The Wistful Barmaid and the Johnny Cash To-Do List

Manet - Un bar aux Folies Bergère

 
There’s quite a choice of local pubs available to me. I have a particular soft spot for the Old Red Lion, a big, slightly tatty, Islington boozer with a theatre upstairs. I like the friendly, easy-going staff, the mix of old drinkers and young thespians, the fact that it still has a carpet. And I like its storied history: Thomas Paine wrote ‘The Rights of Man’ here; the pub featured in a Hogarth painting; and it was until recently the London home of Norwich City football fans.
 
I approached the bar and ordered a large house white. The tattooed barmaid took a glass and placed it under some beer taps. She then returned with a bottle of wine and found that she couldn’t quite pour it - the taps were in the way.
 
‘You’ve made it difficult for yourself there,’ I said helpfully.
 
She reflected for a brief moment. Then, looking straight through me, she murmured:
 
‘That’s the story of my life.’
 
Though I don’t know what events lay behind the barmaid’s wistful reply, I’m sure we can all relate to her sentiment. So often, in and out of work, we compromise, complicate and confuse. We muddle and mess up. We make poor assessments and bad choices. We make things difficult for ourselves.
 
‘Getting faster is almost always about what you take away rather than what you add.’
Michael Johnson
 
Some years ago, I came across a to-do list written (on an unrecorded date) by Johnny Cash. 
 
As instructed by the pre-printed sheet, the Man in Black prioritises his 10 ‘things to do today!’ He is clearly concerned with some pretty mundane tasks. He aims to avoid smoking; to cough, pee and eat (‘but not too much’). He also has some sentimental objectives, resolving to ‘go see mama’; to ‘kiss June’ (Carter, his beloved wife), and ‘not kiss anyone else.’ There’s work to be done: he must ‘practice piano.’ And, finally, he commits to worry. A strange determination perhaps, but one with which I can sympathise. I have always found a certain degree of anxiety to be healthy – making one more considered, alert, focused.
 

'Complexity means distracted effort. Simplicity means focused effort.’ 
Edward de Bono
 
Overall, I rather approve of Cash’s goals for the day. When we are confronted with a troubling excess of options, a paralysing variety of dilemmas, it’s sensible to start with a to-do list - distilling and prioritising the tasks ahead. Even focusing on the commonplace helps. It gets the wheels turning, sets us in motion.
 
'A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.'
Lao Tzu
 
It’s refreshing too to see Cash’s last remark on his list. Underneath the printed section entitled Notes, he has written ‘not write notes.’ A sense of humour also gets you a long way in life. 
 
 
'I hurt myself today,
To see if I still feel.
I focus on the pain,
The only thing that's real.
What have I become,
My sweetest friend?
Everyone I know goes away
In the end.
And you could have it all,
My empire of dirt.
I will let you down.
I will make you hurt.'

Johnny Cash, ’Hurt’ (T Reznor)

No. 566

Euan Uglow: ‘Controlled, and Therefore Potent, Emotion’

Euan Uglow - Detail “Root Five Nude”

I recently enjoyed an exhibition of the art of Euan Uglow. (MK Gallery, Milton Keynes until 31 May)
 
‘I’m trying to find out why a subject does look so marvellous, and trying to make that sensation manifest on a flat surface.’
Euan Uglow
 
Born in London in 1932, the son of an accountant, Uglow grew up in Tulse Hill and studied at the Camberwell School of Art. Not managing to sell a painting until eight years after completing his training, he took a variety of part-time teaching jobs - most notably, from 1961, at the Slade, where he worked for nearly 40 years.
 
Uglow often encouraged his students thus:
 
‘What is the most important thing in your life? Find out what it is and paint that.’
 
Uglow answered his own question with still lifes of pears, peaches and quince, daisies, honeysuckle and camellia; with sun-drenched Mediterranean landscapes; with large-scale depictions of the human figure.
 
Though his subjects were chosen for their emotional resonance, his process was highly rational.
 
'I want the brain to intervene between the observation and the mark.’

Euan Uglow - Quince

Uglow sought to capture what the eye saw - the visual reality - avoiding conventional notions of perspective, or how things should look. Consequently, his method was meticulous, slow, precise and painstaking. 
 
‘I wanted to be more extreme and work in a more intensified situation.’
 
First, Uglow would carefully calculate the shape and dimensions of his canvas. He particularly liked to work with rectangles based on square root ratios.
 
‘The root-five rectangle is a very beautiful rectangle with all kinds of lovely qualities.’
 
Next, he took extensive measurements, employing plumb lines and grids, and an instrument he designed himself from a music stand. Then, standing close to his subject, with one eye closed, sometimes looking through a tunnel made from his hand, he examined individual areas and gradually built an image. 

Such was his commitment to defeat perspective, that for one nude, Uglow worked sitting on a scaffold that could be raised and lowered - just so that his eyes were always looking at the figure straight on. 
 
With no attempt to hide the process of creation, Uglow’s paintings do not always look finished. Often small horizontal and vertical markings remain visible on their surfaces.
 
‘You come to a positive stop. You can’t go any further or you’ve lost your idea. Finishing sounds like filling in to me. The picture should end itself.’
 
Uglow’s nudes had a classical formality. Setting them in artificial spaces with the odd prop, he asked his life models to pose in simple, geometric, sometimes awkward, shapes - in absolute stillness, for up to five hours, five or six days a week. He said to one of his subjects:
 
'Nobody has ever looked at you as intensively as I have.’

