Category Archives: counterculture

Icons of counterculture #2

Utopia, United States

Utopia in the United States

Founded by Charles Fourier, died 170 years ago today

François Marie Charles Fourier (April 7, 1772 – October 10, 1837) was a French utopian socialist and philosopher. Fourier coined the word féminisme in 1837; as early as 1808, he had argued that the extension of women’s rights was the general principle of all social progress. Fourier inspired communism, situationism, 1960s countercultures and Hakim Bey. He was the subject of a study by Roland Barthes Sade, Fourier, Loyola (1971), is mentioned in André Breton‘s Anthology of Black Humor (1940) and has a whole convolute dedicated to him in Walter Benjamin‘s Arcades Project.

Previous Icons of Counterculture.

See also: Knots of indecision

An ecstatic journey of a boy

Virgin Sperm Dancer by William Levy

Suck special issue (1972) by William Levy

Image sourced here, more here.

The Virgin Sperm Dancer was a Suck magazine special issue by William Levy published in 1972 by Bert Bakker. It was designed by Anthon Beeke and photographed by Ginger Gordon. With Willem de Ridder and Anna Beeke. An ecstatic journey of a boy transformed into a girl for one day only, and her erotic adventures in Amsterdam Magic centrum. Excerpted in London Oz in the same year.

Wet Dream Film Festivals

Poster for first the Wet Dream Film Festival (1970) in Amsterdam

At the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s, Amsterdam was somewhat of a countercultural capital. It was where Suck, The First European Sex Paper was published. Around this time two Wet Dream Film Festivals were organized. The first took place in the autumn of 1970, It had an international jury consisting of Germaine Greer, Jay Landesman, Richard Neville, Michael Zwerin, Didi Wadidi and Al Goldstein. The first prize went to Bodil Jensen in A Summer Day. The “Blast from the Past” award went to Jean Genet‘s film: Un chant d’amour. The Walt Disney Memorial Award went to Christie Eriksson‘s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Other prizes were awarded for Peter Flemming, Walter Burns and Falcon Stewart. The Second Wet Dream Film Festival was held in 1971 between October 20 and October 25, again organized by Jim Haynes. Festival jury included Germaine Greer, Al Goldstein, William Holtrop, Didi Wadidi, Anna Beke and Michael Zwerin plus new-comers Mama Cass, Roland Topor, Heathcote Williams, William Burroughs, Carlos Clarens, Tomi Ungerer, Betty Dodson, Marie-France and Miss Angel. Jens Frosen (“Quiet Days in Clichy”) documented the event. Lou Sher, president of Sherpix, who picked up “Adultery For Fun and Profit” at the first festival, put up $1,000 for the first prize this year plus a promise of U.S. theatrical distribution. Organizer Haynes told Variety: “What most people don’t understand about last year’s Wet Dream Festival is that we are not concerned with pornographic aspects primarily, but with the libertarian concept. It is an attack on paternalism because it asks why people can’t see any image they want.”

This post is dedicated to the work of Earl Kemp.

Icons of counterculture

The Death of Socrates (1787) by Jacques-Louis David

I’ve started reading The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton and the book starts out with Socrates and his trial:

The trial and execution of Socrates was the climax of his career and the central event of the dialogues of Plato. According to Plato, both were unnecessary. Socrates admits in court that he could have avoided the trial by abandoning philosophy and going home to mind his own business. After his conviction, he could have avoided the death penalty by escaping with the help of his friends.

But he didn’t avoid the trial or flee. This makes him an icon of countercultural history.

I, Galileo, kneeling before you

Galileo’s recantation

On June 22, 1633 – a memorable date in the history of counterculture – Galileo was forced to recant his scientific theory that the earth moves around the sun. The Inquisition had threatened the astronomer and mathematician with torture on the rack if he did not retract his “heretical” ideas. Torn between wanting to fight for the truth and not wanting to offend the Church, Galileo recants:

I, Galileo, son of the late Vincenzo Galilei, Florentine, aged seventy years, arraigned personally before this tribunal, and kneeling before you, Most Eminent and Reverend Lord Cardinals, Inquisitors-General against heretical depravity throughout the entire Christian commonwealth, having before my eyes and touching with my hands, the Holy Gospels, swear that I have always believed, do believe, and by God’s help will in the future believe, all that is held, preached, and taught by the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. But whereas — after an injunction had been judicially intimated to me by this Holy Office, to the effect that I must altogether abandon the false opinion that the sun is the center of the world and immovable, and that the earth is not the center of the world, and moves, and that I must not hold, defend, or teach in any way whatsoever, verbally or in writing, the said false doctrine.

After the trial, Galileo is sent to his villa outside Florence, where he will be confined for the remaining 9 years of his life, supposedly frequently muttering “e pur si muove!“

What a humiliation!