The GardenDespatches from The Satyrs’ Forest

Page 11

Lords of Misrule 2022 — let the misrule begin!

This is a copy of the main page for this event.

The cycle of a year is a wonderful thing. Trees grow and wilt, rivers ebb and flow, and every winter, GĂŚa blankets Herself in a snowy coat. All across Europe, people gather together, huddling around, exchanging gifts. Most would call it Christmas.

For us? Well… Io Saturnalia!

It’s time for the second annual Satyrs’ Forest Lords of Misrule! In the spirit of the topsy-turvy season, i’m putting you in charge of the site.

If you write or put together something — absolutely anything — and email it to misrule@satyrs.eu, come Saturnalia (that’s December 17 to 23, for those who aren’t up to date with their ancient festivals) i’ll put it up on the site, both on the blog and on its own dedicated, permanent subpage, etched in stone for all to see.

Like last year, i would ask that you refrain from political polemics or anything that would get this noble forest in legal trouble. Apart from that, anything goes. Your gran’s chocolate cake recipe? An impassioned defence of Freddy Got Fingered as an ironic masterpiece? Hell, i’ll even let you vandalise one of the permanent pages for a bit if you ask me to. Whatever you — my lords of misrule — want.

You can submit your entries from today until the 16th of December, 2021. Have fun, and don’t be afraid to get weird with it!

— Xanthe

Old book smell: tidbits from Manchester

Modern, Ikea-like bookshelves adorn the halls of an ancient library
The tail end of the room which houses the Central Library’s extensive music collection.

Manchester’s influences on British culture and life spread far and wide — music, politics, industry, TV — but it’s fair to say it’s not exactly renowned for its literary output. And yet, nevertheless, i found myself wandering the halls of two great libraries in Cottonopolis.

A ceiling stucco decorated with coats of arms

The first and grander of the two is the Manchester Central Library, whose imposing hall first squat itself upon St Peter’s Square in 1934. Upon walking in, there are a number of things the discerning visitor might notice. Hir eyes might wander upwards to the expertly crafted stained-glass window of Shakespeare and his protagonists, or all the way up to the ceiling, generously coated with the arms of authorities priestly, princely, and popular. Or, if our hypothetical visitor is a Geordie, shi might instead notice some things that the rest of the country’s eyes would gloss over: clean, well-designed signage; sleek open space; swooshy modern æsthetics… All paid for out of the council’s pockets.

A stained glass window depicting the works of Shakespeare

There are no decaying bridges, no council computers running Windows XP, no decade-old untouched brownfields. When ministers talk a big game about “levelling up the North”, this is the North they’re talking about. Cumbria? Newcastle? Middlesbrough? Isn’t that in Scotland? It’s best not to dwell on these things (for cynicism doesn’t do the mind good), but one can’t help but feel like they’re rubbing it in.

The Central Library is a treasure trove. It houses an impressive collection of musical paraphernalia, from sheet music to encyclo-glee-diæ to biographies of Saint Noel Gallagher. Its central atrium is home to the “archives plus”, where Mancunians can drill into their city’s history without needing to be fluent in acadamese. The reference library on the upper floors is so tightly packed that it uses mechanical bookshelves which reveal themselves with the push of a button. By all accounts, it serves the people of Manchester well. Perhaps that’s the problem: for a tourist like me, it’s hard not to get jealous.


The Portico Library is an older, humbler affair, constructed at the height of the industrial revolution and taking up but the first floor of its classically-inspired building. Anyone can enter, but i’m afraid the full collection is a members-only joint; my group were just here to check out a book a family friend had paid to be restored. (A page fell out while we were handling it. Whoops!)

While the back catalogues might be off limits to us plebes, there’s still plenty to pique the passing itinerant’s interest. The central hall is still decorated in its original homely Victorian fashion, having a delightfully idiosyncratic way of catalogueing its books: “biography”, “travels and voyages”, and “polite fiction” (a vestige of the time when the middle classes were still joining “polite” society).

A tiny, Middle Eastern-style cardboard house

An exhibition of architectural art circles the middle seating area. While much of it was the usual arty bollocks, i found myself captured by the adorable cardboard houses of Thu Le Ha, an artist and volunteer at the library. Ms Ha has a vanishingly small online footprint, but i hope she keeps at it — this is the sort of thing the world needs more of! Cute little whimsy.

And that’s all i wrote. Next up, some less wordy centres of Mancunian culture.


