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MANS WORLD ISSUE 2 'The Sea! The Sea!'

'The Sea! The Sea!' Man's World Issue 2 is finally here! After the amazing success of the first issue, Man's World returns with a nautical theme and essays from Bronze Age Pervert, Raw Egg Nationalist, Ross Erickson, Peter Hopkirk Respecter and many more. Stories by Doonvorcannon and Zero Hp Lovecraft; a new motoring section; previously untranslated works by Ernst Junger and Pierre Drieu La Rochelle. The ultimate man's magazine just got even better!

'The Sea! The Sea!'

Man's World Issue 2 is finally here! After the amazing success of the first issue, Man's World returns with a nautical theme and essays from Bronze Age Pervert, Raw Egg Nationalist, Ross Erickson, Peter Hopkirk Respecter and many more. Stories by Doonvorcannon and Zero Hp Lovecraft; a new motoring section; previously untranslated works by Ernst Junger and Pierre Drieu La Rochelle. The ultimate man's magazine just got even better!

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MAGELLAN, THE LUSIAD

The great Age of Reconnaissance

CLASSIC NAUTICAL STYLE

The uniform of the Aristocrats of the Sea

NEW MOTORING

SECTION

Ross Erickson on

the patriarchy

Striking back at Leviathan

Florida leads the way

Combat as Inner Experience

DOONVORCANNON

Zero HP Lovecraft returns

A new first translation



'Man cannot remake himself without

suffering, for he is both the marble and the

sculptor'

Alexis Carrel


MAN'S WORLD

Raw Egg Nationalist (@babygravy9)

welcomes you to the sophomore issue of

Man's World, the only men's magazine

worth reading today.

Welcome back, friends, to Man’s World and Raw Egg

Journal, the only men’s magazine worth reading.

And what a ride it’s been so far! Even I was surprised by the

success of the first issue, which was read 25,000 times in

the space of a few days, and is past 50,000 views at the

time of writing. There’s now an SFW version of the

magazine available to read via my Linktree

(linktr.ee/raweggnationalist), for those of you who didn’t

like the vintage centrefolds. (More on those centrefolds in

just a moment.)

Whatever doubts I had about the validity of the enterprise,

all those weeks ago when I first memed myself into

creating it, have now well and truly disappeared. Thank you

all for your support and contributions.

I’ve done my very best to incorporate the constructive

criticism of my anon friends, while remaining aloof from

the inevitable sour-grape doo-doo slinging of professional

cope artists like… well, why sully this fine publication with

their names? You're probably familiar with who I mean.

And if not – lucky you! Keep it that way.

As I was saying, I’ve done my best to incorporate your

legitimate criticism of the typesetting and formatting and

also of some of the content, namely the centrefolds. On the

first point, I can only beg indulgence on account of my

inexperience. I’m still learning, but I’m learning fast. I

promised that this issue would be ‘lean, mean and clean’,

and I hope you find it so. You won’t have to strain your eyes

to see any text, nor should any of the colour schemes prove

garish or the transition between them quite so much of a

psychedelic experience. I’ll say it again: lean, mean and

clean.

On the second point, I’ve made the executive decision not

to continue the centrefold section, at least in this issue. My

intention with the centrefolds was to evoke a time before

the advent of readily available internet pornography, with

its stringent pubic topiary regime, a time which has quite

significant nostalgic value for me. Know ye this: my

intention was not at all to provide fodder for your inner

Coomer. Far from it. I do understand though, despite the

fond personal memories such images have for me, that

softcore pornography really was the thin end of the wedge,

as it were, for the ubiquitous filth that is doing such harm

to the minds and bodies of men, women and children

everywhere.

Having said that, I would like to issue a plea. As I said in a

recent interview, prudery and puritanism will do us much

more harm than good. Attempts to enforce a right-wing

sharia will only lead to infighting and purity spirals of the

kind that continue to prove so destructive for emerging

movements. What we have in common is of far greater

importance than our stance on a few naked bodies in a

magazine, and you shouldn't forget that.

So what’s in store for you in this issue? Well, the broad

theme of this issue, if you hadn’t guessed from our cover

star, a well-developed member of Her Majesty’s Royal Navy

– I believe he occupies the rank of rear admiral – is the sea.

The sea, the sea! That famous phrase uttered by

Xenophon’s wandering Greeks when they finally caught

sight of the Black Sea and the outposts of their own

civilisation. Our sea-themed special occupies centre-stage

and contains a myriad of fantastic articles, from politics to

archaeology, history to style, and literature. Learn about the

ancient seafaring exploits of our ancestors, the voyages of

da Gama and Magellan, and how to dress like a true prep;

wonder at modern-day myths by Doonvorcannon and Zero

HP Lovecraft; let Elias Kingston tell you how a revival

among the states, following the example of maritime

Florida, could finally help to slay the dreadful Leviathan of

the deep state. And that’s not all of the sea special, let alone

the rest of the magazine! Phew!

What else? A fantastic new motoring section, for one thing

(I keep my promises). A neck and jaw training special, with

guest articles from Greco Gum and Herculean Strength. A

short comedy sketch from Neon Bag. Eternal Physique

returns, and there’s the second part of the serialisation of

my book, Three Lives of Golden Age Bodybuilders. Part one

of a fantastic defence of the reputation of a true lion of the

British Empire; a comparison of two famous responses to

the ugliness of modern-day leftism; a short story from

Faisal Marzipan; spotlights on new books by Antelope Hill

and Imperium Press; an early short story by Pierre Drieu La

Rochelle. Dr Chaim Breisacher returns with the second

chapter of his fantastic translation of Ernst Jünger’s

Combat as Inner Experience.

Oh, and don’t let me forget – there’s also an article by the

irrepressible and inimitable BRONZE AGE PERVERT.

So welcome to Man’s World Issue 2: it's a pleasure to have

you back.

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


MAN'S WORLD

CONTENTS

I s s u e 2

BAP

23

Chuck Sipes 5

Eternal Physique 10

Ross Erickson 19

MOTORING

111 88

67

Neon Bag 101

The Company Sabre 104

BAP + Kaczynski 117

Faisal Marzipan 123

Drieu La Rochelle 125

American Extremist 135

NECK

John Cold 138

Cultured Grugs 141

21

THE SEA!

THE SEA!

JÜNGER

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


MAN'S WORLD

BORN: 22 AUGUST 1932,

STERLING ILLINOIS

DIED: 24 FEBRUARY 1993,

SISKIYOU CO. CALIFORNIA

HEIGHT: 5’9”

WEIGHT: 220LB

1959 MR AMERICA

1960 MR UNIVERSE

1968 MR WORLD

In this second extract from his

sophomore book, Three Lives of

Golden Age Bodybuilders, Raw Egg

Nationalist describes the inspiring,

extraordinary life of the man they

called...

THE IRON KNIGHT

CHUCK SIPES

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


For a week now they have followed him, climbing further into the

mountains. From time to time they stop, and he points out to the

young men some species of tree or plant, a bird of prey high above,

circling in the cloudless sky – even a mountain lion across the valley

beyond. They look at these things, but observe with just as much

wonder the enormous musculature of the man’s outstretched arms

and shoulders; and when he walks in front of them, the vast spread of

his back, the neck that seems to have been transplanted from some

mythical creature, and his calves, like two thick joints of ham, above

the ankle socks and boots. They have seen men like this before, but

never outside the pages of a comic book. In the afternoons, when the

sun is less intense, they find a shaded spot, drop their packs and

exercise together. When night comes, they sleep soundly under a

canopy of stars none of them have ever seen back in the city.

Now, in the evenings, after supper, under his guidance their talk

moves from the usual chit-chat, jokes and things young men talk

about to a more serious topic: how each of them has come to find

himself on the wrong side of the law. At first, the young men have

trouble opening up. It’s not easy to talk like this. Nobody has ever

listened to them before. Their thoughts and feelings have never

mattered. But this seems to be his real superpower: he shows them

that they do matter. They are not just victims of circumstance, the

ever-present criminal element of society, but masters of their own

destiny. They have a choice. When they return home in three weeks’

time, each of them will be determined to be a better man – to be just

like Chuck Sipes.

MAN'S WORLD

Coker, and the hard paratrooper’s training, had clearly already

provided him with the basis for his later marvellous physique.

Chuck now returned to California and normal life (if by ‘normal’

you mean the life of a lumberjack) with the intention of

becoming a bodybuilder; and not just any bodybuilder but the

best in the world. He sought out Bill Pearl, who won his first Mr

Universe competition the next year, in London, beating, among

others, a 23-year-old Scot by the name of Sean Connery. Pearl

would win the Universe title an unheralded four times before

his retirement in 1971, and receive the moniker of the 'World’s

Best-built Man of the Century’; he has been described as

‘Arnold, before there was Arnold’, and ‘bodybuilding’s first true

crossover superstar’, both of which could also just as equally be

applied to Reg Park as well. For Chuck, the mould was set: not

only was Pearl possessed of a beautiful physique, but he was

also extremely strong. He regularly dressed up in the garb of a

Sandow-era strongman – replete with leotard or fig leaf, fake

moustache and period backdrop – and performed feats of

strength like bending spike nails and blowing up hot water

bottles until they exploded; he could also bench press 500lb, at

a time when very few men could. Chuck would go on to

perform similar feats in similarly absurd getups, bending steel

rebars held between his teeth, ripping phonebooks in half with

his bare hands or crushing spike nails, just like his mentor. His

mentor’s bench press PR he would beat by a full hundred

pounds. While Chuck was competing, the only man

stronger at benching – in the world – was Pat Casey, who was

also 135lb heavier than him.

6

An Illinoisian by birth, Chuck Sipes moved to Modesto,

California with his family as a child. Although he had already

been introduced to weight training as a scrawny wannabe

high-school football player, Chuck had his real introduction to

bodybuilding only after a taste of high-speed dirt that would

have killed anybody other than a man destined to be a demigod;

so too Chet Yorton, whose accident was arguably worse.

Before their respective dates with near-death, neither man had

displayed much evidence of the physical prowess with which

his name would later be synonymous. During his early days as a

schoolboy lifter, under the tutelage of his neighbour Chuck

Coker, Sipes showed no real interest in bodybuilding at all.

Chuck began his competitive bodybuilding career unwillingly.

Chuck Coker recalls that when Sipes was a lifting competitor

in his junior college days in Modesto, there was one occasion

when a physique contest was held in connection with the

lifting. Chuck’s buddies on the team filled out an entry form to

the physique contest, then informed Chuck that he had to get

up on stage and pose. He said no at first, but then did sort of a

stroll across the stage and hit a few poses.

(This may be the first recorded instance of the Chad stride.)

Throughout his bodybuilding career, the posing, rather than

the lifting, would remain the part that least interested Chuck,

and his lack of a polished posing routine probably cost him a

number of titles he would otherwise have won.

After graduating from school, Chuck decided to become a

paratrooper, joining the US Army’s famous 82nd Airborne. He

served for three years until during a practice jump his

parachute failed and he became entangled with another

trooper, falling 70 feet to the ground. (Some have suggested

that the impact may have been the cause of the mysterious

and hugely destructive Tunguska Event; however plausible the

claim that the earth would come off a distant second to Chuck

Sipes in a collision, the disparity of dates and locations is

enough to disprove this.) Chuck spent the next four months in

hospital, recovering from serious head injuries that would leave

their mark in the longer term with epilepsy and severe

depression; tragically, the depression would dog him for the

rest of his life, and was almost certainly a contributor to his

death by suicide, in 1993.

But our story continues in 1952. After his time in hospital, Chuck

began to receive disability pay for his injuries, until a visit to a

military doctor brought those payments to an end: how could a

man with a body like that be disabled? The work with Chuck

After around five years of training, in 1958 Chuck won his first

competition, in California, the Amateur Athletic Union’s Mr

North California contest; he was 26. He also placed in the top

ten that year in a number of other regional and national

contests, including the AAU’s Junior Mr America and Mr

America contests. In 1959, Chuck would get his first taste of real

success, winning the IFBB Mr America, before winning the

1960 Mr Universe. In the mid-sixties, he turned his attention to

the Mr Olympia contest for the first time. In the 1966 Olympia,

won by Larry Scott, he placed third, and the following year, he

came second to Sergio Oliva; along with Chet Yorton and Frank

Zane, Oliva, a Cuban bodybuilder often referred to as ‘the

Myth’, was one of only three people ever to beat Arnold in

competition. Chuck continued to compete to the end of the

decade and into the early seventies. After his close failures at

the 1966 and 1967 Olympias, he won the NABBA World

Championship in 1967 and Mr California and Mr World in 1968.

In 1970, he came second in the medium class of the Mr

Universe, whose overall class was won by Arnold. Chuck finally

retired from competition in 1974 following his win in the over-

40s category of the Mr Pacific Coast.

The intensity not just of Chuck’s competition training but of his

life in general was legendary. Where most would struggle to fit

a bodybuilding routine in around any kind of full-time job,

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!



Chuck, being Chuck, managed to work out after full days

chopping trees as a lumberjack or in sawmills up and down the

Pacific Coast. He credited his massive 18” forearms to this hard

work, at a time when many bodybuilders did little or no

separate forearm training; he considered his forearms to be

essential to his massive strength. And it was no mere routine he

performed after putting down his chainsaw and hardhat and

washing the dirt, sweat and sawdust from his skin. In the runup

to the 1968 Mr World, for instance, Chuck was training every

body part three days a week, working up to his maximum lifts

every other day and using all sorts of high-intensity schemes,

such as the 1-10/10-1. As well as lifting heavy often, Sipes

believed in maximising intensity, reducing his rest times

between sets to as little as ten seconds.

MAN'S WORLD

heartfelt letter about your high school’s drug problem would

almost invariably guarantee an appearance from the man

himself, who would turn up, put on an awesome exhibition of

strength and then give a stirring speech on the virtues of clean

living and exercise. It was drugs, in particular, that led to

Chuck’s departure from competitive bodybuilding, in the early

1970s. A few years after Chet Yorton was turned on to the

dangers of steroids,

Chuck was rooming with another world famous bodybuilder

overseas during a posing exhibition. Chuck walked into their

hotel room and found the other bodybuilder with a needle in

his butt. Chuck asked what was going on and was told, “Oh,

you have to do this to compete these days.”

8

Chuck as Sandow

This rugged lifestyle, while hardening his muscles superbly, did

nothing to harden Chuck’s heart. Said Dave Draper of Chuck:

This man, who looked like a pile of rocks and lifted steel like a

crane and shredded and crumpled anything he got his hands

on, was a gentleman, a peacemaker and an artist. He insisted

you go first while he carried your load; he counseled troubled

young men in the California state penal system and created

with brush and oils on large canvas incredible old west

paintings in marvelous detail. Chuck Sipes was a mighty good

man.

The term ‘muscular Christian’ could have been coined, in the

most literal sense, to describe Chuck; and I can think of few

who would be better placed to lead a revival of that much

maligned and misunderstood doctrine than the Iron Knight

himself. Before and after retiring from competitive

bodybuilding, he spent 20 years coaching and mentoring

troubled inner-city youths for the California Youth Authority.

Chuck put his love and knowledge of the California wilderness

to good use by leading groups of young men on three-week

expeditions into the forest. There, after the initial bewilderment

had passed, he would help them to speak about and

understand the difficulties of their lives. These campfire

conversations became the basis of many lifelong friendships

between Chuck and his mentees, who would continue to visit

him through the years. The expeditions also involved

impromptu workouts in which cables would be wrapped

around trees and various exercises were performed. The

success rate of Chuck’s work was overwhelming: according to

the superintendent of Folsom Prison, 96% of the youths Chuck

mentored did not return to jail. Ever humble, Chuck said,

Chuck, however, disagreed, and began to speak out against

steroid use. ‘CHARLTON HESTON’S MUSCULAR DOUBLE’

featured on the cover of the February 1971 issue of Muscle

Training magazine, beside the caption: ‘MR AMERICA CHUCK

SIPES SAYS: DRUGS ARE DESTROYING MUSCLE MEN’. Chuck

effectively retired from bodybuilding after the article was

published; although he competed one final time in 1974. Of

course, he continued to train, and remained in amazing shape.

Part of his community work involved acting as the weight

trainer at a youth facility, and a fellow employee remembers

how when Chuck was in his mid-fifties, with grey shoulderlength

hair, ‘this O.G. was still cut up, I couldn’t believe someone

at this age could continue to stay in shape’. Chuck also

continued trekking in the wilderness, which became the

subject of another of his hobbies: painting. While it’s hard to

find pictures of Chuck’s paintings on the internet, one image

can be found of Chuck posing proudly next to a fantastically

detailed mountain river scene, with two riders in the

foreground. The date of the painting isn’t clear, but Chuck has

grey in his beard and his hair is receding; yet the famous

physique is still evident – the enormous forearms and biceps,

especially.

During the later years of Chuck’s life, his mood darkened, and

nothing his family and friends could do could change it; life

seemed to hold him with a weaker and weaker grip. His

painting no longer brought the same satisfaction, and

bureaucracy began to get in the way of the expeditions that

had done such good for the deprived young men of California.

Ultimately, the reason why a man like Chuck Sipes would take

his own life – simple brain chemistry or something far less

simple – must remain a mystery. Joe Roark, of the Roark Report,

puts it well:

What causes a man, who cheers up everyone, to change so

that he cannot be cheered up by those he loves? Big Chuck

was becoming little Chuck inside himself. A man whose family

loved him, whose artwork was respected, whose cell-mates (so

to speak) became sell-mates and are forever in his debt, whose

stupendous strength and physique accomplishments were no

longer able to re-kindle his former bright attitudes.

Chuck was buried in his buckskins, a mountain man to the last.

One of the many young men whose life Chuck had helped to

transform read the eulogy. ‘CHUCK SIPES – MEETS THE SUN’,

his gravestone reads: back into the light he had shone on all

those who knew him.

Three Lives of Golden Age Bodybuilders is

available now for purchase from Amazon or

the Rogue Scholar book store, or for free

download via linktr.ee/raweggnationalist.

One of my objectives was to win the kids over to Christianity,

and introduce them to a more positive way of life. It may not

have been the answer for all, but it was a start in the right

direction.

The use of drugs was one of Chuck’s particular concerns. A

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


Raw Egg Nationalist presents

Available now from Amazon, the Rogue Scholar

bookstore or linktr.ee/raweggnationalist


MAN'S WORLD

10

DAVE DRAPER


MAN'S WORLD

BORN: 16 APRIL 1942,

SECAUCUS NEW JERSEY

HEIGHT: 6'1"

WEIGHT: 225LB

1965 MR AMERICA

1966 MR UNIVERSE

THE BLONDE BOMBER

Words: Raw Egg Nationalist

DAVE DRAPER

If Larry Scott hadn’t been dubbed bodybuilding’s original

‘Golden Boy’, that moniker would almost certainly have been

bestowed on Dave Draper instead. Tall, heavily muscled and

beautifully proportioned, blonder than blonde – a man whose

entire person perhaps more than any other encapsulates

‘California’ during the heady days of the late fifties and early

sixties – Dave instead had to settle for the nickname ‘the

Blonde Bomber’. The nickname was given to him by Joe

Weider during their early training sessions together, after Dave

moved to California from New Jersey at Joe’s instigation,

leaving behind his job in a welding factory.

Dave had shown great early promise, beginning his training in

physical cultivation before his tenth birthday. By the age of 15,

he dwarfed his classmates, who eagerly sought him out for

advice. Entering his first competition at 21, the Mr New Jersey

contest, Dave won easily, and began a tear that would see him

win the Mr America and Mr Universe titles back to back, in 1965

and 1966; although he failed to win the newly inaugurated Mr

Olympia competition before his retirement.

At the same time as he was winning some of the most coveted

titles in bodybuilding, Dave embarked on a brief acting career,

starring in two Hollywood films. The first, Lord Love a Duck

(1966), was a comedy that sent up a variety of topics, including

beach party movies, which a number of bodybuilders, among

them Chet Yorton, were starring in at the time. The second,

Don’t Make Waves, was much more notable for the presence

of Sharon Tate, in her cinematic debut, alongside Tony Curtis in

the lead role as Carlo. Draper played Harry Hollard, a naïve

bodybuilder who is tricked by Carlo into refusing to have sex

Sharon Tate touching Dave's chest in the 1967 movie

Don't Make Waves

with his girlfriend, played by Tate, ostensibly because it would

harm his physique but actually so that Carlo can have her for

himself.

After failing to win the Olympia in 1967, Draper would retire in

1970 at age 28, having finishing third in that year's Mr Universe.

He continues to train to this day.

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


MAN'S WORLD 12


MAN'S WORLD


MAN'S WORLD 14


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MAN'S WORLD


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MAN'S WORLD

Ulysses and the Sirens, John William Waterhouse (1891)

Words: Ross Erickson (@hurricaneross)

THE MAN THAT DREAMS

ARE MADE OF

Right around the time I graduated high school, our church got

a new pastor, a man named Neil. He was a cowboy, through

and through. Neil grew up in Wyoming, raised by what you

could call America’s last frontiersmen. These were the men who

tamed the wilderness; who broke wild horses not just for fun,

but because they had to; who made contracts with their word

and never broke them; in short, they knew what a man was

supposed to be.

These frontiersmen passed this knowledge on to Neil. The

problem was, once Neil left Wyoming, he was surrounded by

people who didn’t know what he was talking about. “What do

you mean, women shouldn’t work outside the home? What do

you mean, my word is my bond? Isn’t that the government’s

job, to enforce contracts?” Back then, I could have been chief

among that group. I couldn’t make sense of him while he was

here. A lot of that was because Neil didn’t understand how to

explain what he knew. He could tell there was something

missing - like a Hokusai painting with Mt. Fuji taken out. He

tried in sermons to describe that gaping Patriarchal hole in

civilization, and I suspect he figured he would have gotten in

trouble if he succeeded (I agree).

Neil left our church a few years ago, but now I finally get it. And

when I watched The Maltese Falcon (1941), I saw the type of

man who would have raised Neil.

The Maltese Falcon is a film noir starring Humphrey Bogart as

Sam Spade, a private detective caught in a web of dealings and

deception surrounding a jewel-encrusted falcon statuette. It’s a

must-view classic - one of the first 25 films selected by the

National Film Registry in 1988. Besides that, it’s just plain fun.

But the plot can wait for another time - for now, we need to

look at how Sam Spade deals with women.

Patriarchy at its best.

There are endless historical myths to draw from regarding

irresistible beauty. In Greek mythology, the Sirens sang a song

so alluring that sailors would jump overboard to their deaths.

The Slavic Alkonost, the Brazilian Yara, and the Welsh Morgen

tell the same story. There are others - Medusa’s gaze, David and

Bathsheba in the Bible - that, taken together, tell us a deep

truth: Sometimes, when a man looks at a woman, it shuts

down his brain. All rational thought goes out the window,

subsumed by one notion: “I must have her.” Heck, we don’t

even need stories. We’ve all experienced it. When faced with

this situation, a man is nearly defenseless. There is known only

one method of emerging victorious - the guidance of the

Patriarchy.

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


Patriarchy is, quite simply, the organization and cooperation of

men. Male cooperation has many uses - forming armies,

constructing buildings, conquering wilderness. This patriarchal

tendency began to be selected for in the human genome with

“total Y-chromosome replacement events” around 10 kya. For

the layman, think of Genghis Khan - he formed an empire that

reached from the Pacific Ocean to halfway up the Danube

River, all because he got a few tribes of nomads to fight with

each other instead of against!

Male cooperation is (apart from God, if you believe) the most

powerful force in the universe. It’s what Western culture seeks

to uphold - because when patriarchy collapses, Western culture

dies with it. Patriarchy is what separates the cities in the sky

from huts in the mud.

The Patriarchy of yore may be dead in 2021, but it was alive and

well 80 years ago in The Maltese Falcon. A client enters Sam

Spade’s office. His secretary prefaces that no matter what her

case is, Sam will want to see her, “she’s a knockout.” In comes

Brigid O’Shaughnessy (with the pseudonym Ruth Wonderly),

played by the lovely Mary Astor.

MAN'S WORLD

every tool she can think of to manipulate him. He lays out his

reasoning, although he knows she won’t care. “It’s bad

business,” he says, “to let the killer get away with it - bad all

around, bad for every detective everywhere.” In short - he won’t

betray the patriarchy. He knows that if everyone did what he

wanted to do, the whole system would collapse.

I’ve seen it said on the internet that using fictional characters

isn’t a good basis for morality tales. To that, I say balderdash,

nonsense, a load of hooey. If it’s good enough for my ancestors,

it’s good enough for me. And, to be frank - it’s all we have left.

We need these old movies to understand what we need to

become again, if we’re to survive.

20

Sam and his partner Miles have two different reactions. It’s

clear that Miles’s brain has shut down. He’s wrapped around

her finger. Sam, though, isn’t phased. He stands, offers her a

seat. She compliments Sam, and he tells her to start from the

beginning. She gives her story, but every once in a while

interjects with a beg for guidance, a plea for pity. Sam sits back

and continues to work. When their business is complete, she

offers some money; Sam sits back and watches, and she offers

more. It’s clear when Miles stands that he would have offered to

do the job for free. That night, Sam learns Miles has been shot.

Sam and Brigid have three more extended scenes together

after this first scene in The Maltese Falcon. In the second, he

goes to visit her after the murder to figure out what happened.

He starts businesslike, but when she starts trying to manipulate

him, Sam goes on the attack. He tells her that he expected

manipulation from her. When Brigid asks him to trust her and

begs for his help, he responds, “You won’t need much of

anybody’s help, you’re good. Chiefly your eyes, I think, and that

throb you get in your voice when you say things like, Be

generous, Mr. Spade.” “I deserve that,” she responds.

I want to end on one final note. When Neil came to our little

church in the middle of nowhere, he was actually sent by our

Conference leader to help us get through an explosive church

split. Our pastor before Neil was a bookish liberal type who

spread a lot of dissension. Neil wasn’t just any pastor - his job

had been to work for the Conference to take broken messes

and form them into a powerful tribe. To do that, they grabbed

the manliest man they could find, and they put him in charge.

The third scene happens after Spade starts to piece together

what the whole fiasco is about. The game between Sam and

Brigid gets stronger and stronger, as each tries to figure out

what the other knows. He shares what he’s learned, only to

read her face - she tries to hide what she knows, but he sees

right through it. She gets to a point where she only has one

tool remaining to her, sex - it’s implied that she uses it.

Ross Erickson's work is available at

rossmerickson.substack.com, and he tweets

@hurricaneross.

In the fourth and final scene, Sam Spade has figured it all out.

Brigid shot Miles, using his vulnerability to seduction as a tool

to get what she wanted. She admits, but only because he’s

trapped her - he had set up lies earlier in the conversation for

her to agree with. That’s when Sam drops the bomb - he’s

going to turn her in to the police. At this point, Brigid uses

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


MAN'S WORLD

The Sea!

The Sea!


MAN'S WORLD

Welcome to the Man's World nautical special!

22

Thalatta! Thalatta! – The sea! The sea!

According to Xenophon, this was the cry of joy let out by the

10,000 wandering Greeks when at last, from the top of a

mountain, they caught sight of the Black Sea. After their

expedition to help Cyrus the Younger seize the Persian throne

from his brother had failed, Xenophon and other officers were

elected to take charge of the Greeks and managed to lead them

back to safety – “a marching republic” – through hostile territory.

Crossing blasted deserts and snowy mountains, fighting all the

way, they marched through Mesopotamia to the shores of the

Black Sea and at last reached the outposts of Greek city culture.

The sea! The Sea! To those Greeks, the sea meant a return home,

to their own form of civilisation. And so the first thing they did

when they arrived in the city of Trebizond, after a decent rest, was

hold competitive games in the accustomed manner, reasserting

their identity and place within the Greek world.

The sea: our home just as much as the land.

There can be no history of man without the sea, even if there is of

course a history of the sea without man. One theory of evolution,

the so-called ‘aquatic ape’ theory’, even has it that early humans

diverged from our other hominid ancestors precisely because of

the sea. The theory was first put forward by the marine biologist

Alister Hardy in 1960, who thought that our love of swimming,

limited body hair, the shape of our bodies, the distribution of fat

under our skin and even our ability to walk upright rather than on

all fours could all plausibly be attributed to an aquatic phase in

Age of Reconnaissance, and two of its heroes, Magellan and Da

Gama. As a continent, Europe has perhaps been defined more

than any other by its maritime position. For the last ten thousand

years, its coastal geography has determined not only its internal

politics but also, in more recent centuries, the fate of the entire

globe. Carl Schmitt described the European turn to the oceans

after Columbus's voyage in 1492 as "the first complete space

revolution on a planetary scale". The present age of globalised

maritime trade and travel, the product of that first spatial

revolution, has even been called a "new Pangea" relinking the

ecologies and economies of continents that had been separate

for millions of years.

But the sea is not just a resource for nutrition, trade, travel and

war. Since the very beginning, it has encompassed and filled the

mind of man, giving birth to an infinity of myths, legends and

stories. Although the mythology of the agricultural civilisations of

the Axial Age understandably makes a garden and not the sea its

central vision of terrestrial happiness, the sea is ever-present and

remains a powerful force for thinking about and symbolising sin,

suffering, death and rebirth – the Flood, Leviathan, Jonah and the

Whale, the ‘there will be no sea’ of the Book of Revelation. That

mythology remains with us today, in however attenuated a form,

and continues to shape the way we think of all that matters as

humans. Two modern-day myth makers provide us with their

own visions of the sea and its power. In an exclusive extract from

his new book Mystical Ennui, Doonvorcannon @doonvorcannon)

presents a fantastic allegory of a two-tusked narwhal who fights

to protect his kind against all manner of threats. Zero HP

Lovecraft (@0x49fa98), in his inimitable manner, reimagines the

'Ocean is more ancient than the mountains and

freighted with the memories and the dreams of Time.'

HP Lovecraft

our evolution. The theory was pushed even further by Elaine

Morgan and given its name in her book The Aquatic Ape, but

many critics have pointed out that all of the evolutionary

adaptations used in support of the theory can be explained just

as plausibly without positing marine-based ancestors – physical

evidence for which has never been found.

