timely, timeless, and amusing

by russell

via Mellisa Byrnes at LGM, a brief historical overview of sex with demons.  a diversion from the pressing topics of the day, or perhaps not.

Comments

[nous]

Quality content, that. I approve.

[Girl from the North Country]

So Merlin's Dad was an incubus, eh, who knew?

[sapient]

Explains a lot.

[wj]

So Merlin's Dad was an incubus, eh, who knew?

Perhaps Trump's was as well. (Although he didn't turn out so well.) Might explain why his (nominal) father had such a low opinion of him. Not to mention explaining the kind of person he is today. Yup, all around a quality explanation.

[nous]

The Trumps don't seem to have any true magic, so I don't think they are demon-seed. If you want to go with Geoffrey of Monmouth again, or earlier with Beowulf, then I'd say they are Ogres/Orcs (A.S. orcneas), pre-human wights of giantish (jotun) heritage who consume humans.

Thurs, troll, etin, ogre, orc, etc., capable of interbreeding, but seldom capable of following the laws of hospitality or kinship.

[hairshirthedonist]

I’m 3/16 incubus on my mother’s side. Grandpop always ruined Thanksgiving. But I can see around corners, so it was worth it.

[russell]

The idea that people have sex - wittingly or otherwise - with demonic beings is almost comically bizarre. And seems (one hopes) to not be in evidence.

And yet, it shows up in one form or other for basically all of recorded history. Including now.

We think of ourselves as rational, but we have another side. Or sides. We tell ourselves wild tales. We make myths, and live in them. We are susceptible to chthonic forces, originating in ourselves.

In Salem MA, quite near to where I live, there is a memorial to the people killed during the witch hysteria of the 1690's. Which was a weird mash-up of religious fanaticism, sexual hysteria, and plain greed - some of those killed owned good land, and if found guilty, their property could be taken from their families. It was collective madness, that didn't really end until they tried to come for the governor's wife.

How does that happen?

Is human reason sufficient to manage our irrational side? Are there ways to channel the non-rational side of our natures - our intuitive selves - into something constructive?

What would that look like?

[Hartmut]

I think drugs were involved in many instants (for ancient Greece we even have proof of that).
Also morning wood for the males.
And dug-up corpses of alleged vampires often showed erections too. Sane people even then came up with quite rational explanations (cf. the classic study 'De masticatione mortuorum in tumulis' by Michael Ranft (1728/34)) but superstition ran wild of course.
The succubi and incubi of then are the alien abductors of to-day (who also seem to be highly interested in the human reproductive system).
People have extramarital sex in dreams and need an excuse for that. 'Hey, it was Zeus in disguise'.
As for Salem, the spark may have been ergotism but what came of it was clearly influenced by other motives (true for many European cases too). In cases of doubt Matthew 5,28 will be utilized (the mere thought of sin is equal to the sin itself).

[wj]

the mere thought of sin is equal to the sin itself

This always seems like such a stupid approach to take. Whether as a matter of theology or a matter of law. If the thought and the deed are equally bad, once you've had the thought you might as well do the deed, right? Can't be any more guilty....

[Hartmut]

The idea behind the biblical story was of course 'you dirty male hypocrites are no better and no one is asking to stone you'.
Running sins like a balance sheet can of course have other unintended consequences. When John Paul II. was pope his teachings actually increased the abortion rate in Poland because many a Polish young women followed his equation of contraception = abortion and did the math: a few abortions in many years vs.contraception on a daily basis. If they are equal, the sin balance looks better with the former than the latter.

[John Thullen]

"once you've had the thought you might as well do the deed, right?"

Or proceed directly to the deed thoughtlessly (I don't know what came over me; I just wasn't thinking!), as I speculate most people do, and you cut the sin liability in half?

Interesting that Dr Stella (Stellaaaaaaaaaaaaa!) Emmanuel and QAnon (the White House and Republican seem fully behind, if not in front of, this dangerous cult. The Nobel Prize to whomever identities Q and the Medal of Freedom to whomever removes Q. Under Biden, the CIA and FBI must assemble a Q-hunting team, and when they find him/her/it/them, dispatch them to the vasty deep Osama-bin-Laden-wise.) spend so much time masturTHINKING, like the witch killers of times past, about what others might be up to in these matters. Possibly they have so much time for the thinking because they aren't getting. Odd how Christianity seems to lead to peculiarities of the mind regarding sex, to quote Stengel. I try to think about baseball, my own self. And what's with the odd kink regarding pizza? Didn't Christopher Columbus bring pizza/torture to Ameri .... the West Indies?