P.S. On the way back from the Sigur Rós gig, we bore witness to a throng of teenyboppers and weary parents making their way back from a different gig held at the famous Arena. What could possibly inspire such turnout from such a young crowd: Taylor Swift? Olivia Rodrigo? Some K-pop act i’d never heard of? Nope — they were there to see the Backstreet Boys.

Some things never change.

Mx Tynehorne’s link roundup, volume XV

A parked lorry, late at night, bearing the name "Discordia" on its side.
Seen on the way back home from Manchester — why on earth would you call your logistics company “Discordia”? It’s like calling an airline “Icarus”. Just asking for trouble.

A jolly good show: tidbits from Manchester

Hello. I’ve been to Manchester. I thought i might tell you about it. Wait no come back i promise this isn't just showing you my holiday ph

The last time i went to that wonderful southern city, i was hardly ten years old, and hadn’t much of a chance to explore — a mistake i was itching to rectify this go around. Over the next few days i’ll be sharing some of the things i saw, heard, and third verb goes here.


First things first, our trip’s raison d’être: Sigur Rós were on a world tour, and though they might not have been schlepping up to Newcastle, i sure as hell wasn’t going to miss the chance to see them.

A case with some tea and incense strewn about, branded "Flotholt: Sigur Rós × Fischersund"

Sigur Rós are a post-rock band, and their gig made clear that it’s with a strong emphasis on the “post-”. It was an all-seated audience, with vanishingly little banter from the band (one has to imagine they’re not 100% confident in their English), excepting a brief pantomime bit at the end of „Andvari”. No complaints from me, though: a laid-back, almost classical atmosphere quite befits their ætheral soundscapes. I mean, could you imagine people going wild in the pit to „Vaka”?

As „Popplagið” came to a close and everyone shuffled out the venue’s doors, i noticed a curious item at the merch table: an officially licensed Sigur Rós tea and incense kit. What a world we live in. (I didn’t buy it — there was only one left, and i probably wouldn’t be the one to make the most use out of it.)


A Google Earth render of the skyline of Manchester, containing a modest few tall buildings
MAN WAS NOT MEANT TO LIVE LIKE THIS

As an official, Lisa Nandy–certified resident of a Town™, i was left slightly dumbstruck and intimidated by the dense forest of tall buildings that is Manchester’s city centre. Sure, it’s not like i’m a stranger to the idea of a city, but of the two big cities i have most haunted over the years , Newcastle only has a stumpy luxury apartment and a few council houses strewn about the suburbs, while Amsterdam’s skyscraper district is sectioned off behind the other side of a ring road, far from the centre of town.

But Manchester? Nay — Manchester is England’s second city, and they’ll show it any way they like! Dozens upon dozens of architectural phalli jut up from the ground in all directions, a veritable orgy of capital. I pray thee, have we as a species learnt nothing from the tales of Icarus and the Tower of Babel? Nothing‽ This is hubris writ large, i tell you!

Or, you know, something like that. Their green spaces don’t even have cows.


They both serve the same purpose, really, but i just want to rub in that where we up north has a fully-fledged metro, Manchester merely has to do with trams. Sure, ours might be delayed every five minutes, and theirs might be uber-reliable and extend throughout the urban area, but who’s really winning?


Montage of portraits of Emmeline Pankhurst and the brothers Gallagher
(I don’t actually know or care which Gallagher is which. Apologies.)

Manchester has no shortage of iconic residents — Morrissey, Danny Boyle, Burgess, Wanksy — but Mancunians have taken it upon themselves to idolise two people above all else. Everywhere you look, there are statues, plaques, and posters in their memory.

The first is Emmeline Pankhurst. An early leader of the suffragette movement, she and her allies often used violent tactics to get their way, from breaking windows all the way up to arson. You can see why the left-wing, industrial city, birthplace of the labour movement, would be proud to honour her.

The other is Noel Gallagher.

Naturally.

Mx Tynehorne’s link roundup, volume XIV

A bin with the front and binbag taken off
Fuckers took my bin. Can’t have shit in… erm… wherever the exit to this forest is?

THE WAR ON SANTA

ALRIGHT BUCKO IT’S FUCKING NOVEMBER, PUT YOUR GODDAMNED HANDS UP!

MARIAH CAREY DEFROSTING
MARIAH CAREY IS DEFROSTING RIGHT FUCKING NOW AND THERE’S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT

THIS FUCKING HALLOWE’EN SHIT IS OVER MERRY CHRISTMAS I WANT YOU TO REPEAT AFTER ME “MERRY CHRISTMAS” RIGHT NOW AND I’M NOT LETTING YOU GO UNTIL YOU DO IT

MERRRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU TOO

NOW YOU MIGHT BE WONDERING WHY I’VE BROUGHT YOU HERE TODAY AND THERE’S ONE SIMPLE REASON. THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS? IT’S FAKE. IT’S A FUCKING PSYOP. WE’RE RECRUITING YOU INTO THE REAL WAR. THE WAR ON SANTA CLAUS.