Aquatic apes or no, it can hardly be doubted that the sea has

shaped man into what he is right from the very beginning,

providing not only a rich source of nutrition for early hunter

gatherers and then fishermen, who must first have fished from

the shore before mounting the ocean in primitive boats, but also

a means for transport, settlement, and, of course, war. The

aquatic ape theory is just one of many aspects of the primitive

relation to the sea discussed by the Stone Age Herbalist

(@Paracelsus1092) in his essay, “Stone Age Seafaring”. Among

other amazing possibilities he discusses is the tantalising

evidence that homo erectus, an extinct form of archaic human,

may have engaged in seafaring, some 700,000 years ago. As the

Herbalist puts it, “One of the ultimate expressions of the heroic

soul in primitive man is that he stared across a violently stormy

body of water, and knowing all the dangers still lashed trees and

branches with rawhide and set out to master his destiny.” The

image of primitive man going forth across the waters into the

unknown, aided only by the most basic technology, is an image

for all time. Like few others, it provides a call to recapture the

spirit of wild adventure and perform great deeds done in the face

of seemingly insurmountable odds.

Great deeds done in the face of insurmountable odds are the

theme of two other essays in this special, by Raw Egg Nationalist

and Kitharistas (@kitharistas). Their subject: the great European

Biblical beginning, in ‘Every Creeping Thing of the Earth’.

In ‘Between a Rock and a Wet Place’ Raw Egg Nationalist makes

his pitch for William Golding's best shipwreck novel – and, no, it

isn't The Lord of the Flies. For Golding, shipwreck represented a

limit experience, an experience at the edge of human

conception, and by making it a continuing subject of his fictional

works, revealed a very twentieth-century preoccupation with

exposing the real meaning of man's existence and nature.

The seaborne life also represents an ethic, with its own codes,

cultures and styles. One of the most important and enduring of

these styles is discussed by Fred @bronze_yankee) in a stunning

picture essay on classic nautical prep. Let Fred show you how to

don 'the uniform of the aristocrats of the sea', as you move from

an afternoon's sailing, to a cocktail party or beach barbecue by

night. You'll even learn how to look timelessly cool the next

morning, as you nurse a hangover with a bloody Mary at

breakfast. Or maybe lunch, if you really did have too much fun on

the dunes last night... Just don't forget those shades to hide the

redness of your eyes!

And in an exclusive opinion piece, Elias Kingston argues that the

sunshine state Florida under its governor Ron DeSantis may offer

the best chance the Republic now has of slaying the deep state

Leviathan. Individual states, empowered to defend themselves

and their interests, on land and sea, may be the next step in the

fightback begun, but not finished, by Donald J. Trump.

But first, we begin with a very special contributor...

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


MAN'S WORLD

The Argonauts Sail to Colchis, William Russell Flint (1912)


For man in America or Europe, not to speak of Azia, who

lives in thickly-settled coasts there is almost no daily

escape from the stench and filth of other so-called

huemans—where to go to find solitude and quiet? This

filthy race lives in cities literally built on piles of garbage

and excrement and intrudes everywhere not only with

its smells and often—most of world including its new

leadership being of peasant stock—bumps into you

physically and thinks nothing of it, but also in the

persistent noise. You can’t escape the car and bike

noise, the slamming of doors, random hammering,

construction sites; parties and loud bars are some of

few things that don’t bother me because is temporary

and at least I can think these people are enjoying

themselves…but small “get-togethers” where middle

aged Latina woman speaks in loud rasping voice for

many hours with unquenching energy, this needs to be

forbidden. Schopenhauer has small essay on noise

where he explains the hell that modern city even of his

time gave to man of thought, for whom any sudden

loud noise is an interruption in focus of mind: he

singled out the crack of the whip of driver of horses and

the slamming of doors, and these same two problems,

now made much worse by transportation with engines

and by neverending mechanized construction and

reforms, are still the worst obstacles to a normal life in

city.

MAN'S WORLD

to keep somewhat its own genetic leftoid tendencies in

check. But these were let loose once this theater of

having to oppose the Soviets ended; and what was left

was this mess of a gynocracy, of an elite or an

occupational class who doesn’t know who it is, who

almost doesn’t want to be; who wants to elevate the

slave and the stagnant as the highest type and

ultimately to deny that anything can exist outside of

this. The entertainments and ideals of this class, what is

most visible—their outward “sell” pitch—doesn’t

command respect of foreigners, no matter how much

pious dolts on left and right bray about America’s

supposed high ideals. This student had contempt for

what he was told because he saw firsthand the only

America that was actually celebrated was the America

of depravity, of obesity and stagnation; whatever was

good among Americans was disdained and suppressed,

but the absurd and vile, whether a negrified

commercial culture or deranged men putting on

women’s clothing, this was celebrated. Who wants that

in their own country? These efforts to educate the sons

of foreign leaders to “liberal values” are now having

almost always the opposite effect, especially when they

get to see America’s day to day life. Instead he heartily

agreed with me when I tell him to seek with his friends

to overthrow the corrupt democracy in Mongolia and

replace it with their own guardianship.

24

Close frands will recall how I met once a Mongol on

train, one of his big complaints about life in America

was the food: not enough meat! He told me “vegetables

are something I’m still trying to get used to.” Yakuts

and others from north tundra say the same: vegetables,

not to speak of bread, taste to them like wood. What is

this spirit that we have to worship bread and the grain?

I can never accept that, and everything that goes with

it, the way of life, the beliefs that developed around

this…and the type of mind that was ultimately bred by

the grain.

Anyway my Mongol friend said he could take occasional

refuge in Korean restaurants: “at least they have…

meat.” This was student on exchange program;

America tries to influence and educate scions of

important families, and in Mongolia there is special

interest because of its location between Russia and

Chyna. There is apparently tradition they have by now

of playing Russia and Chyna off against each other, to

keep their independence; so there is this interest. Then

also there are gigantic mines: Rio Tinto owns majority

stake in Oyu Tolgoi, one of largest copper mines in the

world and biggest project in Mongolia (known) history.

So America thinks it will educate or train the youth of

some nations to the superiority of its political system

like it used to during Cold War, but forgets that Soviet

Union no longer threatening peoples like before, so

they are less willing to deal with American quirks. But

also forgets that end of that conflict let loose all of its

own worst habits, which now all the world can see; and

much bad was in the open even some years ago when I

met this student, with the rentboy Luo robot as

president and the Woke stirrings and apeoid hissyfit

chimpouts of his second term already in full

acceleration.

Is not just that man who thinks he has overcome

danger lets himself go, but specifically that in having to

oppose international communism, America was forced

In this friendly talk, this very cheerful Mongol tell me

something I haven’t forgotten, how constrained he felt

by having to live only in cities and on set roads, and

how in Mongolia you can just take a car and drive out

on the open steppe. It’s a kind of feeling of freedom

that once you have, you can’t forget and can’t replace.

Imagine also the North American savages: not the ones

shaped for serfdom in the overpopulated agrarian

empires of Central America, but men hunting big game

on open steppe of the Midwest. That experience of the

majesty of open spaces and the freedom of movement,

the quiet, the exploration and conquest—these last two

words are in Portuguese the same—can never be

replaced; and you can imagine how such a people will

experience settled so-called civilization as only the

greatest confinement and drudgery. They could

therefore absolutely not tolerate slavery, which is often

unfortunately rightly confused with civilization.

For a modern American man or Western man an

equivalent experience is in hiking, mountaineering; but

if you live in city any readily available hiking trails, you

will encounter harridan often on these attempts to find

solitude. And so quiet and nature is maybe above all

available only in sailing and the sea. I’ve long thought

that the maritime beginnings of the Anglos and

Americans—its great poets and prophets are Melville,

Conrad, Mahan, and similar thinkers of the sea—as also

in fact of almost all Indo-European peoples in remote

antiquity…I’ve often speculated that these maritime

roots are not only spiritually analogous to the life of the

steppe, but ultimately that both have the same origins.

And that the ranging, exploratory, conquering mindset

of the West, which it shares with many of the peoples

of the steppe almost uniquely, was simply transferred

from there, from the Great Earth Sea, to the great

Ocean, but that the way of life of the two, and also the

ultimate aspirations and thoughts, are the same.

According to Herodotus, the Phocaeans were the first

Greeks to make long sea voyages: he claims they

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


bronzeagepervert

bronzeagemantis


abandoned an older round merchant type ship for what

is called the pentekonter, the fifty-oared sailing vessel.

This is a precursor to the trireme, and both these ships

were capable of achieving very high speeds, maybe not

matched until the age of steamboats and engine boats.

The pentekonter is the ship of the archaic Greeks, of the

age around 800-600 BC when much of the

Mediterranean and the Black Sea, and even beyond,

was colonized. The Phocaeans were especially

adventurous: from two harbors around the city in

middle of Anatolian coast, they ventured out in great

spirit and seeded colonies as far as Spain and were the

founders of Massalia, the precursor of Marseille, plus

quite a few others in Corsica, Sardinia, southern Italy. In

Spain they made contact with the mysterious

Tartessians whose king, a descendant of Atlantis,

invited them to settle and join his city; and when they

refused, he nevertheless liked them so much he send

them moneys to build strong walls around Phocaea at

home.

One episode from Herodotus that always stayed with

me was when Phocaea was facing Persian domination,

they decided simply to leave their city rather than

submit. Packing their ships they took off with their

women and children and left the city to the Persians,

but empty. Their odyssey around the Mediterranean to

find a new home is its own exciting story—could be

miniseries better than made-up Netflix fantasy!—but

after many adventures and wars including an attempt

in Corsica, they founded the city of Elea in southern

Italy, you can still visit ruins. It was to be a great city and

birthplace of genius: Parmenides and Zeno were both

from Elea, and city gave its name to philosophical

brotherhood, the Eleatics. For sure in modern times you

also find immigrants who leave motherland to escape

oppression, but a whole nation packing up and

resettling abroad is very rare. Icelandic free state

ultimate libertarian paradise founded around 800 AD

on institution of the duel was because the freest and

bravest of the Norsemen left in large numbers for this

strange remnant of Atlantis, to continue very old

liberties; it has same flowers and smells and shapes as

the Azores. Such things are very rare: it shows so much

however about the Greek understanding of what the

city was…not the buildings, the location, the territory,

but the men who held it together, their desire to live in

power and liberty and in their own distinct way of life

and by their own laws. And it reminds me of another

telling anecdote from Herodotus.

When Darius attempted to conquer the Scythians who

had been harassing his domains, and crossed over into

Europe and ranged north of the Danube around 513 BC

in great effort to subdue the people of steppe, his

efforts came to nothing. He was never even able to

close with them. What Herodotus says about them is so

striking I should quote it here:

“The Scythians were more clever than any other people

in making the most important discovery we know of

concerning human affairs, though I do not admire

them in other respects. They have discovered how to

prevent any attacker from escaping them and how to

make it impossible for anyone to overtake them against

their will. For instead of establishing towns or walls,

they are all mounted archers who carry their homes

along with them and derive their sustenance not from

MAN'S WORLD

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!

cultivated fields but from their herds. Since they make

their homes on carts, how could they not be invincible

or impossible even to engage in battle? They were

helped in making this discovery by their land and their

rivers, which foster and support this way of life. For their

land is flat, grassy, and well watered, and the rivers

running through it are not much fewer in number than

the canals of Egypt.”

How not possible to remember the Phocaeans in

reading this? Who also left their home for the flatlands

of the open sea—and by the way returned to Phocaea

to kill off the Persian garrison before setting on their

searches for a new harbor. But they weren’t the only

ones; other Ionian city, Teos, did the same and settled in

Thrace founding city Abdera. This turn of spirit ran very

deep in Greek life and most striking is when Athens

herself took as a city entirely to the sea to fight the

Persians in an image very much “Scythian” in feel. War

with Persia approaching, Athens asked the god at

Delphi what do—and the Pythoness answer to take

trust in the “wooden wall.” Some thought this referred

to old wall around the acropolis, citadel on the hill and

take refuge there; but most decided it must mean

themselves, that they—their ships—were to be the

wooden wall that is salvation of the city. Themistocles

persuaded them this was so and also to spend great

moneys from recent silver mine to build many more

ships. Through this one man the city was saved: entire

city became seaborne in wooden wall of the fleet, like

Scythian nation lived in wooden fleet of carts on the

move on the plains. In such way both defended

themselves from and ultimately conquered the

Persians: as Persia was at different times sacked from

both sides, from west by Greeks, from east by steppe

Massagetae and later by Parthians. In remote antiquity

the Persians themselves had come from the steppe,

but settled life will make you weak.

This readiness to turn to the sea and leave for new

lands and conquests must have been very old in the

Greek spirit: the Ionians and Aeolians themselves had in

remote history left the Greek mainland to escape

domination by the Dorians, or so it is claimed. I say

claimed because the real reason for Greek presence on

the Black Sea for example is possibly much older. Of all

the Indo-European peoples, the Greeks are the ones

whose earliest origins we know of most clearly, in

written myths, in the stories of other peoples, and in an

archaeological record that can be cross-checked more

easily than in other cases. And it is likely an origin as

seaborne adventurers, as literal conquistadores. The

story of Jason and the Argonauts, of the great sea

voyage not to but from the Caucasus—it was later only

inverted—is the founding tale of the Greek nation. The

worship of Mount Olympus in Thessaly, and the origin

of so many Greek mythological heroes in Thessaly—

Thessaly as the land of gods and heroes—corresponds

again to the earliest beehive tombs in that fertile land,

and the likely landing spot of the Aryan seaborne

armada, originating in the Caucasus, that would in time

become the Hellenes. They arrived in other words by

sea and not by land, following stories of a pacific and

fertile land of docile workers, ready for the taking. A

wonderful book on such things is Robert Drews’ The

Coming of the Greeks, which he has since updated with

the likely story of the colonization also of temperate

Europe.

26


MAN'S WORLD

Depiction of a pentekonter,

from the Greek settlement of

Nymphaion, in the Crimea

The ruins of Elea, in

southern Italy


But it is without doubt that the origin of the Greeks is

literally of a steppe adventurer people that took

without interruption to the other steppe of the sea and

in fact never left it. Even Hellenic assertion in new

homeland could only take place after the destruction of

a pre-existing thalassocracy, that of the Minoans, and

the struggles between the two peoples—ultimately

they would merge—but the struggles left behind the

dreamlike and unforgettable tale of Theseus and the

Minotaur, Theseus’ rescue of Ariadne, his abandonment

of the princess, and her exaltation on the island of

Naxos by Dionysos. This primal myth which is the

source of the most important and mysterious strain in

Western imagination… I can only leave it be for now.

But Dionysos the god of wine and quite a few other

things—is also very much a god of the sea. If you do not

believe this, read Homeric Hymn to Dionysos: a short

vignette of the sea, where, captured by pirates who

don’t know his divine powers, he is tied to the mast of

ship. But he makes wine flow through the ship, and the

mast sprouts vines and flowers! They are amazed. And

he turn into a lion and the pirates into dolphins. And

this is repeated in the myth of Arion, the inventor of the

dithyramb Dionysiac poem style, who is also captured

by pirates; they throw him in the sea but he is saved by

a dolphin. The earliest recorded imagination of Aryan

man is one of the deepest friendship with the beings of

the sea: maybe not even need ships! Atlantis

Directorate forces rode dolphin.

MAN'S WORLD

home… you see… this is a matter in the blood. You look

how a tiny country with as yet no seafaring tradition

decide to send men like Pedro de Covilha and Afonso

de Paiva, both very young, to explore as far as Ethiopia

and India, places they in fact reached, as preparation

and knowledge-gathering for great conquests: and you

see the amazing adventures of these two men to

undertake such travels in those times of danger; they

embarked on these separate ventures alone—when

they knew they could never return home—you see

once again the Gothic lust for wandering and

adventure and conquest reasserted. What is in the

blood can never be forgotten.

Other peoples, the Chynese, when they briefly turned

to the sea—they very quickly shuddered at what they

found. They turned away from it very fast, the emperor

shut it down. It frightened them or at least it frightened

their rulers and mothers and senilocracy: because on

the sea, as on the steppe, it is in one form or another

the mannerbund, or the brotherhood of young warriors

that determines the success of the venture. And for

some peoples, for most peoples in fact, it is

unacceptable, it is death, to allow such brotherhoods to

form. But for others it’s impossible to prohibit this

because the lust for conquest, adventure and broad

horizons is too great. It remains to be seen if enough

seed of Hyperborea remains in the world.

28

There is speculation that after a sojourn in

Mesopotamia, this same people arrived in the Indus

Valley—also by ship. But there is no speculation, only

certainty, that the earliest history of for example the

Germanic and Norse peoples is also that of seafaring

nations. The early settlement of the English Isles, long

before the global adventures of the Vikings, shows this

is so, and was in fact only part of a larger pattern of

people-wanderings that happened at least in half

through watery ways. When the Scandinavian Vandals

joined forces with the steppe Alans to first sack Rome,

then take Spain, and finally and very quickly set up a

seaborne pirate kingdom where Carthage used to be in

North Africa, this seamless and natural transition is only

a repetition of what I’ve talked above so far, that the

steppe and the ocean are for certain peoples a

“continuous biome.” The south and the sea, adventure,

conquest and the tropics, called to the Vandals as it had

repeatedly to other Aryan peoples of the north and the

steppe, and as it would continue to.

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Subscribe on Gumroad (/bronzeagepervert) for

the full show, or listen to the first half an hour

free on Soundcloud (/bronze-age-pervert).

Even when knowledge of the sea and sailing is lost, it is

quickly regained by such peoples, whereas others—

living on places with long coastline, even on islands—

never think so much as to float a log or build a canoe.

The Portuguese, when they first put their sights on

nearby North Africa, they made moronic mistakes, had

no knowledge of navigation. They quickly relearned it

and through superhuman efforts of Henry the

Navigator, in a few decades refounded this science

once again and launched the age of exploration and

colonization, the worldwide expansion of Europe.

Portugal was not before this a sea power; it had only

recently gained independence from Arab rule. It could

have easily remained a stay-at-home “ethnostate.” But

being a stay-at-home has never been in the Gothic

blood. You look at how immediately they embarked on

the most wide-ranging plans and searches away from

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


MAN'S WORLD

One of the mysterious Bradshaw

aboriginal paintings from Australia,

some of which may be 50,000 years old

STONE AGE SEAFARING

Words: Stone Age Herbalist (@paracelsus1092)

"Ships are the nearest things to dreams that hands have ever made, for somewhere

deep in their oaken hearts the soul of a song is laid." Robert N. Rose

One of the ultimate expressions of the heroic soul in

primitive man is that he stared across a violently

stormy body of water, and knowing all the dangers still

lashed trees and branches with rawhide and set out to

master his destiny. This is something of life at its most

vital, most energetic, most daring and ambitious. The

instinct to expand and explore. The world would be a

far smaller place if our ancestors had meekly accepted

their lot around the savannah watering holes.

So what do we actually know by way of real evidence of

the earliest seafaring? We are hobbled by the almost

total absence of organic preservation from the deepest

Palaeolithic. No wood, leather or hide artifacts remain.

This makes finding boats or sailing equipment virtually

impossible. Instead a fruitful approach has been to

combine the climatology data of which areas of land

would have been islands and infer from any human

remains that they must have sailed there. One of the

earliest pieces of evidence in this line comes from the

Kagayan Valley in northern Luzon, an island in the

Philippines. Remains of butchered megafauna and

stone tools have dated the arrival of Homo erectus, or

potentially even the Denisovans on the island to

709,000 years ago. This is an astonishingly archaic date

for a sea crossing. Could the simian figures of erectus

bands, even with language, have planned and executed

such a crossing? It goes against everything we

currently think we know about them. Yet the entire

continent of Oceania, with the Pacific to the east and

the Indian ocean to the west, is the stage for a hugely

complicated history of human migration. At various

points no less than five hominid species travelled and

flourished in the archipelagos and warm sheltered

coral bays.

Potentially as late as 15,000 BC Denisovans and

modern humans were breeding entirely new branches

of the family tree. The sea levels around South East Asia

were significantly lower than today, making it possible

to either walk to Borneo or into Taiwan and cross to

Luzon. But no matter how we look at it, the earliest

crossings involved a deliberate and organised mission

to traverse a body of water and colonise another land.

The fact that the earliest sea voyages were undertaken

by Homo erectus, rather than our own species has

irritated archaeologists and proved controversial, with

some saying that they were carried to Luzon on

tsunami debris! The evidence continues to build, with

stone tools found on the Arabian island of Socotra

dating to anywhere between 800,000 and one million

years ago, and more tools on the island of Crete, dated

to around 130,000 BP. These dates don’t fit anything

other than erectus or perhaps in the case of Crete,

Neanderthals. In the background of these arguments is

the spectre of the ridiculed ‘aquatic ape hypothesis’,

the idea that humans evolved under pressure to

become fishers and seashore foragers with unique

adaptations for the water. While the academy is

fiercely hostile to the idea, the evidence in favour keeps

mounting. Humans have the unusual ability to

voluntarily control our breathing, making it possible to

dive to great depths, and with training to stay

underwater for over ten minutes. We require iodine in

our diets and can process high levels of omega-3 fatty

acids. Our bodies are streamlined enough to swim, dive

and wade with a minimum of instruction and we are

born with a fatty vernix layer which is chemically

similar to other sea mammals. Added to this, all

human infants possess an innate diving reflex for

several

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


months after birth, a deep physiological adaptation

which protects the child from drowning, lowers the

heart rate and releases additional red blood cells.

Curiously the presence of this reflex never seems to

attract much scientific attention and its existence is still

a mystery. Taken together it’s not difficult to make the

case that early hominids were familiar and comfortable

with diving and swimming. It only needs a group of

young men watching birds out at sea to hatch a plot to

sail on some lashed logs.

Palaeolithic sites both on land and underwater.

Lower seas made migration easier

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potentially as early as 76,000 BP. Despite this evidence

there have been some truly ridiculous attempts by

archaeologists to fend off this narrative, including the

scenario involving a pregnant woman washed out by a

strong current or people clinging to bamboo mats

caught up in ferocious waves. The presence of deepsea

fish such as tuna, mackerel and shark at many sites

should finally dispel such idiocy and most researchers

accept that the Palaeo-Austronesians intentionally

colonised their island chains. What cultural impetus

drove them to push further and further into Oceania

we’ll never know, but an expansive energy compelled

them outwards and downwards. This first wave of

migrants reached Tasmania in roughly

40,000 BP. This culture was evidently

exploiting a broad spectrum of foods, from

nuts and tubers inland to deep-sea fishing

and coastal foraging. We don’t know what

kind of boats and vessels were used, as none

have survived in the record. What we do

know is that by the time of European contact,

the boat technology of southern Australia

was too simple to make their ancestral

voyages, suggesting that they had lost or

forgotten a more sophisticated sailing

culture. Intriguing hints of these vanished

vessels may have been preserved, etched into

the walls at Gwion Gwion, possibly as early as

20,000 BP. The second wave of migration in

Oceania occurred around 3000-1500 BC, a

much later time period, corresponding to the

Asian Neolithic. These settlers brought

pottery, rice and new sailing technologies

with them and the consensus is that they

expanded outwards from Taiwan, down into

30

Neanderthals are another candidate for seafaring

before modern humans. Their Mousterian-style

tools have been unearthed on the Greek islands of

Zakynthos, Kefalonia and Lemnos, as well as

potentially Crete. The cope pushback has been to

say that Neanderthals swum to these islands, but

this seems a stretch. Given that they were capable

of distilling tar in oxygen free kilns, carving firehardened

wooden spears, crafting leather working

tools from bone and identifying manganese

dioxide as a fire starter, it’s not too difficult to

imagine them building boats and exploring the

Mediterranean. Their entire way of life was based

on extreme physical exertion and danger, using

short spears to hunt megafauna up close. Their

injuries are still gruesome to think about millennia

later - multiple limb fractures, broken facial bones,

rounds of rib breaks, missing teeth, deafness and

blindness. A culture forged in such immense

hardships seems unlikely to shrink from a

challenge.

Islands with Mousterian Neanderthal

tools indicating seafaring

By the time we reach the story of modern humans

the world had already seen seafaring, but over the

coming years Homo sapiens took it to new levels.

With the sea levels low enough to link Borneo, Java,

Sumatra and the Malay Archipelago into a

landmass called Sundaland and the coast of

Australia extended outwards to New Guinea in a

shelf named Sahul, the shorter distances between

the islands made Palaeolithic voyaging a realistic

prospect. Several routes have been proposed

which match with archaeological remains

the Philippines and then split into both Borneo and

east into New Guinea and the Pacific Islands. The

migrations continued as they made contact with Sri

Lanka, South India and most incredibly, Madagascar.

The Austronesian maritime trade network was the

world’s first true era of globalisation, as the Romans

eventually made contact around the Red Sea and the

Polynesians almost certainly landed in South

America.

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


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sailing developments globally, as water levels rose and

landscapes became wetter. Native Americans and

Inuits made use of kayaks and birch bark canoes; rock

art in Azerbaijan and Korea shows reed boats and

whaling, coracles and curraghs are invented

independently. The outpouring of creativity and

technology with the warmer climate spurred the

creation of more complex vessels and by the time of

the Bronze Age we see powerful ocean going ships,

like the Dover Boat found in Kent in the UK, dated to

1500 BC and made from oak planks. Only typically

British health-and-safety regulations have prevented

archaeologists from sailing a replica across the

Channel.

Captain Cook in Hawaii, Richard Moore

While most pursuits of prehistoric sailing and seacraft rely

on glimpses and flashes of evidence, the culture which is

forever a byword for voyaging is the Polynesian. Their

sailing technology has survived into modern times and

their skill at star and wave navigation is unparalleled given

that they were a Neolithic culture. The Polynesian Pacific

triangle of islands is a territory of 10 million square miles,

with the remotest outcrop, Easter Island, sat alone in a

circle of four million square miles. If there ever were a true

‘Sea People’ they would be the closest contenders.

Captain Cook described the scenes as he encountered the

shores of Hawaii, recalling how the islanders swam out to

their boat in such numbers and with such grace that they

looked like shoals of fish. European explorers routinely

extolled their physical power and beauty:

“ . . as a race they were tall, shapely, and muscular, with

good features and kind eyes. In symmetry of form the

women have scarcely been surpassed, if equalled, while

the men excelled in muscular strength”

In order to colonise the tens of thousands of islands in the

Pacific, they made use of stick charts, oral compasses,

noted swells, currents, the flight patterns of birds and the

latitude of islands. Their stellar compasses made use of up

to 150 stars. They used celestial navigation and famously

even the swinging of their balls to help aid their direction.

As well as making it to Hawaii and South America, there

are settlements on the Auckland Islands and a tale of the

Ui-te-Rangiora: a story of mountains of ice, bitter cold and

snow, hinting that they may have sailed to Antarctica. The

development of the catamaran and the outrigger vessels,

along with the first true sails, allowed them to sail deep

into the open ocean.

Meanwhile, in Europe, as the glacier ice melted and

flooded Doggerland, opening up the continent as a

mosaic of rivers, bogs, coastline and lakes, the people of

the Mesolithic were developing their own boat building

cultures. One of the earliest known production sites

comes from a submerged site on the Isle of Wight. Several

dugout canoe vessels have been found in Holland and

Denmark, with at least one Ertebolle boat burial.

Decorated paddles have been found on other Danish

sites. We don’t yet know how sophisticated their sailing

methods were, but we know that people were able to

colonise Ireland from the Scottish islands and that

Ertebolle vessels were likely bringing in whales. Sealing

became a major source of food as the ice receded around

Norway and the Baltic, with hunters following the

coastlines. The Holocene proved to be the impetus for

Surveying the full scope of human seafaring, starting

with our ancestral cousins, it's easy to focus on the

evidence that we have, which is the evidence for

success. Forgotten are the innumerable attempts,

A diagram illustrating the possible route of

development of a double outrigger boat from a

simple raft

partial journeys and catastrophes which must have

been the norm for early sea adventures. The Neolithic

ships which crossed the Indian Ocean to Madagascar

must have been just one in countless years of missions.

It must have been a regular sight to see young men

waving from the surf as they disappeared to the

horizon and were never heard of again. A brazen

defiance of death and drowning must have coursed

through such people, we can scarcely imagine the

existential horror and excitement of a stretch of water,

not knowing what might be over the waves. A reckless

and restless spirit is bestowed on people who take to

the sea like this and we can, and should, aspire to

summon these energies into the here and now.

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!



MAN'S WORLD

Vasco da Gama before the Zamorin of

Calicut, Veloso Salgado (1898)

DA GAMA AND THE

LUSIADS

Kitharistas blends fact and fiction to tell the story of Portugal's national hero, Vasco

da Gama, and the epic poem written to commemorate his achievements.

Words: Kitharistas (@kitharistas_)

Although the unexplored ocean always tempted the

Lusitanians, or Portuguese as they are more commonly

known, for centuries fantastic narratives blunted the

will to explore - sea monsters, the ends of the earth,

such high temperatures that the ships would instantly

burn. Still, some men chose not to be dissuaded. Their

reasons? To expand the faith and the empire - and

maybe receive a generous government pension too.

Gil Eanes was the first, in 1443, crossing the southern

limit and ignoring the old legend that said that beyond

Cape Bojador the sea became so shallow that it was

less than two metres deep, with currents so strong that

a ship could never return. Eanes didn't seem to care: he

was disposed to go beyond Bojador or die trying. He

returned twice.

Eanes’ deeds were the first concrete evidence that the

world was about to see a new age of discovery. The

legends now lost their power. The real problems,

though, loomed larger and proved just as intimidating.

What if the winds carry us to the open ocean? What if

we can’t return? What if the fleet suffers an attack? If

we do return, will it be worth it? Fernando Pessoa

answered the last question five centuries later:

“Everything is worthy if the soul isn't small."

Despite the easterlies (east-to-west winds), which

could easily lead navigators to the uncharted South

Atlantic, Portuguese explorers continued to sail into

the unknown. They would eventually round the Cape

of Good Hope, under Bartolomeu Dias, in 1488,

entering the Indian Ocean for the first time. This

achievement set new goals for the Portuguese crown

– to reach the Indies and the lucrative Spice Islands

directly, without the need for middle men – and was

the starting point for Portugal's national hero, Vasco

da Gama.

Described as a resolute and assertive leader, Vasco da

Gama was born in Sines, son of Estêvão da Gama,

member of the Order of Santiago, a religious and

military brotherhood which had been founded to

protect Christian pilgrims of St James’s Way and aid

in the removal of the Moors from Iberia. Vasco

followed in his father's footsteps, rapidly rising

through the ranks of the Order. The Reconquista of

Iberia would not come to an end until 1492, with the

fall of Granada, the last Moorish kingdom. Five years

later, the Portuguese king Manuel charged da Gama

with leading the first sea expedition from Portugal to

the Indies.

