Kitsch

Kitsch (pronounced kich)

(1) Something though tawdry in design or appearance; an object created to appeal to popular sentiment or undiscriminating tastes, especially if cheap (and thus thought a vulgarity).

(2) Art, decorative objects and other forms of representation of dubious artistic or aesthetic value (many consider this definition too wide).

1926: From the German kitsch (literally “gaudy, trash”), from the dialectal kitschen (to coat; to smear) which in the nineteenth century was used (as a German word) in English in art criticism describe a work as “something thrown together”.  Among “progressive” critics, there was a revival in the 1930s to contrast anything thought conservative or derivative with the avant garde.  The adjective kitchy was first noted in 1965 though it may earlier have been in oral use; the noun kitchiness soon followed. Camp is sometimes used as a synonym and the two can be interchangeable but the core point of camp is that it attributes seriousness to the trivial and trivializes the serious.  Technically, the comparative is kitscher and the superlative kitschest but the more general kitschy is much more common.  The alternative spelling kitch is simply a mistake and was originally 1920s slang for “kitchen” the colloquial shortening dating from 1919.  Kitsch & kitchiness are nouns, kitschify, kitschifying & kitschified are verbs and kitschy is an adjective; the noun plural is kitsch (especially collectively) or kitsches.  Kitschesque is non-standard.

Kitsch can become ironic.  Lava lamps were in the 1970s briefly fashionable as symbols of the modern but were soon re-classified kitsch.  In the twenty-first century, such was the demand that re-creations of the originals became available, bought because they were so kitsch.

For something that lacks and exact definition, kitsch is probably surprisingly well-understood as a concept although not all would agree on what objects are kitsch and what are not.  Nor does is there always a sense about it of a self-imposed exclusionary rule; there are many who cherish objects they happily acknowledge are kitsch.  As a general principle, kitsch is used to describe art, objects or designs thought to be in poor taste or overly sentimental.  Objects condemned as kitsch are often mass-produced, clichéd, gaudy (the term “bling” might have been invented for the kitsch) or cheap imitations of something.  It can take some skill to adopt the approach but other items which can compliments such a thing include rotary dial phones and three ceramic ducks flying up the wall (although when lava lamps were in vogue, lava lamp buyers probably already thought the kitsch.

Lindsay Lohan: Prom Queen scene in Mean Girls (2004).  If rendered in precious metal and studded with diamonds a tiara is not kitsch but something which is the same design but made with anodized plastic and acrylic Rhinestones certainly is.

Führer kitsch: A painting attributed to Adolf Hitler.

The Nazi regime devoted much attention to spectacle and representational architecture and art was a particular interest of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945).  Hitler in his early adulthood had been a working artist, earning a modest living from his brush while living in Vienna in the years before World War I (1914-1918) and his landscapes and buildings were, if lifeless and uninspired, competent enough to attract buyers.  He was rejected by the academy because he could never master a depiction of the human form, his faces especially lacking, something which has always intrigued psychoanalysts, professional and amateur.  Still, while his mind was completely closed to any art of which he didn’t approve, he was genuinely knowledgeable about many schools of art and better than many he knew what was kitsch.  However, the nature of the “Führer state” meant he had to see much of it because the personality cult built around him encouraged a deluge of Hitler themed pictures, statuettes, lampshades, bedspreads, cigarette lighters and dozens of other items.  A non-smoker, he ordered a crackdown on things like ashtrays but generally the flow of kitsch continued unabated until the demands of the wartime economy prevailed.  In the Berghof, his alpine headquarters on the Bavarian Obersalzberg near Berchtesgaden, there were constant deliveries of things likes cushions embroidered with swastikas in which would now be called designer colors and more than one of his contemporaries in their memoirs recorded that the gifs sometimes would be accompanied by suggestive photographs and offers of marriage.  Truly that was “working towards the Führer”.

Führer kitsch: A painting attributed to Adolf Hitler.

Hitler dutifully acknowledged the many paintings which were little more than regime propaganda although the only works for which he showed any real enthusiasm were those which truly he found beautiful.  However, he knew there was a place for the kitsch… for others.  In July 1939, while being shown around an exhibition staged in Munich called the “Day of German Art”, he complained to the curator that some German artist were not on display and after being told they were “in the cellar”, demanded to know why.  The only one with sufficient strength of character to answer was Frau Gerhardine "Gerdy" Troost (1904–2003), the widow of the Nazi’s first court architect Paul Troost (1878–1934) and one of a handful of women with whom Hitler was prepared to discuss anything substantive.  “Because it’s kitsch” she answered.  Hitler sacked the curatorial committee and appointed his photographer to supervise the exhibition and the depictions of farm-workers in the field and heroic nude warriors returned.

