It’s a Free Country
You don’t hear it very often these days, but there used to be an extremely common expression, which seemed to have been coined mainly to get up other people’s noses.
That expression was, “It’s a free country”.
It could be used permissively:
Me: Do you mind if I smoke in here?
You: Go ahead. It’s a free country.
Or dismissively:
You: Could you please extinguish that smelly cigarette?
Me: Get stuffed, it’s a free country.
In either usage, it’s a rather feeble act of passive-aggression.
And what does it really mean? What the hell is a free country? It brings to mind some imaginary Third World country which isn’t “free” and people are forced by the State to have manners and be decent to one another.
Substituting “country” for “world” in the age of the Internet and generously overlooking the fact that we don’t live in a free country and one cannot always do what one likes, “It’s a free country” refers to the fact that we have a broadly Libertarian moral system. Few would disagree with the idea that “So long as your actions do not harm another, you’re free to do what you like”.
But there lies the problem. The entire problem with a Libertarian system is inherent in the expression “It’s a free country”. We too often forget the “So long as your actions do not harm another” proviso. Somewhere along the way, we’ve abandoned that important part of it and Libertarianism, now tried up with strong forces like the free market, has become equal to the statement “I’ll have my fun and that’s all that matters, woe betide anyone who tries to stop me”.
Which isn’t really on is it?
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Issue Eight Contents
I’ve been travelling the world for a couple of weeks, but somehow managed to release a New Escapologist along the way.
Because of unreliable Internet while travelling, I didn’t post much about the actual contents of Issue 8, which in my opinion is our strongest and most pleasantly readable issue yet. Lots of funny stuff, light things, and practical nuggets. The artwork is also especially good this time and there’s a great interview with Luke Rhinehart to boot. The theme is Staying In and includes homey topics.
Here’s what the contents page looks like:
And here’s a breakdown of everything:
Editorial: Welcome Home. Robert Wringham on the good life and the merits of staying in.
The Vegetarian Escapologist. Mark Wentworth’s funny article on the merits of being a veggie.
Drawing the Line. Neil Scott on integrity.
Towards Becoming a Good Citizen. Interview with artist Ellie Harrison.
Up in Smoke. Matt Caulfield on the pleasures of cigars, and what that means to idle types.
Escape Thought. Neil Scott’s theory that it’s possible to think too much.
We Are the Makers of Magic. Steven Rainey’s fascinating article about home music production.
Going Off Going Out. A witty piece by Dickon Edwards about the effect of aging on one’s social life.
Culture with an Open Fly. Brilliant piece about the life and work John Cowper Powys, by Tim Blanchard. Hilarious illustration by Philip Dearest here too.
Six Sides of George Cockcroft. Robert Wringham interviews Luke Rhinehart, author of the famous and devastating novel The Dice Man.
The Road Home. Mark Wentworth on what home means to the seasoned world traveller.
The Alternative Dwellings. A guide to communes, squats, and tiny homes by Nicolette Stewart.
How to Art. A brilliant guide to art collecting for Escapologists, by Samara Leibner.
Lovely Tea. Robert Wringham on the perfect cuppa.
The Sleepwear of Reason. Reggie C. King defends those people who choose to wear pajamas out of doors or bring work into bed. Great artwork from Lawrence Gullo here too.
Your Home is a Blanket Fort. Good living tips from Sipaway Jackson.
Outdoors In. Hilarious article by Jon Ransom about how non-outdoorsy types might like to introduce nature into the home.
Echo and Poe. Alex Jorgensen investigates the fringes of the Internet.
The Joy of Sickness. Robert Wringham on the pleasures of illness and the concept of ‘Dark Epicureanism’.
You can buy Issue 8 in print or in PDF at the shop.
Issue 8 has also been added to the complete back catalogue package and to the complete PDF package.
Enjoy!
An Escapologist’s Diary. Part 33.
Time for a belated End of Year Review and Report to My Imaginary Shareholders.
The purpose of these Diary columns is to help answer the question of “what would I do if I didn’t go to work?”. So bear with me, while I rabble on about my year. I’ll keep it brief.
2012 was a pretty mellow year, very idler-friendly and without as many landmark events as 2011. The main thing has been adjusting to my somewhat isolated but luxuriously lazy life in Montreal: a city of extreme climates, both political and actual. This year, if I’ve been not navigating a tricky conversation in French or marching alongside protesting students with their proud red squares and V masks, I’ve been trudging through record-levels of snow and wondering why Pussy Riot-style balaclavas aren’t more popular here. Still, it all helps to keep the rent down.
New Escapologist Issue Eight out now!
Just completed before the year is out! Available, as usual, in print and PDF at the shop.
This issue features a very special interview with Dice Man author Luke Rhinehart.
Subscriber and pre-order copies will be shipped this week.