From this point onwards, the fantastical becomes

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


inextricable from fact, due to Portugal’s very own

version of the Aeneid, Virgil’s poetic account of the

journey of Aeneas from Troy to Italy and the foundation

of Rome. The Lusiads, an epic poem consisting of 10

cantos, was written by Luiz Vaz de Camões decades

after the voyage and first published in 1572. In Camões’

vision, da Gama and his men become the Portuguese

Argonauts, and the captain himself variously Aeneas,

Ulysses and Gilgamesh.

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months, the barges São Gabriel, São Rafael, and Bérrio

would not see land, coming within 600 miles of the

coast of the soon-to-be-discovered Brazil. The

calculations proved to be right, since the fleet arrived at

St Helena Bay sooner than expected. Yet, the long time

at sea without reprovisioning came at a cost - scurvy.

A dread disease its rankling horrors shed,

And death's dire ravage through mine army spread.

Never mine eyes such dreary sight beheld,

Ghastly the mouth and gums enormous swell'd;

And instant, putrid like a dead man's wound,

Poisoned with fœtid steams the air around.

34

After they had rounded the Cape and experienced a

terrifying vision of Adamastor – the “hundred-handed

giant” – the ravages of scurvy are finally brought to an

end when they reach the first human settlement on the

Eastern coast, Mozambique. They expected to find the

vastness of the legendary Christian kingdom ruled by

Prester John, Emperor of Ethiopia. But the truth, as

they quickly discovered, was that the Abyssinian

Empire didn't extend as far as south-east Africa. The

Arab influence in the island’s architecture was

immediately noticeable. In a display of diplomacy, the

captain invites Mozambique's Sultan to São Gabriel, the

vessel that Da Gama captained, offering a meal and

gifts. The Sultan, however, is less than receptive.

Luís de Camões (1525-1580)

In the first Canto, Camões makes claim to Portugal’s

place among the great civilisations of history.

Let Fame with wonder name the Greek no more,

What lands he saw, what toils at sea he bore;

Nor more the Trojan's wand'ring voyage boast,

What storms he brav'd on many a perilous coast:

No more let Rome exult in Trajan's name,

Nor Eastern conquests Ammon's pride proclaim;

A nobler hero's deeds demand my lays

Than e'er adorn'd the song of ancient days,

Illustrious Gama, whom the waves obey'd,

And whose dread sword the fate of empire sway'd.

To tell the history with authenticity but still offer the

reader an authentic epic poem, Camões uses divine

figures as opponents and allies, directly involved with

the narrative. These characters often symbolize the

barriers that Nature imposes on the navigators, the

difficulties of dealing with Africans and Arabs, and the

psychological issues of the crew, caused by prolonged

periods in a limited space. At the outset, Camões

narrates a council of Olympus summoned by Jupiter to

judge the fleet's fate. Jupiter recalls the Reconquista

and the conquest of Ceuta in North Africa to prove the

voyagers should be allowed to reach the Indies by sea.

Although Jupiter obtains support from Mars and

Venus, Bacchus, fearing a loss of prestige and fame,

decides to do everything possible to preclude the

journey.

Meanwhile, Da Gama and his pilots, near Sierra Leone,

take a courageous decision as they deviate from the

scheduled route and deliberately sail out into the

Atlantic. Supported only by rough estimations made for

explorers who preceded them, they believed the

southwest winds would aid the crossing. For three

At this point, relations deteriorate, as the Natives

discover that the Portuguese aren’t the familiar Arabs,

nor even Turks, but European Christians. Bacchus

sought to use the situation in his favour, possessing an

old sage who would blame the Portuguese for the

destruction and pillage of many coastal cities, leaving a

trail of blood. The people of Mozambique set a trap for

the foreigners, sending local pilots supposedly to help

the navigation, as Da Gama had requested, but actually

to send them headfirst into an ambush.

The crafty Moor by vengeful Bacchus taught

Employ'd on deadly guile his baneful thought;

In his dark mind he plann'd, on Gama's head

Full to revenge Mozambique and the dead.

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Then, two weeks later, as the Portuguese waited for the

winds to be favourable, a sudden attack began while

Da Gama’s men resupplied the ships with drinking

water. The Captain, for the first time exposing his

temper, didn't hesitate. He bombarded the wall-less,

undefended settlement, reducing it to dust. On the

way through the coastal line, the Muslim pilot, as

instructed by the Sultan of Mozambique, misguided

the Lusitanians, leading them to believe that in

Mombasa, a city to the north, there were Christian

dwellers.

"Behold, disclosing from the sky," he cries,

"Far to the north, yon cloud-like isle arise:

From ancient times the natives of the shore

The blood-stain'd image on the cross adore."

Captain Cook in Hawaii, Richard Moore

The crew expressed confidence in the local guide;

although Da Gama himself was suspicious. At

Mombasa, they received a splendid reception, with

great pomp and a variety of gifts. The contrast with the

reception in Mozambique was so great that Da Gama

refused to anchor in the city’s port, fearing another plot

to capture the navigators. His fears were justified. That

night, a group of a hundred men tried to raid the ships,

expecting an easy fight. The Mobasanese suffered a

massive defeat, and those who did not die became

torture victims. From the captives, the navigators

discovered that the Sultan of Mombasa knew about

the attack on Mozambique and planned a retaliation.

Two nights later, they headed on to Malindi, arriving

with fanfare, which Camões compares to the

procession of Cleopatra’s famous Nile barge.

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him as a hostage. This strategy proved to be successful,

and the fleet set off to the Indian subcontinent with the

promised navigator.

Bacchus, however, is not to be deterred. He now resorts

to Neptune. In the halls of his watery palace, Neptune

convenes a council of the gods of the sea, who decide

to assault the fleet with a tempest. But Da Gama

skilfully addresses a prayer to God and to Venus, whose

nymphs beguile the sea gods and calm the seas. At last,

with the navigator’s aid, the Portuguese sight land.

Such was the pomp, when Egypt's beauteous queen

Bade all the pride of naval show convene,

In pleasure's downy bosom, to beguile

Her love-sick warrior: o'er the breast of Nile,

Dazzling with gold, the purple ensigns flow'd,

And to the lute the gilded barges row'd...

Fort Jesus, Mombasa, built between 1593

and 1596 by the Portuguese

A Roman mosaic depicting the god Bacchus

Now, morn, serene, in dappled grey arose

O'er the fair lawns where murm'ring Ganges flows;

Pale shone the wave beneath the golden beam,

Blue, o'er the silver flood, Malabria's mountains gleam;

The sailors on the main-top's airy round,

"Land, land!" aloud with waving hands resound;

Aloud the pilot of Melinda cries,

"Behold, O chief, the shores of India rise!"

With help from the monsoon winds, they have arrived

at their final destination, Calicut, a city famous for its

commerce. Before describing the city, Camões

launches into an excoriating attack on the Germans,

English, French and Italians, whom he reproaches for

indulging in luxury and pointless wars among

themselves, instead of fighting the enemies of

Christianity.

The king, an enemy of the Sultan of Mombasa,

promptly invited Da Gama to meet him, providing

provisions and promising an experienced navigator for

the captain. The stay at Malindi would not last long. The

king wasn't in a hurry to fulfil his promise. After nine

days of waiting, Da Gama decided to force the king’s

hand by kidnapping a member of court and keeping

Yet sleep, ye powers of Europe, careless sleep,

To you in vain your eastern brethren weep;

Yet, not in vain their woe-wrung tears shall sue,

Though small the Lusian realms, her legions few,

The guardian oft by Heav'n ordain'd before,

The Lusian race shall guard Messiah's lore.

When Heav'n decreed to crush the Moorish foe

Heav'n gave the Lusian spear to strike the blow.

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


Da Gama sent an emissary into the market, a felon

brought with the crew specifically to execute risky

missions. Wandering the market, he heard a familiar

language. It was Castilian, spoken by Moors with

experience in the West, who greeted him. As soon as

the presence of Castilian speakers was mentioned to

Da Gama, he requested an audience with the Zamorin

of Calicut, presenting himself as Portugal's

Ambassador. In the same way as in Malindi, the initial

reception ended well, with mutual respect.

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O'er India's sea, wing'd on by balmy gales

That whisper'd peace, soft swell'd the steady sails:

Smooth as on wing unmov'd the eagle flies,

When to his eyrie cliff he sails the skies,

Swift o'er the gentle billows of the tide,

So smooth, so soft, the prows of Gama glide;

And now their native fields, for ever dear,

In all their wild transporting charms appear;

And Tago's bosom, while his banks repeat

The sounding peals of joy, receives the fleet.

36

When the Arab merchants of Calicut heard of the

audience, they launched a desperate campaign against

the Christians. The Arabs threatened never to return to

Calicut if the Zamorin established trade relations with

the Portuguese, adding that Portugal had nothing

worth Captain trading. The Cook oriental in Hawaii, leader, however, Richard sent Moore a

letter offering direct commerce with the Iberian nation.

In addition, he authorized the purchase of a small

quantity of cinnamon and pepper. Although the total

amount was very limited, the price of pepper had

increased so much in Europe that it could be sold there

for twenty-seven times its cost in India.

Bacchus, in a final fit of anger,

again intervenes to frustrate Da

Gama’s efforts, taking control of

a priest at the Zamorin’s court,

who convinces the leader that

the Portuguese are pirates and

gives him a premonition of the

future power the Portuguese

will have in the region. The

Zamorin, after initially keeping

Da Gama hostage in a house,

forces him to remain in port

and agree to sell all his goods.

Meanwhile, the Arab merchants

hatch a plot to detain the

Portuguese until the annual

trading fleet from Mecca can

arrive and attack them. Da

Gama learns of the plot from a

friendly Muslim, whom he then

converts to Christianity, and

manages to destroy the Arab

fleet, before bombarding the

city and making his escape.

…Majestic and serene

Great Vasco rose, then, pointing to the scene

Where bled the war, "Thy fleet, proud king, behold

O'er ocean and the strand in carnage roll'd!

So, shall this palace, smoking in the dust,

And yon proud city, weep thy arts unjust.

The end of the ninth and the final canto of the poem

take on an almost totally fantastical character, as

Venus rewards the brave sailors with a sojourn on the

Island of Love, where they frolic with her nymphs. Da

Gama, who takes the nymph Tethys as a lover, is shown

a long prophecy of Portugal’s future glories in the

Indies: the great battles of Cochin and Diu, the exploits

of Tristão da Cunha, Pedro de Mascarenhas, Lopo Vaz

de Sampaio, Nuno da Cunha and others. At last, after a

vision of the workings of the universe, he is shown the

voyage of Magellan.

Now the Portuguese return home, to a hero’s welcome.

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!

The actual return home was far from serene. Only two

ships of the initial three completed the journey. Vasco’s

own brother, Paul da Gama, died near the Azores, in the

mid-Atlantic. Vasco would return to the Indies twice.

On the third voyage, after having been appointed

Viceroy of the Portuguese possessions in India, he

contracted malaria in the city of Cochin and died.

Although he was initially buried in India, his remains

were brought back to Portugal in 1539 and re-interred

in Vidigueira, in a gold and jewel-encrusted casket. In

1880, his remains and those of the poet who had

celebrated his voyage were moved to the Monastery of

the Hieronymites, in Belém.

BelémTower, on the Tagus, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was

planned but had not yet been built when Da Gama set off on his first voyage.

With the Lusiads, Camões provided Portugal with its

national epic, and established himself as the nation’s

greatest poet, winning comparisons with Shakespeare,

Dante, Virgil and Homer.

But what he described as a prophecy in his great poem

was in fact a fait accompli at the time he wrote it:

European domination of the East. This would only

intensify and continue for the next four centuries;

although the Portuguese would soon lose their

preeminent place to the Dutch, French and, most of all,

the British.



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38

Raw Egg Nationalist, with a little

help from a timeless meme, tells

you all about the first man to

circumnavigate the globe (more

or less), the Portuguese explorer,

Ferdinand Magellan.

Magellan's a lot cooler

than Justin Bieber

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


In 1519, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan (b. c.1480), at

the head of a Spanish fleet known as the ‘Armada de Molucca’,

left Spain on a voyage to discover a western route to the East

Indies (maritime South East Asia) and in particular the fabled

Spice Islands, or Moluccas. A member of the minor Portuguese

nobility, Magellan first served the Portuguese crown in Asia as a

sailor and naval officer, including under Francisco de Almeida,

the first viceroy of Portuguese India. During his service for the

Portuguese crown in the east, Magellan participated in a

number of battles, including the battles of Cannanore and Diu,

the latter of which destroyed Arab power over the spice routes

and secured Portuguese dominance of the Indian Ocean for the

next century. Magellan had already reached the Malay Islands

(from 1505 to 1512), but now, by visiting this area from the west,

he achieved a nearly complete circumnavigation of the globe

for the first time in history.

Like many of the early navigators, including Columbus,

Magellan initially experienced disappointment in his efforts to

secure royal backing for his famous voyage. Columbus had

travelled from European court to court seeking backing for his

first ‘Enterprise of the Indies’, before finally receiving it from the

MAN'S WORLD

'Kids, Magellan’s a lot cooler than Justin

Bieber! He circumnavigated, with one

ship, the entire planet. He was killed by

wild natives before they got back to

Portugal, and when they got back there

was [sic] only like eleven people alive of

the 200-and-something crew and the

whole ship was rotting down to the

waterline. That’s destiny! That’s will!

That’s striving! That’s being a trailblazer

and explorer!'

Alex Jones

court of the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, who were

buoyed as a result of the completion of the centuries-long

Reconquista of Iberia from the Moors. Some thirty years later, it

was the Spanish Crown that would also come to Magellan’s aid,

outfitting him with a fleet of five ships manned by about 270

men.

Magellan’s proposal, to find a western route to the Moluccas,

appealed to the Spanish Crown far more than the Portuguese,

which already had control of the eastern route, under the treaty

of Tordesillas. The treaty had been signed in 1494 between Spain

and Portugal, with the mediation of the Papacy, after Columbus’s

first voyage, and essentially divvied up the East and New World

and their trade routes between the two Iberian powers. King

Charles I hoped that, by finding a western route to the Moluccas,

Spain would be able to carry out profitable trade without the

involvement of the Portuguese. The Portuguese Crown would

actually send ships to pursue Magellan, considering him a traitor.

Magellan left Seville on 20 September 1519. First he sailed across

the Atlantic, discovering the strait at the tip of South America,

now known as the Straits of Magellan, which allowed him to pass

into the Pacific Ocean, which he also gave its name (‘the peaceful

sea’). The fleet was the first to cross the Pacific, which took four

months and not three days, as Magellan had anticipated. They

stopped in the Philippines, before eventually reaching the

Moluccas and accomplishing its goal. A severely depleted fleet

returned, at last, to Spain on 6 September 1522, just under two

years after setting sail. Of the five ships that set sail – the Trinidad

(Magellan’s ship), San Antonio, Concepción, Santiago and Victoria

– only the Victoria, with some 18 men, remained. Magellan himself

was dead – killed by natives on the Philippine island of Cebu.

The expedition faced numerous trials and tribulations, including

mutinies, starvation, scurvy, appalling weather and hostile

encounters with indigenous people. In the early stages of the

voyage, after a sodomy trial involving the boatswain of one of the

ships, Magellan’s leadership was challenged by his captains, who

believed that he was imperiling the mission by sailing south

along the African coast. By some deft maneuvring, Magellan

defused the situation and was able to continue without executing

the ringleader of the mutiny, something he had every right to do.

Though the expedition did find a route to the Moluccas, it was too

arduous to be commercially viable. Even so, the journey remains

one of the great achievements in seamanship, as Europeans

began to establish the mastery of the seas that would underpin

their mastery – and creation – of the modern world itself.

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


40

Charles I of Spain (1500-1558), also

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor

Portuguese nau. With fore and aft castles built into the

hull and a deeper draught for long trans-oceanic voyages,

Portuguese carracks were among the most seaworthy ships

of the age, and a major advantage in naval battles with

eastern powers, which had only lighter vessels

The death of Magellan, at the hands

of natives of the island of Cebu


MAN'S WORLD

The Journal of

Antonio

Pigafetta

Antonio Pigafetta was an Italian scholar and explorer who

joined Magellan's expedition to the Spice Islands. He was

one of the only 18 men to survive the voyage. His journal

provides the main source for almost everything we know

about the voyage, Pigafetta made copious notes on the

geography, climate, flora, fauna and the native inhabitants

of the places that the expedition visited. These notes would

be invaluable to future explorers and cartographers. The

only other sailor to maintain a journal during the voyage

was Francisco Albo, Victoria's last pilot, who kept a formal

logbook. Below we present some interesting extracts from

Pigafetta's journal.

After returning to his native Republic of Venice, Pigafetta

distributed his Report on the First Voyage Around the World

(Relazione del primo viaggio intorno al mondo) to various

European monarchs in handwritten form, before it was

published for the first time, in Paris in 1525; however, the

account was not published in its full form in Europe until 1799.

Interestingly, it was not through Pigafetta but another writer

that most Europeans first learned about the circumnavigation.

In 1523, Maximilianus Transylvanus, who in spite of his surname

is believed to have come from Flanders rather than

Transylvania, published an account of the expedition based on

interviews with the survivors of the Victoria, On the Moluccan

Islands.

Pigafetta’s account contains a great variety of information,

from details of the hum-drum business of sailing a ship in the

great Age of Reconnaissance to gripping accounts of storms,

mutinies, conversions, and battles. On the one hand, we are

told, for instance, of the method by which sharks were caught

by the crew – using iron hooks – and of the poor esteem in

which their flesh was held as food. On the other, during a

terrible storm off the Cape Verde islands, Pigafetta tells us that

a vision of St Anselm was seen for a number of hours by the

crew, which brought them succour and convinced them that

they would not perish.

‘For without any doubt nobody hoped to escape from that

storm. It is to be noted that all and as many times as that light

which represents the said St. Anselme shows itself and

descends upon a vessel which is in a storm at sea, that vessel

never is lost.’

One of the most memorable stories is surely the encounter

with the giants of Patagonia. Giants were of course an essential

part of European mythology, from Geoffrey of Monmouth to

the giants of Albion and the Biblical Goliath. Pigafetta

describes one of the giants he encountered in detail.

‘He was so tall that the tallest of us only came up to his waist;

however he was well built. He had a large face, painted red all

round, and his eyes also were painted yellow around them, and

he had two hearts painted on his cheeks; he had but little hair

on his head, and it was painted white. When he was brought

before the captain he was clothed with the skin of a certain

beast, which skin was very skilfully sewed. This beast has its

head and ears of the size of a mule, and the neck and body of

the fashion of a camel, the legs of a deer, and the tail like that

of a horse, and it neighs like a horse. There is a great quantity of

these animals in this same place.’

This is surely the first European description of a guanaco, a

close relation of the llama.

‘…[the giant] carried in his hand a short and thick bow, with a

thick cord made of the gut of the said beast, with a bundle of

cane arrows, which were not very long, and were feathered like

ours but they had no iron at the end, though they had at the

end some small white and black cut stones, and these arrows

were like those which the Turks use.’

Elsewhere we learn of the ‘gentiles’ of Gilolo, who worship

every day ‘the first thing they see in the morning when they go

out of their houses’, a kind of primitive religion that would be of

such interest to European thinkers in the coming centuries.

And what about Pigafetta's reports of an entirely female island

where the women ‘get pregnant from the wind’?

Despite the presence of such fantastical stories throughout the

Report, there is also a clear empirical bent to Pigafetta’s work.

It is all too easy, especially for academics of a certain kind, to

see in accounts like Pigafetta’s – Columbus’s accounts too, for

instance, or even ancient ethnographies like Tacitus’s

Germania – the European mind running up against the limits

of its own culture, mythology and language, and to miss the

clear evidence of that mind also expanding to satisfy its

scientific curiosity. Yes, there are plenty of preconceptions,

some very silly; but there is much more than that too.

Pigafetta’s careful nautical and geographic descriptions, which

were of such use to later explorers, have already been

mentioned. Since the purpose of the voyage was to find an

alternative route to the Spice Islands and the exotic

commodities they were named for, it would be strange for

Pigafetta not to have taken an interest in them, and he duly

provides extremely detailed descriptions of clove and nutmeg

plants. His account is also famous as the first written record of

the Cebuano language of the southern Philippines. In

compiling a detailed vocabulary, he was prefiguring the work

of the great missionaries and ethnographers of the 19th and

20th century, whether of Africa, Asia, the Americas or the

Arctic.

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


MAN'S WORLD

42

A medieval French

depiction of a shark

Below: Brutus and his knights fight

Gogmagog, the Welsh giant, from

Geoffrey of Monmouth


seloolive.com


MAN'S WORLD

44

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refined oils, such as soybean oil, peanut oil and canola oil.

Not ours. My family's extra virgin olive oil is the real deal.

In Croatia, the country's small coastal villages produce just 4,000 metric tons of olive oil per year. That's

less than 1% of what Spain makes, and just 0.1% of the world's total olive oil supply.

That means every drop of olive oil we press is very special. In fact, Selo Olive Oil is pressed in small

batches, just thousands of liters per year.

That said, my family always makes enough for our friends.

Our unique Oblica varietals, preserved from the time of Roman Dalmatia, are hand-picked and cold

pressed in November at the annual village harvest, in our little selo near Zadar.

We would love it if you tried some. Živili!

– Martin Erlić

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


MAN'S WORLD

Words: Fred (@yankee_pirate)

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


Everyone knows the look: JFK lounging in white sneakers and a

cardigan on his yacht; Paul Newman smooth-talking in loafers

and a button-down; Steve McQueen commanding a room in a

Lacoste polo. These are the exemplars of Prep style – the

uniform of the Aristocrats of the Sea. Prep did not start in

Hollywood, but it captured the eyes of the American people

thanks to the images of classy comfort and understated wealth

it conjured.

MAN'S WORLD

46

Steve McQueen at the 1956 Monaco Grand

Prix, wearing a Lacoste polo

Those familiar with classic menswear have probably heard of

prep, trad, and Ivy style, and associate them with the same

look. Trad is what your great-grandfather wore at Yale in the

1930s while Ivy is a style associated with the 1950s when the

post-war economy allowed many more Americans to go to

college. Prep style represents, in a way, a rejection of the

democratization of Ivy style. By the 1960s, every man and his

mother had an Ivy League suit in their attempts to assimilate

with the WASP upper class of society. The WASP subsequently

took to the seas and ditched his suit and Oxfords for a more

esoteric style, that has been distastefully parodied today with

pink popped-collar polo shirts and vomit-colored shorts

embroidered with grinning whales.

Cape Cod, ocean playground of the Prep

A classic advert for white suede 'bucks'

The Prep is inseparably tied to the sea. Nautical pursuits have

shaped the lifestyle and the wardrobe of this sort of man. The

sea is his spiritual refuge from the stresses and obsessions of

the outside world. At the mercy of the waves, a man will

struggle, learn, grow stronger, and then find peace. He reaches

a mutual respect with the sea and bends it to his will as it

molds him in turn.

The Prep is a man of understated power and confidence. He

retains the Ivy League, white-shoe-law-firm formality and

refinement, while affecting the aristocratic, rebellious, playboy

spirit of his age. His clothing is a sartorial realization of the

“work hard, play hard” ethos. He is just as comfortable sipping

gin and tonics around a mahogany table with his Harvard Law

classmates as he is manning the tiller in a Cape Cod squall –

and he’s dressed the same way in both scenarios. The Prep

cannot be ugly – a fat prep is a disgrace. He seeks beauty and

delight in all things, and his leisure is fitness – sun, steel, tennis,

and golf will show you the path. He embodies the Roman

Patrician principle of otium et bellum, in which the proper

pursuits of a gentleman are only those related to leisure and

war. Thus, the dress of this sort of man must be both refined

and rugged, allowing seamless transition between the fierce

competition of athletics and the jovial old boys club of high

society.

Imagine you’re heading down to Cape Cod for the week. The

weather is perfect and you’ve got your whole crew with you.

You decide to head out for a sail one sunny morning. You slip

on some khaki shorts and a light blue polo shirt, Lacoste of

course, and top it off with white canvas sneakers and a

needlepoint knit belt. Before heading out the door, you grab

your Wayfarer sunglasses for that JFK cool-factor and a Red Sox

cap in case it gets really sunny.

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!



MAN'S WORLD

48

Paul Newman in a classic OCBD,

with tan khakis and a brown leather

belt. Notice the sunglasses slipped into

the top pocket of the shirt, and the

rolled sleeves


That night, as the sun sets and the air cools off, your crew

heads to the beach for a bonfire and cigars. You’ll want to

layer up a bit, so you throw a cable-knit sweater over a plain

t-shirt and khakis. You’ll want slip-on shoes for when you get

to the sand, so you throw on some brown leather boat shoes

and hop in your Jeep for a fun night out.

MAN'S WORLD

Repp ties and Weejuns

The next day, you sleep in and then get an invite to your

Country Club for lunch. All your friends from law school will

be there, so you want to look your best. The cornerstone of

your outfit is a white button-down shirt, a navy blazer, and

khaki trousers. You accessorize with Weejun loafers

(sockless, of course), a repp tie, and a braided leather belt. All

you’re missing now is a cold gin and tonic, a club sandwich,

and some good conversation.

That night you’ve got a fancy cocktail party back at the Club.

After freshening up from the afternoon, you head into your

wardrobe. You pick out a blue button-down, white trousers,

a tan linen jacket, white bucks, white socks, a needlepoint

belt, and a colorful bow tie. You put on a summery cologne

and saunter down to the club for a night you probably won’t

remember.

The reddest of Nantucket reds

You had a great time last night, and need a cool, comfortable

look to make it through the day. You throw on Weejuns,

Nantucket reds, a plain OCBD, and a leather belt and you

walk downtown for brunch. You make sure to keep your

sunglasses on inside until you have a Bloody Mary or two to

ease the headache.

If you don't have a jeep to take you down to

the beach for a bonfire and cigars, a dune

buggy like Steve McQueen's in The Thomas

Crowne Affair will also suffice

Classic braided belt from Kiel James Patrick

Prep is a truly timeless style that crosses cool with comfort

and formal with functionality. Each man can make it his

own and channel the understated confidence that carried

men like JFK, Paul Newman, and Steve McQueen to heroic

status. It’s a simple style, but the icons of manhood that

have adopted this look allow it to speak for itself.

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


MAN'S WORLD

50

Steve McQueen understood how to

accessorise classic prep, in this case

with the addition of a revolver

When you wear your prep like a second

skin, you can get away with deviations

from the standard uniform, like JFK's

electric blue socks


shop.aer.io/roguescholar

BOOKS FOR CULTURED THUGS


MAN'S WORLD

52

The Two-Tusked King

Words: Doonvorcannon (@Doonvorcannon)

Mystical Ennui is available on Amazon and features an introduction by Bronze Age Pervert.

The book explores pure being, singular will, beauty, and relating to the good in a world of

seeming ugliness and mundanity, all through various connected essays and short stories.

Here is one of those stories.

The two-tusked king of the narwhals, called Tornat, was not

well. He mourned the loss of his kin, who’d been trapped

under the ice sheets, submerged in a frigid and suffocating

darkness while attempting to flee from the hunters who

sought their coveted ivory. Yet Tornat’s sickness was

deeper. His followers whispered from the depths that his

blood had begun to freeze. What they called Amarok—wolf

blood—which meant that his spirit within had faltered

under the howling moon. There were murmurs that the

ocean’s tide no longer listened to Tornat’s song because he

had become like a lone wolf drowned at sea. Tornat knew

of these murmurs, and while he did not believe them, he

knew that something was indeed wrong. It was his place in

time that he feared, and he knew that something had to

end, and soon.

As his family, his blessing, continued to be cursed with

death, he felt as though nature conspired against them

with its sudden, unruly changes, warmer waters,

unpredictable surges in the sea… and then there were the

humans who poached like never before. His blessing was

now viewed as something to be stolen away. The narwhal,

once exalted as something holy, like a unicorn of the sea,

was now nothing but a thing to be used. This was what

caused his blood to chill. This was the world they had

inherited.

spears, Von’s a thick, brownish behemoth, and Tornat’s

tusks a bright, brown-spiraled white, each thrusting out

like a pike.

Von swam closer to his king, staying just behind as he said

his piece. “This world does not want us.” His voice was a

growling hum that chilled the frigid waters with its

graveness.

“Did it ever?” Tornat responded.

“Everywhere we are hunted by orcas, by greedy men, and

now even by Imiq, as the sea herself pulls away and

recedes in a warm respite that has left us unwanted.”

Tornat turned, his tusks striking Von’s, and they both

grunted. “I see that we are needed more than ever. For a

world that does not want us, needs us all the more for its

lack.”

“Spoken like a wise king.” Von bowed his head and drifted

back to the left. “What remains of our blessing, only eleven

counting the few females and calves, is dwindling more

each day. We die!” He shook his head back and forth, as if

to gore some unseen foe. “Our own blood bleeds into other

blessings now. Not all have gone down to the depths.”

Late one night Tornat swam through the depths, scouting

a new location to fish. He was accompanied by his old

friend Von, the scarred veteran who felt the tension of time

even more than his king. How many orcas had they beaten

back together? How much danger had the fought off? As

they swam, their tusks pointed in the dark waters like

Tornat did not answer and made his way to the surface to

breathe, though he hardly needed it. He felt his sickness,

call it what they might, more than ever right now. With the

changes in ice, the blessing he led was forced to migrate

to the same bay, which grew more dangerous each year.

Once it had been infested with orcas in the water and

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


polar bears on the lands, but now humans had taken over

and they were far greedier. Theirs was the sort of hunger

that could never be satiated. The more the narwhals were

forced away from the ice and into the open sea, the more

the orcas attacked, and there had even been rumors

among his kind that humans were hunting them from

their swift boats with ease. What was a king to do when his

kingdom was no longer there? The world had passed them

by. He let out a great blow of air at the surface and stared

up at the clear arctic sky, so filled with stars.

The heavens remained and the waters still were as deep as

ever. Tornat felt his warm blood that remained as it always

was. He comforted himself in this, and continued staring

up at the solemn moon, which even in her fullness seemed

to recognize the despair of the king below and reflect it

back in communion. Von emerged quietly beside him and

the two old brothers floated in silence. But unlike the sky

above, the silence was not so still.

Two boats emerged roaring in the dark, and before the

startled narwhals could hide in their depths, they were

seen, and a flying spear scraped across Von’s scarred brow.

