Complacency Corrodes: Remembering to Resell Our Relationships

'I've always heard that the ideal marriage should be something of a mystery. That your husband should remain a kind of stranger to you. Someone whose acquaintance you'd like to renew every day.’
Jill Baker, ‘That Uncertain Feeling’

'That Uncertain Feeling' is a fine 1941 romantic comedy directed by Ernst Lubitsch. 

Merle Oberon stars as Jill Baker, a society woman in her mid 20s who has developed intermittent hiccups. At a friend’s recommendation, she visits a psychoanalyst. He suggests Jill’s problem may be more than physical.

Psychoanalyst: Most people know nothing about themselves. Nothing. Their own real personality is a complete stranger to them. Now, what I'm trying to do is to introduce you to your inner-self. I want you to get acquainted with yourself. Wouldn't you like to meet you? Don't you want to get to know yourself?
Jill: No. You see I'm a little shy. 

After an exploration of Jill’s condition, the psychoanalyst concludes that her hiccups derive from irritation with her husband Larry.

Jill has been happily married to insurance salesman Larry, played by Melvyn Douglas, for 6 years. However, she reflects on the fact that she can’t get to sleep at night because of Larry’s heavy breathing and she is woken every morning by his gargling. She resents that he considers it unnecessary to shave before dinner if they don’t have guests; that when she’s on a diet, he eats steak. She is vexed by the affectionate poke in the stomach he gives her every now and again. And she notices that their conversation when he returns from the office is mostly monosyllabic.

Moreover, when Larry does engage Jill it’s to discuss his less than fascinating work issues. The final straw comes when he asks her to host a dinner for prospective Clients at the recently merged Universal Mattress and United Furniture companies.

'Success in business is fifty per cent hard work and fifty per cent the right cigar.’ 

Jill determines that her relationship with Larry has run its course. Soon her head is turned by eccentric pianist Alexander Sebastian.

Alexander: Let me warn you that I say what I think. I'm a complete individualist… I'm against Communism, Capitalism, Fascism, Nazism. I'm against everything and everybody. I hate my fellow man and he hates me.
Jill: It sounds rather amusing.

When Jill embarks on an affair with Alexander, Larry is mortified. His colleague advises him to apply his talents in salesmanship to win her back.

‘There’s only one thing you have to sell - yourself. The most important Client you ever had in your life is waiting for you. And her name is Mrs Baker. Now you’re the best salesman in the business. There’s nothing wrong with your marriage. You just have to resell it once in awhile.'

And so Larry plots a series of schemes to defeat the maverick pianist and regain Jill’s affection. 

‘You’re going to accuse me of something which I’m going to deny and you’re not going to believe.’

‘That Uncertain Feeling’ is something of an undervalued screwball gem. It’s fascinating to see a mid-century depiction of psychoanalysis, and indeed I was quite taken by the thought of meeting myself. An awkward encounter, I imagine. No doubt we’d find each other rather annoying.

In particular I was impressed by the film’s characterisation of complacency corroding a seemingly happy relationship. 

We take each other for granted. We cease to demonstrate interest or solicit opinion. We make assumptions about our present based on our past. We become absorbed in our own plans and preoccupations. Our conversation becomes monotonous, repetitive, predictable. We fail to recognise and rein in our irritating habits. 

Complacency can be a variegated condition. I had a colleague who thought he was on tip-top form: engaging, charming, full of bright ideas. But in fact he was only luminous and appealing when he was at work. At home he was an exhausted, inarticulate lump slumped in an armchair watching telly. Eventually it all came to a head. 

I’m sure complacency can be just as damaging to professional as personal relationships. On reflection I’m not sure I was the best office mate. I now regret the piles of paper with which I surrounded myself, the communication by Post-It note, the Boots Meal Deal consumed in silence at my desk every lunchtime. 

I had a Client once who came in to complain. He was thinking of putting the business up for Pitch. It wasn’t that the team was doing anything wrong exactly. But the meeting that he should have been looking forward to each week had become rather tedious. And he found the ‘metabolism’ of the relationship was just incredibly slow. 

'The tragedy of life is often not in our failure, but rather in our complacency; not in our doing too much, but rather in our doing too little; not in our living above our ability, but rather in our living below our capacities.'
Benjamin E. Mays, Civil Rights Leader

Of course complacency can be conquered. We can wake up and be attentive. We can commit our time and invest our attention. We can be interesting and interested. Like Larry, we can resell our relationship.

Perhaps we should all pause to reflect - maybe even book an appointment with ourselves. Those intermittent hiccups we’ve been suffering could indicate a more fundamental malady.

'Conversation don't come easy.
But I've got a lot to say.
If you look at what we once had
Well, it feels many moons away.
But I came for you.
I've dreamt names for you.
It's true.
No one makes me high like you do.
And I craved for you.
I lost sleep with you.
No one loves me quite like you do.’

Lucy Rose, ‘Conversation'

No. 302

Looking for the Heart of Saturday Night: The Imaginary World of Tom Waits

‘Well with buck shot eyes and a purple heart
I rolled down the national stroll
and with a big fat paycheck
strapped to my hip-sack
and a shore leave wristwatch underneath my sleeve
in a Hong Kong drizzle on Cuban heels
I rowed down the gutter to the Blood Bank
and I'd left all my papers on the Ticonderoga
and I was in bad need of a shave
and so I slopped at the corner on cold chow mein
and shot billiards with a midget
until the rain stopped
and I bought a long sleeved shirt
with horses on the front
and some gum and a lighter and a knife
and a new deck of cards (with girls on the back)
and I sat down and wrote a letter to my wife
’Tom Waits, ‘Shore Leave’

I recently watched a documentary on the musician Tom Waits (‘Tales from a Cracked Jukebox’, BBC4).

In his gruff, gravelly voice, Waits sings about loneliness and longing in the wee small hours; about outsiders and outcasts - lowlife at the liquor store, in cocktail bars, strip joints and tattoo parlours; about the one that got lucky and the one that got away; about dreaming to the twilight and drinking to forget; about forlorn lovers looking for the heart of Saturday night.

