#22. A moonwalk through fantasy
My fantasy is that this newsletter doesn't go into your spam folder 🤞
Hi everyone! I've been working on a bit of writing about fantasy which I've included today. Perhaps it'll turn into something bigger, I don't know yet.
My own private case of mass hysteria
The first waifu in history was possibly a Greek statue of Aphrodite. Here's the most faithful copy we know about, from about 1500 years ago:
The story goes that sailors used to break in and fuck the statue at night, leaving the attendants to come in first thing to scrape off the residue.
There are a few interesting parts to this story. Firstly, and contrary to what you might expect, female nudes were not the norm at the time. Secondly, Aphrodite was a god. It may be hard to comprehend this given we now look at classical gods more like action heroes than religious figures — but for them she was a real genuine god, like if you came in and fucked her statue she'd probably have something to say about it. Imagine breaking into a Church, as a Christian, and spending the night with a statue of the Virgin Mary or Jesus and you'll get an idea what we're talking about here. Of course they probably felt very differently about their gods, but we're not talking a prank here.
"Suppose I were to begin by saying that I had fallen in love with a color." as Maggie Nelson begins Bluets. Seedier, bring to mind Jez filling a cup over a £20 note, "OK Queenie, it's back in the 50s, you're nice and young... no, leave the crown on...," Stephen Merchant in Extras, taken by a captivating pen, or Raymond Devos haunted by the love song in his head, "you've missed the whole point!"
Freud quotes Plato in The Interpretation of Dreams, "The virtuous man contents himself with dreaming that which the wicked man does in actual life." I think it is not so simple. Consider the following passage from the psychoanalyst Ralph Klein:
The fantasy of regression to the womb is the fantasy of regression to a place of ultimate safety. An example is the experience of a man who at a very young age had buried deep within himself, in an impenetrable shell, all that was good and true, sensitive and feeling. The self that he presented to the world was an empty shell, while his real self remained safely buried, protected from assault, appropriation, or annihilation, awaiting a time when it could be reborn into the actual world, rather than be kept hidden, secret, and safe from harm.
If you have ever been instructed to try meditation, you have likely experienced the now clichéd idea of the 'happy place' — to create "a calming environment, such as a beach, and create it clearly in her mind, using all five senses. This, I explained, was to show her how resourceful her mind could be in constructing shelving places to return to whenever she wished."
I have become fascinated by fantasy. As sheltering place, as holding space, as escape, but also as vampire and succubus. Fantasy is a turn inward and as such a turning away from the real world. You can also find fantasy in Dorian Gray's painting, Ahab's whale, Echo's Narcissus and Narcissus' Narcissus. Fantasy can leave one stretched thin. If you have had the experience of seeing a friend lost in a long, lovesick fugue, or work, or the bottle, you will know how drawn a picture fantasy can draught.
Have you seen I'm Thinking of Ending Things yet? Jessie Bluckley, just before auditioning for the part after the intended actor pulled out, was sent a note: "This woman is molecular." She has surfaced this in many interviews since. It plays on the mind — with the sweater changes, the names, the inconsistencies. Klein again: "Fantasy is relationship by proxy. It is a substitute relationship, but it is a relationship nonetheless. It is, for the patient, an ideal relationship, free from dangers and anxieties. In fantasy one can be attached and still be free."
Fantasy takes as it gives. As fantasy soothes the pain of boredom, of loneliness, of compromises made and regretted — it also redirects the energy we might use to shape our reality. In my darker moments I have trodden the boards with the corpses of Hoffman, been taken underwing by Miles Davis, gifted clocks by Felix González-Torres, romanced with Bogart and Bacall both. "My dream is to understand my dream."
On the other hand, fantasy gives as it takes. Fantasy is the dream becoming real-life. Plato also remarked that no one in the world had ever seen a true line or a perfectly round circle, and yet they can still reckon for us in creating the world. Everything you see right now was a fantasy once, including and especially this. You were a fantasy, once, twice, a glint in the eye, an image trapped, pressing inside the skull unbearably, begging the trepan. Sometimes, you came true.
"So God, which are lies and which are my real feelings?" Even I don't know. I don't want to know.
Graph of the week
This is a graph of the performance of two NYSE stocks over the past 7 years. Can you guess what they are? They're both companies you've very likely used.
Here's another, more explicable one:
Wild. Apparently this means we'll have less flu in the northern hemisphere too as there's less of a 'seed' for it? Small mercies.
Music I'm listening to
Think we'll probably have to call this the high point of the COVID19 virtual gig era. Do DJs call them gigs? Probably not. Anyway the best bit of this is the interview at the end where the organiser and DJ are just incredibly happy this has happened, but also have to stop talking whenever the pilot has to put the burner on to stop them falling out of the sky.
Have a lovely week everyone!
K