Euan Uglow - Curled Nude on Stool, 1982, oil on canvas 30 x 39

Uglow often took months, if not years, to complete a work. Cherie Booth, future wife of the British Prime Minister, was an early model during her barrister’s pupillage. But the painting was left unfinished, as she simply didn’t have the time. 
 
Uglow’s sustained observation produced compelling results. Working from a sparse palette of radiant colours, his still lifes and landscapes had a quiet grace. His nudes suggested serene, sculptural beauty.
 
Uglow presents an interesting challenge to creative people. Is it possible to articulate emotional themes with rational precision? Can meticulous process intensify feeling? Can control be liberating?
 
'Basically, I'm trying to paint a structured painting full of controlled, and therefore potent, emotion.’
 

Euan Uglow - Detail “Head of Pat”

'Looking counter clockwise,
Knowing what could happen,
Any moment maybe you, maybe even you.
Steadfast collapse,
Always certain any moment,
Maybe you, maybe you,
Maybe even you.
Recline, complete, dream too sweet.
I can't do it, not with you,
Not even with you,
Maybe never with you.
And I'd sell my soul for
Total control.
Yeah, I'd sell my soul for
Total control.’
The Motels, ‘Total Control’ (M Davis / J Jourard) 

No. 565

Summerfolk: ‘None of Us Seem to Have the Time. And Yet We Never Actually Get Anything Done’

Shalimov: Of course I’m disappointing. I’m a human.
 
I very much enjoyed a production of Maxim Gorky’s 1904 play ‘Summerfolk’ at the National Theatre, London. (A new version by Nina and Moses Raine. Until 29 April.) 
 
Nikolai: Sonya and Zimin think that the purpose of life is solving various social, moral and other problems, and I’m telling them that life is the art of looking at life.
 
We spend a long hot summer with an assortment of nouveaux riches Russians holidaying in their woodland dachas. 
 
Varvara: We’re just the…summerfolk of this country – just dropping by from somewhere else, and we never do anything except talk and talk and talk.
 
The group comprises a couple of doctors, a lawyer, an engineer, a retired businessman, a successful writer and a frustrated poet, along with assorted friends and family. 

Bassov: I think you’re reading too much. It’s not healthy, reading. It’s like a drug. Makes you neurotic…. It’s especially bad to read before you go to bed…. All that print makes your brain fizzy. 
 
They picnic, swim and stroll by the river, fish and mess about in boats. They put on amateur dramatics, try local cheeses, take tea and tinkle on the piano. They flirt, gamble, drink and play chess. 

Yulia: Little tip. When your voice reaches a certain volume, people just stop listening.
 
And all the time, they bicker and gossip. They complain about their kids and their partners; about their terminal boredom; about missed opportunities, tarnished ideals and growing old. 
 
Dvoyetochiye: Why did you marry him?
Yulia: He pretended to be interesting.
 
In ‘Summerfolk’ Gorky critiques the bourgeoisie. Many of its characters have come from humble backgrounds, and yet they have no sense of responsibility to the wider community.

Maria: We should be different, all of us! We’re the children of washerwomen, cooks, working people, in dirt and darkness their whole lives! They sent us on ahead of them to get a better life – but we left them behind, we drew up the drawbridge, we lost our way, created our own punishment, empty, anxious bustle on the outside, lonely fragmentation on the inside. We deserve our tragedy.

Despite their modest roots, these summerfolk are rather dismissive of the lower orders. 
 
Suslov: She’s always banging on about the working classes, the left-behind. Well, I’m from the working class and I left them behind as soon as I could.
 
Indeed, the dacha residents are consistently curt with their staff. They drive beggars away, don’t lift a finger to help find a missing local child, and thoughtlessly leave a mess behind them at the end of the day.
 
Suslov: It’s basic human nature and you cannot change it. Why should we give a kopek about the oppressed? I can’t heal the world, it’s not my problem. You can call us cowards or lazy or whatever you want, not one of us is going to rush off and do good works.
 
At the heart of the drama are brother and sister Vlass and Varvara. Both find themselves at sea - disappointed with their lot, frustrated by the company they keep, seeking some meaning and purpose in their lives.
 
Varvara: You know how sometimes, somehow,… not thinking of anything in particular…suddenly you feel trapped?...I’ve got this sense of doom. Looming doom.
 
Vlass: My life’s pointless too, remember. Somehow it makes me feel ashamed. Awkward, you know, like being at a party where you’re not actually invited, like a plus-one in my own life.
 
Varvara - beautiful, distant, always watching - is repeatedly fending off proposals from useless men.
 
Ryumin: But, can I, just, say –
Varvara: No. Don’t say. Please.
 
Realising that her friends are spiteful and self-satisfied, and that her marriage is unfulfilling (‘The honour of being your wife is not as amazing as you think.’), Varvara is anxious and alone.
 
Varvara: I feel fake. Like I’m in some strange foreign country, full of strange people…I don’t understand this privilege – it feels flimsy, like it’s going to come crashing down any minute.

Maxim Gorky

Gorky was born Alexey Peshkov, into a modest Volga background. Orphaned at 11, he travelled on foot across the Russian Empire for five years, taking menial jobs, working as a journalist for provincial newspapers. In his late 20s he adopted the pseudonym Gorky. It means bitter. Writing about the hardships and humiliations of the common man, he became the protégé of Anton Chekhov. The older playwright, sensing the upheaval that was about to engulf Russia, liked to mock the ineffectual intelligentsia, but still felt some affection for them. Gorky was less forgiving. 
 
Vlass: It all seems pointless to me. All these people floating around here…what’s the point of them? I don’t love them, don’t respect them, they’re mosquitoes. I can’t talk to them. They’re so affected, all you can do is take the piss out of them – and then actually they don’t even notice you’re taking the piss.
 
