The Syncopated Business: The Breathtaking Genius of the Nicholas Brothers

The Nicholas Brothers were two of the greatest dancers of the 20th century. Self taught in the black vaudeville theatres of Philadelphia, they combined rhythmic tap with acrobatic tumbling and balletic grace. They performed breath-taking leaps, spine-tingling vaults, heart-stopping flips, skips and spins. They made jazz and swing music visible. They were style, charm and elegance personified - pure unadulterated joy.

Fayard and Harold Nicholas were born in 1914 and 1921 respectively. They grew up in Philadelphia where their parents led the orchestra at the Standard Theater, their mother at the piano and father on drums.

When Fayard was a baby, his mum would take him to the theatre in a bassinet.

‘She would set me right beside the piano… as she was playing and my dad was playing and the rest of the orchestra. So that’s how I got rhythm.’

Fayard became an avid student of the vaudeville acts that he saw at the Standard. Using the small family apartment as his studio, he set about teaching his younger brother Harold the dance steps he had observed on stage.

‘I was showing him a step and he was having trouble getting this step. And I said “Listen, we’ll do it tomorrow. I see you’re having a little trouble now.” He said, ”No. No. I want to do it now.”’

Their father also took an active interest in their developing talent and gave Fayard some valuable advice.

‘Son, what you’re doing, it’s great. I like it. But don’t do what the other dancers do. Do your own thing… Listen. When you’re performing, don’t look at your feet. Look at that audience - because you’re entertaining them, not yourself.’

Fayard and Harold put their father’s guidance into practice, performing at the Standard as the Nicholas Brothers. Soon they were dancing in theatres around Philadelphia, Chicago, New York and Baltimore. 

'We were tap-dancers, but we put more style into it, more bodywork instead of just footwork.’

In 1932, when Fayard was 18 and Harold was 11, the Nicholas Brothers were signed as a featured act at Harlem's Cotton Club, appearing onstage alongside the likes of Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington. 

In pristine tuxedos and with brilliantined hair, the Nicholas Brothers spin and skip, twist and turn, slip and slide. Fearless and joyful, they dance on tables and up walls; summersault and do the splits. Their bodies float, their arms fly - with effortless elegance. They’re all high jumps and wide kicks. They levitate. Their act is punctuated with comic flourishes. They click their fingers, clap and adjust their bow ties. Holding a handkerchief between both hands, they skip straight over it. It’s physical poetry. 

In 1936 producer Samuel Goldwyn commissioned the brothers to appear in ‘Kid Millions’, which became the first in a series of Hollywood movies. In 1940 Fayard and Harold moved to LA and for several decades they divided their time between films, clubs and concerts, Broadway, television and tours of Latin America, Africa, and Europe.

Fayard: We did vaudeville, we did nightclubs, we did movies, we did television. We have done everything in show business except opera.
Harold: Did you ever want to do opera?
Fayard: Oh, yes, I’d do a tap dance in opera and sing ‘O Sole Mio.’
Harold: A tap dance in opera?

Inevitably the Nicholas Brothers’ careers were constrained by the racism of the times. At the Cotton Club they performed in front of entirely white audiences and they would only be invited to join the clientele after the show because they were so young. Their appearances in movies were also limited to short isolated sections of so-called ‘flash dancing.’ They were never given character parts and were rarely allowed to sing.

'They weren't writing dialogue for blacks unless they were chauffeurs, maids or something like that... We were never written into the script. They just didn't know how.'  

The actor and dancer Maurice Hines sums up the injustice:

‘Imagine what the Nicholas Brothers could have done if they had the opportunity. Oh, it’s frightening. But maybe that’s why they weren’t given the opportunity.’

The Nicholas Brothers’ most celebrated dance sequence is in the finale of the 1943 movie ‘Stormy Weather’ (which starred that other legendary dancer Bill Robinson, Bojangles). 

Cab Calloway has been performing ‘Jumpin' Jive’ with his orchestra. Fayard and Harold, dressed in immaculate tails, leap up onto a table, exchange a few phrases with Calloway and take over. They swing with the rhythm, skip exuberantly across the orchestra's music stands and strut on top of a grand piano in call and response with the pianist. They leapfrog down an oversized flight of stairs, completing each step with a split. And they rise from each split without using their hands. 

Blimey. And it’s all filmed in one shot without cuts or edits. 

I read somewhere the Nicholas Brothers characterised as ‘syncopated dancers.’ Their dancing is not neat and uniform. Rather it is complex and asymmetric. They dance in and around the beat. They each retain their individuality.

I’m no music scholar, but I’ve always liked the idea of syncopation: the thought that dance music in particular gets its intoxicating swing from an interrupted rhythm, a broken regularity, an out-of-place stress or accent. On BBC Radio 3 recently the writer Tom Service described syncopation as the slight calculated violation of what would otherwise be a metronome’s mechanical beat.

Imagine a Syncopated Business: moving in time, in rhythm, as one - but propelled by deviation and displacement, gaining its essential groove from deliberate disruption of conventional patterns, from changes in stress and emphasis. That for me is the very definition of a successful creative organisation. 

The Nicholas Brothers had a 60-year career, performing on stage, in film and television well into the 1990s. Harold died in 2000 and then Fayard followed him in 2006. You can see a celebration of their remarkable talent in the 1992 documentary 'We Sing and We Dance.'

The film features a charming illustration of their very special relationship:

Fayard: I was speaking for both of us.
Harold: You have to speak for yourself… And then I speak for myself… But that doesn’t mean that we’re not still brothers.

'Lucky number.
Dreaming of lucky numbers.
Hoping that those lucky numbers will show for me,
Numbers gonna show for you and me.’
The Nicholas Brothers, 'Lucky Number’ (The Black Network)

No. 315

‘Simplify, Then Exaggerate’: Why I Lost the Election for Juke Box Rep

Ernie Barnes - 'Dance Hall

I have only once stood for elected office. 

I guess I’m wary of exposing myself to the court of public opinion, to the unforgiving judgement of the ballot box. I’m reluctant to be rejected. 

I was however very keen to become Pembroke College Juke Box Rep.

I loved the College Juke Box. It was an admirably robust, coin-operated, mechanical affair, and it boasted a compelling menu of classic 45s: ‘Ghost Town,’ ’Going Underground’ and ‘The Killing Moon’; ’Teenage Kicks’, ‘Tainted Love’ and ‘This Charming Man.’ There was a sprinkling of venerable obscurities like The Clash’s ‘Armagideon Time.’ And, when Chaka Khan’s ‘I Feel For You’ came on, we would all mimic the scratch, in time, as one. 

The College Juke Box kept us entertained on grim, wet winter’s evenings, when there was no money to spend and nothing to spend it on. We nodded to the beat, sang along with the chorus, swayed to the rhythm. We vied with each other to select the most apposite tunes. And as last orders approached, we took to the beer-sodden floor in our heavy tweed overcoats, Holsten Pils in hand, and broke into joyously uninhibited dancing.

