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What if Grant Morrison had posted THAT on Barbelith?

Glenn Close But No Cigar

17:14 / 17.04.07

A simple idea: we take quotes from GM's various interviews, and imagine what response they might have got if posted to the 'lith by an anonymous user. Will we learn something about Grant? Will we learn something about ourselves? Posting this in Conversation 'cause of its lighthearted intent, but mods please feel free to move to comics / wherever if it's not quite at home here.

To kick things off, this from GM's website, in the wake of 9/11

"It's been very strange these last few days to watch what I can only identify as the incoming 'Horus' current, ripping through our certainties and complacencies with the force of a twin-engined Rolls Royce jet. I'm almost sorry now I had the pop avatar of this ancient Middle Eastern deity write 'FUCK YOU' across Manhattan in flaming letters this time last year".

18:44 / 17.04.07

Horus current? It is so weird I was just thinking about this about 5 minutes ago.

19:27 / 17.04.07

"Almost sorry"?

Dickwad.

Move to ban?

19:41 / 17.04.07

What my mid-nineties literary hero meant to say...

Shiny: Well Over Thirty

19:51 / 17.04.07

I think i'd have mocked it as it deserves. But at the same time some secret, strange part of me might have been mocking him just because that way I could get to interact with him. Sometimes I think I should have special medicine just to keep that part of my very quite.

19:56 / 17.04.07

Oh come on, Marvel Boy was a joyful romp.

Regrettable Juvenilia

20:14 / 17.04.07

If Grant Morrison or an anonymous newbie had started this thread, I would have gently tried to suggest that it was an ill-advised idea that would probably end badly.

I give the same advice now.

20:18 / 17.04.07

Sorry if I'm being dense....

What's the point of this thread, again? Has it sprung up from something elsewhere that I've missed?

It's just that, well, if Barbelith actually is, as has been generally stated and mostways accepted, an entity quite seperate from Grant and his work for a good while now, I don't see how this would be any more enlightening than, say, what if Jimmy Nail had posted THAT on Barbelith.

Now I don't always agree that Barbelith is quite as seperate from the man and his work as it often thinks and I don't want to sound snarky, but I genuinely am a bit puzzled by this.

Is it just an off-the-cuff well-intentioned thing, or is it one of those idiosyncratic bits of parent-killage it likes to go through every so often?

20:20 / 17.04.07

On a visit to the Cuban National Ballet, I happened to mention the idea of Oz having a fling with one of the leading dancers and Dick and Ian picked up on it. It turned into one of the show's main themes, but thankfully I wasn't required to don pumps.

20:22 / 17.04.07

Freud thought the murdered father ended up becoming God.
Bollocks, obviously, but I like Oedipus.

Shiny: Well Over Thirty

20:28 / 17.04.07

Y'Know, I think in some ways it's a shame. On a board as intelligent as this one there probably would be some fascinating conversation that could be had about the dissonance between the fantastic stuff that comes out of Morrison'd brain when he's writing comic books and some of the fantastically awful stuff that comes out of it when he's not. But what with the complexity of the board's relationship with the man it probably couldn't actually be had properly on this board.

20:29 / 17.04.07

I like red wine because it's more sophisticated, more complex and mature. It's a bit like me, no longer young but not old yet either.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

20:42 / 17.04.07

Shiny, Shiny, Shi-- sorry, I got distracted: Y'Know, I think in some ways it's a shame. On a board as intelligent as this one there probably would be some fascinating conversation that could be had about the dissonance between the fantastic stuff that comes out of Morrison'd brain when he's writing comic books and some of the fantastically awful stuff that comes out of it when he's not.

He's like any comic book writer or artist, or novelist, short story writer, "man of letters," et cetera. Some is very good, some is decent, some is bad. He's very good at hype, but I think that's partly showmanship and partly a very public demonstration of his creative process (he has big ideas...and sometimes they make it into the final product).