Written in the year Chekhov died, ‘Summerfolk’ is in a sense a sequel to ‘The Cherry Orchard.’ The orchard has been sold and the land cleared for country cottages. The gentry have been replaced by the affluent middle classes.
 
Olga: Oh, Kirill, why get upset? You should be used to it by now. It’s all trivial in the grand scheme of things.
Dudfakov: Oh, trivial, is it? But what if the grand scheme turns out to be trivial? All there is? 
 
One can’t help watching ‘Summerfolk’ without thinking of the inertia that can grip the world of work. Sometimes, confronted with hard choices in a changing commercial landscape, we are paralysed by indecision. We talk and theorise; we prevaricate and postpone. The metabolism becomes sluggish. The pace slows. 
 
Dudakov: None of us seem to have the time…do we? And yet we never actually get anything done.
 
We should learn to seize the moment, to take decisive action now rather than leave the future to circumstance. We must take control of our own destiny. Or someone else will.
 
Suslov: He who philosophises, loses.
 
A sense of foreboding runs through ‘Summerfolk.’ Periodically, we hear the ominous sound of the watchmen whistling in the woods. Towards the end, a despairing Varvara predicts that the listlessness of her kin and class will precipitate their demise.
 
Varvara: I feel like, soon, the day after tomorrow, a stronger, bolder lot of people are going to come along, and sweep us off the face of the earth like - rubbish, whether we like it or not.
 

'Seven minutes to midnight and I’m crawling out my shell.
Seven minutes to midnight and it’s hell.
Seven minutes to analyse, my instinct must be quick.
Seven minutes to midnight, I feel sick.
You can’t justify it, not a word.
I don’t believe a thing I’ve heard.
You can’t justify it with your twisted facts,
Only the coming of the axe.’
Wah! Heat, 'Seven Minutes to Midnight’ (P Wylie, C Washington, Jonie, King Bluff)

No. 564

The Four Pillars of Senior Conversation: Journeys, Parking, Ailments and Bins

Grant Wood (1891–1942) - American Gothic. 1930. Oil on beaverboard

‘Great to see you. How was your journey down?’
‘Well, we set off early. We took the M25 route to the M1, which was fine, and then we slipped onto the A1 at Hendon. All was good, but we made the mistake of going through Highgate instead of taking the Archway Road. It was chock-a-block, as there’s quite a lot of work going on. Upper Street was busy too. Which is why we’re 15 minutes late.’

As I’ve grown older, I’ve found myself talking more about journeys. 

It seems natural, polite even, when you greet a friend or family member, to ask them how they got here. The trouble is that, though itineraries and routes can be quite diverting – revealing of personal preferences and eccentricities - they can also be quite boring. And they tend to lead to other commonplace themes: sharing reflections on the paucity of parking bays perhaps, or restrictions and permits. (I notice that many people nowadays feel the spot outside their home is exclusively theirs.) Or Lime bikes. And inevitably the discussion shifts to an extended update on our various medical conditions. The creaking back, the arthritic knee, the hip operation. Before too long, we’re considering bins - tactics at bank holidays, poor neighbour behaviour, different councils’ recycling rules. I’m pretty sure I didn’t think about rubbish collection so much when I was younger. Indeed, my former refuse irresponsibility is a source of some concern to me. We characterise youth as carefree, but I worry that I was careless.

In my experience, these are the Four Pillars of Senior Conversation: journeys, parking, ailments and bins. There’s no avoiding them. They’re just the staples of ordinary life when you reach a certain age. Peppered with updates on holidays, family and friends, with perhaps the odd digression into podcasts and wifi coverage, they sustain us through many an afternoon tea or Sunday lunch. 

The truth is that, with every passing year, we drift towards patterns of thought and action, that calcify into narrow interests and fixed opinions. A kind of conversational inertia sets in.

I suspect the same ossification of behaviour and beliefs also occurs in the world of work. As we progress through the ranks, our philosophies become secure, our approaches settled. In every new challenge, we hear echoes of previous problems. In every new colleague or client, we see similarities to their predecessors. We find ourselves reminiscing about the golden age, retelling old anecdotes, condemning new techniques, frowning at the younger generation.

Breaking free from the forces of inertia takes conscious effort, imagination and discipline. It requires us to disrupt our instinctive inclination to nostalgia; to expose ourselves to new thoughts and fresh ideas; to take an active interest in youth. 

Hard to say this. But we may even need to set limits to our discourses on journeys, parking, ailments and bins.
 

'What's the sense in sharing
This one and only life?
Ending up just another lost and lonely wife.
You'll count up the years,
And they will be filled with tears.
Love only breaks up, to start over again.
You'll get the babies, but you won't have your man.
While he is busy loving every woman that he can.
Say, "I'm gonna leave" a hundred times a day.
It's easier said than done,
When you just can't break away.
Oh, young hearts run free.
Never be hung up,
Hung up like my man and me.
My man and me
Oh, young hearts, to yourself be true.
Don't be no fool when love really don't love you.’

Candi Staton, 'Young Hearts Run Free’ (D B Crawford)

No. 563

Lucian Freud: Getting as Near to It as I Can

Lucian Freud - Girl in Bed. Photo: © National Portrait Gallery, London. Lent by a private collection

I recently enjoyed an exhibition of the art of Lucian Freud, which focused particularly on his drawings. (The National Portrait Gallery, London until 4 May) 

Freud is renowned for his raw and intensely observed portraits and nude studies. This show, including works in pencil, pen and ink, charcoal and etching - as well as some key paintings - shines a light on the artist’s practices, processes and techniques.

