Case 123

Here we have a fetish which is wholly benign, strangely poetic, and really, to be envied.

“B., thirty years of age, apparently untainted, refined and sensitive; great lover of flowers; liked to kiss them, but without any sensual motive or sensual excitement; of a rather frigid nature; before twenty-one did not practice masturbation, and subsequently only for periods of time. At twenty-one he was introduced to a young lady who wore some large roses on her bosom. Since then large roses had dominated his sexual feelings. He incessantly bought roses; kissing them would produce erection. He took roses to bed with him, although he never touched his genitals with them. His pollutions, henceforth, were accompanied by dreams of roses. He dreamt of roses that had fairy-like beauty; when he inhaled their fragrance, he ejaculated.”

Ah yes. Imagine if it were all so simple… You could work at a flower shop, with the ultimate goal of one day gaining employment at some fine botanical gardens somewhere, and at night you could return home to do a little “tending” to your own prized rose bushes.

Case 88

Here we have a story full of pathos, sweaty gymnasiums, fetishistic desire, odd naiveté, brash artistic license, chance encounters, arrests, and ultimately, as with so many human dramas, failure. And all this encapsulated in one very dry, very short, clinical paragraph. 

“X., aged thirty four, teacher in the gymnasium. In childhood he suffered from convulsions. At age ten he began to masturbate, with lustful feelings, which were connected with very strange ideas. He was particularly partial to women’s eyes; but because he wished to imagine some form of coitus, and was absolutely innocent in sexual matters, he evolved the idea of making the nostrils the seat of the female sexual organs in order to avoid too great a separation from the eyes. His vivid sexual desires then revolved around this idea. He sketched drawings representing correct greek profiles of female heads, but the nostrils were so large that insertion of the penis would have been possible. One day, in an omnibus, he saw a girl in whom he thought he recognized his ideal. He followed her to her home and immediately proposed to her. Shown the door, he returned again and again, until arrested. X never had sexual intercourse.”

So tragic. Nose-craving, eye-adoring, virgin man, we feel your pain… As an afterward to this case the Richard Von Krafft-Ebing M.D. offers us this little nugget :

“Nose fetishism is seldom encountered. The following rare bit of poetry comes to me from England-

O sweet and pretty little nose, so charming unto me;
O were I but the sweetest rose, I’d give my scent to thee.
O make it full with honey sweet, that I may suck it all;
T’would be for me the greatest treat, a real festival.
How sweet and how nutritious your darling nose does seem.
It would be more delicious, than strawberries and cream.”

Uh… Yeah.

Case 98

Here we have a case which, by today’s standards, hardly seems deviant at all, more like a pilot script for a sitcom. It’s marital bliss… with a tiny catch!

“A lady told Dr. Gemy that on her wedding night and the night that followed, her husband contented himself with kissing her, and running his fingers through her wealth of tresses. He then fell asleep. On the third night, Mr. X. produced an immense wig, with abundant long hair, and begged his wife to put it on. As soon as she had done so, he richly compensated her for his neglected marital duties. In the morning he again showed extreme tenderness while he caressed the wig. When Mrs X. removed the wig, she at once lost all charm to her husband. Mrs X. recognized this as a hobby, and readily yielded to the wishes of her husband, whom she loved dearly, and whose libido depended upon the wearing of the wig. It was remarkable, however, that a particular wig had the desired effect for only a fortnight or three weeks time. It had to be made of thick, long hair, but its color was unimportant. The result of this marriage, after five years, was two children and a collection of seventy two wigs.”

Comming this fall to FOX. Wiggin’ Out! “Married life can be a hairy sittuation!” Filmed in front of a live studio audience.

Case 99

Here we have a variation on the theme of the previous case.

“X., aged twenty, inverted sexually. Only loved men with large bushy mustaches. One day he met a man who was his ideal. He invited him to his home, but was unspeakably disappointed when the man removed an artificial mustache. Only when the visitor returned the ornament to his upper lip did he exercise his charm over X. once more and restored X. to complete virility.”

Ah yes, those dreaded artificial mustaches! X. must have been quite disappointed. I mean what are the odds of a man with a mustache-fetish just happening to pick up a man with a fake mustache?! Of course, if an artificial stache was good enough to fool X’s “sexually inverted” senses, why didn’t he just carry a nice bushy one around in his pocket (b.y.o.m.)? Hell, why not buy an artificial mustache factory and get to work Tom Sellecking the world? Crazy bastards, we humans. 

