|
"You Gote-heard Gods, that love the grassie mountains,
You nimphes that haunt the springs in pleasant vallies,
You Satyrs joyd with free and quiet forrests,
Vouchsafe your silent eares to playning musique,
Which to my woes gives still an early morning:
And draws the dolor on till wery evening."
(Sidney, Arcadia)
"In the presence of wax figures we have all felt a peculiar uneasiness. This springs from the ambiguous impression they make on us, which prevents
Our adopting a definite attitude towards them. When we feel them as human beings they mock us; and if we see them as fictions they seem to quiver in irritation. There is no way of reducing them to mere objects. Looking at them we are confused with the suspicion that it s they who are looking us, and we end up by feeling a loathing towards this kind of superior corpse.
The wax figure is pure melodrama."
Ortega
Combat Diary 5 tell of how poor Panzerben tries to modernize the Stalinists, and gets a kicking from Mother Andy for his pains. The Bad Man replies and says that he is not going to stand as a replacement for
Georgina, even if he is just as good-looking.
Consequently, Stalinist Queen Dick Hall marries Mother Andy and attacks the Bad Man, who says he would like to bless the bride, but he doesn't know which one it is.
The Old Queen Jan Aldrich, now fled from the ring, looks on aghast.
News
5600 dead pelicans buried under Brentford Leisure Centre.
4300 dead of withdrawal symptoms after threatening never to read a Bad Man post again.
Enjoy!
From: Colin Bennett <sharkley@panzerben.fsworld.co.uk>
To: <ufoupdates@virtuallystrange.net>
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2003 0430 GMT
Subject: Re: Corso - Bennett
>From: Jim Speiser <jimspeiser@yahoo.com>
>To: <ufoupdates@virtuallystrange.net>
>Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 09:11:49 -0700
>Subject: Re: Corso - Speiser
>>From: Mac Tonnies <macbot@yahoo.com>
>>To: <ufoupdates@virtuallystrange.net>
>>Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 14:33:17 -0800 (PST)
>>Subject: 'Politics of the Imagination' by Colin Bennett
>>>From: Paul Kimball <Kimballwood@aol.com>
>>>To: <ufoupdates@virtuallystrange.net>
>>>Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 23:39:14 EST
>>>Subject: Re: Corso - Kimball
>>>>From: Richard Hall <hallrichard99@hotmail.com>
>>>>To: <ufoupdates@virtuallystrange.net>
>>>>Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 17:12:40 +0000
>>>>Subject: Re: Corso - Hall
Morning all!
This the last post on Corso, I promise.
>I predict that a hundred years from now, every literate man's bookshelf will sag under the weight of volumes from Colin
Bennett, replete with florid prose, postmodern Truths about Universe, Self, & Consciousness, and knowing references to
Ancient Foreign Guys, from the maestro of schlockspiel himself.
>They will be considered classics of literature and their praises sung from the halls of Oxford to the Plains of San Agustin. They
will be de rigeur for beginning students of Postmodern Deconstruction.
Wonderful, sir! Thankyou for this magical review and appreciation You have told the truth, and have a
prophetic vision of history. What you have described so well is indeed
going to happen. The only mistake you have made concerns the time this will all take to come about. Judging by the private
correspondence I have received, it will be a matter of two, rather than a hundred years. But I must say again sir, as
distinct from some I could mention, you have given us a real piece of writing here, full of imagination, energy, and brimful
of images and humour. This is the way to the heart of that profound modern social comedy that is Ufology. But sir, may I
relay a question my American wife has just asked? She wants to know, for the sake of
transatlantic relations, who are the splendid "Ancient Foreign Guys" you refer to?
The trouble is most of the Maoist ledger-clerks and Stalinist garage-hands, and dead pseudo-pelicans of "scientific" Ufology
will of course hate you from now on for the bourgeois affectations you have demonstrated in using imagery and wit and
imagination instead of bits from the bottom of a sick parrot's cage to
demonstrate a point. I say again -- your whole piece is welcome as distinct from the depressingly amateur dead-pan prose
one encounters in Ufological writing, most of which resembles the cracked tarmac on an old deserted CarMart.
>However, at that same centennial, the factual, objective, final truth regarding the nature of the UFO enigma will be contained
in The UFO Evidence, Vol. 5, Copyright 2097 by Dick Hall.
There seems to be the impression that I hate Dick and his book.
Nothing could be further from the truth. His book was a landmark, a great piece of work, but it is now as out of date as
a garage manual for a De Lorean, and say compared with Keel's The Mothman Prophecies (Keel by the way, wrote the Foreword to
my Politics of the Imagination) it reads like a mail order catalogue for souls in Purgatory. But perhaps to arouse such
nostalgia for the infinite is no mean achievement. Dick is resisting change, and that is about all there is to any conflict
between us. He is a believer, and so am I. I advise Dick to fall in love with a river goddess or suchlike for his next book and
give us all a break from this Stalinist Science as Authority factspeil, which is enough to make any child of Nature reach for
her gun. So keep this up, young Jim Speiser, and one day you might approach the quality of mine own Looking for Orthon and
Politics of the Imagination. Both these books of mine are a perfect antidote to the books of the DDDD (know as the 4-D mob
or Dreadful Dead Document Donkeys), and have been acknowledged as such by Mac Tonnies previously on this very List, which must
have pleased the empirical souls no end:
>>In a world of books about anomalies, very seldom does one come across a title that is, itself, an anomaly in its aptitude and
outspokenness. Colin Bennett's 'Politics of the Imagination', a heady examination of the life, work, and ideas of paranormal
heavyweight Charles Fort, is a rich and singular book in which
Bennett's postmodern sensibilities are brought to bear on one of the 20th century's most radical thinkers.