‘I have always wanted to create drama in my pictures, which is why I paint people. It’s people who have brought drama to pictures from the beginning. The simplest human gestures tell stories.’
Lucian Freud

Early in his career, Freud often depicted animals, living and dead - a skinned hen, an oil-bound puffin, a stuffed zebra’s head. Critics, prompted by his curious compositions and juxtapositions, suggested that he was a surrealist. But he rejected the notion.

‘What is more surreal than a nose between two eyes?’

When Freud subsequently turned to human portraiture, he painted people as animals, regarding them with the same clinical, ‘pitiless’ eye.

‘I am inclined to think of (humans)…if they’re dressed, as animals dressed up.’

Lucian Freud - Portrait of a Young Man, 1944 (black crayon & white chalk on paper) © The Lucian Freud Archive.
All Rights Reserved 2025 / Bridgeman Images. Private Collection.

In the creation of his early portraits, Freud located himself right up close to his subjects. Rigorous and disciplined, he scrutinised them like a hawk. His first wife Kitty Garman said that sitting for him was ‘like being arranged.’ 

‘One of the most exciting things is seeing through the skin, to the blood and veins and markings.’

Lucian Freud - The Painter's Mother. Oil on Canvas 1982 - 1984

Sometimes Freud’s intense examination, his unsparing vision, led to what he called ‘involuntary magnification’ of his sitters’ features. And many were rendered with wide, watchful, haunted eyes.

‘I was trying for accuracy of a sort. I didn’t think of it as detail. It was simply, through my concentration, a question of focus.’

Freud sought to treat heads and bodies with equal attention. In some notes he remarked:

‘Turn heads into naked people
bodies, body’s whole complete
living naked women
avoid facial expression
make bodies expressive of feeling’

At the exhibition you can see some of Freud’s meticulous portraits of wives, family, friends and lovers; of fellow-artists, aristocrats and celebrities. Painted in natural light during the daytime, and in artificial light at night, these brutally honest pictures record blemishes, bruises, wrinkles and flab. They are distillations of raw physical presence.

Freud was equally unsparing in his self-portraits.

‘You’ve got to try and paint yourself as another person.’

Freud’s images convey both tenderness and discomfort; strength and vulnerability. They can be at the same time clinical and sensual. Perhaps most touching are his portraits of his mother, Lucie Freud – sensitive studies of fragility, depression and grief.

‘I started painting her because she’d lost interest in everything, including me.’

Freud sometimes took paintings from history as his subject. I was taken with his response when asked why he had chosen to study Chardin’s ‘The Young Schoolmistress’:

‘I don’t want to copy the Chardin. I simply want to get as near to it as I can. It’s a labour of love.’

Lucian Freud - David Hockney, 2002 (oil on canvas) © The Lucian Freud Archive. Private Collection.

Freud painted the world as he found it, without flattery. He teaches us to get as near as we can to our subjects; to look and look again; to scrutinise and examine; to strip away meaning and assumption; to see what is truly in front of us.

‘Nothing ever stands in for anything. Nobody is representing anything. Everything is autobiographical and everything is a portrait, even if it’s a chair.’

'Look at me, look at you.
Look at you look at me.
See my eyes, see your eyes.
Watching me watching you.
And reaching,
And reaching,
And reaching right into your mind.’
Marlena Shaw, 'Look at Me, Look at You’ (W E Tragesser)

No. 562

Rose Wylie: ‘Anything That Is Out of Control, I Like’

Rose Wylie - Pink Skater (Will I Win, Will I Win), 2015
Photograph courtesy Jari Lager: Soon-Hak Kwon © Rose Wylie)

I recently enjoyed an exhibition of the work of Rose Wylie - the first British female artist to occupy all of the Royal Academy’s main galleries. (‘The Picture Comes First’ is at the Royal Academy, London until 19 April.)

‘I love chance. It breaks through notions of control, of knowing what you were going to do before you do it.’
Rose Wylie

Born in Hythe in 1934, Wylie studied painting at Folkestone and Dover School of Art in the 1950s. Having taken an extended career break to raise three children, from the 1980s she devoted herself to her art, basing herself in a studio in her Kent cottage. She still works there today.

‘In painting I don’t like too much pernickety, precious fiddling about. Perhaps you’ve noticed.’

Wylie’s big canvases are painted in bold, bright colours, thickly applied, in a loose, spontaneous style. They integrate distant memories and recent experiences; animals, flora and fauna; references from history and mythology, from cinema, celebrity and popular culture. 

‘It’s better to just get on… Just get on and do what you’re going to do. Thinking too much can wreck or inhibit ‘spontaneous.’’

Rose Wylie - Yellow Strip

Here are birds, ducks and ack-ack fire. German planes fly overhead while dogs cavort in Kensington Gardens. (Wylie experienced the Blitz as a young girl.) Here are attentive cats, a big red elephant, an irreverent anatomical diagram of a horse. We see Premiership footballers and Olympic swimmers; Choco Leibniz, a well-cooked omelette and red lips licking a coffee spoon. Some friends take dinner outside on a summer evening. There’s a seating plan. And here’s Penelope Cruz on a bench, and Rita Tushingham with an axe.

Wylie is interested in the visual impact of images rather than the story they tell. Revelling in incongruous juxtapositions, her pictures are quirky, playful, joyful.

‘Usually I paint something I’ve seen, but I may fiddle with the scale, context and rules of gravity. I draw from observation, memory and with ‘conceptual projection.’’