I often get frustrated that segments of the board feel the need to mock him as a way of distancing themselves, instead of just going and talking about something else while the people who want to talk about him (or a particular thing he's done/said) go off and do that. And I don't see why you can't belong to both groups.

21:44 / 17.04.07

STRONG TRUTH.

ONLY NICE THINGS

21:55 / 17.04.07

I often get frustrated that segments of the board feel the need to mock him as a way of distancing themselves

Examples? Are you counting this thread as part of that school? I think it can be taken a number of ways.

Otherwise, all this stuff about killing the father aside, I think most of us don't have a terribly complicated relationship with the man; many of us like and like to discuss comics produced by him. There are a small number of people who know him personally or professionally, a fair number of people with no interest in him and/or his work, and about a dozen swingballers who will leap to defend him from any slight, real or imagined, sometimes believe that they are able to read his mind or anticipate his desires, at the very least hope that their loyal service will be in some way rewarded and often do not appear to trouble actually to read threads before getting involved with them. This is a kind of low-level trolling, annoying primarily because it tends to clog threads up with posts of very low quality or relevance.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

22:10 / 17.04.07

Can't think of any examples off the top of my head, sorry, and I'm not sure how I'd view this thread in regard to that. It's dicey and I think I stand by Flyboy's assessment that it's perhaps not the wisest subject matter for a thread. The feeling mostly crops up as more of an undercurrent.

I'm not sure who the "swingballers" are, in particular (I rather hope I'm not one).

ONLY NICE THINGS

22:31 / 17.04.07

Undercurrents are very convenient things, but I don't think they can be taken as read, or as writ, without substantiation. This is where "I feel" statements might be useful.

22:36 / 17.04.07

I'd say both of you have a point, but isn't it a little odd to ask Papers to provide examples of a group that he identifies, while not doing the same for those that you do?

Not sure I'd label the swingball behaviours as low-level trolling though. The situation, while definitely a recognisably Barbelithian one, counts for such a small subset of the board traffic that it's barely even a blip, large dustups notwithstanding.

To be honest, I think we've all been guilty of clogging threads with posts of low relevance, given the right circumstances.

ONLY NICE THINGS

22:44 / 17.04.07

I'd say both of you have a point, but isn't it a little odd to ask Papers to provide examples of a group that he identifies, while not doing the same for those that you do?

Nobody had asked. Would you like examples?

22:46 / 17.04.07

Not fussed either way.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

22:49 / 17.04.07

Who's Jimmy Nail, anyway? Oh.

23:04 / 17.04.07

I think Flyboy was right. I also think that if GM posted here as an anonymous n00b he might skew his writing toward his audience. He might be a good enough writer to realise that pronouncing from on high as is fitting in an interview might betray his anonymous persona on a messageboard with some rabid fans.
I'm happy to criticise the man but I really don't feel this patricide thing. I thought epop closed the connections? That's that, isn't it? Now we just talk about A*S and batman as though they're normal comics by a human being?

ONLY NICE THINGS

23:26 / 17.04.07

Ah, well, iamus, in that case you probably have your answer. I was working on the assumption that anyone who felt that I was misrepresenting the situation and was sufficiently motivated to request clarification could do so. I don't currently get the same undercurrents Papers has identified, and I'd like to get the gist of his position, so I asked for clarification. I imagine that either readers feel satisfied that the trends I observed have been satisfactorily exemplified in the past, or they, as you, are not that bothered. Thanks for bringing that up, though - it's a good question, and worth looking into in more detail.

01:59 / 18.04.07

Well I can think of nothing more pleasant than a delightful afternoon playing swingball with Grant in the grounds of his secluded Scottish country estate.

He would be wearing cut-off Levis and a box-fresh white Fred Perry with the logo burned off in an acid bath (of course!) then replaced by a sigil, and I would be wearing my father's wedding dress, as usual.

The cocktails, scared mushrooms and other kit would arrive on a tray on the back of one of Grant's trained flamingos, or swans, or vultures, and for the whole blissful afternoon it would seem as if Grant and I had all the time in the world, because she was too busy answering his e-mails.

