# The feelies, orgy porgy & the centrifugal bumble puppy



## Theseus (Nov 23, 2016)

In a strangely prophetic book by Neil Postman, published in 1985, called _Amusing Ourselves to Death_, he writes: "Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, orgy porgy and the bumble puppy."
The feelies were an American rock band, orgy porgy is a gangbang fuelled by _soma_ or some such drug, and the centrifugal bumble puppy is a game, described thus:

*Centrifugal Bumble-Puppy*
An advanced, consumerist form of tetherball played by the children in Aldous Huxley's novel, Brave New World.
You can't play Electro-magnetic Golf according to the rules of Centrifugal Bumble-puppy.​ 
"The Director and his students stood for a short time watching a game of Centrifugal Bumble-puppy. Twenty children were grouped in a circle round a chrome steel tower. A ball thrown up so as to land on the platform at the top of the tower rolled down into the interior, fell on a rapidly revolving disk, was hurled through one or other of the numerous apertures pierced in the cylindrical casing, and had to be caught."​ 
In a word, the fact that in the late twentieth and the twenty-first century people in general would only be interested totally in trivia, δηλ. pop music, gangbangs fuelled by _soma_ and games.

Can fellow lexilogists think of any translation of this which would convey as elequently as this a mass obsession solely with trivia?


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## daeman (Nov 23, 2016)

...
*Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business* by Neil Postman



daeman said:


> ...
> 
> Technology and Society by Neil Postman
> 
> ...




The "feelies" mentioned here is not the Feelies rock band (a favorite of mine, but now is not the time); they are a form of tittytainment:

*feelies *(noun): A sort of motion picture that has tactile as well as visual and auditory effects : 
_When the holograms acquire tactile capability, they fulfill Huxley's vision of 'feelies' _

[1931+; modeled on _movie_ and _talkie_; most prominently employed by Aldous Huxley in his 1932 novel _Brave New World_]


And we're getting there: 



daeman said:


> There's the Zuckerberg version, too:
> 
> *What a creepy photo of Mark Zuckerberg says about our dystopian tech future*
> By Caitlin Dewey, Washington Post, February 22, 2016
> ...



More on this when I get the time.


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## Theseus (Nov 23, 2016)

Thanks, Daeman. I like this quote of Huxley: “I have never been able to understand why it should be ‘inhuman’ to use the faculties that distinguish us from pigs and geese and ‘human’ to use those which we share with the lower animals.”
But it is probably true to say that, unlike Huxley, Postman wasn’t much bothered by the mindless fun, the “junk entertainment”; more alarming to him was how television “co-opts serious modes of discourse — news, politics, science, education, commerce, religion — and turns them into entertainment packages.” The main criticism of Huxley, as has been well said, is that “Brave New World” makes the illiberal assumption that giving people more freedom and less authority will degrade them. The challenge the book sets us today is to prove him wrong. But perhaps he was right on his ideas of “mass man”? Postman, whose writings I like because they challenge you to formulate a critique of the current twenty-first century ethos: and hence of yourself: none of my friends or acquaintances or the students I teach show any interest in such matters, something I find disturbing.:scared:


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## daeman (Nov 23, 2016)

...
Too Far Gone (_Only Life_) - The Feelies






Well they found him laughing 
They caught him running 
He was down on his knees 
He was under the table 
Getting excited 
Feeling excited
Temperature's rising
Fever is rising

Whoa-o, yeah, ready to go
Whoa-o, yeah, already gone

_Only Life_


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## rogne (Nov 23, 2016)

http://www.biblionet.gr/book/119991/Postman,_Neil/Διασκέδαση_μέχρι_θανάτου

Ο Χάξλεϊ φοβόταν ότι θα αναπτύσσαμε πολιτισμό κοινοτοπίας ασχολούμενοι μόνο με δραστηριότητες αντίστοιχες του όργκυ-πόρκυ, του φυγόκεντρου αγριοκουταβιού και των αισθησιακών ταινιών...​ 
Hopefully the translation becomes somewhat less obscure inside the book, maybe with a translators' note or two...


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## rogne (Nov 23, 2016)

rogne said:


> http://www.biblionet.gr/book/119991/Postman,_Neil/Διασκέδαση_μέχρι_θανάτου
> 
> Hopefully the translation becomes somewhat less obscure inside the book, maybe with a translators' note or two...



Yes, it does!



> * Σ. τ. Μ.: Ψυχαγωγικές δραστηριότητες των γενετικά προγραμματισμένων πλασμάτων του χαξλεϊκού κόσμου ("Θαυμαστός Καινούργιος Κόσμος"). Έχουν χρησιμοποιηθεί οι όροι της μετάφρασης του Ανδρέα Αποστολίδη, εκδ. Μέδουσα, Ιούνιος 1998.



http://eclass.uoa.gr/modules/document/file.php/MEDIA165/ΔΙΑΣΚΕΔΑΣΗ ΜΕΧΡΙ ΘΑΝΑΤΟΥ.pdf (p. 10)


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## Theseus (Nov 23, 2016)

Is there a Greek term for tetherball?


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## nickel (Nov 23, 2016)

daeman said:


> *feelies *(noun): A sort of motion picture that has tactile as well as visual and auditory effects :
> _When the holograms acquire tactile capability, they fulfill Huxley's vision of 'feelies' _
> [1931+; modeled on _movie_ and _talkie_; most prominently employed by Aldous Huxley in his 1932 novel _Brave New World_]



Με ενδιαφέρει περισσότερο η απόδοση τού feelies, που είναι διαδεδομένος όρος. Όχι όμως «αισθησιακές» ταινίες. Να αρχίσουμε με το «απτικές» ταινίες. Να δούμε και το «αισθησιοταινίες».


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