Directory of Lost Causes (By Quentin S. Crisp)

Beware of Geeks Bearing Gifts

First published on Opera, Thur 13th May, 2004.

It has been a sad and vexing time for me recently, for many reasons, but partly because my computer, and the world of computers generally, have been giving me trouble. In fact, I am thinking of leaving Opera and defecting to another host for my weblog. Why? In short, because the archives don’t seem to be working here at Opera, and, being the poncey writer that I am, I am precious enough to want what I write to be archived, for future generations – Oh, by the way, the chances of there actually being ‘future generations’ are very slim. Have you seen scientists on television or in newspapers saying that actually global warming might not be such a threat, after all? These people are one-in-a-thousand rogue scientists, probably with right-wing agendas, whom, for some reason, the media have decided to distract the public with. The vast majority of the scientific community are actually in agreement. Is there a link between smoking and cancer? That seems to be pretty much accepted as fact. And in the same way, it is a fact that global warming is taking place NOW and is the biggest threat to human civilisation that there has ever been. So, when I say ‘future generations’ I’m being flippant, or figurative, or something – to savour.


But now, let me start with an old story. Thousands of years ago some bloke called Paris, who was prince of the city of Troy, fancied this bird called Helen, who lived across the way in Sparta. Being the type who was used to getting his way, he went and kidnapped her – some say the minx went willingly – and ended up causing a right kerfuffle, which has gone down in history as The Trojan War.




The Spartans laid siege to Troy in an attempt to recover the Grecian temptress, but it seems that the city was built like a brick shithouse, and pretty much impregnable. It was then that this wily geezer called Odysseus came up with the idea of sending the Trojans the gift of a wooden horse. “Trust me,” he said, “There’s nuffink more likely to get them Trojans than a wooden horse. Wooden horses - they’re mad for ‘em!”


The Spartans sent this wooden horse along as ‘a present’, and the Trojans, being a bit dim, thought that this was an admission of defeat and all that. Anyway, to cut a long story short. There were a load of Spartan types hiding in this horse’s belly, and, when the Trojans, who’d had a few bevvies and were pretty slaughtered, had all crashed out, these geezers from Greece jumped out and slaughtered them again.


Sorry about that. I felt the need for a modern adaptation of the story. I suppose you’re wondering if this is relevant to anything. Well, it is, and it’s not just because some overblown Hollywood epic about the Trojan War has just come out. It is relevant, because it seems I have recently been the victim of just such a strategy as the Greeks used against the Trojans, and I, too, not learning from history, have been taken in and sorely used.




Well, the story itself is probably not worth the build-up I’ve given it. Basically, I have had a new computer installed recently, and being the kind of person who is fond of decoration, I immediately went about the internet looking for new screensavers. A foolish move! I found that, all of a sudden, I was getting a great many strange pop-ups appearing on my screen, and that, when I tried to close them, they would simply spawn more pop-ups. It was never-ending, like something out of Samuel Beckett or Kafka, or the Pink Panther cartoons. It’s at times like these that I really hate computers. You just can’t reason with them.


Anyway, the person who installed my computer for me taught me a few things about Trojans and spyware. It seems that the internet is a good, objective example of how inherently corrupt the human race really is, since, being a forum that allows anonymity, it gives free reign to exploitation, trickery and greed of all sorts, largely in the form of things like the above-mentioned Trojans and spyware. And one of the most frequently used tricks for putting spyware onto your computer is to include it as part of a free download, such as a screensaver. These Trojans and spyware programmes are designed to monitor information about your computer and what you do with it, largely in order that that information might be sold to advertising companies and so on. If you want to learn more about spyware, you can read an article on the subject here.




New Scientist magazine gives a scary example of just how bad spyware and Trojans can get, in the case of a man who was arrested and sent to prison because of the images of child pornography stored on his computer. It was only after an expert in this kind of software examined his computer and discovered that a piece of spyware had been automatically accessing these paedophile sites independently of him, that the man was released. The man commented that in cases like this, suddenly it seems that the attitude of the law is “Guilty until proved innocent.”


