Two posts about Fertility

Bacteriagrl, whose generosity and holiday arrangements are enabling me to explore the wilds of suburbia and post vaguely rude things about it, on strange theologico-sexual phenomena among komodo dragons. 'In terms of a general evolutionary strategy, one might say that it's better to have sex with yourself and risk some serious inbreeding, than die off completely.'



So, then, to the hauntological attempt in music to create something new without actually being involved in any sort of cultural er, conception. The Impostume, prior to getting all satirical on our collective arse, asks some intriguing questions about the hauntological 'canon' (which I guess is fairly established as Ghost Box/Mordant Music/Broadcast/Trunk, plus Ariel Pink, The Caretaker, Burial) and the generally morbid, moribund crepuscular forms it takes: 'After all, it’s not about ghosts right? It’s about opening up a breathing space within Po-mo. It’s a lunge for freedom, it's a call to arms. Shouldn’t the music quicken the pulse a little more, as much as the theory does, at least?'



While this doesn't seem entirely fair- there are moments of real, heartstopping beauty in all of the above, shaking off all the dust and murk- there's an argument here that's worth a response. I guess the main point is that there isn't much room for life in a music about awakening the dead, yet the lack of affirmation is curious. Perhaps the interesting thing here is that this conflicts with a relentlessly affirmative general culture, restoring in however oblique a manner what k-p called 'nihilation' a while ago (though I'd maintain he used this term solely to avoid the oh-no-Hegelian connotations of 'negation', with the possibility of the negation of the negation). When it has become affirmative (which perhaps is as good an idea as Carl makes it sound) it wouldn't be hauntological any more, as its purpose would be served, the mourning it marks out over and completed. But then on the other hand isn't the uncanny, Frankenstein-like undeadness of hauntology, and its lack of blood and life kind of its very essence? Incidentally, perhaps something like The Mover and his ilk offer a hauntology you could dance and/or headbang to... ('Skeletons March' indeed). Intriguing point on the Manic Street Preachers also, in their perennial position of interesting ideas, shame about the music; I should have added to the 'forthcoming' list a defensive confessional thing called I Was a Teenage Manics Fan.