Daddy Cool

We intend to destroy museums, libraries, academies of every sort, and to fight
against moralism, feminism, and every utilitarian or opportunistic cowardice.

These words were printed on the front page of a French newspaper. While one can recognize the attitude of ISIS towards cultural heritage, it is hard to imagine that their opponents will be caught saying words like: We intend to glorify war – the only hygiene of the world – militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of emancipators, beautiful ideas worth dying for, and contempt for woman.

Or are the promises to make America great again, to destroy the elite and talks of pussygrabbing in the same line of thought?

In their words and actions, Trump and his ghost twitterer Steve Bannon, the man in the Kremlin, the soldiers of ISIS and the army of internet trolls can be considered the true heirs of futurism. The quotes are points 9 and 10 of Marinetti’s Manifesto.

Here’s Marinetti’s description of the massacre in the Bataclan in Paris: Ah yes! little machine gun, you are a fascinating woman, and sinister and divine, at the steering wheel of an invisible hundred-horse-power engine that roars with explosive impatience. Oh! surely you will soon leap into the circuit of death, to a shattering somersault or victory! . . . Do you wish me to compose madrigals full of grace and vivacity? At your pleasure, my dear . . . For me, you resemble a lawyer before the bar, whose tireless, eloquent tongue strikes to the heart of the surrounding listeners, who are deeply moved . . .

With every airstrike on Aleppo or any other city in Syria Marinetti ejaculates in his grave; he ejaculates so hard that he wishes that he is fucking himself in the ass:…2000 shrapnel to saw the air to explode white kerchiefs full of gold Boom-Boomb 2000 grenades straining to rip out with tearing shocks of dark hair ZANG-BOOM-ZANG-BOOM- BOOOMB orchestra of the war noises to swell beneath a note of silence held in the high sky spherical balloon golden that surveys cannon-fire…

Try to read Marinetti’s futurist publications, and you will see that his glorification of violence and war is a recurring theme. In his talks and articles he combined youth, energy, strength and the future with the necessity of violence and war. One can raise the question if he was paid for his warmongering activities. The biggest force in Europe was a military force: Austria-Hungary. It could be destroyed by war alone. A couple of years after his first futurist publication troops on their way to the frontier were cheered on by the crowds.

Do we see a parallel with the present times, where the great- grandchildren of Marinetti do everything which is in their powers to mobilize a mob. The manifesto’s of those times are today’s tweets and their one-word- marching-orders like Disgusting!, Shame!, Lies! or Wrong!. The force that needs to be destroyed is not a military, but a democratic force, disguised as the elite.

In the same manifesto Marinetti wrote: We shall sing the great masses shaken with work, pleasure, or rebellion: we shall sing the multicolored and polyphonic tidal waves of revolution in the modern metropolis; shall sing the vibrating nocturnal fervor of factories and shipyards burning under violent electrical moons; bloated railway stations that devour smoking serpents; factories hanging from the sky by the twisting threads of spiraling smoke; bridges like gigantic gymnasts who span rivers, flashing at the sun with the gleam of a knife; adventurous steamships that scent the horizon, locomotives with their swollen chest, pawing the tracks like massive steel horses bridled with pipes, and the oscillating flight of airplanes, whose propeller flaps at the wind like a flag and seems to applaud like a delirious crowd.

I have a dream.

Two years later Pratella, his useful idiot, translates point 11 of the manifesto into: Music must represent the spirit of crowds, of great industrial complexes, of trains, of ocean liners, of battle fleets, of automobiles and aeroplanes. It must add to the great central themes of the musical poem the domain of the machine and the victorious realm of electricity.

March 1913 Luigi Russolo showcased himself as a usuful idiot and wrote a manifesto that many eons later came to be seen as the definition of Noise music. He wrote it after he attended a concert by fellow futurist Pratella. He transcribed Pratella’s translation of Marinetti’s point 11 of the futurist manifesto and came up with this variation: Let us wander through a great modern city with our ears more alert than our eyes and we shall find pleasure in distinguishing the rushing of water, gas, or air in metal pipes, the purring of motors that breathe and pulsate with indisputable animality, the throbbing of valves, the pounding of pistons, the screeching of mechanical saws, the jolting of trams on their tracks, the cracking of whips, the flapping of curtains and flags. We shall amuse ourselves by creating mental orchestrations of the crashing down of metal shop shutters, the slamming of doors, the bustle and shuffling of crowds, the varied racket of stations, railroads, iron foundries, spinning mills, printing works, electrical power stations, and subways. Nor should the latest noises of modern warfare be forgotten.

Viva modern warfare.

Or viva Frans de Waard.

I can imagine him very well, writing a review in his vital weekly, in which he transcribes the information that came with the CD: Artist suchandso went for a walk in a great modern city with his ears more alert than his eyes. In his composition we hear the rushing of water, gas, or air in metal pipes, the purring of motors that breathe and pulsate, the throbbing of valves, the pounding of pistons, the screeching of mechanical saws, the jolting of trams on their tracks, the cracking of whips, the flapping of curtains and flags. He created a mental orchestration of the crashing down of metal shop shutters, the slamming of doors, the bustle and shuffling of crowds, the varied racket of stations, railroads, iron foundries, spinning mills, printing works, electrical power stations, and subways. All in all a quite interesting release.

Most probably Artist Suchandso did not walk out one Summer day to find a war and record the latest noises of warfare.