From Social Network to Groupthink: One Town’s Rejection of the Global Village

In Dash Shaw’s Body World, an alien drug which allows the user access to the thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations of others, serves as a metaphor for online social networks. On such sites people reveal intimate details about themselves because of the illusion that they are communicating with friends. Professor Paulie Panther is symbolically an ambassador from the global village to a town that is sheltered from the outside world in a society that has not fully progressed from the type of print culture that we are emerging from now (McLuhan, 67). There, Panther discovers the telepathic drug and introduces it to the collective consciousness of the town’s population. However, when a society of non-interactive individuals merges their minds into one super organism, the result is not a collective intelligence, but rather a groupthink (McCluhan, 157) (Shaw, Chapter 10, Panel 15).

Social interactivity on the Internet is a type of artificial psychic communication. Anonymity on the Web, or the illusion of such, allows users to reveal thoughts they would never vocalize. This creates an interconnectivity based on mutual mind reading. Comment threads responding to posted information online, or entered on instant messaging sites, have a tendency to merge the thoughts of many into one repeated idea. For the life of a given thread then, the clients involved with its creation effectively merge into one mind. Online social networking services create the illusion of social acceptance by drawing people into friendships or circles, which allow them to be overtly intimate without knowing each other. The way that messages are posted on Twitter, for example, closely resemble the fragmented shape and size of our random thought processes. Every day one can read news reports of public figures who, beyond all reason, jeopardize their public image by “tweeting” thoughts that they would never voice in public because they know that saying such things would be offensive. If indeed there is something about Twitter that compels people to mind-write, then it is more than just a metaphor to conclude that the readers of such tweets are in fact mind readers. In Body World, the citizens of Bony Borough inadvertently become part of a truly telepathic version of such an online meeting place, after Professor Panther smokes the strange plant from the local woods and gains access to the mental status updates, visceral video galleries and psychic instant messages of the minds of those nearby. His consciousness is then extended into the multi-sensory medium of online interaction. Initially this communication is a positive experience, but with each new psyche that becomes part of the network, the exchanges become more and more complex because each new member shares all of the negative memories they retain of everyone else. Panther realizes in the end that the final result of such a merging of minds will not be interactive, but rather “some kind of hive mind.”(Shaw, Chapter 11, Panel 21)

“Bony” Borough is the skeleton around which Body World is constructed. The “body” of Body World is the highly specialized social structure that is supported by that skeleton. Unlike the fully wired tribal world outside, the town is symbolically still part of the Gutenberg Galaxy where textbooks compel students to conform, and where sport is the only form of art accessible to many minds (McLuhan, 241). The local celebrities are the athletes, whose drug of choice is Diegunk (Shaw, Chapter 2, Between Panels 81-82). This glue like substance, in contrast to the alien plant that expands each user’s awareness to include that of others, produces instead a more individualistic experience. It serves to confine the user’s awareness to the body, thus resulting in the impairment of mental functioning, as the Diegunk user begins to feel pieces missing from his brain ( Shaw, Chapter 8, Panel 231). Diegunk reflects more the general character of Bony Borough, which is a “body world”, rather than a “bodymind” world like the world outside. Later, when the telepathic social network deteriorates into a groupthink, it is the person who has lost the most pieces of his brain who controls the action of that entity.

The designer of the rationalized conformity conceived to oppose the social network is the science teacher, Jem Jewel. Although the people of Bony Borough are not strangers to social networking or the Internet, the town’s attitude to such things is reflected symbolically in Miss Jewel, who is Professor Panther’s official contact there.  She tells him “I don’t have a blog, I like to keep my secrets”. (Shaw, Chapter 1, Panel 66) It is, however, when Panther suddenly finds himself privy to Jem’s secrets that he first realizes that smoking the otherworldly drug has given him the ability to read minds. He receives the negative thoughts that Jewel posts about him on her consciousness, but thinks that they are his own mental reactions to her. Panther and Jewel have entered into a psychic social network, a collective intelligence. Jewel has been willing, up until this point, to spend the night with Panther despite her secret disgust for him. Yet when she hears him speak aloud the exact same repulsion for her that she has for him, she is offended. She leaves, as she does not want to be part of a social network that exposes her own internal dialogue (Shaw, Chapter 3, Panel 354). Beyond, however, the simple offence of exposure, Jewel harbours an even deeper hatred for online communication. She is haunted by the memory of the Internet having betrayed her when, as an adolescent, she was lured by social networking into an abusive situation (Shaw, Chapter 10, Panel 135). This experience colours her belief that the World Wide Web draws its users into being part of a super organism, a collective world intelligence that would unhinge the harmonious society of Bony Borough. Jewel does not want to live in a tribal society in which, as people draw closer to one another they become increasingly more savage toward their neighbours. She opts to oppose this invasion by participating in a groupthink alternative, which is ironically enhanced by the very drug that brings about the telepathic social networking experience. This hive mind decision on the part of the entire town is to put to death the carrier of the social networking disease, Paulie Panther. As the time of purging approaches, Jewel plays the role of mind guard to prepare the members of the groupthink for their moment of truth by making sure they are not swayed by dissenting information (Shaw, Chapter 10, Panel 15). She, for example, makes sure that Billy Borg knows that Paulie Panther had sex with Borg’s girlfriend, thereby ensuring that Billy’s anger will trigger the groupthink’s execution of Panther (Shaw, Chapter 6, Panel 146).