'And all my friends just might ask me,
They say, "Martin, maybe one day you'll find true love."
And I say, "Maybe there must be a solution to
The one thing, the one thing we can't find."
That's the look, that's the look.
The look of love.’
ABC, ‘The Look of Love’ (D Palmer / M Fry / M White / S Singleton)

This is not to say that the College Juke Box was perfect. There were a few discs that grated. Someone kept programming the monotonous drone of ‘Riders on the Storm.’ (I’d happily have shown that tune the door.) Perhaps there was a little too much ‘80s Tina Turner. (Let’s not stay together.) And I’d tentatively suggest that Billy Bragg’s ‘Between the Wars’ - a worthy political statement in the midst of the Miners’ Strike - was played a few more times than it merited musically.

More to the point, coming from Essex, the home of suburban soul, I felt the College Juke Box was somewhat lacking in contemporary R&B, funk and disco. Where were Maze and Anita Baker, Dennis Edwards and Evelyn ‘Champagne’ King? Why no D Train or Patrice Rushen?

'We love so strong and so unselfishly.
And I tell you now that I made a vow,
I'm giving you the best that I got.’
Anita Baker, 'Giving You the Best That I Got’ (Bricklebank / Kenric / Clarke / Bricklebank)

And so I hatched a plan. 

I had in mind a velvet revolution, a covert coup. There was a student role, Juke Box Representative, which entailed managing the maintenance of the equipment and overseeing the replenishment of records. If I were to acquire this responsibility, I could, by stealth, introduce more soulful grooves, more funky floor-fillers, more bass-heavy boogie. I could purge the repertoire of any tedious hippiedom and shallow pop bluster. It would be a quiet storm. All I had to do was put myself forward for election at the forthcoming Student Meeting. 

The College Student Meetings were rumbustious affairs. Held on a Sunday evening, their critical component was a barrel of free beer. Consequently attendance was high, voices were loud and debate was vibrant. We voted to boycott lectures and to have hooks placed on toilet doors. We passed motions expressing our disapproval – of nuclear missiles, Margaret Thatcher and plastic lids on Marmite jars.

Nervously, at the appointed slot on the agenda, I took to the floor and proclaimed my credentials for Juke Box Representative. I described my catholic tastes, my diverse musical enthusiasms, my willingness to take requests, my profound sense of social responsibility. 

I thought it probably wise not to make too much reference to soul at this stage. The truth was I had a sweet tooth musically, and I was not convinced the broader student community was quite ready for full-on Luther Vandross. 

'I still remember in the days when I was scared to touch you,
How I spent my day dreaming, planning how to say I love you.
You must have known that I had feelings deep enough to swim in.
That's when you opened up your heart and you told me to come in.
Oh, my love
A thousand kisses from you is never too much.
I just don't wanna stop.’
Luther Vandross, ‘Never Too Much'

It all seemed to be progressing to plan. I could tell I had a sympathetic audience. 

But my housemate Jez had other ideas. Unbeknown to me, he had prepared a tape of typical Jim tunes from my record collection back at St Thomas Street. And his edit had a particular focus on the more syrupy soul, the more sensuous sounds.

‘If you elect this man as Juke Box Rep, this is a sample of what you’ll be in for.’

And so from his portable boom box he broadcast a medley of Teddy Pendergrass, Barry White and Alexander O’Neil; of ‘Sexual Healing,’ ‘Juicy Fruit’ and ‘Gotta Get You Home Tonight.’

'Kick off you shoes
And lay back and let me soothe you.
I wanna take my time and do you right.
A bottle of Dom Perignon
To get us in the groove,
And an atmosphere
That's sure to please you.
Ooh baby,
I gotta get you home with me tonight.’
Eugene Wilde, 'Gotta Get You Home Tonight’ (J Horton / R Broomfield)

Now these tunes were indeed dear to my heart. But I’m not sure they’re the ones I’d have chosen to promote my tastes to a broader audience. Nor did they seem to chime with the more earnest, indie-loving elements of the student body.

And so the night was lost. I can’t recall by how much I was defeated - just the crushing sense of rejection. 

Geoffrey Crowther, the Editor of the Economist from 1938 to 1956 was renowned for giving young journalists a particular piece of advice: ‘Simplify, then exaggerate.’

This sentiment should certainly resonate with advertising people. Ours is a craft that at its heart has two skills: we must first distil and compress a brand’s essential truth, reduce it to its most compelling core; and then we must amplify and expand on that truth, express it with irresistible force.

My mate Jez had instinctively followed Crowther’s advice and developed a classic advertising campaign. He had simplified my true musical tastes and then exaggerated them. It was unquestionably effective.

After my unsuccessful election bid, I took the short walk back to St Thomas Street alone, huddled up in my heavy tweed overcoat. When I got home I put on a Bobby Womack album.

‘You know life is funny
When you look at It.
Everybody wants love
But everybody’s afraid of love.
You know I’m a true believer
That if you get anything out of life
You've got to put up with
The toils and strife.
Think it over. Think it over, girl. That’s the way I feel about cha.’

Bobby Womack, ’That’s the Way I Feel about Cha'

No. 314

The Shining: ‘Just a Little Story About Writer’s Block’

I recently revisited Stanley Kubrick’s splendid psychological horror movie ‘The Shining.’ Based on Stephen King's novel of the same name and released in 1980, ‘The Shining’ stars Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall and is played out in the magnificent Overlook Hotel.

Set in a secluded spot in the Colorado Rockies, the Overlook had a troubled history. It was built in the early 1900s on the site of a Native American burial ground and in a region where snow-bound settlers were once forced into cannibalism to survive. More recently a winter caretaker suffered a mental breakdown and ran amok, killing his wife and two young daughters, and then himself.

Despite all this, Jack Torrance (Nicholson) accepts the position as caretaker while the hotel is closed for the snowy winter months.

'Physically, it's not a very demanding job. The only thing that can get a bit trying up here during the winter is a tremendous sense of isolation. For some people, solitude and isolation can, of itself, become a problem.'

Jack, an aspiring author and recovering alcoholic, hopes that the reclusive posting will help him concentrate on his latest writing project. And so he drives his wife Wendy (Duvall) and their five-year-old son Danny through the spruce-covered peaks to the deserted resort hotel, and they prepare for a winter of seclusion.

The Overlook boasts high ceilinged halls with imposing fireplaces, elegant balconies and salmon pink pillars. There are wrought iron chandeliers and indigenous rugs, tartan chairs and wood-framed red elevator doors. The Prairie School architecture is a joy to behold. The opulent mirrored bar in the Gold Room, the scarlet walls and washbasins in the lavatories, the mint green bathroom in Room 237.

Young Danny, however, possesses psychic powers and senses that something is wrong. He sees a corridor awash with blood and two young girls screaming.

Danny: Dad?... Do you like this hotel?
Jack: Yes, I do. I love it. Don't you?
Danny: I guess so.
Jack: Good. I want you to like it here. I wish we could stay here forever... and ever... and ever.

Jack establishes himself at a large wooden desk in the spacious Colorado Lounge. He sets out his grey Adler Typewriter - to the left of it a ream of paper and a pack of Marlboro, to the right a jar of pencils and a crystal ashtray. Wendy asks him if he fancies a walk after breakfast.

Jack: I suppose I ought to try to do some writing first.
Wendy: Any ideas yet?
Jack: Lots of ideas. No good ones.
Wendy: Well, something’ll come. It’s just a matter of settling back into the habit of writing every day.

Later we find Jack throwing a ball against a wall. He’s not quite got down to things yet.

