Before I begin this entry, I'd like to explain to people that I cry on average about ten times during any holocaust movie. So when we were visiting Auschwitz today, I was actually worried about whether I would be making some sort of scene. I wanted it to feel real. I don't want to be posting a fucking review, but it's the only fitting response. I wanted the human cost to blind and deafen me, but instead I just felt more angry and disconnected.
So the first problem with Auschwitz is that it is a museum. A museum run by maniacs with human hair behind glass cases, and with dead people (including a couple of Mendels) staring out from pictures on the walls. Either make a Holocaust museum in Warsaw, or just retain the site as it was: any combination of the two will just end up in poor taste. It doesn't feel like a place where people died but a place full of signs telling you where people died.
The second problem with Auschwitz is that it has restaurants and several gift shops. Even the toilets cost a zloty to use. If you're comfortable with this, then skip this paragraph. If you're not, consider the question: what really is the difference between buying an Auschwitz DVD and an Auschwitz T-shirt or gift mug? It's more superficial than you think, and the money ain't going anywhere charitable. Also, hands up who likes the idea of buying a hamburger and shake within a hundred metres of a camp where thousands died of hunger?
The third problem with Auschwitz is the crowds. There are signs saying no smoking, no photography, and pleading silence in the spots where a few hundred thousand lost their lives. Does this faze the average tourist on his package tour? Today, I saw constant flash photography, smoking, a lot of laughter and even a kissing couple. Chances are, that if you're in a death camp laughing and hugging your girlfriend, the place just isn't reaching you.
And at what point does it all become a sort of voyeurism? People were going around saying "have you been to the crematorium yet?" like they were fucking Alton Towers rides. The whole experience is being taken up as "one of the things you simply MUST do once" along with seeing the Tower of Pisa. I heard someone in the street go, "I visited Auschwitz today" and her friend went "how did you like it?" and she went "it was fabulous ... (then hastily) terrible, of course".
Listen: consider the London Dungeon ride. Once people were tortured to death in there, now it's a fucking theme park. When the last survivors have died, when Anne Frank's diary becomes a bit of prescribed school literature like Macbeth, then there will be nothing real or true about the Holocaust any more and all that will remain is the polite indifferent faces of the crowds who will recommend the experience to their friends because it says "what humans are capable of", walking through the gum-chewing masses not realising that therein lies just as damning an evidence.
I searched for something real amongst the reconstructed bunk beds and the explanatory diagrams, and I found it as I entered the gas chamber. I suddenly realised that the little antechamber before the main part made all noises incredibly loud, and noticed that the shuffling of our feet for a second became deafening. The sudden experience faded as soon as it had came, and I was left looking at the pieces of graffiti ("XXXX, 2009") between the nail-marks on the walls. I want Auschwitz abandoned to nature, seen only by a few who beat a path through the overgrowth to silently weep, and that alone.
Sunday, 12 September 2010
Saturday, 24 July 2010
Sex Chat Terrorism (6.6.05)
I have invented the greatest sport ever. I call it 'sex-chat terrorism'. I log on into a mainstream adult chatroom, and then freak the hell out of them all. This means adopting several personas, the last three being Mr. Spoon, black_beauty and train_driver among many more. Mr. Spoon tells everyone about spooning, and then proceeds to try to get people to touch his spoons, or pretend to be a spoon, all of which is taken very seriously by my partners.
Black_beauty, a deliberately andrognous name, I only used briefly: I cybered someone before informing them that I wasn't a woman at all: they were like 'OMG! You fucking fag!' before I told them I was actually a horse. I was then kicked out for illegal 'bestiality' which is absurd because I obviously couldn't really be a horse.
Train_driver was by far the best. Trains are when a 'woman' starts a chatroom and has sex with loads of men in succession, usually to try and break a record. I logged on:
Train_driver: Hey, the_attitude_bitch, I'll drive your train for you.
the_attitude_bitch: Wait a moment, honey.
(Five minutes later, watched by all the other people in the room, she *winked* at me, which meant I was in)
the_attitude_bitch: I lie on the bed, beckoning . .
Train_driver: I jump on.
the_attitude_bitch: You're big . . .
Train_driver: So are you. I check your engine.
the_attitude_bitch: It's all fine, honey.
