The tradition of the British saucy postcard is marked by a brand of humour that is specific to a time and a place. Its heyday was an era long before any “sexual revolution” came along, predating text messaging and YouTube-embedded emails, a distant time back when bawdy cartoon jokes could be sent home to friends and families, a guilty smutty giggle on the reverse of news from the holiday.
“Saucy Seaside Postcards are a peculiar tradition but are synonymous with holidays along the British coast. They typify the quirky humour of the British which often revolves around sex or bodily functions.
With the English invention of seaside holidays having been popularised by the Victorians, the promenades and piers started to see stalls selling seaside novelties. Seaside postcards with bawdy captions first appeared in the early 20th Century and became extremely popular during the First World War:
http://www.fatbadgers.co.uk/Britain/saucy.htm
The cards are worth celebrating as a form of folk art that’s now vanished, superseded by changes in technology, in language and in morality. Despite all this the cards evoke a world that remains fascinating to me.
“In the early 1930s, cartoon-style saucy postcards became widespread, and at the peak of their popularity the sale of saucy postcards reached a massive 16 million a year.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postcard
“In today's liberal world of open frankness on sexual matters, the cartoon characters and antics of the saucy postcard era would hardly lift an eyebrow. However, back in those days of sexual repression, "It" was very much a taboo subject, considered to be the height of bad manners bordering on obscene to discuss. Saucy postcards were a breath of fresh air to some; others were disgusted and offended by them.
The cheeky and often sexually-implied innuendos and double meanings could be either visual or textual, though usually both picture and text played a part. No section of the community was spared; fat people, thin people, mothers-in-law, hen-pecked husbands, waiters and waitresses, lower class, middle class and upper class, glamorous ladies, doctors and nurses, etc, were all represented in cartoon characters. They were often portrayed in risqué, embarrassing or suggestive situations.
The postcards were produced in bright primary colours, and were typically displayed outside seafront gift shops on a traditional revolving postcard stand. Holiday-makers and day-trippers browsing the saucy postcards would often been seen nudging each other and giggling.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/a4350971
Widely acknowledged as master of this art-form was the English graphic artist Donald McGill.
“He has been called 'the king of the saucy postcard', and his work is still collected and appreciated for his artistic skill, its power of social observation and earthy sense of humour. Even at the height of his fame he only earned three guineas a design, but today his original artwork can fetch thousands of pounds.
Over the span of his career McGill produced an estimated 12,000 designs, of which 200 million copies are estimated to have been printed… Despite their wide circulation, McGill earned no royalties from his designs; in his will, his estate was valued at just £735.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_McGill
The saucy seaside postcard was the subject of a 1941 essay by George Orwell:
“Your first impression is of overpowering vulgarity. This is quite apart from the ever-present obscenity, and apart also from the hideousness of the colours. They have an utter low-ness of mental atmosphere which comes out not only in the nature of the jokes but, even more, in the grotesque, staring, blatant quality of the drawings. The designs, like those of a child, are full of heavy lines and empty spaces, and all the figures in them, every gesture and attitude, are deliberately ugly, the faces grinning and vacuous, the women monstrously parodied, with bottoms like Hottentots. Your second impression, however, is of indefinable familiarity. What do these things remind you of? What are they so like? In the first place, of course, they remind you of the barely different post cards which you probably gazed at in your childhood. But more than this, what you are really looking at is something as traditional as Greek tragedy, a sort of sub-world of smacked bottoms and scrawny mothers-in-law which is a part of Western European consciousness.”
Orwell would go on to single out McGill’s work for great praise, however:
“I have associated them especially with the name of Donald McGill because he is not only the most prolific and by far the best of contemporary post card artists, but also the most representative, the most perfect in the tradition.”
George Orwell, The Art of Donald McGill
http://www.netcharles.com/orwell/essays/donaldmcgill.htm
Trailer for a 2005 BBC documentary about McGill:
In 1954 he was prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act of 1857 and pleaded guilty at the Lincoln Quarter Sessions. He was fined £50 with £25 costs, and this link to the UK Social Affairs Unit tells the story:
http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/000130.php
His eyesight fading, and with demand for his work diminishing, McGill died in 1962 to be buried in an unmarked grave. Since then the art form has slowly but irrevocably been in decline and holidays will never be quite the same again:
“Here, as so often in British life, one gets a sense of something kept artificially alive beyond its natural span, like the pearly kings or the old time music hall. Sixty years ago, you might just have been able to regard the work of Donald McGill and his imitators… as a genuine expression of popular culture. These days anyone who wants a worm's eye view of contemporary life would probably buy a copy of Viz. What to Orwell was a window on a world has become a well-intentioned marketing exercise.”
