Max and Gustave's Adventures in Egypt. Part 3

Flaubert and Du Camp are in Esna in 1950. In the house of prostitute and dancer, Kuchuk Hanem.

"Kuchuk Hanem had just come from the bath, her firm breasts had a fresh smell, something like that of sweetened turpentine. She is a tall, splendid creature, lighter in colouring than an Arab. Her skin, particularly her body, is slightly coffee-coloured. When she bends, her flesh ripples into bronze ridges. Her eyes are dark, and enormous. Her eyebrows black, her nostrils open and wide; heavy shoulders, full apple-shaped breasts. She wore a large tarboosh. Her black hair, wavy, unruly, pulled straight back on each side; small braids joined together at the nape of her neck. She had one upper incisor, right, which is beginning to go bad. On her right arm is tattooed a line of blue writing.

She asks us if we would like a little entertainment, but Max says that first he would like to entertain himself alone with her, and they go downstairs. After he finishes, i go down and follow his example. Ground floor room, with a divan and a cafas with a mattress.

Later Kuchuk Hanem and Bambeh begin to dance. Kuchuk's dance is brutal. She squeezes her bare breasts together with her jacket. She rises on one foot, then on the other-marvellous movement; when one foot is on the ground, the other moves up and across in front of the shin bone-the whole thing with a light bound.

Later I coup with Safia Zugairah ('Little Sophie') - I stain the divan. She is very corrupt and writhing, extremely voluptuous. But the best was the second copulation with Kuchuk. Effect of her necklace between my teeth. Her cunt felt like rolls of velvet as she made me come. I felt like a tiger.

Still later Kuchuk dances the Bee. Kuchuk shed her clothing as she danced. Finally she was naked except for the fichu which she held in her hands. Finally, after repeating for us the wonderful step she had danced in the afternoon, she sank down onto the divan, her body continuing to move slightly in rhythm. When she was sitting cross-legged on the divan, the magnificent, absolutely sculptural design of her knees.

We went to bed. After some violent play, coup, she falls asleep with her hand in mine. Feeling of her stomach against my buttocks. Her mound warmer than her stomach, heated me like a hot iron. At quarter of three, we awake-another coup, this time very affectionate.

How flattering it would be to one's pride if at the moment of leaving you were sure that you left a memory behind, that she would think of you more than of the others who have been there, that you would remain in her heart!"

Brantwood No.2

TheLeedsArcadesProject decided to travel to Brantwood, Ruskins old home, in order to discover the truth about Ruskin’s sexuality. We wanted to avail ourselves of the expertise of the staff of this Ruskin museum to discover the truth about Ruskin’s sexual rejection of his wife. Entering Ruskin’s bedroom, we read a small piece of signage which gave a brief account of the annulment of Ruskin’s marriage. We decided to ask the Room Guide, who had been so helpful previously, what his opinion of Ruskin’s marriage was:

“Excuse me Sir, can I ask a question? Why do you believe Ruskin’s marriage was never consummated?”

The elderly, white haired Room Guide listened attentively to my question. After a short pause he spoke:
“Well, his marriage was annulled on the grounds of non-consummation, but we really don’t know why. Personnally I think he was gay. A lot of them were back then. He had a lot of gay friends, used to hang around in gay circles. Many marriages were just shams back then, they would get married because it was expected, but really they were gay. Look at Oscar Wilde and Tony Curtis. Tony Curtis was gay, you know”

TheLeedsArcadesProject: “Oh, I didn’t know that. But he was a lot…..”

Room Guide: “Yes, When I was in London, I met Tony Curtis and he tried to pick me up. He was a very handsome man back then. Everyone loved him. Cliff Richard too, I met him on a plane once and he tried to pick me up. We got chatting and he gave me his number, told me to call him.”

TheLeedsArcadesProject: “My Mum loves Cliff. Did you call him?

Room Guide: “No, I never did, wish I had now though. At the time I had a lot going on and, well, I didn’t call him. He lives now with his partner, a man, all that thing with that Tennis player, that was all a front.”

TheLeedsArcadesProject: “Oh. So Ruskin, you really think he was gay?”

Room Guide: “Yes, he had a lot of gay friends when he was in London. Dirk Bogarde
tried to pick me up in Lybia. I was in the forces over there and he was making a film. It was a big secret at the time, he was very famous at that point. He slept with everyone though, he had a very high sex drive. Unlike Cliff, I think Cliff struggled with his faith a lot. Dirk. Dirk was great. Everyone loved him. You know, I think Ruskin’s father was gay too. When you go down to the dining room you will see a portrait of his father and he looks really gay, I thought it was Ruskin himself for a long time.”