>>Fort, an intellectual outcast who viewed science as so much
socio-mythological advertising, has become synonymous with the
unexplained. Bennett argues that "Fortean" phenomena such as UFOs, inexplicable artifacts, and falls of live fish reveal
cracks in the buttresses of Big Science's illusory (and ever-
fashionable) rationalism.
>>Bennett, like Fort, views reality itself as an anomaly to be held in constant question; 'explanations', if available at all,
are only a superficial means of understanding. Bennett grabs hold of the enigma that is Fort's iconoclasm and doesn't let go.
Summoning a mass of scientific and literary esoterica, he writes with impeccable wit, pursuing his quarry with impressive
dexterity.
>>'Politics of the Imagination' is a high-calorie intellectual banquet of a book: challenging, learned, and incredibly fun. As
long as Bennett is writing, Western empiricism can run, but it can't hide. With a foreword by John Keel, author of "The Mothman
Prophecies."
Buy now, if you want the thrill of a lifetime and avoid the eunuchs and castrators and tunnel-vision of the mechanicals such as Mr.
Kimball:
>>>If you're looking for adjectives to describe those who are the opposite of Corso, try this one on for size: honest.
All of us would like to get back to home cooking and the village life Mr. Kimball, but our home-brew honesty was lost with our
innocence after Watergate and Vietnam. The screens came down in the 1960s, didn't you know that? Authority is Big Science as
General Groves of Los Alamos put it, and Authority, like Science, lies, lies, and lies again and again. Like media, it
cannot give information. It is not designed to do that. The military-industrial-complex sir, can do little else but lie to
further its agendas. If you don't believe that, go down to the beach and look at the oil. Then look at our political agenda. As
metaphor, the two are the same. That's the postmodern view.
>>>Good Lord. With 'thinking' like this, is it any wonder the sun set on the British Empire?
This is yet another anti-British remark, several of which I have had to tolerate on this List. The first was made by Dear Dick's
dearly departed friend (RIP). I could of course in turn call you Americans Beavis and Butthead or Bart Simpson South Park pop-
culture morons with a TV set instead of a head on your shoulders, people who can't take a word of more than one
syllable, and whose sentence-length and concentration is just about that of the morning TV kiddy-toons. But I will not because
I have bad news for you all. I am about to become an American. My first bite of genuine hamburger (as distinct from the crap
they sell here in the Old Curiosity Shop) will be dedicated to Mr. Loptaka in anticipation of his second question to this List.
Since his very first question about Corso has littered the stage with dead and injured, not to mention a notable complete
disappearance, and another fallen to nervous flustered swearing at me.
I look forward to Mr Loptaka's next question in fear and trembling.
Meanwhile, Mr. Hall weighs in:
>>>>Well, I suppose if one does not care about facts and truth one
>>>>can view what you call "Literature" - any of it including
>>>>garbage like Corso's book - as entertaining and amusing, while
>>>>you scoff at people who disagree with this rather strange
>>>>outlook on life that ignores factual matters. Can you send me
>>>>one of those magic "post-modern" wands that I can wave to make
>>>>serious questions go away?
You do not understand postmodernism. It is a philosophy, a way of describing and interpreting the world. One would no more
expect it to change things in the sense that you talk about than you can expect a nudist party to get to the White House. You
seem to equate postmodernism with the occult, probably through being influenced by incomprehensible French writers on
postmodernism that do not know what they are talking about. Postmodernism is a way of seeing things and indeed experiences
as texts, that is as expressive elements in shapes, smells and sounds are expressive forms of language communication It is all
very simple. Everything speaks a language. Do you have difficulty in understanding that, Dick? Do you not accept that a
car or an aeroplane or the face of Dietrich is a profound language? Or is every woman's face identical to you? I cannot
believe that. Do not different faces and objects and events and emotions not speak a different language to you? Of course they
do. That's the postmodern experience. Thou art being most
stubborn about all this, and I intend to try and change your thinking. Why? Because I think Dick Hall is worth the effort. I
believe in thee. I think there is another book in thee sir, that's what I think. For once forget about research, the usual
stuff that all the scores of po-faced plain Janes boast about to the boring ends of the boring earth. Any bright macaroon can do
that kind of thing. They are typists and compilers, not writers.
But you are special, Dick. Now what you have to do first is put down that latest Ufological manual written by the latest
blushing factual-statistical hero to tread Warhol's fifteen- minute Ufological boards. Done that? Good. Now think about
something that is precious to you in Ufology and let the trail talk to you. After that, you won't be so dismissive of people
with visions. You are on the trail to replacing Myself-IT with myself-YOU. After that adjustment, all is possible. There Dick,
that was not to hard, was it?
You call Corso's book garbage. Yes, it is B-feature, certainly.
But aren't B-features wonderful things? Aren't they the great art of our time? Don't they warn us of things? They have wires
and components in them, which is more than you can say for straight art. No, it really doesn't matter whether a thing is
garbage or not. Everything speaks a language, even your old arm chair in the postmodern sense will have its fifteen minutes of
fame, as Warhol predicted. That is the postmodern view. I have just written two biographies and the first thing I did was get
rid of the railway lines in my mind and think right out of the box. I am now working on Ruppelt, a book you will come to love.
It won't be B-feature, but it will be postmodern in its view.
The Stalinist Ufological Commissars and "scientific" researchers will gnash their factual teeth but they will soon get back to
their anic-depressive nail-biting state of all dialecticians.
Through this book you will come to love your postmodernism. I can guarantee that at least it won't be
constructed on the lines of then this happened then that happened and then this happened,
and see the statistics on page 42, and the forged UFO photograph on page 67, and the photograph of his mum on page 34, in the way
of almost all Ufological manuals (I call few of them books).
Charles Fort was the first to smash this way of linear analysis, and after him followed Barthes, and indeed Khun, whose idea of
the paradigm reflects Fort's ideas almost completely.