Case 225

Here we have a case which falls under the “theft dependent on fetishism” heading. By way of lead in Krafft-Ebing offers the following- Pathological fetishism may become the cause of crimes. As such hair despoiling, robbery or theft of women’s linen, handkerchiefs, aprons, shoes, and silks are now recognized (as crimes). It cannot be doubted that such individuals are the subject of deep mental taint…

“P., laborer, aged twenty nine. Family heavily tainted. Emotional, irritable; had masturbated since childhood. At ten years old saw a boy masturbate into a woman’s handkerchief. This gave direction to P’s sex life. He stole handkerchiefs from pretty girls and masturbated into them. His mother tried every means to break him of this habit. She admonished him, took the stolen handkerchiefs away and bought him new ones, all in vain. He was caught by the police and punished for theft. He then went to Africa and served in the army with an excellent record. On his return to France he resumed his old practices. He was only potent if a prostitute held a white handkerchief in her hand during the act. He married in 1894 and sustained his virility by grasping a handkerchief during coitus.

The fetishistic crisis always came suddenly, like a paroxysm, especially at moments of laziness. He would feel out of sorts, psychically moody, sexually excited, and impelled to masturbate. Soon the fantasy image of a handkerchief would appear and take full possession of his thoughts and feelings. If he then caught sight of a woman’s handkerchief he would choke with fear, palpitation of the heart would set in, he would tremble, and profuse perspiration would break out all over his body. Although conscious of the risk involved, he was irresistibly forced to steal the handkerchief. He was arrested on one such occasion, but the examining physician declared him irresponsible. During the time of detention he was free of his obsession. He hoped to master his weakness in the future. He estimated that he had stolen one hundred handkerchiefs. He used each handkerchief only once, then threw it away.”

He used each handkerchief only once, then threw it away? Stingy uncaring bastard! Didn’t he realize there were men even worse off than he who could only attain potency when wrapping their members in stolen women’s handkerchiefs which had already been ejaculated into by loony ex-cons who’d served with the army in Africa and whose names began with the letter P?!

Case 116

Here we have a case filed under the “pathological erotic fetishism” heading-

“L, aged thirty seven, clerk, from a tainted family. At five years old, he had his first erection when he saw his bedfellow -an aged relative- put on his nightcap. The same thing occurred later when he saw an old servant put on her nightcap. Later, simply the idea of an old ugly woman’s head covered with a nightcap, was sufficient to cause an erection. The sight of a cap, or a naked woman or man alone made no impression, but the mere touch of a nightcap induced erection, and sometimes even ejaculation. L. was not a masturbator, and had never been sexually active until his thirty second year, when he married a young girl with whom he had fallen in love. On his wedding night he remained cold until, from necessity, he brought to his aid the memory-picture of an ugly woman’s head with a nightcap. Coitus was immediately successful. Thereafter it was always necessary for him to use this method. From childhood he had been subject to attacks of depression, with suicidal tendencies, and occasional frightful hallucinations at night. When looking out a window he became dizzy and anxious. He was a perverse, peculiar, and easily embarrassed man of bad mental constitution.

In this very peculiar case, the simultaneous coincidence of the first sexual reference and an absolutely heterogeneous impression seems to have determined association.

A related case of accidental associative fetishism which is quite peculiar, is that of a married man, aged thirty, who in other respects, was physically and mentally healthy, who is said to have suddenly lost his sexual power after moving into another house, and to have regained it as soon as the furniture of the bedroom had been arranged as before.”

I must say that the thought our sexual proclivities are so radically influenced by the random occurrences of early childhood is horrific. Perhaps it’s a good thing that the internet serves up every manner of sexual fodder to the youngsters. Better to see straight away that there is a whole universe of degradation and kink and perversity to explore, and grow bored of, than getting obsessively fixated on your grandma’s bunions or a playmate’s soiled diaper or whatever. Sheesh.

Case 95

Here we have a case in which a gentleman named Z struggles mightily with a very “particular” fetish.

“Z., gentleman, family tainted. Even in early childhood he always felt great sympathy with the lame and crippled. He used to limp about the room on two brooms in lieu of crutches or, when observed, go limping about the streets: at the same time, however, no sexual significance was coupled with the idea. Gradually, the thought supervened that he would like “as a pretty lame child” to meet a pretty girl who would express sympathy for his affliction. Sympathy from men he disdained. Z. was brought up in a rich man’s house by a private tutor, and claimed that up to his twentieth year he was unaware of the differences between sexes. His feelings were confined to the idea of being pitied by a pretty girl for being lame, or extending the same sympathy to a lame girl himself. Gradually, erotic emotions associated themselves with this fantasy and at the age of twenty he succumbed to temptation and masturbated for the first time. From then on he practiced this act often. Sexual neurasthenia supervened and an irritable weakness took hold of him, to such an extent that the very sight of a girl with a halting gait induced ejaculation.