If that makes me a part of the so-called swingball set, so be it!

I'm not ashamed.

*

05:26 / 18.04.07

scared mushrooms

Glenn Close But No Cigar

10:42 / 18.04.07

To clarify, this wasn't intended to be a 'father killing' thread at all, but as a light-hearted parlour game in which 'lithers are invited to quote and analyse gobbets from Morrison interviews as though they were posts on this message board, made by an anonymous member (and not, as some people have assumed upthread, GM posing as an anonyomus member). While I take iamus' point about Jimmy Nail, the fact remains that Barbelith is not a site that began its life as an adjunct to an online project dedicated to annontating 'Crocodile Shoes', which is perhaps a shame, especially as it's clear from a close reading of the series that Jed Sheppard was a thinly veiled homage to Jerry Cornelius.

Apologies, then, if the intention of this thread was unclear. Maybe it's not a terribly good parlour game after all. At least, though, we have had a peek inside Alex's Grandma's senescent Hello!-meets-Wizard fantasy life, and for that at least we should be grateful.

The Natural Way

14:27 / 18.04.07

I think we grumbled about the intitial quote at the time, Bees. Most people thought it was dickish. Contentious/potentially offensive Grantisms have always been kicked around here.

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

16:59 / 18.04.07

You people just don't know how to process metaphor.

Glenn Close But No Cigar

18:20 / 18.04.07

I can, and so can I.

18:45 / 18.04.07

In memory of Ganesh, who has passed on to a better place, I feel honour-bound to spoil the joke and point out that schizophrenia is not the same thing as dissociative identity disorder.

Janean Patience

19:51 / 18.04.07

Yeah, but Grant doesn't know that.

21:18 / 18.04.07

I think we grumbled about the intitial quote at the time, Bees. Most people thought it was dickish.

On the other hand though, marryapige, you seem to think there's something amusing about getting wed.

Believe me, there is nothing funny about it.

Listlessly administering to Albert's desires, for all those years, when the man I really wanted was Rock Hudson ...

Oh well, you just suck it up, I supoose.

You have to.

Glenn Close But No Cigar

21:27 / 18.04.07

Yeah, but Grant doesn't know that.

My point exactly...

21:28 / 18.04.07

Y'know, that initial quote has never really bothered me? I mean 'almost sorry'... alright. I wouldn't be. Fuck it, it was just fiction. If Morrison flew a plane into a building he could be effectively sorry then, and it might mean something. If he wanted or wished for someone to hit a building and kill a bunch of people, then, too, the feeling sorry might have some weight. But feeling sorry because something fictional (which is clearly in-story avoiding killing anyone, anyway) is... well, it's not offensive, at least.

22:30 / 18.04.07

While I take iamus' point about Jimmy Nail

Can I just say, I love the fact that I actually had a point about Jimmy Nail.

Not for the inherent pun. Just for the fact of it.

I don't really have a problem with the thread per se. Regardless of the initial intentions, I'm just thinking along the same lines as Flyboy. Given the precedent hereabouts, it might not go so well. It tends to bring out the sorts of opinions in posters that both Papers and Haus have commented on (I've certainly recognised all of these on Barbelith before. Whether that means they're all actually there or not is a different matter).

The patricide element comes from the fact that this is a web-board that's grown out of these recognised roots. So it's either a thread about measuring up against that.... or it's a thread about Jimmy Nail.

I do think that the initial quote seems to have been picked to be a bit contentious though.

But to be honest, I've never really gotten the impression that a lot of that website writing was meant to be taken at face value. It's all wrapped up in a post-invisibles fiction zeitgeist, very much from the POV of a character who exemplifies that kind of revolutionary current. It works in and of itself and tends to collapse when you put a bit of light on it. I really don't think it's anything that was meant to last past the following tuesday, but I could be wrong.

Still.

Granny.

Handbags at dawn.