online Monday.

Best,
Greg

Greg Johnson to Jonathan Bowden

To: Jonathan Bowden
From: Greg Johnson
9/26/2010, 12:23 PM

Subject: New Review

Here’s something I am working on:

[I pasted in my Trevor Lynch review of The Dark Knight.]

Jonathan Bowden to Greg Johnson

To: Greg Johnson
From: Jonathan Bowden
Tuesday, September 28, 2010 8:22 AM

Subject: A PROPOSITION

Dear Greg Johnson,

An individual that I know here in the United Kingdom has written to me suggesting that I write a book called What is the Far Right? He is prepared to pay me £100.00—a munificent and Stephen King-like advance as you can see! Nonetheless, it is worth thinking about. Quite a lot of people think that I should write a definitive work which relates to the entire area. (Of course, in saying this they are subliminally saying that all of this artistic stuff I involve myself with is either beyond them, irrelevant, ‘difficult’, ‘arty-farty’ (British slang), et cetera). Yet the idea could appeal to me—particularly if people allow me to do completely what I want. (Between you and me, I tend to do this anyway). So, I wonder, would counter-Currents Publishing Ltd be interested in such a project?

I leave any monetary questions up to you. But still, it’s an idea; I haven’t thought about it enormously—but I would be inclined to call it VISIONS OF STEEL: what is the far right? Perhaps my painting of Mussolini could go on the front cover? Any such text would have to be as long as any other of my books (200 pages, say), and I’ve told my correspondent that I would need until the end of next year (2011) to complete it. What do you think about all this?

Yours ever,
Jonathan Bowden

Greg Johnson to Jonathan Bowden

From: Greg Johnson [email protected]
To: Jonathan Bowden
Tue, 28 Sep 2010 12:44:13 -0700

Subject: A PROPOSITION

Dear Jonathan,

I like the idea of your introduction to the Far Right in 200 or so pages, and I would certainly publish it. What sort of outline do you envision? I like the title a lot. Makes me think of Italian Futurism, Der Arbeiter, Savitri Devi’s vision of Sun Temples and futuristic factories dotting a reenchanted landscape, or Faye’s Archeofuturism, etc.

I could pay you a Stephen King-like royalty of 10% of the cover price of all books sold. There really is not a lot of profit in publishing Right Wing books! Not yet anyway.

We would start with a limited numbered, ed. of 100 copies, as well as do regular hardcovers and paperbacks.

Which is your Mussolini painting? Is it on your site? Can you send me a JPEG?

Can you send me a jpeg of the Hitler and Leni painting as well?

Thanks,
Greg

 

October 

Jonathan Bowden to Greg Johnson

To: Greg Johnson
From: Jonathan Bowden
10/1/2010, 1:16 AM

Subject: A PROPOSITION

Dear Greg Johnson,

Thanks for your reply to my e-mail. Yes, I agree to the terms of ten per cent on all copies sold (either as a special minority edition, later paperback or hardback editions, et cetera…) As to an outline, I never entirely know where I’m going so they tend to grow organically over time. As Wyndham Lewis told a critic years and years ago:

ONE CREATES BY FIAT—HAVING PONDERED ON AN ENTIRE ZOOLOGY!

Suffice it to say, it would probably resemble one of Nietzsche’s efforts and is therefore uncategorisable, but it would be both non-fiction and contain quite a lot of factual information. It would range across the entire Western world—although there would doubtless be a British dimension. It would also be quite artistic, imaginative and oneiric—but hopefully not in a way that hardcore politicos would find too loathsome. I don’t set out to dazzle folks, but I do think that if you speak ‘above’ people then you drag them up. It is also best to spread a certain awe and daemonic Terror, conceptually speaking.

As to the paintings you mention, yes, the Mussolinian effort is on my web-site—it is called Mussolini With Bi-Planes. It is vaguely Futurist in spirit. Someone who is far more internet savvy than me will send you image attachments or JPEGs in the not too distant future (hopefully). If an e-mail turns up which just contains those images it will be from this individual. The link to these images is:

http://www.jonathanbowden.co.uk/gallery/album/index.html

I believe that it is in the fourteenth page of this gallery.

I should be in a position to send you a critical essay about comics tomorrow. It concentrates on the dialectic of Batman and the Joker from several decades back.

Yours ever,

Jonathan Bowden
www.jonathanbowden.co.uk

Jonathan Bowden to Greg Johnson

To: Greg Johnson
From: Jonathan Bowden
10/1/2010, 5:11 PM

Subject: An Article

THE FANATICAL PURSUIT OF PURITY
by Jonathan Bowden

A Review by John Michael McCloughlin

Greg Johnson to Jonathan Bowden

To: Jonathan Bowden
From: Greg Johnson

10/2/2010, 7:50 AM

Subject: An Article

Thanks for this. It will go up Sunday.

Jonathan Bowden to Greg Johnson

To: Greg Johnson
From: Jonathan Bowden

Sent: Monday, October 04, 2010 7:31 AM

Subject: FW: Images for CC

Dear Greg Johnson,

Please find enclosed the two paintings which you requested in a previous e-mail. They have been sent to me as JPG images from someone more computer literate than myself. The Adolf and Leni image (as landscape) will be a little bit difficult to utilise as a book-cover, the Mussolini painting much more straightforward.