Dice Man interview
We can now announce the Issue Eight big interview. It’s surely our most exciting to date.
Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s the writer of The Dice Man: Luke Rhinehart.
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Reggie and Aislinn for Christmas
Our friends and regular New Escapologist contributors, Reggie C. King and Aislínn Clarke, are the masterminds behind Wireless Mystery Theatre.
Anyone who came to our Issue 6 launch party in Edinburgh last year will already have experienced their splendor.
A couple of weeks ago, WMT played to a thousand-strong audience at the Ulster Hall in Belfast. The show, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, was broadcast live on BBC Radio.
What better way to spend an hour of Christmas Eve than with this performance? Enjoy the show for free on the BBC iPlayer.
Congratulations are due to the WMT. It’s quite a thing.
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Flitcraft
In The Maltese Falcon, there’s a digression in which Sam Spade tells the story of Charles Flitcraft.
It illustrates a good part of the appeal of Absurdity to the Escapologist: the fact that you really can just walk away if you choose to.
Flitcraft is a modestly successful estate agent who, after narrowly missing being killed by a falling piece of masonry, decides to walk out on his life.
Flitcraft had been a good citizen and a good husband and father, not by any outer compulsion, but simply because he was a man most comfortable in step with his surroundings. He had been raised that way. The people he knew were like that. The life he knew was a clean orderly sane responsible affair. Now a falling beam had shown him that life was fundamentally none of these things. He, the good citizen-husband-father, could be wiped out between office and restaurant by the accident of a falling beam. He knew then that men died at haphazard like that, and lived only while blind chance spared them.
I came to Flitcraft via Oracle Night by Paul Auster, which includes a brief examination of the character and an expanded exploration of the idea.
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Coquettish
A sneak peek at something special.
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The Lavender Hill Mob
Instead of changing as usual at Charing Cross, I came straight on to Rio de Janeiro. — Henry Holland
I just saw The Lavender Hill Mob for the first time. I wish I’d seen it years ago. It had moments of such comic and existential beauty that I found myself wanting to cry. Watch it!
The film tells the story of Henry Holland (Alec Guinness): a bowler-hatted bank employee who daily supervises the minting of millions while waiting on a pay cheque. “I was a potential millionaire,” he says, “yet I had to be satisfied with eight pounds, fifteen shillings, less deductions”.
He eventually finds the missing piece in his plan to steal a million pounds’ worth of gold doubloons with the idea that he might flee to a life of leisure in Rio.
It’s quite the Escapological film. Some notes about that:
1. Even though the film is about a crime, there’s no doubt in our minds that it’s a morally-justified act. We know that Holland is right to steal the money because his alternative fate — a life of undignified, repetitive servitude — is unthinkable. We’re on Holland’s side immediately. This is because the world loathes the rat race. Holland has already essentially paid for his crime through twenty years of toil. Morally, he’s practically owed the money.
2. More than the money, his Great Escape is a matter of personal respect, of taking control for once, and of reclaiming his lost dignity. Sound familiar? And to the extent that money is part of the heist, it is as a means rather than an end.
3. There are moments of poetry in which tokens of Henry’s formerly dreary life ironically become his salvation. Towards the end of the film, he is able to elude the police by merging into a crowd of anonymous, identically-dressed London commuters. Likewise, the gold is smuggled into Paris by molding it into souvenir Eiffel Tower models: the very junk objects which kept Holland’s partner in servitude for so long.
4. There are moments of brotherly recognition between the two men that they’re doing something sensational: launching a self-hatched scheme, their own system-beating escape plan finally coming to fruition. There is nothing in the world so exciting.
And it’s all done with well-dressed, softly-spoken, gentlemanly decorum.
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Our Issue 8 appeal has just about succeeded. Huge thanks to everyone who bought print issues, PDF packages, or pre-ordered their Issue Eights. We now have enough money to print the issue. Huzzah! Alas, about 10% of this sum comes from shipping charges, so we’ve not quite broken even on the scheme yet. Do consider helping us if you’ve not already.
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Defaulting
In relation to our recent post about peer pressure and living within a certain expected mode, our Eudaemonology editor Neil sends us this.
The career you end up working in depends chiefly on what you saw as options when you were just starting to enter the workforce. That was a very narrow period of time, during which you were only aware of a limited number of options. You went with whatever made sense at that time. The result — what you do today — is more or less happenstance.
Friends too, are mostly in our lives as defaults. Most of us have found some incredible and inspiring people just by letting happenstance deliver them, but once we have some stable friendships we become complacent and stop actively looking for friends that really resonate with our values and interests, if we ever did at all.
Unless we take the bull by the horns, we end up as products of destiny rather than masters of it. Not saying that’s a bad thing but it does raise the question of how much free will we really have. Again.
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