When masturbating, or in his erotic dreams, the idea of the limping girls was always the controlling element. The personality of the limping girl was a matter of indifference to Z., his interest being solely centered on the limping foot. He never had coitus with a girl thus afflicted. He never had the inclination for it and did not think he could be potent under the circumstances. His perverse fantasies revolved only around masturbating against the foot of a lame female. At times he anchored his hope on the thought that he might succeed in winning and marrying a chaste lame girl; that, because of his love for her, she would take pity on him and free him of his crime by ‘transferring his love from the sole of her foot to the root of her soul.’ He sought deliverance in this thought. His present existence was one of untold misery.”

Happy story that. Though if you change a few of the words here and there sounds like it could be any average 21st century guy-

The personality of the girl was a matter of indifference to Z., his interest being solely centered on her [fill in blank].

See what I mean?

I must say also, in regards to this case, that the sentence “transferring his love from the sole of her foot to the root of her soul,” words which had surely never been laid down in exactly that order, in any language, before this book’s publication, is worth the price of admission all by itself.

(The thumbnail was adapted from an image on Susan Hagen’s wood carvings page.)

Case 96

Here we have a variation on the theme of the previous case.

“Mr. V., aged thirty, civil servant; parents neuropathic. From the age of seven he had, for many years, a lame girl of the same age as a playmate. At the age of twelve, nervously disposed and heterosexually inclined, the boy began to masturbate spontaneously. At that time puberty set in, and undoubtedly the first sexual emotions toward the other sex coincided with the sight of a lame girl. Subsequently only limping women excited him sexually. His fetish was a pretty lady who, like the companion of his childhood, limped with the left foot. Always heterosexual, but abnormally sensual, he promptly sought relations with the opposite sex, but was absolutely impotent with women who were not lame. Virility and gratification were most strongly elicited if the prostitute limped with the left foot, but he was also successful if the lameness was on the right foot. Due to his fetishism, the opportunities for coitus seldom occurred, so he resorted to masturbation, but found it a disgusting and miserable substitute. His sexual anomaly rendered him very unhappy, and he was often close to committing suicide, but regard for his parents prevented him. This moral affliction culminated in the desire for marriage with a sympathetic lame lady. Unfortunately, because he could not love the soul of such a wife, but only her defect of lameness, he considered such a union a profanation of matrimony and an unbearable, ignoble existence. On this account he had often thought of resignation and castration.”

I can’t help but be in awe of this sentence in particular- “Virility and gratification were most strongly elicited if the prostitute limped with the left foot, but he was also successful if the lameness was on the right foot.” The analytical and scientific thoroughness of our tortured and miserable Mr. V. for being thoughtful enough to test this particular hypothesis is brilliant. “Please try limping on your right foot now Ms. Prostitute… in the interest of science of course.”

As to the case in particular- Poor Mr. V., the silly bastard. Not too bright was he? Any self respecting man of the 19th Century would have married a nice perfectly “intact” girl and then paid a carriage driver to run over her foot just before they made it to the honeymoon suite. Castration? Uh, I think not.

-

So there you have it. A tiny porthole into the steamy underpants of the 19th century. Hope you enjoyed.

Evidently in 2006 Kino released a film which dramatizes many of the cases in Psychopathia Sexualis, though judging by the trailers they focussed on much of the darker material.

Note: This post was one in a series of reworkings of old posts which date from before the redesign of The Nonist. The text has been combined from 6 prior posts and reworked. The images are also updated. I will be periodically adding these reworkings into the flow of new content in an effort to eventually remove all the old pages from circulation.

Prior to this discovery a reliable blue pigment was evidently a huge pain in the ass to make, most being rare and expensive or weak and unstable, in as much artists and dyers largely shied away from blue.

Quote: “It’s hard to imagine now, given the range of stable, lightfast colors we can buy, that in the early eighteenth century artists didn’t have an affordable or stable blue to use. Ultramarine, which is extracted from the stone lapis lazuli, was more expensive than vermilion and even gold. (In the Middle Ages, there was only one known source of lapis lazuli, which means simply ‘blue stone’. This was Badakshan, in what is now Afghanistan. Other deposits have subsequently been found in Chile and Siberia). Indigo had a tendency to turn black, was not lightfast, and had a greenish tinge. Azurite turned green when mixed with water so couldn’t be used for frescoes. Smalt was difficult to work with and had a tendency to fade. And not enough was yet known about the chemical properties of copper to consistently create a blue instead of a green.”

In 1842 British astronomer and photographer Sir John Herschel developed a cyanotyping process using Prussian Blue. It was then the only low cost process available for copying drawings. We know the resulting blue prints better as… well… blueprints.

Beyond these matters of interest to brush and pen wielders it seems Prussian Blue is actually an all around fascinating compound “extensively studied by inorganic chemists and solid-state physicists because of its unusual properties.”