I used to be very sympathetic to the cause of geeks, even considering myself to be a bit of a geek, though of what species I was not sure. Maybe a Japanese literature geek. Anyway, one of the vilest monopolists in the world, namely Bill Gates, is a geek, and it seems that there are hordes of geeks following in his footsteps, eager to make a quick profit at everybody else’s expense. Do these people realise – either the geeks or their employers – that by their own short-term advantage they are creating long-term disadvantage for EVERYONE? Now we have an atmosphere of suspicion in which people – myself included – will, for instance, delete all vaguely suspicious e-mail without even opening it, will not visit sites that they have any doubts about, will not click on offers or pop-ups. In other words it’s COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE! Get that into your heads, all you morons who use these strategies!


I remember seeing on television some years back, a documentary about an experiment on social behaviour. The experiment was, as far as I remember, as follows: There was a computer game that consisted of two moves. Whenever you interacted with another player you could choose either to cheat or to trust. If one person cheated and the other person trusted, the cheat got, say, twenty points and the truster got nothing. If they both cheated, they both got, say five points. If they both trusted, they both got, say, thirty points. Now, first of all, the stupid, greedy people realised that it was a safer bet to cheat, because at least then they would get some points. However, after a while some people began to get tired of this, realising it was holding back the whole game. And they began to trust. And they began to achieve extremely high scores together. ARE YOU GETTING THE MESSAGE?


My only fear is that people were only able to trust because they had the attitude that it was ‘just a game’. We really have to break the shitty cycle of distrust and mutual exploitation that the purveyors of spyware and their ilk are creating. And how do we do this? Well, the fact is, we still have to be careful. But here’s an idea: After learning a bit about spyware, I installed some software to remove it from my computer. That software was Spybot Search and Destroy. The people who make this are giving it away free. They only ask for donations from those who can afford to make them. Now, I have heard the conspiracy theory that viruses are actually created by the companies who sell anti-virus software, as a sort of protection racket, and I think this is very likely to be true, at least in some cases. But I don’t see how that would work with this current software, Spybot, as people might not make donations at all. It’s a difficult decision to make in this world, but perhaps – just as in the Yakult advert there are bad bacteria and good bacteria – there are bad geeks and good geeks. Perhaps we have to make the decision to trust and support this anti-spyware software with donations. Perhaps the way forward for society as a whole is by sponsoring volunteers whom we trust, rather than letting ourselves be ripped off again and again by greedy corporations. What d’you reckon?

The Ugly American

First published on Opera, Fri 7th May, 2004.

"The Evil People Prosper Over The Likes of You and Me, Always"


So the media has finally discovered what some of us knew all along, although if we had made such allegations before now we might have been called ‘paranoid’ or ‘conspiracy theorists’. They have discovered that the American army have been abusing the people of the country they occupy, that they are not the great benefactors that they pretend to be.


Well, excuse me, but doesn’t the American military pride itself on being the most advanced in the world in the use of training techniques that effectively OVER-RIDE THE HUMAN CONSCIENCE? This abuse is institutionalised. And still scum like Rumsfeld, with their backs against the wall, will lie through their teeth until we tear down every lie with our bare and bleeding hands and tear down the liars with them!




I just hope that this marks a turning point, that the world has finally become sick of America bullying them in the name of their diseased and stinking ‘justice’.




Now, a few words from one of my favourite Americans, William S. Burroughs:


“Hiroshima, 1945, August the 6th, sixteen minutes past 8AM. Who really gave that order?




Answer: Control. The ugly American. The instrument of Control.


Question: If Control’s control is absolute, why does Control need to control?


Answer: Control needs Time.


Question: Is Control controlled by its need to control?


Answer: Yes.


Why does Control need ‘humans’, as you call them?


Wait. Wait. Time. A landing field. Death needs Time like a junky needs junk.


And what does Death need Time for?