He groaned and thrashed in the water, and as the boats

flew towards them like shadowy death, the excited voices

and shouts of hunters filled the silence until it burst upon

them, causing them both to dive under water. But it was

for naught: spears followed their dive and one struck true,

this time piercing Tornat’s upper tail. He was wounded and

unable to swim.

“My king!” Von cried.

“No! Go, to our blessing. If we both fall they will be lost.”

Tornat’s face was of the utmost royal authority; he spoke

from the divine right of the sea.

Von let out a roar unlike anything a narwhal should have

been capable of. But as the spears continued to fall, he left

his king and vanished into the cold black of the sea. Tornat

felt a net wrap him, digging into his flesh as he was yanked

aboard one of the ships. Cold black eyes stared at him and

the strange faces were dark with fervor and want. The

utmost humiliation commenced, and Tornat took it

without flailing, for wrapped as he was and so wounded,

what strength remained would be better served in one

final burst.

He couldn’t prevent the clammy hands from seizing his

two tusks, and when the saw cut his pure ivory, he did not

make a sound. From the base, both tusks were ruthlessly

torn free, not even a nub left behind, his ivory ingloriously

severed and plucked into those greedy hands. And he lost

the will to use his burst, for he had nothing left to give. He

waited for the killing blow, looking up at the moon who

looked now like she had turned her face, cloaked in her

white light that grew dim in the fading sight of the shamed

king.

Before the killing blow could come, the bottom of the boat

quivered as a loud thud boomed, and a thick tusk pierced

through the wood, striking the man holding up Tornat’s

tusks. The man tumbled forward, still clutching the tusks,

and Tornat was jarred free from the net as those who held

him stumbled back. His strength and hope returned, and

like a flopping fish, he flung himself into the waters, the net

shedding off him like sickly flesh as he fell free. Von was at

his side and pushed him down before any spear could

strike the waters, and the men were too out of sorts with

their captain writhing in pain. The two brothers broke free

into the depths, their unchanging noble blood leaving a

warm trail behind them as they returned home.

MAN'S WORLD

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!

***

The no-tusked king was left behind, sheared and

humiliated. He had healed and his blessing had indeed

become a curse to him, though his departed kin certainly

deemed it was he who was the curse. Von had vowed to

stay, but Tornat had refused such added shame, for it was

on Von to continue leading their diminished tribe.

Alone in the dark and cold depths, scarred and hideous

without his tusks like a useless ball of blubber, he floated

there without wrath, but only a patient expectation of an

end. He refused to die a weak and meaningless death—of

starvation, of harvesting, or of some other pathetic end. But

what could one as low as him hope to do? His tusks were

gone, and he had no means of defense or offense—a last

forward attack being what he preferred. A heroic charge

into some enemies, humans, orcas, even polar bears. What

could he do but die without even causing a scratch? To so

brazenly throw oneself at the wall of the enemy without

hope of even making a dent, was perhaps a greater shame

than dying of old age.

He stayed there in the dark depths for some time,

contemplating on how to end well. In the world he had

been forced to survive in and lead others, there was little

room for glory. Constant decrease, while the unsightly, the

unjust and ugly, increased all around. In the greedy faces of

the humans. In the ominous smiles of the untouched orcas,

who no human nor change of sea could master. And in the

sea which stewed and gnawed away at their old, icy home.

The orcas had their strength still and the humans ran

triumphant. What had happened to his own kind? The

world had rolled over them and kept rolling on by, because

the narwhals of old had let it. And with each dwindling

generation, the constant receding like the fields of ice, the

narwhals would one day end in absolute dissolution if there

was no change within them. For the world was as it was.

But Tornat could see that even alone, at the very least, he

could bring about that world of old within.

He began to think more of his age-old enemy, the orca. Its

jaws clamping down like iron thunder, its charging speed

in the water with the gravitas of a planet, the battering of a

falling moon, and the flight of a shooting star. Could a

narwhal match such a foe? Could he, Tornat, at the highest

strength of his youth, ever match such power? He grew

disgusted with himself, and the disgust gnawed inside him

until he began to swim with reckless abandon.

Death! Death! How ridiculous such a concept seemed to a

beast such as the orca. The black and white missile that

surged with the water as if it were a more perfected and

concrete form of the liquid element made flesh—death and

such a beast belonged together only in a beautiful sense.

One that belonged to the heights, while Tornat in his

wounded shame belonged to the depths. His scarred and

weakened flesh, if meeting death now, would be

inappropriate and unworthy of falling victim to the

righteous, death-wielding orcas. No… a strong death, the

only true one, could only be met without victimhood,

weakness, or shame.

He stopped his reckless surging in the cold black waters

and paused. Could it be possible? Could he reach the

heights of nature in dying well? He had to live well first. He

turned, and swam in search of sustenance, food that would

strengthen instead of merely maintain. Tusks or not, he

would make himself worthy.

***


MAN'S WORLD 54


The days whirled into weeks, and the weeks gathered into

months, until a year formed in a mass of time that was well

suited for the still struggling Tornat. He had not merely

survived alone, without his tusks, but he had thrived,

fleeing the many predators of land and sea and growing

quicker with each escape. And he ventured into colder

depths, stormier seas, always eating the toughest of sea

plants and the most elusive fish, until he had hardened

himself into the young narwhal that had once earned the

kingship of his blessing. Now he was his own blessing, and

his tribe of one had become ready to end in such a way

that it only then would begin. He hadn’t spent all his time

alone with his thoughts. No, he had done the unthinkable.

Observing orcas from the shadows, watching the way they

tore through the glassy surface and flew into the air,

devouring dolphins, birds, and common fish alike. Yet

never did they go after man, because they too were the

apex of their domain. And man called them killer whales

because man couldn’t comprehend such a strength so

noble and pure, yet unperturbed by what man thought

was their human otherness and superiority. Tornat had

been seen more than once on one of his many hidden

observations and was left alone like the humans were.

This pod of orcas he now watched was a strange one.

Tornat had selected them carefully, for they only ate plant

life, seals, and medium sized fish, but no porpoises or any

narwhals — they seemed to intentionally avoid them. An

old and grizzled orca, with a bright white spot on his head

rounder and larger than was typical, found Tornat in the

kelp. The orca swam slowly over and spoke calmly.

“We know who you are and that you have watched. The

two-tusk king shamed by the men we always avoid but

could destroy if we saw fit. Your tusks are gone, and your

shame is too, for I look upon you and see a body sleek and

muscled, eyes sharp in spirit, and mind keen and settled

on the only one way to go.”

“You know of me?”

MAN'S WORLD

walk upright and tear through our domain with unnatural

design and dominion?”

“I have heard it is said that they are charged with rulership

over us. But I have seen these royal ones fall far short of

their mandate. Their image so broken from that pure

reflection, that in their cracked mirror eyes, all they see is

expansion of themselves, which is an inside that grows

darker and darker. You see my shame,” he paused,

lowering his once glorious crown. “This is the result of

peasants playing at being kings.”

“And even still, would you save them if you could?”

“I would not, for it is not for me, but for themselves.”

“And what of a mother, pregnant with child, who right now

is being attacked? She is aboard a ship and in need of

saving. We have seen.”

“What has that to do with me?”

“In every child’s eyes, the purity of the noble beast rests.

Your spirit belongs to children, as their spirits belong to the

unbroken crown.”

“Into their hearts then, I will swim my spirit.”

“Go above and live well. There is your endless end you

seek.”

Tornat shot upwards towards the surface, where sure

enough, a shadowed silhouette loomed above like a black

cloud. Over the cloud a pale moon shone bright as the sun,

blanketed by stars which seemed to drink of the same

milky light. The ocean above and below, one of light and

dark, one of water. Tornat flew out from the ocean like an

orca and saw with disgust a man beating a pregnant

woman to discharge her carriage of life in a breakage of

death.

Tornat wondered if they had known he’d been watching

them from the first day. “Most orcas do, and though we are

called your enemy, know that greater enemies are coming

to our world. My tribe recognized the gift of the deep sky in

your continued thriving. Alone you are more accompanied

than ever before. I see a being raised from the shame of

death and made secure in the life of one. It seems like your

entire self is set on something.”

“Yes…” Tornat wiggled out from the kelp and eyed the

large orca that made him feel like less than a shadow, yet

in such a presence, like so much more too. “Death in my

one life. One life in my death. With my shame, I realized

how strange death seemed to those who rose above it—

how untouched they were. I will rise above it, by doing it

the right way.” He paused, then chuckled. “I thought such

a death was in throwing myself at your kind, but as I

sought selfish gain from watching, I realized that in your

powerful wills, there was no salvation for me in a useless

end. My end must serve some purpose, and attacking you

would only be a pathetic attempt at pedestalling my

pride.”

Without his tusks, Tornat plunged back into the cold sea

and came up again like a missile, banging the bottom of

the boat and knocking the fiend back. The man stood with

a knife raised, long and sharp, a sad steel excuse of a tusk. If

only Tornat had even one of his own! But his shame would

be his glory, and he flung himself onto the ship, knocking

the man overboard so hard that even as he stuck the knife

into the old two-tusked king’s head, he was knocked

unconscious, destined to drown and be consumed by the

life he so sought to end for his own gain.

Tornat died as the woman stroked his head. As he passed

into the endless sea of eternity, he heard the weeping of a

child king, and the whisper of a job well done.

“Well said, small one.”

He paused and looked up at the glassy, sunlit surface,

broken and refracted in rainbowed beams that lighted

underneath in a fiery swirl. He titled his head as if receiving

some message from the deep light above.

“What do you say the two-legged ones are? Those who

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!



MAN'S WORLD

World Destroyed by Water, Gustav Doré (1865)



MAN'S WORLD

Rockall, the proposed location of

Pincher Martin's shipwreck

William Golding is one of the great authors of nautical fiction, including two

'shipwreck' novels. Of course you will have heard of Lord of the Flies, but what about

Pincher Martin? Infinitely better, says Raw Egg Nationalist.

Words: Raw Egg Nationalist

The Lord of the Flies represents a very mid-20th century

preoccupation, one that unites its author William Golding with

many of the century's other most famous writers and thinkers like

Samuel Beckett, Georges Bataille and Michel Foucault. That

preoccupation is with what might be called ‘limit experience’:

situations at the limit of human experience and conception. Total

emptiness and destitution of meaning; madness, murder, torture

and other forms of bloodlust; sadomasochism and violent sex;

collapse and the creation of a new society, a return to the so-called

law of the jungle. In some sense, this may simply be the 20th

century repeating on the level of art and thought the terrible

extremes of its social and political history; art imitating life, as it

were, posing ever more extreme situations in a desperate attempt

to keep up with the unfolding horrors of reality, beamed into every

household through the radio, TV and other organs of the mass

media.

But animating this preoccupation is also very obviously a deeper

concern which can be traced at least as far back as thinkers like

Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Thomas Hobbes. What does it really

mean to be human? What is man’s essence? Is he good

(Rousseau), at base, or bad (Hobbes)? The thinking behind this

literature of limit experience, then, is that it is only by placing man

in extreme situations, by stripping him of externalities and any

form of constraint, that we can learn what he truly is.

In the Lord of Flies (1954), for instance, what we are presented with

is man – or, rather child – as he would be without the constraints of

civil society. During a wartime evacuation, a plane crashes on a

tropical island. The only survivors are schoolboys, and alone on

their new island home they quickly descend into tribalism,

establishing a hierarchy based on force – might is right – and the

brutal control of a few valuable resources, including a pair of

spectacles.

Golding’s answer to the question, what is man’s essence, should

be familiar to anybody who has read Hobbes, or even just knows

the Sparknotes version of Leviathan. This is man in the famous

‘state of nature’, conducting the ‘war of all against all’. In that

primitive state, life is ‘nasty, brutish and short’ – certainly for poor,

unfortunate Piggy, killed by a boulder dropped on him from above

by the sadistic Roger. It is only when the adults finally arrive – the

appearance of a figure analogous to Hobbes’s sovereign – that

order and civilised behaviour are at last restored.

Golding was moved to write the novel, his first, by his experience

as a schoolteacher and by what he saw as unrealistic depictions of

stranded children in books like R.M Ballantyne’s Victorian

children’s novel The Coral Island (1857). Yet despite its basis in

Golding’s own experience, the Lord of the Flies suffers from a

common weakness of all this limit experience literature: its

answers to the questions posed about humanity tend to be

extreme – all or nothing. There is no place for dialectical

sentiments of the kind that Blake expressed in the Marriage of

Heaven and Hell – ‘Man was made for joy and woe… joy and woe

are woven fine, a clothing for the soul divine’ – nor for ‘the mind to

hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain

the ability to function’, as F. Scott Fitzgerald, channeling Aristotle,

wrote.

Reality TV, in its own way, has done its part to undermine the

notion of being shipwrecked on a tropical island as a limit

experience, especially if you happen to be shipwrecked with a

handful of beautiful 20- something women, and also to undermine

Golding’s conclusions about human behaviour in such a situation.

Of course, the presence of cameras and an audience represents an

obvious constraint on behaviour, but just as apparent as conflict in

participants’ behaviour is cooperation. And what is often more

interesting than the intra-gender dynamic is the inter-gender

dynamic, as shipwrecked males behave in very different ways from

women. The Dutch version of Survivor is a famous example of this,

as shown in the well-known /Pol meme ‘This Accidental

Experiment Shows the Superiority of the Patriarchy’.

Rather than the Lord of the Flies being Golding’s best shipwreck

novel, Pincher Martin (1956), as far as I’m concerned, is much

better. At the beginning of the novel, we meet Christopher Martin,

the eponymous Pincher, as he fights for his life after the sinking of

his torpedo boat in the North Atlantic, during WW2. He is saved

from drowning by washing ashore, alone, onto a seaweed covered

rock, which many believe is Rockall, some 350km west of the Outer

Hebrides. The proverbial middle of nowhere. Here, then, is a true

limit experience, one which very cleverly creates claustrophobic

terror out of an immensity of visible yet inaccessible space. In

doing so Golding asks deeply unsettling questions about the

relationship between experience and reality, and the boundaries

between sanity and insanity. If existence is a kind of purgatory on

earth, what is that keeps man going?

Pig’s head on a stick, indeed.

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


MAN'S WORLD

The Sinking of HMS Hood,

J.C. Schmitz-Westerholt (1941)

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62

Florida Governor Ron de Santis

with Donald Trump

Under the leadership of Governor Ron de Santis, Florida has well and truly been paddling its own

canoe during the pandemic. Can this defiant example, which continues under the new Biden regime,

inspire a revival of independent state power and save the Historical American Nation? You bet!

Words: Elias Kingston

Donald Trump is still the man most hated by Leviathan, but Florida

Governor Ron DeSantis is a close second. This Florida Man is such a

threat that the FBI acting on the well-intentioned reporting of

serious journalists, is considering investigating DeSantis for

favoring wealthy Floridians when it comes to distributing the

COVID-19 vaccine. This, like so much else in American politics, is a

neoliberal minstrel show designed to humiliate Deep America with

the specter of irrational power. The Deep State, which is

antagonistic to the Historic American Nation and everything it

holds dear, is after Governor DeSantis for his clear-eyed handling of

the pandemic. Governor DeSantis, along with South Dakota

Governor Kristi Noem, has been recalcitrant, in standing up for

ancestral liberties. And there is no liberty more visceral and of more

everyday importance than the liberty of unencumbered breath.

As a state, Florida seemed designed to be a COVID death factory. A

fifth of the state’s population is over 65. Only Maine, which has a

significantly smaller population and far less population density, has

more citizens in their golden oldies. Yet despite this, Florida’s senior

death rate is lower than California’s by hundreds. Florida has also

blown New York and its increasingly belabored governor Andrew

Cuomo out of the water in terms of keeping its people safe. All this

has come without mask mandates, by the way. Floridians, the most

powerful race in America, can go to gyms, can work on their tans,

and can eat unlimited steaks and key lime pie without having to

strap a diaper to their face.

As if this were not enough, Governor DeSantis has been an

outspoken critic of the illegitimate regime in Washington and the

various tentacles of the neoliberal Leviathan. In February, Governor

DeSantis enacted measures designed to protect consumer privacy

and data from rapacious tech oligarchs. Governor DeSantis has also

introduced HB1, or the “anti-riot” bill that would make it a felony to

commit aggravated rioting or to encourage rioting. While Governor

DeSantis telling Biden to “go fuck himself” never happened, the

sentiment is there, for all of Governor DeSantis’s moves have been a

gigantic middle finger aimed at the methods of oppression most

favored by the occupation government, from digital surveillance to

rent-a-mob destruction. For this, we all owe our fealty to Governor

DeSantis. His administration is leading the way.

The coup that removed Donald Trump from power reminded

millions of Americans of the necessity of local power. Some,

especially the sons of the South such as myself, never lost sight of

the power of regional identity and local imperium. This old

identitarianism should and will form the basis of a New

Nationalism in the United States. To put it more bluntly, what we

need now is not love, but Bonapartism in the states imbued with

the populism of Huey “The Kingfish” Long. We need to proclaim

state identity first, American identity second.

According to French historian Rene Remond, Bonapartism and its

offspring Gaullism support nationalism that embraces every aspect

of French history and advocate for unity over class conflict.

Remond further added that Bonapartism voices a “passion for

national grandeur” and considers the nation and its people “an

absolute value”. Real unity, a strong state, and the spirit of limited,

in-group demokratia in contrast to the hollow procedures of mass

democracy — these are goals worth fighting for. Governor DeSantis

is a leader working in the interests of his people. As such, his

Florida is America at its finest, the opposite of the Washington

swamp. Overall, the strong state, or the legitimate and functional

state rather than anarcho-tyranny, can only be found in a handful

of Republican-controlled states: Florida, South Dakota, Oklahoma,

Texas, and West Virginia. In order to restore sanity in this great

country, more states should follow Oklahoma’s lead by refusing to

follow Biden’s diktats.

Along with a strong and effective Bonapartism at the state level,

we must also convince sympathetic governors and local officials to

emulate the genius of Huey Long. Long, the last good Democrat,

championed the common man, made the oligarchs of the Pelican

State pay their fair share, and spent years improving the

infrastructure and well-being of his people. The cuckservative

crowd calls Long a dictator. So what? To quote Alexander

Lukashenko, it is better to be a dictator than gay. To defeat the big

gay that is neoliberal imperialism, state leaders must become

dictators tireless in their work on behalf of their people and their

state’s sovereignty. Governor DeSantis is not quite there yet, but

the more the Biden regime resorts to naked tyranny, the more

Floridians and other Americans will demand multiple dictatorships

on their behalf.

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MAN'S WORLD

The Destruction of Leviathan, Gustav Doré (1865)


A border wall separating the United States from Mexico is not

enough. The National Guard permanently stationed at the border

is not enough. No, what is needed in the United States is internal

borders separating states from one another. Our Founding

Fathers, those exceptional republican aristocrats who wanted

Anglo-America to carry the torch of Rome, envisioned the state

legislatures as the arbiters of power, not the federal government.

Amendment X of the U.S. Constitution states, “The powers not

delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor

prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States

respectively, or to the people.” Given that the state governments

give legitimacy to the federal government (not the other way

around, as neoliberal totalitarians believe), it should therefore be

legal for state legislatures and governors to not only refuse to

follow the illegal edicts of Washington, but to nullify any and all

obligations to said illegitimate government. One way to show the

resolve of the states would be to erect state borders to prohibit

the free movement of the urbanite bugman class. Under the

guise of “economic uplift,” these stateless mercenaries on behalf

of Wall Street and big tech move from red state to red state in

order to turn them blue, gut their productive industries, and

groom their children for extinction. What Californians are doing

to Texas is a national crime; we cannot let New Yorkers or

Massachusetts refugees debase Florida or any other state. The

only way this ends is if state legislatures seize control, reaffirm

their constitutional powers, and cross the mental Rubicon by

restricting all immigration and emigration to their sovereign

territory.

Trump at the b0rder wall

MAN'S WORLD

Congress the power “To declare War, grant Letters of Marque

and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land

and Water.” As sovereign entities, the individual state

legislatures need to be forceful in asserting their right to

sanction privateers, or armed private citizens with ships. Armed

with state-issued letters of marque to hunt down narco-ships

or Chinese fishing/spy trawlers, states like Florida could return

the U.S. to its ancient identity as a North Atlantic empire of

pirates. Privateers present opportunities for asymmetrical

warfare that are beyond the capacity and will of the federal

government. And what if Florida-based privateers went further

and captured some corrupt island like Dominica or Trinidad

and Tobago, and made said territory a province of the state

government? Yes, neoliberal Leviathan would strike back for

such “outrages,” but this only shows how important it is for

states to now start building their war chests and increase their

loyal forces.

Governor DeSantis is a good boy. He has never done anything

wrong. Still, the lying press and the illegitimate government of

occupation slander him and will seek to further damage his

power base. This to be expected. When the South rose to

defend those liberties enshrined by the Constitution and

Anglo-Saxon common law, Lincoln’s tyrannical government

declared civilizational war. Any attempt to revive state-based

and regional nationalism will be met by a similar response.

This is where the most radical idea of all comes in: a general

strike. Imagine if every productive Deep American walked off

the job the day D.C. declared war on Tallahassee. Imagine the

damage caused by an army of proud workers and producers

standing up and declaring their allegiance to their homelands

rather than the chimera of the neoliberal empire. These are the

producers in what was meant to be a producers’ republic. Even

today, despite decades of pills, free love, and invasions from the

global south, Deep America is still the tax base. Without them,

the regime crumbles. If war is declared, we make it hurt with a

general and fully patriotic strike.

64

Another necessary aspect of this new, state-centric nationalism is

the growth and rearmament of state forces and the creation of

new forces on land and water. Currently, there are 23 state

defence forces in the United States, with most organized in red or

otherwise conservative states like Louisiana and Alabama. Unlike

the National Guard, which can be mobilized by presidential

authority, the state defence forces are under the sole authority of

the state governments. Sadly, more often than not these units

are small, poorly armed, and staffed by overweight and old

soldiers, many of whom spent their glory days in the federal

armed forces. If I were an aid to any governor with an active state

defence force, I would encourage them to invest millions of

dollars into recruitment, new weapons, and superior training. If I

were in Governor DeSantis’s circle, I would tell him about the

benefits of creating a state defence force in Florida.

Ground forces are only half of the equation. There are six active

naval militias in the United States, including the Ohio Naval

Militia, the Texas Maritime Regiment, and the South Carolina

Naval Militia. As with the state defence forces, these naval units

are under the sole authority of the state governments. The

Florida Naval Militia is currently inactive, and it should not only be

reactivated but also better funded and tasked with antinarcotics,

human trafficking, and other missions designed to

protect the most vulnerable in the Sunshine State. Ditto for other

inactive units in Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Indiana, and

Alabama. The fear in blue states alone would be worth the cost.

Another option for naval supremacy can be found in Article I, § 8,

clause 11 of the Constitution: the War Powers Clause gives

The Gracchi brothers, tragic reformers of the

late Roman Republic who met a violent end

I hope this article winds up on Governor DeSantis’s desk. Better

yet, I hope Governor Jim Justice, Governor Kay Ivey, Governor

Tate Reeves, Governor Kevin Stitt, Governor Kristi Noem, and

Governor Greg Abbott see it too. I hope you read it, love it, and

live it. We need a practical revolution to escape Biden’s

occupational government. What better way to remake our

America by returning to our traditions and strengthening those

pillars already standing.

The way to Rome is through the states. Trump was the tragic

Gracchi. If DeSantis will not be Caesar, then who will?

Elias Kingston is a proud son of West Virginia, descendant

of English, Scots-Irish, and Swiss settlers and Confederate

soldiers, a veteran of the U.S. Navy, and a conservative

revolutionary dedicated to saving Deep America. He blogs

at deepandsecretamerica.blogspot.com

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!




MAN'S WORLD

Welcome to Man's World's inaugural motoring section. And who better to be first than the Globo Uomo

himself, Alain Delon, seen here in a classic picture with Mireille Darc and a wonderful Lancia Stratos?

Return to the golden age of motoring. Fast cars, fast women, daredevil drivers - Man's World will take you

there!


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68

Sir Malcolm Campbell, breaking the land speed

record in the Blue Bird, Pendine Sands, 1927

As I promised, Man’s World now has a motoring section. What respectable man’s magazine

wouldn’t? Since the very earliest days, with a few notable exceptions, motoring has been a

manly pursuit par excellence, an heroic field of endeavour dedicated to competition, speed

and the synthesis of flesh, bone and steel. In a world largely cleansed of opportunities even for

jousting, let alone real combat, motor racing remains one of the few avenues for whiteknuckle,

do-or-die challenge; the possibility of true glory, of immortality – and of a

spectacular explosive death before an adoring crowd. As Plus Ultra 1922 (@ultra1922) puts it

in his essay, “Futurism and the Automobile”, “Well into the 1980s, dozens of racers perished

every year. Such men are warriors of speed, their life sacrificed to the ideals of battle and

velocity.”

Plus Ultra takes us back to the early days of the

twentieth century to examine the role of Futurism in

the development of faster, better automobiles, and its

enduring automotive legacy. The stage for futurism’s

arrival was the tragic decades either side of the First

World War, the last days of a civilisation that would be

driven into a frenzy of self-destructive bloodletting

unheralded in history.

“The early 20th century offered nothing to young, heroic

men, beyond a tragic war that set Europeans against

Europeans and saw Woodrow Wilson clumsily rearrange a

continent's map which he had no business even touching.

In Europe, much blood and energy was directed to promote

communism which at least had something going for it: it

seemed young and radical.”

For a doomed generation, Futurism offered an heroic

vision of man’s integration with machinery, a cult of

steel and speed. Later the term ‘futurism’ would be

appropriated by designers looking for a “progressive”

vision of automobile design, and for a less combative,

less threatening vision of the futuristic.

In our second essay, Troy Bennett gives us the lowdown

on an icon of American car design, the "muscle" car. In a

world of sanitised, Sunday-driving cars, the gloriously

anachronistic muscle car embodies a different vision of

driving and of the driver himself. "Himself" of course,

because the muscle car driver must be a man. The

muscle car, as Bennett puts it, is "the pinnacle of

motorized masculinity".

So strap yourself in and return to the golden age of

motoring: fast cars, fast women, daredevil drivers -

Man's World will take you there!

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


MAN'S WORLD

An Austin 7 loses control at Donington Park, 1933

A mechanic lies with his legs on the track,

repairing a Lea-Francis 1496S cc


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Stirling Moss, 1955


Steve McQueen at Le Mans, 1971

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James Hunt


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Ayrton Senna



MAN'S WORLD

'Dynamism of a Car', Luigi Rossolo (1913)

Words: Plus Ultra 1922 (@ultra1922)

'Racecar', Ugo Gianatassio (c.1920)


The early 20th century offered nothing to young, heroic men,

beyond a tragic war that set Europeans against Europeans and

saw Woodrow Wilson clumsily rearrange a continent's map

which he had no business even touching. In Europe, much

blood and energy was directed to promoting communism,

which at least had something going for it: it seemed young and

radical.

MAN'S WORLD

76

Then the futurist movement appeared, conceived by an Italian,

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. His Manifesto del Futurismo was

published in 1909. Futurism offered a superior alternative both

to communism and to bourgeois conservatism: It was an

artistic and political movement focused on velocity, violence

and ruthlessness; a dismissal of nature, tradition and women.

(Metallized flesh would take care of reproduction; futurism

described an optimism of steel...) It sought destruction of the

unworthy, elevation of the heroic - and essentially a

"reconstruction of the universe," as the Guggenheim's 2014

exhibition accurately described it.

Futurism was not immediately a European movement. During

World War One, Europe's darkest hour, Italy fought Austria;

Gabriele d'Annunzio, subsequent liberator and ruler of Fiume,

dropped propaganda leaflets over Vienna. The border between

Austria and Italy was drawn with blood. Yet when legitimate

leaders took over in Europe, mutual respect, reason and honor

prevailed. Austria was reunited with Germany, the country

formed an axis with Mussolini's Italy - and with Japan, Asia's

"flower of steel", as Friedrich Sieburg described it in 1939.

The Fiat Mefistofele was a diabolical and

record-breaking car, a solitary exercise

built with a Fiat chassis and an incredibly

powerful airplane engine.

'We declare that the splendor of the world has been enriched by a new beauty: the

beauty of speed. A racing automobile with its bonnet adorned with great tubes like

serpents with explosive breath... a roaring motor car which seems to run on

machine-gun fire is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace'

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti

Before that, futurism set the visual stage for Benito Mussolini's

reign. Marinetti met and aligned with him in 1914; they became

friends and political comrades; and they inspired the best

artists of their generation. The radical, daring style of the

futurists broke with the past and brought forward an inspiring

vision. Countless names come to mind: Fortunato Depero,

Cesare Andreoni, Giacomo Balla, Gianni Bertini, Andrea Crosa,

Mario Sironi. Their style was characterized by angularity,

urgency, tension.

The Bugatti 35 became one of the most successful race

cars of all time. Many stylistic details, such as the

wheels, were far ahead of their time.

Futurism and the automobile are inseparable. The automobile

is the disruptive machine par excellence, ideally an extension of

the body, am expression of power and superiority. Free men

require freedom of movement; consequently, Mussolini built

the autostrada, Hitler created the Autobahn. It is remarkable

that those countries, back in those days, had no desire to

oppress the free movement of their citizens.

When the futurist movement emerged, the historical lineage

from the horse carriage to the automobile was still evident. But

evolution was swift, and by the 1920s, upmarket cars were

fearsome, fast and sophisticated expressions of progress and

speed. Global competition became fierce; arguably, the

aesthetic landmarks were created by Italian and French

carmakers.

A prime example is the brutal 1923 Fiat Mefistofele, powered by

a 21.7-liter (1325 cu. in.) six-cylinder fighter plane engine. A

weapon of annihilation, it inspired the imagination of motorists

around the world. Iconic cars of the futurist era include the

delicate Bugatti 35; the incredibly modern Bugatti 50; the artdeco-inspired

Voisin Aérodyne - or the Alfa Romeo 8C range,

with styling elements such as the slats around the front grille

that inspire the brand's designers to this day.

The futurist movement came to a halt when the Duce's

Repubblica Sociale Italiana was crushed. But its spirit prevailed

in automotive racing, an area fraught with danger and

masculinity to this day. Well into the 1980s, dozens of racers

perished every year. Such men are warriors of speed, their life

sacrificed to the ideals of battle and velocity.