Yours ever,
Jonathan Bowden

Jonathan Bowden to Greg Johnson

To: Greg Johnson
From: Jonathan Bowden
10/4/2010, 4:25 PM

Subject: Images for CC

[Attached: Hitler and Leni, Mussolini with Biplanes]

Greg Johnson to Jonathan Bowden

To: Jonathan Bowden
From: Greg Johnson
10/4/2010, 10:01 PM

Subject: Images for CC

Thanks

Jonathan Bowden to Greg Johnson

To: Greg Johnson
From: Jonathan Bowden
10/8/2010, 5:03 PM

Subject: A Reveiw

KRATOS by Jonathan Bowden

Reviewed by John Michael McCloughlin

Jonathan Bowden to Greg Johnson

To: Greg Johnson
From: Jonathan Bowden
10/8/2010, 5:08 PM

Subject: Erratum

Dear Greg Johnson,

The title bar for Kratos should be ‘A Review’ not a reveiw (sic).

Yours ever,
Jonathan Bowden

Jonathan Bowden to Greg Johnson

To: Greg Johnson
From: Jonathan Bowden
Oct/11/2010, 5:27 PM

Subject: SCREENPLAY FOR WEB-SITE

Dear Greg Johnson,

Please find enclosed the text of a play for film which I have written. It is a sort of artistic or aesthetic screenplay for a film which is yet to be. As you may be aware, I have produced and starred in two films thus far. They are both feature films and are an hour in length. They are called Venus Fly-Trap and Grand Guignol. Two extensive reviews of them exist on my site by Troy Southgate. I know that this particular piece (below) may not really suit Counter-Currents, but I’m sending it to you anyway. I note that you do have categories available for fiction, poetry, original pieces, et cetera… The piece is heavily Nietzschean and consists of a leaden dirge wherein various carcasses hit the dust (metaphorically speaking). I suppose that its Rightwing specificity is its view of crime: in that one character fundamentally misunderstands the misanthropy lurking in the other. The play’s thesis is that criminals are born and not made… should Man qua Man just be punished for being alive?

Yours ever,
Jonathan Bowden

Jonathan Bowden to Greg Johnson

From: Jonathan Bowden
To: [email protected]
Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2010 15:51:56 +0100
Subject: SCREENPLAY FOR WEB-SITE

STRAIGHT AS AN ARROW
by Jonathan Bowden

A PLAY FOR FILM
Dramatis Personae: Basildon Lancaster; his wife Fervent Dominique; Odd Billy-O (a psychopath); a female psychiatrist.

ACT ONE

Basildon Lancaster:
“We followed an oblivion Northwards
In the hope of a new charade
Only to fathom a cottage redundant
To our jaded Southern lips.”

Fervent Dominique:
“It’s beauty spreads before us
Like a severed human eye.”

Basildon Lancaster knocks aggressively on the door.

Basildon Lancaster:
“After interminable delays of whimsy
A scuffling sound protrudes
Behold! A Northern trog
Matted over with hair and fists
Stands afore us.”
+
“My dear chap, we’re here to purchase your house.”

Odd Billy-O:
“Ohh-Ahh!”

Soon they are inside the cottage facing each other.

Basildon Lancaster:
“How much warrants a drift of cash?”

Odd Billy-O (speaking in Northern English dialect):
“This be right grand—as happens
Like Mather used ta say:
Get thee in from gibble and put wood in hole
I’ll be back while Friday
Does thou follow me ken, thee know?”

Basildon Lancaster:
“I regret to acknowledge… I do.”

Billy-O:
“Reckon on this, Lord o’ manor
I won’t be lettin’ place go for less’n nine hundred
– straight up:
What’s thee keel ta that, ah?”

Basildon Lancaster:
“You drive a hard bargain, dungster.
I remain unenfeebled in my wit.”

Fervent Dominique:
“O Basildon, let’s purchase a delightful muse.
It perfumes the air with a soldered brand.”

Odd Billy-O:
“Hell’s bells a’gibbering
It’s not much I’m asking, thee knows…”

Basildon Lancaster lets an expensive cigarette’s smoke drift about on the Northern air.

Basildon Lancaster:
“I stand indifferent to regional patois –
It dwells on detail like a stake through the tongue.”

He draws his wife’s face up to his:

“We must reject nominalism!”

Odd Billy-O:
“I be requirin(‘) bed-’n’-board, me ducks.
For thy information
I’ll be livin(‘) over stables –
Plus five bob for tobacco, don’t thee know?”

Fervent Dominique:
“Darling, all it requires is a mother of all make-overs.”

Basildon Lancaster:
“Billy-O’s visage disturbs me.
Ugliness plots at Lombroso’s gift.
It characterises a mark of Cain
Or a hostage to delinquency in terms of the soul.”

The Psychiatrist (voice over):
“Yet his innermost thoughts turned tail.
Surely he profited from a freak’s turmoil?
We’ll take the house –
Fervent desires it;
Billy-O also sand-papers company when I’m away, on business, in the Capitol.”

Basildon Lancaster and Odd Billy-O shake hands over the deal.

ACT TWO

Odd Billy-O lies alone on a pallet in a hotel bedroom. It is indescribably shabby all around. Rather bizarrely, he happens to be dressed in Basildon Lancaster’s clothes.

Basildon Lancaster speaks Billy-O’s lines:
“Nightmares pitch me into phantasmagoria.
I note its red eye amid a skeleton’s embrace:
Don’t I lie here (?) –
Pinned to this mat near Euston Station
In a squalid dump.”
+
“I must avoid a dream’s iron-lung;
If not to mount a horse with see-through ribs
Tripod in hand.”

ACT THREE

Basildon Lancaster is in an asylum talking to the Psychiatrist.

Basildon Lancaster:
“Once incarcerated, O loony doctor, has my wife altered her approach?”

The Psychiatrist:
“Imprescriptably, you are correct, Monsieur.
No change afflicts an offerant in this mad-house.
A stroboscope performs a jest in relief –
And no deeper witness solicits envy over our kin.”