The answer is soooo simple: Death needs Time for what it kills to grow in for Ah Pook’s sake. Death needs Time for what it kills to grow in for Ah Pook’s sweet sake, you stupid, vulgar, greedy, ugly American deathsucker. Death needs Time for what it kills to grow in, you stupid, vulgar, greedy, ugly American deathsucker.”

What Have You Done?

First published on Opera, Thur 6th May, 2004.

Here’s a slightly different take on the theme of nameless dread in my last post. But before you read any further I must preface this post with a warning in the form of a SPOILER ALERT. I shall be discussing The Cronenberg film Spider and giving away vital details of the story. So if you intend to watch the film, and don’t want to know what will happen beforehand, read no further:




I noticed this film because it is the work of one of my favourite writers – Patrick McGrath – and one of my favourite directors – David Cronenberg. Now that’s an interesting combination, I thought to myself. McGrath writes downbeat Gothic novels set in Britain in the ‘forties and ‘fifties, usually exploring the inner worlds of the mentally ill. Cronenberg I tend to see as more often concerned with biological taboo and with J.G. Ballard-type interfacing of sex and technology.


In the film Spider, Dennis Clegg aka Spider, has recently been released from an asylum and is now staying at a halfway house in London’s East end, near where he grew up. I won’t attempt to describe the plot in detail. Suffice it to say, there are many reasons why the main character is called Spider. He seems to be weaving a web of memories, and at the same time, he is trying to unravel the puzzle that the web has become for him. The whole film seemed to me at first as slow and tortuous as actually watching a spider spin a web. At the very end, however, the design of the web became clear. The whole film seemed to hinge – to me at least – upon one line. “What have you done? What have you done?” Spoken twice, but softly, the whole power of the film is contained here. Such was the power of this line, in fact, that it moved me to tears. The line is addressed to Spider, and on hearing it he realises at last that he has been lying to himself and understands the terrible truth – that in trying to avenge the death of his mother, he has actually become his mother’s murderer. Somehow he has become trapped in the web that he himself has spun. This truth proves insurmountable, and he returns to the asylum.




I have a feeling that we all deceive ourselves in these ways, that we all spin our webs, not realising that one day they will trap us, and we will awake to the truth of our own madness only when it is too late and we hear a voice saying, “What have you done? What have you done?”

A Nameless Dread

First published on Opera, Sun 02 May, 2004.

When I read American Psycho by Brett Easton-Ellis, my attention was caught by the phrase ‘a nameless dread’, which was used as a kind of refrain throughout. It’s not exactly an original phrase. It is, in fact, very Lovecraftian, its use in American Psycho ritualistic, formalistic, almost parody. And yet, I found that use admirable. It seems to me that nothing really sums up the feeling of modern life so much as the phrase – almost redundant in its ritualistic nature – ‘nameless dread’. Why, exactly, is the dread nameless? Perhaps it is because such known and named sources of dread as Hell and loss are now obsolete. There is no Hell and we have already lost everything. Putting this in context, Patrick Bateman, ‘hero’ of American Psycho, is a serial killer. His torture and slaughter of various prostitutes, down-and-outs and so on, is as redundant and ritualised as the phrase ‘a nameless dread’ itself. Patrick Bateman has committed what should be the ultimate crimes and sins, and has discovered that, not only is there no meaning to his acts, there are also no repercussions. He has gone through the gates of Death – admittedly the deaths of others – and discovered that there is no Hell. And yet the dread remains. In fact, it grows worse. It becomes diffused, and, instead of attaching itself to specific, nameable things such as death, violence and so on, it rears its head in a weird, displaced fashion, for instance, when Bateman is about to knock on a door, or when he discovers that one of his friends has a flashier business-card than he.




