Honest Not Invent
A brilliantly vivid reading experience. Bizarre, exaggerated, visceral, profane and wildly funny. Here it is - Honest, Not Invent.... the best of stanislav (and other voices)
mr ishmael was always a
writer. He couldn’t help it, he didn’t force it, and it flowed out of him, as
though he was a conduit, onto any handy scrap of paper. In the Blogosphere,
both as a commentator and as the host of Call Me Ishmael, he found his metier.
This was a world without the intervention of publishers, with an instant audience,
who would immediately tell him what they thought of his latest offering, for
the reward of engaging with a fine mind delighted to be talking to them, and,
occasionally, receiving a damn good blogging. mr ishmael made not a penny from
his writing: his reward was the give and take, the ebb and flow of the
conversations that sprawled and bloomed from the comments box.
He was very particular about
how his blog should look in order to be accessible, consistent and instantly
recognisable. It was, of course, lavishly and colourfully illustrated with
grotesques. It has not been possible to adhere to mr ishmael’s rules of
presentation in this book, given its very different formatting requirements,
but the many friends who first encountered these essays on the blog will find,
through editor verge’s deft compilation and presentation, the voice of a true
moralist, deeply compassionate, warmly human and utterly indignant about
corruption, avarice and the abuse of office, both sexual and financial: the
voice of the
Zen-Marxist-Presbyterian, as he always described himself. And, somehow, without
the eye-catching illustrations, the essays have yielded a deeper meaning.
For the political junkie; the
charlatans, poseurs and chancers who inhabit these pages will be instantly
recognisable, their foibles, misdemeanours and crimes against humanity well
known. For those with less of an addiction, rest assured - honest, not invent.
Well, maybe a little bit.
This anthology, constructed
by editor verge from mr ishmael’s writings, contains several
voices, but showcases stanislav, the young Polish plumber. Back in the day, I
would beg stanislav’s creator for more stanislav. I wish I could, he would
regretfully tell me - I channelled him
for a while, but he’s not here anymore. Just
as Voltaire’s creation, Candide, contended with the problem of
evil, so does stanislav, albeit more directly and humorously, ridiculing
religion, governments, politicians, television celebrities, the great and the
good, all hidden under a thin veil of naïveté. You think I know fuck nothing,
he rants - but me, I know fuck all.
So there we are with the fuck
word, which brings me to Lenny Bruce, a major influence on mr ishmael. Lenny
was an American stand-up comedian, social critic,
and satirist, whose comedy spoke truth to power, which responded by
relentless persecution and prosecution for obscenity. During one of Lenny
Bruce’s performances in 1966, he said he’d been arrested for saying nine words,
and then said them in alphabetical order: ass, balls, cocksucker, cunt, fuck,
motherfucker, piss, shit, tits. There are no dirty words, both he and mr
ishmael said, only dirty minds. mr ishmael far exceeded nine
- or, at least, he put them together in new and fascinatingly-repellent
combinations. How about: “shit splattering onto their faces from the Great
Latrine of State”? And you just have to be sorry for Ming, sitting gingerly on
his pile of cushions, with his back firmly against the wall, having been
thoroughly (er, metaphorically – Ed.) fucked up the arse by his entire Party.
Once over the schoolboy fascination with forbidden words or prudish revulsion -
twin cheeks of the same poxy arse as mr ishmael might have said - we might
consider the impact of this powerful language as intensifier of the expressed
thought. Melissa Mohr, in her scholarly and accessible book, Holy Sh*t, tells
us everything we need to know about the function of swearing. Swearwords kidnap
our attention and force us to consider their unpleasant connotations.
Swearwords occupy a different part of the brain. Most speech is a higher brain
function - the cerebral cortex, controlling rational thought. Swearwords are
stored in the lower brain - the limbic system, responsible for emotion and the
fight-or-flight response. Them’s fighting words, and mr ishmael could certainly
talk a good fight. His sustained, creative, absurd, poetic, scatological
streams of inventive invective were fuelled by outrage.
For all the ishmaelites,
who appreciated, provoked and entertained mr ishmael through the Comments box
over the years, many, many thanks. It is impossible to give every one a
name-check - some notable contributors in the early years seem not to be with
us any more, but they are not forgotten. Notable are messrs mongoose and mike,
bungalow bill, dick the prick, the dyer’s garden, caratacus, swiss bob, doug
shoulders, inmate, the noblest prospect, SG, oldrightie, yardarm, and mr
ishmael’s ladies - mrs narcolept, agatha, lilith, and woman on a raft. Then
there are all those readers across the English-speaking world who never got around
to joining the comment streams - mr ishmael, although not a statistics
jihadist, knew you were there, because Blogger reported to him the numbers of
his readers in Australia, America, and Europe. Bloody hell, he told me one day,
there’s a bloke been logged on to Call Me Ishmael for eighteen hours - 18
bloody hours - then slunk off without leaving a comment.