Train_driver: I stoke your fire, grease you up . . .
the_attitude_bitch: MMmmmmm
Train_driver: And with a swift change of gears, we're off out of the station. Steam pressure: 40, temperature: 120 degrees celsius.
aussie_guy: dude, you're ment (sic) to fuck her
Train_driver: I am, I am. I throw my spanner in . . .
the_attitude_bitch: Nice move, romeo, but less metaphors
Train_driver: But it's stuck!
the_attitude_bitch: WHAT?
Train_driver: I . . Can't pull out! My spanner - jammed!
the_attitude_bitch: You're fucking kidding me!
*Train_driver tugs uselessly at spanner*
west_country_boy: Alright, man, I'm gonna message the chat room monitors. Fuck off now!
the_attitude_bitch: OMG I have a spanner in me! Take me to casualty!
*aussie_guy lifts the_attitude_bitch onto his shoulders*
Train_driver is logged off by group_sex_monitor
The hilarious thing is, they have to take everything that happens seriously. I get kicked off every time, but I have some great laughs.
Sunday, 11 July 2010
The Prim Lieutenant's Song
With A I truly have only msyelf to blame. I was romantic, she responded in kind. I was cool, she responded in kind. I confused myself and then lost interest in going out with her, and of course she has done the same. However, I went on a lot of lovely dates with her, and got to kiss a beautiful girl. I also feel I have gained a close friend, so really I have nothing to complain about. All that is left to do is analyse what I did wrong and apply it to the future.
I am, of course, the prim lieutenant -- I chase down leading ladies, and can for a time imprison them like a butterfly under a glass, but I can never touch them. I am too self-aware to be greedy, too concerned with respecting women to arouse love in them. We must not pity the prim lieutenant: he will one day find himself an upright and religious wife and find himself satisfied. But I don't have his clockwork toy movements, his steely self-belief or his bullet-grey eyes.
I have railed before about the selfishness of love -- I effectively promised myself never to take anything from A. People are like sculptures in unset clay, and we pinch bits from each other to add to ourselves in order to grow. In being unselfish I rendered A immoveable, and so petrified her love. I will play the part of the prim lieutenant in a romantic cliche until I can write my own parts: I am dangerous, scintillating and hungry like a prairie fire, and I will continue to pursue beauty and genius without ever being satisfied with less.
Saturday, 19 June 2010
Small Talk
One of the cliches that are true about English people is their obsession with the weather. I was at the allotment today, waiting to use the communal tap, and there's a guy waiting with me with a jovial sort of spark in his eye. Oh no, I think. He's going to say something about the weather.
"Sunny, isn't it?"
This carries all the significance of me turning to him and saying "Look! There's grass over there", but of course despite it being the single most obvious thing he could say, this is England, so I go "Oh, yes," and do a lot of nodding.
Sometimes, though, I like to be subversive in my small talk. I'll be standing next to someone and I'll click my tongue and go "Football, eh?" and they'll go "Isn't it just?" and then look puzzled.
I give people credit - I know that they don't want to begin a conversation about Labour while waiting to use a pump. That's why I think that everyone should have certain facts memorised. You're waiting in a long queue:
"Did you know that all clams start out as males, and about half decide to become a female at some point in their lives?"
"No, but did you know that coconut water has the same properties as human blood?"
That way, we'll not only be able to get through a three-minute wait without wanting to bash our heads against the wall at man's inanity to man: we may also profit by the experience.
"Sunny, isn't it?"
This carries all the significance of me turning to him and saying "Look! There's grass over there", but of course despite it being the single most obvious thing he could say, this is England, so I go "Oh, yes," and do a lot of nodding.
Sometimes, though, I like to be subversive in my small talk. I'll be standing next to someone and I'll click my tongue and go "Football, eh?" and they'll go "Isn't it just?" and then look puzzled.
I give people credit - I know that they don't want to begin a conversation about Labour while waiting to use a pump. That's why I think that everyone should have certain facts memorised. You're waiting in a long queue:
"Did you know that all clams start out as males, and about half decide to become a female at some point in their lives?"
"No, but did you know that coconut water has the same properties as human blood?"
That way, we'll not only be able to get through a three-minute wait without wanting to bash our heads against the wall at man's inanity to man: we may also profit by the experience.
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