'Oh and the things you can’t remember tell the things you can’t forget 
That history puts a saint 
In every dream.’
‘Time’

Waits pores over the underbelly of American city life, telling tales of warped relationships and withered dreams, cracked aspirations and doomed love; the determined self-delusion of the hopeless case.

'Well I've lost my equilibrium and my car keys and my pride.’
‘The One That Got Away’

Waits is a master of characterisation. He gives us fragments from the lives of damaged veterans, worn out waitresses and escaped criminals - seen through the bottom of a beer glass; refracted through early morning tears. His stories are interwoven with incoherent conversations in a late-night drugstore, the elusive dreams of advertising, the insistent pitch of the whiskey preacher.

‘Don't you know there ain’t no devil, 
There's just god when he's drunk.’
‘Heartattack and Vine’

Waits teaches us a good deal about the alchemy of storytelling; about drawing on a rich set of influences, infusing personal experience with invention and memory; about creating our own imaginary worlds.

Interviewer: Do you have a philosophy about writing?
Waits: Never sleep with a girl named Ruby and never play pool with a guy named Fats.

1. ‘Create Situations in Order to Write About Them’

Waits was born in 1949, in Pomona, California. His parents were teachers, his father an alcoholic. They separated when he was 10 and his mother took him to suburban San Diego. He dropped out of High School and did a variety of low-paid jobs.

‘It was a choice between entertainment and a career in air conditioning and refrigeration.’

Waits turned to music as an escape. He progressed from writing Dylan-influenced folk songs to jazz compositions inspired by the Great American Songbook. In 1972 he moved to LA, settled into a cluttered two-room apartment and hung out in the downtown bars, diners and pool halls. 

‘You almost have to create situations in order to write about them, so I live in a constant state of self-imposed poverty.’

Album cover: Blue Valentine

2. ‘Combine Imagination with Experience and Memory’

'I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things.’

Waits took notes of late night conversations with barflies and Bohemians; of dialogue overheard in taxis, at newsstands and gas stations. And then he set his imagination to work. 

‘I remain in all of my stories, but at the same time I think that the creative process is a combination of imagination and experience and memories. By the time a story or song is finished, it may or may not resemble wherever the story came from.’

Importantly, Waits blurred the line between experience and invention.

'Mostly I straddle reality and the imagination. My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane.’

3. ‘Try to Discover That Which Has Been Overlooked By Moving Forward’

Waits grew up surrounded by the emerging hippie culture, but regarded himself as ‘a rebel against the rebels.’  He drew his inspiration from a previous age: from ‘50s Beat writers Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs; from film noir, Hitchcock and ‘The Twilight Zone’; from detective novels and the art of Edward Hopper. He was a man out of time. 

‘Sometimes you find yourself going back in time just to locate something that you can’t find in the future. You’re trying to discover that which has been overlooked by moving forward.’

4. Write About People, Places and Things

Waits avoided hollow generalisations. He peppered his work with incidental details; with references to particular streets, brands and weather conditions – to Kentucky Avenue, Burma Shave and ‘that bloodshot moon in that burgundy sky.’ He always wrote about specific people, places and things.

'I think all songs should have weather in them. Names of towns and streets, and they should have a couple of sailors. I think those are just song prerequisites.’

Waits recognised that small events can create big dramas.

‘It’s the little things that drive men mad. It’s the broken shoe lace when there’s no time left that sends men completely out of their minds.’

5. Keep Evolving

Waits’ songwriting style changed over time.

'You have to keep busy. After all, no dog's ever pissed on a moving car.’

In the early ‘80s he became fascinated by Captain Beefheart, by the pioneering contemporary composer Harry Partch, and by Weimar artists Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht. His song settings moved increasingly from the bar and diner to Vaudeville and the stage, the freakshow and the fairground. His writing explored themes of salvation and damnation. And his instrumentation embraced experimental brass, percussion and found objects

'Oh, I'm not a percussionist, I just like to hit things.’

6. ‘The Way You Affect Your Audience Is More Important than How Many of Them Are There’

'They say that I have no hits and that I'm difficult to work with. And they say that like it's a bad thing.’

Though Waits was much admired by critics and fellow artists, his commercial success was modest. Nonetheless he is regarded as one of America’s greatest songwriters. He has always focused, first and foremost, on the work. 

'I would rather be a failure on my own terms than a success on someone else’s. That’s a difficult statement to live up to, but then I’ve always believed that the way you affect your audience is more important than how many of them are there.’

Waits reminds us that reward and recognition should not be objectives, but effects.

'I worry about a lot of things, but I don’t worry about achievements. I worry primarily about whether there are nightclubs in Heaven.’

The documentary left me reflecting particularly on the imperative for creative people to immerse themselves in incident and adventure. If we don’t expose ourselves to diverse people and rich experiences, how can we create compelling characters and original narratives? If we live conventional lives, how can we come up with unconventional ideas?

There is perhaps one other lesson suggested by Waits’ approach to creativity. 

His vision is bleak, his themes are melancholy and his heroes are resolutely unheroic: the failing lounge singer, the desperate door-to-door salesman, the down-at-heel prostitute and the grubby private investigator.

'Most of the people I admire, they usually smell funny and don't get out much. It's true. Most of them are either dead or not feeling well.’

But these are real people with compelling stories. Waits has genuine empathy and at heart he is a romantic. He paints his pictures with respect and affection. And he always affords his characters a certain nobility.

'And I wondered how the same moon outside over this Chinatown fair
Could look down on Illinois
And find you there.’
‘Shore Leave’

'Wasted and wounded, it ain't what the moon did
Got what I paid for now.
See ya tomorrow, hey Frank can I borrow
A couple of bucks from you?
To go waltzing Mathilda, waltzing Mathilda
You'll go a-waltzing Mathilda with me.’
‘Tom Traubert's Blues’

No 301

The Nun in the Cathedral: Beware the Inclination to Go with the Flow

Diego Velasquez, ’The Nun Jeronima de la Fuente'

'Most of our assumptions have outlived their uselessness.'
Marshall McLuhan

I’m not sure I consider myself a holiday expert. I don’t really like the heat or beaches or exotic food; the awkward new acquaintances, scatter cushions and exacting shower mechanics. And I’ve never quite mastered the flip-flop.

I am nonetheless partial to an Italian Tri-Centre Break. This vacation format works on the assumption that every Italian town has some decent restaurants and a couple of charming churches; an agreeable piazza filled with old folk drinking coffee, a gallery stocked with unfamiliar Renaissance art - entirely sufficient to merit a couple of nights’ stay. And if you cluster a few of these towns together, you arrive at a very satisfactory holiday. Bologna-Ravenna-Parma; Cremona-Mantova-Verona; Vicenza-Padova-Ferrara. Ideal!

Like everyone else, I try to be ‘a traveller, not a tourist.’ Not easy for a bloke from Essex. One tactic I occasionally employ is to attend Sunday Mass at the local Cathedral. For an hour I can blend in with the natives in a space devoid of sightseers. I can feel like I belong. 

On a visit to Parma some years ago, having ascertained from my hotel the times of services, I arrived at the Duomo just as they were clearing out the tourists. With a confident gesture I signalled that I was there for Mass and settled into a central pew with my fellow Parmensi. I took some time to observe my neighbours, sat back and admired the impressive architecture. I fitted in.

A small elderly Nun handed me an Order of Service and mumbled some words of welcome in Italian. ‘Bene grazie’ I replied with a smile and what I’m sure was a very convincing accent.

The church gradually filled up. It was quite a big place and we had a pretty good turnout. At ten o’clock precisely, with the toll of a bell and a short procession of candles, thuribles and priests in colourful vestments, the Mass began. Although the service was in Italian, of which I know only a few words, it all progressed along familiar lines. I was aware when to nod and bow and cross myself and so forth, and felt an all-consuming sense of belonging. 

Then a peculiar thing happened. When it came to the time for the Readings, the whole affair, which had been going so smoothly, suddenly ground to a halt. No one had taken up a position at the lectern. People began looking round at the other attendees. The Duomo echoed with confused whispering. 

At length the Nun I had met at the outset - who was now sitting in the front row - turned right round in her bench and, with a formidable glare, pointed towards the centre of the congregation. I followed the line of her arm, carefully calculating the geometry of her posture, and concluded, with a certain amount of anxiety, that she was pointing squarely in my direction.

It was at this juncture that I glanced at my Order of Service and realised that no one else around me had been given one. Perhaps those mumbled words from the elderly Nun had been more than a welcome. Perhaps they had been an invitation to read the Lesson.

I promptly hid the incriminating paper under my seat, looked intently at the floor and began to sweat profusely. I could sense that the eyes of the whole congregation were now upon me. I was determined not to budge. 

After what seemed like an eternity, the Nun herself took the stand and delivered the Readings. Order was restored and the Mass regained its impetus. At the end of the service I made a quick bolt for the exit. I didn’t quite feel that I belonged any more.

'It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.'
Jonathan Swift

So much of what we do in life is based on false assumptions, outdated suppositions, wrong information. Yet we are driven by inertia, carried along by our own momentum, floating on a cloud of misplaced confidence. We want to fit in. We want to belong. We follow the crowd and go with the flow. We nod our assent. We unthinkingly conform. We laugh at jokes we don’t really comprehend. We agree to actions we don’t really endorse. We say ‘yes’ when we should really be saying ‘no’.

It takes conscious effort, an act of will, to dismiss the urge to belong; to resist the force of momentum in our lives; to stop for a moment, reflect and ask: ‘Why?’

‘No, no, no.
You don't love me
And I know now.
No, no, no.
You don't love me,
Yes I know now.
'Cause you left me, Baby,
And I got no place to go now.’

Dawn Penn, ‘You Don’t Love Me’ (Cobbs / Mcdaniel)

No. 300

‘Find Hungry Samurai’: Team Building Lessons from a Japanese Master

‘Of course you’re afraid of the enemy. But don’t forget: he’s afraid of you too.'
‘Seven Samurai’

‘Seven Samurai’ is a 1954 epic drama set in sixteenth century Japan, co-written and directed by Akira Kurosawa.

A small village has been repeatedly ravaged by bandits, and the inhabitants learn that their tormentors plan to return after the harvest. 

'Is there no god to protect us? Land tax, forced labour, war, drought and now bandits. The gods want us farmers dead!’

The villagers send a delegation into town to hire rōnin, masterless samurai, in the hope that they may provide some protection. Lacking money to pay for the warriors, the farmers are initially treated with contempt. However eventually they find Kambei, an experienced samurai with a noble spirit. 

With his help they recruit six more men: a trusted former comrade, a youth who’s keen to learn, a taciturn master swordsman, an amiable strategist, a hearty joker and an enthusiastic fraud.

When the warriors arrive at the village they are greeted with suspicion. The locals’ previous experience of samurai has been violent and exploitative. 

'All farmers ever do is worry, whether the rain falls, the sun shines or the wind blows. In short, all they know is fear.’

But the samurai gradually earn the villagers’ trust and they set about converting meek farmers into a fighting force. Soon the villagers are learning combat technique, battle tactics and how to operate as a unit. 

'This is the nature of war: collective defence protects the individual; individual defence destroys the individual.’

Kambei surveys the village with a map, plotting where to expect the enemy assaults; where to build barricades and moats.

‘Defence is more difficult than attack.’

At length the stockades are constructed, the training is completed and the crops are harvested. The villagers begin to speculate that they may be lucky this time: perhaps the bandits won’t come after all.

'A tempting thought. But when you think you're safe is precisely when you're most vulnerable.'

Of course Kambei is right, and soon the hostilities commence. Central to his strategy is his intention to lure the bandits into the village one by one.

'A good fort needs a gap. The enemy must be lured in. So we can attack them. If we only defend, we lose the war.’

All goes to plan. The mounted bandits can only break into the village in ones and twos. And once inside they are picked off by groups of farmers armed with bamboo spears. 

But the fighting takes its toll on the villagers too. With their strength fading and their numbers dwindling, they prepare for the final all-out attack. Kambei orders that the remaining thirteen bandits be allowed into the village all at once. 

The magnificent climactic scene takes place in a torrential morning downpour. Confused horses twist and turn in the mud, stamping and snorting. Determined villagers crowd around desperate bandits, screaming their battle cries, goading them with their spears. Fearsome samurai wade in the water, swinging their swords, slashing through the enemy armour. It’s chaotic and brutal.

‘Seven Samurai’ was an international success and was adapted into the 1960 western 'The Magnificent Seven.’ It inspired many subsequent action and adventure films, and is credited with establishing the 'assembling the team’ motif that has become familiar in so many war, caper and heist movies.

‘Seven Samurai’ suggests lessons for anyone in business engaged in recruiting and managing a team.

Kambei didn’t just sign up the six most talented samurai. In the first place the villagers couldn’t afford them. But also he knew that the best individuals don’t necessarily make the best team. Rather Kambei recruited a balance of youth and experience, of strategic and fighting skills, of swordsmanship and archery. He embraced hard-nosed puritans and eccentric mavericks. He recognised the need for humour to build morale. And he drilled the team tirelessly before they faced the enemy.

I was particularly struck by the words of the village elder at the outset of the drama.

'Find hungry samurai. Even bears leave the forest when they are hungry.’

I couldn’t claim to have been the best leader of a Planning Department. But I was conscious of the need for diversity of skills and character; for building community and delivering value. And I tried to avoid the obvious hires - people with big reputations, big wage demands and low motivation. I liked to find talent in unfamiliar places; to fish in less popular ponds. I always hired people I liked, admired and trusted – people with appetite. I found hungry samurai.

Though the samurai emerge triumphant from the conflict, their victory comes at a heavy price. At the end of the film the three surviving warriors look on from the funeral mounds of their comrades as the villagers joyously plant fresh crops. 

‘So. Again we are defeated. The farmers have won. Not us.’

'When you come to me
I'll question myself again.
Is this grip on life still my own?

When every step I take
Leads me so far away.
Every thought should bring me closer home.

There you stand making my life possible.
Raise my hands up to heaven,
But only you could know.

My whole world stands in front of me.
By the look in your eyes.
By the look in your eyes.’

David Sylvian,’ Brilliant Trees’ 

No. 299

Marina Abramovic: Creativity Is a State of Mind

'Art is not just about another beautiful painting that matches your dining room floor. Art has to be disturbing, art has to ask a question, art has to predict the future.’
Marina Abramovic

I recently watched a documentary about the Serbian performance artist Marina Abramovic (‘Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present’, by Matthew Akers, 2012). 

Creating work since the early 1970s, Abramovic is considered ‘the grandmother of performance art.’ Using her own body as her medium, she has explored themes of physical endurance and mental strength; artistic and female identity; the relationship between performer and audience. It’s pretty challenging stuff.

Abramovic jabbed a knife between her splayed fingers. She kneeled naked before a large industrial fan. She took psychoactive drugs in front of an audience. She set fire to a wooden five-pointed Communist star, lay inside it and fainted from the lack of oxygen. She placed 72 objects on a table - a rose, a feather, honey, scissors, a scalpel, a gun, a single bullet - and informed spectators that they could apply them to her in whatever way they wanted - to give her pleasure or inflict pain - without being held responsible for their actions. 

‘The veneer of civilisation is very thin, and what’s absolutely terrifying is how quickly a group of people will become bestial if you give them permission to do so.’
Chrissie Iles, Whitney Museum of American Art

In 1976 Abramovic teamed up with German performance artist Ulay. 
They ran into each other repeatedly. They sat back-to-back, tied together by their ponytails for sixteen hours. They drove a van around a square shouting numbers through a megaphone. They stood naked in a narrow doorway and invited the public to squeeze between them. They sat silently across from each other. They yelled at each other. Ulay pointed an arrow at Abramovic’s heart.

'Performance is all about state of mind.’

In 1988, in a piece called ‘The Lovers’, Abramovic and Ulay walked the Great Wall of China, starting from the two opposite ends and meeting in the middle. After this experience the couple separated.

It’s easy to dismiss or mock performance art. It’s daft, unhinged, attention seeking. But let’s pause for a moment to reflect on what the artist is trying to convey. What are we to make of such bold and provocative staged events? 

Firstly Abramovic doesn’t want her art to be easy. She actively embraces the disagreeable and uncomfortable.

'From a very early time, I understood that I only learn from things I don’t like. If you do things you like, you just do the same shit. You always fall in love with the wrong guy. Because there’s no change. It’s so easy to do things you like. But then, the thing is, when you’re afraid of something, face it, go for it. You become a better human being.’

One can’t help but be struck by Abramovic’s fierce determination, her stamina, her willingness to address her vulnerabilities and fears. Indeed she talks more about the mental process required to create the work than about the output itself.

'Artists have to be warrior. Have to have this determination and have to have the stamina to conquer not just new territory, but also to conquer himself, and his weaknesses. So, it doesn't matter what kind of work you're doing as an artist, the most important is from what state of mind you're doing what you're doing.’

Some of the meaning behind Abramovic’s work may reside in her childhood. She was born in Belgrade, former Yugoslavia, in 1946.  Her parents, renowned Partisan fighters during World War II, gave her a strict, disciplined, religious upbringing.

‘So basically you are looking at many Marinas. You are looking at the Marina who is product of two Partisan parents, two national heroes. No limits. Willpower. Any aim she put it in the front of her. And then right next to this one you have the other one who is like a little girl. Her mother never gave her enough love. Very vulnerable and unbelievably disappointed and sad. And then there is another one who has this kind of spiritual wisdom and can go above all that. And this is actually my favourite one.’

Few of us would put ourselves through the trials that Abramovic has inflicted on herself. But many may share her conflicted identity. Her work prompts us to consider the resonances that childhood experience have throughout our lives: our fragmented selves.

'I realized that this is the theme I return to constantly - I'm always trying to prove to everyone that I can go it alone, that I can survive, that I don't need anybody.’

The documentary follows Abramovic as she prepares for a 2010 retrospective of her work at The Museum of Modern Art in New York. At that show she introduces a new piece, ‘The Artist Is Present.’

'The hardest thing is to do something which is close to nothing because it is demanding all of you.’

Abramovic sits at a table in the museum atrium in a long monotone gown, and invites audience members to take turns to sit opposite her for a few minutes before being moved on. She remains at her station for seven and a half hours, six days a week, for three months - in silence, without food or water.

‘The inability to keep going, the potential of giving up, will become part of the performance if it occurs.’

Abramovic stares serenely at the visitor in front of her. The visitor smiles back and blinks and fidgets a little. There are furrowed brows, intense gazes and deep sighs. Occasionally a woman holds her hand to her heart. Time slows. People are very conscious of their breathing. Many burst into tears.

‘There are so many reasons why people come to sit in front of me. Some of them they’re angry, some are the curious. Some of them just want to know what happens. Some of them they are really open and you feel incredible pain. So many people have so much pain. When they’re sitting in front of me it’s not about me any more. Very soon I’m just a mirror of their own self.’

With a month to go Abramovic removes the table and so creates an even more intimate experience. As the show gains celebrity, it attracts long queues, repeat visitors, cultish fans, eccentrics and exhibitionists. A man has scored 21 onto his arm to mark the number of times he has sat with the artist.

I felt sorry for one woman who disrobes as soon as she gets in front of Abramovic. She is immediately removed by Security, but explains after that she was only trying to make a respectful tribute.

‘I wanted to be as vulnerable to her as she makes herself to everyone else.’

I found ‘The Artist Is Present’ rather moving. I was struck by the intimacy that can be created so suddenly between two strangers, the power of the eyes to convey feeling, the magic of interpersonal chemistry. The work suggests the preciousness of silence and time; the craving we all have for human connection; the need to be loved.

There’s a touching moment in the documentary when Ulay joins Abramovic at the MoMA event. He settles opposite her, arranges his jacket and stretches his legs. She looks up, at first surprised. She smiles, sighs and stares intently. He shakes his head reassuringly. She breathes deeply, gulps for air and slowly turns to weeping. They reach across the table and hold each other’s hands.

'If you experiment, you have to fail. By definition, experimenting means going to territory where you’ve never been, where failure is very possible. How can you know you’re going to succeed? Having the courage to face the unknown is so important.' 

'Why don't you look up once in a while?
The sky is bright, the time is here.
Why don't you call him just to say hello?
Oh, the light was right, we all thought so.
I don't want to take anything from you.
I want to see you living.
I want to see you through.’

Nadia Reid, ‘I Don’t Wanna Take Anything from You'

No. 298

My Starring Role in the Primary School Play: ‘Listening Isn’t the Same as Waiting to Speak’

The other day I came across a photo of myself on stage when I was at primary school.

I was playing the Mayor in a musical called ‘Edelweiss’ which we performed in front of the local old folks’ home. There I am in my velvet jacket, medal of office and tricorn hat, executing a vibrant dance number flanked by my chums Paul and Arthur. There’s a rather impressive backdrop of snowy mountains, fir trees and flowers. And a good few of my classmates are arrayed across the stage in their Alpine gear - looking somewhat disinterested.

I recall there was also a rom-com element to the show. This entailed me singing a song to fellow pupil Tracey.

‘Oh, I love your eyes of blue and I love your kisses too.
But most of all I love your custard pies.’

Given that pies and custard are two of my favourite things, this refrain could well have been written for me.

The curious thing about ‘Edelweiss’ is that I don’t recall anything about the plot, the cast or the other characters. I just remember my starring role.

In his splendid autobiography, ’The Moon’s a Balloon,’ David Niven tells a story of his early years as a struggling actor in Hollywood. He’d just played a small part in the 1938 romantic comedy ‘Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife,’ and Charlie Chaplin was attending a private screening. After the movie Niven was gratified to receive compliments from those in attendance, but he was particularly keen to hear what the great man thought of his performance. Chaplin paused for a moment.

John Springer Collection | Credit: Corbis via Getty Images

‘Don’t be like the great majority of actors… Don’t just stand around waiting for your turn to speak – learn to listen.’  

Niven took Chaplin’s criticism on the chin, and indeed felt it ‘constituted the greatest advice to any beginner in my profession.’

I’m sure that’s true. So often we see actors on stage or screen that seem disengaged from the other characters around them, or indeed from the scene they’re performing in. They’re just waiting for the moment when they get to deliver their lines. 

I think this is the case in commerce too. I recall being told once that we all go into a business meeting with a fair idea of the amount that we are likely to say. Juniors will speak seldom, but will hope to play a significant supporting role. Middle ranking people will say a good deal, sustaining the bulk of the agenda. And they will vie with each other to dominate the speaking parts. Senior people will talk less, but will swing in towards the end with illuminating wisdom and definitive conclusions.

If we go into a meeting already understanding the role we’re about to perform, what are the chances we also know the lines we’re going to deliver?

Despite the fact that nowadays we are endlessly encouraged to be active listeners, I suspect that most of us still struggle to attend to the other participants in our meetings. They’re holding us up, distracting our attention, delaying the moment when we’ll deliver our pithy analysis, our penetrating insight. 

Too often life is a drama in which we’re only interested in one of the characters. Surely we’d make a bigger impact, and enjoy ourselves a good deal more, if we paid proper attention to the other roles that populate our play, to the plot that drives it and the themes that sustain it. As Chaplin observed, listening is the key to a great performance. And listening isn’t the same as waiting to speak.

On reflection, I’m not sure the Mayor was the starring role in ‘Edelweiss.’ It was probably just a bit part.

'Why fool yourself?
Don't be afraid to help yourself.
It's never too late, too late to
Stop, look,
Listen to your heart, hear what it's saying.
Stop, look,
Listen to your heart, hear what it's saying.
Love, love, love.’

The Stylistics, ‘Stop-Look-Listen’ (J Abbott / T Bell / G Black / L Creed / C David)

No. 297

‘The Man in the White Suit’: What Will We Do When We’ve Nothing to Make?

‘You’re not even born yet. What do you think happened to all the other things?
The razor blade that never gets blunt, the car that runs on water with just a pinch of something. No, they’ll never let your stuff on the market in a million years.’
Member of the Works Committee to Sidney Stratton, 'The Man In The White Suit' 

'The Man In The White Suit' is a fine 1951 Ealing comedy directed by Alexander Mackendrick. Whilst gently satirising the English class system, the film also asks some profound questions about the impact of technology and innovation on labour and capital.

‘Flotsam floating on the flood tide of profits. There's capitalism for you.’

'The Man In The White Suit' is set in the world of northern textile manufacture. Alec Guinness plays Sidney Stratton, a brilliant young research chemist who has been dismissed from jobs at several mills.

‘One day there’ll be someone with real vision… It’s small minds like yours that stand in the way of progress.’

Stratton finds a role in the laboratory of Birnley Mill. Here he constructs a complex apparatus of clamp stands and spiral condensers; a tangle of flasks and funnels, beakers and burettes, that periodically emits beeps and steam. Inspired by new fabrics like rayon and nylon, he sets about designing long chain molecules that form into an incredibly strong, dirt-resistant fibre.

‘He’s made a new kind of cloth. It never gets dirty and it lasts for ever!'

To demonstrate Stratton’s new discovery he has a suit made from the new material. Since it cannot absorb dye and contains radioactive elements, the garment is brilliant white and luminous. He may look a little eccentric in his new threads, but the fabric passes every test. He is congratulated by the owner of Birnley Mill who sees the potential for huge profits, and by the owner's daughter who imagines huge social good.

‘Don’t you understand what this means? Millions of people all over the world living lives of drudgery, fighting an endless losing battle against shabbiness and dirt. You’ve won that battle for them. You’ve set them free. The whole world’s going to bless you.’

However, the broader community of mill owners realises that this new cloth could ruin the textile industry.

‘Are you mad? It’ll knock the bottom out of everything right down to the primary producers. What about the sheep farmers, the cotton growers, the importers and the middle men? It’ll ruin all of them.’
‘Let’s stick to the point. What about us?’

The bosses endeavour to keep Stratton’s invention a secret, and to buy the formula in order to suppress it.

‘There’s only one thing that’ll pull the market together. That is denial backed with suppression. Total and permanent.’

At the same time the local trade unionists realise that the invention could deprive them of their jobs. They take matters into their own hands and lock Stratton up.

‘If this stuff never wears out, we’ll only have one lot to make.’

At length management and workers recognise that they are united in their desire to see Stratton’s innovation checked.

‘What are we arguing for? Nobody wants to market it. My dear friends, you must see that our bone of contention is non-existent. Capital and labour are hand-in-hand in this. Once again, as so often in the past, each needs the help of the other.’

The Man in the White Suit 1951

'The Man In The White Suit' explores themes that are very much relevant today: Should science pursue innovation that improves people’s lives regardless of the impact it may have on industry and employment? How do we deal with the concentration of capital that results from such disruptive change? How do we accommodate the workers who have lost their jobs? 

What will we do when we’ve nothing to make?

Some have argued that this industrial revolution, like every previous one, will ultimately create employment in new sectors and businesses. Some see opportunities in areas where emotional intelligence trumps artificial intelligence - in the caring and creative professions for instance. Some have put the case for global tax regimes and Universal Basic Income. 

Or will our most pressing problem, as Keynes predicted in 1931, be finding how to fill our newly abundant leisure time?

'For the first time since his creation man will be faced with his real, his permanent problem—how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares, how to occupy the leisure, which science and compound interest will have won.’
John Meynard Keynes, 'Economic Possibilities'

We all want to be on the side of progress. None of us longs to be a Luddite. But it would help if we could agree on some credible answers to these fundamental questions.

When Stratton escapes capture, he is chased by an angry mob through the streets of the town. He encounters his elderly washerwoman.

‘Why can't you scientists leave things alone? What about my bit of washing when there's no washing to do?’

At this point we become aware that there is a fault in the invention: after a period of time the fabric deteriorates. When the bosses and workers finally corner an exhausted Stratton, they see that the white suit is beginning to fall apart. Delighted, they rip what remains of it to pieces. The misunderstood inventor is left standing in his underwear. 

'They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot.
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot spot.
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
'Till it's gone.
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot.

Joni Mitchell, ‘Big Yellow Taxi'

No. 296

‘It’s About Not Blinking’: The Unfiltered Truth of Steve McQueen

‘Ashes’ still from film - Steve McQueen

‘The fact of the matter is I’m interested in a truth. I cannot put a filter on life. It’s about not blinking.’
Steve McQueen

I recently visited the excellent Steve McQueen exhibition at Tate Modern (until 6 September 2020).

We’re greeted by the Statue of Liberty. She is filmed from a circling helicopter, and beyond her there are factories, warehouses and skyscrapers; bridges, barges and cruise ships - arrayed across New York Harbor, glistening in the sunlight. And yet she looks grim-faced, tired perhaps from holding her golden torch aloft for so long. Her garments of oxidised copper, in places caked in guano, seem somewhat tatty. The Dream she represents has achieved so much for so many. But now it is frayed around the edges.

We enter a room with a screen scrolling through old FBI files. They detail the surveillance carried out in the ‘40s and ‘50s on the singer, actor and Civil Rights campaigner Paul Robeson. Trivial observations and banal insights. Heavy type and crude redaction. A voiceover reads from another set of similar documents. We are immersed in a world of paranoia and anxiety; of secrecy and bureaucracy. The wary speculation of suspicious minds. The film runs for over 5 hours.

McQueen asks us to stay a little longer, to reflect on what’s going on around us - the mysteries, curiosities and injustices; the political intrigues and personal tragedies; the unvarnished truth. Stop, look and listen.

‘7th November’ - Single 35mm slide, sound, 23 minutes. Steve McQueen

'As far as I’m concerned, it’s all about the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. End of. To get to that, you have to go in close, uncover what’s been hidden or covered over. Obviously, the easy thing is not to go there, but I have a need to go there.’

McQueen takes us by the hand through the world’s deepest goldmine, the Tau Tona in South Africa. We encounter Tricky immersed in a recording studio. We reflect on the images NASA selected in 1977 to represent the human condition to possible alien life forms. We pause to examine McQueen’s nipple, Charlotte Rampling’s eye. 

Here’s a young man named Ashes, sitting on the prow of a boat in Grenada, where McQueen’s father was raised. Ashes looks fit, handsome, self-assured - completely at ease with the blissful, open-skied world around him. We pause for a while and take in the azure beauty of it all. There’s a curious scraping sound - metal on stone perhaps? - coming from the other side of the room. We realise the large screen we’ve been watching is double-sided. On the reverse there are two workmen preparing a grave. It is Ashes’ tomb. The seemingly carefree young man got caught up in a drugs incident. Memento mori.

Born in 1969, McQueen grew up in Shepherd’s Bush and Ealing, West London. He was an undiagnosed dyslexic, relegated to the lower stream at school, and he had to wear a patch to cover a ‘lazy eye.’ He felt isolated. 

'What I do as an artist is, I think, to do with my own life experience. I came of age in a school which was a microcosm of the world around me. One day, you’re together as a group, the next, you are split up by people who think certain people are better than you.’

Steve McQueen. (Photo: Thierry Bal)

McQueen studied art and design at Chelsea College of Arts and then fine art at Goldsmiths College. Increasingly he specialised in short films, and in 1999 he won the Turner Prize. In 2006, commissioned to visit Iraq as an official war artist, he commemorated the deaths of British soldiers by presenting their portraits as sheets of stamps. 

Since 2008 McQueen has created feature films. ‘Hunger’, ‘Shame’, and ‘12 Years a Slave’ considered an Irish hunger strike, sex addiction and slavery. With ‘12 Years a Slave’ he became the first black director to win a Best Picture Oscar.

For McQueen close scrutiny of the world frees us from the indifference and detachment of our comfortably numb, accelerated modern lives.

‘You want to cause a bit of trouble, stir things up a bit. We’re all a bit numb right now, so that’s even more important. It’s like, ‘Wake up! Wake up!’ Let’s make some noise.'

McQueen makes the point that the better we see - the more we bear witness - the more we are seen.

'It’s not just about anger. It’s about seeing, contemplating, serious consideration. It’s about being seen, and heard and recognised, so as the years pass they can’t make you invisible.'

We encounter Marcus, McQueen’s cousin, lying with his close-cropped scalp facing towards us. A scar runs from one end of his head to the other. Marcus relates the chilling story of how he shot his younger brother. A small mistake leads to another bigger mistake. And so, in an instant, one life is ended and another changes forever.

'Easy, Natty, easy.
Nah take it so rough.
Easy, Natty, easy.
Babylon too tough.
Them a walk, them a shoot, them a loot.
Babylon them a brute.
Them a walk, them a loot, them a shoot.
But we know evil by the root.’

Gregory Isaacs, ‘Babylon Too Rough’ (G Isaacs / W G Holness)

No. 295

The Triumph of the Frustrations: Sometimes We Need to Star in Our Own Movie

Walter Richard Sickert - Brighton Pierrots 1915, Tate

Well, yes, since you were asking, I can sing. I have a sweet voice, but it has a narrow range and a tendency to go a-wandering. At school I found my appropriate level as a rank-and-file member of the choir. I appreciated that there was safety in numbers. I knew my place.

Nonetheless, I always hankered after greater things. I yearned for the spotlight, for centre stage, imagining that there was a sensuous soul singer lurking deep within my awkward, apprehensive exterior.

The Pembroke College Talent Competition provided the ideal opportunity to test my mettle. And so I teamed up with my mate Thommo, who could both sing and play guitar. Conscious of my more limited skill-set, I suggested it would be best if he concentrated on the instrumental side of things.

We called ourselves The Frustrations, the idea being that we were ‘the thwarted Temptations.’ But to be honest we didn’t have too much in common with David Ruffin and co.

We put together a concise set of covers that would appeal to a broad range of student tastes. Iggy Pop’s ‘The Passenger’ had a menacing monotone verse and a rousing ‘la-la-la’ chorus. The Smiths’ ‘Please, Please, Please’ signalled a pale-and-interesting, wistful melancholia. And Andy Williams’ ‘Can’t Get Used to Losing You’ implied a certain supper-club sophistication.

'Guess there's no use in hangin' ‘round.
Guess I'll get dressed and do the town.
I'll find some crowded avenue,
Though it will be empty without you.
I can't get used to losin' you no matter what I try to do,
Gonna live my whole life thorough, loving you.’

Andy Williams, ‘Can’t Get Used to Losing You’ (J Pomus / M Shuman)

On the big night Thommo and I donned our shiny vintage suits, with pressed shirts and slim silk ties. As usual, I had my hair slicked back with Black & White coconut oil - I think I was channelling Spandau Ballet – and, of course, we both wore white towelling socks. We were from Croydon and Romford, and ours was the true sound of the suburbs.

The College bar was small, smoke-filled, dark and dingy, the only comfort supplied by the tatty orange-brown banquettes. Tonight it was crammed with students in combat jackets, pyjama tops and greasy Docs; with studded belts, ripped jeans and soaped-up hair.

And so it came to our turn at the microphone, and we edged onto the makeshift stage located neatly between the darts board and the jukebox. What we lacked in ability we made up for with youthful brio. And soon we had them swaying on the banquettes and singing along with the chorus. Our friends Rob and Doug enhanced the authentic gig experience by pelting us with plastic glasses.

No surprise perhaps that the Frustrations triumphed at the Pembroke College Talent Competition. The Holsten Pils bottles were cracked open, the jukebox was cranked up, and Thommo and I danced jubilantly into the early hours. ‘The sky was made for us tonight.’

'Get into the car.
We'll be the passenger.
We'll ride through the city tonight.
See the city's ripped backsides.
We'll see the bright and hollow sky
We'll see the stars that shine so bright.
The sky was made for us tonight.’

Iggy Pop, ‘The Passenger’ (J Osterberg / R Gardiner)

Many of us are naturally shy, polite, reserved. We are team players, happy to participate and contribute, without being centre stage. But that’s not always enough to sustain us. Sometimes it seems like we’re just extras or bit-part actors; as if we’re performing a supporting role in someone else’s film.

Just occasionally it serves us well to write our own script, to step into the spotlight, to deliver our own lines, to play the romantic lead – regardless of the constraints of talent. Sometimes we deserve to live life like the star of our own movie.

Subsequent to our success Thommo and I resisted the siren call of a music career and slipped quietly back into our erstwhile roles as geeky Classicists. We were happy enough with this outcome. We had got what we wanted. This time.


'Good time for a change.
See, the luck I've had
Can make a good man
Turn bad.
So please, please, please
Let me, let me, let me,
Let me get what I want
This time.'

The Smiths, ‘Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want’ (J Marr / S Morrissey)

No. 294

‘A Face in the Crowd’: The Dark Journey from Popularity to Populism

'I'll say one thing for him, he's got the courage of his ignorance.’
Mel Miller, 'A Face in the Crowd' 

'A Face in the Crowd' is a 1957 satirical drama that considers the power of modern media to create celebrities, and the influence that those celebrities can wield in contemporary commerce and politics.

Directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg, the movie stars Andy Griffith as Larry ‘Lonesome’ Rhodes, a drifter musician. At the outset, Rhodes is discovered in the county jail by Marcia Jeffries (played by Patricia Neal), the producer of a radio station serving rural northeast Arkansas. She is taken with his combination of raw musical ability, earthy charisma and homespun humour, and she gives him a slot on her show.

Rhodes comes across as a mix of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Billy Graham. He quickly wins a following with his straight talking, folksy wit and sardonic criticism of local politicians.

'How does it feel?... Just saying anything that comes into your head and being able to sway people like this.'

Rhodes’ growing celebrity earns him a slot on a Memphis TV network. As he is waved off from the railway station by a crowd of wellwishers, he reveals to Jeffries his contempt for the small town that made him.

'Boy, am I glad to shake that dump.’

Once in Memphis Rhodes soon proves himself a natural in front of the camera.

'Hey, Mr. Cameraman, move that old red eye a little closer.... I wanna talk face-to-face with them friends of mine out there.’

He seems to have a fundamental understanding of the lives of ordinary people. 

'You know one thing I could see right off about a big city. There's a whole lot of people in trouble out there.’

Rhodes is indiscreet and outspoken on-air. When he ridicules his sponsor, the Luffler Mattress Company, they pull their advertising. This prompts his adoring fans to burn mattresses in the street, and the sponsor discovers that Rhodes' clowning actually increased sales by 55%. 

Rhodes becomes aware of the power of his celebrity.

'I'm not just an entertainer. I'm an influence, a wielder of opinion, a force... a force!’

Rhodes’ ascent continues. He gets a gig fronting a New York TV show and recommends that the sponsor Vitajex, a worthless dietary supplement, should be repositioned.

'Hey, I got an idea. Let's make 'em yellow. Yellow's the color of sunshine and energy. Gives a fella that get-up-and-go that sets him up solid with the ladies.’

The Madison Avenue executives representing Vitajex are sceptical of Rhodes’ expertise.

‘Why, we've spent tens of thousands of dollars to find out the key words like 'bracing' and 'zestful.' Rhodes has the audacity to tear our copy to shreds right in front of the audience.’

Nonetheless Rhodes impresses the wealthy Vitajex owner, who commissions the TV star to consult Senator Worthington Fuller in his bid for the Presidency. Fuller favours isolationism, small government and reduced social security. His incumbent advisors suggest their candidate is broadly respected, but Rhodes doesn’t think that’s enough.

'Respect? Did you ever hear of anyone buying any product - beer, hair rinse, tissue - because they respect it? You gotta be loved, man. Loved.’

Rhodes’ fame and influence spread, and soon his face is all over the nation’s magazine covers: ‘The Legend of a Folk Hero.’ He becomes a tyrannical, manipulative egomaniac, as untrustworthy in love as he is in business. 

'This whole country's just like my flock of sheep!… Rednecks, crackers, hillbillies, hausfraus, shut-ins, pea-pickers - everybody that's got to jump when somebody else blows the whistle… They're mine! I own 'em! They think like I do. Only they're even more stupid than I am, so I gotta think for 'em.’

Eventually Jeffries becomes horrified by the monster she has created. At the end of a national TV broadcast, when Rhodes thinks the microphones are off, she turns them back on. And the American public hears what he really thinks of them.

'Those morons out there? Shucks, I could take chicken fertilizer and sell it to them as caviar. I could make them eat dog food and think it was steak. Sure, I got 'em like this... You know what the public's like? A cage of guinea pigs. Good night you stupid idiots. Good night, you miserable slobs. They're a lot of trained seals. I toss them a dead fish and they'll flap their flippers.’

‘A Face in the Crowd’ was a remarkably prescient movie. It warned of the risk to democracy when the lines between politics, entertainment and commerce are blurred. It predicted the magnifying power of modern media to turn celebrities into ‘influencers’ and demagogues; to transform popularity into populism - pitting the virtuous masses against a corrupt elite.

’There’s nothing as trustworthy as the ordinary mind of the ordinary man.'
‘Lonesome’ Rhodes’ campaign slogan

We should hope that present day populists will, like Rhodes, ultimately be betrayed by their own cynicism. 

'Oh, goodnight, moon.
Moon, you just fade, fade
Fade, fade away.
Oh, goodnight, moon.
Moon, you just fade away.
And hurry up, Mr. Sun.
Bring on new day.
Gonna be a free man in the morning
Free man in the morning
Free man in the morning

Andy Griffith, 'Free Man in the Mornin’’ (T Glazer, B Schulberg)

No. 293