Kitsch: One knows it when one sees it.

What is kitsch will be obvious to some while others will remain oblivious and the disagreements will happen not only at the margins.  Although there will be sensitive souls appalled at the notion, it really is something wholly subjective and the only useful guide is probably to borrow and adapt the threshold test for obscenity coined by Justice Potter Stewart (1915–1985; associate justice of the US Supreme Court 1958-1981) in Jacobellis v Ohio (1964):

I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it…

Kitsch also has a history also of becoming something else.  As recently as the 1970s, tea-towels, placemats, oven mitts, serving trays and plenty else was available in the West adorned with depictions of indigenous peoples, often as racist tropes or featuring the appropriation of culturally sensitive symbols.  These are now regarded as kitsch only historically and have been re-classified as examples variously (depending on the content) of cultural insensitivity or blatant racism.

Splatter

Splatter (pronounced splat-er)

(1) To splash and scatter upon impact.

(2) An act or instance of splattering, typically a spray of mud, paint, blood or other liquids which results in many small blobs, some of which may coalesce.

(3) The quantity or the residue of something so splattered; An uneven shape (or mess) created by something dispersing on impact.

(4) In film as “splatter film” or “splatter movie”, a production characterized by gory imagery, often for its own sake (something of this the type often referred to as “a splatterfest”).  Splatterpunk is either a fork or synonym depending on interpretation.  In film, the splatter ecosystem is treated by those who take such things seriously as a sub-set of the horror genre.

(5) In modern art, as “splatter art” or “splatter painting”, a technique in which paint is (variously) dripped thrown, squirted, flicked etc onto the surface (although because of its history, “drip painting” to often treated as a separate stream (or drip)).

(6) In radio, spurious emissions resulting from an abrupt change in a transmitted signal.

1760s: The origin is uncertain but it’s presumed to be a portmanteau word, the construct being spla(sh) + (spa)tter.  Splash was probably a variant of the Middle English plasch & plasche, from the Old English plæsċ (pool, puddle) and thought likely an imitative form.  It was cognate with the Dutch plas (pool, watering hole) and related to the West Frisian plaskje (to splash, splatter), the Dutch plassen (to splash, splatter) and the German platschen (to splash).  The construct of spatter was probably the Middle Low German or Dutch spatt(en) (to spout, burst) +‎ -er (the frequentative suffix) and related to spit (saliva).  Splatter, splatterdash & splattering are nouns & verbs, splatterer & splatterfest are nouns, splattered is a verb and splattery is an adjective; the noun plural is splatters.

The verb in the sense of “splash; scatter about; make a noise as of splashing water” developed from the noun and was in use by at least 1784 but the earlier splatterdash (thought a variant of spatterdash) was noted a decade-odd earlier, a development of the noun spatterdash (leather covering for the lower leg to protect from mud) from the late seventeenth century.  Splatterdash meant “in a haphazard manner; work performed in a disorganized way” and was thought (either by intent or mistake) to have evolved from or been influenced by the earlier slapdash.  The early eighteenth century splatter-faced (having a broad, flat face) was probably a perversion of platter-faced, the modern version being “plate-faced”.  Splatterpunk was in 1986 apparently coined by award-winning US writer David J Schow (b 1955), noted for his many contributions to the horror industry and the splatter fork in particular. The first known reference to its use was during his celebrated appearance at the Twelfth World Fantasy Convention in Providence, Rhode Island.  Devoted fans of the splatter movie genre often self-identify as splatterpunks.

I Know Who Killed Me (2007) was for years was a fixture on "Worst Movie Ever" lists but more recently it has built a cult following (for reasons right and wrong) and the longevity in the interest it sustains has made it one of the genre's more enduring (and profitable) titles.  It was an example of a splatter movie "cross-over" in that the splatter aspect was ancillary to the crime-focused plot.

The evolution of the splatter movie becomes obvious from around the early 1960s when graphical depictions of violence and increasing volumes of (fake) blood began to appear.  The censorship in most parts of the world was for most of the twentieth century quite rigorous and unlike the attitude of the authorities towards nudity & sex where some jurisdictions tended to be more permissive, the attitude towards violence in films was more restrictive.  The French Grand Guignol (1897-1962) theatre had staged naturalistic dramas in which the gore was said to be “most realistic” but it was unusual and tolerated as an example of intellectual Parisian bohemianism and in early cinema, about the only graphic depictions seen of blood and gore were those in battlefield scenes or anything intended to illustrate the savagery of non-white races.  The trend towards gratuitous violence in film grew in the post-war years and directors in the 1960s pushed the boundaries, something accommodated by different versions of films being released in different markets, some more cut than others.  Such was the flow of violent cinema that the authorities began banning distribution and it wasn’t until the 1990s the practice became uncommon in the West, the classification system restricting to adults those thought most disturbing thought sufficient.  If there’s a convenient watershed in the business, it might be The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) which lived up to its name; after that, all splatter movies can be considered a variation on the theme.