DJ Taylor
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2001/aug/27/features11.g2
I’ll sign off with this from Orwell’s essay:
“In the past the mood of the comic post card could enter into the central stream of literature, and jokes barely different from McGill’s could casually be uttered between the murders in Shakespeare’s tragedies. That is no longer possible, and a whole category of humour, integral to our literature till 1800 or thereabouts, has dwindled down to these ill-drawn post cards, leading a barely legal existence in cheap stationers’ windows. The corner of the human heart that they speak for might easily manifest itself in worse forms, and I for one should be sorry to see them vanish.”
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p.s. Hey. The wondrous artist, writer, DJ, Yuck 'n' Yum co-editor, d.l. and more _Black_Acrylic has the floor today, and he takes this place time-traveling. I'm just old enough to remember saucy, beachy postcards, although the ones I recall were a Hawaiian variety with lots of hula skirt-related shenanigans and talk of 'getting lei-ed' and so on. Anyway, I think the Day is dreamy, and I hope you'll think it's that or something else and will report back to _B_A in the comments arena. Thanks so much, my guest-host du jour, and thanks to everyone else who has a gander then finds him- or herself feeling loquacious. ** David Ehrenstein, Thanks, Mr. E. Lovely Palin FaBlog, sir. Everyone, the mighty David Ehrenstein takes on the unmighty Sarah Palin's latest lack of might over on FaBlog. ** Bernard Welt, 'Inception' opens tomorrow, so I'll likely see it then or else a day or so after. Review-ette to follow. ** Pilgarlic, I was in a not entirely dissimilar situation with my mom when I was younger except I was living with her 24/7 at the time. In any case, yeah. Very complexly rough stuff. I suspect even Atlanta at this climatic moment would tax and test me the way southern Georgia did you, so I can't even imagine. Thanks a lot for the wishes about me and Japan. It's been the one place in the world where I've most wanted to go ever since I first managed to get Paris out of the realm of the imaginary in the '70s. Me getting there is all about money, like most things, I guess. If I ending up scoring, I'll try to pull out all the linguistic stops in my reports. ** Joseph, Re; 'Toy Story 3', you have to like that sort of thing, but, if you do, it's really brilliant. You didn't feel the quake? That sucks. What good was it then? Living through a strongish earthquake is a perception changer like, uh, taking LSD or something. Everyone should hear that weird sound, feel that weird fear, get that weird rush when the earth finally rocks itself back to sleep again. Not surprised that those guys did awesome readings, etc. Are you into your writing at the moment? ** Jeff, Nice comparison there, ha ha. It's especially like Universal's backlot during their Halloween make-over events. Graffiti is like every other art form or 'art form' or whatever. There's amazing graffiti, and there's a whole lot of just sort of tagging, which can be interesting or not. But, yeah, I think there's great graffiti work out there. I actually kind of loved the graffiti-ed look of the theater we played in. It would have looked too much like what it is -- a high school gymnasium -- without it. Interesting about the crushes. I know the second woman, but I'm totally blanking out on her name for some reason. A theater curator, I'm pretty sure. I just saw your last comment. I'm so sorry about your grandmother. I really hope she's okay and pulls through. Love to you, Jeff. ** Killer Luka, Dude. Let's see ... oh, I'm putting up the guest-posts in the order that I got them, but if you want me to move yours up in time, no problem at all. Say the word. I thought that Knife thing would please you. We'll see. G. hasn't even gotten the go-head on the Salzburg opera thing yet, much less tried asking The Knife. I'll see what I can do re: you being the 'towel boy', but the chances are that I wouldn't be involved in the project at all. I think the Salzburg people pick the collaborators, and there's a pre-set writer and composer as part of the deal or something. Geez, the new drawing is probably my favorite one yet. You're on the quite the roll. Got this one's imaginary phone number handy? Everyone, here's the latest art from the brilliant Killer Luka, entitled 'Bacchus', and click that 'here's' without caution. I love you too, natch. Did you see that they may have found a new/lost Caravaggio painting? What do you think? ** Misanthrope, I didn't even know there was a Twilight TV show. But of course there is. America is either totally out of its fucking mind