This is going to sound really weird, but bear with me: I’d like you to check out Muscle: Confessions of an Unlikely Bodybuilder, by Sam Fussell. It was written in the early 90s (I think) describing the bodybuilding scene of the mid-1980s, and when I first read it, twenty-odd years ago, it came off like the tale of a recovered alcoholic, or more accurately a well-controlled schizophrenic — the male version of all those mental illness memoirs the chicks were into back then (Prozac Nation; Girl, Interrupted, and so on). Certainly Fussell himself pitched it that way — he says that even bodybuilders call their thing “the disease”. From the Current Year’s perspective, though, it looks a lot more like the leading edge of an increasingly common phenomenon that I’m going to call “identity fetishism”.
Fussell is almost embarrassingly frank about why he got into bodybuilding: He was terrified. A scrawny, desperately insecure guy, he just couldn’t handle the social pressures of life in New York. He saw muscles as armor. If he made his exterior so intimidating that no one would want to get close to him he’d never have to get close to anyone. The whole thing is a sustained exercise in fremdschämen — Fussell is a hard guy to like before his transformation, and frankly repulsive afterwards. It’s a short read, and fascinating, but it’s not an easy one.
Do slog through it, though, and I think you’ll see what I mean. The thing that prevents so many of us from really getting into the Left’s headspace, I think, is sheer exhaustion. Forget hardcore SJWs for a sec; just think of what it must take to be, say, a hipster. I mean, seriously, just look at this fucking hipster. The time, the money, the sheer goddamn effort it must take! I’m bushed just writing about it, and that’s nothing compared to what Fussell did.
If you’re a weightlifter, you know. If you’re not, trust me, you don’t want to know. Same deal with endurance athletes, of course, and so on — I’m sure “runner’s high” is real, and it’s great, but son, I really don’t want to experience it. I have experienced “the pump”, famously described by Arnold himself as “like cumming”, but trust me, drugs are a lot better if you just want to get high, because getting to “the pump” fucking hurts. A lot. See Fussell for details.1
Much easier, then, to invest all that time and energy and money into an outward show that, though it no doubt costs as much — perhaps more! — isn’t nearly as painful (I’m sure getting elaborate tats hurts, but if the choice was between that or legs day, I’d be The Illustrated Man). Best of all, of course, is one that doesn’t take anything but time — you know, like, say, Twitter …
All that no doubt seems like a long ride for a short payoff, but unlike my infamously lax attitude towards “the Classics”, I’m going to insist that if you want to get the point of this one — and I consider it important enough to have invested all these words in it — you’re really going to have to go read the book. Fussell is self-aware enough to see himself for what he is, and the Twitterati are of course oblivious, but the psychology is the same. It’s a fetishized identity, and it’s terrifying, because those are our rulers.
Severian, “Identity Fetishism”, Rotten Chestnuts, 2021-05-24.
1. Worst of all, you don’t get it during “legs day”, the most excruciating part of weightlifting, which is why so many guys skip it. It’s nothing but pain. I was never more than a moderately serious weightlifter back in my youth, but that’s the sole criterion of seriousness — do you skip legs day? If yes, then get back to Planet Fitness, you poseur.
June 21, 2024
April 3, 2023
QotD: An odd habit of some owners of used books
When it comes to erasing from their skin names from the past, however, the tattooed are as nothing compared with some owners of secondhand books. They score through the names of previous owners inscribed on fly-leaves with something approaching vengeance, so that they are no longer legible. They are like Stalin in his desire to expunge a purged person, such as Yagoda, not only from the written record but also from the photographic record. The new owners of secondhand books not only do not want the name of the previous owners to be legible, it is as if they wanted them never to have existed. In the days before black felt-tipped pens, which can erase all trace of a person’s name at a stroke, or in effect throw him into an unmarked grave, the name was often scratched over repeatedly, with a strange assiduity, until no letter of it was legible. I have examples of this peculiar conduct dating back to the 18th century.
What does it mean, this fury against previous owners? I suspect that it indicates an attempted denial of mortality, an assertion that the book has now fallen into the hands of its rightful and final owner, that it will remain his (I think this is an almost exclusively male phenomenon) till the end of time. The evidence of previous ownership is thus a reminder of how futile such a wish is — a reminder that one does not own anything, certainly nothing of any value such as a book that one wishes to preserve, by more than temporary leasehold. We are keepers of our valuables rather than owners of them, at least if we feel it wrong to destroy them.
Theodore Dalrymple, “Tattoo Much”, Taki’s Magazine, 2017-06-10.