For example it is electrochromic, it undergoes intervalence charge transfer, and when treated with acids the tightly bound cyanide groups of its structure can yield the delightful hydrogen cyanide– the colorless, extremely poisonous, and highly volatile liquid that boils slightly above room temperature and, famously, smells of almonds.

Also of interest, in 2006 a couple of Polish chemists were able to construct “logic gates” out of Prussian Blue.

Quote: “Konrad Szacilowski and colleagues at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow have made chemical switches out of titanium dioxide and Prussian blue, which are both commonly used paint pigments. The switches can replicate the basic logical operations in digital circuits. In addition, their behaviour can be altered by shining light on them, allowing direct input of signals from optical fibres.”

What can’t be made into a computer (or a means of digital storage) now-a-days?

Lastly, and somehow the most fascinating to me, is the following fact:

Prussian Blue can remove certain radioactive materials from people’s bodies.

Quote: “Since the 1960s, Prussian blue has been used to treat people who have been internally contaminated with radioactive cesium (mainly Cs-137) and nonradioactive thallium (once an ingredient in rat poisons). Doctors can prescribe Prussian blue at any point after they have determined that a person who is internally contaminated would benefit from treatment. Prussian blue will help speed up the removal of cesium and thallium from the body.”

Or as a 2003 AP story puts it: “The paint pigment Prussian blue could be used to protect citizens from radiation if terrorists stage a so-called “dirty bomb” attack. At present potassium iodide is the only commonly available medication for protection against radiation, although it only helps to protect the thyroid gland from radioactive iodine, and offers no protection to other parts of the body. However, Prussian blue binds to radioactive chemicals in the gut, thus meaning that the radioactivity is eliminated instead of being absorbed by the body. According to the FDA, the pigment reduces the time the body is contaminated after exposure by half.”

Boom!

Er… I mean, Neat!

Course, even with all this historical spice to recommend it, good ol’ Prussian Blue just wasn’t good enough for some people!

Royalty, loving their amusements and clever gadgets of exotic origin, had to have carousels of their own and contrived to have some small versions built for them in their private gardens. Here contests centered around the carousels were held among the court and those Chatty Cathies were so delighted this “secret training device” soon became a popular entertainment.

Quote: The contests were tests of dexterity and equestrian skill involving the tossing of fragile perfumed clay balls from one rider to another. The object of the game was to deftly catch the delicate balls to avoid the unmanly mark of the loser — a bath of sweetly scented fragrance (which reportedly lasted for days).

The popular games spread to France; and, by the sixteenth century, they had expanded into lavish tournaments of pageantry and drama called Carrousels. Designers, wigmakers, seamstresses and artisans of the court spent months preparing elaborate costumes and decorations for these spectacles. Le Grande Carrousel, the most celebrated of all Carrousels, was planned by Louis XIV in 1662, to impress his young mistress, Louise de la Valliere. Cheered by thousands and heralded by choirs and trumpet fanfares, quadrilles of cavaliers demonstrated their equestrian talents as allegorical dances and scenic displays were performed.

In the late seventeenth century, young French noblemen, astride legless wooden ‘horses’, trained for spearing contests by lancing rings as they rode around a center pole. This training device appears to be the forerunner of our present day carousel and its game of ‘catching the brass ring.’ As the ride evolved into a popular form of entertainment, French peasants paid to ride crudely constructed carousels, while the aristocracy circled in elegant seats resembling fancy chariots, bicycles, or boats.

Until the late nineteenth century, rotation power was supplied by a horse, mule, or man pushing, pulling, or cranking the mechanism. The amusement flourished in England, and it was there that the invention of steam as a motive power revolutionized the development of the carousel.”

-Charlotte Dinger, from Art of the Carousel as reprinted in FMR magazine, 1991.

The carousel proved an extremely popular part of local fairs and circuses all over industrialized Europe, and eventually America (where, thanks to an influx of skilled European carvers, the form reached its pinnacle). In as much the device went by many names. Quote: From caroussels and maneges de chevaux de bois in France to the United Kingdom where they were called roundabouts, gallopers, and tilts. In the Netherlands they were called stoomcaroussels and torneos in Italy while in Germany they called them karussels. By the time they reached the United States they were being called everything from flying horses to carousels, whirligigs and steam riding galleries, carry-us-alls and flying and Spinning Jennies, not to mention hobby horses, and, of course, merry-go-rounds.”

In Europe carousel figures took on a dizzying array of shapes and styles. There were pigs, ostriches, roosters, elephants, chariots, dragons, lions, dogs, cats, warhorses, sea horses, mermaids, fish, centaurs, camels, and on and on. In America it seems the classic horse was the vastly preferred form, perhaps owing to a fondness for our own “wild west” legends or perhaps because even then our children were coddled imaginationless little twerps, and carousel owners didn’t want to scare away the customers.