Sex in the time of Covid-19.

Thank you for using the word "chthonic".

And Hartmut's color commentary is always welcome.

[cleek]

that whole blog is awesome.

[Girl from the North Country]

cleek, you're right! After reading your comment I went back in, and read On Dildos and Penance. What a mine of information, and perfect contextualisation (as the blog explains) for nothing new under the sun.

[russell]

I, for one, am glad to see St Guinefort, possibly the only canonized doggie, get some props.

I have an enduring fascination with and affection for the Middle Ages. It's when Europe took its first toddling steps as a distinct place and culture(s). A time of fervent and passionate wackiness.

I often wonder how we will look, 800 years on.

[Priest]

Trying to imagine what an 800-years-hence Monty Python-like troupe would treat us. They would not be lacking in material, though their audiences might wonder what grains of fact lie at the root of the absurdities. Far too many, unfortunately.

[Girl from the North Country]

And further reading on the site turned up a piece headlined FUCK YEAH Genghis Khan – an emergency pubcast, which I commend to the commentariat, given that Genghis Khan is a recurring motif in some of our arguments/snark. Completely fascinating stuff. Historians who really care about accuracy, as opposed to ideology: I love them.

[CharlesWT]

If civilization continues apace and with DNA data storage or comparable data density storage devices, people 800-years-hence will be able to know a great deal about the twentieth and twentieth-first centuries. Whether they will want to or understand any of it is another matter. People 800 years in our past may be more relatable to us than we will be to people 800 years in our future. Intelligent entities in that future may have expanded far beyond what we would recognize as human.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

A line I heard from a friend, many years ago, but strangely apropos for the topic of "sex with demons":

"At first I was disgusted, now I'm just amused".

Leaving it here, for the amusement of posterity.

[Girl from the North Country]

"At first I was disgusted, now I'm just amused".

Or, as somebody rather uptown and respectable I once knew said, when asked why she had gone to bed with a very dodgy semi-criminal who had been a more adventurous friend's bit of rough:

"Well, he asked, and I thought, how awful! Why not?"

[cleek]

look at this high school in Georgia.

it's like they looked at the recent outbreak at that summer camp in GA and said "Hold my beer."

[wj]

it's like they looked at the recent outbreak at that summer camp in GA and said "Hold my beer.

Well suppose you fudge the census to give you, and those in your area, an advantage. And then you do dumb stuff that gets a bunch of people in your area killed. Hey! Now you've even further increased the amount of government money, per capita, that you get. Just because there are fewer capitas.

Of course, a bunch of those getting killed off may be your kids and your parents. But, well, omelets eggs, right?

[nous]

GA - ICU beds at 91% occupancy, hospitals at 77%, 331 new cases per million per day, 2.0 case fatality rate.

Only thing that ever moved through the state faster was General Sherman.

[John Thullen]

I was taking the day off, my dear beleaguered readers, but ..

What do confederate pro-life republican fake Christians call a hallway full of unmasked teenagers, schooled together like anchovies heading for their next class:

.
.
.
.
.

Very late term abortions.

What are the survivors called:

School voucher recipients headed for Devos church schools where her brother can teach them assassination marksmanship.

[John Thullen]

I don't recall Charles Manson or Pol Pot holding press conferences to announce the time, date, and the names of their future murder victims:

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/8/4/1966497/-If-districts-defy-mandate-on-50-in-person-learning-Iowa-governor-says-students-won-t-get-credit

[John Thullen]

YO ... Semite!

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/8/4/1966466/-Trump-s-brain-glitches-as-he-tries-to-pronounce-the-name-of-one-America-s-greatest-parks

He always tells you who he plans to murder next and how he is going to steal the next election.

"I wish her well".

"It is what it is".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBnwcG1tu4g

I'm not sure John Lewis' pacifism is going to carry the day with the degree of furious blood vengeance that is building.