Freier Stress (Stress Free), Oil on linen by Albert Oehlen (b 1954).

Some regards splatter art as something distinct from drip painting (or action painting) while many claim not to be able to tell the difference although because drip painting has an establish place in modern art (one quite respectable according to many including those who pay millions for works by some of the most famous artists), it’s usually treated as something distinct.  As can be imagined, “splatter” is something within the rubric of abstract; throwing paint at a surface, sometimes from a distance of several feet rather than using a brush or even some form of spray, is going to results in something which, even if recognizably something, is at least at the margins going to be chaotic.

Lepanto, Panel 6, oil on canvas by Cy Twombly (1928-2011)

When drip painting burst (splattered?) upon the art world in the early post war years it was a novelty and at least since the late nineteenth century there had among the Western avant-garde been a thirst for the new and the shocking.  At the time first referred to as a form of abstract expressionism, what the early works did manage to convey was the feeling of something spontaneous, the relationship between what appears on the canvas and the physicality of the technique.  There had long been painters working in oil able to represent the gestures of their brush-strokes, usually with a graduated thickness in the layers on the surface but flinging the stuff around the room obviously brought a new violence to art.  Experimentation (and market differentiation) soon following and apart from the drippers and flingers, there were soon flickers, injectors (the use of syringes presumably thought a bit edgy), squeezers (wringing the paint from a soaked cloth), bursters (paint-filled balloons either thrown at the surface or popped from above) and even the odd spitter (paint ejected from the mouth).

Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) at work, dripping.  To the untrained eye, it's really not possible to work out where the dripping ends and the splatter begins or if it matters or if a distinction between cause and effect is helpful.  The most famous of the drip painters and one of art's genuine celebrities, Peggy Guggenheim (1898-1979) claimed he was “...the greatest painter since Picasso.”

Number 17A (1948), oil on fiberboard by Jackson Pollock.  In 2015 it sold for US$200 million which made it then the world's fifth most expensive painting.  An early work, it's thought one of the purest examples of drip painting and as soon as it appeared in the August 1949 edition of Life magazine, Jackson Pollock became famous.   

One thing about splatter art which simultaneously is (for practitioners) an attraction and (for detractors) a damnation is that the conventional skills traditionally needed by painters are not only not required but are simply irrelevant.  One of the most common complaints of the form by an unimpressed public was usually something like “That’s not art, anyone could do that.”  In terms of the techniques that’s certainly true in that anyone can drip, fling, flick, inject, squeeze or burst (most might draw the line at the spit) but the matter for judgment remains what was produced, not how it was done.  It’s the critics who rule on these things and those specializing in splatter (and related techniques) claim the ability to tell the good form the bad and the masterpiece for everything else.  Of course the language used between such critics is something like that of a sect in that while the words might be familiar, the meanings conveyed and the knowledge known secrets concealed from all but the chosen few and their views can be the difference between a piece being worthless or selling at auction for a sex figure sum.  We really have to take their word for it.

Times Square (2022), oil on canvas being painted by Paul Kenton (b 1968).

Paul Kenton describes himself as a “cityscape artist” and combines variations of splatter techniques with some more traditional forms of “editing” to produce works which are closer to the more traditional forms of abstract expressionism than the drip genre defined by Pollock.

Siren

Siren (pronounced sahy-ruhn)

(1) In classical mythology, one of several sea nymphs, sometimes depicted as part-woman, part-bird and sometimes as as sisters, who lured mariners to destruction by seductive singing.

(2) A woman who sings sweetly and charms.

(3) In slang, a seductively beautiful or charming woman, especially one who beguiles men; a seductress, temptress or vamp; a dangerous women who preys on the weaknesses of men.

(4) An acoustical instrument for producing musical tones, consisting essentially of a disk pierced with holes arranged equidistantly in a circle, rotated over a jet or stream of compressed air, steam, or the like, so that the stream is alternately interrupted and allowed to pass.

(5) An variation of this implement which makes a piercingly loud sound and used as a whistle, fog signal, or warning device; the sound made by such a device.

(6) In zoology, (1) any of several aquatic, eel-like salamanders of the family Sirenidae, having permanent external gills, small forelimbs, and no posterior limbs, (2) a member of Sirenia, an order of mammals or (3) any of various nymphalid butterflies of the genus Hestina.