TheLeedsArcadesProject: “Oh well anyway, we have to get on. On with the Ruskin”

Room Guide: “Yes, ofcourse. Ruskin was very feminine though. Whenever i see pictures of him i always think he looks very feminine. Look at that picture of Ruskin in the Dining Room, the one where he's a young child. He looks just like a girl. When i was a child, everyone used to think i was a girl too. Still, its probably because my mother would dress me and my sister identically, in dresses. She had a pink bow and i had a blue, but still it was a dress. Everyone thought i was a girl."

TheLeedsArcadesProject: “OK then, thanks.”

Ruskin's Utopia

Ruskin’s most influential work was not his work on art criticism or architecture, but his essay “Unto This Last”, an essay on economics. The essay was hugely controversial in its day, but was indirectly responsible for the foundation of the Labour Party and was a huge influence on many important thinkers, such as Gandhi. The essay coined Ruskin’s famous slogan “there is no wealth but life” and proposed social welfare systems and even touched on our modern concerns about climate change and the environment. “Unto This Last” outlines Ruskin’s own version of Utopia along the lines of enlightened self-interest and social welfare.

Here are the results of a recent children’s school project on Ruskin’s Utopian ideals. As you can see, each child was asked to look at a dossier on Ruskin’s ideas of Utopia and then propose an idea of their own. They were given a sheet on which they should do a drawing of what would be in their Utopia. Here are the results:-

So far, so good. The children have proposed Love, concern for the environment and greater equality. All truly Ruskinian ideals.

But then we come to Beth Osmund who says that in her Utopia "Obese people would die", implying that this would be a good thing because "they take up space". To my knowledge Ruskin has not written on the problem of obesity so it is a little difficult to know whether he would agree with Beth.

After Beth we come to an anonymous student who, in his utopia would like to see "Violence, only violence". I think its safe to say that Ruskin would not have agreed that "violence, only violence" would be a sensible approach for a prospective Utopia although i have yet to find a comment which directly contradicts this arguement.

Exploring with Walter Benjamin

Walter Benjamin begins his reminiscences, Berlin Childhood around 1900, with the following:
“Not to find one’s way around a city does not mean much. But to lose one’s way in a city, as one loses one's way in a forest, requires some schooling. Street names must speak to the urban wanderer like the snapping of dry twigs, and the little streets in the heart of the city must reflect the times of day, for him, as clearly as a mountain valley. This art I acquired rather late in life.”
We can understand Benjamin’s wish to be able to lose himself in a city, an art which, as he says, requires practice and dedication.
In One-Way Street, he points out that “once we begin to find our way around a place, that earliest picture we had of it, can never be restored”. The ability to get lost is something to be wished for.
And then there is the wonderful feeling of ownership that comes with discovering an area; in the chapter called Peacock Island and Glienicke, in Berlin Childhood around 1900, the young Benjamin goes on a bicycle ride:
“Heart pounding, but with the full momentum imparted by the slope I had just covered, I dove with my bicycle into the shadow of the arena. As I sprang off, I could rejoice in the certainty that, for this summer, the bridge at Kohlhasen with its railway station, the lake at Griebnitz with the canopy of leaves that swept down to the footpaths by the landing, Babelsberg castle with its stern battlements, and the fragrant gardens of the farmers of Glienicke, had all, by virtue of my union with the surge of the hill, fallen into my lap as effortlessly as duchies or kingdoms acquired through marriage into the imperial family.”

Benjamin's Missing Suitcase

Over time many conspiracy theories have grown up around Walter Benjamin’s death. The official version is that he took an overdose when he was refused entry to Spain on the French-Spanish border. To this day however, stories circulate about a mysterious suitcase Benjamin was carrying with him as he attempted to cross the Pyrenees. Some believe it contained the final manuscript of The Arcades Project; this is very unlikely as the author's plans for the work had changed in the wake of Adorno's criticisms in 1938, and it seems clear that the work was flowing over its containing limits in his last years.
Companions travelling with him at the time, remember the suitcase but never knew what was in it or what happened to it after Benjamin’s death. On their journey over the Pyrenees he had guarded it jealously, but after his body was found there was no further mention of it in the official version of events.
There are several other unanswered questions regarding Benjamin’s death, such as, if Benjamin did commit suicide how was it that the doctor who examined his body declared him a natural death and he was given a Catholic burial (not permitted for suicides) in the local cemetery. Also the name on his grave stone was incorrect.
Conspiracy theories suggest that Benjamin may have been killed by some of Stalin’s henchmen or that the SS had been pursuing him. For the moment, and possibly forever, we cannot say what really happened.