In Body World there is an analogy between the anti-social Paulie Panther’s desire to enter into group consciousness, and the way that otherwise non-social people reveal their darkest secrets on social networking sites. Because of his non-conformism and prickly personality, Panther does not have a vibrant social life. He is somewhat of an outcast from his own electronically tribalized society. According to Marshall McLuhan, tribalism forces people closer together and when this happens “they become more and more savage.” (YouTube, 2012) Because Panther is a loner, his savagery tends to be one by which he inflicts pain and the threat of death only upon himself (Shaw, Chapter 1, Panel 59). He is an endangered loner like his feline namesake, and yet he finds ways to connect with others. As a medicine man from the tribal society of the global village, Panther is always willing to help people chemically free their body mind from the material plane (Shaw, Chapter 3, Panel 36). Panther’s motto is “Go in to get out”, which is mirrored in the phrase “Turn on, tune in, drop out”, made famous by another medicine man of the Global Village, Timothy Leary, but which was authored by Marshall McLuhan (Shaw, Chapter 8, Panel 98)(Strauss, 337). The meaning of Panther’s motto is that an exploration of one’s own consciousness leads to freedom. However, in the case of the collective consciousness of Bony Borough, and of the town itself, once Panther goes in, he can’t get out. His electronic connection to his tribe is severed and he is cut off from the rituals of his social group after smoking the last of his tribal cigarettes (Shaw, Chapter 1, Panel 184). Trapped in Bony Borough, Panther realizes that his efforts to free the minds of the citizens of the town have failed. Instead he has inadvertently introduced the town to the hive mind that he philosophically opposes. In a further twist of irony, Panther, succumbing to his own self-inflicted savagery, finally enters into agreement with the groupthink of Bony Borough in regard to his own execution Shaw, Chapter 11, Panel 230).

Body World is not an anti-digital story, but rather a cautionary tale concerning interactive digital media. Although the Internet is a useful tool for such non-interactive forms of mass communication as cheaply publishing a graphic novel, or for emailing questions to its author, Dash Shaw, through the story, advises users of social networks to tread carefully in the more interactive online domains. Perhaps everyone is not ready to know everything about everybody else. It is possible that there is a limit to how far one’s consciousness can expand by entering the minds of others. Such an outward spread may ultimately result in a feeling of identity loss that compels the minds of web surfers to align themselves with those of the lowest common denominator of online society.

An echo to the moral of the story of Body World can be found in Dash Shaw’s choice not to provide an interactive forum for readers of the web comic on his web site. Because instant messaging is an extension of the psyche, such a message board would encourage the same kind of mind melding among commenters as occurs for the characters in Body World. The overall result of such interaction would be for contributors to respond most often to the lowest common denominator of the collective intelligence of any given comment thread. Shaw instead provides a link to email, which, unlike a message forum, is an extension of writing. Not being interactive, this medium allows time for a thought process to take place between each comment and response. Although the web comic, like the online comment forum, is an interactive medium, rather than extending the psyche, it is an extension of the sense of touch (McLuhan, 164). The spaces between panels in comic art compel the reader to interact with them by filling in the passage of time between them. The message of a web comic then, is very different than that of an online message board. The latter medium, in placing so many minds in close proximity, compels them to react savagely out of fear of losing their identities in the mix.

Works Cited

McLuhan, Marshall. The Medium is the Massage. Corte Madera. Gingko Press. 2001

McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media. New York. McGraw-Hill. 1965

Shaw, Dash. Body World. http://www.dashshaw.com/prelude.html 10 Nov 2012.