Now don't give your usual American reaction oh what a silly- billy this pompous Colin Bennett is with his long words and his
difficult thoughts ect etc and frozen to death. And please do not give me the old Moseley clich=E9 about I was holding Candy
Jones' hand when Colin Bennett was just out of his pram, for God's sake. And please do spare us the fifty years in Ufology
bit, because the violins are getting on everybody's nerves. You been doing that to people for some time and it has to stop. Cut
the music, come alive, do some thinking, answer the points properly, spit at me, kick in the goolies, do anything but say
there that silly Colin Bennett again with all his long words and extended thoughts etc etc. What do I mean by all this? I mean
that Dick Hall, you are not dead yet, and so open your eyes, get up off the floor throw away your walking stick, and tell the
orchestra to go home.
What does this mean with respect to Ufology? As distinct from postmodern treatment, the descriptive "evidence" techniques make
Ufological books on the whole the great Books of the Dead of our time. They represent a Western process in which are piled tribal
evidence games upon tribal avoidance games, the whole lot being lit up through the main-frames like a sacrificial bonfire any
loin-cloth native would understand far better than we do. One of
the reasons why Ufology is not generally accepted by the world is not because of little green men jokes but because of the
sheer amateur crudity with which Ufology handles Life and
Literature connections. Seeing Corso (and also Adamski, say) as frauds and liars is breathtaking intellectual naivety. They
stand as rich and complex symbols of the progress of certain aspect of society, and note this: their frauds and lies reflect
the lies of their society, and the frauds and lies of the people who investigate them, and the frauds and lies again of the
investuagting apparatus. That's the postmodern view.
The handling of the relationship between Corso the man and Corso the writer on this List is laughingly unsophisticated according
the standards of the straight world. Ufology must do something about this, otherwise its blushing amateur psychological crudity
will forever be open for all to see. But to ask the scientifically-oriented to analyse a book is like asking a
warthog to swim the Atlantic. You all need lessons in this respect, so turn off that stupid American TV crap, and listen
very carefully.
First, this going for the gross physical truth of texts is a dangerous and rather unsophisticated way of investigating.
Literary criticism in particular and artistic critical evaluations simply do not do this kind of thing. This is just
one of the reasons why there is such prejudice against UFO books, and hardly a single one has yet to be properly reviewed
by the so-called "quality" press, either in this country or America. Yes, I agree that most of such straight establishment
reviewers are young fogies who are desperately pre-electric, and take a pride in not knowing anything about the modern world and
technology, but that is beside the point. They do not review, period.
This is because most Ufological thoughts and books are desperately unsophisticated, witness the screams about long
words and sentences on this List. Nobody appears to have done any reading before 1960. What would Ufological investigators say
about Picasso or Dali's distortions of what we term far too easily as reality? Would they say that the monstrously distorted
shapes and figures in their landscapes were lies because they did not conform to the world outside their window? Such
investigators in using the hilariously crude binary-conditioned options of fact and fiction miss out completely on the symbiotic
relationship between Life and Literature, just as they miss out on the symbiotic relationship between the world and the terrible
events of 9/11. Should anyone think that the world consists of Bad Man A doing nasty things to Good Man B and there is no
subterranean symbolism underpinning such events, then they may deny the
importance of postmodernism, yes, but in doing so they also ignore the importance of the Unconscious, which is a
different and much serious matter altogether. When the inconceivable value to humanity of
painters such as Picasso and Dali is considered, it is the very distortion of the world that
teaches: they give us endless knowledge about ourselves, space and time, in other words by distorting the world we see the
world in a new light. This is what Corso has done. Or is that thought too difficult for you?
The Art world for instance can teach Ufology a lot in this respect. Every year without fail, at the Tate Gallery some young
trendy spriglet puts, say, a pair of socks on a car door and mounts the car door on a hollow tree-trunk with a dead cat
inside it. Call the result ecstacy, and the thing is bought for a lot of money. Now apart from a few cabbies in the popular
press, the Art world doesn't go around calling him or her an imposter, a liar, or a person of inventions and falsehoods. This
person has put together light and shade, seen new shapes and colours, made a collage of suggestions, moods, and memories. The
thing is full of inspirations and guesses, unusual juxtapositions, and shapes of irrational connections and
relationships between objects and insights. It is a very devil's brew of all those things that humanity should not see, should
keep hidden, deny, and not tell about. In summer, 2002 in Britain there was a similar act to the of Corso. There
was an exhibition of human body parts, and even a live TV programe showing a full public autopsy of a cadaver.
Such a dynamo, bomb, mess, call it what you like, is what Corso has unwittingly created, and his disturbed shade might get great
comfort from the thought that this kind of activity is known as artistic creativity. Ladies and gentlemen of the List will
agree that this is without doubt, the single most important activity of humanity, although it may not look like it at the
time! This superficial play element defines humanity, no more no less. No other creatures (except aliens perhaps) have it. It is
in some mysterious way a moral thing that is vastly superior to dull old facts as a means of knowing. As any infant school
teacher can tell us, play of course is the basis of all learning systems.
Our first encounter with aliens may indeed be with an advanced form of play (they of course will keep their facts well hidden,
if they have not evolved from such things), which is the basis of all intelligence, advanced or otherwise. This is why we must
be careful.
What we see might be not what we get. Adamski's Orthon and Howard Menger's Aura Reines for example, may have been super-
dolls from worlds built purely of suggestion and advertisement- stuff. Yes, life may have evolved that far. Take old spanners
and test-probes to this material, and they turn round and look at you like baffled dogs waiting for orders. That's our problem.
The dogs can't deal with pure information. It has a scent, but they don't know it yet. They are used to looking for fat smelly
old analogue plain lies, and they don't quite know what cool media and advertising suggestion-tricks and double-takes and
confusions smell like yet. I think both Adamski and Corso were tricked and confused. I think that because the chances are that
we may in turn be toyed with rather than instructed, still less informed. These are very important things to
consider with respect to alien intelligence. Contact will certainly mean that
we have to think right out of the box and right out of the box again and again.