[John Thullen]

I'm old enough to remember when rightwing politicians were content to give their wives and girlfriends the clap:

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/8/4/1966413/-Florida-sheriffs-event-attended-by-Gov-Ron-DeSantis-was-apparently-a-hotbed-of-COVID-19

[Snarki, child of Loki]

GftNC, quoting a friend:
"Well, he asked, and I thought, how awful! Why not?"

That sounds like it should be a line from Fleabag.

So, based on a true story?

[sapient]

So, based on a true story?

Kiss and tell regarding consensual sex with demons seems mighty risky.

[Girl from the North Country]

100% true. It was a very Fleabag-type situation, but forty years before Fleabag. However, the last four words became the go-to catchphrase for a group of us, when accounting for disgraceful but irresistible behaviour.

[russell]

Forty years before Fleabag was the late 70's.

All bets were off.

[russell]

Also, too:

Why do (R)'s keep trying to use Neil Young's "Rocking In The Free World" as campaign music?

Have they ever actually listened to the lyrics?

[wj]

Have they ever actually listened to the lyrics?

Since it's not scripture, actual knowledge of the words is not just unnecessary but probably something to be discouraged. (Even if it isn't, you know, something elitist like science.)

[liberal japonicus]

Sting has said in a couple of interviews that he's amazed how many people come up and say that 'their song' is Every Breath You Take, with a lot of them playing it at their wedding. I think a lot of people have a built in switch to love the music and ignore the lyrics. Maybe the title is what they grab on to?

[wj]

With the volume used at lots of concerts, nobody can make out the lyrics, so the music is all they know. They might play recordings soft enough to hear the words. But how many do that? Mostly, they play it to immitate what they (don't) hear at a concert.

[russell]

Rockin In The Free World.

Maybe it's an American carnage thing.

[cleek]

Yo, Semites!

[Girl from the North Country]

Speaking as one of those seminites (unconnected, but just for the hell of it), don't forget that Reagan did the same thing with Born in the USA to the bemusement (and objection) of Springsteen.

[John Thullen]

One of the most common remarks on Dick Clark's Bandstand from the kids picked to "rate the record" was along the lines of: "I don't care about the lyrics, but you sure can dance to it."

One thing about rock/pop music that stands out from when I was a kid is how I so many times "misheard" a lyric because, as my grandfather would complain hilariously back then, it's garbage, you can't understand a thing they are singing, and by the way, you call THAT singing?

I still sometimes, usually on the car radio, hear a 55 year old pop or MoTown song today and finally hear the words, so THAT"s what they sang! Actually, a few times I've concluded my misheard lyric was better.

I remember too in the 1960s when the music critics began to take "the kids" a little more seriously and would go overboard with the lyric analysis ... wondering, and I exaggerate, about the metaphorical, perhaps metaphysical poetics of "Womp-momp-a-lu-momp-a lomp-bam-boom!"

Consult your tailbone and let IT tell you what that means.

Dylan of course was three chords and sheer poetry, and then along came T.S. Eliot Lennon along about Rubber Soul.

Earlier, Steve Allen on his show would read, sans the music, tongue in cheek, pop lyrics with great poetic heaviosity ... "She ... loves ... you ... yeah....yeah .......... yeah.

Somehow they missed the point at both ends.

I listen to the standards from time to time now, Sinatra, Fitzgerald, Doris Day, even back to the 1930's, and you can hear each word pristinely and the phrasing is so meticulous, wet with flirtatious, romantic meaning.

What is so obvious now, duh, unlike when I was a dope kid and thought the stuff was corny, is how erotic and sexy many of those songs are. You almost get the idea these people were at least "thinking" about sex, long before the censors banned Elvis below the hips.

I finally understood what one wag said about a Rudy Vallee concert a million years ago. "There wasn't a dry seat in the house!"

What did we have, we sexual baby boomer revolutionaries?

I can't get no ... satisfaction, and get up offa that thing! She was just 17, you know what I mean?

Yeah, I know what you mean. We're all gonna get arrested!

I mean, all of those blues masters were getting arrested long before and having a lot more fun doing it.

Then Lennon again, better.... Ahh, girlll... girl .. and that languorous intake of breath.

The cat was out of the bag. Maybe the cat inside the bag was hotter.

Meow.

It's ALL good.

All of those Puerto Rican girls are DYYYYINGG to MEET you.

[cleek]

or, as we sing it in our house: DYYYYN to MEEECHOU

[John Thullen]

Yup. I sing it that way in karaoke.