(7) Anything seductive or tempting, especially dangerously or harmfully.

(8) In music, a musical instrument (one of the few aerophones in the percussion section of the symphony orchestra).

(9) An instrument for demonstrating the laws of beats and combination tones.

(10) In astronomy & astrophysics, an astrophysical event which can be used for calculating cosmic distances. 

1300-1350: From the Middle English siren & sereyn from the Old French sereine, (the Modern French sereine dating from the twelfth century), from the Late Latin sīrēna and the Classical, Latin Sīrēn & Sīrēna, from the Ancient Greek Σειρήν (Seirḗn).  The Seirēnes were the alluring sea nymphs of classical mythology and the figurative sense of "one who sings sweetly and charms" was first noted in the 1580s although the classical descriptions of them were mangled in medieval translations, resulting in some odd and fantastical notions of their appearance and they were often conflated with mermaids.  The Vulgate (the Biblia Vulgata, the fourth century translation of the Bible which, through the choices of words and senses made by the translator had a profound effect on Christianity and Christendom) also gifted to Middle English the use of the word to describe an imaginary species of flying serpents, based on glossary explanations of the Latin sirenes in Isaiah 13:22.    In the Greek the word was used also to mean "a deceitful woman" although etymologists note that may have been literally "binder, entangler", from seira (cord, rope).  In zoology, the mammalian sense appeared first in was first attested in French in Les entretiens d'Ariste et d'Eugène (Conversations between Ariste & Eugène) by the French Jesuit priest Dominique Bouhours (1628–1702) while the use to describe the aquatic salamander was introduced in 1766 by Swedish zoologist & physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778 and styled as Carl von Linné after 1761) for a genus of reptiles.

The use to describe the mechanical device which "makes a warning sound" was first recorded in 1879 when they were installed on steamboats and this may have been imitative of the similar French word.  In the course of the twentieth century, the things were adapted as audible warning devices for many purposes including air raids, emergency service vehicles and fire alarms.  In schools, workplaces and other geographically large sites, they were used to mark the start and finish of shifts, meal breaks etc.  As late as the 1940s, the spelling variation sireen also existed but it (like the Elizabethan adjectives sirenean, sirenian, sirenic, sirenical & sireny) is extinct although the writer & critic John Ruskin (1819–1900 and known for his fondness for nymphs), used sirenic so with that imprimatur, some modern aesthete might be tempted to revive the form. 

Odysseus and the Sirens

In Greek mythology, the Sirens were deadly creatures who used their lyrical and earthly charms to lure sailors to their death.  Attracted by their enchanting music and voices, the seduced seafarers would sail their ships too close to the rocky coast of the nymph's island and there be shipwrecked.  Not untypically for the myths of antiquity, the sirens are said to have had many homes.  The Romans said they lived on some small islands called Sirenum scopuli while later authors place them variously on the islands of Anthemoessa, on Cape Pelorum, on the islands of the Sirenuse, near Paestum, or in Capreae.  All were places with rocky coasts and tall cliffs.

Sirens and the Night (1865), oil on canvas by William Edward Frost (1810-1877).

It was Odysseus who most famously escaped the sirens.  Longing to hear their songs but having no wish to be shipwrecked, he had his sailors fill their ears with beeswax, rendering them deaf.  Odysseus then ordered them to tie him to the mast.  Sailing past, when he heard their lovely voices, he ordered his men to release him but they tightened the knots, not releasing him till the danger had passed.  Some writers claimed the Sirens were fated to die if a man heard their singing and escaped them and that as Odysseus sailed away they flung themselves into the water and drowned.  The idea of the sirens persists in idiomatic use:  The "siren sound" is used to refers to words or something which exerts a particular compelling attraction but a "siren call" can be used of something not directly audible such as the thoughts evoked by a painting or even a concept, populism, fascism & communism all described thus at times.

The Chrysler Air Raid Siren and the Firepower V8  

According to Guinness World Records, the loudest sirens ever were the 350-odd built by Chrysler for the US government in the early 1950s and installed around the country to warn of an impending nuclear attack by the Soviet Union.  The maximum volume the devices generated was recorded (at a distance of 100 feet (30.5 m)) as 138 decibels (dB), a level which meant a human would be deafened if within 200 feet (61 m) during their operation.  Guinness noted the compressor discharge throughput at peak volume was 74 m³ (2,610 cubic feet at 7 lb per square inch) of air per second and the physics of fluid dynamics (air a fluid in this context) was such that this would have caused a sheet of paper in the path spontaneously to ignite.  By comparison the now retired supersonic airline Concorde at take-off produced noise levels between 112-114 dB at a distance of 100 feet and even the after-burner equipped military jets (F-16, F-35 et al) haven’t been recorded as generating levels as high as 138 dB.