One side of carousel animals was generally more elaborately carved and decorated than the other. The side facing outward, which was called the “romance side.” On American carousel animals this is the right side because our carousels always move in a counter-clockwise direction, where as English roundabout horses move clockwise.

A few more design tidbits are as follows:

Quote: “The fast-moving platform provided a forward thrust that determined the action of the animals. Figures in static poses were meant for young children, who were strapped into position. The other figures, usually on the outer rim of the platform, were designed for more daring riders, and the brass ring also attracted older children to the outside positions. In later years, the up-and-down action of the animals provided an extra thrill.

Softwoods, especially white and yellow pine, were most suitable for the carrousel animals. Pine was easily worked, and greater speed of execution meant the figures could be produced quickly in great numbers. Little sanding or polishing was necessary in the detailing of the head, mane, and tail portions. the rounded areas of the body which required sanding were turned over to assistants and apprentices. Finally, the figure was ready for painting and gilding. These carrousel animals received the same bright-colored treatment as the circus wagons. Frequent refurbishing was necessary to maintain their attractiveness, and often much of the original intention of the artist was obscured.”

-From Treasury of American Design, 1950.

And what of those largely anonymous men who actually carved these beasts? What would they think about the fact that all these years after the carousel’s golden age, owing largely to scarcity, their functional handiwork has been elevated by collectors and historians to an art form?

Quote: “Some of the artists and carvers worked alone, or ran small studios and carving shops. Others were employed in the factories and workshops of the roundabout manufacturers. The degree of creative license allowed by their customers or their employers varied, but in every case their art was strictly functional. With few exceptions these artists and carvers saw themselves as craftsmen and certainly their income largely reflected their comparatively humble status. The fact that their work is now perceived to be ‘art’ would have surprised many of their number, but no doubt would have delighted them all.”

-Geoff Weedon and Richard Ward from Fairground Art, 1981.

Though I’ve only just skimmed the historical surface here I hope you enjoyed.

The images from this post are all from the following sources:

Fairground Art by Geoff Weedon and Richard Ward.
FMR magazine 53, Vol XI. Photos by John Lei.
Treasury of American Design by Clarence P. Hornung.
American Memory Collection page for the Glen Echo Park, Dentzel Carousel.

For more on carousels see:

National Carousel Association
Carousel Magic
iFairground
The Dentzel Family Carousel Story
The Carousel Works
My Carousel
Dentzel Carousel Coloring Book.
The Tournaments of Colonial Times

I first came across Butoh in 1996, while working at the the now defunct Tower Books. Issue 21 of Visionaire, which took the form of a box of oversized playing cards, featured as it’s hearts suit a group of arresting photographs of a man, covered in white make-up, twisting about and making crazy faces. I photocopied them and put them in my “archives” for later use. It was Ushio Amagatsu a second-wave Butoh dancer, and founder of the legendary troupe Sankai Juku, though I didn’t realize it at the time. In fact I didn’t make the connection until years later when I saw a performance by Kazuo Ohno on television. It was the first time I’d ever even heard the word Butoh or seen it in motion. I am not particularly a fan of dance, nor do I tend to gravitate toward performance art, and yet with this form I was totally fascinated.

It’s a hard art to explain really. In my mind the best of it is dark and almost frightening in its viscerally primal strangeness. It can remind you of an epileptic seizure, or some ugly lunacy made flesh. Simultaneously, however, you’ll recognize in it tiny gestures and glances and movements which seem somehow sublimely beautiful. Perhaps it is the appalling humanity of it, so easily understood in the murky emotional realm of our private minds, but so strange to see manifest before your eyes. Since becoming aware of it I’ve noticed its stamp on everything from E. Elias Merhige’s masterpiece Begotten to Matthew Barney’s Cremaster Cycle.

Recently I received the 1987 book Butoh, Dance of the Dark Soul as a gift and wanted to take the opportunity to share some of it, as well as some other Butoh related material, with you.

“Butoh is an explosive, convention-shattering performance art that has redefined the limits of dance and theatre. The form was created by a handful of avant-garde postwar Japanese artists who drew upon their native agrarian myths, the iconoclastic theatre of Antonin Artaud, and the influences of Western modern dance.

But Butoh is more. It is perhaps the most daring attempt yet made to translate the mysterious, often tormented life of the unconscious into the communal medium of theatre.

The first true Butoh performance, an adaptation of Yukio Mishima’s novel Forbidden Colors, scandalized Japanese audiences when it premiered in 1959. Its creator, Tatsumi Hijikata, was banned by the Modern Dance Association and branded an outlaw dancer.”

-From the dust jacket of Butoh. Dance of the Dark Soul, 1987.

“Some people say that the essence of butoh lies in the mechanism through which the dancers stops being himself and becomes someone or something else. This is a different conception of dance then the conventional where the body of the dancer expresses an emotion or abstract idea.