March 16, 2023
QotD: “In the tattoo parlour, the customer is always wrong”
One day, I arrived on the ward to discover an enthusiastic self-expresser in the first bed. Her two-inch-long nails were painted lime green, and looked as if they gave off the kind of radiation that meant instant leukaemia. That, however, was the least of it.
She was lying in the bed, décolleté, to reveal breasts pierced with many metal bars ending in steel balls to keep them in place, and for what is known round here as decoration. I couldn’t look at them without wincing; ex-President Clinton would no doubt have felt her pain. As for her face, it was the modern equivalent of the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian. It was also the refutation of the doctrine that the customer is always the right. In the tattoo parlour, the customer is always wrong.
She had a ring through the septum of her nose, and a ring through her upper lip, so that the two clacked when she spoke. She had a stud in her tongue, and two studs through her lower lip. She had so many rings through her ears that they looked like solenoids. She had a metal bar through the bridge of her nose and rings at the outer edges of her eyebrows. If she were to die, she could probably be sold to a scrap metal merchant.
Theodore Dalrymple, “Lady of the Rings”, Asian Age, 2005-12-27.
August 30, 2022
QotD: The secret language of tattoos
We normal folks have the same problem when confronted with Leftists. Just to stick with a theme, consider tattoos. A quick googling suggests that something like 20% of Americans ages 18 and older have at least one tattoo. This Federalist piece doesn’t cite its source, but the claim that 40% (!!!) of those aged 18-29 are tatted up sure feels right — anecdotes aren’t data, of course, but I taught college for years; I’ve got lots of anecdotes. Kids these days are slathered in garish, gaudy ink.
Now, it’s probably safe to assume that those tats don’t mean anything criminal … but how would you know? Back when only sailors and military types had tattoos — you know, those dim dark days before about 1994 — tats had fairly obvious meanings. Globe and anchor — Semper Fi, buddy. But these days they seem entirely random. Which is the point — if you catch yourself wondering “What kind of idiot would get that permanently etched into his flesh?”, then by definition the message isn’t for you. But think about how much time, effort, and money is expended on tattoos. They mean something, I promise you.
Dealing with Liberals is like that. Every element of every tattoo is recognizable, but the meaning of the whole is utterly opaque. So it goes with Leftist language, Leftist gestures. We understand all the words that they say, and they do all the things normal people do, but not for any reason any normal person can figure out. We don’t live in their world.
Actually it’s worse than that. We think we know what they’re doing. We’ve got a cute label for it: “Virtue-signaling”. But that doesn’t go far enough. What virtue, specifically, are they signalling? Figure that out, and we might be able to find a way to break it.
I suggest that the key to understanding Leftism is: Conspicuous consumption. I think it’s the point of all those weird college-kid tattoos, too. The whole point of the exercise is to show that you have the resources — the money, tight young skin, and above all time — to undergo such a laborious process. Time is the most precious commodity of all. All the money in the world won’t buy you a single second more. Every second you spend worrying about your pronouns is a second you can’t spend doing anything productive … which is, I submit, the entire point of worrying about your pronouns. Only the young, or those stuck in permanent adolescence, can be so profligate with time.
Severian, “Skin in the Game”, Rotten Chestnuts, 2019-10-28.
April 9, 2022
QotD: Temporary tattoos and cultural literacy
I was once at an art fair where there was a booth selling temporary tattoos. One of the tattoos was a Chinese character that was translated on the tattoo’s plastic label as “bitch”, an appealing bit of body art for the tough girls among us, I suppose. Except a far more straightforward and accurate translation of the character would be “prostitute”, or maybe “whore”.
Teaching students who fell in love with “Eastern philosophy” via our culture’s myriad Mr Miyagis is like being the one to tell someone her tattoo says “whore”. The tattooed will be better off knowing, but she won’t thank you for telling her. Pop-culture-induced orientalism usually does wash off, but the cleanup is far less alluring than wearing the myth. At least, I console myself, Kondo’s target market is the middle-aged, so maybe my young college students won’t show up with this particular “tattoo”.
Amy Olberding, “Tidying up is not joyful but another misuse of Eastern ideas”, Aeon, 2019-02-18.
February 15, 2020
QotD: Architecture’s lingering racism
In the 1920s, during the time he was a member of the French Fascist party, the seminal architect Le Corbusier said he was disgusted by the “zone of odours, [a] terrible and suffocating zone comparable to a field of gypsies crammed in their caravans amidst disorder and improvisation.” He also chimed in with Loos: “Decoration is of a sensorial and elementary order, as is color, and is suited to simple races, peasants, and savages … The peasant loves ornament and decorates his walls.”