or insufficiently totally out of it, I can't tell anymore. Well, the receptions were usually an hour at least after the show. And 'TIHYWD' isn't as heavy in the emotional department at 'Ktl' was. It's emotional, but it's more trippy. Getting a shot of the owl flying is pretty hard since it does whatever it wants at whatever point it decides to do whatever it wants, and the flying part is about 1 second long. Thanks about my non-fiction, man. Yeah, get over here, dude. Paul Schmidt's Rimbaud translations are kind of okay with the individual poems, but his translations of 'A Season in Hell' and 'The Illuminations' are terrible, and those are the two Rimbaud masterpieces, let's face it. As I've said before, my favorite Rimbaud translation -- and I don't speak French, mind you -- is by Enid Perschel. This book. I grew up mostly reading the Wallace Fowlie translation of the 'complete works', and they're at least all right. ** Colin, Thanks a lot, Colin. I hope you'll get to see the piece. It's certainly not impossible. A UK gig or two seems pretty likely. Oh, that Kevin Killian is as fine a man as he is a scribe. Wild that he had an extra copy of 'The Brute'. I don't even have an extra copy. Glad you like it. It turned out nice, yeah. ** Changeling, Yeah, we were totally beat at that dinner, but it was also just my bad luck on the camera front. That's what I get for shooting before enough bottles of wine have arrived. Did you magically hear back from the doctor yesterday? Today, surely, worst comes to worst. What's the diagnosis or what transpired? Sucks about the week sans alcohol, but, yeah, try, man. I want you back to spinning your great writing and feeling some form of body-friendly perkiness. I read through the post you sent quickly this morning, and it's really great. I'm thrilled by it. Thing is, the images didn't come through, or not in a form whereby I can download and use them, I'm not sure why. I hate to do this to you in your current state, but could you resend the images, maybe as attachments? I can see where they go in the post, and I can insert them. Sorry for the big hassle. And I'll go read that piece you mentioned and the other new works on your blog asap. I'm still struggling with being weirdly zonked and unfocused here, but it's lifting, and I can't wait to read it, and of course I'll let you know what I think. Thanks a lot all around, man, and I really hope somehow that you feel at least a little better today. ** Steven Trull, Thanks, man. I hope it won't ruin everything that they're real trees, as much as dead trees are real. How are you? ** Steevee, It takes a lot for me to ease my eardrums into contemporary R&B, but maybe I'll try your sug. That mash-up is great. Everyone, courtesy of Steevve, Whitehouse plus Mel Gibson = ! ** Christopher/ Mark, Thank you so much, Mark. Hey, I just saw while I was in Avignon that 'Roratorio' is coming to Paris! Please tell me that you'll be coming over here for that. Can't wait to see it, and, fingers severely crossed, see you too. ** Kier, Hey, man! I've missed you big time. It's so good to see you! So sorry to hear that you've been in the doldrums. I'm no doctor, but I prescribe being around here as one of the best medicines. Selfish, I know, sorry. You've never really played video games before? They're very nutritious, imagination-wise. For me anyway. 'Resident Evil 4' is a classic. Anyway, lots of love to you, my dear friend. ** _Black_Acrylic, Good, I get to thank you in person. Thank you (typed with affection and a grateful whopper of a smile). ** Armando, Yeah, it's coming to your city. Not sure exactly when or where, though. I can find out. It was actually scheduled to play MC next month, originally, but then the possibility of a small 'Jerk' tour of Mexico arose, so the gig got delayed to work with that. Sorry to hear that you haven't been writing. I don't know how people write during the summer. I'm having the hardest time myself. Take care, A. ** Wolf, Hey. A two-blog Avignon show is much more prestigious, so it worked out great. Hold on. Everyone, the great Wolf took some beautiful photos in Avignon and other parts of southern France on her recent visit, and, needless to say, you really must go have a look. That little sub pic is a total killer. You okay and more? ** No more teenagekicks, Hey, Mark. It's interesting because I don't think Avignon has any actual castles, although there are a lot of things there that look so much like castles that what's the difference? Count me in for a voice on your Adult Swim show. My word is my bond. Really nice to see that good old JT propped your MG Day over on HTMLG. Dude, you're finally that close to finishing the novel? I'm so beside myself