For example, take the studying of a rooster. “The idea was to push out all of the human inside and let the bird take its place. You may start by imitating, but imitation is not your final goal; when you believe you are thinking completely like a chicken you have succeeded.

The important thing with this is not the transformation into a chicken, but the transformation itself, the fact that you change. Only in this way you can bring the body back to its original state. It is not depiction or symbolization which is the foundation of butoh. It is the metamorphosis.”

-Harmen Sikkenga, from Butoh - Dance of Darkness 1994.

“Butoh has a primordial quality. It is dark. It is generated somewhere in the lower strata of the subconscious, in the murky areas of personal prehistory. Memory is its source. Its etymology refers specifically to dance through the character bu. Buyoh is the neutral word for dance, but it has a sense of jumping or leaping, whereas toh implies a stomping. Buyoh is in the ascendant, like the vertical ascent of Vaslav Nijinsky or Isadora Duncan’s leap toward the source of light. Butoh is a descent. Hijikata would often say, “I would never jump or leave the ground; it is on the ground that I dance.”

The element of stomping, the intimacy with the ground, the soil. has its roots in agricultural society. Similar patterns are found in the dances of southern India, Spain, and in the Japanese classical Noh theater. The seasons and the agricultural cycle form the foundations of Japanese mythology, at the center of which is the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu, from whom the Emperor is descended. Amaterasu is said to have retreated into a cave and plunged the world into darkness after her unruly brother Susano, the Storm God, allowed his piebald horses to rampage through her rice fields. In the cold and darkness of her absence, the other spirits, or kami, gathered outside the cave and performed wild and bawdy dances. They also placed a mirror in the branches of a tree overlooking the cave. Amaterasu, curious at the sound of the revelry, peered outside and caught her reflection in the mirror. Dazzled by her own countenance, she returned to the world, and the warmth and light were restored with the onset of spring. The stomping of Butoh has its mythical parallels in the revelry of the spirits in a darkened world.”

-Mark Holborn, from Butoh. Dance of the Dark Soul, 1987.

“Hijikata used the term Butoh to describe his dance. Although modern dance is something that is liberated from Western classical dance, Butoh is not comparable. If modern dance is like a thoroughbred racehorse, then Butoh is like a camel. The difference is like the difference between diamonds and cork, though both have the same elemental base.                                     

Butoh is just a Japanese name. There are many parallel dances elsewhere. When I first saw the Omizutori, the fire festival on the hillside at Nara, an ancient religious ceremony from the eleventh century, the ceremony seemed like an imitation of my dance, just as 1 may have drawn from an eleventh century ritual. I was very impressed by the age of the ritual. Butoh is something new, but there are many comparable forms throughout history. Butoh is a form that almost precedes dance, just as a child moves and plays before he dances.

Imagine a snake emerging and appearing before a Japanese farmer, then sliding away. The step with which the farmer may have crushed the snake, may have been the beginning of a Butoh step.”

-Akaji Maro, from Butoh. Dance of the Dark Soul, 1987.

“Where are the points of difference between butoh and other forms of dance? First in the singularity of the body in butoh. As is particularly striking in ankoku butoh, the body of the butoh-ka is far removed from the balanced, ideal beauty of the ballet dancer, and has no reason to take pride in its powerful musculature or physical strength. Compared with the symmetrical beauty of conventional dancers, the butoh-ka with his stooped body, so small and lean, his bent legs, and his outsized caricature of a face is the picture of deformity. Butoh performers even seem to emphasize the rounded back, bull-neck, and bandy legs so typical of the Japanese physique. In addition to these peculiarities of the eastern body, some work like that of Kazuo Ohno brines together the complementary aspects of the same entity a delicate sensibility and the grotesque ugliness of old age. It was this kind of oddity which first drew attention to the more fundamental strangeness of butoh.

Oddity also makes the publication of collections of butoh photos an easy business, once the pathetic expressions of the strange figures which appear on the butoh stage are visually stimulating to the imagination. In this grotesque ugliness and corruption, however, there accomplishedcan be found an irreducible beauty and sweetness which are without equivalent elsewhere: Clearly, butoh has accomplished a reversal in the aesthetic consciousness.”

-Kazuko Kuniyoshi, from Butoh in the late 1980s, translated from the Japanese by Richard Hart.

When I was, perhaps… 15 I had an experience that seemed so odd it impressed itself deeply on my memory. I was alone, sitting in a very secluded little spot of a neighborhood park where I’d often go to read; on a raised concrete slab surrounded on all sides by trees. It was mid-summer and the entire area was crawling with insects and loud with their buzzings and chirpings. As I sat there I began to focus on the insects, their sounds, their motions across the ground and the concrete slab.  Eventually, and without forethought or reason, I began to mimic them. I made crazy sounds, writhed around a bit, and struck odd poses there on the slab in the sun. It lasted for about two minutes. Even then, having only just experienced it, I could see how bizarre the whole episode was.