We follow Danny from behind as he pedals his blue tricycle through the Overlook’s long empty corridors. Over the geometric patterned carpet - orange, red and brown. Over the hardwood floor. Past white walls, brown doors and through the kitchen. Now the wallpaper is floral. He turns a corner and there at the end of the passage are the two young girls – in white socks and pale blue beribboned dresses, holding hands. 

'Hello, Danny. Come and play with us. Come and play with us, Danny. Forever... and ever... and ever.’

And then they are on the corridor carpet in pools of blood, an axe by their side. A startled Danny puts his hands to his face. When he plucks up the courage to look through his fingers, the girls are gone.

Nonetheless, the eerie events continue. The weather deteriorates and the phone lines go down. There’s a naked woman in Room 237. There’s a glamorous party in the Gold Room. Jack starts having visions.

Getty Images

The film concerns itself with a cursed building, a lonely child’s fantasies and a weak man’s vulnerabilities: his alcoholism, his guilt, his struggle to deal with responsibility. But Stephen King also once described ‘The Shining’ as ‘just a little story about writer’s block.’

'Wendy, let me explain something to you. Whenever you come in here and interrupt me, you're breaking my concentration. You're distracting me, and it will then take me time to get back to where I was. You understand?'

A month passes. Jack becomes increasingly petulant. Wendy finds him screaming while asleep at his typewriter. She also discovers that his writing endeavours have been fruitless. He has been typing page after page filled with one solitary phrase:

‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.’

Sometimes his words are indented, irregularly spaced. Sometimes there are misspellings. There are sheets of neatly stacked paper, all saying the same thing, over and over again. Jack has finally cracked.

Though, it is hoped, we have very little in common with mad Jack Torrance, we may sympathise with writer’s block.

The intractable problem, the insoluble puzzle. The blank sheet of paper and the ticking clock. The displacement activities and failed resolutions. The gentle encouragement and anguished inducements. The veiled threats. The paralysis, lethargy and listlessness. The complete lack of inspiration and ideas.

Like many people in this situation, I have sought solitude and seclusion. I have organised stationery, written lists and imposed discipline. But I have found that the most fruitful means of addressing a conceptual drought is simply to stop and seek fresh stimulus elsewhere. Read a book, go for a walk, visit a gallery or cinema. Sooner or later something will occur to you. Something will crop up. Because you need input if you’re going to create output.

'If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write.'
Stephen King

We were once labouring on a particularly challenging Pitch. After a gruelling Saturday in the office, and with the deadline approaching, we resolved to take Sunday off and return fresh the next day. 

That Monday morning Creative Director John Hegarty walked into work with a spring in his step. He summoned the team and brandished an article he’d read in the weekend newspapers. It had prompted him to conceive an elegant solution to our problem. In the nick of time we worked up a compelling proposal and the Pitch was won.

After I’d recovered from the exertions, I went to see the boss, somewhat troubled. 

‘John, what if you hadn’t read that article? What if the piece had run the following week? What would we have done then?’

John looked up, unconcerned.

‘Oh, I’d have seen something else, I imagine.’

I have come to conclude that unplanned encounters and chance discoveries are often responsible for the most important creative breakthroughs. Serendipity solves problems. We just need to put ourselves in a position for fortune to strike. 

Of course, we could continue to stare at that blank piece of paper into the early hours. But that way madness lies.

'Here's Johnny!’

'I'm a path of cinders
Burning under your feet.
You're the one who walks me,
I'm your one way street.
I'm a whisper in water,
Secret for you to hear.
You are the one who grows distant
When I beckon you near.
Leave me now, return tonight.
The tide will show you the way.
If you forget my name
You will go astray,
Like a killer whale
Trapped in a bay.’

Bjork, ‘Bachelorette'

No. 313

Planning Is What a Planner Does: Bruce Nauman and a Solution to Imposter Syndrome

Bruce Nauman's Human Nature/Knows Doesn 't Know (1983/1986) at Tate Modern Photo: D. Palmer

‘What I am really concerned about is what art is supposed to be - and can become.’
Bruce Nauman

I recently visited a fine retrospective of the work of artist Bruce Nauman (Tate Modern, London, until 21 February).

Nauman was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana in 1941, the son of an engineer at General Electric. He studied mathematics and physics at the University of Wisconsin, and art at the University of California. He went on to set up studios in Northern California and then Pasadena, before settling in New Mexico in 1979. His work covers a broad range of media: sculpture, photography, neon, video, drawing, printmaking and performance. 

Nauman films himself stepping carefully through a narrow corridor, walking around the perimeter of a square ‘in an exaggerated manner’, falling backwards onto a corner wall. He films his studio at night when he’s not there.

Nauman records a scream, puts it on a reel-to-reel tape machine and covers it in a concrete block. He makes a cast of the space underneath his chair. He pinches his flesh as if curious about its material properties. 

‘You may not want to be here.’

Nauman plays a violin tuned to the notes D, E, A and D. He washes his hands vigorously and repeatedly at a studio sink. A cup of coffee tumbles and spills, over and over again. Neon instructions flash on and off:

‘Laugh and Die, Play and Live, Speak and Live, Play and Die, Feel and Die, Sleep and Live.’

he True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths (Window or Wall Sign) 1967 Kunstmuseum Basel (Basel, Switzwerland)

Nauman’s world is disturbing and disorientating. Our anxiety is enhanced by the murmur of projectors; by the hum of neon and amplified footfalls; by distant yelling and screaming clowns.

On a collection of monitors the same bald disembodied head rotates while shouting aggressively: 

‘Feed me, Eat me, Help me, Hurt me.’ 

Nauman seems to be concerned with the big questions: with truth and lies, agency and chance, life and death. He wants to rouse us from our stupor; to shake us from our habituated norms. 

‘You have to kind of not watch anything, so you can be aware of everything.'

Nauman returns repeatedly to the theme of children’s games. We are invited to consider card tricks, balloon dogs, hangman and musical chairs. 

Bruce Nauman (October 7, 2020-February 21, 2021) at Tate Modern, London: installation view featuring “Anthro/Socio (Rinde Spinning)” (1992); (photo: Tate Photography (Matt Greenwood); artwork © Bruce Nauman / ARS, NY and DACS, London 2020)

‘Somebody is always left out. The first one to be excluded always feels terrible. That kid doesn’t get to play anymore, has nothing to do, has to stand in the corner.’

Nauman seems to be asking: Is there some secret in the inherent cruelty of these games; in the unfairness, the deception, the repetition? Isn’t this what life’s about?

'My work is basically an outgrowth of the anger I feel about the human condition. The aspects of it that make me angry are our capacity for cruelty and the ability people have to ignore situations they don't like.’

We are being watched by a camera as we walk along a wall. As we turn the corner we catch a glimpse of ourselves on a monitor. And then we are gone. There’s a wire mesh cage with a narrow claustrophobic corridor. Do we want to go in? A woman takes instructions from an unseen man.

'Sit down, lie down, roll over, play dead, sit up, stand up.’

This is a dark, dystopian place of concrete and cages; of surveillance cameras and flickering screens; of brash neon signs and black marble blocks illuminated by sodium light. It suggests themes of disorientation and disempowerment. It prompts paranoia.

‘Learn to recognise when you need to know something.'

I left the exhibition in awe of the diversity of Nauman’s thoughts and provocations. He refuses to be constrained by conventional subjects, materials and practice. He continually explores what an artist and artwork can be. 