Brantwood No.1

In order to discover the truth about John Ruskin’s rather odd love life TheLeedsArcadesProject decided to travel to Brantwood, his old home and now a Ruskin museum, to get some expert help.

Ruskin lived at Brantwood, on the shores of Coniston Water in the Lake District, from 1872-until his death in 1900. It was here that most of his mental decline was played out.
Brantwood has been kept exactly as it was during Ruskin’s tenure there. It is owned by the Ruskin Foundation, in association with Lancaster University. Brantwood seeks to “not only keep alive the memory of John Ruskin but to actively promote the relevance of his work to the modern world.” In this spirit, TheLeedsArcadesProject decided to visit Brantwood in order to avail ourselves of their dedication to “the promotion of Ruskinian ideals and the understanding of the relevance of Ruskin today.”

Wandering through Ruskin’s old home we were inspired by the “light and airy feel of the house, which uplifts the spirit on the darkest of days.” Entering Ruskin’s study, which can be seen in the photo above, we read a small piece of signage which gave a brief account of Ruskin’s relationship with Rose La Touché. We decided to ask the Room Guide what his opinion was of Ruskin’s sexuality, in order to perhaps get the more official line on Ruskin’s sexual inclinations:

“Excuse me Sir, can I ask a question? What is the official line on Ruskin’s relationship with Rose La Touché? Did he really like little girls? I read somewhere that his sexual preferences had been shaped by his exposure to Greek statues at an early age, which are of course hairless. So he imprinted the idea of women as hairless and on his wedding night when he saw his wife’s hair down there, he was, er.... put off.”

The Room Guide was an elderly man with white hair and a slightly ruddy complexion, who listened attentively to my question, with a thoughtful look. After a short pause he spoke: “Well, we don’t really know, is the short answer. His marriage was annulled on the grounds of non-consummation, but we really don’t know why. It may be that there was something wrong with his wife, Effie, down there. It might not just be the hair problem, she could have been deformed down there, we don’t know. My mother….”

TheLeedsArcadesProject: “Wow, I’ve never heard that theory”

Room Guide: “Well, no, it’s not really a theory, I’m just saying, it could have been anything, we really don’t know. My mother was deformed down there and, well, it caused her all kinds of sadness.”

TheLeedsArcadesProject: “Wow”

Room Guide: “Yes, she had cancer and they had to cut it off, her vagina and all her woman’s bits. She literally had no vagina, just a small hole to, go to the toilet out of. When she was dying I had to wash her in her bed and I can tell you, it was horrifying. It looked awful. Just a little hole for a vagina and all that scar tissue. There was nothing there. She had nothing that a man would want; nobody could do anything with that.”

TheLeedsArcadesProject: “Oh dear”

Room Guide: “It was a terrible shame as she was a very vivacious lady, she had a lot of male friends, even when she was older, but nobody would want that. Her relationships always got to a certain stage and then the men just disappeared. No man would have wanted that, you couldn't do anything with it. Awful, just terrible. She was a lovely woman though”

TheLeedsArcadesProject: “Oh dear, well anyway, we have to get on. On with the Ruskin tour, you know”

Room Guide: “Yes, of course. Terrible it was, just repulsive, just a little hole to go out of. A little hole for a vagina. It startled me, i can tell you. What could you do with that?”

TheLeedsArcadesProject: “OK then, thanks.”

Oriental Striptease

These Playbills from Thornton’s City Varieties show that by the 1950’s the idea of the Oriental female as sexy and exotic was clearly established in British culture.

Mysterious, exotic, gentle and pretty, these are the terms in which the Oriental female is seen within Western culture. This can be seen quite clearly in Hollywood films.

It was Edward Said who coined the term and the discourse known as Orientalism, in 1978. He showed how the Orient has been constructed by, and in relation to the West as a mirror image of what is inferior and alien ("Other"). According to Said, the Oriental man has been seen as feminine and weak, whereas the Oriental woman has been seen as submissive, eager to be dominated and strikingly exotic.

The first 'Orientalists' were 19th century scholars who translated the writings of 'the Orient' into English, based on the assumption that a truly effective colonial conquest required knowledge of the conquered peoples. Flaubert can be seen in this context with his travel writings from the orient and in the novel Salammbô, and the story Herodias, both of which deal with orientalist themes. The 19th century orientalists essentialized the image of the prototypical Oriental women as beautiful, exotic and submissive.