I myself suffer from ‘a nameless dread’. Of course, it is very difficult to describe, and I don’t know exactly why I feel it. It is something to do with death, and yet it is not death. Can I give an example, I wonder? Well, to give a not-particularly-good example, I might send a casual e-mail to a friend and then suddenly feel ‘a nameless dread’. Someone might pay me a compliment and suddenly I feel ‘a nameless dread’. I might realise that I have not recorded the programme that I attempted to record – last night I tried to record Catterick and failed – and suddenly I feel ‘a nameless dread’. Sometimes I cannot even point to incidents as trivial as these. It comes out of nowhere, I am wrapped in a sickening ‘fluttery’ sensation, at once unbearably light and unbearably heavy, and I feel as if I could weep out of pure anxiety.


It is quite as if, yes, like Bateman, I have done something wrong that can never be put right. In his case, there was no way he could return to normality after being a serial killer. In my case… I just don’t know what it is, but the world seems to have gone irrevocably wrong.


A couple of years back, while I was living in Japan, I translated a short story by Natsume Soseki that has something of the feeling of that ‘nameless dread’. The translation was accepted for publication in the magazine The Dream Zone, but, as so often happens with these small press publications, the magazine folded, and the story was never published. Because I have been researching Soseki recently I remembered this story and thought I might as well put it up on my blog. I would like to acknowledge the help of my tutor at Kyoto University, Hayashi-san, for his help in translating the story:






The Seventh Night by Natsume Soseki

(Translation copyright to Quentin S. Crisp)


For some reason, I found myself aboard a gargantuan ship.

Day and night, without a moment’s pause, the ship spewed black smoke and pressed forward, cutting through the waves. The noise was terrific. However, I had no idea where the ship was bound. From the depths of the ocean, the sun would rise up like a red hot poker. It would climb until it stood just above the main mast, and just as it seemed to be suspended there it would overtake the great ship, and, before I knew it, disappear into the distance. Finally, sizzling like a red hot poker, it would sink again beneath the waves. Every time it did so the blue waves would boil up in a deep maroon colour. Then the ship would make its terrible din and follow in the sun’s wake. It never caught up.

Once I accosted one of the crew and questioned him.

“Is this ship going west?”

He gave me a suspicious look and, after sizing me up for a while, finally he questioned me in return.

“Why do you ask?”

“It’s just that we seem to be following the setting sun.”

The man cackled. Then he disappeared off in the other direction.

From somewhere there came the sound of jeering voices.

“Is the east the journey’s end for the west-travelling sun? Is that true? Is the west the home of the east-rising sun? Is that also true? Our life is on the waves! An oar for a pillow! Onward! Onward!”

I went to the bow and found a great number of sailors gathered there, hauling in the thick halyard.

I felt exceedingly lonely. I had no idea when I would next set foot on land, and I had no idea where we were going. The only thing that was certain was that the ship went on spewing its black smoke and cutting through the waves. Those waves were a vast expanse, an endless blue with an occasional touch of purple. Only the immediate proximity of the moving ship was any different, being always a perfect white with the spray of churning water. I was terribly lonely. Rather than remain on this terrible ship, it would be better, perhaps, to cast myself overboard.

There were a multitude of passengers, most of whom seemed to be foreign. Their features were not as we typically imagine, but were various. When the sky darkened with clouds and the boat rocked on the waves, a woman would draw up to the handrail and weep continuously. The kerchief with which she dried her eyes flashed white in the gloom. She was wearing a western-style cotton print dress. When I saw this woman I realised I was not the only one who suffered.

One evening I went out on deck to gaze at the stars when one of the foreigners approached me and asked if I knew anything of astronomy. I was so weary that I wished even for death. What use was astronomy to me? I said nothing. Then the foreigner spoke of the Seven Stars that hung above Taurus. He said that the stars and the ocean were all the work of God. Finally, he asked if I had faith in the Lord above. I looked at the sky and said nothing.

On another occasion I entered the bar to find a young woman in a florid dress playing a piano with her back to me. Next to her stood a tall and splendid gentleman singing to her accompaniment. His open mouth appeared cavernously wide. But the two of them seemed utterly indifferent to the world around them. It was as if they had even forgotten they were on this ship.