Wylie clearly has a fondness for fashion. She paints her ‘50s-era bullet-bra, her favourite red lipstick and checked skirt, her dress with the padded shoulders. She paints cut-out paper dolls. 

‘I like stuff that goes across time, through trans-temporality, or whatever you want to call it.’

Sometimes she adds text. Underneath a reclining female figure, she writes: ‘Bathing costume green. Glamour personified.’ Accompanying an ice skater in a pale pink dress: ‘Will I win.’ Alongside Snow White holding a duster: ‘Some day her prince will come.’

Rose Wylie - Study from Red Twink

Wylie draws every day in sketchbooks, on large sheets and scraps of paper. She has an insatiable curiosity, an avid interest in her immediate surroundings and in the world beyond. Her drawings form a memory bank, a treasure trove of ideas to which she constantly returns for inspiration. Her studio floor, covered with layers of newspapers, also acts as a source of stimulus.

‘Chance can bring in something totally new and unexpected…a cure for boredom… Chance is like the break in the dotted line. Anything that is out of control, I like.’

Wylie reminds us that, though we are endlessly trying to impose order, structure and logic on our thoughts, our mental processes are often erratic; coincidence causes fresh associations; and memories tend to be messy - jumbled, fluid, confusing.

‘It is the things I remember that I’m interested in. The memory may not be accurate, but if I have a fond memory of something, the work I make gives me a chance to relate the work to the memory.’

Rose Wylie - Snowwhite (3), with Duster

Wylie teaches creative people to liberate the imagination from classification and control; to be constantly curious, open to stimulus from all sorts of sources; to draw on recollections and experiences; to embrace the random, spontaneous and the incongruous; to make free associations. And, critically, to regard age as an advantage, not an adversary.

‘Age has more appeal [than youth]…There’s more ‘longer backwards’ to work with – and coincidences and connections have more time to happen.’

'Confusion in her eyes that says it all,
She's lost control.
And she's clinging to the nearest passerby,
She's lost control.
And she gave away the secrets of her past,
And said, "I've lost control again."
And of a voice that told her when and where to act.
She said, "I've lost control again.”'

Joy Division, ‘She’s Lost Control’ (B Sumner/ P Hook/ S Morris/ I Curtis)

No. 561

The Unwelcome Feedback: Do You Want an Opinion or Affirmation?

Carl Wilhelm Anton Seiler (1846–1921) - Cigars After Dinner (1901)

We’d been dining at a smart Islington restaurant. Perhaps a little too smart for my taste – somewhat formal, with reverential food presentation and only hushed conversation.

It was the end of the evening, and the chef-proprietor was circling the tables, exchanging a few pleasantries. Eventually he arrived before us, with a fixed smile and a satisfied demeanour.

‘Good evening, Monsieur, Madame. How did you find your meal?’

My wife was very happy to offer her point of view.

‘Well, the service was excellent and we enjoyed our dinner for the most part. Thank you. But I have to say, our vegetables were overcooked.’

Taken aback, the chef-proprietor adopted a rather hurt expression. He was not expecting this kind of response. My wife added:

‘And I think your kitchen is using too much salt.’

We may all recognise this uncomfortable exchange. Not just from restaurants. But from broader work and social settings. Feedback, though often invited, is not always welcome.

Sometimes people asking for an opinion, are really just seeking affirmation. 

I confess that, when I was younger, I regarded criticism as a personal affront. I was defensive, sensitive, easily hurt. But I gradually discovered, from observation of colleagues and the worlds of sport and culture, that ‘feedback is a gift.’ We can only improve our own performance if we embrace other people’s perspectives.

And, of course, feedback is just as hard to give as to receive.

I was taught to deliver constructive criticism by cushioning it between two positive statements. The ‘feedback sandwich,’ as it was inelegantly termed, involved praising a behaviour, raising an area for focus, and then reinforcing the key message with encouragement. Inevitably these sandwiches could still be hard to digest.

Next time you’re about to invite feedback, pause for a moment. Do I genuinely want to hear a perspective on my work? Am I prepared to reflect on what I hear, and if necessary act on it? Or am I really just looking for endorsement?

And if you’re volunteering an opinion on someone else’s contribution, remember: ‘tread softly because you tread on my dreams.’

We left the restaurant soon after our awkward encounter with the chef-proprietor. Never to return. To be fair, I doubt if he moderated his salt policy either. 

'Say it ain't so, Joe. 
Please say it ain't so.
That's not what I wanna hear, Joe, and I've got the right to know.
Say it ain't so, Joe.
Please say it ain't so.
I'm sure they're telling us lies ,Joe,
Please tell us it ain't so.
They told us that our hero has played his trump card.
He doesn't know how to go on.
We're clinging to his charm and determined smile,
But the good old days are gone.
Say it ain't so, Joe.
Please say it ain't so.’
Murray Head, 'Say It Ain't So, Joe'

No. 560

Breakdown: 1975. ‘We Saw an Opening. We Ran and We Took It.’

Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese on the set of Taxi Driver. Photograph: Archive Photos/Getty Images

The enjoyable documentary ‘Breakdown: 1975’ (Netflix. Directed by Morgan Neville.) considers the conditions that contributed to one of the greatest years in American movie history. 1975 saw the production and release of some stunning films: 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest’, 'Dog Day Afternoon’, ‘Nashville’, 'Taxi Driver', 'All the President's Men', ‘Network.' And many more. Let us consider some of the lessons we can learn from this extraordinary burst of creativity. (The documentary in fact reviews a slightly broader period than one year. Just think mid-‘70s.)
 