Basildon Lancaster:
“I understand, Doctor Who.
I stare into the future and gaze upon an electric foetus;
It collides with so much blue rain.”

The Psychiatrist and Lancaster, in tandem, visit Fervent Dominique in her cell.

Basildon Lancaster:
“Fervent, O Dominique?”

Fervent Dominique is either trussed up, wears protective asylum gloves or pads (to prevent self-harm), and looks highly disturbed.

Fervent Dominique:
“I refuse to answer.
I open my arms wide to foreclose indecision.
A concrete or abstract wall rears afore me.
One blank television screen lies to my left.”

Basildon Lancaster:
“Might her catalepsy be adduced to electric shocks?”

The Psychiatrist:
“Possibly—”.

Basildon Lancaster: “I refuse to countenance their surcease.”

ACT FOUR
[Note: Basildon Lancaster and Odd Billy-O, the trog, are now interchangeable. Likewise, the psychiatrist uses an educated version of Dung Beetle’s northern diction].

All three characters—Basildon Lancaster, Fervent Dominique and Billy-O—are back in the cottage.

Basildon Lancaster:
“I must leave you in the break of so many Marines;
Listen to me, darling –
Does a wheel-chair not tinkle in the night (?)
It’s Billy-O…”

Fervent Dominique’s face appears—yet it happens to be the psychiatrist’s voice.

The Psychiatrist:
“Our Northern trog travels on.
Reckoning over a fist
And carrying grief into restless periods of concrete.”

Odd Billy-O:
“I drift along now a’keep of flame…”

He stares about him in the darkness.

“WHERE ARE YOU, SWINE?
I don’t need or require thee:
No-one partakes of a spastic cake;
It travels on towards ultra-sound…”

The Psychiatrist (voice over):
“Heed silence’s splendid void, my children!
As he speeds via a sensory deprivation chamber
Seeking a ride, push or absence.”

His chair trundles down various passages, bare of aught save le Corbusier’s disregard. All of a sudden, some stairs come into view (most sheer). Billy-O, in his conveyance, is heading towards them. Basildon Lancaster and Fervent Dominique are seen to push his wheel-chair down the stairs.

Odd Billy-O:
“NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

Basildon Lancaster:
“A seat takes off without bridges
To reach a goal on Sunday’s intrigues
Thence to crash, splinter, break and be riven;
+
Don’t you see its swivelling wheel –
Spinning decisively—in its clamp;
as if to recoil from a sound?”

Billy-O lies at the stair’s bottom in a crumpled heat. Might it be a heap? His corse doesn’t move. Yet two figures emerge from his body or are superimposed on top of it. These were Basildon Lancaster and the Devil (or Mephistopheles); the latter wears a mask.

ACT FIVE

A telephone rings repeatedly in the Yorkshire cottage.

Fervent Dominique: “Yes?”

Basildon Lancaster:
“Darling; it’s me!
I’ve been called away to London on business.
It won’t be for long (though),
Merely a wanton hour.
+
Billy-O shall be company for you while I’m away.”

She puts the ‘phone down tentatively, but in the distance Billy-O stares on. Our dungster or caretaker is momentarily unseen. He looks huge, massive, threatening, avaricious, psychopathic and incredibly violent.

ACT SIX

Our four characters (or a Dance of Death) are back in the asylum. A large, spacious or airy window lies behind them. Basildon Lancaster wears a balaclava helmet, Billy-O entertains a tribal or clown mask, and Fervent Dominique’s hair is spiky, electrocuted or punk-like. The psychiatrist sports a white coat.

Basildon Lancaster:
“The gates of Hell have opened for closure’s maw.
They disclose the witness of these blue-squares…
Or let out the moon from its trivial apercu
And correct those dictions that pluck out an eye.”

Billy-O:
“I gaze into a room with glass at my back.
What do I understand?
A raving of cataleptic retards (it is);
Merely solvent to forgotten witnesses…
For they rot if only to die.
Rest easy!”

Fervent Dominique wanders provocatively towards a chair on which a medical-shirt is draped. It appears to be a straight-jacket of yesteryear. There is a close-up of the psychiatrist’s face that fills the screen.

The Psychiatrist:
“A conversation with any of them proves impolitic;
It’s dead, buried or unassuaged—can you tell?
For no-one can expand on this joke anymore.
+
They are all completely mad!”

ACT SEVEN

Our heroine, Fervent Dominique, stands in front of a mirror wearing a straight-jacket. She seems to be like a turkey-cock waiting for Christmas. In the background a vague and imprecise tapping can be heard. TAP-TAP-TAP-TAP-TAP; it goes on. One factor remains noriceable; in that this woman hasn’t got any shoes. Fervent looks directly ahead, glassy eyed.

Fervent Dominique (voice over):
“Madness dislocates mental ribbing
And I stand here with my hair on fire;
It illuminates Hades’ circle –
even in its circumvention.
+
Do you see?”

A banging protrudes from a nearby cell. It accelerates due to the matching wear of a cup. For Billy-O, whose features are encased in a tribal mask, is pounding away in an adjoining cube with a metallic mug. Bang! Bang! Bang!, goes his incessant morse.

Billy-O continues to speak with Basildon Lancaster’s diction:

“Do not despair, my Love…
We shall soon be together
You and I –
If only to defeat a St. Valentine’s day massacre!
I love you, Dominique, I love you…
For betimes we shall set our escape in motion.
+
Can you hear me, Fervent, dost thou acknowledge my mania?”

ACT EIGHT

Meanwhile, the madhouse has been transformed into a nursery or play-room. A tapestry of teddy-bears adorns our murals, and a pink envelope filters all else. It takes the form of a Sense-U-Round video.