Ruskin, Dodgson, Liddell

John Ruskin was friends with Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898), otherwise known as Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland. Like Ruskin, Dodgson's friendships with young girls, particularly Alice Liddell, the original Alice, have led to speculation that he was, in modern parlance, a pedophile. His interest in photography and his inclination to photograph nude or semi-nude young girls, including Alice, have added further fuel to this speculation.

Alice Liddell was described as a willful and intelligent young girl, with a love of literature, opera, theatre and painting. She was tutored in art by Ruskin himself. Accounts of the time state that Ruskin lent Alice original Turner paintings to copy and that he flirted with her outrageously.

Benjamin gets romantic

A poem by Walter Benjamin

This street is named

Asja Lacis Street

after her who

as an engineer

cut it through the author

Failure No.1

“Failure is lovely and easy”-Willie Donaldson

Walter Benjamin, whilst a child, has just walked to school on a cold, winters morning: “Of course, no sooner had I arrived than, at the touch of my bench, all the weariness that at first seemed dispelled returned with a vengeance. And with it this wish: to be able to sleep my fill. I must have made that wish a thousand times, and later it actually came true. But it was a long time before I recognised its fulfilment in the fact that all my cherished hopes for a position and proper livelihood had been in vain.”
This quote is from Benjamin’s 'Berlin Childhood around 1900', a fragmentary (like much of Benjamin’s work) memoir of his childhood. The book was written in exile and here introduces the sense of failure which is a key element of Benjamin’s character. He could never escape the sense of himself as a failure. Indeed, he was attracted to other failures and wrote extensively on outsiders such as Baudelaire and Kafka. Similarly, TheLeedsArcadesProject is populated by failures: Ruskin, unloved by those he loved, who ended his life a madman; Georgeana Cavendish who died in poverty; Flaubert, who died young and was plagued by ill health; Baudelaire, an alcoholic, drug addict and finally cripple; Kafka who suffered from clinical depression and died from starvation after a throat illness made it too painful for him to eat; and of course, Benjamin himself, Benjamin the failed lover and suicide.
Benjamin wrote several pieces on Kafka, perhaps seeing himself in Kafka's work and life. “To do justice to the figure of Kafka in its purity and its peculiar beauty one must never lose sight of one thing: it is the purity and beauty of a failure. The circumstances of his failure are manifold. One is tempted to say: once he was certain of eventual failure, everything worked out for him en route as in a dream. There is nothing more memorable than the fervour with which Kafka emphasized his failure.” – From Benjamin on Kafka.

City Varieties Playbills 1950's-60's

City Varieties

The Leeds City Varieties was built for Charles Thornton of Thornton's Arcade in 1865 as an adjunct to the White Swan Inn in Swan Street and the interior is largely unaltered to this day. It is a rare surviving example of the Music Halls of the 1850s/1860s.

It was originally known as the White Swan Varieties and the name was subsequently changed to Stansfield's Varieties before becoming the City Palace of Varieties. Charlie Chaplin, Marie Lloyd and Harry Houdini are among artists who have performed there.

Between 1953 and 1983, the theatre achieved national fame as the venue for the BBC television programme The Good Old Days, a recreation of old-time Music Hall.

The City Varieties is also used as a church on Sunday mornings. Gateway Church is a student orientated charismatic evangelical congregation.

Max and Gustave's Adventures in Egypt. Part 2

Gustave in Cairo, 1850. In Nubian costume, photo by Max

From a letter from Flaubert to Louis Bouilhet, 1850:

"On the road from Cairo to Shubra some time ago a young fellow had himself publicly buggered by a large monkey to create a good opinion of himself and make people laugh.

A marabout died a while ago-an idiot-who had long passed as a saint marked by God; all the Moslem women came to see him and masturbated him-in the end he died of exhaustion-from morning to night it was a perpetual jacking-off. Oh Bouilhet, why weren't you that marabout?

Some time ago an ascetic priest used to walk through the streets of Cairo completely naked except for a cap on his head and another on his prick. To piss he would doff the prick-cap, and sterile women who wanted children would run up, put themselves under the parabola of his urine and rub themselves with it.

Goodbye-this morning i had a letter from my mother-she is very sad, poor thing. Talk to her about me."