‘1975. It’s the old story: you had to be there. It was so alive. Everything wiped away. All the old conventions wiped away. And we were creating a new world. It was a perfect time.’
Martin Scorsese, Director
 
1. Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste
 
The United States was in turmoil. President Nixon had resigned in 1974, and the Watergate scandal that had precipitated his departure had undermined public trust in government. The Vietnam War had left deep fractures in national pride and social cohesion. The OPEC oil embargo had led to price rises and gasoline rationing. Crime had increased. The assumption of ongoing prosperity had been challenged. The American Dream had been tarnished.
 
‘It is said that the greatest public happiness is induced by gradual change. Not rapid change, not a total lack of change, but gradual change. Well, in our recent time, the change has been so rapid it is upsetting. Our cosy, familiar world is turned upside down.’
TV News Report, 1975

2. Seize the Moment
 
The upheaval that beset the nation also led to a crisis of confidence in Hollywood. Studio heads found that a public raised on a relentless TV diet had become more demanding and more cynical. John Wayne westerns and big budget musicals didn’t cut it anymore. They had to find fresh talent and ideas.
 
A new generation of writers, directors and actors seized the moment.
 
‘Studios let go. If you were an independent film maker, that was your chance to run in and say: ’I’ve got one.’ ‘OK, make it. We don’t know what works.’ The inmates were running the asylum.’
Albert Brooks, Actor, Director, Screenwriter
 

Jack Nicholson, Danny DeVito and other cast members in ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.’ Associated Press

3. Read the Room
 
This young creative cohort was more in tune with the zeitgeist of mid-‘70s America: the paranoia and corrosion of trust; the alienation, anger and anxiety.
 
‘It was like the ground was in flames and tulips were coming up at the same time.’
Studio Executive
 
‘The Conversation’ (1974. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola) focused on ambiguities and deceptions in the world of surveillance. And ‘Chinatown’ (1974. Directed by Roman Polanski), set amid the California water wars of the 1930s, exposed systemic corruption, the inevitability of evil, the futility of seeking justice.
 
Jake Gittes: Why are you doing it? How much better can you eat? What could you buy that you can't already afford? 
Noah Cross: The future, Mr. Gittes!
‘Chinatown’
 
In similar vein, ‘Three Days of the Condor’ (1975. Directed by Sydney Pollack) imagined a murderous rogue unit operating within the CIA. And ‘All the President’s Men’ (1976. Directed by Alan J Pakula) shone a light on the conspiracies and cover-ups of Watergate. 
 
'Forget the myths the media's created about the White House. The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.'
Deep Throat, ‘All the President’s Men’
 
These thrilling dramas were in conversation with the culture of the time. They walked in step with contemporary news events. They reflected real worries about power, corruption and lies.
 
‘A certain idealism, and a certain hope that we thought we had – that was extinguished.’
Warren Beatty, Actor
 
When in 1975 a US Senate Select Committee revealed that the CIA had in fact for many years, been plotting international assassinations and spying on US citizens – politicians, activists and journalists - there was a sense that suspicions had been confirmed.
 
‘If this government ever became a tyranny; if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny. And there would be no way to fight back.’ 
Frank Church, The Church Committee
 
 4. Keep Up with Reality
 
New York was in a particularly parlous state in 1975. After years of deficit spending, the city was on the verge of bankruptcy. But President Gerald Ford, who had succeeded Nixon, refused to provide a federal bailout.
 
‘Ford to City: Drop Dead’
Headline in the New York Daily News 
 
Rather than turning away, the directors of New Hollywood exposed the reality of urban decay.
 
Martin Scorsese’s ‘Taxi Driver’, set in a benighted New York, depicted a Vietnam veteran (Robert De Niro) whose mental state deteriorates to the point where, as Scorsese explains, ‘being cut off from people in the most populous city in the world, he explodes.’
 
‘Loneliness has followed me my whole life. Everywhere. In bars, in cars, sidewalks, stores, everywhere. There's no escape. I'm God's lonely man.’
Travis Bickle, ‘Taxi Driver’
 
‘Dog Day Afternoon’ (1975. Directed by Sidney Lumet) related the true story of a bank robbery and hostage taking. Such was the sense of frustration with authority at the time, that in the drama the crowd outside the bank cheers on the criminal (Al Pacino).
 
‘We’re having a tough time keeping up with reality. Maybe that’s why we’re so interested in doing movies about actual events that did happen.’
Sidney Lumet, Director
 
5. Just Feel It
 
A strong theme amongst the creative community in this era was trusting gut instinct.
 
‘De Niro. We didn’t even have to talk very much about what it is and what it meant. We just felt it.’
Martin Scorsese, Director
 
Actors were strong-minded and forthright with their opinions. Warren Beatty, for example, who starred in ‘The Parallax View’ (1974. Directed by Alan J Pakula) – the story of a secretive corporation engaged in political assassination. 
 
‘When I make a film, I’m not interested basically in how people perceive it. I’m interested in telling the truth.’
Warren Beatty, Actor

Network (1976) Film still.

6. Wake People Up
 
All these movies shared a commitment to confront the American public with the reality of their current condition; to shatter illusions; to rouse a response.
 
‘A film can put you to sleep nicely, or it can wake you up.’
Joan Tewkesbury, Writer, Director
 
'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' (1975. Directed by Miloš Forman) starred Jack Nicholson as a new patient at a mental institution. The film asked questions about sanity, rebellion, and institutional control. As its promotional campaign proclaimed:
 
'If he's crazy, what does that make you?'
 
‘Network’ (1976. Directed by Sidney Lumet) depicted a television network struggling with poor ratings until its longtime news anchor (Peter Finch) has a breakdown on-air, making his show a surprise hit. 
 