Fervent Dominique (moving stealthily):
“I contract the rules of a servant
As, thus ensbled, I spin:
Look at the knife held high
Or esteemed via bronze’s grief.”

She holds up the samurai sword. It has left its scabbard only to filter any available light. Whilst—down below—Billy-O lies on a crumpled divan. Might it embody the prospect of an adult’s cot?

Fervent Dominique (voice over):
“I approach my motivation poniard out
Or crazed fist-to-fist:
Let it fly prior to Adam’s rapture.
+
Must I detect mutation (?)
Even a Man’s desire to mate with demons;
In accordance avec the King James’ Bible.

The Psychiatrist and Basildon Lancaster burst into the room, or (quite possibly) they emerge from behind a curtain. Both of them expostulate together:

“NO! NO! NO! Sister of emptiness or tracery –
Seek not such a disembodiment
Even a visceral dance:
Since an imprisoned origami of tongues
Cannot release a triangular outpost;
The latter eyeless in Gaza
Or headless on Attis’ rocks.”

Fervent Dominique (in a veritable scream):
“Behold! You’ve failed to assess an eye-removing
machine in Bond’s Lear:
And Marxism suits its contradictions ill.
It crashes into History’s wall.
No recovery seems possible.”

Basildon Lancaster picks up Fervent Dominique over one shoulder and carries her from the room. She struggles all the while. The Psychiatrist follows them out carrying the blade.

ACT NINE

We are watching another cubicle in the same hospital. It must be some time later. Fervent Dominique happens to be trussed up in a surgical shirt or madman’s vest. Should we refer to it as an iron-maiden? It takes the spirit out of a mad woman’s straight-jacket… at any rate.

Fervent Dominique:
“I stare at bricks of an uncertain strength.
Nothing exists anymore…
It’s a sad carnival where no masks are worn.
+
Could the beating behind a screen
Or an ornate Persian tapestry
Belong to a copper-head?
One can call it North America’s most poisonous snake (you see).
Doubtlessly, it wore—for a head—
The perfect Grecian face made from gold:
And it enlivened an Oscar’s index;
So as to hint at erotic perfection aslant a cover.
‘Come’, it said;
Using the timeless indent of a python’s knowledge…
In an Adamic grasp.”

A television happens to be blaring in the cube’s recesses. It depicts Odd Billy-O, dressed in Basildon Lancaster’s clothes, and in his right mind. Won’t he be clear to use the Southerner’s diction throughout? Fervent Dominique is also present, at once compos mentis or wearing a provocative dress… possibly a little black-number or a pencil one. The atmosphere of the TV programme is one of those Latino soap operas—it’s deliberately O.T.T. (over the top).

Basildon Lancaster/Billy-O: “It won’t do, Fervent.”

Fervent Dominique: “What? Why? Wherefore?”

Basildon Lancaster/Billy-O: “Our love can no longer prosper.”

Fervent Dominique: “After the effects of whichever earthquake…”

Basildon Lancaster/Billy-O: “No, you misunderstand me, Darling.”

Fervent Dominique: “How so? Nothing can come out of nihilist vapour. Isn’t this Lear’s diction all round?”

Basildon Lancaster/Billy-O: “Our relations have been forbidden or condemned.”

Fervent Dominique: “Who rashly faults our roadshow? By what right do they speak (?); so as to forestall our fun-fair, tambourine, side-show barker and freaks! Answer me!”

Basildon Lancaster/ Billy-O: “It’s the Psychiatrist.”

Fervent sweeps away on her heel and breaks into a run down various corridors. Her male companion (Billy-O/Basildon) follows on in a desultory fashion. Finally, the television snicks off and Fervent is left staring at an asylum’s wall. She continues to wear the padded jacket so adduced.

ACT TEN

Within the mental hospital’s walls a conversation ensues in a corridor. It takes place between Basildon Lancaster and the Psychiatrist.

Basildon Lancaster:
“My professional colleague –
I see the loss of so many dividends;
They belabour a point o’ witness
And rear up like a scorpion, in taxidermic Thrall, injected by Prussic acid.”

The Psychiatrist:
“I understand fitfully, Mister Lancaster,
But why not look at it anew?
For a classic head, Olympian in sheen,
Rises as a Ganymede atop an ornate silk.
+
Might it root a comparison in a constrictor’s awe;
No matter how gestural or crushing (?):
And what’s Zeus-like above waxes Reptilian below.”

Basildon Lancaster:
“Unless I was to decapitate a crown
Perfected in Praxiteles’ lineaments;
only to writhe ‘neath an ornamental rug
In the death throes of an agony
That speaks to a third brain…
Even a Boa’s sinuousness athwart a carpet.
Can one doubt Billy-O’s saurian bill?
Show him to me, Doctor—.”

By way of summation, a strip or peep-hole is opened at a cell’s rear. Basildon Lancaster looks inside—if only to see Billy-O or Dung-Beetle trussed up, masked, tied to a seat and in receipt of electric shocks.

Basildon Lancaster:
“Excellent! Increase a reprobate’s voltage.
The hand which stays its punishment knows little of Divine Love.
Repeat after me: I am the Lord’s flail.
Wrath’s children must be free to bleed a skeleton…
It pre-exists us in a Plexi-glass case.”

The Psychiatrist:
“I understand you.
Doctor Alexander Kennedy’s experiments took a similar
Vintage
In the Second War.
These were behaviourist impedimenta or exercises in rats-in-mazes.”

Basildon Lancaster:
“I concurr.
A sensory deprivation chamber was used
Together with goggles, hooding, restrictions on vision,
Night-sights, anxiety, de-sensitisation gloves
As well as amphetamines like Thyroxin –
Injected right into the brain –
so as to increase a principle:
‘the absolute destruction of personality’.”