I grew ever more weary. At last I determined on self-destruction. And so, one evening, at an hour when no one else was around, I leapt wildly over the edge of the ship. However, the instant my feet left the deck and my connection with the ship was broken, my life suddenly became precious to me. At the bottom of my heart I wished that I had changed my mind about jumping. But it was too late. Whether I willed it or no, I was to plunge into the bosom of the ocean. However, it seemed that the hull of the ship was built to a fantastic height, and even though my body had broken contact with the ship, my feet did not soon connect with the water. But there was nothing for me to grasp hold of, and slowly, slowly, I fell towards the waves. However much I drew in my legs, the water still loomed nearer. The colour of the water was black.

Before long, the ship spewed out its usual black smoke and passed on. I realised for the first time that even if I did not know where the ship was bound, it was still better to be on it – realised for the first time only now such knowledge was useless to me. Filled with infinite regret and infinite terror, I continued to fall silently towards the black waves.

Someone Famous Has Died

First published on Opera, Fri 30th Apr, 2004.

Recently I heard that Sir Peter Ustinov had died. I watched a repeat of some of his interviews with Michael Parkinson on late night television a few days ago. He certainly was a bit of a raconteur. People die every day, don’t they? There’s something a bit ironic about the way famous people make the news when they die. Is it sad? Well, I suppose it is for some people. I don’t mean that to sound disrespectful. As a matter of fact, I met Sir Peter Ustinov myself in the year 2000. He was a patron of Durham University, and I shook hands with him at the graduation ceremony in the full regalia, before wandering off the podium in the wrong direction in front of everybody because I was under the influence of something or other.




I can’t claim to be personally saddened at the death of Sir Peter, but I did notice and take an interest. I was also strangely touched by the following quote, which came at the bottom of one of my Word-a-Day e-mails:


“Did you know that the worldwide food shortage that threatens up to five hundred million children could be alleviated at the cost of only one day, only ONE day, of modern warfare.” -Peter Ustinov, actor, writer and director
(1921-2004)




Recently I’ve been looking forward to Morrissey’s new album, You Are The Quarry. Now, what does that title mean? I have the feeling it’s a sort of ironic twist on games and other such media which use the slogan, “You are the hero.” In other words, you are the quarry of this game/film/book or whatever it is; the game/film/book produced by the powers that make our whole world a reality game show, governments funded by war and oil controlling populaces in a media game and distracting them with celebrities, and so on. But that’s just my interpretation. Anyway, I’ve been reading some of the lyrics for the album, and they’re quite interesting. For some reason, the above quote from Sir Peter Ustinov is linked in my mind with the following lyric from the album:


America Is Not The World


America your head's too big, Because America, Your belly's too big

And I love you, I just wish you'd stay where you is


In America, The land of the free, they said, And of opportunity, In a just and a truthful way

But where the president, Is never black, female or gay, And until that day

You’ve got nothing to say to me, To help me believe


In America, It brought you the hamburger, Well America you know where, You can shove your hamburger

And don't you wonder, Why in Estonia they say, Hey you, Big fat pig
You fat pig, You fat pig


Steely Blue eyes with no love in them, Scan The World,

And a humourless smile, With no warmth within, Greets the world

And I, I have got nothing, To offer you

No-no-no-no-no

Just this heart deep and true, Which you say you don't need


See with your eyes, Touch with your hands, please, Hear through your ears, Know in your soul, please

For haven't you me with you now?

And I love you, I love you, I love you, And I love you, I love you, I love you

Natsume Soseki and The London Adventure

First published on Opera, Thur 29th Apr, 2004.

On May the 29th I will be leading a guided walk around London based on the sojourn in this city of one Natsume Soseki. Natsume Soseki was a native of Japan who came to London in 1900, sponsored by his government, to study English literature. He was a pioneer of scholarship, and, after his two year stay and his return to Japan, went on to become one of the foremost novelists of that country. His portrait even appears on the thousand yen note.




The walk is part of a project called The London Adventure, which involves various writers, artists, scholars and similar enthusiasts, getting together to explore London's literary, artistic and psychogeographical past.