with excitement, I can't find the words. Man oh man. Man oh man! ** Will Decker, You're most welcome, Will, and thank you. ** The Dreadful Flying Glove, You seem emotionally okay with having sold your black Les Paul unless my radar is off. Superb cause, obviously. Hopefully, it'll find a fine new home around one of the necks constituting the next big musical thing. I'll trade you that spider for this incredibly sneaky mosquito I've got over here. ** David, Thank you, man. ** Creative Massacre, Good, excitement about the surgery is definitely the way to go. The worst physical maladies are those that nobody can figure out well enough to slice or medicate away. I bet once your feeling bad is out of the way, you'll have big break after big break. Break in good sense, not the bone sense, obviously, ha ha. Enjoy the drugs until then. Much love to you again and forever, pal. ** Postitbreakup, Hey. Well, we're supposed to make a feature film of 'Jerk'. We have a producer in place for that, and we just have to find the time to get the script, etc. finished. We also want to make a film of 'Kindertotenlieder', but that plan is still pretty vague. You know, we've had two situations where we came 'this close' to performing one of our pieces in Houston only to have the gigs cancelled twice due to fears of causing too much controversy. 'TIHYWD' is maybe our least 'controversial' piece, so maybe it'll get there. The way I did it was totally with the help of the therapist. I don't know if I could have stabilized myself nearly as well without her. She pushed me to recognize the bad things I was doing as instances in a longstanding pattern of self-destructive behavior that stretched back to my early life and then recognize that truth before I did what I was considering doing, basically. But, like I said, I have this weird ability to stay emotionally okay and controlled for fairly long periods of time, and I'm sure that helped me think things through without attacking my own thoughts. Plus, I pretty much stopped doing drugs -- except rarely for kicks -- and drinking -- not that I ever drank that much -- permanently at the same time. Not sure if that helps at all. I can say more if you want. ** Nb, It's your birthday! Everyone, it's nb's birthday! Also, and sorry to encroach on nb's space here, but it's also 'Stoopid Slapped Puppies's' birthday today! The two Nicks born on the same day! What are odds? Wish them a happy one, why don't you? Oh, I know where you hiked practically down to the bush. If photographs were like they are in 'Blade Runner', I could point out my LA apartment in that sucker. Birthday suggestion? Hm, nothing magical and unique and particular springs to mind from way over here. Maybe something from the local section of Rentboy.com? Enjoy, my buddy! ** Alan, Hey. ** Chilly Jay Chill, We also made our theater piece with lots of breaks in the process, and I think that actually helps quite a bit, not sure why. Love your description of your novel's evolution. Shedding layers, definitely, I know that well. Strange, right? Better to shed them than add them like armor or whatever. Overall, my novel goes well. I'm feeling rusty and having a hard time getting back into obsessively working on it like I need to, although I expect a breakthrough on that any day. That stage I'm at: I'm just under halfway through the novel's major, central edit/rewrite. I'm finessing the basic, fairly detailed body and surface of the novel out of the fairly raw draft -- well, it feels raw, although it was about the 50th or so draft. Once I get through that, which I had hoped to have complete by the end of the summer --but that's not going to happen -- and assuming the novel's later sections and ending are working as I've hoped -- big question mark there -- then I'll move into the final draft, basically polishing the prose and doing little fiddlings with the words and the rhythms of the sentences, paragraphs, etc. Thanks for asking, Jeff. All the luck in the world with yours. ** JW Veldhoen, Sounds like that was quite the lost comment. But the one you managed to leave was interesting too. Lots to flesh out and think about. Well, go out dancing then, no? Use nb's b'day as your reason. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, Hi. Oh, the French stuff on the clip is just moody hype and praise and all that. You didn't miss any big revelations or anything. There'll be a lot more shows, but the Avignon dates were set in stone. The day we moved out of that theater, another piece started moving in. The novel behaved, I didn't. Or I did, but my brain didn't cooperate. The mosquito lives, god help us. Oh, I thought when you said your guy had bites around his nipples, you were going to say he'd been, I don't know, raped or something. You mean nipple-loving insects? I wonder why cats get so bitey sometimes? Wow, that Edith Massey comparison thing re: your aunt freaked me out. In the good way. But you're still going to use the pool, right? Wow, I would. My day: It got a little hotter here, but it's still within the realm of niceness. I forgot that I'd agreed to do an email interview for a magazine, and the editor wrote to tell me it's due today, so I have to answer all the questions as soon as I finish this ugh. I went out and bought food, cigarettes, etc. Uneventful. A new little family war broke out, but it's not too out of control yet. I tried to work on my novel, but it only went so-so, so I did some future blog post thinking and gathering and organizing instead, which doesn't require as much of my brain. A journalist from Dazed & Confused Magazine called me. They're doing a thing on the amazing young writer Ben Brooks whom I've featured here and talked about here, and they wanted a long quote from me about him, so I talked about him until she said she had enough for a good quote. Ben happened to be wherever the journalist was, so I talked to him for the first time for a minute, and that was nice. Kiddiepunk called me, and we made plans to hang out today sometime. Yury came back from running errands -- it was his day off -- and said he'd fallen in love with a pair of Raf Simons sneakers, but they cost 800 euros, so that's not going to happen, obviously. I guess I ate dinner and smoked and stuff. I'm trying to help Yury's and my friend Lena get a job at a fashion house, and a designer I know and whom I'm trying to hook her up with agreed to meet with her, and she called to tell us, so that was tentatively good. Uh, I don't think that anything else of interest happened. So, zzzz. Your turn. ** Shane Le Vein, Aw, thanks a whole lot, Shane! That's super kind of you. You should come see it in Paris in April if it doesn't nearer to you before then. It's nice here, heat-wise. In Lyon too? I'd heard you guys were getting it worse than us. It's supposed to rain and cool way down here for three days starting tomorrow. No problem. Take care, man. ** Sypha, Hi, James. Well, I'd love for KL to do my covers, and if I'm given any real say in the matter, I'll try to make that happen. I'm really glad you're feeling a little better, man. ** Alec Niedenthal, Hi, Alec. There are venues in the US that really want to bring 'TIHYWD' over, but it's all about them being able to afford it. It looks like we've got a for sure gig in Montreal, and, if so, that'll help a lot with the costs of getting it into the US. A year, wow. Time is so weird, in general, but in this place particularly. Ha ha, novel isn't almost done. I wish. It's getting there. I'm not that far away from finishing it if the stars shine on me. During the fall for absolutely sure, unless I realize it's a disaster. I hope it'll come out next year. The sooner the finish, the more likely that will be. I'm glad you're getting back into writing regularly. Don't mind the initial rust. That's so normal. Definitely, a piece at a time. That's always the way to go. Faulkner is pretty damed good, yeah? Are you finding his work entering your own voice at all? ** Paul Curran, Thanks a lot, Paul. ** Tender Prey, Hey, Mark! Yeah, I bet you're busy getting ready for your show. I'm hoping some miracle or other will get me to London while it's up. And, you know, thank you so much about 'TIHYWD'. I really, really appreciate it, man. And it was so splendid to see you even when we were all so wilted. I will tell Jonathan that, and I'm sure he wants to stay in touch. He was really thrilled to get to know you guys. Yeah, definitely, go ahead and make enquiries about the gallery/blog show, if you don't mind. That gallery, Vegas, looks interesting from its site. Thanks, Mark! Yeah, I'm excited to start getting the show together at last, and so grateful for your support on that. ** Math, Hey, Math! Yeah, all the 'right' things to do are really obvious and definitely not magical. You sound pretty okay, though. It's weird that he made just a hard 180, or is trying to. I'm used to that happening mostly when people get religion or go into rehab or something. Anyway, just managing to stop thinking about it is so practical, but so un-magical, ugh. Keep talking, pal. Serious love to you. ** Oscar B, Dude-ette! Yeah, talk to you and see you today, I'm positive. Shortly even, I hope. ** Okay, off this goes to you, and off I go to do an interview and take a shower, not necessarily in that order. Give _Black_Acrylic's randy antics your all, please. See you tomorrow.
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