The Psychiatrist:
“It de-conditions the actual
In order to facilitate slippage
Wanton excess
Or a spasmodic existentialism.
Do you see?
It reverses Sartre’s axiom superficially.”

Basildon Lancaster:
“Yet keeps the Stalinism?”

The Psychiatrist:
““Most definitely, existentialism is not a humanism.”

He slams the peek-a-boo shut and wanders down a corridor into the distance. Momentarily, Basildon Lancaster steps out of a side-door and enters a garden where he stares at the trees.

ACT ELEVEN

To be sure, Basildon Lancaster appears behind his wife in the asylum. She is trussed up and faces off against a concrete wall. Might it be a basalt mural instead? He announces his presence gesturally, like Sir Henry Irving, or an actor on the stage. Whereas her hair remains frazzled, pinned, electrocuted or aghast.

Basildon Lancaster: “Hello, darling—it’s me, Basildon!”

There is no response from Fervent Dominique who prefers to stare into the distance. A vacant expression crosses her face.

Basildon Lancaster: “Fervent?”

A silent interval prevails during which no chit-chat was gleaned.

Basildon Lancaster:
“A finely moulded head
Severe in its beauty
Patterns to the last;
One that kindles an inhuman calm.

It accords a spasm of warmth to a snake’s
Lividness.
Can you quiten the ichor which flows through its veins (?);
Twisting this way and that,
So as to measure its verve.

Again, a square-like mouth
<carvern to a mask
Opens or falls sheer:
And it evinces a sound
After musical spheres or the ringing of hand-held bells.
+
It’s me, Fervent, your Basildon has returned.
I know that we speak at cross-purposes –
One to one –
But let me enliven the pyramid of my desire.
Here…”

He announces with a flourish.

“I’ve brought you a box of chocolates.
Don’t you know that the Lady loves Milk Tray?

Fervent Dominique (in a hollow voice):
“Aaaahhhh!
It’s the sweetest moat of candy without acidity.
Yet I thank you (indeed), husband of mine.

HA! HA! HA! HA! HEEE! HEEE! HEEE!”

She then retreats into a hysterical peal of laughter. It continues in a gulping, wheezing, stertorous or high-pitched whine. Basildon Lancaster turns around, the chocolate box held limply at his side, and he makes off for an exit. Fervent Dominique slides down an adjoining wall like a badly behaved (if malevolent) child. Her falsetto laughter follows him out. Outside, on a balcony or stairwell, he folds himself over and weeps. The Psychiatrist approaches (lop-sidedly) from a Bishop’s diagonal in an imaginary game of chess.

“Mister Lancaster?”, she asks sympathetically.

ACT TWELVE

An imaginary scene occurs now. It relates to the cottage on those Yorkshire moors—yet transfigures this set at one and the same time. Basildon Lancaster sits on a throne and his spouse, Fervent Dominique, wrestles with two attendants. They prove to be Billy-O and the Psychiatrist?

Fervent Dominique:
“Where is our son, Basildon? What have you done with him?”

Basildon Lancaster:
“Calm yourself, my dear”, (he states soothingly or in a commodious way).
+
“Don’t you receive an image?
A Classic mask—in gold or puce—over the way;
Rounded in the perfection of ormolu’s
Insistence.
Listen to this!
A mouth, reminiscent of a Toy’s duct, falls open.
It limits its prospect and resembles
a bay
In Thunderbirds # 2.
It releases a sonorous roil
via camponology’s fate.
Let it rip down occultism’s veil
and pronounce one word:
‘COME!’
It crepitates upon a mosaic floor —
By dint of a minimalist quaver or semi-tone.
May its auric architecture recall Bulwer Lytton’s The Last Days of Pompeii?

Fervent Dominique:
“You continue to speak in riddles
After a Sphinx’s manufacture.
No radiation does any good
If its nimbus hides in a Persian rug
or its lee—”

Basildon Lancaster:
“I will say this only once:
Harken to my meaning, dear Wife!
A father decides, alone, the direction of his spawn:
and such off-spring leaps between dimensions.
Are they not blue doors, headed by Ancient Greek sigils
Or surrounded by sparks?”

The Psychiatrist (voice over):
“Do you read the parallel indication of these bars? Since the harpy’s fiery features—with her red hair all agog—flails around a piece. Basildon Lancaster’s visage is seen to the right avec Fervent behind. Moreover, one eye—in the form of a marble in a doll’s slit—looks slyly out. The whole effect proves lugubrious, slow, somnolent, turbid and forewarned.”

Fervent Dominique: “I shall not forget this!”

In the next instant, a vision of interest supervenes. Does it conjure up (no matter how vaguely) one of William Roberts’ stiff vortices…? No matter, quod, in a Roman Polanski freeze-frame, the man’s heavy fist and shoulder are seen to the right. His gauntlet seems massive, armorial, bolted-on and ready for aught. Could it signify the clash of halbert on buckler? Necessarily so, given that the woman’s face was to the left. She looked up at him earnestly—hair flowing!

Fervent Dominique: “I ask you to place our son before Majesty’s trap-door…”

Basildon Lancaster: “Have a care—”.

Fervent struggles ferociously with her two guards or psychiatric nurses. These were Billy-O and the female Psychiatrist.

Basildon Lancaster: “Get her out of my sight, the both of you!”

Her twin (if unwanted) chaperones then bodily pick her up and carry her away. She continues to sway and wrestle with them during this.

Fervent Dominique: “I warn you, Basildon! A mother’s prerogative is always over-riding!”

