The Snigger and Other Noises

 Posted by at 4:40 pm  Anti-Gravity Surgery  Comments Off
Aug 242013
 

 

 

Vagrants 1929 by August Sander 1876-1964

 

Raising a profile might mean making a noise; startling others with irrelevant and irreverent intrusions into the conversation. Show us your profile! Which face should I show? And which side of a face should I show? But of course it might turn out that my efforts to control what is actually seen by others is doomed from the start by chance sightings and naughty snappings.

The herd of Jersey cows move off. Those still lying, chewing the cud, enjoying a herdy sort of natter, laboriously push themselves up with seeming reluctance and follow the early movers. The wind, coming from the south or south-east, plays with the grass and cools the air. I sit cross-legged at the top of a field overlooking the valley and its river. Low tide. And I recollect my current task of clearing out the stuff – excess furniture, excess books, excess kitchen equipment – all stuff that was once part of a hopeful future and now lies damp and dusty. How tempting it is to think of the simplicity of the large open gob of a skip in which to pour it. That’s it, take it all way.

Where does the snigger come in? Am I drunk? In collusion with some anti-group? Are you serious? For a moment I am convinced of their seriousness and believe that, yes, they are truly committed . . . but then these are over privileged, over entitled white European males, borrowing a form of thinking, an ideology based on being in a defined group that has long been oppressed.

What do you mean, what are you trying to get at, are you feeling a bit lost? Losing your sense of power and entitlement? Surely not.

Here comes the snigger, even though I thought for a moment that I had it under control and no way was I going to snigger or chortle. What about a full laugh, a whole body laugh, shaking the system? Loosening the apparatus of suppression. We do know that life is a tragic comedy, a comic tragedy. We do know that many of those in positions of power would rather destroy the world than give up their entitlement. Do you know something, that begins to sound like an addiction.

So if it’s a choice between a snigger or suicide let’s choose the snigger.

The headline in the Guardian this morning: ‘Warning over data meltdown: Limits of human control exceeded – experts’.

And in London the Met have a team of ‘super recognisers’ who will be on the lookout for known troublemakers at the Notting Hill Carnival.

And as Bradley Manning has decided to live as a woman, the Guardian asks ‘What kind of treatment can Chelsea expect in prison?’ Actually that is just what I thought when I saw the news, that Bradley is now Chelsea, yesterday. As though he tried to enter the conversation and the slap down was so strong that on top of the challenges of his young life he fled straight out of the conversation.

As you said, we come back to the long conversation. To which in addition to actual words we shall have to include all sorts of odd sounds like, sniggering and snorting, sneering and even singing.