'The American people are turning sullen. They've been clobbered on all sides by Vietnam, Watergate, the inflation, the depression; they've turned off, shot up, and they've f**ked themselves limp, and nothing helps...The American people want somebody to articulate their rage for them.’
Diana Christensen, ‘Network’
 
7. Find Inspiration in Contemporary Psychology, Sociology and Technology
 
The movie makers of the mid-1970s also turned for inspiration to contemporary developments in psychology, sociology and technology.
 
The Women’s Movement set a context for the psychological thriller 'The Stepford Wives' (1975. Directed by Bryan Forbes) and the romantic comedy 'Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore' (1974. Directed by Martin Scorsese). 
 
Similarly, the telekinetic powers used by Sissy Spacek, the heroine in ‘Carrie’ (1976. Directed by Brian De Palma), may have been prompted by EST and the trend towards self-actualisation – the philosophy that you can’t help anyone before you help yourself; reality is based on feelings not facts; you need to ‘control your own soap opera.’
 
There was also a growing concern about computers.
 
‘Some people feel threatened by them. Some think they tend to dehumanise. And others fear they may eventually take over their jobs.’
Ken Kashiwahara, ABC News
 
This technophobia found dramatic expression in ‘Rollerball' (1975. Directed by Norman Jewison), which presented a dystopian future where humanity is governed by corporations, and a supercomputer enforces social control, edits history and provides violent entertainment.
 
8. Every Revolution Prompts a Counter-Revolution. 
 
One of the many artistic peaks of 1975 was ‘Nashville,’ Robert Altman’s satirical drama following 24 different characters over a five-day period leading up to a gala concert for a populist Presidential candidate (for the Replacement Party). 
 
‘My primary job: I try to reflect what I see. It’s like a painting. It’s my vision of what it is that I’m dealing with. And that’s all. I have nothing to say. I have no comments.’
Robert Altman, Director
 
Though critically acclaimed, Altman's slow, sprawling cinematic mosaic was not a box office success. And it prompted criticism that it didn’t reflect the actuality of Middle America. As one Kansas moviegoer observed:
 
‘Somebody told me that I didn’t like Nashville because I didn’t understand it. That may well be. But there seem to be some filmmakers and critics who don’t understand America.’
 
The division between Middle America and its coasts was expanding. And a conservative backlash was brewing. Ronald Reagan, Governor of California, was in the ascendant. The New Right campaigned against school busing, rising crime rates and the breakdown of traditional values. The big TV hits of 1975 were ‘All in the Family’, with its bigoted anti-hero Archie Bunker, and the saccharine ‘50s nostalgia of ‘Happy Days.’ 
 
For every action, there is a reaction. Every revolution prompts a counter-revolution. 
 
9. Remember: A Lot of People Like Buttered Popcorn
 
‘Jaws’ (1975. Directed by Steven Spielberg) related the chaos and confusion caused when a man-eating shark attacks beachgoers at a New England summer resort. With its innovative marketing campaign, its nerve-jangling suspense and adrenaline thrills, it became the highest grossing movie of all time (until Star Wars in 1977). 
 
It represented a change in style and tone. 
 
‘I like taking people into a dark theatre with a thousand strangers and giving them an experience that they’ll never forget. I certainly want to involve myself with intimate storytelling and people’s fantasies and people’s relationships. But by the same token, I like buttered popcorn. I can’t help it. I just like it.’
Steven Spielberg
 
A child interviewed outside an early showing of ‘Jaws’ explained his enthusiasm:
 
‘The villain isn’t winning any more. He’s losing.’
 
And so, gradually, the curtain was drawn on this extraordinary period of brave, innovative movie-making – a time when talent was given free expression, when the United States took a long hard look at itself in the mirror. In its place came the era of the mainstream blockbuster. Hollywood returned to making movies it could sell.
 
The nominees for Best Picture at the 49th Academy Awards, honouring films from 1976, included 'All the President's Men', ‘Network', and 'Taxi Driver.’  The prize was won by ‘Rocky.' 
 
‘Rocky wins the Oscar. That night was the end. That was it.’
Martin Scorsese, Director
 
Inevitably, one can’t help watching a review of the social and political tumult of 1975 without reflecting on our current condition. We live in a world of unstable government, of culture wars and media manipulation; where technology empowers and disempowers, connects and disconnects; where truth is disputed and trust is eroded.
 
This may prompt pessimism and melancholy. But the story of the mid-‘70s American movie industry should also spur creative people to rage against the machine; to speak truth to power; to seize the opportunities presented by our own anxious age.
 
‘We saw an opening. We ran and we took it.’
Martin Scorsese, Director
 
 
'It's not my way to love you just when no one's looking.
It's not my way to take your hand if I'm not sure.
It's not my way to let you see what's going on inside of me.
When it's a love you won't be needing, you're not free.
Please stop pulling at my sleeve if you're just playing.
If you won't take the things you make me want to give.
I never cared too much for games and this one's driving me insane.
You're not half as free to wander as you claim.
But I'm easy
I'm easy
Give the word and I'll play your game.
So that's how it ought to be.
Because I'm easy.’

Keith Carradine, 'I'm Easy’ (written by Keith Carradine and performed in ‘Nashville')

No. 559

Wright of Derby: Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood

Joseph Wright 'of Derby' - An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump. Oil on canvas

I recently enjoyed a visit to a small exhibition of the art of Joseph Wright of Derby. (‘From the Shadows’ is at the National Gallery, London, until 10 May.)

Working at a time of extraordinary scientific breakthroughs, combining vivid realism with dramatic contrasts of light and shadow, Wright was the first painter to capture the spirit of the Industrial Revolution.