By the end of their altercation, Basildon Lancaster happens to be speaking in an educated version of Northern English.

Basildon Lancaster: “Beyond with the scapegrace! She must be exiled from my presence. Do you hear? No wickerman can be burnt without the faggots to light it. Such flesh must be peeling behind its mask… the skin is orange in colour. I shall be free of such expectations.”

He rises from his throne-like chair in a stiff or awkward thrall. Who would deny the reality of their great quell, in the Macbeth’s apedom? For it embodies the ferocity of Bret Easton Ellis’ Imperial Bedrooms, albeit in reverse.

ACT THIRTEEN
Basildon Lancaster kneels on a portico or ledge… and looks out. Beyond his kneeling form lies a scene of devastation. He takes it in at one bound.

Basildon Lancaster: “A madhouse is devastated by a
Picture o’ odds
Ripe to a portent, it is…
+
Has Billy-O led to rapine (?)
Or a splicing of those dyes
Afore they are fixed;
Let it be spotted anew —
But who is here?
Announce yourself, Missy.”

By chance, the female psychiatrist stands behind him in a soldier’s uniform. She wears a flak jacket and fatigues.

The Psychiatrist: “Hail to thee, Basildon!
I bring with me the joy of a child
Spent from the Satanic
But grieving from ages past —
Or want of a sacrifice:
Do you see?”

Momentarily, Basildon Lancaster stands afore her. His visage — seen sloping to the fore — makes out as a massiveness, a lugubriousness. Leave it now…

Basildon Lancaster: “What have you come to report?”

The Psychiatrist: “A child’s arrival when split from an egg.”

Basildon Lancaster: “Show me the lustre of some flesh that’s known nothing but darkness.”

The mental doctor opens some swaddling, at once pink or white, to reveal a babe. In fact, it is a child’s doll that’s pinkish in colour. What could it be?

Basildon Lancaster and the child together: “We are the product of uncertain loins. Maybe Billy-O and Fervent Dominique have given birth without congress…? Like Zeus’ daughter, Athena, she came out fully formed, in armour, via the Head. Heed it!”

ACT FOURTEEN
We are given to viewing the asylum for the criminally insane (or Broadmoor) from the outside. It exists in a functional or modernist block in an urban wasteland. The whole thing has a feeling of the nineteen seventies about it. A flicker of flame issues from various gas-jets in front of the building.

Billy-O is torturing the Psychiatrist with electric shocks or ECT (electro-convulsive therapy). She is naked to the waist and screams repeatedly—while her face is lit up within the roundness of a green lens or flame.

Billy-O: “Where are they both hiding (?)
By remit of purple
I must have sovereignty
Over questions and answers;
The payment of dirt bills its cry
In accordance with prudence, bullion and waste;
ANSWER ME!”

The Psychiatrist: “No-one can doubt the pain of retrieval.
+
Basildon Lancaster and his spouse, Fervent Dominique,
Are in a house in the woods…
It spies upon your cottage.”

Billy-O: “Excellent, my child!
You are free to go;
Or as a bird in a Victorian brass cage
Liable to flutter
By way of liberty’s trespass or wing.”

Sometime later on, and at dusk’s ready advent, Billy-O approaches the cottage from the side. He is carrying a fire-arm in his left-hand. The bright lights from a casement in the small wooden shack gleam on. Basildon and Fervent open a door inside their abode… only to see Billy-O sitting opposite them.

Billy-O: “Where dwells your daughter, the Psychiatrist, in these haunts?”

Basildon Lancaster:
“She wanders outside in the woods
Soon to return by virtue of a harbinger.”

Billy-O: “We shall await her avowal or dissonance.”

The Psychiatrist is seen walking towards the house, but then she stops, turns and runs when she hears her ‘parents’’ singing. Billy-O, revelling in a mad-cap role, encourages their session.

Billy-O: “High-ho, sing up, me Beauties, by my old Bessy, give me a tune from the music-hall’s lantern;
Don’t you know that none escape from Vaudeville’s grasp (?)
Louder, I say, my loves;
Louder;
Sing up (!), sing up (!) at a break of day.”

The Psychiatrist (voice over):
“Why are they mouthing like a choir?”

Thus forewarned, the girl runs away into the woods. She is very provocatively dressed with a short skirt, leggings, neckerchief, tight ‘masculine’ or dress-jacket, and a lot of cleavage’s displayed. In one scenario or pageant, Billy-O shoots the denizens of the cottage—Basildon Lancaster and Fervent Dominique—dead. In another or following variant, they are both alive as he vacates the hermitage. See to it!

Billy-O chases the Psychiatrist through the woods, but she out-manoeuvres him, hides behind a tree, and releases a trap. This must be a heavy or rubber tyre which hangs from a branch. She runs diagonally across it, in a clearing, at a time when he blunders into it and ‘rests’ caught. Look at this, why don’t you? For the psychopath holds a gun in one mitten, yet is trussed around the neck or chops, even necklaced by the tyre.

As a final reckoning, the vampish Psychiatrist stands in a mincing or cat-walk manner behind Billy-O. It all takes place in a forest clearing.  

THE CREDITS ROLL ON

Yours ever,

Jonathan Bowden
www.jonathanbowden.co.uk

Jonathan Bowden to Greg Johnson

To: Greg Johnson
From: Jonathan Bowden
10/15/2010, 5:40 PM

Subject: Review

Al-Qa’Eda MOTH
by Jonathan Bowden

A Review by John Michael McCloughlin

 

Greg Johnson to Jonathan Bowden

To: Jonathan Bowden
From: Greg Johnson
10/16/2010, 8:31 AM

Subject: Review

Thanks for this. I will put it online Sunday.