Strauss, Neil. Everyone Loves You When You're Dead. New York. HarperCollins. 2011.

tvochannel. Marshall McLuhan in Conversation. YouTube.com.Web. 25 Nov 2012.

John Stadig at Alcatraz

   (The factual information in this story was compiled by Darrell McBreairty for his book Alcatraz Eel: the John Stadig Files. I made up certain details, like for instance the name of the first movie that was shown at Alcatraz)

    On August 4, 1934, because of his attempt to escape from the McNeil Island Prison, John Stadig was transferred to Alcatraz. He was one of the first fifty civilian inmates to be sent there.

   As the prison ferry crossed the seething waters of the bay, he could see the Rock taking form in the grey fog as they drew closer. With barely a tree to be seen, it foreboded a sense that his next several years would be lifeless. At the dock, while being taken from the boat, he turned his head out over the water and could see the Golden Gate Bridge catching sunlight in the distance, even as it began to rain on Alcatraz.

   He was put into a van and driven up the hill to his new home, then marched into the basement to be processed. He was taken to a large shower room, commanded to strip and wash, but had to wear the stare of an armed guard the whole time. Then he was told to walk through an ankle deep pool of greenish disinfectant. It stung slightly as he sloshed his way across to line up with his fellow new cons at the other side.

   A prison trustee, who’d been standing in the background, picked up a metal bowl and walked towards them. Stadig wondered at first if they were going to be handed out snacks while standing there naked, but then as the prisoner came closer John picked up the strong odour of mothballs and he could see that the bowl was filled with some kind of blue ointment. Then one by one each arrival was commanded to step forward, while the convict approached him and, with a wooden paddle, smeared the stuff into his pubic hair and armpits. Stadig watched with pity as the senior inmate performed his duty, and wondered if this would be the result of good behaviour on Alcatraz: the “privilege” of dabbing camphorated salve on the balls of other prisoners.

   They were told to remain in line.  Stadig suddenly heard the authoritarian sound of a metal door shutting above him. He looked up, and at the top of a stairway there was a prematurely bald man in a white smock. He wore round wire glasses and looked something like a mad scientist from a movie. As the odd looking man descended the stairs, he was carrying, with strange delicacy, a large aluminum bowl, and once he reached the bottom, Stadig could see that it was filled with the fingers of rubber gloves.               

   He put the bowl on a table, turned to face the new prisoners, and then pointed his index finger at the ceiling. Stadig looked up for a second until he realized the bald man was just positioning his finger so he could slip on one of the gloves. He then stepped around behind them as the first man in line was commanded by a screw to bend over and touch his toes. The mad scientist then shoved his finger up the con’s ass for what seemed like a long time, to probe for smuggled items. After that he walked back to the table, discarded the used glove, took a new one and went back behind. This repeated until the rectums of every one of the fresh fish had been thoroughly explored.

   Stadig was then given a grey, one-size-fits-all heavy woolen jumpsuit. Luckily he was tall, because it looked like a deflated balloon on some of the cons beside him. His uniform had the number forty-six sewn large on the chest and at the same height on the back. Later on he learned that the numbers were big so they made easy targets if they had to be shot at from the towers.

   They were then told that the next stop would be the mess hall. The good news was that they could pile as much food as they wanted onto their plates. The bad news was that if they didn’t eat every bit of it they would be put in the hole on nothing but bread and water for one day.

   After the meal Stadig was introduced to his cell, which was about two meters by two and a half meters.  The ceiling was two and a half meters above him with a twenty-watt bulb at the center. He noticed there was no switch to turn it on or off.

   That night Stadig was kept awake by the voices of other inmates. Conversations between cells were forbidden, but several cons were raving in their sleep and calling out through their submerged pain all night long. As nights turned to weeks he came to recognize each voice and could hear their desperation growing, their sanity slipping away as time moved on and on inside the unchanging machine in which they were unmoving parts.

   As if to add percussion to that symphony of insane voices, Stadig could also hear the sound of gunshots almost every night after the lights went out. That first time, he wondered if someone had tried to escape, but he found out soon that except for Sundays the guards would pass the graveyard shift by using dummies for target practice.     Afterwards they would place the soft mannequins, with bullet holes in the chest and head, in the walkways so the prisoners could see them on the way to breakfast.