I was particularly struck by Nauman’s description of his evolving relationship with his craft.

'When I was in art school, I thought art was something I would learn how to do, and then I would just do it. At a certain point I realized that it wasn't going to work like that. Basically, I would have to start over every day and figure out what art was going to be.’

Nauman gives a compelling definition of the relationship between art and the artist.

‘If I was an artist and I was in the studio, then whatever I was doing must be art. At this point art became more of an activity and less of a product.’

I wonder, can we learn something here about Planners and Planning?

Still from 'Clown Torture', 1987, by Bruce Nauman. https://theartsdesk.com

In the early years of my career I spent a good deal of time in search of the definitive course, the critical text, the rules and regulations that would qualify me as a Planner. I wanted to learn how to do it. 

I was troubled by imposter syndrome. I had arrived in the trade in a roundabout way, via Market Research. I lacked the classical BMP education and I doubted that I had all the skills, talents or accomplishments of a Proper Planner. It said Planner on my business card, but was that justified? I anticipated that ultimately I would be exposed as a fraud.

I’m not sure I ever got the education I was craving. I doubt it ever existed. Indeed, when I reflect on what we did as a Planning community at BBH over those years, there comes to mind a vast disordered array of methods, styles and approaches to our quest for understanding. 

We interviewed semioticians and psychologists, ecologists and economists, fashionistas and futurists. We sought to comprehend the pioneer spirit, the colour yellow, the meaning of play. We researched in nightclubs and briefed in safari parks. We visited archives, farms and factories. We observed people in shops and doing the laundry, went on roadtrips and barhops. We examined changing definitions of human progress and female heroism, the language of cool and the craft of choreography. We conducted blind taste and deprivation tests. We watched parents watching their children, and asked children to draw their parents.  We commissioned statistical models, regression analyses and price elasticity studies. We created brand planets and media ecosystems, mood edits and manifestos. We drew pyramids, conveyor belts and stadium charts. We rebranded milk and redesigned jeans. We constructed a teenager’s bedroom.

To be fair, while some of these exercises were illuminating and fruitful, others were illusory and futile. But all were embarked upon in earnest endeavour; with a curiosity to find fresh perspectives and compelling answers. 

Planning is a discipline that is constantly seeking to define itself; endlessly striving to delineate and circumscribe, to classify and set limits.

Nauman prompts us to be more liberal in our understanding of our trade. Planning is an activity, not a product. It is not something we learn how to do. Planning is what a Planner does. And we should start every day trying to figure out what that can be.

Nauman’s preoccupations are perhaps best summed up in his piece ‘Clown Torture.’ The artist examines the jester’s obligation to perform; his or her determination to obscure their true self. He is drawn to the fears of a clown.

A clown repeatedly enters a room and a bucket of water comes crashing down on top of him. A clown jumps up and down screaming. A clown sits on the toilet reading a magazine. A clown recites a nursery rhyme.

'Pete and Repeat were sitting on a fence. Pete fell off. Who was left? Repeat.’

'Now if there's a smile on my face,
It's only there trying to fool the public.
But when it comes down to fooling you
Now, honey, that's quite a different subject.
But don't let my glad expression
Give you the wrong impression.
Really I'm sad.
Oh I'm sadder than sad. 
You're gone, and I'm hurtin' so bad.
Like a clown, I pretend to be glad. 
Now there's some sad things known to man,
But ain't too much sadder than the tears of a clown,
When there's no one around.’

Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, ’The Tears of a Clown’ (H Cosby, S Robinson, S Wonder)

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year and an improving 2021.
Look after yourselves. 

No. 312

A Love Supreme: The Spiritual Journey of John Coltrane

'I start in the middle of a sentence and move both directions at once.'
John Coltrane

I recently watched a fine Netflix documentary considering the life and work of saxophonist and composer John Coltrane (‘Chasing Trane’).

Coltrane traveled all the way from bebop to free jazz. He gave us rapid runs and complex chord progressions; cascades of notes forming ‘sheets of sound.’ He embraced experimentation and improvisation; exhibited boundless curiosity and transcendent spirituality. He created ‘Blue Train’, ‘Giant Steps’ and ‘My Favorite Things.’ He was ‘A Love Supreme.’

Coltrane teaches us how to handle the uneven contours of a creative journey; to keep learning, practicing and exploring; to search for a higher purpose.

1. Learn in the Minor Leagues

Coltrane was born in 1926 in Hamlet, North Carolina. A quiet only-child, when he was 12 his father, aunt and grandparents died within a few months of each other. 

In 1943 Coltrane’s mother took him to Philadelphia and bought him his first saxophone. He played in high school and community bands, and gained his first professional work in a cocktail lounge trio. At 19 he enlisted in the Navy and played in his base swing band in Hawaii. 

The first recordings of Coltrane from this time do not suggest that he was a particularly special talent. Yet once out of the Navy he set off on the road to learn his trade: working with all kinds of ensembles, playing all kinds of styles.

‘I wanted to find my own way, but I wasn’t ready. There was so much to learn yet… I accepted work from all kinds of groups, even if I didn’t agree with their musical tenets - because I could learn something while making a living. They were, in comparison to baseball, like the Minor Leagues.’

2. Practice Compulsively

In 1945 Coltrane saw Charlie Parker perform. The virtuoso saxophonist became an idol for him, and they played together occasionally in the late 1940s.

‘Charlie Parker did all the things I would like to do and more.’

Parker set the bar high. Coltrane practiced obsessively, ’25 hours a day’. While on tour, a fellow hotel guest complained about the noise. Coltrane simply removed the saxophone from his mouth and carried on playing in silence. He would practice a single note for hours on end and fall asleep with the horn at his side.

‘He was such a compulsive practiser, like he wanted to practise all the time…When you start doing that you get a connection to the instrument… It starts to feel like an extension of yourself.’
Kamasi Washington

3. ‘Be as Original as You Can Be’

From 1955 to 1957 Coltrane played with Miles Davis in the ‘First Great Quintet’. Though Coltrane was still relatively green at this stage, Davis recognised in him a pioneering spirit with an appetite for invention. 

‘Why he picked me, I don’t know. Maybe he saw something in my playing that he hoped would grow. I had this desire, which I think we all have, to be as original as I could be.’

4. Open Yourself Up to a ‘Spiritual Awakening’

The jazz community at that time was plagued with drugs, and in 1955 heroin killed Charlie Parker. When Coltrane himself became addicted, Davis fired him for his unreliability.

Coltrane, determined to kick his habit and clean up, locked himself in his room and went cold turkey. He emerged, through phenomenal strength of will, with a clear head and a fierce commitment to his music.

‘When I stopped drinking and all that other stuff, it helped me in all kinds of ways. I was able to play better right then. I could play better and think better. Everything.’

Above all Coltrane now had a luminous spirituality.

‘During the year 1957 I experienced by the grace of God a spiritual awakening which was to lead me to a richer, fuller, more productive life. At that time in gratitude I humbly asked to be given the means and privilege to make others happy through music.’

5. ‘Tune Yourself’

Once clean, Coltrane worked with Thelonius Monk and recorded a number of albums under his own name, including ‘Blue Train.’

‘I just started to do what I wanted.’