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


MAN'S WORLD

Syd Mead's light cycle design from the film Tron (1982)

Syd Mead concept art for Blade Runner (1982)

Giorgetto Giugiaro, automobile

designer extraordinaire


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78

Maserati Boomerang concept, including cockpit

interior

In the 1970s and 1980s, the term "futurism" re-emerged to

denote a pure, aggressively modern styling language that

could be described as "progressive". The style was informed by

space travel, and to an extent by Hollywood movies such as

Blade Runner and Tron, whose aesthetics were conceived by

the iconic designer Syd Mead. His right-wing political leanings

were, of course, missing from the obituaries.

In the realm of the automotive, Italy took the lead again - this

time without a political agenda. Bertone, Giugiaro and

Pininfarina dismissed the voluptuous, excessive shapes of the

1950s and 60s. The new Italian style was cold, aloof and superior

– to be enjoyed while listening to Jarre's Oxygene and

Equinoxe.

Among the three major Italian coachbuilders, Pininfarina

emphasized perfect proportions and elegance; Giugiaro chose

hard and purist lines, while Bertone went for angularity and

extravagance. There were more players, such as Michelotti and

Zagato; Italian style was unsurpassed once again and it

dictated the global automotive styling language - until they

lost their edge in the late 1980s. Patrick Le Quément was first to

dismiss them at Renault, empowering his own design

department.

Subaru Alcyone/XT

The most emblematic 1970s futuristic designs include

Giugiaro's Maserati Boomerang concept, Marcello Gandini's

Lamborghini Countach, and - for an example from the UK -

William Towns' 1978 Aston Martin Lagonda. The appeal for cars

of that era is amplified by fascinating technology. Outside of

the US, where things went downhill in the early 70s, they were

the last to be developed without stifling government

regulation. In motorsports, power and style formed a congenial

relationship - and created iconic cars such as the Lancia Stratos

or the Audi Quattro.

Futuristic design trickled down into the mainstream. We will

mention the Subaru Alcyone/XT, the late 1980s Oldsmobile

Toronado Trofeo or the Toyota Corolla AE92 Coupe in lieu of

countless other examples. Pop-up headlights, digital

instruments and voice synthesizers brought space travel

appeal onto the roads.

In the 1990s, with the advent of "organic" and retro design,

aesthetics took a sharp hit, even though there are beautifully

executed designs even from that era, such as the first-gen

Oldsmobile Aurora or the last Mazda 929. Nissan designer

Gerald Hirshberg proclaimed the end of the "tyranny of the

wedge." But the best designers (he was one of them) still got

the proportions right.

Hyundai Tucson

With ever more intrusive "pedestrian protection" regulation

that requires fat bumper lips and raised hoods, the aesthetic

line eventually crashed to the bottom where it remains to this

day. A lot of today's cars are distasteful reflections of society.

They look either simping and clownish, with big, awkward

smiles, or they appear to be seething with rage, displaying a

vulgar lack of restraint.

Yet there are notable exceptions, better stylistic takes. That

Lexus grille that looks silly on their SUVs fits the ultra-modern

LC 500 Coupe perfectly. And while Audi's exterior design is

overly busy, the glass surfaces of the dashboard ooze

perfection. For another example, take the Mercedes-AMG GT63

S, with 1980s-inspired five-spoke wheels. Or consider the nextgeneration

Hyundai Tucson, a futuristic design whose front

fascia is far superior to, e.g., the unintelligent look of the

similarly sized Ford Escape.

Tesla's Cybertruck takes the new futurism to the extreme,

although it lacks tension and is ultimately a poor execution of a

great aesthetic approach. Putting aside the consideration that

EVs are essentially a concession to left-wing propaganda on

the same order as wind turbines, Elon Musk deserves respect

for his push for power and cutting-edge design.

Many of us spend more time in the car than anywhere else.

Driving is far less of a pleasure than it used to be, and that is

just another thing that has been taken away from us. But a car

can still be a beautiful space, a vessel of speed and superior

aesthetics. Every futuristic design out there is a promise of a

beautiful, pure future. A future that we never got. Not yet.

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


MAN'S WORLD

The Tesla Cybertruck unveiling, before

and after things didn't go quite to plan


herculeanstrength.com

realherculeanstrength

herculeanstren1

herculeanstren1

realherculeanstrength

herculeanstrength

With Julian Arroyuelo (IG: @julian.arroyuelo)


MAN'S WORLD

1970 Plymouth Barracuda

Words: Troy Bennett (@troyben40864199)

Every other car is a Subaru! Well, that’s how it felt as I took note of the cars I would see in

Portland, Oregon, during my decade of life inside that parallel universe. The “Lesbian’s

Choice” was quite popular amongst these wannabe outdoorsy Weekend Warriors, who

mobilize in large numbers and dominate the mountains and rivers every Saturday and

Sunday. A close rival to the Subaru saturation was, of course, the dreaded Toyota Prius.

Portland, progressive, “save the world”, “global warming”… almost always a baby boomer at

the helm and a “Hillary” sticker on the bumper, the Prius was the virtue signal on wheels.

And then there was the growing number of Teslas in the fancier parts of town…

Oftentimes I found myself fantasizing about driving a

rumbling, intimidating American muscle car around

Portland (specifically a 1970 Plymouth Cuda, inspired by

my love of the film Phantasm), terrorizing the snobs

and the pussies in their AWD mountain-climbers and

hybrid Earth-savers. Muscle cars may very well be the

pinnacle of motorized masculinity, and my

surroundings absolutely feared the powerful Man!

WHAT IS A MUSCLE CAR?

Essentially, we’re talking about a car with a big,

powerful engine and strong suspension, usually with

updated wheels and tires (bitchin’ paint jobs and

interiors are highly recommended options). Some of

the more autistic car buffs would specify that only midsized

cars with big block V8 engines are muscle cars,

actually, and more compact vehicles (like my beloved

1970 Plymouth Cuda) are in fact “pony cars” (a

nickname derived from the immensely popular 1964

Ford Mustang). But for the sake of brevity, let’s just be

general with our muscle cars.

The Oldsmobile Rocket 88, the first muscle car and

also the subject of what was probably the first ever

rock 'n' roll song, by notorious wife beater Ike Turner

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


82

1962 Dodge Dart

1964 Ford Mustang

1965 Pontiac Tempest


BRIEF HISTORY LESSON

In 1949, due to increasing demand for fast cars,

Oldsmobile introduced the Rocket 88 (this first muscle

car is said to have been inspired by the bootleggers of

the 1920s, whose need for outrunning police led to car

modifications). This takes us into the 1950s and the

major surge in American vehicular glory, both in power

and in style, with very classic offerings by Chevrolet.

BUT, if we’re to talk about TRUE American muscle cars,

we must enter the 1960s.

The 60s may have been full of disgusting hippies and

destructive Communist agendas (same thing?), but this

decade also birthed some of the most notorious and

memorable muscle cars: the Dodge Dart, Pontiac

Tempest GTO, and Ford Mustang among them. This is

undoubtedly the Golden Age of the Muscle Car, with a

LONG list of top contenders. No mere article in Man’s

World could do justice to this era of automobile power.

MAN'S WORLD

series of sensors. The center console is a giant

computer interface. So this means that repairs are

increasingly specialized and out of your hands, and the

components themselves can be tracked via GPS. Some

“conspiracy theorists” may even say that modern cars

can be controlled remotely! The last thing we need is

more “smart” technology that tracks our movements

and decreases our independence. On the other hand, a

50-year-old muscle car is a giant analog machine, only

capable of being controlled from the driver’s seat, and

able to be (affordably) repaired and modified by the

owner and his buddies.

1983 Chevrolet Monte Carlo

TV show Knight Rider

The popularity of the muscle car started to take a dive

in the 1970s, for a number of socio-economical reasons,

like the oil crisis and nerds like Ralph Nader trying to

ruin all of our fun. But great muscle car innovation still

had its moments up to and throughout the 1980s. TV’s

Knight Rider can be attributed to my very first

encounter with the awesomeness of the muscle car. As

a child, that sleek black Pontiac Firebird Trans Am was

the greatest thing on four wheels. Some of the last

great American muscle cars are the 1987 Buick Regal

Grand National and the 1983 Chevy Monte Carlo SS.

Newer muscle cars? I suppose it’s debatable how good

and “American” they really are, compared to the

classics. My cut-off for all things “cool” ends with the

1980s.

The power, style and engineering of these old American

muscle cars makes them a particularly worthy addition

to the World of the Man. Intimidating, forged with steel,

and built to last! But recently, I’ve identified more

contemporary reasons for the potential inclusion of

muscle cars into the garages of Real Men:

This leads into the point about a multi-generational

“mannerbund” of auto mechanics. In my experience,

both in my family and in my professional work, I have

witnessed a network of “car guys” in action, for a

number of decades. You know what these car guys are

like - usually pretty alpha, more likely rural than urban,

and overall more likely to rock a MAGA hat than a

Marvel comic book T-shirt. These car guys work on their

cars, restore other cars, and have an overall

appreciation of quality automobiles and the DIY spirit

that makes them great. They grew up with them,

probably learned from their fathers, and would love to

keep the traditions going. Go for a ride through the

small towns of rural America, where the Trump flags

are STILL flying, and you’ll see plenty of little body

shops run by good men. These are the guys you might

want on your team.

So now that you’re stoked about American muscle cars,

get out there and find a local car show! Friendly old

men have some amazing cars that they love to talk

about. You can get some ideas about the kind of

muscle car that suits you, and soon enough you’ll be

ripping through town, burning donuts in the gym

parking lot, terrorizing the local liberal retards, and

catching the eyes of all the top SADIES.

- The increasingly gay and computerized nature of

modern cars.

- The multi-generational mannerbund of the auto

mechanic.

You may have noticed that modern cars are hi-tech

computers. Beneath the cheap plastic lies an endless

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


MAN'S WORLD

84

Classic advert for the Ford

Shelby Cobra GT-500 KR


teespring.com/stores/official-thule-gym-3000-bc


MAN'S WORLD

86

/FIT



MAN'S WORLD 88

NECK AND JAW

TRAINING SPECIAL


MAN'S WORLD

Words: Herculean Strength @herculeanstren1)

Chances are, you don’t have a dedicated neck component to your workout routine. (If you do,

though – well done! Good for you!). The neck, perhaps of any body part apart from the

calves, is almost certainly the most neglected, despite the fact that just a small amount of

dedicated training can make a serious difference, not only to the way that you look but also in

terms of your health. Herculean Strength (@herculeanstren1) will tell you why and how.

Look at that picture of Mike Tyson. Intimidating? Just a little.

Apart from the mean look on his face, it’s the neck – a thick

meat-trunk flaring out wider than his jaw, giving the

impression not of a head attached to the shoulders by a neck

but instead planted directly into the thick mass of his traps and

shoulders – that says, ‘I am an animal, a savage beast.’ They call

it a ‘bull neck’ for a reason.

Consider the difference having a thicker neck makes in these

two images. While the man on the left (with a Photoshopped

pencil neck) could be an average nodding-bird office worker,

the man on the right is clearly not. Is he a football player?

Perhaps he’s a wrestler? Either way, it’s in no doubt, despite

the fact that you can’t see his physique below the collar bone,

that this man is a fit man, a strong man. Take note.

There’s a good reason boxers, including Mike Tyson, and

wrestlers train their necks as much as they do, and it goes

beyond just making themselves look terrifying. The muscles of

the neck not only allow you to move your head, they also

stabilise it, helping to protect your brain and your spinal cord.

Your brain has a left hemisphere, a right hemisphere, and a

brainstem at the bottom. You can lose consciousness if both

hemispheres are turned off at once; if only one is affected, the

other can pick up some of the slack, thankfully. You can also

lose consciousness if part of the brainstem is knocked offline.

A knockout is basically just that. As the result of a knock to the

head, your brain trips out and you lose consciousness. Brain

activity can be affected by a number of things, such as oxygen

being cut off to certain parts, or a blood vessel bursting.

Although the brain has a texture like jelly, the two hemispheres

are heavy, and the brainstem connecting them to the rest of

the nervous system is narrow, as the name suggests. When the

head is moved violently, for instance as the result of one of

Mike Tyson’s killer left hooks, the brain moves around in the

skull.

As a result, significant pressure is exerted on the brainstem,

which can be twisted and pulled, causing brain circuits to

break, lose their insulation, or get tangled, which shuts off parts

of the brain. If the part of the brainstem responsible for

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


consciousness is affected – it’s a knockout! Congratulations –

assuming you’re not the one on the receiving end…

A number of studies have shown that having a thick neck is

linked to a lower risk of knockouts and concussions (which

aren’t precisely the same thing). The logic is very simple: more

muscle means more stability (i.e. less movement as a result of a

sharp blow).

MAN'S WORLD

Let's briefly discuss the main muscles on the front and back of

the neck, including their anatomical functions, before we discuss

the best ways to train your neck.

On the front of the neck, the largest muscle is the

sternocleidomastoid, which performs forward and lateral flexion,

as well as rotation. The scalene muscles, like the

sternocleidomastoid, also perform forward and lateral flexion.

90

Whether you box, are a mixed martial artist or wrestler, or a

rugby or American football player, training your neck really can

save your brain serious trauma.

On the back of the neck, the largest muscle by far is the

trapezius, which contracts to perform neck extension, scapular

elevation and lateral flexion and rotation of the neck. The

splenius muscles extend the neck and the levator scapulae

performs scapular elevation.

I know that we’ve already trotted out this image of an average

office worker in 2050 more than once – it’s featured in our

recent articles on how to improve your energy levels and on ten

ways that having low testosterone will ruin your life (see the

website) – but it’s of relevance here as well. If you have a weak

neck, like most office workers who spend their days craning

forward to look at the screen in front of them, you’re much

more likely to experience headaches and neck pain, neither of

which is desirable; you’ll also display bad posture, aka ‘nerd

neck’, which absolutely makes you less attractive.

The evidence suggests that the best way to train the neck is

directly. Although when you’re doing heavy deadlifts or barbell

rows it might feel like you’re also really working your neck –

largely as a result of isometric contractions required to stabilise

the head and neck – it would appear that only direct training is

responsible for increases in neck size and strength. The good

news is, you don’t have to do much to have a serious effect.

In one study, the participants who included specific neck

exercises in their training, adding just nine sets a week of 10

weighted neck extensions, saw a cross-sectional increase of 13%

in the size of the neck muscles, in just 12 weeks.

So: not a great deal of direct work is required to elicit decent

growth of the neck muscles. This chimes with my own personal

experience. Doing just two sets of two exercises (neck extensions

and neck curls) three times a week has taken my neck well

beyond 18” in circumference in a period of less than a year. I’ve

never done less than 15 reps a set, and sometimes do as many as

25, 30 or even 40.

It is well known that tension headaches are linked to neck

weaknesses. Muscular imbalances in the neck can pull the head

forward, which results in continuous muscular activity in the

neck, leading to pain in the neck and headaches. Weakness in

the muscles over time can also lead to degeneration of the spine.

Chronic pain of any sort is no laughing matter, and neck and

back pain can be particularly acute and unbearable, as anybody

suffering from either or both will tell you. Such pain can lead to

depression and even suicide.

By improving the strength of your neck, you’ll almost certainly

improve your posture, making you more attractive to boot.

Pickup artists endlessly expostulate about the benefits of

improving the way you hold yourself, and as charmless as these

gentlemen may be, they do have a point. Posture conveys

messages about you – right or wrong – which people pick up on

instinctively.

People with bad posture generally tend to be judged shorter,

older and fatter – none of which will make you more attractive.

Quite the opposite.

This would be my recommendation for entering the world of

neck training. Perform between two and three sets of neck

extensions and neck curls, two to three times a week, to target

the musculature of both the front and the back of the neck. Stick

to a rep range of between 10 and 20 reps per set. The worst thing

you can do is go too heavy and risk injuring your neck, especially

if you’re unused to performing neck exercises, so take it slow and

build up the weight gradually over time. Focus on performing

the exercises with the correct form.

In this article, we’ve focused on extension and flexion, without

separate exercises for lateral flexion or rotation, because

extension and flexion will work the most important muscles of

the neck, which will provide the most strength and size. If you

want, over time, you can add lateral flexion and rotation

exercises, but there’s no reason to complicate things at the

outset.

You’ll want to perform the curls with a weight plate. The

extensions can also be performed with a weight plate, or

alternatively with a harness. Alternatively, if you have no access

to weights of any form at the moment, you can simply use the

mass of your head alone to perform curls and extensions. If you

do this, we recommend aiming for a higher rep range, such as

50-75. Again, start off conservatively and build up the numbers

gradually.

Happy headbanging!

Visit herculeanstrength.com

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


MAN'S WORLD

Even Arnie needed a

hand sometimes, in this

case from Dave Draper

In the current climate of lockdowns and social distancing, even having access to

exercise equipment, let alone a personal trainer, can feel like a luxury. Here at

Herculean Strength, we can provide you with the expertise and the support that you

need to achieve your goals, whatever's going on in the world around you.

It’s one thing to set yourself goals to achieve – and we all

need short- and long-term goals to lead a satisfying life –

and quite another to go about achieving them. For many,

the process of entering upon a new course of physical

training can be a daunting one, especially if you have no

prior experience of physical training and/or are seriously

out of shape. While even the most experienced of us make

mistakes, beginning a course of physical training without

the right knowledge, including the right expectations, is

one of the royal roads to failure. For every individual who is

able to succeed through sheer grit and a willingness to fail

and try again anew, there are innumerable individuals who

find the disappointment of not meeting their initial

expectations too much to bear. Ultimately, for many their

first unsuccessful foray into physical training is likely to be

their last.

Whatever your goals may be, here at Herculean Strength

we can help you to achieve them. Our coaches have a

wealth of combined experience in bodybuilding,

powerlifting, contact sports, and martial arts, and our

expertise extends from the beginner level to the expert.

Are you looking to finesse your physique in preparation for

your first foray into bodybuilding competition? Herculean

Strength can help you with that. Perhaps you want to take

your conventional deadlift past 500lbs, after many years of

stalling in the mid-400lbs range? Or maybe you want to

improve your athleticism to make you a better rugby

player? Herculean Strength can help you with both of

those things as well. Maybe you just want to lose weight

and look good. We can definitely help there too.

Our Custom Training Programme takes place entirely at a

distance, but don’t let that fool you into thinking it’s not as

comprehensive as having your own personal trainer

physically to hand. If you join our full Programme, available

through our Gumroad page, you’ll get the following:

• A personalized diet plan with special attention paid to

accommodate your tastes

• A personalized workout plan, subject to change,

according to your goals and busy lifestyle

• An optional monthly one-hour call and office-hour

attention for any queries via Telegram

• Daily motivation messages

• Close monitoring of progress, including, on request, an indepth

video analysis of your training form (your squat or

deadlift form, for instance)

• A monthly review of diet and workout plans according to

your progress, lifestyle, goals, and ambitions

• 50% of ALL our programs

• Discounts off merchandise

• Free access to our upcoming subscription-only chat

group that offers more than just fitness advice, including

financial advice, how to grow your business or website,

social media pages, boost SEO and increase sales.

Don’t hesitate to email us (herculeanstrength1@gmail.com)

for further information and a client questionnaire if you’d

like dedicated tailor-made personal training on strength

training, building muscle, losing fat, and developing

athleticism.

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!




MAN'S WORLD

94

with

Words: Greco Gum (@grecogum)

Let Greco Gum (@grecogum / grecogum.com), vendor of the highest quality mastic,

tell you all about the benefits of the original chewing gum.

Small mouths, cavities, crooked teeth, obstructed

airways; these are all modern-day problems. Analysis of

hunter-gatherer skulls show nearly perfect dental

health, superior facial development, teeth alignment

and jaw size compared to skulls from the last few

hundred years. Despite advancements in technology,

medicine and hygiene, modern man grows uglier and

sicker each year. How can this phenomenon be

explained? Soft foods create soft jaws, and soft-jawed

men create hard times.

In post-industrial societies, men sorely miss out on a

fundamental aspect of our ancestors' way of living—

chewing. Whether it was tough meat, rock-hard grains

or tubers, our ancestors spent a great portion of their

day chewing. And the constant stress from engaging

their jaw muscles caused their mouths, teeth, throats,

and faces to grow wide, robust and pronounced. But

our food has become so processed that chewing is

hardly even a requirement anymore. In return, we are

left with poor nutrition and narrow skulls, crowded

teeth, misaligned jaws and breathing problems. We

have to go back.

But there is a solution. Choosing a diet that requires you

actually to chew is a good start – sorry, Soylent drinkers!

– and another thing you can do to improve your facial

structure and your health is to chew gum. Gum!? Yes,

really – but gum of a very particular kind.

In a corner of the Greek island of Chios lies the

birthplace of the original chewing gum, mastic. Mastic

gum is the hardened sap which is harvested from the

mastic (Pistacia lentiscus) tree. Today, this aromatic

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


MAN'S WORLD


resin has many culinary and cosmetic uses, but

historically it was mainly consumed as a natural

remedy. Scientists are only now beginning to catch up

on the therapeutic effects of mastic use, which scholars,

philosophers and warriors have known since Antiquity.

MAN'S WORLD

years. Mastic was an important source of wealth in the

Byzantine period, but it wasn’t until the Genoese took

power that its production became systematized.

During the 16th century Chios fell under Ottoman

control, and the empire maintained a monopoly on

mastic trade up until its demise in the 19th century. The

fallout led to the establishment of the Chios Gum

Mastic Growers Association in 1938, which remains the

sole body managing the Chios mastic trade today.

96

Mastic has always been a luxury item, prized for its

rarity. It was even one of the commodities Columbus

promised the Spanish monarchs he would find an

abundance of in the New World (he didn’t find any).

The mastic trees have been the life-blood of the island

since the Middle Ages, and the frequently-attempted

invasions shaped its architecture. The mastic

settlements were placed out of sight and built like

fortresses to combat the pirate invaders and thieves

who coveted the precious resin.

A bowl of mastic tears

Mastic gum improves oral and gut health thanks to its

powerful antibacterial and anti-inflammatory

properties. From soothing gastrointestinal issues and

aiding digestion to relieving pain and cleansing

mouths, mastic was viewed as a chewable elixir. Initially

revered for its medicinal properties, mastic gum is now

prized for its use as a facial sculptor.

Mastic gum provides the perfect amount of resistance

to challenge and also satisfy the four muscles of the

jaw: masseter, temporalis, lateral pterygoid, and medial

pterygoid. Just like any other muscle, your jaw muscles

can be strengthened and become more pronounced

through progressive use and repetition.

The first known reference to mastic gum was recorded

in the fifth century BC, but fossilized leaves from the

mastic tree have been dated as far back as six million

Mastic trees are native to the Mediterranean, but it’s

only on the southern tip of Chios where the trees

produce this precious resin. The exact reason why

remains a mystery, but it’s speculated that the

underwater volcanic activity responsible for the island’s

unique microclimate and soil formation create the

precise conditions needed. Many attempts to plant

these trees have been made, but few survive, and the

trees that do make it to maturity are unable to produce

the sap.

The cultivation, harvesting and processing of mastic is

a year-long, painstaking process. The methods and

tools involved have remained unchanged for centuries,

in accordance with tradition. The village men spend

the winter meticulously pruning the trees, while the

women level and clean the ground around the trunk in

preparation for the harvest. During the summer,

diagonal incisions are made into the tree trunk and its

branches. These deep cuts cause a clear, viscous

substance to ooze out in the shape of a tear, and drip

onto the prepared ground below. The mastic tree resin

will remain there, hardening for 15-20 days before

collection. Once gathered, the several month-long

cleaning process begins. After being sifted and washed

in natural spring water, finally the resin is sorted and

classified by its color and size. The result is a white,

crystallized delight with a unique, pine-like flavor.

Many online sellers take a careless approach and you

should only buy from a reputable vendor. If you’ve tried

mastic gum before, chances are you’ve received a

muddle of sticky, stale and yellowish resin. To ensure

you are getting the highest quality mastic gum that is

pure as the driven snow, give Greco Gum a try. Our

gum is hand-filtered to provide your mouth and face

with a vigorous but pleasurable workout. The

difference is palpable.

The CEO of jawline - and you - would do

much better to chew some delicious mastic

than a cheap Chinese rubber toy

Greco's premium quality mastic gum is

available exclusively through the website

grecogum.com

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!



MAN'S WORLD

'Tom, you've got muscles in your

98

cheeks!'

Terry Wogan to Tom Platz,

during a BBC interview

101

If I say the words 'Tom Platz', you're likely to

think of his insane leg development, which still

ranks among the greatest in the history of

bodybuilding. But Tom Platz also displayed

unusual development in another part of his

body - his face. Raw Egg Nationalist shows you

how to Platz-max for the ultimate chad jaw.

Words: Raw Egg Nationalist

The modern diet has not been kind to man’s face and

especially his jaw. Dr Weston A. Price, in Nutrition and Physical

Degeneration, famously showed the almost immediate

ravages of the modern diet on the physiognomy of native

peoples introduced to it. Where one generation, eating the diet

that had sustained it since time immemorial, had strong wellformed

jaws, with properly spaced teeth absent caries (tooth

decay), and beautiful symmetrical faces, the next generation,

now eating imported food and especially grains, had narrowed

faces, malformed dental arches and crowded jaws full of

crooked, decaying teeth. These effects were most arrestingly

shown in a series of photos posing different generations and

even in some cases siblings against each other, with one side

illustrating the effects of the native diet, the other those of the

modern. Say what you want about the 'myth of the noble

savage', but let anybody who truly believes in a linear

conception of history look at these pictures and reaffirm their

belief in simple, uncomplicated human progress. Go on, I dare

you.

If modern diets and lifestyles imperil our proper physical

development, even if we aren’t the lucky ones who were fed

organ meat, bone broth, raw milk and fermented foods as

children by our parents there are still things we can do as

adults to strengthen our physiognomy and restore to it more

than a little savage beauty. Dr Mike Mew, for instance, has

pioneered a form of jaw training known as ‘ mewing’

which

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!

Here we see one of Weston Price's many

photographic studies illustrating the

deleterious effects of the modern diet. On the

left, the benefits of the native diet, and on the

right, the heavy physical price paid by

consumers of modern, especially grain-based,

diets.


aims to ensure proper jaw positioning and development, with

revolutionary effects on appearance. In certain cases, and in

particular as a result of an undiagnosed allergy that has led to

chronic mouth-breathing, by their teenage years some children

develop horribly recessed jaws. By following Mew’s advice and

placing the tongue on the roof of the mouth at all times, such

unfortunate individuals are, over a period of months, able to

draw their jaws forward into the correct position. And not only

do they enhance the way they look, restoring the profile they

should have had, but they experience a host of other benefits,

including improving breathing.

MAN'S WORLD

For those lucky enough not to have a lower jaw that has

withdrawn like a turtle into its shell, there are still benefits to

practising proper tongue posture. As well as helping to engage

and develop the muscles of the face and neck, it will make you

more aware of how you are breathing – whether you are

breathing through your nose, as you generally should be, or

whether you are breathing through your mouth. There may

even be some esoteric benefits too. A number of ancient

cultures, including the Daoists, recognised that placing the

tongue on the roof of the mouth was a way to bring the body’s

energy pathways into alignment.

The transformative effects of mewing over a

twelve-month period.

chewing a dog’s toy, and wouldn’t recommend it, not least of all

because, beside the awful taste, I don’t think you really want to

swallow any of what the toy is made of.

Without resorting to chewing dog’s toys, there are still things that

you can do to develop the muscles of the jaw, especially the

masseters, quite dramatically. And the best thing is, you won’t

have to do all that much of them. Adding jaw training to your

routine is not something that’s going to necessitate spending

another hour in the gym – far from it. In fact, for me at least I’ve

only needed to make a simple modification to one exercise I

perform three times a week as part of my neck training routine, at

the end of my leg and back workouts.

Tom Platz on the BBC, after

removing his shirt (at the

instigation of host Terry Wogan)

Although Tom Platz is most famous for his insane leg

development, with 31” thighs at their peak, he also

demonstrated an abnormally well-developed face,

something the British television host Terry Wogan picked up

on straight away during their famous interview on the BBC.

‘Tom,’ he gasped as the American sat down in his

seat, ‘you’ve got muscles in your cheeks!’ Platz

laughed graciously and made a short comment

which clearly suggested that he had indeed been

training his face as well as his body.

If you look at photos of Platz as a

young man, it’s clear that he already

had strong facial development, but the

jaw he sported during his competitive

prime could have sunk a battleship. It’s

difficult, however, to find concrete

details about his actual jaw-training

regime. I’ve seen it written

that Platz used to chew

rubber dog toys, and given

the general levels of

madness that attended his

training, I wouldn’t doubt it.

For your benefit, dear reader,

I have actually tried chewing

Neck harness

The muscles of the jaw. It is the masseter,

in particular, that you want to develop.

One of the simplest things is to do neck extensions using your

teeth to hold the weight, instead of a harness or your hands. Get a

t-shirt or towel, thread it through the handle of the weight, roll

the ends up in your hand to form a bit and then bite down hard

on it. If the weights don’t have handles, you might have to get

creative and use some rope to make a handle you can thread

through the centre of the weight and attach the t-shirt to. My

preferred method is using a kettlebell. Start with a light weight

and aim for upwards of 15 repetitions. Add weight gradually and

perform the extension movement smoothly, through a full range

of motion. Warm up by performing the extensions without a

weight. At the moment, I’m performing two sets of 35 extensions

with a 70lb kettlebell. Here is my neck and jaw routine in full.

Neck extensions w/ weight in teeth 2x25-35 reps

Neck curls w/ weight plate on forehead 2x25-35 reps

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!

You can also perform holds for time with the weight in your

mouth, do ass-to-grass squats to lift it off the ground with your

teeth, or perform carries holding the weight with your teeth. All of

these exercises will also work the trapezius and inner back, as

well as activating the muscles of the core to a surprising degree.

So what are you waiting for, anon? It’s time to Platz-max!




102



MAN'S WORLD

104

Here, in part one of a two-part

story, Peter Hopkirk Respecter

takes us to the British Raj to

describe the service and sacrifice

of William Hodson, the man

known as...


MAN'S WORLD

“I appealed to the crowd, saying these were the butchers who had murdered and brutally

used helpless women and children, and the government had now sent their punishment:

seizing a carbine from one of my men, I deliberately shot them one after the other.”