The Arcades as Utopia Pt. 3

In the mid-19th century, French architect Henri-Jules Borie presented his Air-Buildings (aérodomes) as he called them. These multi-storey buildings would provide more light, more fresh air, more safety and less noise. Borie’s aérodomes built from steel and glass would contain public services like churches and schools. On the sixth floor the front was to recede in order to provide a place for a pedestrian street covered by a glass roof that went around the whole building (an Arcade) and on the same floor all buildings were linked to one another by pedestrian bridges thus offering a secure network of pedestrian ways. Vertical transport within the building was provided by lifts.

Ruskin's Sexuality

Ruskin's sexuality has certainly become a controversial topic of debate:-

• In later life he lived on terms of sentimental intimacy with the entire girls' school of Winnington. On his visits, there were romps and ogling’s, toyings and teasings all conducted with perfect candour under the benevolent eye of the headmistress.
• There are also letters from Ruskin to Kate Greenaway, in which he repeatedly asks her to draw her "girlies" without clothing.
• In 1887, aged 70, Ruskin fell in love and proposed to another young teenager, Kate Olander. His writing to her again was from the groin rather than the heart. "I was lying awake last night and planned what you can wear around your neck...it is to be finest and purest chain of Venice. No gold is so pure and they make the links so small it looks like the white of Avanel's girdle. But I'm going to have it seven times round; rather tight for a necklace to show what a perfectly chained and submissive child you are; so mind you send me the measure carefully, just above the shoulders."

The Arcades as Utopia. Pt 2

In 1869, the Parisian social reformer Tony Moilin wrote an early Science Fiction novel, “Paris en l’an 2000”, (Paris in the Year 2000), in which he suggested the building of pedestrian arcades on the first floor of each building, forming an uninterrupted, enclosed pedestrian network throughout the city. Even wide boulevards, squares and bridges should form a part of this network.

I am a d*ck

Why am I such a d*ck? What happened to me to turn me into such a c*ck? A few years ago I was not like this. I would not have behaved the way I do now. What is wrong with me that I think I am right and the rest of the world is wrong? I can still remember how I used to enjoy listening to other people and believed I would learn something from them.

An example of my sheer d*ckishness can be found when I recently visited Thornton’s Arcade to take some photographs of the array of shop fronts. As I photographed “Hip: Female” (you can see the photo above), I could see the shop assistant watching me. After a little while she came out to ask me what I was doing? A lovely girl, I don’t believe she was being confrontational, just curious. But, ever the d*ck, I chose to take it the wrong way, and rather than explain myself politely, I was patronising and superior and chose to offer her no real explanation and then walk off, leaving her confused. I think that in that moment I had some kind of, “whatever I am doing, is so much more important than whatever anyone else is doing” idea about me.

What a d*ck.

Charles Thornton

Thornton's Arcade was built in 1877 for Charles Thornton (1820-1881). Very little is known about Thornton, he was the owner of the Old White Swan Inn on Swan Street, which was to become the City Varieties Music Hall. Thornton rebuilt the singing room of the Old White Swan Inn to a design by George Smith, and opened it in 1865 as 'Thornton's New Music Hall and Fashionable Lounge.' The enlarged building probably had one balcony, and held around 2000 people. A contemporary report says "billiards and supper rooms were attached, and the place was noted for its attentive waiters". Over time it was expanded to become the Music Hall that we know today. It was a popular attraction for "the elite of Leeds" and admitted women for free "if they are accompanied by a gentleman".

Thornton's music hall was a great success, and other inns followed his example, and opened their own concert rooms. The Princess Palace Music Hall, newly refurbished, opened in 1874. In the face of all this competition, Thornton decided to give up the licensing trade, and put the White Swan up for auction in 1876. It did not reach its reserve price, and the sale was withdrawn. Thornton leased the White Swan to John Stansfield, and used the proceeds to build Thornton's Arcade.

In response to the wealthy middle classes' demand for a place to shop undercover for luxury goods, Thornton demolished the Old Talbot Inn on Briggate to build his arcade. The Talbot was one of the oldest inns in Leeds. Thoresby writing in 1715, describes frescoes painted on the walls of a room in the Inn. The Inn was used for cockfighting, and in the 17th century was where the circuit judge stayed when he was in Leeds.

Thornton still owned the Music Hall and Thornton’s Arcade when he died in 1881. Ownership passed to his daughter, Mrs. Addyman.

Thornton's Arcade, The Ivanhoe Clock, Pt.2

The Ivanhoe Clock had to be stopped after two weeks of its initial installation as it was so popular that large crowds were gathering to watch its performances and were hampering trade.