   After finally getting to sleep in the wee hours, Stadig was startled at six in the morning by what sounded like a fire alarm. He would come to know that bell as the only timepiece the prisoners at Alcatraz would have. He was told that there would be another bell in twenty minutes, and if he was not dressed by that time any privileges that day such as the yard or library would be revoked. Since he was not allowed to wear a watch he had to guess the span of twenty minutes.

   That first morning turned out to be Stadig’s shaving day. He was instructed to put a matchbox on the shelf just outside of the bars of his cell in which a guard would place a razor blade. He was told he had to finish shaving and have the blade back in the box in three minutes or else he’d be thrown in solitary. The shaving soap was cheap, and the sink in his cell only gave cold water, but he finished his shave. He was on his way to put the blade back in the matchbox when he heard a loud tussle going on in the corridor. He looked out and saw one of his fellow new arrivals being wrestled to the floor because he’d refused to shave. Four guards held him down, while the fifth shaved him without soap or water.

   Next the cells were opened and every prisoner had to step out to stand and be counted. After breakfast there was another count, and every thirty minutes no matter whether in the yard or the library or on work detail. No matter what they were doing the prisoners had to stop to be counted when the bell rang.

   There was an hour of free time in the yard before they were sent to work, which was mostly doing the laundry of local soldiers or cleaning the prison. This lasted until lunch and after that they had to work again until 4:30. On weekends they were allowed yard time instead of work. Dinner every day was at 5:00, and then they were all in their cells from 5:30 until lights out at 9:30. John Stadig was lucky that he could read, because that was all there was to do during those last four hours of the day. Many prisoners were either illiterate or so barely competent at reading that the attempt would be a source of frustration for them.

   After about three weeks the routine settled in so completely that any slight variation was a source of excitement for John Stadig. One night he noticed that there were more guards on duty and that they seemed more tense than usual. There were rumours that slowly got passed from cell to cell that night through the pipe tapping code, and sure enough, the next morning at breakfast, looking very small in his too big jump-suit, sitting and eating in the mess hall just like any other con, was Al Capone.

   Yard time was a precious part of the day. To be out under the open sky at least gave the prisoners’ senses a little freedom. One rare sunny day in early September when Stadig was outside with the other inmates, he walked to where a patch of sunlight was warming a wall and leaned against it. He lit up a cigarette and watched the other prisoners toss a ball around. At that moment he suddenly felt tranquil and content, and even thought that maybe his time at Alcatraz wouldn’t be so bad after all. It was just then that a guard approached to tell him to step away from the wall. “Why?” Stadig asked, “Will I hurt it?” The guard reported him for insolence and also complained that Stadig had given him “several threatening and defiant looks”. Because of this he lost yard privileges for a month.

   As autumn arrived and the weather got colder and wetter, John Stadig and his fellow prisoners had to spend more and more time indoors dealing with the boredom brought on by inactivity. They could accept for the most part that they were living in a cage and that their lives were being mechanized, but one thing they considered unfair at Alcatraz was not being able to at least look at a magazine or see a film from time to time. Stadig and some others began circulating a petition to ask for some of these small pleasures to be occasionally allowed. The warden was angry that the convicts in his prison thought they had any right to question his authority. He could often be heard during the next few weeks shouting to one of his aides or into the phone: “Nobody is going to run this prison except me!” He found out which prisoners started the petition rolling and put them in solitary confinement for three days. John Stadig was not among them.

   After a month of resistance though, the warden relented. Perhaps he’d given in to pressure from his superiors in the California Department of Corrections, but the first movie ever shown at Alcatraz was The Thin Man, starring William Powell and Myrna Loy, on Thanksgiving of 1934.

    

Alcatraz

   (This piece is based on research published by Darrell McBreairty in Alcatraz Eel: the John Stadig Files)

   It was during the time of the California gold rush that the United States first got the idea to build a fortress on Alcatraz Island. The reason was to protect its newfound wealth from peg-legged pirates or whoever else they were afraid was going to rob their coffers. One imagines President Zachary Taylor at the time as some crotchety old bent over prospector rattling his fist at the Pacific horizon and shouting in a dusty voice, “Our gold! We can’t let ‘em take our gold!”

   It turned out after all that no one came to try to un-stuff the lumpy mattresses of the United States government. The fortress on Pelican Island sat uselessly for two decades until the Civil War broke out. At that point the army decided it would be an ideal place for holding captured rebels, surrounded as it was by the spine-eating cold and the swim fighting currents of San Francisco Bay. But it was during the Spanish-American War that they raised it to its full, dark potential, when four hundred and fifty POWs were crammed inside of its walls.