Could we possibly explain our own techno-social economic structure to a cargo-cult native priest when we do not know how
such a structure works ourselves? No, of course not. We therefore tell them fairy stories about it. Extrapolate that
situation, and I think we have just about got Corso and Adamski
and Howard Menger in focus. One thing is certain: the
desperately simple-minded input=3Doutput Stalinism that does not see this situation as meaningful will be the death of ufology.
If we consider this idea of nonsense-play it might very well shed a lot of light on the absurdity of many alien encounters
and also many claims such as that of Corso and Adamski again, claims which in the light of day make them both look both
foolish and mendacious. Late photographs of both these men show them both drained. The return from Magonia is always experienced
as a re-birthing. Corso and Adamski were not lying. They were confused by what had happened to them. The Greeks understood
this progress of the different forms of the psychic life of the soul and imagination. If we are not careful, as practical
Ufologists, this kind of significance will slip right through our thick garage fingers. The socks on top of the car door are
an attempt to form a new grammar of soul and substance, no less. It is an attempt to regain innocence. Such a costless and silly
absurdity is the beginning of a new initiation into cycles of
birth and creation You take the blue pill. Or you take the red pill_
I tell Ufologists this here and now: these hopelessly crude evaluations of fact and fiction cut Ufology off from the more
sophisticated straight cultural background. This must stop, otherwise parochial sneers alone at long words will make many
Ufologists appear to the much bigger outer world as hapless fools with straw behind their ears.
We must also do something about the blatant hypocrisies of "scientific" ufology. I asked Dear Richard to answer a simple
question in one of my posts, and he did not answer it. I asked since Strieber's claims were almost as fantastic as those of
Corso, why was he attacking Corso and not Streiber?
There is none of your blessed factual objectivity here. This is because of the different packaging. That's a postmodern thought
for you. Streiber is a cool customer, a good writer and excellent media man, and he punches like crazy. He has good
insights, and he is a quick thinker. He is fast on his feet, and he is one of the two or three good writers in Ufology. He can
write books that can be read, and he has an excellent organizing brain. I for one have no trouble in fully accepting the truth of
his experiences. In contrast, attacking poor Corso is like shooting fish in a barrel, but are they any who would call the
man who wrote the Foreword to Stanton Friedman's Top Secret Majic 12 a liar?
Cowards!
Come on, List members! And as Andy Roberts always says, don't
avoid the question.
Let's see how honest your objective factual scientific method
is: who is going to get into the ring with Streiber because like
Corso, he cannot provide "scientific" proof? Who is going to
throw the first punch and call Streiber a liar?
Answers, please! And have your wallets ready. You are going
to need them.
Come on boys, put on your scientific gloves and let's see your
scientific mettle.
Or are you chicken?
Or are there some people science likes to investigate and put
down as distinct from others they are very much afraid of?
Colin (Bad Man) Bennett
PS. I am now at work on a postmodern treatment of the Ramey
memo, and will post this shortly. Stand by for fun. Book seats
now!
From: Andy Roberts <aj.roberts@blueyonder.co.uk>
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 17:14:28 -0000
Fwd Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 12:38:14 -0500
Subject: Re: Corso - Roberts
>From: Colin Bennett <sharkley@panzerben.fsworld.co.uk>
>To: <ufoupdates@virtuallystrange.net>
>Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 08:22:43 -0000
>Subject: Re: Corso
Pilgrims,
I've refrained from commenting on Colin's, er, 'texts' of late
because we came to a private cease fire. However, as my name was
mentioned at the end of his latest missive I felt I had to
comment.
At first I thought it was another of his 'Combat Diaries' - too
late realised it was a Wombat's Diary!
It was felt among UK ufologists when Colin reared his head from
kindergarten UFO class that he was some form of carefully
constructed hoax - perhaps one of John Lunberg or Jim Schnabel's
(he wasn't one of ours). Then we realised he wasn't and that he
_actually_ means what he writes.
Oooeeeoo as Ed Sanders used to say.
Which, quite frankly, is why you'll find no sensible UK
ufologist either replying to his quicksand texts or rising to
his rather dull bait. We've all been around and been through
this before in other guises. The names and the, ahem,
'philosophies' change but the message is all too clear:
"I'm here, look at me, I've got ideas, I'm going to transform
ufology".
Dullsville. It's an annual show. Tim Matthews was the last one
on stage. Georgina Bruni and Nick Pope have both been in the
make up room but ran away when they saw the crowd.
What happens to these people? Easy. They either realise the
error of their ways and fade away or lurk bitterly on the edges
of ufology, bemused why no-one takes them seriously (er,
because they don't talk sense), amazed that their 'intellect'
hasn't been recognised and they aren't being carried
aloft along flower-strewn streets to Downing Street (er,
because no-one essentially cares about their nonsense).
Colin's a polite, well educated guy. He's obviously digested far
too much Iain Sinclair in his time and probably thinks Derrida
has something useful to say (he doesn't, I spent several days
typeing up someone's PhD thesis on this). But he knows nothing
about ufology I'm afraid. Or how to write - ability to use
metaphor as metaphor, simile for it's own sake and big words to
impress is a bit like some of the A level course work I've seen.
Could do better! Don't see me after Klass.
Those deluded souls who came out of the woodwork to announce him
as the next best thing (Jerry Clarke, come on down) sem to be
strangely missing in defending Colin against the massed outrage
of American ufologists.
Chill out dudes. It's an Emperor's New Clothes thang I'm afraid.
Just sit back and watch the show while it lasts.
Rather than actually comment on the turgid prose we've all had
to suffer lately (and will ahve to do so for some time before
Colin fades away) I pulled this out of his latest missive:
>You do not understand postmodernism.