More recently, indicative of architecture’s current race problem, in 2006 the aforementioned highly influential dean of Tulane’s architecture school, Reed Kroloff, wrote the embarrassingly tone-deaf, flat-footed essay “Black Like Me.” (As I discuss below, he collaborated with Betsky on a post-Katrina project.) Kroloff — the privileged, self-described gay white Jew from Waco, Texas — announced that he was now black, that the Hurricane Katrina disaster had made him feel first-hand the African-American predicament. His piece was subject to much ridicule. No wonder the Mods have chosen to insulate themselves from the un(brain)washed masses. Architecture has become a gated community.
Betsky, to his credit, doesn’t pretend that architects should even try to make outreach. Showing little sympathy for democracy, he says that appeals to the public are “mystical.” The people — the 99% — do not deserve a seat at the table. Yet Betsky would have us believe that he and the architecture he supports are “progressive.”
Justin Shubow, “Architecture Continues To Implode: More Insiders Admit The Profession Is Failing”, Forbes, 2015-01-06.
February 23, 2015
I thought I was a fan of the old TH&B Railway…
I mean, after all, I founded a historical society based on the study of the railway … but Mel McInnis puts me into the shade with his dedication to the old Toronto, Hamilton & Buffalo Railway:
December 13, 2013
No regerts
I really missed out on a great long-term investment when I didn’t put all my retirement savings into a tattoo removal chain:
H/T to Joey DeVilla for the image.
February 1, 2011
The tattoos that say “I’ll never work retail again”
I’m always amazed how many people search the site for tattoo images. Just because I’m a nice guy (and not in any way attempting to draw more traffic to the site), I’ll post a few more (via Blazing Cat Fur). For most workplaces, these breast tattoos are not work safe.
January 25, 2011
Neil Gaiman on feeling like a ghost
Neil Gaiman wrote a book that came back to haunt him the other day:
There were a couple – a man and a woman, both in their twenties at a guess, both short and dark-haired, looking into a shop window, with their backs to me. The woman had a tattoo on her shoulderblade – writing – and because I cannot pass writing without reading it, I glanced at it. Part of the writing was covered by a strap.
But I could still read it. And I knew what the words covered by the strap were.
The tattoo (thank you Google Image Search) was a lot like this (which is to say, the same content, and similar typeface, but probably not the same person. I’m already trying to remember if it was the left or the right shoulderblade):
(I took that photo from here.)
I read the tattoo, read words I had written to try and exorcise my own small demons eighteen years ago, and I felt like a ghost. As if, for a moment, under the hot Sydney sun, I was only an idea of a person and not a real person at all.
I didn’t introduce myself to her or say anything (it didn’t even occur to me to say hello, in all honesty). I just walked home, through a world that felt flimsier and infinitely stranger than it had that morning.
December 3, 2010
Tattoos and Parenting, by Dara O Briain
I’ve said for years I should have invested my retirement savings in tattoo removal businesses . . .
H/T to William Penman for the link.
June 25, 2010
Apple’s latest iPhone gets approval of key “Suicide Girls” market
Lester Haines reports that the Apple iPhone 4 has received top marks from the discerning folks at Suicide Girls:
In an absolutely shameless piece of bandwagon-jumping self promotion, the internet’s leading repository of female tattoos and body piercing has taken the latest manifestation of the Jesus Phone out for a spin (link NSFW).
Screen grab from iPhone 4 showing young lady with exposed breastSuicide Girls has put the iPhone’s 4’s imaging capabilities to the test as is the local custom — by photographing women with their tops off.
The snap seen here apparently demonstrates an “unexpected feature”, in that “when you point it at Rambo her boob pops out”. We’re pretty sure someone has indeed written an app for that, but are surprised it got past the Apple Titfinder General.
Image at El Reg is probably NSFW for workplaces in North America . . . images at Suicide Girls are even more so. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
July 24, 2009
Think at least twice before emulating these folks
It’s a joke I’ve told many times, and based on current trends, I’ll be telling it for many more years: we should have invested all our retirement savings in tattoo removal research:
I know what you’re thinking, and you’re wrong: This is not the first tattoo on the “worst” list just because it’s an Apple tattoo. In fact, PC fangirl though I am, I’d much rather be walking around with an Apple image tattooed on my body than I would a Microsoft logo (like the infamous Zune guy). A little black apple might even be cute, and iconic enough that people would know exactly what my tattoo meant…which brings us to this lovely creation. Can we say overkill? The apple, well, fine. Even the power symbol in the middle, while a bit much, is acceptable. But “Think different” underneath? And to top it off, the fuzzy blue glow around that? This person could definitely take a leaf out of Apple’s advertising book: Understatement is key.
Whole story here.