Although there were ebbs in the tensions, the “High Cold War” is regarded as the time between the early 1950s and mid 1960s, the public perception of which was dominated by the fear of nuclear war. The US government made many preparations for such an event, notably building vast underground facilities where essential personnel (members of the administration, the Congress and their families and servants) could live until it was safe to emerge into the post- apocalypse world).  The tax-payers who paid for these facilities were of course rather less protected but the government in 1952 did install warning sirens in cities; people might still be vaporized by comrade Stalin's (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) H-Bombs but they would know it was coming so there was that.

The early version was co-developed by Chrysler and Bell Labs and named the Chrysler Bell Victory Siren which sounded optimistic but although the acoustic properties met the specification, the drawback was the devices were manually controlled and required someone physically to be there to start the thing and, being directional, rotate it so the sound would be broadcast 360^o.  The obvious flaw was that were there to be a nuclear attack in the area, the job-description was self-sacrificial, something comrade Stalin would doubtless have thought just the part of the cost of war with the unfortunate soul posthumously to be awarded the coveted Герой Советского Союза (Hero of the Soviet Union) decoration.  However, neither the White House or the Pentagon like the optics of that and revised specifications were issued.

Photograph by Rob Storms of Chrysler Air Raid Siren atop Rochester Fire Department Maintenance Building, Rochester, Monroe County, New York.

Chrysler responded with a more elaborate device which was automated and remotely administrated, the Chrysler Air Raid Siren introduced in 1952.  It was powered by the corporation’s new 331 cubic inch (5.4 litre) Hemi-head V8, rated at what was then a stellar 180 HP (134 kW), a three-stage compressor added to increase output.  Instead of demanding a potentially doomed operator, there was a control panel connected (with nothing more than the two-pair copper cables which became familiar as Cat3) to dedicated phone lines so it could be activated either by local civil defense authorities or the military.  The big V8 provided sufficient power to both increase the dB and the geographical coverage, the siren able to be heard over an area of some 15.8 square miles (41 km³), an impressive number given the electric sirens used today for tornado and tsunami warnings have an effective footprint of only some 3.9 square miles (10 km³).

Chrysler Air Raid Siren being delivered, 1953.

In 1952, there was no engine better suited to the task than Chrysler’s new “FirePower” V8.  Applying their wartime experience building a number of high-output, multi-cylinder engines (the most remarkable a V16 aero-engine rendered obsolete by jet technology before it could be used), the FirePower featured hemispherical combustion chambers and was the corporation’s first use of overhead-valves.  Both designs had been around for decades but in time, Chrysler would make a (trade-marked) fetish of “Hemi”, continuing cheerfully to use the name for a range of V8s introduced in 2003 even though they were no longer a true hemi-head, the design unable to be adapted to meet modern exhaust emission laws.  The so-called “third generation” Hemi remains available still although how long it will last will be a matter of the interplay of politics and demand.  Doubtless, it’s on Greta Thunberg’s (b 2003) hit-list and that she and the engine debuted in the same year will impress her not at all.

Chrysler FirePower 392 cubic inch V8 in 1957 Chrysler 300C Convertible.

The FirePower was first sold in 1950 in 331 cubic inch (5.4 litre) form, growing over the decade first to 354 (5.8) and then 392 (6.4) before being retired in 1959, the wedge-headed alternative with increased displacement a cheaper path to power.  Chrysler and Imperial shared the engines but remarkably, in an approach which today must shock accountants and efficiency experts, the companion divisions (De Soto & Dodge) produced nine different hemi-head V8s with capacities between 241 (4.0) and 345 (5.6) with relatively little commonality of components between them all.  The last of the FirePowers were noted also for being one of the first offered with electronic fuel injection which offered real advantages over the mechanical systems then available in a handful of models in Europe and the US but the technology was then too fragile to be reliable and most of the 16 sold (reputedly all but one) were recalled and retro-fitted with a pair of faithful four barrel carburettors.  In 1964, the hemi-head was revived for a racing engine and, to satisfy the regulatory body which had been unimpressed with the use of such a thing in a series for “stock” cars, it was made available to the public between 1966-1971, this time actually called “Hemi”.  In 426 cubic inch (7.0 litre) form, it was this iteration which built the reputation which Chrysler still exploits.