A letter Hodson wrote to his brother, recounting the execution of mutinous princes

during the Great Mutiny of 1857

Words: Peter Hopkirk Respecter (@phrespecter)

Hodson’s summary execution of the Mughal Princes on the 22nd September 1857 was entirely justified: they had

encouraged the mutineers and handed over the British civilians sheltering in the Red Fort to the baying mob of

treacherous sepoys, sentencing them to a cruel death. Hodson was a man of action who had seen the

consequences of failed leadership from senior officer and civil servant alike and knew that the sooner the

Princes were punished the sooner the mutiny would end. He was an excellent swordsman, being described as the

“Company Sabre”, and a natural leader. However, many have seen fit to criticise Hodson for this act of

retribution, from modern historians to even his contemporaries. This is because throughout his life he was

dogged with false accusations of corruption, embezzlement, looting and negligent command that cut short his

promising career. These factors combined with his death in combat meant he was unable to defend himself any

longer, and for many he became the symbol of all the worst excess of British rule in India.

William Hodson born on the 19th March 1821 at Maisemore

Court and was the third son of the Rev. George Hodson,

and unlike most officers in the employ of the East India

Company (EIC) or British Army he had a university

education. He attended Cambridge where he studied

classical and general literature and developed a flair for the

languages of the Indian Subcontinent. He was an athlete as

well. While at Rugby he won a wager that involved him

completing three tasks: running eight miles in an hour,

then a mile in five minutes and finally picking up 100 rocks,

placed one yard apart within an hour. He was also

committed to turning “the island” at Rugby into a gym.

Hodson suffered from what were most likely migraines that

would manifest themselves while he studied and ended his

academic career before it began. In India, to cope with the

sun he would wear tinted sunglasses. With a career as an

academic out of the question he decided to become a

soldier in India, taking a cadetship in the EICs 2nd Bengal

Fusiliers. At 23 he was comparatively older than the

majority of cadets as most were recruited as teenagers into

the Company army or Civil Service.

RISE OF A FRONTIER SOLDIER: THE FIRST SIKH WAR

Hodson arrived in India on the 13th of September 1845 and

in just four short months in country, and two with his

regiment, he would find himself leading a company of

Sepoys in a charge against the Sikh cannon at Mudki. He

wrote to his father about the intensity of the fighting as he

advanced with his men through dense jungle to the Sikh

fortifications.

But in spite of these difficulties he endeavoured to lead his

men with “great zest”. His regiment also provided an escort

to the Governor-General and his staff, and he saw its

destruction, with only two members escaping death and

serious injury. They would have been accompanying Sir

Hugh Gough, who was never far from the danger, but

unlike his subordinates Sir Hugh always evaded death.

British numbers meant victory was inevitable, but the Sikhs

took a bloody toll with every yard of ground that was

yielded. The Khalsa (Sikh army) retreated to the heavily

fortified village of Ferozeshah.

The Battle of Mudki, 18 December 1845

"We were within twenty, and at times ten, yards of

three guns, blazing grape into us, and, worse than

all, the bushes, with which the whole ground was

covered, were filled with marksmen, who, unseen by

us, could pick us off with pleasure"

At Ferozeshah there would be no jungle to protect the

advancing British and they were now facing a more

numerous enemy. Hodson and his regiment were on the

right of the army and he would have watched helplessly as

General Littler’s Division on the left flank advanced towards

the entrenchments and was destroyed by the Sikh artillery.

He would have seen them retreat without having even

reached the enemy lines, such was the ferocity of the

cannon fire. He knew that it was only a matter of time

before it was his turn to lead his men into oblivion. There

were fewer guns opposing them, but the fire was still

heavy, Hodson wrote:

“In the most dense dust and smoke, and under an

unprecedented fire of grape, our Sepoys again gave way

and broke. It was a fearful crisis, but the bravery of the

English regiments saved us. The Colonel (Hamilton), the

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


greater part of my brother officers, and myself, were left

with the colours and about thirty men immediately in front

of the batteries! Our escape was most providential, and is, I

trust, thankfully acknowledged by us. A ball (from a shell, I

fancy) struck my leg below the knee, but happily spared

the bone, and only inflicted a flesh wound. I was also

knocked down twice – once by a shell burst so close to me

as to kill the men behind me, and once by the explosion of

a mine.”

The Battle of Ferozeshah, 21-22 December 1845

MAN'S WORLD

The British infantry advanced to forward positions at 3am

and awaited the coming artillery duel. When the guns let

loose it was a thunderous display but was ultimately

inadequate, since not enough ammunition had been

brought up, despite Sir Hugh Gough’s orders. Seeing that

the guns were spent, Gough exclaimed joyously “Thank

God! I shall be at them with the bayonet.” Hodson was in

the centre division and writes in a rather routine way about

the advance under heavy Sikh fire. The Sikh artillery was

incredibly inaccurate as result of the sandy soil causing the

guns to sink into the ground. As they advanced over

ramparts and into position the Sikhs ran for the river and

were gunned down by a tremendous amount of musket

fire. The retreat devolved into a stampede to escape and

the bridge of boats over the Sultej collapsed, causing even

more to drown. Hodson escaped serious injury and only

suffered a slight wound on the tip of his little finger that

ruined the buckskin glove he was wearing. The Sikh army

was destroyed at this battle and had lost the bulk of its

artillery, allowing Sir Hugh to march unopposed into

Lahore. Although immensely proud of taking part in the

destruction of the “mightiest army, and the best organized,

which India has seen”, Hodson soon grew displeased at the

peace, having developed a taste for fighting.

PALADIN OF THE PUNJAB

106

The right flank was successful in reaching the village, and a

charge by the centre and the few remaining reserves was

successful in pushing the Khalsa back into their camp and

to the village. At the high-water mark of the attack the

British controlled the village, half the camp and one third of

the fortifications, but they would be forced to withdraw.

This was because they had run out of ammunition and a

series of mines had been detonated by the Sikhs, which

had caused great confusion and terror among the ranks. It

was an orderly retreat to the original British line but the

men were starving, thirsty and exhausted. Over the

previous four days they had an amount of food that Hodson

remarked “would not compose half a home breakfast loaf”

and for the whole day and that night they would not have

any water to drink. If the Sikhs attacked now they likely

would have been able to force a mass rout of the British

army and might have been able to march on Delhi. So

desperate was the situation that the Governor of India, Sir

Henry Hardinge, sent the Civil staff back to Delhi along with

one of Napoleon’s swords with orders to prepare for the

worst. The Sikhs did not attack and in fact they retreated

back to the River Sultej.

Twice now the sepoys of the 2nd Bengal Fusiliers had

broken and fled before even reaching the enemy lines lines,

leading to their removal from combat and being placed in

the rear to secure the lines of communications and supply.

Hodson wrote, “not liking the notion of returning to the rear

while an enemy was in front” he immediately set about

transferring to a different regiment. He was successful and

assigned to the 16th Bengal Native Grenadiers on the 9th

February 1846, a day before the next battle.

The Sikh entrenchments at Sobraon were daunting and

expansive. The first line, forming the shape of a squashed U

defended with earthen ramparts between 10 and 20 feet

high, was around 3,500 yards long and was topped with

200 swivel guns. The ramparts were also protected by a

series of dry riverbeds (Nullah) that would further hamper

the British. Inside was another defensive line between the

main position and the river.

After the war he came into contact with an Ulster-Scots

Political Officer called Henry Lawrence who would lay the

foundations of British Rule in Punjab. He served as his

assistant and accompanied him, along with John

Nicholson, Harry Lumsden and Patrick Vans Agnew, on an

expedition to secure Kashmir for its new ruler Mahraja

Gulba Singh. The local Muslim governor had mutinied

against the instillation of Singh as ruler of Kashmir. The

expedition was a resounding success, with most of the

mutinous Sikh troops surrendering to the British lead army

without a fight. Lawrence noted that Hodson was ill-suited

to civil and secretarial work but, having great respect for

his skill as a soldier, endeavoured to put his skills to use.

Hodson along with Harry Lumsden was given the task of

establishing and training what could be best described as

the most elite regiment in the Indian Army, the Corps of

Guides. The Guides would act as rapid reaction force that

would protect the frontiers of India and act as the

Vanguard of any army crossing into Afghanistan. Hodson

was the officer responsible for introducing Khaki (derived

from the Hindustani word for “dust-coloured”) uniforms to

the Guides in 1847 as they needed to be “invisible in the

land of dust”. He was also responsible for equipping them,

so had his brother send out 900 uniforms and 300 carbines

from England.

His appointment to the Guides was only ever meant to be

a stepping stone to a posting as a political officer, which

was supposed to be in the newly captured city of Multan.

However, this was not to be, since Lawrence had left

Punjab on sick leave and had been replaced by the far less

capable Fredrick Currie. Currie picked the rising star in the

Company the 24-year-old Vans Agnew to replace Hodson,

which likely saved his life. While inspecting the fort of

Multan on 20 April 1848, in the company of the Governor

Mulraj Chopra, Vans Agnew and his assistant Lt Anderson

were attacked by Sikh soldiers and driven out of the city.

Anderson had been mortally wounded and Vans Agnew

with his few remaining servants found shelter in a fortified

temple. It was here Agnew and the rest were killed. This

incident sparked a Sikh rebellion across the Punjab and for

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


MAN'S WORLD

The Battle of Sabraon, 10 February 1846


MAN'S WORLD

108

The Battle of Chilinwala, 13 January 1849

many British officers the skills they learnt in suppressing

the last gasp of the Khalsa would serve them well in 1857.

During the Second Sikh War (1848-9), Hodson served with

the Guides as a rapid reaction force riding across the region

supressing outbreaks of violence. Throughout the conflict,

he was in constant communication with other political

officers. In their letters they voiced their frustrations with

the inability of senior military and civil officers to grasp the

seriousness of the situation. Herbert Edwardes was

particularly scathing and wrote to Hodson that Currie was

wanting to “postpone rebellion”. The Guides assisted

Herbert Edwardes in his attempt to recapture Multan but

were forced to retreat in the face of greater numbers and

joined up with Sir Hugh Gough’s army as it marched into

the Punjab. Hodson and Lumsden were placed in charge of

the Intelligence Department and were required to keep

the army informed on the movements of the enemy. They

also protected supply lines and messengers.

The Sikhs under the command of Sher Singh clashed with

the British at Chilinwala on the 13th January 1849. It was to

be a bloodbath, since Sir Hugh Gough decided again to not

use his artillery. In the words of Charles Allen he “reenacted

the folly of Ferozeshah” and had his men charge

against the entrenched enemy. There were 2000 British

dead on the field, with some regiments losing almost all

their officers. The 24th Regiment lost 13 officers and the

Regimental Sergeant Major. Hodson was damning of the

conduct of his commanders, pointing out that the majority

of colonels and majors were unable to withstand the “wear

and tear of Indian service” and that they were a “burden to

themselves, an annoyance to those under them, and a

terror to everyone but the enemy”. During the battle, he led

the horse his Brigadier was riding almost into the thick of

the fighting and the old man still could not tell which

direction the enemy were in. For all his faults, Gough at

least was physically capable of leading his men and had his

intellectual faculties intact.

These mistakes were not repeated at Gujerat on the 21st

February, as Gough had become aware that if he did not

crush the Sikhs decisively he would sent back to England.

Harry Lumsden wrote of the battle “a more beautiful sight

could not have been on earth than the steady advance of

upward of one hundred guns”. The methodical and

deliberate use of overwhelming cannon fire meant the

infantry were spared the slaughter of a bayonet charge and

Gough’s reputation was saved. This was the final battle of

the war and paved the way for the total annexation of

Punjab, something both Hodson and Lumsden were wary

of. They feared being appointed to dreary civil duties,

because they had grown accustomed to Frontier life.

Although the return of Henry Lawrence to Punjab and

recognition that the Corps of Guides would provide the

nucleus for the Punjab Irregular Force, he decided to

appoint Hodson as acting District Commissioner of

Amritsar.

Hodson welcomed the promotion but did not meet

Lawrence’s exacting standards and within six months was

sent back to be 2iC to the Corps of Guides. He lamented the

“absurdity in dropping from the minister of a province into

a drill-sergeant” and found little enjoyment in convincing

Afghans of the benefits of proper drill. There was another

brief spell on the Lahore Secretariat but he loathed the

paperwork and begged to head back to the Frontier where

under Lumsden’s command he could do as he wished. For

the third time he was again 2iC to the Guides but a chance

to prove himself appeared in 1852 when Lumsden went on

home leave and he assumed acting command of the

Corps. He was extremely pleased, writing to his brother

how he was the “the most fortunate man in the service”.

Little did he know that soon his reputation would be in

tatters and his career almost ruined.

In Issue 3, Peter Hopkirk Respecter will return to

describe the fall and then the redemption of Hodson

during the Indian Mutiny of 1857.

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110

/LIT


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'Wounded Soldier', Otto Dix (1924)


MAN'S WORLD

112

Welcome to the second chapter of Dr Chaim Breisacher's peerless new translation

of Ernst Jünger's obscure, captivating early text 'Combat as Inner Experience'.

After a baptism of blood, the young warrior moves on to describe that most primal

of sensations...

Translation: Dr Chaim Breisacher @mmmynona)

Horror belongs, as well, to the circle of feelings that

from old rests in our depths, bursting forth with primal

energy in the shock of violent force. Its dark sway

seldom flits about the high star of Modernity.

For prehistoric man it was a more constant, invisible

companion on his wanderings through the immensity

of the barren steppes. In thunder and lightning, it

appeared to him at night and cast him down with its

suffocating grip – him, our forefather who stood against

all the powers of the earth with a feeble stone in his fist.

And yet precisely this instant of utter impotence

elevated him above the beast. For a beast can indeed

feel fright when a threat suddenly emerges; he can

sense fear when hunted and cornered; horror, however,

is foreign to him. It is the first lightning burst of reason.

It is also closely related to voluptuousness, to the

intoxication of blood, and the pleasure of play. As

children, didn’t we all listen to scary stories on long

winter nights? Every fiber trembled and you would

have liked to hole yourself up safely in a den – but still

couldn’t get enough. It was as if you had strayed off into

the muck and mire and happened upon a nest of

speckled serpents from which you couldn’t escape, the

pleasure of seeing their hideous coils being too great.

In areas where people pursue a life of stimulation,

horrific spectacles garishly painted on canvas beckon at

every carnival and fairground. Murders of passion,

executions, wax figures pocked with purulent ulcers,

row upon row of anatomical abominations: staging

such a bill for the audience guarantees you will fill your

pockets. Frequently, I stood long hours in front of such

stalls and stared in the faces of those leaving. There was

almost always a smile and note so strangely misplaced

and constrained. What was this smile supposed to

hide? And why was I standing there? Wasn’t horror also

delightful for me? The pleasure of children and the

masses is foreign to no one.

Like a child in the servant’s kitchen or a farmhand in a

cabinet of horrors, young volunteers crouch in the

barracks hall, huddled around a veteran in whose voice

the horrors of the battlefield still trembled. Despite

their pale faces and darkened eyes, there was scarcely

any who did not long ever more passionately for the

day of deployment. Though it might even mean

silencing his beating heart, each man was driven to

stare the gorgon in the face.

And the hour came for everyone, bubbling up darkly

from indeterminate depths, precisely when it was least

expected. When the fields were fallow like on

important holidays – and yet, completely different.

When blood coursed through head and heart as before

a passionate rendezvous – but even hotter and more

amazing. When inching ahead closer and closer to the

roaring din, the strikes blaring louder, the hunt ever

more hurried. When the fields glowed from a glut of

agitated thoughts all around. When so overcome with

emotion, landscape and actions emerged only later

dark and dream-like from memory. The baptism of fire!

There the air was so laden with overflowing virility –

that every breath was intoxicating, that you wanted to

cry without knowing why. To be able to experience it –

oh manly hearts!

Then the column extended like a bat in flight and the

laughing and shouting died down. Along the way, there

lay to the side someone stiff and wooden with a sharp,

wax-yellow face whose glassy eyes stared into the void.

The first dead – that unforgettable moment freezing

blood to brittle ice crystals. Like a pale and dreadful nag

before the nocturnal abyss, horror reared up in each of

us, imprinting another impression into our brains for all

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MAN'S WORLD

'Dead Sentry in the Trench', Otto Dix (1924)


time: to one, the hand like a claw pounded into the

moss and earth; to another, bluish lips against white

teeth; to a third, the blood-black crust of the hair. Ah,

prepared as you may be for this instant, all is shattered

by the horrific figure in the ditch, upon whose dirty face

the first blue flies already danced. This figure, and the

countless that followed, appeared over and over in their

thousand contorted forms, with lacerated bodies and

gaping skulls. Pale admonishing spirits to the mad

trench diggers in the minutes before the storm, until

the liberating cry to attack rang out.

Horror is inextricably bound up with death in our

imagination. We are as unable to separate the two as

prehistoric man was incapable of separating the horror

felt, from the streak of lightning that blazed to earth

nearby. Will future generations conquer this horror, and

with the same tender feelings think back on us – on us

and the shudder of feelings in our breast as we the

meander through endless wastelands to the frontlines?

On these nightly forays through the undulating wastes,

your heart was so lonely and orphaned, as though it

were a pendulum swinging over the deathly shimmer

of frozen seas. All warmth was sapped by the lurking

inexorability all around. Countless times the wailing

howls of someone slowly dying trailed off into the void.

Further, just a little further to the safety of the burrow!

Although you strode the trampled, scar-pocked fields

for years, still time and again you were jolted awake as

from mad and terrible dreams. Where were you? On

some lunar crater-scape? Expelled into the depths of an

inferno? Enveloped on all sides with golden flames, this

infernal dance hall of death was no terrestrial

landscape. In that place, no comforting light flickered

from the hearth; only gaudy signs of devastation

flashed from foxholes as a fiery prelude to crushing

savagery. No shrub, not even the tiniest stalk troubled

your stumbling steps. Ashen fog and poisonous gas

engulfed islands of sorrowful trees – black, shattered

stumps. At times a house emerged, abandoned and

collapsed like wreckage on the seafloor. What was it

that groped with slimy tentacles in faint light from

every recess for your heart? The horror of death and

decomposition.

Decomposition. Without cross and mound, how much

of one dissolves in rain, sun, and wind. Thick clouds of

flies swarm, a suffocating mist of vapors hangs about

the solitary body. The smell of a decomposing man is

unmistakable: heavy, cloying, with a repugnance that

lasts like stale bread. After great battles, it lingered so

heavily that even the hungriest forgot to eat.

Often a patrol of soldiers survived doggedly for

countless days in the fog of battle in some forgotten

section of trench or tunnel, like those marooned in a

hurricane clinging to a broken mast. In their midst,

death had driven its flag into the ground. A field of

corpses lay before them: mowed down by iron, near

and between them the bodies of their comrades with

death itself in eyes set strangely rigid in hollow faces –

faces strangely reminiscent of the ghastly realism of old

crucifixion images. Almost completely spent, the

corpses huddled in unspeakable decay until finally one

of the patrol awoke death and its rigid dance began

again, sending bodies hurling high into the air.

MAN'S WORLD

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What did it help that they covered those nearby with

sand and chalk or threw a tarp over them to avoid the

constant stare from black, bloated faces. There were

simply too many: everywhere the spade struck

something buried. Every secret of the grave laid open in

an abomination compared to which the most

fantastical dreams paled. Bushels of hair fell from skulls

like withering leaves from autumnal trees. Some

dissolved into a greenish, flaky flesh that glowed at

night through torn uniforms. Stepping on them, a foot

left behind phosphoric treads. Others were dried into

calcareous mummies, slowly coming undone. For still

others, flesh flowed as a red-brown gelatin from their

bones. On humid nights, swollen cadavers awoke to a

spectral life as pent up gas escaped, hissing and

sputtering from their wounds. Most frightful, however,

was the seething rustle that came from them,

produced solely by innumerable worms.

Should I go easy on your nerves? Did we not ourselves

once lie four days in a trench between corpses? Were

not all those there, dead and living, covered in a thick

carpet of blue-black flies? Is there something still more

extreme? Yes: there lay dead many with whom we had

shared all those night watches, all those bottles of wine,

all those morsels of bread. Who may speak of war who

did not stand among us, in our circle?

After such days, the very sight of the front soldier

tramping through hinterland cities in gray, sullen

columns, hunched and ragged, ended the mindless

bustle of these carefree country folk. “Like from a

casket,” whispered one of them to his girl, and everyone

trembled who met the emptiness of their deathly eyes.

These men were drenched in horror; they would be lost

without intoxication. Who may make that

determination? Only a poet – a poète maudit in the

voluptuous hellscape of his dreams.

And say if any torture still exists

For this old soulless corpse, dead with the dead?

- ‘Le mort joyeux,’ Charles Baudelaire

Accessible to only the most perceptive in its subtle

emanations, pervasive horror consists in a contrast

embodied where life and annihilation meet, rending

asunder. It flows from devastation, terrifying in its

apparently insane pointlessness.

Flooded by white moonlight, deserted villages gaped in

the night like desecrated tombs, reeking from the

fumes of rotten carcasses. Silently, the grass-covered

streets flowing with packs of rats. Hesitantly, you circled

around fertile farmyards, anxiously uncertain, when

suddenly you came across the peaceful spirits of those

displaced. Couldn’t the abbé pop up from behind the

ruins of the parsonage? What might the darkness of

the cellar conceal? The corpse of a girl with stringy hair

floating in dark groundwater? In the stables, animal

cadavers hung still chained to the charred beams. In

the bombed gateway, a doll lay like a tiny corpse.

You swept past the gruesomeness with hobnailed

boots, accustomed to blood and iron. And yet like some

object laid before a lifeless fireplace, although tightly

clothed to the neck you felt so icy that you had to gulp.

You were indeed a bearer of war, cavalier and

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MAN'S WORLD

'Soldier and Death', Hans Larwin (1917)

venturesome. You put many under, stepping over them

with powerful emotions in your breast. Still the feeling

was like a baby’s cry upon wild moors – a ghostly dirge

like bells pealing over sea and midday in sunken Vineta.

As with the fall of that rollicking city, one sensed the

hopeless sinking of a culture, trembling from the

knowledge of being sucked into the maelstrom along

with it.

Between laughter and madness, there is often little

more than the edge of a blade. Once at the start of an

offensive, I walked through a city from which the

people had saved only their bare essentials. A

companion tapped me smiling and pointed to a house

whose roof and walls were already cracked and

compromised. A shop window had remained eerily

clear in the middle of the onsetting destruction. A slew

of women’s hats had been stored away. A few days

before, while searching for a fallen friend in the late

evening of a battle, I had pulled apart the bodies of a

group of corpses. Suddenly, a fattened rat leaped

towards me from a torn skirt. However, this experience

had not shook me as much as the phantasmal contrast

between the deserted streets and the shimmering

tinsel of painted straw, silk, and colorful feathers, which

reminded me of feminine hands and a thousand other

trivialities that made our former life colorful.

Another time, together with an old warrior during

endless night watches in a darkened nook of a

defensive barrier, I asked him in hushed tones about his

most horrific experience. His cigarette glowed in quick

intervals, his fleshless face casting a reddish sheen. He

spoke:

“At the beginning of the war, we stormed a house that

had been a business. We forced our way into the

barricaded cellar and wrestled in the dark with beastly

ferocity while above us the house was already ablaze.

Suddenly – in fact ignited by the fire’s fervor – the

automatic playing of an orchestrion [a mechanical

organ] went off overhead. I will never forget how the

carefree clang of dance music accompanied the roar of

the warriors and the death rattle of the dying.”

Much more could be told: of men who screamed and

laughed long after a shot had shattered their skull; of

one who in a winter battle ripped the uniform from his

body and, grinning, raced over the bloody fields of

snow; of the satanic humor of the great infirmary and

much else. Yet, children of the age, we have grown

weary of naked facts. So weary.

Not even facts, precisely rather the uncertain, the

ineffable, the dull foreboding which sometimes

smolders like smoke from a hidden fire aboard a ship.

Perhaps everything is just a phantasm. And yet it was

so palpable, so lead-heavy on the mind, as an

abandoned troop of soldiers crossed through unknown

lands under the vaulting night, booming near and far

from the immense impact of iron. Then suddenly, a jet

of fire tears open the earth in their midst – a cry of

concussive knowledge propelled into the infinite. The

dim curtain of horror wanted to sweep the mind aloft in

a final fire; what sat in waiting behind it, however, the

rigid-mouthed survivors were no longer able to say.

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!



MAN'S WORLD

The work of both Bronze Age Pervert and the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski is in large part a

response to the ugliness of contemporary leftism, personified for each respective author in the

form of the 'bugman' and the 'oversocialized' academic. But which of these thinkers offers the

most attractive remedy for the sickness they both diagnose?

Words: Giles Hoffman (@spring_pierian)

Ted Kaczynski sought refuge in the woods from academia

and the corporate office, the well-known hives of Bugman

existence, at the age of 31. Kaczynski was only one year

older than the legendary Zarathustra, who is fabled by

Nietzsche to have left his own home for the wilderness,

driven to enlightenment by the need to escape “the

market-place.” For a quarter of a century Kaczynski

embraced the hick’s life of hunting and foraging, but

stewed sour over the conditions of the modern world. His

hatred for conventional life became central to his antisystem

perspective and would later become known in his

formal manifesto Industrial Society and its Future. Yet he

would resist imprisoning himself in theory, by sending

amateurish little mail bombs to unsuspecting – yet

symbolic – victims. From the anxiety of his explosive parcels

showing up at any doorstep, which haunted the American

imagination, Kaczynski was designated a domestic terrorist

with an iconic name: “The Unabomber.” (It should be noted

that it was only after the publication of his manifesto within

the Washington Post (1995) that Kaczynski could accurately

be titled a terrorist, since the political aims of his violence

had been previously undisclosed). These semantics aside, I

prefer to think of Kaczynski as a math nerd who was under

the spiritual possession of a black-pilled Henry David

Thoreau.

Like many of you I am a proponent of collapsing the reign

of the Bugman, to which end it may be useful to read

Kaczynski’s manifesto, especially for its descriptions of the

modern leftist. But the text is an unworthy manual for the

Hard Right, unlike the Bronze Age Mindset, which I’ve

called elsewhere our movement’s vade mecum. The

reasons are simple: Kaczynski is a brilliant and pitiable

misanthrope; you only have to look at him; he is the classic

case of the bullied victim who, like the school-shooter,

embodies the contemptible qualities of desperate anger

and feeble revenge – another casualty of modernity, who

falls under the archetype of Dostoevsky’s Underground

Man.

I know I do not speak alone when I credit my new sense of

optimism to the miraculous emergence of the Bronze Age

Pervert, who is also contained inside this sparkling issue of

Man’s World. It is furthermore not an exaggeration to call

BAP a leader – if not the leader – of our spiritual

renaissance; of a worldview which could be said to rely,

above all else, on a single premise: the supremacy of the

body. This idea is both simple and complex. Of course, our

physiology is the source of physical power, which will be

necessary in ending a system of control that has been built

on lies; but it is also as important and more profound to

understand our body as the reliable portal into the laws of

nature. A man of good physique and such insight can be an

effective weapon against the weak and manipulative, who

in their collective interest have actively distorted the very

idea of nature, as a way of deceiving their betters.

The easily accessible thesis in Kaczynski’s manifesto is that

the industrial-technological system is an inherent

existential enemy to human agency. As the system

increasingly grows it will diminish human autonomy. He is

like the prophet warning Laius to kill his son after foolishly

engendering Oedipus. But unlike the movies, Kaczynski’s

prophecy does not include an exciting doomsday such as

nuclear Armageddon or any near-mythological tale where

we stand defiant to an existential threat. He rather foretells

a bathetic and slow whimpering out of our species, like so

many ants asphyxiated in a bag. The industrial system

demands compliance and subtly wages its bureaucracy

and medical establishment against men with independent

spirits, with its final goal of creating a slave force of “leftists,”

a term that when defined is synonymous with Nietzsche's

“Last Man” or BAP’s “Bugman” (the latest iteration).

The leftist is not fundamentally understood as being part of

a “movement or an ideology,” according to Kaczynski, but

as a “psychological type” who can be found amongst

“socialists, collectivists, “politically correct” types, feminists,

gay and disability activists, animal rights activists,” etc. He

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


explains that the leftist, whom we’ve all encountered en

masse two-and-a-half decades later, will “invade every

private corner and force every thought into a leftist mold”

by imposing their quasi-religious convictions so that

“everything contrary to leftist beliefs represents Sin.”

Kaczynski therefore psychoanalyzes this type, finding

“feelings of inferiority” and the tendency to

"oversocialization” as the two most pronounced

psychological traits driving the modern leftist.

MAN'S WORLD

similarly represented by the trained guard-dog that sticks

her fangs in her master’s hand as he fills her food bowl.)

The other tendency, oversocialization, is a defect of

magnitude. As a psychological concept, “socialization”

refers to the process by which people are adjusted to the

norms of a culture. Therefore, Kaczynski’s prefixed version

118

Feelings of inferiority are explicit and found in expressions

of shame, guilt, depression, self-hated, hysteria, neurosis,

low self-esteem – the list goes on. In an effort to cope with

their self-contempt the leftist will conspicuously attach

himself to whatever “virtuous” cause is trending, promoting

its demands through superficial activism. For Kaczynski,

their real motivation, however, is betrayed by the fact that

the “Leftists tend to hate anything that has an image of

being strong, good and successful. They hate America, they

hate Western civilization, they hate white males, [and] they

hate rationality.” One of Kaczynski’s more interesting

insights comes by his observation of the leftist’s

preferences in art. He accurately notes that the “Art forms

that appeal to modern leftish intellectuals tend to focus on

sordidness, defeat, despair, or else they take an orgiastic

tone, throwing off rational control as if there were no hope

of accomplishing anything through rational calculation and

all that was left was to immerse oneself in the sensations of

the moment.” Now, every university campus and national

gallery seems to be at the brim with transsexual

“intellectuals” who carry unread copies of Camera Lucida in

canvas bags and praise the “socially conscious” art of Jean-

Michel Basquiat.