Ahh, bless, 'they' always say we don't understand them. Have you
listened to the Grateful Dead's 'Estimated Prophet' Colin? It's
about you, "My time coming, any day" etc.
> It is a philosophy,
Really - we're clearly too stupid to understand that one and
have to _told_! A philosophy eh? What will these clever guys
think of next?
> a way of describing and interpreting the world.
And here's the nub. Yes PM is a philosophy - there are bloody
hundreds of the things and, like bottoms, we all have them.
Whatever gets you through the night eh?
But what Colin forgets is that PM is just one. A very new one
which hasn't really caught on because it's largely useless in
the material world we inhabit. As fun on a stoned evening, well,
yeah. But it's means nothing, can tell us nothing and
contributes nothing to our understanding of ufology. It's all
the rage for the hard of thinking and those people who don't
actually want to understand anything but who love talking about understanding.
>Cowards!
Don't make us laugh even more Colin - there are people on this
list who've done battle in the ufological trenches since god
knows when. And these are people - even if I don't agree with
them- who know their UFO history and know the problems involved.
That's why they are still here - because they want to find out.That's why many of them devote the majority of their time and
money to getting to grips with the problem, interviewing
witnesses and actually doing some real work rather than sitting
and commenting, twisting their words to suit any response.
Face it kids - you cannot argue with a post modernist - only
agree with them.
>Come on, List members! And as Andy Roberts always says, don't avoid the question.
I never do. Famous for it!
>Who is going to throw the first punch and call Streiber a liar?
Ok - Streiber's a liar. He has not had contact with aliens.
Now go tell teacher.
Happy Trails
Andy
UFO UpDates A mailing list for the study of UFO-related phenomena 'Its All Here In Black & White'
Location: VirtuallyStrange.net > UFO > UpDates Mailing List > 2003 > Jan > Jan 17
Re: Corso - Bennett
From: Colin Bennett <sharkley@panzerben.fsworld.co.uk>
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 23:12:04 -0000
Fwd Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 08:53:13 -0500
Subject: Re: Corso - Bennett
>From: Andy Roberts <aj.roberts@blueyonder.co.uk>
>To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <ufoupdates@virtuallystrange.net>
>Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 17:14:28 -0000
>Subject: Re: Corso
Andy, you once described yourself to me as a professional
Yorkshireman. Such beings usually describe every person in the
South of England as decadent fancy whores and ponces who speak
with a la-de-da accents and invent all kinds of French-inspired
blue-chinned Dago intellectual nonsense (such as postmodernism)
in order to interpret the world and experience.
People from North usually describe people from the South as
floating six feet above the ground, and speaking in three-
syllable four-clause nonsense looking down their noses at
everyone beyond Cheltenham.
Little do you know Andy that this view of Southern persons is a
view I regard as having some merit.
However what worries me is not so much the social prejudice so
much as the style in which you express himself. Andy, you sound
very, very tired, world-weary and very depressed and rather
emotional, if you don't mind saying so. Reading your post, I saw
you for a moment as a sad drunk at the end of the bar looking
down into a glass, and cursing the entire world. Your criticisms
of me (and all persons else you mentioned by name) were rendered
quite ineffective because of your world-weary cynicism and
expression of almost personal despair. You just can't put Nick
Pope, Georgina Bruni, Tim Matthews, Jerry Clark and myself, in
one big basket and try and bludgeon us to death. What is the
matter with you? You can do a lot better than this. You have
done in the past. You appear to have lost your sense of humour.
If Ufology is making you so angry and depressed and bitter I
would pack it in, frankly. Try long walks and fishing to work it
all off. You won't write or think well whilst you are in this
terrible state.
I personally get great joy out of all Ufology's contradictions,
hypocrisies, clashes, and hatreds. I love the punch-ups in
particular, they're the best sport available. It is a wonderful
culture, connected to just about every field of human endeavour
you can think of. As for what is at stake, can anything beat
that?
As for the mass of outraged American Ufologists Andy, I'd be
more frightened of being savaged by a dead sheep, boy. I thought
you were a tough cat, and you threaten me with American
Ufologists? If that's your best shot, baby, you are in more
trouble than I every thought. I would retreat further North if I
were you, because there's a hell of a lot more outrage to come,
and if you think this is heat, then get out of the effing
kitchen. One of my heroes is the much-abused Gordon Liddy who
said (lighting a match under his finger) I am not to be
intimidated.
I'd answer some of your criticism in detail, but in the face of
your obvious deeply personal black despair, I don't think that
would be valuable. If we are all such patent tossers, why are
you screaming at me and others like a gone-mad sneering loon?
Now Andy I am going to forget this post of yours. It is frankly,
embarrassing in its expression of savage frustration and
crudity. You sound totally disillusioned by Ufology and
everybody in it. Your post is not about Colin (Bad Man)
Bennett's silly views. It is about yourself. But I must admit I
know the feeling. Everybody knows the feelings. You are down in
the dumps. Silly Bennett alone could not have caused that. Try
again Andy, I never measure a man by his worst moments. I think
you wrote when you were savagely angry and possibly a little
envious of the fancy southern ponces like me and their equally
fancy egos. Yes Andy, I am the piece of Oxford crap you think I
am, and I must admit we all have those cursing moments, but most
tend to keep them private and under control if only because they
can cause enormous personal damage to an individual.
I tell you what I think Andy -- I think the anger you have
expressed could not possibly have been caused by myself, or even
your favourite target Georgina Bruni. Your anger is deep, far
deeper than Bruni or myself could possibly reach. If you don't
do something about these outbursts you are going be seriously
damaged inside. Now just have a deep think and get rid of this
bad luggage you've got tucked away somewhere. You're a great guy
really, but you've got to sort this personal angst thing out.
You might consider taking professional advice about this
constant loss of temper of yours. It could turn bad inside, and
we would not want to lose you.