   By 1934 the United States Army, with no wars to keep it rich, could no longer afford to maintain the Alcatraz Military Prison. The Department of Justice however was prospering at the time from the increase of crime caused by the mass poverty of the great depression, and they took it over. They wired it for electricity; they flooded every utility tunnel with cement, and fortified every cell and cellblock with modern steel. With all the money they had to blow on renovations they decided to get especially fancy with the ceiling of the cafeteria, where they installed tear gas canisters that could be triggered from the outside. However, they didn’t take it into consideration the fact that the guards would never leave the dining area. So if a riot were to occur, the teargas would also be dropped on them.

   Alcatraz was designed physically to be one of the strongest prisons in existence and administratively to be the harshest and least forgiving of any other correctional facility. No crime committed on the outside world would get someone sentenced to Alcatraz. To end up there you had to already be a prisoner somewhere else, and a bad one. Alcatraz was where you were sent when no other prison could handle you.

   Though there was some access to the prison library at Alcatraz, inmates were not allowed to read or hear about current events through newspapers or radios. There were also no movies, no plays, and no entertainment of any other kind. The intention of such extreme isolation was to make “the Rock” an island of men who were dead to the world. It was crucial to the administration that all 212 men understand that whether by serving their time and being released, or by staying for the rest of their lives, Alcatraz was the last prison they would ever know.

Instructions for Electroshock Therapy

Plug the Female end of the cord into the place where it’s meant to go,
Plug the Male end into any, any, any old electric hole.
Now flick the switch,
the light is green,
we need to wait now to warm up the machine
we’re wearing white and we’re feeling clean
for shock therapy!
We strap their legs and their arms
for shock therapy!
They can’t do any harm without their memory!
Shock therapy!
And if you think someone’s insane
why don’t you drive some lightning through their brain?
They won’t remember who to blame
for shock therapy!

Undress the patient and then lay them down just like a sacrifice.
To avoid any bruises let no metal touch the skin,
that’s my advice.
Now take a razor and shave the hair
around the temples, then rub electrode-jelly there,
put some on the electrodes and we’re soon prepared
for shock therapy!
Under fluorescent glow!
Shock therapy!
You know their flesh looks so cold under that canopy
for Shock therapy!
We dance some sparks through twisted wires
and randomly black out the stars.
Best of all it doesn’t leave any scars.
Shock therapy!

Insert and fasten the mouthpiece so the patient won’t bite their tongue,
slip a pillow underneath the back to reduce the spinal motion,
now turn the shock-power-switch on
and rotate the dial to choose the voltage you want,
to serve another cold meal in the restaurant
of Shock therapy!
Let’s fry some frontal lobes with shock therapy!
Add some gelled electrodes to the recipe
of shock therapy!
But if you want to make it work
use a tight rubber belt to hold those spastic jerks.
Let’s burn up the temples and raise the church
of shock therapy!

Keep in mind that every patient has a different convulsive threshold,
so start at three-tenths of a second at ten or twenty volts.
But the voltage on the screen
is not the voltage in the human being,
so let’s meditate upon the golden mean
of shock therapy:

Multiply the patient’s current by the machine’s resistance,
then subtract from the meter voltage.
Is all of this making sense?
Now push the start-shock button on,
and keep your finger there until the shock is done,
secure the jaw and force the shoulders down
for shock therapy!

We’re looking for the threshold
in shock therapy,
but if convulsive codes have not been breached
in shock therapy,
either the threshold has not been found,
or a delayed attack is coming around
in ten to twenty seconds on the killing ground
of shock therapy!

If unconsciousness follows the charge a delayed attack will come,
but if you’re looking for a grande mal seizure, just raise the voltage some.
Two-hundred and fifty volts
at point-one seconds could deliver some jolt,
so it helps us to remember it’s the patient’s fault
in shock therapy!
to get a grande mal seizure,
shock therapy,
you know it couldn’t be easier, get one right away.
Shock therapy!
Just two-hundred volts
at point-fifteen seconds makes them shake like jello,
though for the rest of their lives they will be walking slow
from shock therapy!

For details on injections of amytal and other drugs,
just in case you want to reduce the violence of these convulsions,
refer to current literature,
so now we’ll open our books to page thirty-four
as we all join together now to sing a prayer
to shock therapy!