By 1958 Coltrane was back with Miles Davis’ group, and he participated in the recording of the classic ‘Kind of Blue.’ Davis was a brooding presence, but he gave Coltrane space to express himself. On one occasion Davis challenged Coltrane.

‘Why you play so much?’
‘I can’t find a good place to stop.’

In 1959 Coltrane recorded the album ‘Giant Steps,’ which contained only his own compositions and demonstrated his growing self-confidence. 

‘Writing has always been a secondary thing for me, but I find that lately I’m spending more and more time at it. I’m trying to tune myself, to look to myself and to nature and to other sounds in music, and interpret things I feel there.’

6. ‘Keep Experimenting’

Next Coltrane formed his own quartet, and in 1961 the album ‘My Favorite Things’ was a major hit. It incorporated elements of Indian music, modal and free jazz. 

‘I’ve got to keep experimenting. I feel that I’m just beginning. I have a part of what I’m looking for in my grasp, but not all. I like Eastern music, Africa, Spain, Scotland, India or China. It’s that universal side of music which interests and draws me. And that’s where I want to go.’

7. ‘Have Great Confidence in One Another’

Coltrane worked with a number of different musicians in this period, and eventually settled on his ‘Classic Quartet’: with McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass and Elvin Jones on drums.

‘I’m very lucky. I work with very fine musicians. They’re very inventive. I don’t have to tell anybody what to do. We have a great confidence in one another. That’s essential. They’re with me in always wanting the band to move into new areas. We don’t believe in standing still.’

Tyner bears witness to the Quartet’s team spirit.

‘We were like brothers. We were there for a reason, which was to create beautiful music…We were committed.’

8. Resist All Categorisation

Coltrane shut himself away in a room above a garage at his home in Long Island. He emerged ‘like Moses from the mountaintop’ with a fully formed masterpiece.

‘It’s the first time I have everything ready. I’ve completed the project. I know exactly what I’m going to do in the studio.’

Released in early 1965, ‘A Love Supreme’ was a four-part suite expressing the purity of Coltrane’s faith and love of life.

‘I think the main thing a musician would like to do is give a picture to the listener of the many wonderful things he knows of and senses in the universe. That’s what music is to me. It’s just another way of saying: this is a big, beautiful universe we live in that’s been given to us, and here’s an example of just how magnificent and encompassing it is.’

By now Coltrane was casting off the shackles of traditional definitions, assumptions and expectations.

‘I myself don’t recognise the word jazz. I mean, we’re sold under the name, but to me the word doesn’t exist. I just feel that I play John Coltrane.’

9. ‘Have No Fear’

Coltrane expanded his band to a quintet: with Pharaoh Sanders on tenor saxophone, his second wife Alice Coltrane on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass, and Rashied Ali on drums. He determined to push on again.

'Damn the rules, it’s the feeling that counts. You play all 12 notes in your solo anyway.’

When touring, numbers would last up to an hour and include 15-minute solos. Some critics and audience members were confused by this ‘speaking in tongues’, but Coltrane was not deterred.

‘I have no fear about my music being too way out. My goal remains the same. And that is to uplift people as much as I can, to inspire them to realise more and more of their capacities for leading meaningful lives. Because there certainly is meaningful life.’

10 ‘Keep on Cleaning the Mirror’

Coltrane was both mystical and intellectual. He believed his music should articulate raw, unfiltered thought, pure emotion and true feelings; and that in so doing we could all learn about ourselves. This required the artist to maintain ongoing self-discipline: ‘to keep on cleaning the mirror.’

'There is never any end. There are always new sounds to imagine; new feelings to get at. And always, there is the need to keep purifying these feelings and sounds so that we can really see what we've discovered in its pure state. So that we can see more and more clearly what we are. In that way, we can give to those who listen the essence, the best of what we are. But to do that at each stage, we have to keep on cleaning the mirror.’

11. ‘Be the Force Which Is Truly Good’

Coltrane died tragically young, of liver cancer, at the age of 40 in 1967.

By the end of his spiritual journey his music had become an articulation of his true self, drawing from deep inside his soul.

'You can play a shoestring if you're sincere.’

Coltrane encouraged us to think of life and nature as beautiful and precious; to dedicate ourselves to purity of expression. He wanted us to be a force for good in the world.

'To be a musician is really something. It goes very, very deep. My music is the spiritual expression of what I am - my faith, my knowledge, my being. I know that there are bad forces. I know that there are forces out here that bring suffering to others and misery to the world. But I want to be the opposite force. I want to be the force which is truly for good.’

Time for a festive break.
Have a restful Christmas. 
Next post will be on Thursday 7 January 2021.
See you on the other side, I hope.

'Oh my thoughts, I
Return to summer time.
When I kissed your ankle,
I kissed you through the night.
All my gifts I gave everything to you.
Your strange imagination
You threw it all away.
Now my heart is
Returned to sister winter
Now my heart is
As cold as ice

All my friends, I
Apologise, apologise.
All my friends, I've
Returned to sister winter.
And my friends, I've
Returned to wish you all the best.
And my friends, I've
Returned to wish you a Happy Christmas.’

Sufjan Stevens,'Sister Winter'

No. 311

The Fallen Idol: ‘We Make One Another’

‘You know what happens to little boys who tell lies…’
Mrs Baines, ‘The Fallen Idol’

'The Fallen Idol' is a fine 1948 drama directed by Carol Reed, based on a short story by Graham Greene.

The film is set in and around the French Embassy in London over a weekend when the Ambassador is away. We watch events through the eyes of Phillipe, the Ambassador’s eight-year-old son (Bobby Henrey). Phillipe observes from the balcony, through the banisters. He spies from the fire escape, through the hall window. He has only a restricted view of the adult world and he only partially comprehends its complexities.

Phillipe idolises Baines the butler (Ralph Richardson), a reserved, gentle man who keeps him entertained with exotic stories and imaginative games. But the boy is not so keen on Baines’ wife (Sonia Dresdel), the cold, strict and joyless housekeeper.

Baines, trapped in a loveless marriage, has been secretly courting a secretary who works at the Embassy. Phillipe stumbles into the couple meeting in a teashop.

Phillipe: Funny, isn't it? Julie working for the Embassy and all this time she was your niece.
Baines: Yes. It's a scream.

Baines asks Phillipe to keep their encounter to himself. It will be their little secret.

‘Give me your handkerchief. It's things like that give secrets away.’

Events come to a head. There is a quarrel and Mrs Baines falls down the Embassy’s grand marble staircase to her death. The police are called. Impressionable young Phillipe wants to protect his friend, but at the same time feels compelled to tell the truth. He must reassess his fallen idol.

The film concerns itself with secrets and lies. Baines lies to Phillipe about his adventures in Africa. Phillipe lies to Mrs Baines about his pet snake MacGregor. Baines lies to his wife about his affair. Mrs Baines lies to Phillipe to find out what he knows. It’s a picture of a social order sustained and corrupted by falsehood.

Phillipe must learn that some lies are well intentioned and innocent, while others are all-consuming and corrosive.

Baines: There's lies and lies.
Mrs. Baines: What do you mean by that?
Baines: Some lies are just kindness.

At a critical point in the story Baines endeavours to explain to Phillipe the failure of his marriage.

Baines: There are faults on both sides, Phile. We don't have any call to judge. Perhaps she was what she was because I am what I am. We ought to be very careful, Phile. 'Cause we make one another.
Phillipe: I thought God made us.
Baines: Trouble is, we take a hand in the game.

I was quite taken with this idea: ‘we make one another.’

We spend a good deal of time nowadays asserting our individual freedom and personal responsibility. But sometimes we neglect to consider that personal responsibility extends to the impact we have on others. By our words and actions we shape the way people think, feel and behave. We set the tone, determine the norm. We create context.

This applies as much in business as it does in ordinary life. Leaders must recognise that their role is not just to fix corporate vision and strategy; to meet commercial targets and goals. They must also define corporate culture and values: establish the ethical environment in which staff can perform; set the standards by which colleagues are expected to behave. We are making one another.

It’s sometimes believed that to succeed in commerce you have to be hard-hearted and cold-blooded. And yet I read recently about a study conducted by researchers at University of California that challenges this assumption. 670 students were asked to take a personality test. Ten years later the subjects were interviewed again, along with their respective work colleagues. It transpires that those students who had been aggressive, manipulative and selfish progressed no further in their careers than the kind and generous ones. Indeed the selfish students’ failure to form good relationships with their colleagues had constrained their advancement. In an interdependent world nice people don’t finish last.

In the middle of the police investigation into the death of Mrs Baines, a smart little man interrupts proceedings to adjust one of the Embassy’s ornamental clocks. When asked to come back later, the man persists, and explains that the procedure really must be carried out on the first Monday of every month.

‘They behave much better if they’re looked after.’

'You can't hide your lyin’ eyes,
And your smile is a thin disguise.
I thought by now you'd realize,
There ain't no way to hide your lyin' eyes.’
The Eagles, ‘Lyin’ Eyes’ (D Henley / G Frey)

No. 310

The Creative Kip: An Uncomfortable Incident in My Celtic Beanie

Carl Holsøe - Sleeping Woman

'Sleep that knits up the raveled sleave of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labor’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast.’
William Shakespeare, 'Macbeth'

Many years ago, whilst wandering amongst the market stalls by the harbour in Dingle, I bought myself a Celtic Beanie. It was knitted with bold horizontal stripes in tones of orange, ochre, brown and yellow. It fitted snugly over my unkempt grey hair and made me look, I thought, rather bohemian.

My Celtic Beanie became something of a comfort hat for me. I would whip it out at the first sign of rain or cold, whatever I happened to be wearing, even a suit. I kept it in my brief case and took it with me on holidays and work trips. I washed it infrequently and by hand, in order to sustain its life.

One Saturday afternoon I was sporting my Celtic Beanie on the tube on the way to watch West Ham. My team were spending one of their accustomed seasons in football’s second tier and we were looking forward to a game against Gillingham. Away fans tend to travel together and I happened to be on the carriage where a fair few Gills supporters had assembled. Everyone was in expectant high spirits.

I confess I have a tendency to fall asleep on public transport. I’d say I’m pretty good at it. I consider travel an opportunity to make up for inadequate hours in bed; as a chance to refresh the tired mind. On this occasion, despite the general anticipation, I sat leaning against the glass partition with my head slumped over a newspaper on my lap. The gentle movement of the carriage set me off and in a moment I was gone.

I woke up with a start. The Gillingham fans, enjoying their day out, were now in full voice. They’d found someone to taunt.

‘Who’s the wally?
Who’s the wally?
Who’s the wally in the hat?’ 
(or words to that effect)

They were making quite a racket and it seemed like the whole carriage had joined in. I looked around to establish the hapless object of their ridicule. I took a moment to assess the situation, and concluded that, yes, it was me. 

I guess I did look rather odd: a middle-aged man in the middle of the day, kipping on the District Line in his Celtic Beanie.

There wasn’t much I could do but smile benignly, stare into the middle distance and long for the arrival of Upton Park station. 

At least the Hammers won 2-1.

'All men whilst they are awake are in one common world: but each of them, when he is asleep, is in a world of his own.’
Plutarch

I read in The Times recently (18 September, 2020) about a study, published in the journal Cell, into inferential reasoning.

Inferential reasoning is when you draw on loosely related events to imagine the outcome of entirely new choices. You’re looking for Sam. You’re told Greg is in the library. You know Sam hangs out with Greg. So you go to the library to see if you can find Sam there. It’s basically an educated guess.

Researchers have discovered that the hippocampus in our brains supports inferential reasoning by computing a prospective code to predict upcoming events. When we rest, the brain applies this code to link memories together. This ‘mnemonic short cut’ enables us, when we’re awake, to ‘join the dots’ between events that have not been observed together but could lead to profitable outcomes. 

‘The brain makes creative connections between apparently unconnected memories, and… these links appear to be solidified in sleep.’

According to the piece in The Times, an opportune sleep prompted the invention of the Periodic Table and the sewing machine, and inspired the story of Frankenstein.

There’s a lesson for us all here. We tend, when confronted with a taxing problem, to address it head-on, to stare it in the face, to burn the midnight oil in our quest to resolve it. It is far better, after a time, to put the intractable task to one side and sleep on it; to allow our natural inferential reasoning to get to work and join the dots. Better to succumb to fatigue and embrace a Creative Kip.

'It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.’
John Steinbeck

I must report that in recent years my Celtic Beanie has been replaced by a tweed flat cap. This offers all the utility I require (portable, foldable, impermeable) and is a little less eccentric. But I still have my Celtic Beanie. It sits forlorn in a drawer with a collection of old neckties and odd socks. 

Maybe I’ll put dig it out the next time we play Gillingham. 

'When I look up from my pillow,
I dream you are there with me.
Though you are far away,
I know you'll always be near to me.
I go to sleep, sleep,
And imagine that you're there with me.’

The Kinks, ‘I Go To Sleep’ (R Davies)

No. 309

Gaslight: A Case Study in Psychological Abuse

‘I’ve been noticing, Paula, that you’ve been forgetful lately. Losing things…Now don’t be so worried, Paula. It’s nothing. You get tired.’
Gregory Anton, ‘Gaslight’

I recently watched the 1944 version of ‘Gaslight’, a psychological thriller set in Edwardian London, adapted from Patrick Hamilton's 1938 stage play of the same name.

This fine film, directed by George Cukor and starring Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer and Joseph Cotton, tells the story of a woman whose husband slowly manipulates her into believing that she is going insane. It gave birth to the term often applied to psychological abuse: ‘gaslighting.’

Paula Alquist (Bergman) has been raised by her aunt in a large house on Thornton Square. When the aunt is mysteriously murdered, Paula is sent to Italy to study music. There she meets and marries accompanist Gregory Anton (Boyer). 

Despite Paula’s understandable qualms, Gregory insists that the newlyweds take up residence in the long-vacant townhouse on Thornton Square.

‘It’s all dead in here. The whole place smells of death.’

Paula’s return to London is unsettling. The old house is cluttered with her aunt’s possessions; with heavy curtains, elaborate ornaments and antique furniture – and all covered in dustsheets. Gregory resolves to clear everything away into the attic. He also determines that Paula is not well enough to go out and gives the servants strict instructions not to admit visitors.

Now that they are established in their new home, Gregory becomes increasingly cold and brusque. In a brief moment of intimacy, he gives Paula a broach that had belonged to his mother and her mother before that. He puts it in Paula’s handbag for safe-keeping as they set off on a rare trip out to visit the Tower of London. However, on their return, the broach is gone.

Paula: I know it was here. I can't understand it. I couldn't have lost it. It must be here…
Gregory: Oh Paula, didn't I tell you? How did you come to lose it?
Paula: I must have pulled it out with something, I suppose. Oh, I’m terribly sorry, Gregory, please forgive me…
Gregory: ‘Forgive’ my dear. It’s not as serious as that. It’s not valuable.
Paula: But your present to me, your mother's broach. And I wanted to wear it - always. I don't remember opening my bag, but I suppose I must have. You did put it in there?
Gregory: Don’t you even remember that?
Paula: Yes. Yes, of course I do. Suddenly, I'm beginning not to trust my memory at all.

The relationship that had initially seemed passionate and romantic starts to fray. Gregory reveals himself to be quick-tempered and controlling. He begins flirting with the new maidservant in front of his wife. 

Nonetheless, Paula is delighted when Gregory offers to take her to the theatre. But just as they’re about to set off, his mood darkens.

Gregory: Paula, I don’t want to upset you. If you will put things right when I’m not looking, we’ll assume it did not happen.
Paula: But what, Gregory, what? Oh, please don’t turn your back on me. What has happened?

A small painting has been taken from the wall, leaving an incriminating shadow on the wallpaper where it once hung.

Gregory: Will you please get it from wherever you've hidden it and put it back in its place?
Paula: But I haven’t hidden it. I swear I haven’t. Why should I?… Don’t look at me like that. Someone else must have done it.

Gregory insists on interrogating the servants about the picture in front of the embarrassed Paula. At length, when he sends her upstairs to look for the missing item, she locates it behind a grandfather clock.

Gregory: So you knew where it was all the time.
Paula: No. I didn’t know. I only looked there because that's where it was found twice before. I didn't know, Gregory, I didn't know.
Gregory: Now, Paula, I think you'd better go to your room.
Paula: We’re not going to the theatre?
Gregory: Oh, my dear, I’m afraid you are far from well enough for the theatre. Now come...

After the argument Gregory leaves the house to work in his nearby studio and Paula retreats in tears to her bedroom. But even here there is no respite. The gaslights dim mysteriously and she hears muffled footsteps coming from the attic above. 

Accused of theft and lies, distrusting her memory, feeling isolated and alone, treated like an invalid, unsettled by her husband’s flirting, assaulted by strange sounds in the night, Paula begins to doubt her sanity.

Events come to a head when Paula escapes the house to attend a music recital. Gregory insists on accompanying her. As the pianist holds the audience in thrall, Gregory quietly reveals to his wife that his watch is missing from its chain. When he locates it in her bag, she lets out a shriek of dismay. Gregory takes her home.

Gregory: I've tried so hard to keep it within these walls - in my own house. Now, because you would go out tonight, the whole of London knows it. If I could only get inside that brain of yours and understand what makes you do these crazy, twisted things.
Paula: Gregory, are you trying to tell me I'm insane?
Gregory: It's what I'm trying not to tell myself.
Paula: But that's what you think, isn't it? That's what you've been hinting and suggesting for months now, ever since…since the day I lost your broach. That's when it all began. 

Gregory now reveals to Paula that her mother was insane and died in an asylum. It’s all gone too far. He has asked two doctors to visit in the morning.

Thankfully Scotland Yard detective Brian Cameron (Cotton) is on the case. He has been curious about the unsolved murder of Paula’s aunt and suspicious of Gregory’s behaviour since the couple’s arrival in town. He intervenes in the nick of time.

It transpires that Gregory is in fact the murderer of Paula’s aunt. Plotting to get his hands on the deceased woman’s jewels, he tracked Paula down in Italy. He has been secretly searching through the aunt’s belongings in the attic to locate the missing gems. The flickering gaslights were caused by his turning on the attic lamps, thereby reducing the gas supply to the rest of the house. What’s more, Gregory has been scheming to have his wife institutionalized, so that he can continue his search unhindered. 

The detective explains all to Paula.

‘You're not going out of your mind. You're slowly and systematically being driven out of your mind.’

‘Gaslight’ is a case study in psychological abuse. We may note the many ways in which the evil Gregory goes about his task. He prompts Paula to question her memory and presents her with evidence of her kleptomania. He suggests she is tired and unwell; highly-strung and hysterical. He deprives her of social contact and embarrasses her in front of others. He feigns concern for her wellbeing and treats her like an infant. Even his frequent use of her first name diminishes her.

Of course, we now recognise these as the tactics employed in abusive relationships.

I found myself wondering whether modern businesses could also be accused of psychological manipulation.

Traditionally brands have demonstrated gaslighting traits in the healthcare, beauty and cleaning sectors. Can you pinch an inch? Are you beach body ready? Do you check under the rim? Why do you read so slowly? I suspect that, even in 2020, some brands and influencers are still gaslighting their customers. The endless repetition and gentle insistence. Subtly suggesting, quietly quizzing. Preying on fears and insecurities. Condescending and controlling. Prompting people to doubt their own judgement. Treating them like children. 

Consumers deserve better than this. At its best persuasion is consenting, enjoyable, useful. It is a conversation, a dialogue, an exchange. At its worst persuasion is cynical, manipulative, exploitative. We should all be mindful of this distinction.

At the climax of ‘Gaslight’ Paula finds herself alone in the attic with her now arrested and bound husband. He pleads with her to recall the good times together; to pick up a knife and set him free. At first she seems still to be under his spell. But then she sets down the knife.

'If I were not mad, I could have helped you. Whatever you had done, I could have pitied and protected you. But because I am mad, I hate you. Because I am mad, I have betrayed you. And because I'm mad, I'm rejoicing in my heart, without a shred of pity, without a shred of regret, watching you go with glory in my heart!'

'Every time I get the inspiration
To go change things around,
No one wants to help me look for places
Where new things might be found.
Where can I turn when my fair weather friends cop out?
What's it all about?
Each time things start to happen again
I think I got something good goin' for myself.
But what goes wrong?
Sometimes I feel very sad.
I guess I just wasn't made for these times.’

The Beach Boys, 'I Just Wasn't Made For These Times’  (B Wilson / T Asher)

No. 308

Dora Maurer: Creative Geometry

Seven Twists - Dora Maurer. Tate Photography

‘I never wanted to be an artist. I wanted to be a gardener, or working in a forest.’
Dora Maurer

I recently visited an exhibition of the work of Hungarian artist Dora Maurer (Tate Modern until 24 January 2021).

Born in Budapest in 1937, Maurer grew up under a Communist regime that was suspicious of progressive thinking. She trained in graphics, and in the 1960s joined a group of radical artists who met and exhibited in private flats, culture centres and student clubs. 

‘It was a grey life. It was no view to the future.’

Maurer worked in film and photography, in painting, performance and sculpture. She was fascinated with series, systems and sequences; with patterns, rhythms and repetition. 

In rudimentary black and white, Maurer films a cylinder from a swinging camera, on a swaying table, with a swooping light source. She shoots her studio sliced into three horizontal sections, and makes the sections rock backwards and forwards to a woozy, out-of-kilter rhythm. She records the infinite small gestures of a hand; the habituated motion of a man sitting on a chair. She runs along the balcony of a block of flats photographing another artist who is doing exactly the same thing, at the same time, on the opposite balcony. 

'My work has been based on change, shifting, traces, temporality from various perspectives.’

Dóra Maurer, Reversible and Changeable Phases of MovementsNo.6 1972. © Dóra Maurer.

There’s a quiet subversion in much of Maurer work. A young girl tramps out red circles on crumpled newsprint. It is May 1st when workers traditionally join organised collective parades. In another piece Maurer wraps and unwraps a paving stone, cradles it, washes it and ties it up. For Cold War Hungarians paving stones had a particular resonance because they were often pulled up and thrown in street protests.

‘As conceptual art came into the eastern part of Europe it was for me an opening. Everything I couldn’t use as an art object before I could use as an art idea... It was much more open. The world was open.’

With limited resources available to her, Maurer’s work is simple and conceptual. She is more concerned with process and technique than with a finessed end product.

‘Generally I am not as interested in the finished work as I am in the way it comes about, which is to say the question of realising a task I have set myself, the idea.’

Maurer’s ideas often begin with mathematics. She employs formulae to organise lines, equations to calculate sizes, rules to establish colour sequences. She carefully scratches, folds and bends; doubles, redoubles and divides. 

‘The identicalness and difference between objects, their seriality aroused my childhood interest in calculus and arithmetic. Geometry provides the framework for arrangement.’

Dóra Maurer Relative Quasi Image 1996 © Dóra Maurer Photo: Vintage Galéria / András Bozsó

What, you may ask, has mathematics to do with art? Surely calculation and computation are a world away from creativity and invention. Maurer sees that there are rhythms, patterns and sequences in nature and everyday life. Routine and repetition are at the root of all our behaviours and beliefs.

Many characterise creativity as something chaotic and disordered that emerges out of nowhere, that occurs in a vacuum. But Maurer points out that new ideas are often a response to established attitudes and conventional practices.

‘From an order it is possible to jump out. From chaos it is not possible to jump out because it has no direction. The play has an order.’

In the creative professions we too can have an uncomfortable relationship with mathematics. We regard it as too cold and clinical, too dry and rational. And yet I have found that it helps to regard communication campaigns as exercises in theme and variation, rhythm and repetition; to think of brands as managed patterns of actions and ideas.

In the 1980s, as the Cold War thawed, Maurer embraced vibrant colour in her work. She became fascinated by the way colours change in different light conditions, and images are distorted by perception. She painted geometric grids - in red, blue, orange, purple and black - that shimmer and shift the longer you look at them. They warp on the walls.

Overlappings 38 by Dora Maurer

More recently Maurer has created her Form Gymnastics. Blue, yellow and green shapes flutter weightlessly across the gallery. Bold overlapping colours fly elegantly through space, creating impressions of rhythmic movement on curved surfaces. They’re really rather beautiful.

In a recent interview Maurer was asked to describe her work. In reply the still vigorous Hungarian artist, now in her 80s, quoted the poet Walt Whitman.

'I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.’

Walt Whitman, ‘Song of Myself'

No. 307

The Barber’s Party: Negotiating from Areas of Agreement Towards Areas of Disagreement

Edward Hopper - The Barber Shop, 1931

'Hair is the first thing. And teeth the second. Hair and teeth. A man got those two things, he's got it all.’
James Brown

I knew when I first met my barber Simon, some time in the late ‘80s, that I would remain a loyal customer for many years to come. He talked animatedly about football and soul music. And he never asked me about my holidays.

Simon is an excellent hair cutter. He once styled George Best’s barnet, and he has over the years endeavoured to give me a look somewhere between Davids Soul and Essex. Nonetheless, I can’t really hold him accountable for my hair, as I tend to ruin it myself with wilful mismanagement. 

Neat and dapper in his carefully selected vintage-wear, Simon sets about his business with confident dexterity, offering insight and opinion as he goes - about Tania Maria, Lamont Dozier, Bobby Womack and Harry Kane. He talks with wit and dry humour, and is prone to occasional bouts of melancholy - perhaps related to the fact that he supports Spurs. He has always avoided red clothes, furnishings and vehicles. 

In the early days I followed Simon from salon to salon, travelling half way across London to make an appointment. There was a memorable period when he cut my hair, along with my flatmates’, in our ramshackle apartment in Turnpike Lane - a truly courageous act. 

'Some of the worst mistakes in my life were haircuts.'
Jim Morrison

Eventually Simon set up his own studio in Crouch End, and decorated it discreetly with engine parts, a ‘70s wig and a vintage eye test machine. A year or so later, with the business doing well, he held a small celebration. 

I arrived at the venue on my own, greeted Simon and congratulated him on his achievement. But I soon realised he was the centre of attention and I had to move on. I looked around the room at an assortment of awkward middle-aged men with artisanal jackets, Red Wing boots and Heineken bottles. Some were nodding their heads to the rare groove sound track, some were engaged in earnest conversation, some were looking intensely at their phones.

The trouble was I knew no one here. I felt a wave of social discomfort wash over me. Like a teenager at a disco, I had no idea what to say or who to say it to. And so I decided I just had to approach someone and dive in.

 ‘I like what Simon’s done with your hair.’

‘Oh, thanks, yours looks a bit like David Soul.’

The ice had been broken. Now the salon walls were echoing to vibrant debate and lively discussion. And I was right in the thick of things.

‘That’s almost a contemporary mullet.’

‘When I was younger I had a flick-head.’

‘It was salt-and-pepper, but I think now it’s mainly salt.’

‘Do you use conditioner?’

David Soul

David Essex

Of course, though we were all strangers, we had one thing in common: our hair. And this was enough to establish some social currency; to catalyse conversation; to get the ball rolling. Sprinkling my chat with the occasional ‘Mate’ to sustain my masculinity, I found I was having rather a good time. Eventually we even got onto subjects other than tonsorial.

'Too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxicabs and cutting hair.’
George Burns

Despite age and experience I have retained an awkwardness around strangers, a discomfort in certain social settings. I am nervous about first impressions, unconvinced by the magnetism of my conversational gambits. I fear sharp words and blunt remarks; hot heads and cold shoulders. I’m afraid of being alone in a crowd.

Of course, as my experience at the barber’s party illustrated, we can usually get along with anyone if we start with what we have in common. No matter the seeming distance between our backgrounds and lifestyles, our personalities and points of view, we usually share some interest or other: children, football, dogs, music, even hair.

This simple lesson applies as much to the commercial and political worlds as it does to everyday life. It pertains to challenging negotiations as much as it does to awkward conversations. As the American diplomat Henry Kissinger advised:

‘Build confidence by negotiating from areas of agreement towards areas of disagreement.’

So often in business we approach a dispute with our minds focused on conflict and contention, dissent and discord. We embark on arbitration obsessed with the distance between our positions, the difference between our points of view. 

This gets us nowhere. We should always begin by seeking common ground, shared interest, mutual benefit. The route to resolving disagreement starts with recognising agreement.

I’m still Simon’s loyal customer. Occasionally I book his last appointment and we afterwards adjourn to a local restaurant. We talk animatedly about football and soul music. And he never asks about my holidays.

'Oh, hairdresser on fire.
All around Sloane Square,
And you're just so busy.
Busy, busy.
Busy scissors.
Oh, hairdresser on fire.'

Morrissey, ‘Hairdresser on Fire’ (S Morrissey / S Street)

No. 306