Jean-Michel Basquiat: talentless hack

(nice hair tho)

(In a complete tangent, but since I’ve brought up Basquiat

– who might have been Pop Art’s house N, or Warhol’s

catamite – I’ll tell you what I think of his art: what is called

neo-expressionism in his style is really Afro-tribal scribbling

and is made only – remotely – interesting because of its

American bearing. What Basquiat's frantic movements

might really represent is the Black spirit imposed with a

Western consciousness, an anxiety that must be

externalized to relieve the confusion between itself and the

non-native culture. Of course, the heroin that finally

dispatched Basquiat could be said to reveal the same

dislocation. This irony continues to undergird the many

black-dissident artists. In their formal accusations against

colonialism, which is anti-civilization per se, the BIPOC

always uses Western principles communicated in a

European language to justify his hatred. This fact betrays

his total Western orientation. This self-harming irony is

The Unabomber's cabin, held in an FBI

storage lot

of the word describes an extremely adjusted person – i.e.,

the sycophant. Oversocialization is adopted by people

when their culture’s norms become so demanding, what

we call “puritanical,” that “in order to avoid feelings of guilt,

they continually have to deceive themselves about their

own motives and find moral explanations for feelings and

actions that in reality have a non-moral origin.” Of course,

we all have moments of low self-esteem that motivate

conformity to our environment, but again, the leftist loses

his balance and becomes distressed by an excess of both

self-worthlessness and wanting to fit in. Though Kaczynski

doesn’t make this particular claim, I think that

oversocialization better describes the modern liberal and

conservacuck (or is it cuckservative?) who are happy to

adjust their own opinions to whatever finds them in good

standing. In plain language, the oversocialized types are

the spiritual whores for whom words and values are mere

currency.

According to Kaczynski the leftist is the product of the

system, rather than the reverse, because of two other

theories. He justifies his IEDs as a means to bring our

attention to the modern lifestyle, wholly made of contrived

activities, that perniciously disrupts “the power process”

and has us seeking “surrogate activities” as the sublimated

scratching for our real instinctual itch. The power process is

the ability for us to derive satisfaction from accomplishing

goals that require struggle. It's particularly vital for men.

But the modern state has erected obstacles to this process,

either by fulfilling our most animalistic desires without

effort, resulting in passivity and boredom and addiction, or

by coming from the other end, unravelling red tape policies

under the pretence of “safety.” It should be apparent that

all activities that are stuttered by the requirement of

licenses, often additionally overburdened with high

insurance, are concerted efforts to repress the male

instinct. To compensate we “throw” ourselves into our

careers and use leisure time for hobbies, sports watching,

Next page: one of the Unabomber's

actual bombs

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!



and twitter spats, as alternative ways to find some

subterranean relief for the soul. The rewards of surrogate

actives lack in fulfilment, however, and so we turn to the

analgesic effects of alcohol and drugs to pacify our thumos.

And if you are unable to quell the yearnings of your

conscience, the establishment is ready to support you in

therapy sessions where “vulnerability is strength,” and

antidepressants or anxiolytics are dispensed at a rate that

any ghetto pusher would envy.

The system requires compliance because its workings are

too complex and interlaced; every cog – you and me –

needs to be obedient if not useless, since anything else can

compromise its stability. This is how Kaczynski has distilled

the machinations of the industrial-technological complex.

Without saying as much, the Unabomber has imagined a

subconscious conspiracy invisible and inside the ghost of

the machine, as if it has become an emergent entity – that

is, an entity that plots against human agency. The reason

MAN'S WORLD

It is only through the relations of production and the id that

Kaczynski, who ironically uses these concepts against the

left, has put the nebulous “system" in his crosshairs. His

remedy is to call on all his imagined votaries, to destroy

everything that we have discovered and invented so that

we can return to a primitive, preconscious Utopia (it

occurred to me while writing this that Kaczynski’s

recommendation is the inverse of the Futurists). His

impossible request is that we bomb ourselves back to

Eden, in the hope that we rewind the stately hands of the

grandfather clock back to a time before its invention.

But man is chimera of beast and god who must

accordingly consummate his instincts and his ideals. Is the

Unabomber really more than a pure misanthrope (like his

supporting environmentalists), whose aim is to ablate

anything that is remotely ambitious, reducing our species

to a beast of burden, so that we may become

indistinguishable from grazing cattle? I don’t think so.

For Nietzsche, BAP, and men with higher souls, the enemy

is not an invention, our industry, human creation, or any

other category that contains the heights of Man’s genius.

Much of this is to be revered! Especially the works of great

beauty. We rather attack weakness that postures as

strength, and our mission is to reassert the primal right of

natural power. With the same passion of Filippo Marinetti,

our genius “must break down the gates of life to test the

bolts and the padlocks!” to see the crepuscular light of

sunrise, since “nothing equals the splendor of its red sword

which strikes for the first time in our millennial darkness!” If

Marinetti's spirit, the precursor of Italian fascism, found

optimism in the dawning light, then Kaczynski is the

melancholy and regret of an endless night.

120

The faces of modern leftism

why men (italicized to distinguish them from spiritual

faggots) feel this more than women is because, compared

to the fairer sex, we are the agential sex. According to

Kaczynski it is nothing personal. With exception to the

previous sentence, the impression one could form is that

BAP and Kaczynski are revolutionary bedfellows. (It is

slightly beside the point but they also might have a

common education, which is merely a question about

numbers). But this impression would be wrong. Despite

being similarly disposed in their negative relation to the

system, in which the Last Man is their common enemy,

they differ significantly. Even in their general attitude

towards civilizational decay, a departure can clearly be

perceived. Whereas Kaczynski reviles the present and fears

the future, BAP sees our dreadful condition as historically

auspicious, since the fall of any regime is the only fertile

ground for philosophy and is inseparable from resurrection

of the noble pirate.

Though they have reached consensus over what plagues

our species, their different diagnostic approach has

resulted in incompatible aetiologies and conflicting

prescriptions. This is best explained by observing their

philosophical inspirations. Between Kaczynski and BAP we

find the three “Masters of Suspicion,” the three men whose

imperishable ideas are continually waged against the other

in the modern world: Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche. In the

case of BAP we know that he expressly credits Nietzsche’s

perspective as central to his life-based analysis; Kaczynski,

who doesn’t cite his inspiration, is clearly observing the

world through the lens of historical materialism (Marx) and

the subconscious (Freud).

At last this brings us to terrorism. In his rage against the

machine, Kaczynski murdered three people and maimed

23. This kind of debased action is not the spiritual

“rebarbarization” that gives us hope, but the last cry of a

weak man who wants to be noticed. Similar are the

examples of Elliot Rogers, Anders Breivik, and Brenton

Tarrant, who although they share with us some criticism of

the Bugman, are themselves forms of lower life. Even if

mass shooters are not luftmensch by definition, they are

still archetypal losers whose views are caricatures of our

side (something the media enjoys portraying without

distinction). BAP and the emerging leaders of this

movement should be wise not to court this type of

basement resentment, or else they'll taint the loftiness of

our struggle with the life-denying ugliness of random

murder. We don’t need the hillbilly equivalent to the

establishment’s battering rams. And here lies the essential

difference between the Kaczynski and BAP: the former is

life-denying, and the latter beseeches us to become yessayers.

This is what matters.

Giles Hoffman is the writer behind Pierian

Spring (pierianspring.ca), which contains a

variety of book reviews of right literature and

philosophy, including Bronze Age Mindset

and the Storm of Steel.

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!




MAN'S WORLD

Words: Faisal Marzipan (@cedarsupremacy)

“Papi, Juanita is here, we go to church now. We be back at

noon, the pollo is cooking on the stove” said Catalina.

“Ok” said Gabbayo, vacantly. His sister, Janet, took Catalina

to mass every Sunday and they would eat Sunday lunch

together. He still had the faith but was in no condition to

travel. His hip replacements were now 20 years old.

“I’ll see you soon then,” said Gabbayo.

When Catalina left, Richard De Leon clawed the remote

with his four fingers, flipping through. No games yet. He

looked out the window and reminisced, there wasn’t much

else to do now. He turned off the TV. He set his hands out

before him, which bore the scars of 2nd and 3rd degree

burns in lieu of pinkie fingers. In his younger days Richard

“Gabbayo” De Leon would regale his friends and family on

how he was an ancestor of Martin Lopez, one of the original

engineers on the boats with Hernán Cortéz. Martin

eventually returned to Spain, but his progeny did not, and

with the establishment of the presidio at Bexar, Richard’s

forebears set up a colony.

The Lopez and De Leon families became, like most Tejanos

of the period, ranchers. Richard was the oldest of three

boys enjoying the wide-open spaces of Texas and in his

teens heard the harrowing adventures of his uncles in the

Great War. He had been excited to get his chance to see

some action in Korea, he saw it as an opportunity for a boy

from Comfort Texas to see the world. After spending much

of the Korean conflict in Japan running communications,

he returned to Fort Sam Houston and met Leslie Van Pelt.

Leslie was a hawk-faced blonde from a Dutch family in

Amarillo. They had three girls, but their marriage was

tumultuous. She would nag, and wheedle, and back-bite

him. Leslie’s mother would get ill, and Leslie would spend

the holidays, and sometimes the weekends in Amarillo to

care for her. For a period, Richard felt the old woman would

outlive all of them.

While the family did maintain a modest acreage, Richard

became a roughneck and then a foreman on various

wildcat drilling operations before working for Tejaco. It was

in this capacity that Richard met his date with destiny. The

regulatory pressure on OSHA was relatively non-existent.

His shift was over and he was clocking out as foreman

when the kick hit. The drill hit a pocket of methane, and

this caused the pressure on the wellbore in the line to get

extremely hot and compressed the mud column. Gabbayo

was eager to return home to Comfort and was shooting the

shit with the crew when he heard the sudden “clunk”. The

fatigue of a long shift was the just the delay needed for the

kick to turn to a blowout. He looked at the foreman who

was supposed to give him relief. The relief looked back at

him plaintively, and in a mad dash Gabbayo ran to the

blowout preventer. In his fifteen years in the industry, he

had never faced an emergency like this. His life, the lives of

the men on his crew, and all of their families depended on

him closing that blowout preventer. So, in a poetic

inversion of Martin Lopez, who first lit the torch on his boats

at the order of Don Cortez, Richard “Gabbayo” De Leon

embraced the fire, scorched his own hands on the safety

valve, saved his crew, and suffered greatly. Gabbayo had

just started manually closing the blowout preventer when

the sparks within the wellbore got hot enough to ignite. In

the searing heat of the blowout flames Gabbayo turned the

blowout preventer one more quarter turn, closing the well

entirely. The rest of the crew reached him with the asbestos

and extinguishers but by then the damage was done. He

had 2nd and third degree burns on his face and hands and

lost both his pinkies. After three months of therapy and a

$3 million settlement from Tejaco, Gabbayo became reborn

by fire and embraced the lifestyle of a gentleman farmer.

He inquired about starting a horse farm out in Comfort,

These are the days of the expanding man...

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


Texas with an eye toward expanding his cattle holdings.

MAN'S WORLD

124

Not long after his right arm recovered, a second accident

befell Gabbayo. His right arm was still stiff when he joined

his Uncle on a cattle drive. His uncle chose thunder, a black

stud; the horse’s unpredictable nature slipped his mind.

Gabbayo got on Thunder and was getting his saddle rust off

when Thunder, sensed something. Thunder began to panic

and broke into a full gallop. Gabbayo was still rusty and not

100% in control and Thunder raised up on his back feet and

Gabbayo fell to the ground. Thunder then charged again

into a full gallop and inexplicably jumped under the arch of

a barn. When the dust cleared the cowboys were shocked

to see Thunder seizing on the ground, in death throes.

Gabbayo was sitting in the dust, and considering his second

brush with death in a year, guffawed heartily.

“HAW HAW HAW”

He laughed at the universe. He had been through the fire

and come out the other side and now was determined to

make his mark on the world. Gabbayo then abandoned his

goal of running a horse farm in favour of a recreational

vehicle. His daughters were growing up, and flush with cash

he could support them through college. He channelled his

natural restlessness into travel. On a whim he would take

his RV up to Thunder Bay Canada, or Chihuahua Mexico, or

the Grand Canyon, wherever his desires would take him.

After a quarter century with this severe, hawk-faced

woman, he called it off with the mother of his three girls. He

shared the blame, he knew it, but the heroism of his act on

the west Texas oilfield, and the newfound riches it brought

him, wore off quickly in her mind. The annulment came

through one year after the Diamond anniversary, and,

naturally, he took to his RV.

On his quest for cheap land in Chihuahua he met eyes with

Catalina, a widow 15 years his junior. She was not a beauty

Queen, but let’s face it after grafting skin from his thigh to

his face, neither was he. Catalina had a softness in her eyes,

a kindness in her voice, and a warmth to her touch which

seemed at first unnatural to Gabbayo. With his first wife,

even romance had become a battle. He had soon built a

second home in Chihuahua, more of a compound really,

and started farming garbanzo beans. With the initial

investment from his Tejaco settlement and the cheap labor,

he created a working farm. He could cover three years of

expenses with a harvest and have a modest enough income

to not dip into his windfall. His Spanish was rudimentary,

but the locals began to learn his unique style of Spanglish.

After settling in his villa, he was still restless. Something was

missing. The nearest church was 45 minutes away, and

although he did not feel he needed a regular church, he felt

THEY needed it more. Nominally Catholic, the people took

to a superstitious animism, in his mind they needed order.

In the sweltering summer he would venture up to comfort

and sought out seed money to finance a church in

Chihuahua. He put in $7000 of his own money and received

pledges of additional $14k to build a church to St Miguel the

Archangel. Over the last decade the tides turned in

Chihuahua once the warlords started venturing into Los

Vasquez. He and Catalina retreated to Comfort where he

now lay in bed.

shape is my shade,

...that

where I used to stand

there

Steely Dan "Deacon Blues"

left, and grabbed his cane. He shuffled, slowly and painfully

into his wheelchair. Adjusting himself so that he would

align up with the seat, he carefully lowered into it. He took a

deep breath. On wheels again. The door was just wide

enough for his chair but usually Catalina pushed him. He

had to back up and go forward a couple times to line up the

angle. Finally, he made it through the door. Once he was

able to leave the bedroom it was a little bit easier; he

ventured first through the living room and bar, complete

with 1980s decor, and took at the guest bathroom, which

led to his extended kitchen and parlor. He wheeled up and

then down the ramp into the kitchen, which had a wideopen

layout. Gabbayo then wheeled up to the stove and

turned off the gas flame. Catalina and Janet would be here

in 30 minutes.

Looking again at his hands he reminisced now about the

joke he played throughout Comfort, and then the rest of

North America. When Gabbayo would gas up his truck or

RV he would put up his hands to signal how much money

he wanted to put in the tank. This was back before credit

cards and the cashier would look at you and see if you were

good for the money and would set the limit for $10.

Gabbayo would then fill up the tank to $10 worth of gas

and saunter up, bowlegged from years of riding horseback,

and approach the cashier.

When the cashier would say, “That’ll be $10,” here Gabbayo

would take off his cowboy hat, throw it on the ground and

holler, “TEN DOLLARS, TEN DOLLARS! I said EIGHT! EIGHT!”

Then he would hold up his mangled hands with the missing

pinky fingers and go “HAW HAW HAW.” The cashier would

laugh, relieved really.

Catalina and Janet, when they showed up, found Gabbayo

laying in the middle of the kitchen floor. The pot was on top

of his belly and the roast chicken was covering his entire

sprawled body. Catalina screamed “Gabbayo”, and Janet bit

her lip. Janet pulled out her phone as Catalina wailed

“Gabbayo Gabbayo." Catalina cradled his head, which

smelled of Brut and Mole sauce and pleaded “Juanita,

Juanita, she pleaded, with tears streaming down her face,

“Call the ambulance!”

Turning his head, and sitting bolt upright, Gabbayo

exclaimed “Now whattya wanna do that for? HAW HAW

HAW!”

Well, now it’s time to venture out. Sitting up, Gabbayo

winced. He clawed the blanket off, swiveled his legs to the

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


MAN'S WORLD

Foreword and translation: Rogue Scholar Press

“The Mature Man and the Young Man” was published by

Drieu la Rochelle in 1935 in the pages of the Nouvelle Revue

Française. It announced his definitive and final conversion to

Fascism, after almost two decades of exploring other ideas

and ideologies, including the avant garde art movements of

the time such as Surrealism and Dada. It was the vitalist and

masculinist elements of Fascism that were most congenial

to Drieu’s spirit, and he felt that he had always been a

Fascist but simply had not had the name for it. A veteran of

the first World War, he had had a kind of mystical

experience at the Battle of Charleroi when he led his unit in

a bayonet charge against the German machine guns, and

for the rest of his life he looked back to that moment as a

revelation of vitality and heroism, a primordial confrontation

of life with death.

What convinced Drieu to side with Fascism was the crisis of

February 6, 1934. The crisis was due to the Stavisky Affair, a

scandal centered around a Bernie Madoff-type financier

who had sold worthless bonds and embezzled hundreds of

millions of francs. Stavisky was well-connected and people

believed that many in government were involved in his

scams. When he was finally about to be brought to trial after

years of delays, he purportedly committed suicide. The

people believed he had been killed by the police to avoid

investigation into his connections and associates. And so, on

February 6, the political Right, including groups like Action

Française and Croix-de-Feu, organized mass protests

against the government.

The center-left Radical-Socialist government of Edouard

Deladier, with his newly-appointed Interior Minister Eugène

Frot, responded to the protesters by having the police open

fire on them. Fifteen protesters were killed and some 2000

were wounded. The government and the press, however,

spun the protests as an attempted right-wing coup. There

had been no such attempt, and in fact the protest leaders

had held their men back, even though they could have

easily taken the Chamber of Deputies building. The event

served to harden both the Left and the Right in their

positions, with the Left believing that a putsch was an

immanent threat, and the Right becoming further

radicalized by their mistreatment.

Never one to simply accept an ideology uncritically, Drieu

called his own version of French Fascism “Fascist Socialism.”

As the critic Robert Soucy wrote, “By ‘socialism’ Drieu once

again was referring to political socialism (i.e., for Drieu,

political authoritarianism) rather than to economic

socialism, although he does suggest in passing that such

power might be used to impose greater controls over big

business. … It was in fact the ‘virile’ spiritualistic socialism of

Proudhon and Peguy … not the materialistic, egalitarian

socialism of Marx and Engels, that he responded to.”

It is often forgotten today that Fascism and other rightwing

movements of the early 20th century presented

themselves as alternatives to both capitalism and

communism, having equal disdain for both not only

because of their shallow materialism but also because of

how each in its own way crushed the poor.

The philosopher Julien Benda, reviewing Drieu’s book of

essays on Fascist Socialism, wrote:

“That political action of which a noble spirit is capable Drieu

believes he has found in fascism. But his fascism is much

less a political dogma than a moral attitude, which consists

of a Nietzschean will to self-transcendence, of a scorn for all

stagnations, for all statisms, for all easy pleasures whose

symbol he finds in democracy. He hates the clerk [the pure

intellectual] who does not trouble to live dangerously while

trying to think justly between his four walls. However, this

cult of heroism goes hand in hand with a real tenderness for

the poor; this fascist has the heart of a socialist.”

- Rogue Scholar Press

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


The young man spoke to the head of reception. Being

admitted after a phone call, he took the elevator. He walked

around in anonymous corridors, and finally knocked on a

door which bore the number 775. A female voice bade him

enter, it was the voice of a secretary who soon opened the

door to room 774 for him.

The young man stood in front of the mature man. The

mature man looked young, there was even something

childish in the expression on his face. This surprised the

young man, but it does not surprise me because I have

often seen this trace of infantilism on the faces of post-war

men. It is confused with irresponsibility.

The young man was pleased with his first impression and

said to himself: “Yes, really, that man is close to me. I was

right to put my trust in him and we will come to an

agreement.”

The mature man—I say mature because that is how a man

over forty is usually called—was near the window, at a table

where everything was in order. He was annotating a thin file

with a big red pencil. He contorted his whole head, his

whole chest, in a movement that wanted to be slow and

quiet, to look at the one who had entered. As soon as he had

looked up, his gaze jumped worriedly to the stranger.

Concerned, he became the inquisitor; but now he was

reassured and jovial. And the mature man smiled, closed his

file, stepped forward voluntarily, deliberately stretched out

and leaned forward to hold out his hand to the young man.

This hand which suddenly offers confidence, intends to win

in return.

“Hello, good to see you. Please sit down. Do you smoke?”

The young man looked approvingly at the mature man.

More than young, he was athletic.

The mature man, neither short nor tall, was standing

upright, his strong shoulders not very compressed.

Although quite thick in the waist, he stood so straight one

didn’t seem to notice it. And his movements had that trace

that still remains of a former practice of sports.

The young man was happy to tell himself that this one had

never worn a jacket or a beard, that he had not taken the

job at the university, that he had driven racing cars, swam,

rowed, skied.

Yet there was a certain sharpness of that face. Does such

finesse go with sharpness? At first glance, from the tip of the

nose, this profile formed a precise angle; but on closer

inspection, the branches from this angle were getting lost.

The well-articulated straight angle between the nose and

the mouth spread out and leaked to the forehead and chin.

And from the front, the temples, cheekbones, and jaw were

a little chiselled, narrow. Then, when the eyes began to read

beneath the cut of the clothes, what had at first seemed

compact turned out to be chubby. Finally, each of his

gestures came with an imperceptible delay, for it did not

respond to an impulse but to a conception which the

mature man had of himself.

MAN'S WORLD

image which the young man had in his eyes was the very

one the mature man had in his, this image he gave off so

well for himself and for the crowd when he was on stage.

Sitting down, the young man placed his left hand on his left

thigh, which was wrapped in white gauze, very white. The

mature man flinched, and his gaze returned worriedly to the

young man’s eyes as they entered the room.

“Are you hurt? Have you been injured?”

The tone underneath was sour.

Suddenly the young man was no longer all love and

confidence, from one second to another he felt a possible

abyss between this mature man and himself; or in any case,

he wanted to be mutinous.

“What day do you think I was injured?”

The mature man was deeply embarrassed, but he smiled

ironically because he was not afraid of guile, quite the

contrary. He liked people to be cunning, because then he

could be so as well, and better than anyone. He shrugged

sternly.

“Well,” resumed the young man, who was not cunning at all

but only had the movement of a child, “I was injured on the

7th in the most confused battle in the world.”

The mature man seemed relatively reassured. He lit another

cigarette. He smoked feverishly and there was in front of

him, in a crystal ashtray, a big pile of cigarette butts. This

worried the young man a little: what became of the effects

of sport in this cloud of smoke?

“You wrote me in your letter, whose tone of confidence

touched me, that you wanted to speak to me about

something in particular.”

He was no longer looking at the young man but at the bare

space on his table in front of him; he had pushed aside the

file folder to his left. The whole table was bare between him

and the right angle where the young man was seated. There

was only a large box of American cigarettes, laying open.

Having taken his time, the mature man suddenly fixed his

eyes on the young man and stared at him.

“Yes,” said the young man, “thank you for finding a moment

for me. What I am going to tell you, many others besides

myself also think, and it is therefore important.

“Look—I’m middle class. My parents raised me to have

manners. In high school I was taught very little: I know very

well that I don’t know how to think. Nonetheless, I have

reflected on my body, and I am its master, having

experienced and exercised it. I read a little—Nietzsche and

Marx. My parents have no more money, or may as well not

have. And I can’t find a job. I am unemployed.”

“Yes, I’ve seen many like you,” sighed the mature man with a

little weariness.

126

But the young man, if he saw all this, did not realize it

immediately. He had gone in with his image of the man and

it was still strong in his eyes, although upon this image

another was being superimposed. The old image was of a

man he had seen in public events, of a slow but determined

man whose every step landed firmly on the ground. This

“I’m middle class, but I hate capitalism which does not feed

me and which ruined my parents. I hate the big

newspapers, the banks, big business—anything in this

country that has power without responsibility.”

“Certainly,” said the mature man, raising his head a little.

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


“I also hate democracy,” continued the young man in a

slower voice. “I hate Parliament—the flag-waving nobles and

businessmen, the lawyer Deputies, the Radical party with its

Freemason committees and its Senate of sadistic old men,

the Socialist party and its secret admiration for everything

denounced by its wise rhetoricians. All of these people cover

capitalism. And capitalism is covered with these people.”

Now, the left-leaning independent was a lawyer for the oil

trust, but he never thought about it.

“Yes,” he said, now more softly. “So then, what?”

“Well, I came to ask you: so then what?”

MAN'S WORLD

same—dry, without nuances. They are content to be right in

words and not in deeds.”

“You mean the intellectuals, but what about the people?”

noted the Deputy of the left, with a touch of emotion.

“Yes, there are two kinds of communists, the middle class

and the workers. The workers … well, they’re workers, guys

who want to eat and, after having eaten, to be men. But as

soon as they are in a communist meeting, they imitate the

middle-class.”

The Deputy nodded sadly:“So, if you are not a communist,

what are you? Are you …”

The mature man frowned. Although he seemed to be

soliciting them, he did not like formal demands very much.

He preferred to make them himself, upon others, at his own

time and place, in Parliament, rather than have them

pressed upon him.

He looked at the young man sternly again. He seemed to be

saying to him, “Did you come to blackmail me, as

intellectuals do, with extremism and logic? Are you one of

those idiots at the public assembly who get up in the back

of the room and cry out, ‘This is all bullshit!’—or are you an

enemy?”

However, he thought that everything could be resolved

once again: this young man was an intellectual, it would all

work out in a little ballet of reciprocal flattery.

“Well, there is a lot of truth in what you told me, however …”

He had risen and was pacing in long, counted steps around

the large sofa.

The young man suddenly looked angry and bewildered. This

however had been chanted too artificially.

“Ah, there is a however. Yes, I know, you will tell me that

Parliament and democracy are two different things. You

want to save democracy. Well no, it is quite certain that if we

get rid of Parliament, democracy will also go away.

Moreover, secretly, by defending democracy, you intend to

keep the door of Parliament ajar. Léon Blum is more frank

and consistent than you; he defends Parliament and

democracy as one, and as if nothing had … Well, you know

the stumbling block of 20th century politics: the grand

pairing of capitalism and democracy, of these two friends

who pretend to quarrel, but who secretly get along. If we

understand this clearly, we are already in the action.”

“Yes of course … But, pardon me, are you a communist?”

The Deputy hoped very much that the young man was: it

was a way of classifying him and getting rid of him.

“No. Communism is a weed,” the young man whispered

with a false modesty and sparkling jubilation in his eyes.

“I wonder why you are not.”

“I don’t expect anything from Moscow, any more than from

the Vatican. They’re the sort of people … ah, I don’t know, but

I’m not comfortable with them. When I’m in a large

communist meeting, I feel like I’m in a small chapel. They

have jargon that is at least half a century old, their Marxist,

materialist jargon. And they all repeat the same thing—a

true thing, but which becomes false, and it’s always the

The young man burst out:

“Well yes, probably, I am a fascist. Definitely, I am a fascist. I

have known perfectly well since February 6 that I am a

fascist. And I know very well what fascism is. It means

wanting to have socialism, without bragging that we are

going to do it but by doing it, not with a program but by

achieving something every day. To be a fascist means

knowing that one cannot do anything other than to make

socialism, that it is necessary to shut down the current

heads of the economy, irresponsible in politics, and the

political leaders, irresponsible in economics, and to replace

them with leaders responsible for both things at the same

time who will become one. And it means that to do all this,

the French can only count on themselves.”

“And to overthrow the banks, you will ask the bankers for

money?”

The young man stopped. He knew perfectly well what he

wanted to say; but any allusion to money made him ill at

ease. Besides, this uneasiness acted against his interlocutor:

rather roughly, the young man looked around him at the

hotel room. It was a good room, in a good hotel, very ugly

but very comfortable.

The young man shrugged, annoyed at his reflex.

He returned to the other’s sarcasm. ‘To overthrow the banks,

ask the bankers for money.’ He smirked—obviously the

other one knew how we dig ourselves into a hole.

He replied by mockingly affecting calm.

“Yes. We haven’t found anything else yet. The Socialists

already knew this stuff. It didn’t work for them …”

“It won’t work for you either.”

“Pardon, but there is a difference. The Socialists were people

who shouted provocatively under the noses of the

capitalists: ‘Beware of us. We’re going to cut your throats.’

“The capitalists were afraid, but the Radicals, their front men,

responded by giving the Socialists a share of the honors and

all the money that entails. To the Radicals they gave the

ministries, but behind them the Socialists are deputies, civil

servants, pensioners, postmen, presidents, etc. … They

continue quietly to repeat that they are going to cut the

throats of the capitalists. But while they no longer listen to

themselves, there are still a few middle class who pretend to

take them at their word.”

“Well, what about you then?”

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“Us? We are the new team that wants to replace the Radical

and Socialist team, and replace it advantageously. To

replace it, we must fight it … To fight it … ah there, a very

curious pile-up is happening.

“First, the Radicals and Parliamentary Socialists. These

people don’t do their own fighting, they have a police force

fighting for them. This police must fight against both us and

the Socialists-Communists. Look at February 6 and 9.

“Second, we are fighting against this police and against the

Socialists and the Communists—all this will end up being

one.

“Third, big capitalism, because of its fear of communism,

grants us its money, its press.

“Fourth, thanks to the revolvers and the machine guns of

belligerent patriots, and of lower middle class people who

are afraid of becoming proletarians, and of workers who

want to be middle class, we are demolishing the Radical-

Socialist police and the Communists. We demolish the

police because it is controlled by men corrupted to the core

by perpetual bargaining: democracy-capitalism, pitiful. We

vanquish the Socialist-Communists, because the workers’

leaders are only muddy intellectuals or other workers who

lack the hereditary sense of command—it takes at least a

generation above the level of pure innocence, a chef uncle

or a schoolteacher father, to have a sense of command. We

have seen this in Italy and Germany and, in France, in 1848

and at the Commune. We overcome them and above all we

absorb them.

“Finally, we demolish capitalism, because the previous

struggle made us energetic and proud, because we are

good people whom the middle class cannot refuse, and

French patriots and other French people cannot criticize us

for making a socialist society that will serve nationalism all

the better.

MAN'S WORLD

“Good. So if you think that, I don’t see why you came to see

me.”

The mature man said this as sharply as he could, crushing a

cigarette in the tray, because he was reading those very

words on the young man’s lips. He sat down again.

He seemed angry—an anger tamed by prudence and

politeness, but underneath he was deeply troubled. It was

serious that a young man who came to him could go away

without being won over. Because if he had come, it was

because he hoped to be won over. The mature man tried to

reassure himself by noting that if the young man had

seemed at first conquered physically, he had from his first

words been revealed to be out of touch intellectually. So,

wasn’t he one of those born enemies to be mourned,

however seductive and eloquent he may be?