Greg

Greg Johnson to Jonathan Bowden

To: Jonathan Bowden
From: Greg Johnson
10/17/2010, 10:37 PM

Subject: Request for Assistance

Dear Jonathan,

I wonder if you have any idea of the source of this poem:

http://www.ety.com/HRP/poetics/may01_1945.htm

I need to know, because I believe that it was written by Savitri Devi. (I found a typescript of it among her papers.)

It was clearly published in some sort of print outlet in the 1940s or later, probably in movement circles, since it is so clearly NS in inspiration.

If you have any idea of the source, or of someone who could track down the source, I would be most grateful.

I need to resolve the attribution question ASAP since I am publishing a collection of Savitri Devi’s poems and wish to include it.

Thanks,
Greg

Jonathan Bowden to Greg Johnson

To: Greg Johnson
From: Jonathan Bowden
10/18/2010, 5:11 PM

Subject: Request for Assistance

Dear Greg Johnson,

Thanks for your recent e-mail. I am afraid that I cannot access the link which you sent me due to the policy of the local Library here. You may not believe this but anything involving Historical Review Press is blocked or banned by a grey fire-wall which states: “Racism and Hate—site filtered. Please consult your Librarian.” It’s just like Communist China! You have to remember that there’s no absolute right to freedom of speech here in western Europe. So, to get around this, could you copy out/cut-and-paste the offending poem? It’s a bit tiresome, but it will just come through to me as an ordinary e-mail. Nonetheless, this is an interesting example (no matter how small) of the censorship power of Political Correctness here. The general slogan is: let there be no tolerance of intolerance! Very good…

On other fronts, you mentioned the possibility of publishing my screenplay Straight as an Arrow. Do you still want to do it? Does it need explication or an introduction by Mr McCloughlin? Or, alternately, have your changed your mind about it? It should appear on my own site shortly with a brief introduction. Speaking of which: four more talks have been uploaded to my site yesterday. These were: Julius Evola, Robert E. Howard, George Orwell’s 1984 and Stewart Home & cultural Communism.

All the best.

Yours ever,
Jonathan Bowden

Greg Johnson to Jonathan Bowden

To: Jonathan Bowden
From: Greg Johnson
10/18/2010, 7:19 PM

Subject: Request for Assistance

Dear Jonathan,

I do wish to run the screenplay. Thanks for reminding me. An introductory note would be helpful. I wish to run it next Sunday.

Also, on Oct. 30 we will observe Ezra Pound’s birthday, if contributing something on Pound interests you.

Best,
Greg

Jonathan Bowden to Greg Johnson

To: Greg Johnson
From: Jonathan Bowden
10/19/2010, 5:17 PM

Subject: Request for Assistance

Dear Greg Johnson,

Thanks for your recent e-mail and the accompanying poem. It is obviously written by Savitri Devi using a basic pseudonym—after all, it was discovered amongst her papers and it is in her style/diction. All I can add is that I doubt whether it was published by a movement ‘source’. It looks to me as if it would have been included in an anthology of the Poetry Society (superintended by Walter de la Mere). They probably had an annual magazine or book length variant with various contributors/prize recipients. Poetry Society journal or prize recipients 1945 on either Google, Amazon or E-bay is your best bet. To me, it looks as though it achieved mainstream publication rather than fringe endorsement—if you see what I mean. This would be irrespective of whether or not she accepted money for it… it looks like an Anthology poem to my mind. Sympathy for the fallen enemy is very much a British tradition—witness Kipling’s poem Jourbert about the Boer War, for instance. This quickly faded after ‘45 when ‘atrocities’ began to emerge.

On other fronts, please find below an introduction to my brief play…

STRAIGHT AS AN ARROW:
A Play for film by Jonathan Bowden

This piece is heavily Nietzschean in character and consists of a leaden dirge. It is set on the Yorkshire moors and often makes use of Northern patois a la Ted Hughes or Stan Barstow. A few corses or bodies hit the earth (metaphorically) during the course of the action.

It involves a Power Moral treatment of mental illness and these dramatis personae have the ability to overlap or intertwine. They are all chameleons. Its elitism comes from its view of crime: in that Basildon Lancaster fundamentally misunderstands Billy-O’s misanthropy. The Play’s thesis is that Criminals are born and not made… should Man qua Man be punished just for being alive?

Its plot is too difficult to summarise—read it here in order to be subject to Masculine wrath.

Yours ever,
Jonathan Bowden

Greg Johnson to Jonathan Bowden

To: Jonathan Bowden
From: Greg Johnson
10/19/2010, 6:33 PM

Subject: Request for Assistance

Dear Jonathan,

Thanks for confirming my judgment that the poem is indeed Savitri’s.

I think you are right that I should look in a mainstream source.

As soon as I did, I discovered The Poetry Society, formerly headed by Walter de la Mere, which still publishes The Poetry Review in London. I have emailed them, and I will let you know the results.

Thanks again,
Greg

Greg Johnson to Jonathan Bowden

From: Greg Johnson
To: Jonathan Bowden
Thu, 21 Oct 2010 12:59:45 -0700

Subject:

Jonathan,

Do you have a complete, unbroken MP3 of the Howard speech? I would like to put it on the Counter-Currents site.

The second and third Howard segments on You Tube seem to come from other lectures, one on deconstruction the other about Protestantism and America.

