September, 2008

montenegro / politics — No Comments
29
Sep 08

A big man for Montenegro

It takes a big man to admit that they were wrong. Doug Muir is a big man. Two years ago Doug was arguing that independence for Montenegro was a bad idea, but this past week he has recanted that heresy and now admits that maybe it wasn’t as much of a bad idea as he originally thought. Certainly his admission is slightly grudging – pointing out that Montenegrin government is still “corrupt, inbred, intolerant of criticism, and deeply linked with regional criminal elites” is clearly not unqualified support. Doug, I salute you!

However I think he is fair to point out that there’s still time for things to go wrong. If the tourism continues to dry up, the construction boom will be over; if global recession takes hold, the garment trade is going to go down the toilet. If the economy in general tanks, then dissatisfaction means that Serb and Albanian nationalism will both start to grow – which means that political class will find it increasingly hard to keep the boat from rocking. Suddenly Montenegro won’t look so appealling, investment will start to dry up and it could turn into a long spiral down.

I hope that doesn’t happen, personally. One thing I’m sure of; no matter what happens in Montenegro, Podgorica is never going to be a nice place.

art — No Comments
27
Sep 08

Picasso Bez Naziva

And so to the Museum of Modern Art in Dubrovnik, where an exhibition of Picasso graphics was about to close. This was nothing less than a revelation for me, revealing the extent of Picasso’s draughtsmanship, his command of different forms and – most strangely – his sense of humour. It was a world away from the sometimes forbidding cubism for which he became famous, and the better for it – I’ve always found cubism to be a bloodless exercise. I can see how it works, how it captures something that realism never could, but that doesn’t make it speak to me.

The exhibit included three sets – Suite Vollard, Suite 156 and the Tauromaquia. Suite 156 was the most familiar, with cubist elements in place, drawn out at the end of Picasso’s life. It was in 156 that his sense of humour came out most, with sly digs at other paintings, other painters and even at himself – with pieces like “Old Man and Woman with Athlete and Dwarf”, how could it be otherwise? This lightheartedness was countered by the sequence of etchings depicting Rape, in which themes found in the Suite Vollard thirty years previously – the Minotaur on the woman, the female toreador on the bull – were echoed, but with far more venom. The rapist looks almost placid, his expression blank in the classical style seen in other parts of the suite, while the woman contorts beneath him in barely-human positions. I found them difficult to look at, but not as difficult as the Tauromaquia.

The Tauromaquia is a sequence of pictures depicting the exact sequence of a bullfight, a subject close to Picasso’s heart. Like all fans of the corrida, he clearly sees a beauty there which will escape me forever; I cannot overcome my feelings of injustice enough to enjoy these drawings much.1 I can appreciate the technical skill displayed, however. Each of the pictures is a miniature composed of nothing more than brief, narrow strokes – there is no detail, no perspective and no movement to be seen, yet each picture is a perfect snapshot of a precise moment of the event, from the arrival at the stadium to the final departure of the toreador on the shoulders of his admirers. My sympathy remains with the bull; the picture that stands out most is titled “Dragging out a bull that is not belligerent enough”; make love, not war.

Make love is exactly what the bull – or at least the minotaur – does in the Suite Volland, when he’s not being blinded and lead around by a young girl. The Suite divides into roughly three sections. The bulk of it is neoclassical studies of the sculptor and his models, the sculptor being both Picasso and Zeus, the models being both powerful and dominated. A significant remainder shows the minotaur, taking the place of the sculptor with his models, then being injured, then walking blinded through unwelcoming city streets. The text reminds us that this was a novelty, the minotaur, traditionally a symbol of virile aggression, laid low by the weapons of man. The cheers of the bullring echo in the minotaur’s ears as he picks up the stick that will be his guide for the rest of his life.

The third section is simple: three portraits of Picasso’s sponsor, Ambroise Vollard. These were added to complete the suite up to 100 pictures, but they were done in a much more naturalistic style than the others. Lined up in a row on the wall, at the heart of the museum, they look like nothing less than Andy Warhol working in pencil; an identical pose repeated with variations only in shading and tone. They look nothing like we’d expect a portrait by Picasso to look, but they show the essence of a painter, the need to capture somebody at that moment in time. Vollard didn’t just commission this particular suite; he was responsible for Picasso’s initial financial success, the security that made his later work possible.

These portraits could easily show the money, the respect that the money paid for, the debt of the painter to the patron; but they just show a man, plain and simple, sketched out lightly and frowning slightly at us through our many years of over-exposure to Picasso, reminding us of the simple skill of the artist.

  1. Yet I’m aware that my reaction towards these is more extreme than my reaction to the rape pictures, which is of course both mystifying and unacceptable to me. [↩]
religion / sport — 4 Comments
23
Sep 08

Watching my words: stadiums and synagogues edition

I would be remiss if I didn’t pick up on Jennine’s response to my earlier post on how religion might usefully approached in the same way as sport. I think that I meant to point out that religion is a social and cultural phenomenon in the same way as sport is, and that we can understand them in similar – although not identical – ways. Jennine takes a slightly different perspective:

But what I want to be cautious of in a way that I don’t think Paul and Maher are, entirely, is conflating “religion” and “faith”… I agree with Maher that an intellectual grasp of religions is not sufficient to fully understand what it means to live a life of faith.

Caution is always to be recommended on the Web, and I agree completely that a purely “academic” (in the derogatory sense) approach will never lead to true understanding of something so deeply felt.

While we agree on that, I think we disagree quite fundamentally on how religion and sport look from the outside – although as Jennine says, she occupies an ambiguous position with regards to both activities due to her upbringing (which is partly my point, I think).

However, knowing people of faith who live their faith – as expressed through religion – deeply and beautifully, there is something there that I just don’t see captured in sport.  And that is the relationship between a person and the divinity that they engage with.  Although supporting a sports team can offer a sense of identity and community, I hope at least, that most fans understand that the team is not invested in their wellbeing.  And that, at least in the Christian traditions I grew up in, is exactly what I was taught about God – that God is concerned with each person’s wellbeing, that God loves each individual and wants them to live a good life.

That may well be what people believe about God – but, just like their favourite sports team, God does appear to keep on letting them down. And yet those people keep going back for more, just like sports fans who follow their teams despite persistent losses and consistent mismanagement. It’s all about feeling connected to a higher power – whether that higher power is Yahweh or Nike.

writing — 4 Comments
21
Sep 08

Writing Upwards: the future of publishing

While reading this post, you may enjoy listening to Heart’s A Mess by Gotye.

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a. By far the most interesting thing about LitCamp was that elephant sitting at the end of the table, the internet. Keith Ridgway was the provocateur on a panel discussion about what the future of publishing will be in the “Digital Age”. General conclusion: nobody knows.

b. Personally I think that publishing as an industry will die the death of a thousand digital cuts, now that the barrier to entry for writers has been lowered to zero by the internet. The only way that writers will be able to make a living is through a) selling rights for viable media such as television, and b) setting up alternative revenue streams on their own terms.

c. More on that later. Let’s not think about the publishing, but about the writing. Writing is a solitary activity. which means that the Web sets up an interesting creative tension between the character of the writer and the requirements of the audience. When I sit down to write, I’m writing for myself, an audience of one who can read back instantly and tell me if he likes it. (Usually he doesn’t.)

d. Contrast this with blogs. Some bloggers might claim to be writing for themselves, but they’re not. If they were writing for themselves, they’d keep a journal, or a text file on their computer. When I write a blog post, I’m superbly conscious that I’m not writing for myself – I’m writing for somebody out there. Guaranteed publication = guaranteed self-censorship for anybody with any sense of dignity.