You see Mr. Clarke would never have done it this way. Mr. Clarke
would have had me up all night trying to write good answers to
his tricky and clever questions. He's a negotiator, is Mr.
Clarke. He knows how to deal with a wanker like me. He would
have given me a deal instead of all your common pavement
shouting about "he can't write, he can't think, he's no good,
he's just showing off with his long words blah blah"
You should learn something from your co-author. He's a cool cat,
but in this post at least, you sound like a screaming ape with a
hernia. You must have written this when you were as tight as a
kettledrum at an oratorio. Even your html lines swing like a
pendulum do.
However, having said that, Andy, I like you. You've got balls
and you've got style. But just remember you 'ain't the only tough
guy in town. You must steady up and use tactics and footwork
and retain a cool head otherwise as a raging bull you'll get
picked off by the taller crisper punchers, and you'll run out of
steam very quickly at the rate you are trying to work at. And
never ever lose your temper in the ring. That is fatal. Like Mr.
Clarke, try a lower working rate, and loose some weight because
you are huffing and puffing by the third round, and that's far to
soon for the champion you could well be. (see - the Bad Man
can be nice, even under very trying conditions. He's probably
had a lot more experience in life than you would ever think,
Andy).
But in this respect, I must say that I really admired the
awesome and wonderful recovery you make towards
the end of your post.
You shook your head, and made a marvelous escape: a truly death-defying leap from what Bunyan (or was it Milton?) called the
slough of despond. Certainly, no massive failure of nerve for
you. There are not are many ufologists built like this.
Andy, you are what Tom Wolfe called the Right Stuff. Now that's
the Andy Roberts we know and love.
Let us all pray now sisters and brother that Mr. Whitely
Streiber, the Author of Communion and the writer of the Foreword
to Stanton Friedman's Top Secret Majic is of the same opinion.
Andy, I knew you would take the bait! The whole offer was
designed with you in mind!
Take this as a lesson Andy: If you think you are smart, There's
always someone smarter!
Good night to thee, Brother Bear, and lay off the Red Stripe,
please, because it's doing yo' head in, boy.
Colin (Bad Man) Bennett
Hallelujah!
UFO UpDates A mailing list for the study of UFO-related phenomena 'Its All Here In Black & White'
Location: VirtuallyStrange.net > UFO > UpDates Mailing List > 2003 > Jan > Jan 17
Re: Corso - Hall
From: Richard Hall <hallrichard99@hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 22:54:07 +0000
Fwd Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 08:51:03 -0500
Subject: Re: Corso - Hall
>From: Andy Roberts <aj.roberts@blueyonder.co.uk>
>To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <ufoupdates@virtuallystrange.net>
>Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 17:14:28 -0000
>Subject: Re: Corso
>>From: Colin Bennett <sharkley@panzerben.fsworld.co.uk>
>>To: <ufoupdates@virtuallystrange.net>
>>Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 08:22:43 -0000
>>Subject: Re: Corso
>Pilgrims,
>I've refrained from commenting on Colin's, er, 'texts' of late because we came to a private cease fire. However, as my name was>mentioned at the end of his latest missive I felt I had to comment.
>At first I thought it was another of his 'Combat Diaries' - too late realised it was a Wombat's Diary!
>It was felt among UK ufologists when Colin reared his head from kindergarten UFO class that he was some form of carefully
>constructed hoax - perhaps one of John Lunberg or Jim Schnabel's (he wasn't one of ours). Then we realised he wasn't and that he_actually_ means what he writes.
>Oooeeeoo as Ed Sanders used to say.
>Which, quite frankly, is why you'll find no sensible UK ufologist either replying to his quicksand texts or rising to his rather dull bait. We've all been around and been through this before in other guises. The names and the, ahem, 'philosophies' change but the message is all too clear:
>"I'm here, look at me, I've got ideas, I'm going to transform ufology".
<snip>
>Colin's a polite, well educated guy. He's obviously digested far too much Iain Sinclair in his time and probably thinks Derrida
>has something useful to say (he doesn't, I spent several days typeing up someone's PhD thesis on this). But he knows nothing about ufology I'm afraid. Or how to write - ability to use metaphor as metaphor, simile for it's own sake and big words to impress is a bit like some of the A level course work I've seen.
<snip>
>Rather than actually comment on the turgid prose we've all had
>to suffer lately (and will ahve to do so for some time before
>Colin fades away) I pulled this out of his latest missive:
>>You do not understand postmodernism.
>Ahh, bless, 'they' always say we don't understand them. Have you
>listened to the Grateful Dead's 'Estimated Prophet' Colin? It's
>about you, "My time coming, any day" etc.
>>It is a philosophy,
>Really - we're clearly too stupid to understand that one and
>have to _told_! A philosophy eh? What will these clever guys
>think of next?
>>a way of describing and interpreting the world.
>And here's the nub. Yes PM is a philosophy - there are bloody
>hundreds of the things and, like bottoms, we all have them.
>Whatever gets you through the night eh?
>But what Colin forgets is that PM is just one. A very new one
>which hasn't really caught on because it's largely useless in
>the material world we inhabit.
Andy,
Amen to this last comment, which is a point I have been trying
to make with Colin the Windy. I happen to have a university
degree in philosophy and post modernism is NOT a philosophy;
it's a quaint and unjustifed way of pre-empting all
philosophical discussion by waving a magic wand. I'm sure that
my degree means nothing to him, and he will scold me for
mentioning it, but contrary to his view that facts, logic,
evidence (scientific method) are worthless and meaningless, he
is yet to answer my question about what his substitute is. How
does he decide on hiring an attorney, choosing a dentist,
punishing "evil-doers," etc? Does he do it by reading the
"literature" of people who by any common sense standards and
universally accepted rules of reason and conventions of society
are liars, frauds, and con-men and pronouncing on what cultural
heroes they are, or by factual checking and rudimentary
investigation of UFO reports?