I can only categorize it as some kind of primal outpouring, either creative or spastic, which seemed to come upon me from parts unknown. Being brought up Catholic, and being a child, I wondered whether it were some kind of possession, whether I’d in fact been talking in tongues or some other horrible thing. It was actually embarrassing somehow and consequently I told very few people about it. I recognize that same strangeness in the photos of Kazuo Ohno, however, and it seems to me now, all these years later, that it was a sort of naive Butoh, springing from the same subconscious well, seeking to cast off the composure and formality of being a “good kid.” It was play, albeit of a kind I only recognized when I got older.

In truth Butoh is most certainly something which must be seen for oneself in order to form any kind of opinion or reach any kind of understanding. It can’t be neatly summed up or even properly approached with a few quotes and a handful of images, no matter how enigmatic or beautiful. To spite that fact I hope you enjoyed this little taste anyhow.

For more on Butoh try:

Butoh.net
Butoh - Dance of Darkness
Butoh: The Darkness Amongst the Joy
About Butoh
What Does Butoh mean?
Butoh in the Late 1980s (pdf)
An Art Form In Transition
Butoh at Wikipedia
Sankai Juku: Butoh Dance from Japan
A Conversation with Ushio Amagatsu
Cokaseki.com
Bodytaster.com
Butoh-ultraego.com photogallery.

You Tube returns many result when doing a search for Butoh, most of which are pretty weak. Here are a few which might be of interest however:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,  8, 9, 10.

*Note that all photos in the main body of this post (with the exception of “Gold Boy” and “Kagemi”) are by Ethan Hoffman from Butoh, Dance of the Dark Soul, which, if you are interested in Butoh, I recommend highly. It’s the best book on the subject I’ve yet found.

“It’s good luck to find a horseshoe and bad luck to lose one. It is said that when a witch spies one nailed over a door, she must ride every road that the horseshoe has ever travelled; and by that time, it will be morning and her wicked powers will cease. Although this belief can be traced back to antiquity, it is credited in England to Saint Dunstan, the patron saint of goldsmiths.” - Michael Patrick Hearn from The Annotated Huck Finn 2001.

“Among the Romans there prevailed a custom of driving nails into cottage walls as an antidote against the plague. Both this practice and the later one of nailing up horse-shoes have been thought by some to originate from the rite of the Passover. The blood sprinkled upon the doorposts and lintel at the time of the great Jewish feast formed the chief points of an arch, and it may be that with this in mind people adopted the horse-shoe as an arch-shaped talisman, and it thus became generally emblematic of good luck.”

“If a horse be shod with shoes made from a sword wherewith a man has been slain, he will be most swift and fleet, and never, though never so hard rode, tire.” - Robert Means Lawrence, M.D. from The Magic of the Horse-Shoe 1899.

“In Henderson’s Folk-Lore of the Northern Countries of England, p. 187, mention is made of a remarkable method of treatment intended for the development of sickly, puny children who are thought to be under the influence of an evil spell which retards their growth, a notable instance of survival of the old belief in the blacksmith’s magical powers. Very early in the morning the little patient is brought to the shop of a smith of the seventh generation, if such can be found, and laid quite naked on the anvil. The blacksmith raises his hammer thrice as if to strike a glowing horse-shoe, each time letting it gently fall on the child’s body, –a simple ceremony, but vastly promotive of the child’s physical welfare, in the minds of its rustic parents.”

“The historian Diodorus Siculus said that the Chaldeans imagined the earth as having the shape of a round boat turned upside down. The boats still used on the rivers Tigris and Euphrates resemble in form a beehive with a considerable bulge in the middle. Gerald Massey (The Natural Genesis, vol. ii. p. 63) says that this conception of the earth’s figure corresponds to the Egyptian Put-sign with its hollow underneath. Various forms of this formation of the world are extant. The horse-shoe is one. Hence its value as a symbol of superstition. The head-dress of the Egyptian goddess Hathor has the shape of a horse-shoe. The letter omega is another form of the same sign.” - Robert Means Lawrence, M.D. from The Magic of the Horse-Shoe 1899.

“In some Roman Catholic countries the priests are wont to brand cows and pigs on the forehead with the mark of a horse-shoe, to insure them against disease. It was, moreover, an old Scotch superstition, or freet, to pass a horse-shoe thrice beneath the belly and over the back of a cow that was considered elf-shot.”