The Princess and the Pea Happy Song

There's a lot
going on
but I'm never really part of it,
though sometimes I might tumble
through a flaw in some bad masonry
while leaning on a wall
that protects some small society
like this one
where I've landed,
splashing in your acid bloodstream
on this stage
where I wait
to be eaten by your antibodies.

And I love depression.
It's so deep and thick and cool
that at the bottom of its pool
in my depression
I can sleep safe as a pea
 beneath a hundred mattresses.
Yes I love depression.
Oh but then some damned Princess comes along.

Here I am
all alone
with a multitude of satellites.
To each I give two gifts
they have solitude to quench their thirsts & social inclinations
for emotional toilet seats.
They're happy
well fed machines
self cleaning, self polluting,
self repairing, self destroying.
They're almost independent.

But they love depression.
It's so deep and thick and cool
that at the bottom of its pool
 in our depression
we can sleep safe as a pea
beneath a hundred mattresses.

Yes, you and everyone of you loves depression.
Oh but then some damned Princess comes along.

La recette de l'amour fou by Serge Gainsbourg and my translation

C                                      F                          C

Dans un boudoir introduisez un coeur bien tendre
               E                      A               E

Sur canapé laissez s'asseoir et se détendre
                   D7               G7

Versez une larme de porto
                   D7                  A7

Et puis mettez-vous au piano

          D

Jouez Chopin
     D7 D  G7

Avec dédain
              D7     G7     

Egrenez vos accords
     D7       A7

Et s'il s'endort
    D7      G7           C

Alors là, jetez-le dehors

C                                      F                          C

Le second soir faites revenir ce coeur bien tendre
                   E                                A                      E

Faites mijoter trois bons quarts d'heure à vous attendre
                   D7                 G7

Et s'il n'est pas encore parti
                D7                      A7

Soyez-en sûr c'est qu'il est cuit
                     D

Sans vous trahir
       D7  D  G7

Laissez frémir
              D            G7     

Faites attendre encore
      D7       A7

Et s'il s'endort
    D7      G7           C

Alors là, jétez-le dehors

C                                            F                 C

Le lendemain il ne tient qu'à vous d'être tendre
               E                     A                   E

Tamisez toutes les lumières et sans attendre
               D7                       G7

Jouez la farce du grand amour
                 D7                   A7

Dites "jamais", dites "toujours"
                  D

Et consommez
       D7DG7

Sur canapé
                   D         G7     

Mais après les transports
         D7      A7

Ah! s'il s'endort
               D7      G7    C

Alors là, foutez-le dehors

Recipe for Foolish Love

In a boudoir place a heart well tenderized

On a sofa let it sit and rest a while

Pour in a splash of Merlot 

and put yourself on the piano

to play Chopin

with a pinch of distain. 

Find where to harmonize

But if it doesn’t rise

Then toss the meal outside

 

The second night let that heart begin to stew

Let it simmer for a full hour waiting for you

And if it’s there when you arrive

You can be sure it’s nicely fried

It won’t be cheating

while it’s still heating

So leave it on the fire

but if it doesn’t rise

Toss the meal outside


It's up to you to be tender on the next date

Dim the lights and do not make the poor heart wait

Play the game that lovers play

Say "never", say "always"

and then devour it

on the love seat 

But once you’ve been carried

Oh look, he’s fallen asleep!

Toss the bone on the street

My translation of Serge Gainsbourg's amazing song "le poinçonneur des Lilas" and why it is superior to that of Mick Harvey and Alan Chamberlain

            First of all I will present, with the guitar chords, the original french lyrics by Serge Gainsbourg. Then I will show Mick Harvey and Alan Chamberlain's version. After that I will present my arguments as to why their version does not do Serge Gainsbourg justice. At the end I will offer what I consider the definitive English version of the song, the one that I wrote.