Some 350 Chrysler Air Raid Sirens were built, all by the Marine & Industrial Engine division based in Trenton, Michigan, some still in service as late as the 1970s.  During the era of détente, the last were retired, some sold to museums or collectors while some were just abandoned because, mounted atop tall buildings to maximize their acoustic coverage, the cost of removal far exceed their value as units or scrap.  Three fully functioning Chrysler Air Raid Sirens still exist, one in a remote part of Texas where it’s safe to stage the occasional demonstration of the sound.  During these displays, the clear zone (minimum safe distance) extends 320 feet (97.5 m) but even at this range, anyone standing directly in front of the projection horns would find the experience uncomfortable, prolonged exposure likely to damage one’s hearing.  Although directional, there’s much “sound soak” otherwise in the proximity in the device just operating the siren from the side control panel requires a minimum hearing protection of 30 dB.

Lindsay Lohan as a siren; it would seem almost a calling.

One collector attracted to them was Don Garlits (b 1932) who in the post-war years was among the most innovative and successful drivers and builders in the sport of drag-racing which became wildly popular and it was with Chrysler Hemis he build his reputation.  In 1997, a documentary crew from the UK visited Garlits and saw one of the old sirens sitting neglected in the storeroom where it’d sat for decades after having spent some twenty years in the salt-laden air atop a Florida high-rise.  Remarkably, after doing little more than connecting a battery and checking the oil and coolant, once a carburetor had been bolted on with a can of gasoline (petrol) rigged up, it started almost immediately.  What was most surprising was that it had never before run on gasoline because the sirens had always used propane.  As Garlits over the decades discovered a ¼ mile at a time, the FirePower was a tough old thing.

Chrysler Air Raid Siren at the Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing, re-awakened after decades, 1997.

Limbo

Limbo (pronounced lim-boh)

(1) In (informal) Roman Catholic theology, a region on the border of hell or heaven, serving as the abode after death of unbaptized infants (limbo of infants) and of the righteous who died before the coming of Christ (limbo of the fathers, or limbo of the patriarchs); often with initial capital letter.

(2) A place or state of oblivion to which persons or things are regarded as being relegated when cast aside, forgotten, past, or out of date.

(3) An intermediate, transitional, or midway state or place.

(4) A place or state of imprisonment or confinement.

(5) A dance from the West Indies (originally restricted to men), in which the dancer bends backward from the knees and moves with a shuffling step under a horizontal bar that is lowered after each successive pass.  Among university under-graduates (and other disreputable types), the activity is now often combined with drinking contests where the bar's height is inversely proportional to the contestant’s consumption of alcohol.

(6) Used loosely, a synonym for oblivion, nothingness or nowhere.

(7) In the slang of the military slang, a demilitarized zone (DMZ).

(8) A colloquial form used to refer to a Limburger, a person from Limburg (the southernmost of the twelve provinces of the Netherlands; the French form being Limbourgeois).

1300–1350: From the Middle English, from the Medieval Latin phrase in limbō (“on hell's border” literally “on the edge”), the being construct in + limbō, ablative of limbus (edge, border) the term in Medieval Latin best translated as a “place bordering on hell”.  The West Indian English limba (to bend, easily bending) is relatively recent, emerging 1955-1960 and is of uncertain origin but most etymologists suggest it likely came from Jamaica, probably an alteration of limber as it is a test of physical agility.  Limbo is a noun & verb, limbo-like is an adjective (limbolike is a registered trademark and thus a noun), limboed & limboing are verbs; the noun plural is limbos or limboes.

Medieval conjecture which became informal theology

Surprisingly, despite the place it has in language and popular imagination, limbo has never formerly been part of Roman Catholic doctrine and was a bit of a medieval fudge.  It was championed by Italian Dominican friar, philosopher & theologian Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), taking hold in the western Church and perhaps most influential in the popularity was the Italian Dante (Dante Alighieri (circa 1265–1321) who, in his Divina Commedia (Divine Comedy (circa 1310-1321)) used limbo as the resting place for virtuous pagans.  Dante sticks in the mind.

In April 2007, early in his papacy, Benedict XVI (1927–2022; pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus 2013-2022) authorized the publication of “The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die without Being Baptised” which some suggested appeared to render defunct limbo, the place centuries of tradition and much teaching held was the place the souls of babies who die without baptism were sent.  An explanatory memorandum from the Church’s International Theological Commission accompanied the document, suggesting it was issued to correct what was “…an unduly restrictive view of salvation”.

The commission however stressed there was no change to Church doctrine.  It remains Church teaching that baptism removes original sin which stains all souls since the fall from grace in the Garden of Eden and that its conclusions should not be interpreted as questioning original sin or “…used to negate the necessity of baptism or delay the conferral of the sacrament”.  Instead, the document merely notes “… God is just and merciful and would not …exclude infants, who have no personal sins, from eternal happiness… from the kingdom of heaven”.  It added the need for publication was not without urgency because the number of “…non-baptised infants has grown considerably, and therefore the reflection on the possibility of salvation for these infants has become urgent”.