THIS RAT FUCKING BASTARD SANTA IS AGGLOMERATING CHRISTMAS INTO ONE CORPORATISED YANKEE MEGATRADITION AND THIS CANNOT STAND! FATHER CHRISTMAS IS THE REAL ONE. SINTERKLAAS AND HIS WEIRD RACIST FRIENDS ARE THE REAL ONES. SATURN IS WEIRD BUT WE KIND OF STOLE HIS SHTICK AND ALSO WE’RE PRETTY SURE HE’D EAT US IF WE DIDN’T LEAVE HIM BE. DED MOROZ IS STAYING. BUT SANTA CLAUS? WE’RE KILLING THAT ELF-ENSLAVING ASSHOLE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9jbdgZidu8

YOUR SOUNDTRACK FOR THIS MISSION WILL BE “FAIRYTALE OF NEW YORK”, PLAYED ON REPEAT FOR SEVENTY-TWO HOURS STRAIGHT. THIS IS BECUASE SANTA IS HOMOPHOBIC AND YOU NEED TO GET ACCLIMATISED TO HIM CALLING YOU A WELL YOU KNOW

FATHER CHRISTMAS WITH LASER EYES
WE HAVE LASER EYES POWERED BY THE MAGIC OF CHRISTMAS AND WE ARE NOT AFRAID TO USE THEM

AND AFTER WE’RE DONE, OH TRUST ME BUCKO, WE’RE NOT STOPPING THERE. YOU THINK NOVEMBER IS BAD? WE’RE GONNA EXTEND CHRISTMAS SEASON TO ALL YEAR ROUND. HALLOWE’EN? YOU MEAN PRECHRISTMAS? SUMMER HOLIDAYS? YOU MEAN CHRISTMAS IN JULY??? THAT’S RIGHT FUCKER IT’S CHRISTMAS EVERY DAY THE PROPHECY IS TRUE MERRY CHRISTMAS

Don’t Worry Darling is not the greatest film ever made

I was bored the other day, so i thought i’d go see a film. The problem, my dear readers, is that i have this terribly unlucky habit: 70% of the time, when i go see a film at the cinema, it’s not very good — and i can confirm that Don’t Worry Darling is, indeed, not very good.

If you’ve heard anything about Don’t Worry Darling, it’ll be about the juicy, juicy behind-the-scenes drama, involving saucy affairs between director Olivia Wilde and the film’s leading male star, an exasperated Chris Pine, and Shia LaBeouf. But we’re not going to be talking about any of that — instead, we’ll be talking about the topic everyone is desperately avoiding: the movie itself. Oh dear.

A promotional still showing Florence Pugh making a confused and terribly concerned face at the camera
© Universal or whoever distributed it i don’t really care.

The film boils down to a thin Truman Show pastiche following a troubled couple in an idyllic American suburb, wherein a 1950s housewife, imaginatively named Alice Warren, questions what her controlling husband, the inexplicably British Jack Chambers, actually does at his mysterious government job. The wonderful Florence Pugh, hot off of 2019’s Midsommar, gives her all with the script she’s given as Alice, and is easily one of the standout parts of the film. Jack, on the other hand… Jack is played by Harry Styles, a man who should not act. (Every pop star nowadays seems to think they can walk the tightrope between music and cinema as easily as Lady Gaga does, and it never quite seems to work out for them.)

So, let’s put ourselves in Ms Wilde’s shoes. You have one common plot structure, one brilliant lead actress, and one so-so lead actor. How do you make this movie… good?

Well, first you load up the secondary cast with talented people. KiKi Lane and Chris Pine both absolutely kill it in their respective roles — Margaret, a troubled neighbour to Alice, and Frank, Jack’s hammy villainous boss — but neither character feels fully fleshed out; Mr Pine in particular finds himself with not much to do despite ostensibly being the driving force behind the plot.

You can also pour piles upon piles of money into your film’s technical aspects. The quaint suburb in which Jack and Alice live is designed to within an inch of its life, and every shot is clear, crisp, and packed with colour while not being too overbearing — like a James Bond film or, if you’re being unkind, a perfume commercial.