Joseph Wright was born in 1797, in Irongate, Derby, into a respectable family of lawyers. Having studied in London, he established himself as a portraitist in Liverpool, Italy and Bath, before eventually settling back in Derby. There he mixed with the pioneering industrialists and scientists of the Lunar Society, a club that met in Birmingham, during the full moon, for intellectual discussion and experimentation. His patrons included Josiah Wedgwood, the entrepreneurial potter, and Richard Arkwright, the creator of the modern factory system.

Joseph Wright 'of Derby' - 'A Philosopher giving That Lecture on the Orrery in Which a Lamp Is Put in the Place of the Sun. Oil on canvas

The show focuses on Wright’s ‘tenebrist’ works – atmospheric scenes with extreme contrasts of light and dark, in the tradition of Caravaggio - that were painted between 1765 and 1773. 

Ironmongers toil in a murky forge. Late at night an alchemist takes to one knee as he discovers glowing phosphorus. By lamplight, an elderly philosopher contemplates a human skeleton. By candlelight, three academics examine a plaster cast of a gladiator. In a darkened room, a travelling teacher explains the movement of planets, using an ‘orrery’, a clockwork model of the solar system. 

These paintings capture the excitement of science, the thrill of progress, the shock of the new.

Consider ‘An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump.’ A long-haired lecturer draws air from a glass flask to demonstrate the effect on a grey cockatoo trapped inside. It is night, and the room is lit by a single candle. Two men dispassionately examine the panicked bird, one of them timing the trial. Two girls cling to each other in distress. The older is unable to watch, but her father, placing a consoling hand on her shoulder, encourages her to pay attention. Two lovers only have eyes for each other. An elderly gentleman stares mournfully, not at the bird, but at a glass bowl containing a human skull. 

Joseph Wright 'of Derby' - Three Persons Viewing the Gladiator by Candlelight. Oil on canvas

I was particularly struck by this complex web of gazes and glances. We all tend to go through life and work with one particular point of view – our own. But often it is only when we reflect on other people’s perspectives, that we can truly understand a dilemma. And it is only when we consider how others see a problem, that we are able to solve it.

Perhaps the most haunting perspective in ‘An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump’ is that of the lecturer. He looks directly out at us, the viewers, as if to ask: What do we make of this scene? Is it science or sadism? Is this progress or regress?

'Baby, you understand me now,
If sometimes you see that I'm mad?
Don't you know no one alive can always be an angel,
When everything goes wrong, you see some bad?
But I'm just a soul whose intentions are good,
Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood.
You know sometimes, baby, I'm so carefree,
With a joy that's hard to hide.
And then sometimes again it seems that all I have is worry,
And then you're bound to see my other side.
But I'm just a soul whose intentions are good,
Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood.’
Nina Simone, 'Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood’ (B Benjamin, H Ott, S Marcus)

No 558

My Captain Birdseye Incident: To See Ourselves as Others See Us

I have long been partial to a smock. 

My dashing mate Matty wore one at college. And I was drawn to the loose collar, the durable cotton construction, the handy pockets at the front. I liked the suggestion of artisanal labour – of fishermen, gardeners and painterly types (though I recall Matty dubbed his a surfers’ top).

I tend to wear my smocks – in various shades of blue and green - around the house. But I do sometimes slip one on when I’m going out and about. 

I recall a particular occasion when I sported a navy smock on a trip to watch West Ham, at the dearly departed Boleyn Ground. As usual, after the game I headed with My-Mate-Andy and the Englishes to the Black Lion pub in Plaistow. And, as usual, it was mobbed, six-deep at the bar. 

I found myself wedged into the queue for a drink, shuffling forward a few inches every minute or so. I had to hold firm, to keep my place, to stay fixed and focused. 

There was a young lad just behind me, shuffling slowly forward in just the same way. 

At length, his chums, waiting at the back of the throng, became impatient for their beer.

‘Come on, Dave, get a move on!’

Dave turned and shouted back:

‘I’m doing my best. I’ve just got to get past Captain Birdseye here.’

I had to laugh. Whereas I imagined I had assumed the look of a traditional craftsman, a horny-handed son of the soil, I reminded this lad of the celebrated sailor-spokesman for frozen fish – hearty, grey haired and comedic.

‘Only the best for the Captain’s table!’

We may think that we are projecting a certain image to the world; that we are in control of our own identity. But often the impressions we make are not those that we intend. Inevitably we miscommunicate. We would do well occasionally to consider how our behaviours and beliefs are landing with other people; to imagine how we are perceived; to see ourselves as others see us.  

‘O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!  
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,  
An' foolish notion:  
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,  
An' ev'n devotion!’
Robert Burns, 'To a Louse'

Now and again, after the match, we’d have a few words - usually about horses - with Tom, the softly-spoken Irish proprietor at the Black Lion. 

One day I realised we’d never really spoken to him about football.

‘Tom, I’ve always wondered: Do you yourself support West Ham?’

He surveyed the large crowd of fans occupying his beer garden, merrily sipping premium lagers in the afternoon sunshine. 

‘Well, fellas, I’d put it like this: West Ham supports me.’

'I gave you my heart,
And I tried to make you happy,
And you gave me nothing in return.
You know, it ain't so hard to say,
Would you please just go away?
I've thrown away the blues,
I'm tired of being used.
I want everyone to know,
I'm looking for a good time.
Oh, sail on, honey.
Good times never felt so good
Sail on, honey.
Good times never felt so good.’
The Commodores, ’Sail On’ (L Richie)

No. 557