Christ in Limbo (1510), one of a series of twelve woodcuts (eleven scenes and a title page) from The Large Passion by Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528).

In theology, limbo had long been understood in two senses:  Firstly (denoted as limbus partum) as the temporary place of rest for the souls of the just awaiting the salvation of the Messiah and secondly (limbus infantium or limbus puerorum), as the final state of the souls of those who died without baptism yet without mortal sin.  Because the Church never officially defined this as doctrine, it’s regarded as theological supposition or, as Benedict put it “medieval conjecture”, constructed probably to avoid the creation of a loophole which unworthy sinners and lawyers might exploit to get into heaven.  All the same, scripture does seem explicit, Jesus teaching that no one “can enter into God’s kingdom without being begotten of water and Spirit” (John 3:5), thus the old assertion in the old Catechism that God Himself “…affirms that Baptism is necessary for salvation.” 

The term "in limbo" is now used to describe an uncertain, undecided, transitional (though not indeterminate) state or condition and can be applied to people, things or concepts.

In Constantinople, because the Byzantines were never as in thrall of Augustine as the folk in Rome, Limbo never really bothered the many but over the centuries, the issue attracted the attention of notables.  Saint Gregory Nazianzen (circa 329–390) implied somewhere like limbo might exist, believing the unfortunate infants would neither “…be admitted by the just judge to the glory of Heaven nor condemned to suffer punishment” and Tertullian (155–circa 220) before and Saint Ambrose (circa 340–397) after, concurred.  Saint Augustine of Hippo (354–430) was more stern and said there was no limbo, there was just Heaven and Hell and that of course unbaptized souls are sent to Hell because they were born in original sin and nor could they go to Purgatory since that is a pathway to Heaven.  All he would concede was of those in Hell, the torment of infants would be the mildest although he didn't go into detail.  Eight-hundred odd years later, Aquinas was more generous, noting the original sin was committed by the parents and not by the child and since (1) Hell was the place where unrepentant mortal sinners are sent for eternal punishment (2) only the baptized could enter Heaven, then (3) the souls of unbaptized children must go somewhere else and here was the (admittedly shaky) foundation of limbo.  In a quite modern flourish, Aquinas helpfully added that because they’d never been born, the infants would never have learned of the glories of Heaven so, not knowing what they’d missed, they’d probably find limbo rather nice.  It was a fudge worthy of any Lambeth conference.

Luca Signorelli (circa 1444-1523), The Resurrection of the Flesh (1499-1502) Fresco Chapel of San Brizio, Duomo, Orvieto.

The issue didn’t go away and in the eighteenth century, a radical group of neo-Augustinites, a kind of Romish version of the Republican Party's Freedom Caucus and known as the Jansenists, rejected limbo, the idea of which had for hundreds of years provided comfort to grieving parents, forcing Pope Pius VI (1717–1799; pope 1775-1799) in 1794 to issue the Papal Bull Auctorem Fidei (Of our Faith), condemning, inter alia, the denial that there is a place “which the faithful generally designate by the name of limbo for children”.  It was a rare official mention of limbo but well short of a definitive statement.  Interest was renewed in the twentieth century but Pope Pius XII (1876-1958; pope 1939-1958), hardly one fond of radical change, in 1943 issued a statement in the Holy See’s periodic gazette again neither defining nor rejecting limbo.  

So, press releases aside, the commission’s document suggests in the eight centuries between Aquinas and Benedict XVI, in limbo, not much has changed; the Catechism still asserts only that children who die before baptism are entrusted into the mercy of God.  Benedict XVI, no stranger to dancing on the head of a pin, seemed both to clarify and cloud the waters by saying limbo was only ever “medieval conjecture” and given there is no explicit answer from Scripture, people seem still free to make of it what they will.

Surplus

Surplus (pronounced sur-pluhs)

(1) Something that remains above what is used or needed.

(2) In agricultural economics, produce or a quantity of food grown by a nation or area in excess of its needs, especially such a quantity of food purchased and stored by a governmental program of guaranteeing farmers a specific price for certain crops.

(3) In accounting, the excess of assets over liabilities accumulated throughout the existence of a business, excepting assets against which stock certificates have been issued; excess of net worth over capital-stock value.

(4) In public finance, an excess of government revenues over expenditures during a certain financial year.

(5) In international trade, an excess of receipts over payments on the balance of payments.

(6) In economic theory, an unsold quantity of a good resulting from a lack of equilibrium in a market.  For example, if a price is artificially high, sellers will bring more goods to the market than buyers will be willing to buy.  In classical economics, the opposite of shortage.