“We learn from Tacitus, moreover, that the Teutonic peoples used white horses, as the Romans used chickens, for purposes of augury, and divined future events from different intonations of neighings. Hence it probably is that the discovery of a horse-shoe is so universally thought lucky, some of the feelings that once attached to the aninial itself still surviving around the iron of its hoof. For horses, like dogs and birds, were universally accredited with a greater insight into futurity than man himself.”
“In the northernmost districts of Scotland exists a belief that if the first shoe put on the foot of a stallion be hung on the byre door, no harm will come near the cows; and in the same region, if a horse-shoe be placed between the houses of quarrelsome neighbors, neither incurs any risk of evil as a result of the other’s illwishes.” - Robert Means Lawrence, M.D. from The Magic of the Horse-Shoe 1899.

“The Germans have a saying in regard to a young girl who has been led astray, – “She has lost a horseshoe.” This saying has been associated with the shoe as a symbol of marriage, an idea found both in the northern and Indian mythologies. But the phrase has been also thought to refer to the horse-shoe shaped gloria which crowns the head of the Virgin, the horse-shoe thus becoming the symbol of maidenly chastity. Again, it has been suggested, in reference to the same phrase, that the horse-shoe is a symbol of the V (or first letter of the word Virgo), which is used in church records to designate the unmarried state, just as the word ‘spinster’ is used in legal documents.”

“The origin of the horse-shoe as a charm has been ascribed to its resemblance to the metallic aureole or meniscus formerly placed over the heads of images of patron saints in churches, and which is also represented in ancient pictures of the Virgin.” - Robert Means Lawrence, M.D. from The Magic of the Horse-Shoe 1899.

“The present belief in the lucky horseshoe is connected with the ancient emblems of the female genitals, the yoni. In olden times, the people were in the habit of making charcoal drawings of the female genitals over the doors of their houses to ward off ill luck. Now, the horseshoe has a great resemblance with the form of the vulva. From this symbol originates the horseshoes alleged power to ward off evil and to bring luck.” - Bernard S. Tamley Jr. from Love, A Treatise on the science of sex-attraction 1919.

“There is good reason to suppose that the crescent form of the horseshoe links the symbol to pagan Moon goddesses of ancient Europe such as Artemis and Diana, and that the protection invoked is that of the goddess herself, or, more particularly, of her sacred vulva. As such, the horseshoe is related to other magically protective doorway-goddesses, such as the Irish sheela-na-gig, and to lunar protectresses such as the Blessed Virgin Mary, who is often shown standing on a crescent moon and placed within a vulval mandorla or vesica pisces”  -Cat Yronwode, from Luckymojo.com

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Everyone can identify a horseshoe as a “lucky charm” (purple marshmallow incarnations included or not) but, as with so many cultural artifacts we drag the symbol through the ages with us, generation to generation, becoming less and less familiar with its origins, until we are almost totally divorced from whatever specific properties endowed it with power in the human imagination to begin with. Our modern cultures are positively littered with just such transmogrified items. From prevailing ideas to matters of “common sense” to everyday objects to sprawling institutions to the words we use to describe it all. We’ve had a direct hand in so very little of it and are so far removed from their origins… it’s almost frightening really, if you take a moment to think on it.

It strikes me though that in the case of the horseshoe it’s particularly pronounced and unfortunate. We’ve put ourselves in a position by which our luck, or the portion at least governed by horseshoes, can literally run out. I mean how likely are any of us to happen upon an actual horseshoe, one worn and ridden, which we might pick up and nail above our door? It might be said at this stage in the game that the luck of a horseshoe could be attributed, like that of a four leaf clover, to sheer rarity.

It’s entirely possible that the day may come when the horseshoe no longer exists at all as a functional object; when it will be produced, in the form of jewelry and bauble and talisman, as a symbol only. And what a paltry and impotent charm that would be eh?

Do you want witches running willy-nilly through your apartment at night? Or faeries or goblins? Or hags and fiends? I don’t. I’ve got enough to worry about, so I think it’s time we safeguard our luck. Why not take some direct action instead of letting generations of dead smithies and poets and historians and cult leaders dictate the auspices of our fortune? We only have so much of it after all, and probably too little as it is.

I’ve thought on it a bit and in attempting to land upon something which is functionally equivalent to the horseshoe but modern, which retains some of the symbolic character and is readily available, one solution presented itself which seemed just about perfect, and which I think reflects we moderns nicely–

Hey, the times they are a changin’, the march of progress, and all that.

Hope you enjoyed.

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For more on horseshoes, as luck-safe or otherwise, see the following-

Horseshoes at Wikipedia.

Horse Shoes at The Medieval Technology Pages

The History of Horseshoes at About.com

The Magic of the Horse-Shoe at Sacred Texts or the downloadable full book pdf at Google books

The Horseshoe at Lucky Mojo

The Historical Development of the Horseshoe Scientifiv American Suppliment 1891, at Gutengerg.

The Significance of the Horseshoe at The Wild West