After jousting with Colin for a while, I have concluded that he
is nothing but an insincere game player who gets his jollies by
taunting people and playing semantical games, and unless he
demonstrates some sincere interest in communicating, I will have
nothing further to do with him. I know some big words too, some
of which apply to him, like "persiflage" which is an especially
good fit. And I have also studied semantics.
I have far more respect (relatively speaking) for some skeptics
with whom I have profound disagreement about the interpretation
of the data, than I do for Colin's subjectivism and nihilism (a
couple of more big words that seem to apply to him.) That being
said, I think those skeptics also need to punch up their logic
and reasoning far beyond their current simplistic rejection of
human testimony that has been screened through sensible
procedures and points to something of potentially profound
importance occurring in the skies of Planet Earth.
- Dick
UFO UpDates A mailing list for the study of UFO-related phenomena 'Its All Here In Black & White'
Location: VirtuallyStrange.net > UFO > UpDates Mailing List > 2003 > Jan > Jan 19
Re: Corso - Bennett
From: Colin Bennett <sharkley@panzerben.fsworld.co.uk>
Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 19:02:21 -0000
Fwd Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 20:02:26 -0500
Subject: Re: Corso - Bennett
>From: Richard Hall <hallrichard99@hotmail.com>
>To: <ufoupdates@virtuallystrange.net>
>Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 19:15:39 +0000
>Subject: Re: Corso - Hall
Talk about a marriage of convenience! I will leave others to
judge the surprise nuptials of Richard Hall and Andy Roberts.
May they live happily ever after and have many children. I'd
like to drink to the blushing bride, but I don't know which one
it is (answers on a postcard, please!).
But what I want to talk about is Richard accusing me of
insincerity. Now if Richard wrote, as I do, extensively in the
outer world as distinct from his tiny cosseted realm of Ufology,
he would realize that in the media and journalistic world at
least, accusations of insincerity mean always that the target
has realized that he or she is being satirized and does not like
it. Yes Richard I am satirizing you and your collection of facts
and certainties worthy of the Jurassic Museum. You and Ufology
both had better grow up and learn to take being satirized. If I
can take it, why can't you? As I said in a previous post, the
Brentford Polonius did a good job of satirizing of myself, and I
had to take it. Satire would give Ufology some of that wit,
sophistication and polish it lacks utterly, as the po-faced
"scientific" part of it at the moment could described as
depressing as a visit to a Salvation Army cottage-hospital for
dogs in 1890.
There comes a stage in the development of both a culture or
indeed a human being where it either becomes strong enough to
see itself as silly on occasion or not. If not, it dies sure as
eggs is eggs.
Satire would also help Ufology develop more sophisticated
languages. As a sub-culture, Ufology has developed only three
main low-level languages: FactSpiel, DocBox, and SeClass
(security classifications). These constitute some of the best
Orwellian Newspeak of our time. As writing styles, immediate
garroting by an editor would be best such authors could expect.
I have heard of rumours of other lesser-known languages of the
deep interior of our own heart of scientific-consumer darkness,
such as Archspeak (archivespeak) and Labev (laboratory evidence)
and Reschmmuter (Yiddish for research talk). These latter are
religious languages, known and used only by a few holy men of
the secret intellectual sales department. They are mainly
verbal, although I have heard of apocryphal stories of published
fragments from collectors who have paid a lot of money for them.
I am writing a satirical novel about all this at present, and
should any List member know of other Ufological languages,
please post me at colin@bennettc25.fsnet.co.uk. My novel is to
be called Factspeil, and it will cover the whole field of
contemporary Ufology. There will be portraits of the major
characters of the landscape of belief and disbelief. Chapters
already finished include: The Coffin Donkeys of Brentford,
Factual Stalinism, At Last: the 1947 Show, and The Show Trial of
Corso. The book should be available early next year, and it will
make make Mosely and Pflock's Shockingly Close look like a teddy
bear's picnic
But to the point. Your offer, Richard, to have nothing more to
do with me was like being attacked by a run-over ice cream cone.
Not even the wily Polonius von Brentford would have copped out
like this. Be that as it may, I accept your surrender
unconditionally. So you want to get out of the ring do you? You
say you don't want to fight me anymore? You've had enough? So
soon? Great - so that's two down, a couple of hundred thousand
to go, and I hope they all buy the book. You've obviously have
been hurt bad, so OK, I won't attack or satirize you any more if
that is really what you are asking, and I think it is. Post away
as if I didn't exist. But I will be watching for any
backsliding, and if you attack me again, I shall reply in even
stronger satirizing terms once more.
Now your Andy Roberts is a different kettle of fish. Your
Roberts loves pain. And the last thing he'll do is bunk out of
the ring when the going gets rough, and it is going to get very
rough indeed. I like that. This is going to be the best show in
town. The cobwebbed dovecotes are all a-flutter I understand,
and the old Pantomime Dames of Scientific Ufology are stamping
their little feet. I am informed by countless folk that the UFO
updates List offers the very best entertainment on the web, and
I am proud to play a small part in what one private e-mailer
called the Greatest Private Vaudeville on Earth.
Now your Roberts won't like me for saying this, but he is a
shaman figure, a hill-man, a true ancient Briton, is your
Roberts.You are nobody if you have not been cursed by him.
That's his only Ufological function. His actual Ufological work
and thoughts can be safely ignored that is if you can find them
to ignore in the first place. If he screams at you, you have
arrived. He doesn't yet know that this is his mythological role
of course. He thinks he is offering rational criticism! It is
one of my tasks in life to try and make this boy see and accept
that his transcendental self exists, and that this ancient
function is far more important than his wretched pen-to-paper
efforts, whose mundane low-key baleful drone has a singular note
of class hatred encased in a wailing ancient despair deeper than
plummet shall sound. He should give this up. He is pre-text and
pre-verbal. But since he would not understand that, I won't
continue with the illustration.