Alright. You’ve got your cast, you’ve got your style, now you just need to… ah, god, what was it? You look down at the smudged writing on your hand — ah, yes, the script! You have to write a script, with, like, a plot and stuff.

You wake up from a terrible dream. You are no longer Olivia Wilde. You are once again the handsome reader of the blog of an even handsomer webmixter, who politely informs you that the film’s one-block-wide Jenga tower of a storyline, while it seemed to be setting up for an interesting conclusion, falls apart completely in the third act. The film’s writers pull out every cliché in the book — “it was all in VR!” “our protagonist’s best friend was in on it!” “if you die in the game you die in real life!” — in the space of about ten minutes, with barely any of it given room to breathe. (In fact, that third revelation comes after a pivotal death scene.) Just as the audience wonders what impact this will have on the plot going forward, the film just… ends, with a distinctly unsatisfying resolution to our hero’s story, and an air of “well why did they even bother?” about the villainous plot.

All in all, i really can’t recommend watching Don’t Worry Darling — perhaps catch it on streaming when it comes out if it piques your interest, but don’t spend your heard-earned Lizzies on going to the cinema to watch Harry Styles gaslight his wife for an hour and a half. (5/10)

Pass notes: some other films of note

See How They Run is a fun, Wes Anderson–lite romp of a mystery story that gets in and out and does what it needs without making too much of a fuss about itself. Saoirse Ronan and Sam Rockwell drive around in a tiny blue ’50s police car; what more could you possibly want? (7½/10)

The Woman King is a fine enough (alternate-)historical epic carried on the backs of some terrific performances by Thuso Mbedu and Viola Davis. (6/10)

I wasn’t expecting to be so spellbound by a seventy-year-old drama film of a bunch of people talking in a room, but i absolutely could not take my eyes off of 12 Angry Men, which you should really just go watch right now. (9/10)

Just write about gardening or the Bible or Zootopia fanfiction or something

Cyberpunk AI art of a hacker typing into their computer about how much they hate the internet
(Generated with Stable Diffusion.)

I have to say, it gets on my nerves when, on my regular surfing sessions across the high seas of the web, i see a cool-looking website… and then its only content is just about how much its creator misses Le Old Web before they invented capitalism or whatever.1

There’s certainly room for meta-puffery about the internet (i wouldn’t have made this site what it is without Kicks Condor doing exactly that), but after a dozen sites in a row all moaning the same moan without an original insight in sight, it starts to get tired. I’m begging you, just write about gardening or the Bible or Zootopia fanfiction or something!

What makes the free web beautiful is the sheer diversity in the topics covered and how people’s little idiosyncracies and quirks and interests shine through — it saddens me how most sites in the “old web” (did it ever really go away?) revival movement are doing nothing but lamenting their own existence.

Shatner on space

I was originally going to post this excerpt from William Shatner’s new memoir, printed in Variety, alongside the usual link roundup, but something about it touched me enough to give it its own post.

Mr Shatner, in his own words, on his first trip to space:

I continued my self-guided tour and turned my head to face the other direction, to stare into space. I love the mystery of the universe. I love all the questions that have come to us over thousands of years of exploration and hypotheses. Stars exploding years ago, their light traveling to us years later; black holes absorbing energy; satellites showing us entire galaxies in areas thought to be devoid of matter entirely… all of that has thrilled me for years… but when I looked in the opposite direction, into space, there was no mystery, no majestic awe to behold … all I saw was death.

I saw a cold, dark, black emptiness. It was unlike any blackness you can see or feel on Earth. It was deep, enveloping, all-encompassing. I turned back toward the light of home. I could see the curvature of Earth, the beige of the desert, the white of the clouds and the blue of the sky. It was life. Nurturing, sustaining, life. Mother Earth. Gaia. And I was leaving her.
[…]

It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered. The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me with overwhelming sadness. Every day, we are confronted with the knowledge of further destruction of Earth at our hands: the extinction of animal species, of flora and fauna … things that took five billion years to evolve, and suddenly we will never see them again because of the interference of mankind. It filled me with dread. My trip to space was supposed to be a celebration; instead, it felt like a funeral.

Upon returning to earth, and trying to put his story into words for the first time, he was, as you may remember, bluntly cut off by Jeff Bezos, asking for more champagne:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qfVXLQBygw

Mx van Hoorn’s link roundup, volume XIII

The shadow of a bathtub tap appears to form an OK hand
I can’t believe i got 👌’d by a sodding bathtub.

I suppose it’s only fair that the first roundup of October is spooky number thirteen, and we’re starting things off with a suitably spooky link: