Seeing Without Being Seen: Vivian Maier and the Issue of Hidden Talent

New York, NY September 10, 1955 © Vivian Maier/John Maloof Collection. Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York

‘I’m a sort of spy.’
Vivian Maier

The splendid 2013 documentary ‘Finding Vivian Maier’ tells the story of the posthumous discovery of one of the twentieth century’s great street photographers.

In 2007 John Maloof, a Chicago-based local historian, was attending an auction of goods repossessed from storage lockers. He bought a box of negatives for $380, having in mind to use some of the photos in a forthcoming book.

On developing the images, Maloof discovered records of Chicago and New York in the ‘50s and ‘60s: quotidian scenes of suburban affluence - beach trips, parades and family days out; depictions of bustling downtown street life – commuters, shoppers, hucksters and hawkers; bleak encounters with inner city poverty. 

Maloof found the name Vivian Maier written on some of the boxes, but was unable to establish anything about her. When he subsequently posted a selection of the photographs online, they became something of a viral phenomenon. The pictures were intimate, affectionate, perceptive and playful. Experts recognised a real talent. 

Maloof traced some of the other purchasers from the storage locker sale, and bought their boxes too. Eventually a Google search picked up Maier’s death notice in the Chicago Tribune. She had passed away in April 2009.

So who was Vivian Maier? Why had her ability hitherto never been recognised? What was the tale behind this treasure trove of imagery?

Gradually Maloof pieced together the story. 

Vivian Maier - Girl In Car

Maier was born in New York in 1926, the daughter of a French mother and Austrian father. She spent her childhood moving between the United States and a small Alpine village where her mother’s family originated. Having been employed for a few years in a New York sweat shop, aged 30 she moved to Chicago's North Shore area. She worked there as a nanny and carer for the next 40 years.

According to her employers and the children she looked after, Maier was intensely private and fiercely independent. She spoke with a clipped French accent, was eccentric and opinionated, formal and strict. Wearing loose clothes, floppy hats and sensible shoes, she marched purposefully about her business. 

Maier had purchased her first Rolleiflex camera in 1952. Since it was held at waist level, the Rolleiflex enabled her to shoot people without looking them straight in the eye. It was less intrusive, more furtive. During the day she took the children on long walking adventures, often beyond the suburbs into the centre of town, all the time on the lookout for interesting subjects. 

‘Street photographers tend to be gregarious in the sense that they go out on the street and they’re comfortable being among people. But they’re also a funny mixture of solitaries… You observe and you embrace and you take in, but you stay back and you try to stay invisible.’
Joel Meyerowitz, Photographer

Vivian Maier - Chicago, IL

A young couple kiss on a crowded beach. People gather at the railway station and busy themselves at the supermarket. As they make their way home from church, a loyal spaniel waits expectantly. There are scuffed shoes by the doormat, flip-flops by the pool. There are cigarettes on the dashboard next to Jesus. 

‘Stop and shop.’ ‘Say ‘Pepsi, please.’’ 

Some smartly dressed women chat outside the diner. A pair of old ladies in their Sunday best look on disapprovingly. A man grips a mysterious small parcel behind his back. A stern matron holds onto her hat to save it from the wind. A nervous child clasps his hands to his ears to keep out the noise of the trains. 

Maier photographs herself reflected in the mirror, in the shop window; her shadow cast across the lawn; her bike standing forlorn at the roadside. She is there, but not there.

Let’s check out the street market, nose around the junkshop. A kid on the corner sells wind-up toys, as a blind man plays blues guitar, hoping for small change. A melancholy woman has her hair in curlers. A desolate teenager has his head in his hands. There are unshaven down-and-outs sleeping on park benches, kipping in the waiting room. In tatty clothes they sit on a hydrant, on a stack of newspapers, on a suitcase. Soaking up the sun, waiting for something to happen. There are discarded liquor bottles on the sidewalk, rejected flowers in a refuse bin. 

In 1959 Maier inherited a small amount of money and embarked on a solo trip around the world. She took pictures in Manila, Bangkok, Shanghai, Beijing, India, Syria, Egypt and Italy. When the expedition was over she returned to nannying in the Chicago suburbs. 

During her lifetime Maier took more than 150,000 photographs. And yet she rarely showed her pictures to anyone. And she left the vast majority of her work unprinted.

Vivian Maier

'The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.’
George Eliot

Watching the documentary, one can’t help wondering about hidden talent. Maier went about her art quietly, unobtrusively. She had an extraordinary gift for seeing without being seen. She was not fuelled by reward or recognition. She just wanted to take pictures.

How many Vivian Maiers are out there pursuing a private passion, nurturing a natural gift – unseen, unappreciated, unknown? Perhaps to her it was more important to take the photos than for them to be shared, or even developed. Perhaps that’s just the way she wanted it. But it seems such a waste. 

In the past businesses made their fortunes mining natural resources – gold, oil, precious minerals. In today’s knowledge economy, where value is to be found in original thought and different perspectives, the increasing imperative is to prospect for talent; to search out unusual abilities in unexpected places; to find the diamonds in the rough.

As Maier aged she grew more eccentric. She adopted subtle variations on her name and accent. She piled up newspapers and hoarded boxes of negatives in her loft room - to the point that there was barely a way through and the ceiling creaked under the weight. She could be cruel and quick tempered with her charges.

When Maier was no longer able to find work, she lived in a series of cheap apartments on the edge of town and destitution. In 2008, having slipped on ice and hit her head, she was taken to hospital but failed to recover. The following year she died in a nursing home.

Vivian Maier

Beyond her photographs we have very little record of Maier’s thoughts and feelings. She is a ghost. She did however make a few audiotapes of conversations with her subjects. In one she reflects on life’s transience.

'Well, I suppose nothing is meant to last forever. We have to make room for other people. It’s a wheel. You get on. You have to go to the end. And then somebody has the same opportunity to go to the end and so on.'

'Baby, baby, baby,
From the day I saw you,
Really, really wanted to catch your eye.
Somethin' special 'bout you
I must really like you,
'Cause not a lot of guys are worth my time.
Baby, baby, baby,
It's getting kind of crazy
'Cause you are taking over my mind.
And it feels like,
You don't know my name.
I swear, it feels like,
You don't know my name.
Round and round and round we go, 
Will you ever know?’

Alicia Keys, ‘You Don’t Know My Name’ (A Keys/ K West/ H Lilly/ J R Bailey/ M Kent/ K Williams)

No. 305

Artemisia Gentileschi: An Eye for Drama

Artemisia Gentileschi, Susanna and the Elders (1610–11). Courtesy of the Schloss Weißenstein collection, Pommersfelden, Germany

‘I will show Your Illustrious Lordship what a woman can do.’
Artemisia Gentileschi in a letter to Don Antonio Ruffo

I recently visited a splendid exhibition dedicated to the Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi (The National Gallery, London, until 24 January 2021).

Artemisia was born in Rome in 1593, the eldest child of the artist Orazio Gentileschi. Having lost her mother when she was 12, she studied painting in her father's workshop and developed a style influenced by Caravaggio, the master of light.

‘Susannnah and the Elders,’ Artemisia’s first recorded work, was painted when she was just 17. While Susannah is bathing in the garden, she is surprised by two elders. The lecherous men, intent on seduction, threaten to accuse her of adultery if she refuses them. Susannah resists. 

In Artemisia’s painting the elders lean in from above, leering, menacing. In hushed voices they conspire against the naked Susannah. She turns away in disgust, recoiling from their foul breath. It is an extraordinarily vivid scene.

A year after she painted ‘Susannnah and the Elders,’ Artemisia was raped by Agostino Tassi, an artist who had been working with her father. To clear her name she had to endure a public trial and judicial torture. As the brutal rope instrument tightened around her fingers, she stood by her testimony:

‘It is true, it is true, it is true.’

The court found in Artemisia’s favour and, a month after the trial, Orazio married her off to another artist. The couple settled in Florence. 

Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Beheading Holofernes, 1620

It is easy to see Artemisia channelling her anger into her most famous work, ‘Judith Beheading Holofernes.’ The city of Bethulia is under siege by an Assyrian army. Judith has put on a fine dress, entered the enemy camp and dined with the general Holofernes in his tent. He has fallen asleep drunk.

In the darkness Judith and her maidservant Abra set about their grisly business with grim determination. Abra pins Holofernes to the bed. Judith rolls up the sleeves of her gold brocade gown to reveal strong forearms suited to the task. With one hand she grasps Holofernes’ hair and holds his head steady. In her other hand she clutches the sword with which she slices through the general’s neck. The suddenly awoken Holofernes reaches up in terror. Blood spatters over the bed sheets below and onto the arms of the two women. It is like a scene from a horror movie.

Artemisia returns to the theme of Judith and Holofernes a number of times. In other works she paints Judith and Abra immediately after the execution. Abra crouches over Holofernes’ head, bundling it into a sack. Judith stands at the entrance to the tent, illuminated by a solitary candle. Staring out into the black night, she plots their escape. She grips her sword tightly, blood still dripping from its blade. She may have to use it again.

Artemisia clearly has an eye for drama. She carefully chooses ‘the decisive moment’ in a story, presents the characters in compelling relation to one another, considers every nuance of their emotions and lights the scene to accentuate the tension. It is as if time stands still. 

Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith and Maidservant with Head of Holofernes c. 1623–1625

Artemisia does this repeatedly, often celebrating the fortitude of female characters in history and myth. Nymph Corisca escapes the embrace of a lustful Satyr. Persian Queen Esther, pleading for the fate of the Jews, faints into the arms of her two ladies-in-waiting. Jael kneels over Canaanite general Sisera while he is sleeping, and serenely drives a tent peg through his head.

There is a lesson for us all here. If we want to create drama, we should select a precise point in time; stage it; frame it; light it so as to heighten the tension. Set nerves jangling, pulses racing. Make viewers feel the urgency of the occasion.

After the travails of her youth, Artemisia became a successful court painter in Florence, enjoying the patronage of the Medici, and she was the first woman accepted into the artists’ academy. She learned to read and write, socialised with the great and the good, including the polymath Galileo, and embarked on an intense relationship with a local nobleman. She had five children, four of whom died, leaving her to raise her surviving daughter as an artist. In all she had a 40-year career, working in Rome, Florence, Venice, Naples and London. She died around 1654 in her early 60s. She had lived a full life.

'As long as I live I will have control over my being.'

From the court papers of Artemisia’s trial and a bundle of her letters found in 2011, we gain a sense of a strong, defiant, proud and passionate woman. Her vitality and lust for life also leap out from her paintings, not least because in many of them she uses herself as a model.

In ‘Self Portrait as the Allegory of Painting’ Artemisia depicts herself as the embodiment of the painterly art. She wears a green silk gown and a gold pendant hangs from her neck. Her hair is organised neatly in a bun, a few strands falling over her cheeks and forehead. In her left hand she grasps the palette, and with the brush in her right hand she reaches for the canvas in front of her. Ignoring us, the viewers, she is a picture of quiet confidence and intense concentration.

Artemisia Gentileschi, Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting, 1638–39, Royal Collection

 'Oh, I am a lonely painter.
I live in a box of paints.
I'm frightened by the devil,
And I'm drawn to those ones that ain't afraid.
I remember that time you told me, you said,
"Love is touching souls."
Surely you touched mine, 'cause
Part of you pours out of me,
In these lines from time to time.’

Joni Mitchell, ‘A Case of You'

No. 304

A Club Biscuit Foregone: Keep Your Eyes Off the Prize

'We gain the strength of the temptation we resist.'
Ralph Waldo Emerson

On occasion I have wondered whether I might have been genetically predisposed to a career in advertising. Inevitably my thoughts turn to my Dad to whom I’m indebted for a capacity to drink and an inclination to discourse on all manner of triviality. But then there was my Mum, a gentle soul who had an uncanny talent for branding. 

Mum would often make me a very particular sandwich – white-sliced Sunblest, some lettuce leaves, a couple of slithers of tomato and a dollop of Heinz Salad Cream. Perhaps aware that this combination held only a moderate appeal to a growing lad, she called it Jim’s Sandwich Special. And I became an avid enthusiast.

Sometimes, when Martin was invited to a party at a friend’s house, Mum would console me by organising A Treat. A Treat entailed asking a few of my own local chums round for fractious games of Ludo and a tea of Sandwich Specials, Swiss Rolls and orange Club Biscuits.

I’m ashamed to admit to a certain amount of scheming at these events. Mum would allocate one orange Club Biscuit for every attendee, and I knew that, if I waited long enough, one of my friends would purloin mine. At which point I could report to Mum for pity and sympathy.

All rather manipulative, I know. But even at a very young age I had calculated that there were rewards to be had from a pleasure foregone.

'Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.’
Søren Kierkegaard

The much-celebrated Stanford Marshmallow Experiment, led by psychologist Walter Mischel in the early 1970s, examined the dynamics of deferred gratification. A number of children aged between 3 and 5 were offered one marshmallow, but promised two if they waited 15 minutes. The researchers then left the children alone in the room with the two marshmallows. 

The youngsters found themselves in a muddle of temptation and denial. Mischel originally thought that the presence of the two marshmallows would motivate them to resist and hang on. But the proximate prize only increased their frustration. Some succumbed pretty quickly. Others endeavoured to endure by distracting their attention from the tasty treat.

'They made up quiet songs…hid their head in their arms, pounded the floor with their feet, fiddled playfully and teasingly with the signal bell, verbalized the contingency…prayed to the ceiling, and so on. In one dramatically effective self-distraction technique, after obviously experiencing much agitation, a little girl rested her head, sat limply, relaxed herself, and proceeded to fall sound asleep.’

Mischel concluded that success in the test was correlated with the ability to distract oneself: not thinking about a reward enhances one’s ability to earn it. 

In this respect the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment does not seem to conform to conventional wisdom. In challenging times we are encouraged to keep our eyes on the prize; to focus on our goals. Athletes often talk about visualising the finish line; imagining themselves on the victory podium. 

However, at least within the realms of a creative business, I’m with Team Stamford. When Pitching I found that considering the scale of the account to be won, the glory of potential victory, only served to predispose teams and leaders to cautious choices and conservative proposals. At best the prospect of success was deeply stressful. At worst it induced paralysis.

Far better in my experience to concentrate on the work in hand; to address the task regardless of the reward. Better to keep your eyes off the prize.

'The gratification comes in the doing, not in the results.’
James Dean

The Stanford Marshmallow Experiment is best remembered for the follow-up studies conducted 10 years after the original investigation. Researchers found that children who were able to wait longer for their treat tended subsequently to have better life outcomes, as measured by such things as SAT scores, educational attainment and body mass index. They concluded that the ability to discipline oneself, to delay gratification in the short term in order to enjoy greater rewards in the long term, is an indicator of future success in work and life. As a result many educationalists set about training self-control and will power in schools.

No doubt patience is indeed a valuable life skill. However, when the experiment was restaged in 2018, with a bigger, more representative sample, it arrived at a quite different set of results, contributing to what some have called a 'replication crisis' in the field of psychology. In the repeat experiment researchers concluded that the capacity to hold out for a second marshmallow is determined in large part by a child’s social and economic background. For poorer kids a marshmallow in the hand is worth two on the table.

None of the studies mentions if any children eschewed the marshmallows entirely in anticipation of emotional compensation. They would have represented an altogether more troubling category.

'Tempted by the fruit of another.
Tempted, but the truth is discovered.
What's been going on?
Now that you have gone,
There's no other.’
Squeeze, ’Tempted’ (C Difford / G Tilbrook)

No. 303

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