And thank you to our two reviewers, messrs mike and caratacus, whose reviews follow below.
My deepest thanks go to mr
verge, an experienced and talented writer himself, who has brought this book
together. mr ishmael awarded mr verge
the special status of house filthster and court jester, and his trust has been amply
fulfilled through mr verge's dedicated and selfless work in producing this anthology. The
task was no easy one, involving reading the prolific outpouring of twelve years of
posts and comments, exercising judgement in the selection of the essays,
providing discreet editorial revisions and footnoting as necessary. editor mr verge has produced a fine memorial to the memory of ishmael smith. Thank you, v./
Thank you
all for your outpouring of grief and condolences after mr ishmael’s death in
January 2020. Many ishmaelites will want to paraphrase Bob Dylan - mr ishmael
is dead. He’s the brother I never had.
Three score years and ten,
and a good death - there’s a lot to be thankful for.
mrs ishmael : September 13th 2020
Reviews
mr caratacus:
Having been greatly humbled to be invited to proof-read the splendid 'Ishmael Project' I confess to have been a little daunted in the initial stages, not least because my ability to read the document was made difficult by the tears of laughter running down my cheeks. To return to the innermost thoughts of young Stanislav was a joy and I was reminded of something P.G. Wodehouse said when he first read the 'Flashman' tales by George MacDonald Fraser; "If ever there was a time when I felt that 'watcher-of-the-skies-when-a-new-planet stuff', it was when I read the first Flashman". Thus it was for me when I read of Gordon the Ruiner, written by Stanislav, a young Polish plumber. I will not tarry over long here, suffice to say that I envy those lucky folk who have yet to read mr. ishmael's writings - boy, do they have a treat in store. For those of us who have followed his blog over the years, you will - as I did - find yourself laughing helplessly as mr. ishmael jaunts effortlessly from one tussock to another, weaving words about him like the storyteller he was. Thank you, finally, mrs. ishmael, for making all this possible. We are forever in your debt.
mr mike:
Editor Verge (peace and blessings be upon him) kindly sent me a final draft of this anthology and graciously asked if I would write a review. It was a challenge, almost a duty, I readily accepted and I hope I do the collection, and its author, justice - although I will roam a little further through Ishmaelia. Reading this anthology I have been through the gamut of emotions, there were tears of laughter and also sadness; only one keyboard was harmed during the production of this review (nasal red wine snort).
I first met stan at the blog order-order, maybe fifteen or more years ago. In those days blogging was like the Wild West; unmoderated and uncensored; not the milquetoast troll infested stuff of today. In between the metaphorical bar-fights, the snippets of information, and the pub-conversations between regulars, one contributor stood head and shoulders above the rest. It was like finding a gold nugget in a dry river bed. Stanislav – a young Polish plumber. Soon he gathered a cult following, and although it can’t be quantified, I would bet that many visitors at order-order came to read stan.
In the voice of a Scotch-Polish plumber, stan laid waste to frauds and incompetents. Brilliantly written – without a gift from God it would have been impossible to generate such style and power. But, as time moved on, stan grew tired of the editorship at order-order and a new child was born - Call Me Ishmael (the chronicles of ruin). In this blog, Mr Ishmael could spread his wings, although his young friend Stanislav appeared from time to time. The content was eclectic – everything from machine tools, gardening, cooking, dogs and cats, Victorian and Edwardian furniture – but mostly topical political commentary. The loyal readership was polite and informed. After an opening piece from our host a thread could go in any direction, unfailingly interesting and often very amusing. Conversations would spontaneously erupt – despite my being on the other side of the world, with eleven hours time difference, I would often get an instant reply from Mr Ishmael in what must have been the wee hours of the morning in Scotland, best part of England. Although we never met, I feel, I hope, I knew him, and the other regulars, well.
Of course, Mr Ishmael was incredibly lucky that public life was festooned with a large cast of miscreants at which to take aim – bigger than the cast of a Verdi opera. All manner of degenerates, liars, thieves, cheats, incompetents, hypocrites; the warmongers; the serial shaggers, cuckolds, and adulterers; the shirt-lifters, shit-eaters, snot-eaters, all knowing what’s best for you and me, but not themselves. The noncing monsignors; the be-jewelled and be-medalled of modern Ruritania; the vacuous celebs prepared to flash their knickers for a picture in the Sun, happy to be insulted on TeeVee. They were all in the cross-hairs, and regularly skewered with facts and wit, and then had a 4WD SUV driven over them and reversed for good measure. Mr Ishmael was always fair and factual - if they got a good rub down with a verbal housebrick, then you can be assured the subject in question truly deserved it.