So far, I am enjoying very much the research I have been doing in order to support my walk. As part of if, I have begun to read Soseki's novel Sanshiro, which tells of the eponymous country bumpkin from Kyushu - Japan's southern island - going off to Tokyo to become a university student there. The feelings of this naive, unassuming young man in the strange environment of the big city are wonderfully evoked, with a mixture of anxiety and excitement and the gritty realism of everydayness that anyone with a similar experience (or even without?) can easily relate to. Sanshiro believes that he is about to embark on some grand and lofty adventure. However, education proves to be something of a disappointment. Neither the teachers nor the students seem to give a damn about lectures, and he is left feeling very bewildered.


Eventually a friend advises him that "Forty disgusting meals a day will not make you satisfied," and that he should cut his lectures and try riding on a train instead. This, apparently, to clear his head. When his friend considers his head to be cleared, he next advises him to use the library and do his own research. In the margins of one of the books he finds notes scribbled by a former student.


I am reading Sanshiro in the original, which means I have been obliged to translate the following sections in order to post them here. I happen to know that Soseki is out of copyright, so there are no legal problems involved, but since I am forced to work in isolation, I can't be sure that my translations are without mistakes. I think they are correct, though I have my doubts about one or two places. Anyway, should anyone be in a position to correct me, please feel free to contact me at nopperabor@hotmail.com. Now, for the extracts:


When Hegel lectured philosophy at Berlin University, he had not the least intention of peddling philosophy. His lectures were not lectures to expound the truth; they were lectures to embody the truth. They were not lectures of the tongue, but lectures of the heart. When the truth and the human being become one pure essence in the crucible of teaching, what is expounded, what is spoken, is not lecture for the sake of lecture; it is lecture for the sake of 'the way', that is, for the sake of living. When it reaches this stage, the philosophy lecture becomes, for the first time, something worth listening to. Those who vainly roll 'truth'from the tip of their tongue do nothing more than leave behind dead ink on dead pages in the form of empty notes. To what purpose?... Now, for the sake of exams, in other words, for a crust of bread, I swallow my bitterness, I swallow my tears, and I read this book. But, with head in hands, I curse the exam system for all eternity! You who read this, remember my curse!


And later:


The students who gathered in Berlin from all quarters to hear Hegel speak, had not gathered there from ambition, to use the lectures as material to earn food and clothing. Simply, they had heard that the philosopher Hegel spread supreme and universal truth from his rostrum, and, because they were earnest in their desire for improvement and salvation, they gathered beneath that rostrum; it was nothing other than an expression of their pure-hearted longing to understand their own doubts and disquiets. For this reason they listened to Hegel, and in doing this they decided their futures. They built their own destinies. For we in Japan to believe that our students, who listen blankly to their lectures, who blankly graduate and leave, are of the same kind as these, is the greatest vanity under heaven. We are nothing more than a typewriter. Moreover, we are a greed-stricken typewriter. What we do, what we think, what we say - none of it has any link with an earnest and lively society. Unto death we go blankly. Unto death we go blankly.


I find this a very powerful indictment of the Japanese education system as it was at the time, and as I myself have experienced it. I am interested very much in the lament here that education should be equated with ambition. There has been much debate about top-up fees in Britain recently, but I think what I find most offensive about the policy is the assumption behind it that higher education is somehow about making money. It's not. My higher education enabled me to translate the passages above from Japanese, but no one is paying me for this, and so far, it seems, no one is even willing to dream of paying me for this. And yet, if I were to go to university now, knowing I would come out with a debt of some thirty or forty THOUSAND pounds, the pressure would be on me, not to understand what makes human civilisation great, but simply to understand how to make as much money as I possibly can. This is one more reason why, in the words of Avid Merrion, I would like to kill Tony Blair with a house brick.




Incidentally, the word for 'blank' in the above passages is 'nopperabor', the same as my e-mail address, and the same as the name I gave the evil, vampiric cosmic bureaucrats in my novella 'The Psychopomps'.


Unto death we go blankly! Unto death we go blankly!