le poinçonneur des Lilas

Em

J'suis l'poinçonneur des Lilas

                                           Am

Le gars qu'on croise et qu'on n' regarde pas

C                        G

Y a pas d'soleil sous la terre

               Am

Drôle de croisière

              B

Pour tuer l'ennui j'ai dans ma veste

Les extraits du Reader Digest

Em

Et dans c'bouquin y a écrit

                                      Am

Que des gars s'la coulent douce à Miami

C                            G

Pendant c'temps que je fais l'zouave

              Am

Au fond d'la cave

            B

Paraît qu'y a pas d'sous-métier

Moi j'fais des trous dans des billets

Em                                 Bm               Em

J'fais des trous, des p'tits trous, encor des p'tits trous

Em                                 Bm                 Em

Des p'tits trous, des p'tits trous, toujours des p'tits trous

Em                 Am

Des trous d'seconde classe

D                   G  B

Des trous d'première classe

Em                                 Bm              Em

J'fais des trous, des p'tits trous, encor des p'tits trous

Em                                 Bm                 Em

Des p'tits trous, des p'tits trous, toujours des p'tits trous

Bm         Em    Bm        Em

Des petits trous, des petits trous,

Bm        Em    Bm        Em

Des petits trous, des petits trous

Em

J'suis l'poinçonneur des Lilas

                           Am

Pour Invalides changer à Opéra

C                      G

Je vis au cœur d'la planète

             Am

J'ai dans la tête

         B  

Un carnaval de confettis

J'en amène jusque dans mon lit

Em

Et sous mon ciel de faïence

                                   Am

Je n'vois briller que les correspondances

C                   G

Parfois je rêve je divague

            Am

Je vois des vagues

           B

Et dans la brume au bout du quai

J'vois un bateau qui vient m'chercher

Em                      Bm            Em

Pour m'sortir de ce trou où je fais des trous

Em                                 Bm                 Em

Des p'tits trous, des p'tits trous, toujours des p'tits trous

Em              Am

Mais l'bateau se taille

D                G            B

Et j'vois qu'je déraille

Em                       Bm                Em

Et je reste dans mon trou à faire des p'tits trous

Em                                 Bm         Em

Des p'tits trous, des p'tits trous, toujours des p'tits trous

Bm         Em     Bm        Em

Des petits trous, des petits trous,

Bm        Em    Bm        Em

Des petits trous, des petits trous

Em

J'suis l'poinçonneur des Lilas

                               Am

Arts-et-Métiers direct par Levallois

C                      G

J'en ai marre j'en ai ma claque

         Am

De ce cloaque

               B

Je voudrais jouer la fill' de l'air

Laisser ma casquette au vestiaire

Em

Un jour viendra j'en suis sûr

                                Am

Où j'pourrais m'évader dans la nature

C                      G

J'partirai sur la grand'route

             Am

Et coûte que coûte

           B

Et si pour moi il n'est plus temps

Je partirai les pieds devant

Em                                 Bm       Em

J'fais des trous, des p'tits trous, encor des p'tits trous

Em                                 Bm         Em

Des p'tits trous, des p'tits trous, toujours des p'tits trous

Em                Am

Y a d'quoi d'venir dingue

D                 G           B

De quoi prendre un flingue

Em                             Bm              Em

S'faire un trou, un p'tit trou, un dernier p'tit trou

Em                           Bm              Em

Un p'tit trou, un p'tit trou, un dernier p'tit trou

Bm         Em      Bm      Em

Et on m'mettra dans un grand trou

Bm          Em        Bm     Em         Bm       Em

Où j'n'entendrai plus parler d'trou plus jamais d'trou

Bm        Em      Bm     Em      Bm    Em

De petits trous de petits trous de petits trous

The Ticket Puncher by Mick Harvey and Alan Chamberlain

I’m the ticket puncher at Lilas.

To me the passengers pay no regard.

There is no sunshine in this Metro station.

Strange vacation.

To kill the boredom, in my vest,

I have extracts from Readers Digest,

And this book says to me,

That life is just a ball in Miami,

All the while I’m working like a slave,

Down in this cave,

They say work’s better than the dole

But all day long I just make holes

I punch holes, little holes and more little holes

Little holes, little holes, always little holes

I make second class holes

And punch first class holes

I punch holes, little holes and more little holes

Little holes, little holes, always little holes

Little holes, little holes
Little holes, little holes.

I am the ticket puncher at Lilas

Invalids you change at Opera

I live down in the bowels of this here planet

I have in my head

A carnival of confetti that even gets between my sheets.

Under this white tile sky

The only things that shine are insect’s eyes.

Sometimes I dream, I go into a daze

And in that phase

The railway platform is a quay

A boat is coming to get me

From this hole, little hole where I make little holes

From this hole, this little hole where I make little holes

But the boat is sailing

My daydream’s always failing

In this hole, in this hole, punching little holes

Little holes, little holes, always little holes

Little holes, little holes
Little holes, little holes.