Yet, born enemies do not come to you …

The young man recited: “I came to see you because I believe

that you think as I do and that, given your qualities of

intellectual and physical courage, you have been appointed

to be the leader of Fascism, of French Socialism.”

The young man laughed to himself as he heard himself say

these sentences which he had prepared.

The mature man took his hundredth cigarette from the

large box, looked around the hotel room, stood up and

walked with his hands in his pockets.

The young man looked at the room, following the gaze of

the independent left-wing Deputy, lawyer for the oil trust.

He was by no means scandalized by the luxury of this hotel

room—because all this comfort was luxury. He said to

himself: “I don’t reproach him for needing money, a certain

silence, a certain refined cleanliness, a certain space around

him. What I reproach him for is …”

“Because, as we see more clearly each day, nationalism and

socialism are two fingers of the hand.

“Our socialism will succeed better than the socialism of the

Socialists or the Communists, because it cannot be

reproached with serving foreigners or wanting to cut the

throats of the middle class. Another important point, in fact:

we leave the middle class alone, we leave them their places

in the economy and even, at first, their money. We ask them

only to give their little individual souls to us and at the same

time we withdraw the soul from their system which is slowly

sliding towards socialism.

“And nothing prevents us later, having advanced socialism,

thanks to nationalism, to make international alliances with

other national socialisms. Later, there will be a Geneva of

fascisms.”

The young man stopped, his tongue dry. He was looking at

the mature man with shining and revolutionary eyes.

The mature man was pursing his lips.

Finally he said in the most hateful tone, “It’s all a beautiful

dream. But speaking like that you are either a deceiver or a

fool.”

“It’s not a dream. This is where you will see that I am really

Fascist, I believe it is happening in Italy and Germany.”

However, the mature man, who had athletic shoulders, but

also athletic habits of mind and heart, the mature man who

was an advocate of the oil trust and who gave Socialist

speeches every day, and who had been swinging for ten

years between oil and socialism, coughed and said to the

poor, unemployed young man:

“I, sir, am a true socialist.”

The young man did not sneer.

“Good to know …”

“I do not believe that we can make room for capitalism.”

“So you are a communist?”

“No.”

“So are you with me?”

“No.”

“So you are nothing? Aren’t you going to tell me you’re for

the defence of the Republic?”

“Uh …”

“Right. I’m leaving.”

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MAN'S WORLD 130


The young man, without getting up, laughed at length

while looking at the mature man, who was furious—politely,

cautiously furious. But he feared that the young man would

not get up and leave, and that would have torn his heart—

his heart for which to beguile was a necessity, because it

had been formed in a time when one was charming, when

one did not command—and so he approached him with a

yellow smile.

“Come on, let’s get along.”

MAN'S WORLD

“Socialist, that’s what I deny.”

“You deny that for ten years, under the umbrella of Fascism,

socialism has advanced in Europe, and that capitalism has

retreated?”

“I don’t see anything like that.”

The left-leaning independent sneered, and forgot his

concern while sneering.

“It’s simple,” said the young man. “If you want to make

socialism all at once, relying only on the mass of workers

and on scattered groups of poor peasants, you are a

communist.

“But you are too smart not to know that that is impossible.

The proletariat cannot have both the middle class and the

bulk of the peasants against it. And besides, the proletariat

has never done anything by itself. Revolutions are made by

this or that section of the middle class which seeks only a

point of support in the proletariat. When the proletariat is

alone, it is crushed by the middle class and the peasantry as

in 1848 and 1871 in France, in 1918 in Germany, 1934 in Austria

and Spain. However, 1789 and 1917 succeeded because the

proletariat found itself momentarily, very momentarily, in

agreement with the middle class and the peasantry, bullied

by an Old Regime. But, in Russia, a bureaucracy is already

being reconstituted on the backs of the workers, and the

peasantry will have its revenge in the first war.

“So, you are not a communist. Therefore you are a fascist.”

“No, no, I’m not a fascist!” the Deputy shouted, clinging to

his image of a calm and firm man, moderate because he

was lucid and sure of his strength.

“Yes, you are a fascist; only, you dare not admit it to yourself.

If you want to defend the Republic, pick up the debris of the

old Radical and Socialist parties around the old arch of the

Parliament—even that you can only do by borrowing the

Fascist methods, methods of authority and violence. You will

restart Frot’s attempt. But the difficulty is that Radical

Socialism is already an old, sclerotic, worn out fascism. It is a

fascism, since all across the country it is an organization

divided between the Radical committees and the Socialist

sections, bound by the ideology of 1848 and Freemasonic

secrecy. It is moreover a fascism since it is the government

over the country of this double party, of this vast clique

through the intermediary of a small group of five or six

possible presidents of the Council, surrounded by a hundred

ministers, who hold the controls of the old Jacobin police

force and the Napoleonic administration. Only a dictator is

missing, but there is a shadow of past dictators: Robespierre,

Napoleon, Clemenceau. But since it is fascism, it is

impossible to reform Radical Socialism. Hence the sure

failure of all future Frots. We must replace this old fascism

with another. And this fascism will be nothing other than a

new Radicalism, a new reformist socialism, a new middle

class movement, disciplined and organized in a party which

fits between big capitalism, the peasantry and the

proletariat, and which, through terror and authority,

imposes on these various interest groups the old charter in

a renewed form. But this new charter, instead of being

liberal, will this time be socialist.”

The Deputy was walking around the room looking sullen

and unhappy.

“I don’t see why, in any case—assuming that you have the

right to sneer, you who call yourself a slightly Marxist

‘independent’—you would be more severe on socializing

Fascism than on socializing Radicalism. Assuming it’s six of

one and half dozen of the other, why not hope in the new

movement since the old one has proven to be decidedly

negative?”

“Fascism is the last hope of capitalism,” the older man

recited.

“You sound like a communist, why aren’t you a communist?”

“Because …”

“For the same reasons I gave you earlier: yes, I know. So be

fascist.”

“No …”

“You are afraid of being a communist, afraid of being a

fascist. So you are nothing. You are just a ghost, despite your

young age. Ten years ago when you entered Parliament,

your soul—that of a young man, of a sportsman, a veteran, a

Nietzschean—entered the skin of a very old man who would

have peacefully flowered around 1890. Now it can no longer

be removed from there, and it will die. You will die in exile, or

in a concentration camp, in a quiet little corner like the

parliamentarians of Russia, Italy, or Germany.”

“No, I want to make a new Socialist party that is neither

subservient to Moscow, nor in the rut of Parliament.”

“That’s exactly what Fascism is. But you are quite incapable

of it. We cannot do what we dare not name.”

There was a long silence: the young man had not yet left

and he stretched out his long legs in a sort of numbness.

This was noted with satisfaction by the mature man who did

not like solitude, although his egoism and his subtlety kept

him away from large groups.

Based on the half hour they had just spent together, he

went on in an intimate voice, at first as if speaking to

himself: “There is a big difference between your socialism

and mine. The people who enter into one and the other will

not be the same and will cause an irremediable opposition

between the two movements.”

He stopped in front of the young man; he looked at him

with curiosity and concupiscence. Every man over forty

looks at a young man with concupiscence—he longed for

the freshness of new problems other than his own.

“Certainly, there is a big difference between our possible

partisans,” continued the mature man, “but not between

you and me. Basically, we want the same thing.”

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The young man regretted the enthusiasm he had had to

swallow: he smiled. He smiled like a child who doesn’t sulk

for long.

MAN'S WORLD

The Deputy took another cigarette from the large tin can

and smiled ironically: “You will make an excellent political

theorist.”

132

The mature man was enchanted, charmed, moved. He

threw away his cigarette to be pure for a moment.

“Nonetheless, it’s unfortunate that we don’t get along. It

annoys me, you are sympathetic … Do you insist on not

smoking?”

The young man stood up and stretched all four limbs. He

forgot his arrogance, which had come to him shortly after

entering.

They walked haphazardly through the room.

“Yes, it’s unfortunate,” said the young man, looking at the

mature man with affection. He thought he was finding the

man he saw in the elevator, whom he thought he saw when

he entered the room.

He wanted to tell him personal things, kind, flattering

things. But he restrained himself, out of respect for the

other.

The other was waiting for them, anticipating them. He

needed them. He was a little disappointed by the silence of

the young man, who was looking at a truncheon on the

nightstand.

“Yes,” said the mature man, delighted, “these gentlemen are

dropping them in every corner of my district.”

At this word, the young man frowned. “There’s no way out,”

he growled to himself. The other noticed nothing. On the

contrary, he grew bolder.

“All the same, one can only work for socialism with men of

the left. Obviously, we have to change their habits, but …”

The young man was raised up again. Morally elevated, he sat

down.

“A true socialism, not under the orders of capitalism,”

repeated the lawyer of the oilmen, the independent of the

left.

The young man noted dryly: “In any case, to make your new

party, you must first demolish the old left parties, and for

that you need the money of capitalism, the alliance of the

old right. And you have to be a nationalist to fight the old

internationals.”

“We can accept the French framework, without being

nationalist.”

“Like hell! You see, that’s your intellectual paralysis. You are

incapable of facing the two essential conditions of the new

European socialism, of Fascism: on the one hand, to

transform into a positive affirmation the acceptance of the

national fact which for a large part of Europe is still a new

fact, not worn out; on the other hand, to also transform into

a positive affirmation, that is to say into the principle of class

collaboration, the acceptance of the fact that the proletariat

is only one class among many, that there is no ‘class

struggle’, struggle between two classes.”

The young man continued:

“Of course. But explain to me the difference there may be

between your new nation-based, broad middle class

socialism and Fascism?”

“A difference of men and of faith.”

“But once again, you will be obliged to fight the old parties

of the left as later the old parties of the right …”

“But you, you will be mixed-up with the parties of the right,

which will absorb you.”

“In Italy and Germany, it is the Fascists who absorb the

others on the right. It is less dangerous to ally with the rightwing

parties which have an absolutely outdated social

ideology, and therefore not dangerous, than with left-wing

parties which have an ideology which is still partially alive,

and therefore awkward.”

The young man got up and paced back and forth, while the

mature man sat down again. Then he came and stood in

front of the mature man.

“It’s funny. At forty, you are old, finished. There are times

when history moves fast and devours people. We are

entering a time when gerontocracy will not really be able to

function. Of course, you will not become a Geronte.

Liquidated at forty.”

The independent of the left pursed his lips.

“Basically, you see what should be done. But you can’t do it.

Like Frot. And besides, if you entered the game, by an effort

of mimicry, you would be among those who are soon

overwhelmed. Like Mirabeau. But you are not even a

Mirabeau.”

The young man, delighted to be young and in good spirits,

laughed.

He seemed rude and cynical to the oil industry lawyer, who

was preparing in his heart of hearts to die on the barricade.

“No, you won’t risk it the fascist way. You won’t throw

yourself into the mouth of the capitalist wolf with the strong

hope and firm will to stand in the way so that the wolf will

choke on itself. You can’t even become a sickly communist.

“You are quite simply a distraught old left conservative, who

feels that the scheme is broken, that the place of the

scheme, Parliament, is going to be overthrown, and who

tries to repeat the classic coup to save the scheme, the

union of left-wing forces. But the workers won’t march. The

days of Boulangism and the Dreyfus Affair are over, the

workers will not be killed for Parliament. As in Germany, they

will allow Parliament and democracy to be destroyed.

“After that, there will be nothing in all of Europe between

the communists and us, nothing but our will, more or less

strong, to make socialism. If we really make it, the

grumbling communists will get behind us; otherwise, they

will resume their offensive, but the ground in front of them

will have been well cleared by us.

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“Ah, march with them or with us, but don’t get your ass

between our two chairs. If you aren’t killed by a fascist bullet,

you’ll be killed by a communist bullet.”

MAN'S WORLD

to see one over forty. He cuddled her breast with this

thought: “I will die among the men I have always known,

repeating the words I have always said. I will be faithful.”

The young man went to the door. He looked with

astonishment at the mature man. He said to himself: “It’s

funny, I went into this comfortable room, this room in a

large hotel to tell this man my confidence and my hope.

And no sooner did I arrive than this man was in pieces in

front of me. He doesn’t exist. He’s a Deputy, a post-war man.

But I exist.”

On the stairs, he felt a jolt of disgust. He stormed back, and

opened door 775. The typist was adoringly kissing the

mature man’s hand. Without seeing this, the young man

yelled out: “And you know, I’m a socialist.”

“Certainly, we all are,” murmured the independent man of

the left bitterly.

“But I have an enormous advantage over you, it is that I am

also a nationalist (alas). It’s wonderful how nationalism

obliges people to socialism. Good evening …”

The mature man remained alone in front of the typist. It was

April, the falling night was light, transparent, cheerful and in

no way lent itself to thoughts of disaster.

The mature man, with the face of a worried child, dined with

a delegate of the Soviets, a French general and an American

oil man, but only at nine o’clock. Waiting for the hour, he

looked at his life on the empty table, while the typist lurking

in the shadows coveted his famous face.

At the end of the war, in which he had been an infantryman

and an aviator, he was Nietzschean, elegant, athletic,

ambitious. He loved luxury, glory, women, money, all of that

together. He entered Parliament because he wanted to

enter politics. He believed that Parliament was all of politics.

Only today did he see his mistake. Too late: ten years had

passed and had marked him. He had been under-secretary

of state. Difficult to become a communist or a fascist. To see

this made him clench his teeth. How could he, so untied, so

lucid, have been wrong?

But, my dear friend, if I could have answered him: no one is

lucid for ten years. At least among the men of action,

because if they entered into action, it was because an

impulse arose to carry them. Now this impulse came from

the obscure world of feelings and could only deliver them to

the dazzling world of circumstances. No one is untied, no

one is cynical, everyone is sincere.

Such was this famous cynic. But there are no cynics. That is

what we call those of mediocre actions who use intellect to

give order to the chaos of their gestures, and who, having

changed sides with the wind, claim to have chosen to do so.

But men of any valor, if they are not on the side of victory,

slide to defeat from a sure push, for valor is a weight that

keeps one from turning.

Hence the sad air of the victors, who do not forget the

turning and that it could have led them astray.

This mature man, despite his ties to oil, was sincerely a

socialist, since he could not be other than what he believed

he was. As a lawyer for American oil he made 150,000 francs

a year. It all happened in this hotel room, his only luxury.

Apart from that, he thought only of socialism.

And now, an opportunity for socialism presented itself to

him, compelling, amusing—history with its twists and turns

is so amusing. Well, he saw this opportunity, with the eyes of

the mind in the dark room where the typist was wailing

modestly. But he couldn’t grab her by the hair. No, his

fingers were relaxed in the dark.

He looked for the reason in his childhood and thought he

had found it: “Because at the Ferrer demonstration, I saw an

officer kick a workman’s back so badly.”

He was content with this misleading image like all images.

For who was the officer kicking, today as yesterday? The

enemies of the left-leaning independent, the enemies of the

oil industry and of Parliament, whether they are on the right

or on the left. In reality, he had only seen one man kick

another man, which to a modern spectator is always briefly

shocking, but which to a reflective mind is enigmatic.

He had been left-leaning independent for ten years; ten

years, that’s a paycheck.

Ghost Light and the Man on Horseback,

both by Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, are

available now from the Rogue Scholar

Book Store (shop.aer.io/roguescholar)

If the mature man of whom we are speaking threw himself

into parliamentarism, it was not out of skill, but by chance,

by fashion. He who had a dangerous and imposing

reputation of high intrigue and superior ability looked at

himself today in the mirror and saw an impulsive child who,

after a brilliant and intoxicating race, stops panting and

listens worriedly.

He saw himself in a difficult situation. Immediately plans

were sketched in his head. A thousand ways offer

themselves, a thousand exits. But there is only so much we

can do. Off a certain track, he felt his limbs go numb.

While in the thick shadow of the room, he was making love

with the typist to defend himself from this fateful visit—

always fateful, this kind of visit, a man of twenty who comes

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BRONZE AGE PERVERT

CARIBBEAN RHYTHMS

B R O A D C A S T

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MAN'S WORLD

136

American Extremist is the first major book by Josh Neal, clinical

psychologist and well-known personality in the dissident right.

The book is a psychological profile of both right- and leftextremism

and is rich in its scope and implications — Josh is

doing quite a few things here.

Josh makes a subtle but important move in this book. Starting

out with the extremist as someone who commits real-life

violence, he closes off the notion of violence as hurt feelings

and “microaggressions”. He then recasts the notion of

extremism to include not just violent extremists but the

mainstream actors who radicalize them. In profiling the

extremist, he shows how power brokers at the CNNs, Twitters,

and Harvards of the world share this psychological profile —

they ultimately cannot be distinguished from the BLM or

Antifa criminal, because they are the ones putting the gun into

the criminal’s hands and urging them to do something.

Liberalism on both the left and right frames itself as fighting

tyranny, disagreeing only on the source: for the left, it is the

petty tyrant privately oppressing minorities, for the right, it is

the tyrannical state encroaching on individual freedom. The

authoritarian is the shadow in the soul of the American liberal.

This cognitive dissonance warps America’s relationship to

authority, opening the way to anarcho-tyranny presided over

what Josh calls the pathocrat.

Taking this term from Polish psychiatrist Andrzej Lobaczewski,

Josh gives us a peg on which to hang the maladapts in the

Deep State who are driven by biological imperatives to destroy

all that is normal and healthy. In this sense he is threading

similar waters to Spandrell’s bioleninism and Ed Dutton’s

spiteful mutant. But he goes further — the exposure of normal

people to the pathocrat twists their worldview and involves

them in the pathocrat’s dysfunction. Over time normal people

become dysfunctional, and the society more and more

extreme.

Perhaps most importantly, and in the spirit of two other

Imperium Press authors — C. A. Bond in Nemesis and Dennis

Bouvard in Anthropomorphics — Josh reclaims a thinker

traditionally associated with liberalism: Freud. Despite the deep

reactionary implications of Freudianism, this paradigm has so

far been used in the service of the left. Josh undertakes a

Freudian analysis, and the result is anything but progressive —

in fact, the result is highly corrosive to the entire project of the

left for the past two centuries.

In American Extremist Josh pulls together many threads from

the dissident right and assembles them into a coherent picture

of modern psychopathology. In 2020–21 we saw the

mainstream stoke the fires of extremist violence, cheering

“mostly peaceful riots”, and still more brazenly, we saw the

unconcealed anti-whiteness of the ADL and SPLC. Their

complicity in short-circuiting our ability to fight back against

anarcho-tyranny, election fraud, and bullyciding normal people

can only be termed extremist.

Josh gives us the conceptual tools to do this rigorously.

Praise for American Extremist:

Curt Doolittle, Propertarian Institute: “Cogent, clear,

sincere, emotive, deeply informed, rich vocabulary, well

edited, insightful, and providing a correct diagnosis […] the

book is a worthy read. Much more so than almost anything

else that comes across my desk from within the

Anglosphere.”

Morgoth’s Review: “It’s as if he’s putting America on the

couch and psychoanalyzing it in the 21st century […] it’s

explained very well even though some of the concepts are

quite in-depth and quite deep.”

Joel Davis: “American Extremist is an innovative attempt

at deploying the psychoanalytic methods of critical theory

from the Right, generating a novel theory of the

pathological characteristics of political consciousness.

Neal's integration of Lobaczewski's Ponerology and

Jouvenel's Political Theory into his diagnosis exposes

contemporary liberalism as an extremist phenomenon,

radically recasting conventional distinctions. This text is

an extremely welcome and necessary addition to the

emerging dissident discourse.”

American Extremist is available now from

Imperium Press at imperiumpress.org

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!



MAN'S WORLD

138

Words: Ernest Lewicki (@ernrestthepole)

In this second extract from the novel 'John Cold and the Weather Machine', we

rejoin John Cold and Colonel Nurlan as they head into the cursed jungle in

search of a fabled machine of extraordinary power...

They were some twenty clicks away from Kirshevo, deep away

in the surrounding jungle, when John decided to release

Nurlan. He was only slowing him down at that point. It seemed

that nobody followed them.

“You better hope that the Tsar’s word still holds in your town,”

said John untying the colonel's hands. “That’s the only way you

keep your position after this parade.”

Nurlan rubbed his hurt wrists, looking around him. It must

have been around 9:30 p.m: still the day, but late enough in it

that he would not be able to return to town before dusk. Not

on foot, anyway. The jungle looked ominous as always. He did

not say anything nor move much. The time for pleading was

long over.

He did not relax nor change his expression as he watched John

Cold disappear in the dense vegetation. Inside Nurlan’s head,

the wheels were turning. He would have his revenge for this,

even if it cost him everything.

There is a certain feeling to the edge of the human-habitable

world, appreciable only to those who have been there. A

certainty that each step brings you closer to death. Nature gets

impertinent here. The exact flavor of the feeling varies by

region, of course. John Cold had seen them all. Absurdly strong

sea-storms, deserts so dry and hot you became a husk within

minutes. Around Kirshevo winds blew from the forsaken shores

of the immense Southwestern Sea. Thanks to that, a jungle

grew here, so humid you (or any mammal for that matter)

could boil. Well, not literally. Not until you went some two

hundred clicks south from the southern tip of the Urals. Or

until a particularly bad weather day.

John was definitely walking towards the cursed South. For days

he cut his way through the dense undergrowth. The

coordinates in the notebook led him through a humid, green

forest, crawling with bug and reptile life. Traveling carefully,

always on the watch, he grew more and more tired. Even a

man like him, with almost inhuman resistance to heat, could

only persist in the unforgiving jungle for so long.

After a long while of thinking, a wide smile emerged on his

face. With a new spring in his step, he started walking. He was

neither following John south, however, nor working his way

back north, to Kirshevo. For some reason, known for now only

to himself, he made his way east.

Early on the fifth day, thank the gods, he saw what he was

looking for. Standing on the other shore of the river, behind

mangrove trees, was a mound dotted with ancient

fortifications. The steel notebook claimed that the Old

Russians, when they still existed, had made their stand here

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!


here against the powerful migration waves coming from the

south. They had lasted quite long, but you know how it always

goes. Over time the fortification became manned by

mercenaries recruited from the very hordes it was meant to

guard against. Then, when turbulence shook the country and

the centre no longer held, the fortress flew a changing

multitude of flags. In time, people forgot it, so that after

centuries when the Neon Tsars brought a semblance of order

to a much-reduced country, they made their border outpost at

Kirshevo, not here. By that time there were no longer any

hordes from the south, of course. The threat to the state that

still insisted it was Russia came from the east, where the Rajas

of Surgut reigned. These days they sponsored a range of

guerillas, the Yaik Tigers the most famous and daring of them.

MAN'S WORLD

But enough of that--that knowledge was lying back in John’s

backpack. In front of him was the fast-paced river. Crossing it

would require every bit of ingenuity that the hardy

frontiersman possessed. He put himself to task immediately.

Machete in hand, he felled a dozen trees with mighty strokes of

his arms. Pulling them together with vines, he bound them

tight with knots worthy of an experienced mariner.

Satisfied with his work, he put the improvised craft on the

water and stepped on it. It easily held his weight. With a long

pole, he pushed it away from the shore. In no time he was on

the other side, jumping on the high ground. He tied his vessel

to a tree, not caring to disguise it for now.

Up the bank, the secretive ancient fortress beckoned.

***

The plateau on top of the mound was large. The

afternoon sun streamed through the xamu trees.

Plastisteel surfaces of bunkers reflected it with an

otherworldly glow. Earth covered some of them, but

no roots made a dent. John Cold sneaked between

the structures, looking for an entrance. Without any

hints in the notebook nor any high-tech equipment,

he could rely only on his instincts.

There were tracks of skindle birds here, but he

couldn’t hear them. Beyond the second line of

buildings, he saw their nesting field. There were no

adult birds, just eggs. The hair stood on John’s neck.

Why did the whole flock run away, leaving no guard?

He sharpened his senses. There it was: an almost

imperceptible buzzing sound reverberated through

both ground and air. He proceeded with caution, gun

drawn. Soon he came upon a precipice where the

ground fell, forming a circular pocket in the plateau.

At the center of it stood a large discuslike

object, gray-silver in color. It

appeared to have no openings, but the

buzzing was coming from it, no

question.

John circled the pit, crouching low. He

deduced that the silver thing must be a

new arrival on the scene. All the proof

he needed were the broken trees in the

cavity, and the freshly-abandoned

nesting field. It must have come from

the sky, he thought.

On the other side of the object was a

closed door. Not in the discus, but sunken in the slope.

Someone or something had dug it out recently. With a slight

relief, John noticed footprints in the fresh ground. Human

footprints. More than one person, wearing some shoes whose

soles had a pattern he never had seen in his life.

lap, behind a large fern. Seeing a skindle nest close, he took out

a metal straw. With an easy move, he pierced the closest egg

and sucked out the liquid contents.

During his meal, to which he attended with gusto, he never let

his eyes wander from the door. He was still in the presence of

danger, after all. For a short while, nothing was happening, but

just as he threw the egg remains behind him, the door opened

with a hiss.

A tall woman stepped out. A bright jumpsuit snugly fit her lithe

body. In one hand, suspended within some bejeweled device,

she held a beating human heart.

The air grew cold and the shadows lengthened.

With an evil, self-satisfied smirk, the lady made a few steps

towards the discus. At her approach, a slim door opened from

an unseen hinge at the bottom, forming a gangway. The

woman was well on her way up when John realized the device

she had with her was the somatoma.

“Don’t move or I shoot!” he shouted.

She slowly turned around. Her eyebrows perched in slight

disgust. “Who are you, primitive?” she asked. “I thought you

people did not venture here anymore.”

“I am John Cold, and I will have the device, you witch. Hand it

over!”

“Ah … John Cold,” she looked him over. “I am Derleta. You are

going to have a bad day.”

The full book can be bought now from

Amazon. Parts two and three of the John

Cold saga, '...and the Pirates of Alaska' and

'At the Court of the Neon Tsar', will be

available soon.

All this he perceived from above, keeping his distance. On the

door, there was no opening, no handle, no panel. He decided to

bide his time until someone opened it for him. It seemed

certain that nobody was there to observe him from the object,

or else they would already have struck. John sat, weapon in his

Issue 2 - The Sea! The Sea!




MAN'S WORLD

142

High praise for

Cultured Grugs*

"As a scholar in Asian Studies, I found these

essays revealing and educational. I gained a

new perspective on East Asian cultures. Study

hard 18 hour ancestor smile."

*courtesy of Amazon.com readers

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This is an outstanding collection of essays from one the most

thoughtful commentators on the far right. John “Borzoi” Chapman is a

minor prophet of the American collapse, and he helps the reader

understand the spiritual and psychological aspects of living under our

current reality while working to build something better for our

descendants. My personal favorite essay in this book is “The Last

Flight of the White Man” about the tragic suicide of Richard Russell

(the Horizon Air baggage handler who crashed into a sparsely

populated island in the Puget Sound after stealing a Bombardier Q400

airliner and doing some aerobatics). Chapman does an excellent job of

analyzing the spiritual and economic circumstances of millennial men

who feel they don’t have a place in this country or its economy.

Ultimately, Chapman’s message is one of hope tempered with realism.

While our current civilizational circumstances are intolerable, they

can’t go on forever. We can reclaim the pioneer spirit of our ancestors

within a failing empire, but it certainly won’t be easy. “Those who want

to live will, to a man and woman, be banished to the outer dark and be

made to fend for themselves against every hostile entity, their own just

desserts for rejecting the Superior Future.” In short, buy this book and

a few copies to share with friends. You won’t be disappointed.

Firstly, yes: I did partly determine to purchase a physical copy of this book

based upon the cover art alone, which I found both oddly unsettling yet

attractive. Still, I enjoyed reading Borzoi’s writing, and his effort for

observation and opinion on a variety of topics is on display in the essays

compiled for this book, in particular the ‘new essays’ section that slightly

stands out apart from what he wrote previously. He covers the topic of

virtual reality ‘vtube’ streamers and segues the topic into discussing the

phenomenon particular to online environments with one-sided

communication, called ‘parasocial’ behavior, and the effect it has upon

atomized individuals. The author also writes about a gulag system that isn’t

physical in presence, but rather omnipresent by means of weighty spiritual

and cultural control, and thereby even more insidious because of the

inability to combat the system directly. It is decentralized and exists

everywhere, as fluid as mercury. There’s a short story which took me by

surprise. Moving from new essays to a short-story was refreshing to

encounter. ‘Never the Twain’, on the topic of futuristic doxxing. This may

have been my favorite to read. It was quite good. It partially covered

nostalgia for the DJT era that's now come to a close, and also the wistful

thinking still held by some people for the DJT. I won’t give away the entire

plot, but it relates to a character being ‘found out’ for modern samizdat

material (of the audio sort) and the resulting actions of the character. And

it’s set in the future! You could really expand this type of story into a short

screenplay for a college film project or something low-budget. There’s more

in this book than I should cover here, topics that are familiar to anyone who

reads USA Dissident writing, and I would recommend it if you wish to own

more than 200 pages of Borzoi’s writing, or just to have the cover art irl.

Profound observations from a young Asian American author. Highly

recommend. Not for the faint of heart though.

Thank you Mr. Chapman.

Mr. Chapman was, only a few years ago, a lowly intern on a CCP-funded

radio show addressing the tribulations of raising children behind the Great

Firewall, run by an evil tyrant named Jim. Related to his own struggles with

alcohol and a penchant for chasing exclusively Khazar milk, his resulting

childlessness left him with no voice among the Patriarchs in the room.

Shame and disgrace followed him everywhere. Suffering under his

debilitating lack of fecundity, and with nowhere else to turn, he soon found

solace in The Graph. Red lines, green lines, orange lines, black lines, a great

panoply of trends and numbers that taught him the power and beauty of

diversity. The autism went undiagnosed for years. Nobody knew, least of all

himself. When he finally came to accept the diagnosis, a miracle happened.

And along with it, a curse. A whirlwind year that saw a worldwide plague

also brought with it hope, in the form of a devout Catholic woman, who

totally didn't glow in the dark when she introduced herself. The Orthodox

greybeards shrieked in horror as this evil Catholic interloper stood between

John and his beloved Graph. It was, of course, a futile rage. A shotgun

wedding and the hasty purchase of a studfarm sealed the fates of both

Chapman, and all he knew and loved. Now, he was a Patriarch. He could

run with the long-nosed dogs. He could even, dare I say it, be higher-energy

than Jim. And now, in the year of the Lord 2021, we are gifted a collection

of essays from this remarkable man.

Cultured Grugs is available now from

Antelope Hill antelopehillpublishing.com

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