Thanks,
Greg

 

Jonathan Bowden to Greg Johnson

To: Greg Johnson
From: Jonathan Bowden
10/22/2010, 4:33 PM

Subject:  CULTURAL MISSION STATEMENTS

Dear Greg Johnson,

Thanks for your e-mail to which I am now replying. The Robert E. Howard lecture is complete unto itself (in its way) and the various parts are in order. But, as you may have noticed, I often go ‘off message’ and the talk doesn’t always strictly obey its headline. This is because I’m a mediumistic speaker and I ”hear the voice” (as it were). I’m sure that if you listen to the oration all the way through then it makes some sort of sense. The point about deconstruction is to contrast it with Howard’s reconstruction, strength through joy, essentialism, etc… The Protestant point concerns the antinominianism and Calvinist ideology given to Howard’s puritan hero, Solomon Kane. Nearly all of these items are embedded on my site with the odd bit of textual accompaniment. It might be easier to take them from there. The direct link is:

http://www.jonathanbowden.co.uk/cultural_lectures_video.html

The play Straight as an Arrow is also available on my site with the introduction that I sent you. It might be easier to lift it directly from my site, if you like. The spelling will be British, however. The direct link is:

http://www.jonathanbowden.co.uk/articles.html#arrow

Yours ever,

Jonathan Bowden
www.jonathanbowden.co.uk

Jonathan Bowden to Greg Johnson

To: Greg Johnson
From: Jonathan Bowden

Sent: Monday, October 25, 2010 7:27 AM

Subject: RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

Dear Gregory Johnson,

The seven reviews which I have done for your site have now been embedded in my own. The link is as follows:

http://www.jonathanbowden.co.uk/articles.html

I don’t know whether you still wish to include my play, Straight as an Arrow, on Counter-Currents? I sent it to you as an e-mail on the 11th of October. Alternatively, the link is as follows:

http://www.jonathanbowden.co.uk/articles.html#arrow

I quite understand if you don’t think it’s really suitable—after all, it’s probably not the sort of thing that people travel to Counter-Currents in order to find. However, you did mention on two occasions that you would be doing it. I will try and send you my analysis of a particular comic (graphic novel) which features the eternal conflict between Batman and the Joker before too long.

It may interest you to know that I have made a long speech on Savitri Devi at the last meeting of my group, the New Right, here in England. It was filmed and will be posted on YouTube eventually. I’ve treated it as a companion piece to the Evola talk of a few months back.

Yours ever,
Jonathan Bowden

Greg Johnson to Jonathan Bowden

From: [email protected]
To: Jonathan Bowden
Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2010 09:19:48 -0700

Subject: RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

Dear Jonathan,

I have been editing Straight as an Arrow, and I do think that you are right: it is a bit “way out” for our regular visitors.

Do you want me to send you my edit? I found some spelling errors, small stuff like that.

I really would love to see your Savitri speech.

Is it possible to send me the whole video without the interruptions? I can host it on this site. I understand the utility of using YouTube as well, but if you want unbroken speeches available, we can try to help with that.

I am very excited about the Batman-Joker analysis.

Best,
Greg

 

Jonathan Bowden to Greg Johnson

To: Greg Johnson
From: Jonathan Bowden
10/26/2010, 5:06 PM

Subject: Recent Developments

Dear Greg Johnson,

I fully appreciate that Straight as an Arrow is a bit ‘far out’ for an essentially meta-political site. PLease feel free to send me your edit—but maybe as a continuous e-mail rather than an attachment, but the choice is yours. A proportion of the dialogue is written in Yorkshire English—some of the regional argot here in the UK is almost on the level of micro-languages. Hence thee, ta, me, while for by, et cetera…

My mother would say:

Get thee in from gibble and put wood in hole!

This effectively means:

Come in from the yard and shut the door.

This is Lancastrian slang. Some of the other spelling is deliberately archaic. On other fronts, I will enquire as to whether a file of the Devi talk can be sent to you over the ‘net, but this is outside of my field of competence. I usually first see things myself when they’ve been uploaded in ten minute segments to YouTube. I shall contact you when something becomes available to view.

I will try and send you the Batman and the Joker piece at the end of this week.

Yours ever,
Jonathan Bowden

Jonathan Bowden to Greg Johnson

To: Greg Johnson
From: Jonathan Bowden
Friday, October 29, 2010 8:26 AM

Subject: REVIEW

APOCALYPSE TV by Jonathan Bowden

A Review by John Michael McCloughlin

 

Greg Johnson to Jonathan Bowden

To: Jonathan Bowden
From: Greg Johnson
Fri, 29 Oct 2010 10:18:02 -0700

Subject: REVIEW

Thanks. It will go up Sunday.

 

Jonathan Bowden to Greg Johnson

To: Greg Johnson
From: Jonathan Bowden
10/30/2010, 3:09 PM

Subject: REVIEW

 

Dear Greg Johnson,

I have discovered two small errors. In the first paragraph the second sentence states that Apocalypse TV has 234 pages. It is actually 239.

In the sixth paragraph the second sentence mentions the book’s first dialogue. It’s called ‘Sex, Death, Fed and Rose’. It’s actually ‘Sex, Death, Fred and Rose’.

Yours ever,
Jonathan Bowden

Greg Johnson to Jonathan Bowden

To: Jonathan Bowden
From: Greg Johnson
10/30/2010, 6:32 PM

Subject: Review

Jonathan,

Could you tinker with the following. I can’t quite make sense of it:

 

Stewart Home’s book about post-modern art and other marginals, The Assault on Culture, is also analyzed by our twosome. This consists of fringe art movements like Situationism, Fluxus, Lettrism, the Movement for an Imagist Bauhaus, Auto-Destructive art, etc. . . . yet the far-left, materialist and ideologically ‘neo-proletarian’ prefix often falls sheer. Since, in Home’s very description, Mail Art involves an artist sending, unsolicited, various representational paintings of Adolf Hitler to all sorts of people who probably didn’t wish to be in receipt.

Thanks,
Greg