Mr Ishmael wrote in many voices, not just Scotch-Polish, as befitted the subject. In one exchange I was recounting the travails of The Memsahib; Mr Ishmael counterblasted in the voice of Sir Henry Simmerson of the South Essex Regiment (Sharpe’s Regiment): “Heavens to blazes, Mr mike, ....”. Pure poetry. I’m sure I wasn’t the only reader who read his pieces with the appropriate accent, so good was the caricature. And Stanislavian, and other, phrases and idioms have inevitably encroached on the vocabulary. He could conjure up imagery with a few well chosen words; it’s probably lost in the mists of the blogosphere but I suspect it was stan who first described Gordon Snot wearing a nappy on his rocking horse. (He hints at this himself on p.50 of the anthology ).
It was very clear that Mr Ishmael was not just a prolific writer, but also an avid reader and watcher. He had an uncanny eye for detail which eluded many others, and this allied to an incredible capacity for mimicry in his writings gave birth to the many voices that enriched his work.
Over the years there were several occasions when his readers suggested he publish a book. I always felt his three part series on Ruin would make a book, a play, or film – or all three. I can just hear Dame Judi Dench saying: “throw another shitcake on the fire”. But he always resisted, for reasons not entirely clear to me. After his sad and untimely death, it was only natural that his readers would again take up the call. Mrs Ishmael readily agreed. And Mr Verge volunteered to take on the challenge of selecting pieces for an anthology.
To my reading the anthology starts serenely, quickly rises like a volcano, then rises even higher, and latterly becomes melancholic. Like the seven ages of man. The language can be a little fruity for some, excoriating at times, but this is explained early on in Mind Your Language – the reply to Jonny W and Mr Anonymous also shows also that stan (mr ishmael) did not suffer fools. “There are no dirty words, only dirty minds”.
The archive is vast. It must have been difficult to decide what to include. I gather from mr verge that some incendiary pieces were left out – lest the usual suspects placed a call to me learned friend. We knew Mr Ishmael had health problems, but we learn for the first time the extent of those problems, and his jousting with the National Health Service. Difficult reading, although hilarious. The piece on the death of Buster was particularly heart rending, and although I’m no wuss, I don’t mind admitting it reduced me to tears.
This book is not for everyone: if you are stupid, illiterate, woke, put soy milk in your coffee, then it may not be for you. If, on the other hand, you have two functioning brain cells and are fed up with the propaganda and bias daily doled out by the MSM and the PBC, and the increasing censorship that lets the powerful and connected escape scrutiny, and need an antidote, then this is it. It deserves to be widely read; in a sensible world it would be on the reading list for A-Level and Open University students, if only as an exemplar on how to write. It probably won’t because people are now increasingly afraid to voice their true opinions, except sotto voce to trusted colleagues, lest they be criticised or arrested.
Vale Mr Ishmael; bravo Editor Verge and Mrs Ishmael.
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The book is available as either paperback or hardback; we've had proof copies of both and the production quality is very good. Cover design is the same for both. 340 pages, each chapter dated in the list of contents; we have stanislav from as long ago as 2007, and some of the finest ishmael essays from the present blog. For now (there are still a few hoops to go through before it appears elsewhere, at the same price) the book is only available from lulu.com. No one's billing or delivery address, nor any payment info, will be available or disclosed to the creator of the book; all this is securely handled by the publishing platform. Ishmaelites wishing to buy a copy should follow these steps:
Please register an account with them first. This will save you a couple of quid, as going straight into the links provided below seems to make paypal think it's ok to charge in dollars, and apply their own conversion rate, which seems to put the price up slightly for a UK buyer. Once the new account is set up, follow one of the links (to either paperback or hardback) or type "Honest, Not Invent" into the Lulu Bookstore search box. If you follow a link, a pop-up box asks for age confirmation - simply set the date to (say) 1 January 1960, and proceed. If you type the title, the anthology will not appear as a search result until the "show explicit content" box (found at the bottom left by scrolling down) has been checked. You may also see the age verification box, as above, at this point.
The full title is "Honest, Not Invent - the best of stanislav, a young polish plumber", and the cover you'll see is red with white titles and a picture of Buster the Blog Dog.
Link for Hard Back :
Link for Paper Back :
Or...
shorter link for HB :
shorter link for PB :
At checkout, try LULUFAM15 in the coupon box, which (for the moment) takes 15% off the price before postage. If this code has expired by the time you reach this point, try a google search for "Lulu.com voucher code" and see what comes up.
With the 15% voucher, PB (including delivery to a UK address) should be £14.35; HB £23.74.