[GftNC]

What is so obvious now, duh, unlike when I was a dope kid and thought the stuff was corny, is how erotic and sexy many of those songs are.

Or, of course, the eroticism could be all in the delivery:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v43aQTsVb5o

[hairshirthedonist]

Speaking of mishearing lyrics, Pink Floyd's "Young Lust" was on the radio when my wife and I were in the car Saturday night. I asked her if she knew what the name of the song was, and she guessed "Dirty Woman." I was totally confused, and asked her why she would think that.

My wife: "They say, 'I need a dirty woman.'"

Me: "No, they don't. They say, 'Where you got your woman?"

Then more or less that a couple of times until we got where we were going. I looked up the lyrics on my phone, and damned if I hadn't been mishearing those lyrics for 40+ years. I've always liked that song, without even dancing to it, but still had the lyrics screwed up.

[russell]

ok, now I've got myself on a Neil Young tip.

Lotta versions of this tune, but I love me some Crazy Horse.

[Hartmut]

The technical term is Mondegreen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondegreen

[wj]

Sometimes Mondegreens. But sometimes, perhaps, just accidental/unconscious filk songs. Which, the way I learned the term, isn't limited to just the "SF, fantasy and horror" that Wikipedia cites. Could be any alternative lyrics. See, for example, Allan Sherman.

[John Thullen]

Not trivially related:

https://www.thereadingexperience.net/the_reading_experience/2006/05/since_the_publi.html

[John Thullen]

When you couldn't dance to it, why, the kids became about quite as stodgy as their parents regarding what's new, except for that one guy at the end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-keBliZndQ

I just completed having my estate papers drawn up, such as it is, and the only stipulation I made about my funeral service, besides that I plan on NOT attending it because what's the rush for crying out loud, is that Strawberry Fields Forever be played.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

There's a bathroom on the right

I heard so, somewhere. There's even a BOOK about it also, too.

[wj]

Gotta admit, "Bathroom Rising" is a unique kind of song name. Not even close to something like "In My Room"

[sapient]

this is the best thread ever!

[russell]

the world needs more Beatles.

just bloody amazing that they did all of that by the time they were 30.

[Girl from the North Country]

the only stipulation I made .... is that Strawberry Fields Forever be played.

You are a man of impeccable taste. My favourite Beatles song of all.

[sapient]

My favourite Beatles song of all.

I would vote for Norwegian Wood. But maybe some other one.

What a hold they had on me as a pre-adolescent, and on generations forward. And, yeah, it stuck.

[John Thullen]

A little more Bandstand.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=american+bandstand+1957&docid=608041951808325969&mid=76A222A6D3B8DF52D00676A222A6D3B8DF52D006&view=detail&FORM=VIRE

Those kids are 80 years old now.

I hope they all made it.

[cleek]

we we're doing karaoke at the beach a few years back when one of the women we were with asked my wife (whose karaoke gear it is) if she had that Steve Miller song about the chair. we had no idea what she was talking about, so we got her to sing some of and she sang:

Big old chair and a light on
Don't carry me too far away
Oh oh oh, Big old chair and a light on...

and we have never let her live it down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlFXhigvTvM

[cleek]

trying to use up some spare apostrophes

[hairshirthedonist]

A friend of mine thought the Van Halen song "So This Is Love?" was "Slip Slip Slow," which is kind of weird. A bit more ... visceral(?).

[russell]

On the topic of mis-heard words - it's worth noting that, as of about 1968, popular music became amazingly noisy. Not necessarily ugly or bad noisy, just noisy. Sonically dense, with harsher timbres, mostly due to deliberately distorted guitar tone.

That stuff basically steps all over the vocal register. It's the auditory equivalent of trying to see through blurry glass, or maybe extremely scratched-up glass.

The 80's brought a lot more use of digital processing, which likewise tends to increase glare.

The 90's brought grunge, which in terms of production values involves cramming maximum signal onto the recording. No air whatsoever.

Sung words - or really any part of the ensemble that you want to bring forward - need some space around them to be comprehensible. Otherwise, it's just another sound. That's not (necessarily) a bad thing, but it is a thing.

Fledgling audio producers, take note!!

[Laura Koerber]

And there's the iconic JOni MItchell lyric, "We are starving, we are freezing"