But his anger is much more important. Robert's genius (and I
must admit that he has a spark of wrecked and troubled genius)
lies in his pyrotechnic cursing. This never stops, and one
wonders if he screams at himself when he is alone. His howls are
positively Biblical in their intensity, and his lamentations
worthy of Jeremiah himself. But I will say this for him: if he
can ever access this storming energy and direct it properly,
then we would possibly have the best Ufological writer of all
time. If this happens, then we would have a Ufological writer
with qualities of soul, energy and imagination, and they are as
rare as nightingales at Christmas.
I am going to help him make this terrifying leap into the dark.
He will curse me for it but it is my mission to bring this lost
soul to enlightenment.
Perhaps one day an old aunt will take him aside and inform him
of his Tolkien-like origins. She will reveal to him that he is
really a hobbit figure guarding the entrance to the Ufological
mysterium. Only then will he see that his savagings are worn as
badges of honour by initiates. You are nobody unless you have
been cursed and bayed at by Roberts. At the moment, given his
arrested mental progress, this is his one and only value. His
thinking is worthless, if it exists at all. Thinking is far too
young a thing for him, in any case. He is not a modern. He
probably does something more valuable than thinking. His genes
are old enough for that. He probably reasons by mimesis,
rebirthing and soul-transfer, to name but a few possibilities.
But meanwhile, here in the old curiosity shop we have come to
love our very own spoilt child baying at the moon and taking the
many chips off his shoulder and trying to ram them down all our
over-educated middle-class southern throats, an experience for
which we all thank him profoundly.
May he live forever, if he has not done so already.
Andy Roberts, we all love you.
Now go and tell your mother that the whole town is jealous.
We've lost you to Richard Hall.
Yes, I think Andy has been doing what he does ever since the
Romans left Britain and probably before the Henge Stones and the
burial Mounds. At the present time, I am developing a List post
for Laurel Oplatka (who asked the original question on Corso
that set the List alight) and after apologizing for not knowing
that she is of the fair sex, I tell her of further efforts to
reform the soul of Andy Roberts. I tell her that just one of mymany Ufological tasks is to try and induce Roberts into self-analysis and let him rediscover the thread back to his true
self, that is a Merlin figure walking along Old Straight Track.
This is his problem. This is the source of the manic energies
that leave him totally exhausted. He does not know who he is, or
what or where are the powerful historical pseudo-identities that
his shamanistic howling stems from.
He will of course not like any of this, and in his reponse, he
will howl and curse and scream and stamp and shout in his usual
manner. He will call me everything from a pig to a dog, he will
call me a rogue, vagabond, and felon; he will call me a
mountebank, a pseud, a frogster; he will pour forth a stream of
invective equal to the pages of Rabelais, and the Flighting of
Dunbar.
But as will be seen from my Oplatka post, at least Andy knows
that now there is now someone to take spiritual care of him
night and day, no matter what he does, no matter what he sayeth.
I will guard this hobbit son from the Black Riders. I can do
this because I am centuries older than he is, though he has
probably guessed that by now. He won't escape from me. Death
means absolutely nothing. We have both been here before,
centuries ago.
Richard, you have chosen a bad partner. You're not quite built
on theAndy Roberts level. As far as psychic high maintenance is
concerned, I rate the bitch even high than Wallis, Duchess of
Windsor. I mean who can afford this boy? Richard, you don't have
this level of massive conflicts in you. Thank your lucky stars
for that, or they would blow your nuts and bolts apart. He will
also be desperately unfaithful. He will need whores like me as a
source of mystery, anarchy, misbehaviour, non-conformity and
especially imagination.
This boy's problem is that he wants to be me.
That's what his whole trip is all about. He'll leave you at
night to go wandering on the dark side of town your mother
warned you about. And there will be (perish the thought!) all
the Colin Bennetts in the world, winking their stocking-tops at
him.
When he gets back, he'll tell you he's just popped out to walk
the dog.
I think it is love. Georgina's turned him down, and now It's me.
Good Golly Miss Molly!
So be it, Richard. With such non-nut-and-bolt thoughts, I'll
leave you, baby. So keep pill-popping the measurements, the
instrumentation, the angles, and the temperatures and all that
profound common sense and scientific practicality that surrounds
you that will rot your mental innards like an apple in cider.
But a warning from the Mad and the Bad: the measurements and the
common sense are there to fool you. That's their function. Any
alien would agree with me. As with Old Ordnance Survey, the
triangulations are there to cover up what is going off the
landscape, not to reveal. Richard, as a cultural screen, you
have a lot to offer those unfortunates who believe that what you
measure is what you get.
But any alien would know that as a measure of either Old
Roberts, the Old Stones, or even Old Yours Truly, the
calculating will get you absolutely nowhere. So goodbye,calculate away, and may the gods bless your shaky intimations of
factual certainty, sir!
What is all this crap about, good folk of the List? I'll tell
you what it is about - it is about preventing either science or
skepticism taking over the UFO experience. That's what it is
about.
Hurrah!
Colin (Bad Man) Bennett
Watch this space!
PS: I'm leaving you all now to get back to analyzing the
Randle/Friedman dialogues. We were going to do the
Aldrich/Friedman dialogues as well, but Jan has bunked off
(Where's he gone to? I miss his scowls, his bad temper and his
sneers. If any one sees him, tell him the Bad Man is still here,
and sends his unrequited love. How about that for sincerity,
Richard?) There are five of us here (three men two women) plus
three pit-bull mastiffs, two cats, and three souped-up super-
computers at it on this sunny Sunday afternoon in the old
curiosity shop. Believe me all you egghead bears, cracking these
dialogues is like cracking the Japanese Purple code.
As the sorcerer said to his apprentice, the MJ12 game may be
rigged, but it's the only game in town Hallelujah!
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