(7) In Chancery law (and its successor courts), the remainder of a fund appropriated for a particular purpose.

1325–1375: From the Middle English surplus, from the Old French sorplus (remainder, extra), from the Medieval Latin superplūs (excess, surplus), the construct being super (over) + plūs (more).  Surplus in Italian is a borrowing from modern French where surplus has existed since the twelfth century.  In English, surplus has been used as an adjective since the fourteenth century.  Enjoying the same pronunciation, surplice and surplus are often confused.  A surplice is a liturgical vestment of the Christian Church, usually styled as a tunic of white linen or cotton material, with wide sleeves and often some lace embellishment or embroidered edges.  Lengths vary; in medieval times it reached almost to the ground but tends now to be shorter; some still retain the longer garments for the ceremonial.  As surplis, it was a thirteenth century Middle-English borrowing from the Anglo-French surpliz, a syncopated variant of Old French surpeliz, derived from the Medieval Latin superpellīcium (vestīmentum) over-pelt (garment), neuter of superpellīcius.  Construct was super (over) + pellīt(us) (clothed with skins or fur) + -ius (the adjectival suffix).  A clerical surplice is thus a kind of frock; a clerical surplus means too many priests.

Surplus Repression

German-American Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979) was a sociologist and philosopher, highly influential in the mid-late twentieth century.  Even today, Marcuse enjoys a cult following.

A critique of capitalism’s culture and economic arrangements, Marcuse's book Eros and Civilization (1655) drew, inter alia, from Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and described an alternative structure for society.  He didn’t reject Freud’s idea that repression of mans’ instinctive desires was necessary for civilization to endure but Marcuse distinguished between basic (or necessary) repression and surplus repression, detailing the differences between the biological vicissitudes of the instincts and the socially imposed.  His construct was that basic repression is that which man suppresses to permit peaceful societies to form; a repression or modification of the instincts being necessary “…for the perpetuation of the human race in civilization.”  Surplus repression meant those “…restrictions necessitated by [the] social domination” of the particular ruling-class or hegemony.  The purpose of surplus repression was to shape the instincts of individuals to conform to the requirements of modern capitalism, a surrender to what Marcuse called the “performance principle”, a construct building on Marx’s theories of alienation and surplus value.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, 2011.

Marcuse's writing did have the attraction of being more accessible than that of Marx or Freud (and certainly that of many neo-Marxists or Freudians) but that also meant it was easier for critics to cherry pick the points they found most objectionable.  For an explanation of why society need to be organized the way it was, conservatives seemed to prefer the rationalization of the "harsh but deliciously clever" English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) best known for his book Leviathan (1651) in which appeared the memorable passage describing the life of man in a world where there existed no restraining authorities forcing people to repress their worst instincts:

In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

Such a culture Hobbes called the "state of nature" by which he meant not an environmentally sustainable hippie commune but a place in which there was bellum omnium contra omnes (war of all against all) and murder went unpunished except by another murder.  Although the distinction is now an unfashionable one to draw, conservatives liked the way Hobbes seemed to know not all cultures were civilizations and that a little surplus repression was a small price to pay for for its benefits.  Hobbes lived through troubled times and his views on the importance of stable, strong governance should be understood as the writings of one who had seen what the alternative looks like but as a list of exculpatory bullet-points, it's something which can be ticked off by by the Ayatollahs in Tehran or the Chinese Communist Party.  Marcuse is not so transportable.

Sometimes, it really was read for the articles.  Michael G Horowitz's profile of Marcuse was published in the September 1970 edition of Playboy.

Marcuse’s work was acknowledged as a landmark in the synthetization of Marxist and psychoanalytic theories but was criticized for being just another of the utopian visions written of since antiquity, work cut adrift from the moorings of the political reality which seemed in the 1960s more urgently to demand attention.  Marcuse acknowledged the distance of his work from reality and conceded his theories could reach actualization only by revolution or gradual infiltration of the structures of the power-elite and, after the disappointments of the moments in 1968 when revolution fleeting was in the air, he preferred the latter.  German student activist Rudi Dutschke (1940–1979) had advocated a "…march through the institutions of power", radically to change society from within government and cultural institutions by becoming part of the machinery and structures under which capitalism operated.  This too owed a debt to the theories of hegemony and Marcuse wrote to Dutschke in 1971 saying he “regarded your notion of the "march through the institutions" as the only effective way.”  It all failed.  It was the highly unusual coincidence of circumstances in the post war (1948-1973) Western world which briefly in 1968 made the system seem internally vulnerable and the hegemony learned the lesson: they would control who manned the institutions that matter and the troublemakers could march through things like theatre trusts, literary festivals and art gallery committees.