I am the ticket puncher at Lilas

Arts and Metiers direct by Lavallois

I’ve had enough,

I’ve had it with this bullshit

Down in this cess-pit

I’d like to get out in the trees

They can keep their cloakroom keys

One day will come I am sure

When I will get away to something more

Take a car, a plane, a train (something that rhymes with “what”)

No matter what

But if the time I have is cursed

I’ll have to leave this place feet first

I punch holes, little holes and more little holes

Little holes, little holes, always little holes

I think I will trifle

with a great big rifle

and make a hole, little hole, one last little hole

make a hole, little hole, one last little hole

and then they’ll put me in a hole

where I will hear no more of holes

Never again make little holes

Those little holes, those little holes.

   There are plenty of holes in the above version, and they're not the number of times the word "holes" is used. 

   First of all is the use of the word "Invalids" as if the narrator is trying to say that invalids must take a certain route on the Metro in Paris. "Invalides" is the real name of a subway station in Paris and yes Gainsbourg chose the name obviously because of its double meaning. But to simply say "Invalids" takes the subtlety away that is so important in many of Serge Gainsbourg's meanings.

   The second gaping hole in Harvey and Chamberlain's version is the omission of a translation of Gainsbourg's phrase: la grand'route. They ignored it and instead listed various means of transportation. I am almost certain that Gainsbourg's use of  la grand'route is a reference to August Stindberg's play La Grand'Route, which in the original Swedish is Stora landsvägen, and which in English is the Great Highway. In Strindberg's play, the Great Highway is the road that leads to the graveyard. The last verse of Gainsbourg's song is all about death, first referencing it symbolically and finally literally.

   The third problem is the use of the rhyme "I think I will trifle with a great big rifle". Ugh! I feel like throwing up every time I read or hear this rhyme. It's as if Dr. Seuss were translating Serge Gainsbourg. 

   Then there is the use of the word "rifle". I don't think that when Gainsbourg conceived of his poinçonneur putting a hole in his head that he envisioned him doing it with a rifle. First of all Gainsbourg himself liked handguns. Second of all the ticket puncher, since it's his job that is driving him to suicide, would want to kill himself at work. A rifle is an extremely impractical implement of suicide, especially if you are trying to carry it to work on the underground transit system.

   It amazes me that it took two people to write this flawed English version of a Serge Gainsbourg masterpiece. But then again, maybe it's not so amazing. My observation over the years is that in general, the more writers there are behind a song, the worse the song is. Case in point: most of Britney Spears' songs have four writers for each one.

  Finally, I heard that Mick Harvey left Nick Cave's Bad Seeds because of creative differences with Nick Cave. Judging from this effort I would say that the difference was that Nick Cave was creative and Mick Harvey wasn't.

   

   Here is my  version of le poinçonneur des Lilas. Let me know what you think.

The Ticket Puncher at Lilas Station

I am the ticket puncher at Lilas
The guy you pass but don’t quite ever see there
There is no sun underneath the ground, strange way to get around

To kill the boredom, in my vest
I keep the new Reader's Digest
And inside a writer’s telling me

That guys can lead a sweet life in Miami
While I work here just like an idiot

in this covered pit

They say there are no worthless roles,
but my job’s making

little

holes
I make holes, little holes, still more little holes

I make holes, little holes, always little holes
Holes for second class cars, holes for those first class cars.
I make holes, little holes, still more little holes
I make holes, little holes, always little holes
Little holes, little holes, little holes, little holes

I am the ticket puncher at Lilas,
For Invalides transfer at Opera
I live in the planet’s nucleus 

and there's a circus of confetti in my head
that follows me right home to bed.
And staring up at my ceramic sky

I see no stars, just cold fluorescent lights
Sometimes I dream and my mind wanders, to the the water
And through the mist just off the quay
I see a ship come to get me
To take me from this hole where I make little holes
little holes, little holes, always little holes

But the boat drifts on back to sea
And my mind flips on track to be
making holes, little holes still more little holes
Little holes, little holes, little holes, little holes
 

I am the ticket puncher at Lilas,
Arts et Metiers direct by Levallois

I am backed up, while lodged here toiling down this toilet.
I want to break this cage and fly,
just leave this monkey suit behind.
and the day will come, I am sure
When I will run into the arms of nature
I will embark on the Great Highway

whatever toll I’ll pay
And if for me the time’s run out
I will leave just leave here lying down
from this hole where I make holes, still more little holes

Little holes, little holes, always little holes
This job’s carried me round the bend
enough to put this gun to my head.

To make a hole, little hole, one last little hole,
little hole, little hole, one last little hole
And they’ll put me in a big hole.
where I’ll not hear or speak of holes. Last stop for holes!
Those little holes, little holes
little holes, little holes.