e. So this process of writing is profoundly different to that first type of writing, because when you’re writing online there’s the expectation of interaction. If you blog, you’re looking for comments; or for links from other blogs citing you; or at least people whispering behind your back.1

f. Either way – interaction or validation – neither of those are true of “creative” (ahem) writing, the sort of writing where you try to push out 2000 words of a novel per day for 60 days. How could it be? I second-guess myself all the time as it is, continually criticising and cajoling and confusing myself about my own writing – imagine if I had other people reading my stuff in real time! I’d never get anything done!2

g. Yet the tension is there. Why did I post that first draft of a poem? Why am I thinking about posting my latest short story in its entirety? I can’t honestly say I’m looking for interaction – once I write the final version of something, I consider it “out there”, like a child that grew up and left home. Comments are nice, feedback is nice, but it’s not really interaction. Is it?

h. So what’s the future of writing in a Digital Age? Where are the new forms of writing, O Future Of The Book? Where can I find innovation in storytelling, Penguin Avatar? Is it all just stale downloads and rubbish websites? Why does nobody hail Geoff Ryman as the first writer to really try something really exciting?

i. I don’t have the answers. Writers with blogs? Try Belinda Webb. Poets with blogs? Try Jay Bernard. Publishers with blogs? Try Michael Bhasker. Nobody has the answers, but we keep on writing anyway.

  1. More specifically I have a sneaking suspicion that the real motive behind blogging is the expectation of validation – that other people will read what you’ve written and think or say or write “Hey, I agree with you!” [↩]
  2. Of course, I don’t get much done as it is, but that’s another story. [↩]
wordsperminute — 1 Comment
16
Sep 08

Words per minute #8: Yeats on Dying

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

- W.B. Yeats, An Irish Airman Foresees His Death

(HT: Conor Foley)

Uncategorized — No Comments
16
Sep 08

Surround sound tourism

Spending such a short time in Georgia felt like disaster tourism, and now being back in London feels like disaster tourism as well. Every other person I meet seems to be leaving, or thinking about leaving, or dreaming of leaving. Don’t look at me – I left about 10 years ago, but listening to all these tales of woe I’m thinking of coming back. It’s the contrarian in me, I guess.

I posted the first (and distinctly clunky) draft of the poem Flying Dream Number Three for two reasons. The first reason is that Elbow won the Mercury Music Prize, which is the first time I’ve actually cheered the winners. I loves me some Elbow, but now they’re proper famous I’m not going to post any of their music here, despite the fact that they have their own flying dream. No, instead I’m going to post the last track by one of my musical heroes: Tim Simenon, aka Bomb the Bass.

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It’s 13 years since Tim Simenon released an album, the ridiculously dark Clear (note to self: post tracks from Clear), 21 years since Bomb the Bass first appeared. I bought the 12″ re-issue of Beat Dis in 1988 and couldn’t quite understand what I was listening to. It was of course The Future, and even though that track now sounds ridiculously late 80s, it sums up the DIY ethos, energy and optimism of the music scene at that time. It also lead to my DJing career, but you can’t blame him for that.

The second reason for posting an unfinished poem was that I’d spent the day at Litcamp, which turned out to be much more interesting than I’d originally thought. I didn’t learn anything much, but the opportunity to hear other writers talk about their experiences was enough to make it worthwhile. Enough people asked “So are you a writer?” that it forced me to think about whether I am in fact a writer. I write, but am I a writer? I’ll let you know as soon as I have an answer.

The most interesting part of the day for me was a panel discussion on Publishing in the Digital Age (which included Michael Bhaskar from Pan Macmillan, whose own blogging is interesting but infrequent). It was amusing simply because everybody realised that the internet had changed the game for writers, agents and publishers, but none of us had a clue what’s going to happen next. The one thing that everybody agreed on was that writers need to take more care of their online presence, in terms of creativity, marketing and social networking – all of which are increasingly interlinked thanks to the web.

Hence this blog post, which I guess signals a return to blogging. This may stop again when I get back home and find myself with a mobile connection that’s so thin only very small words (like “if” and “nice” and “ebb”) can get down it. While you’re waiting for the next post you may wish to read this post by Matt Shadetek about the use and abuse of found sound in modern music. Or more accurately, a mild rant against producers who use ethnically correct samples to spice up their sound.

In vocal music, especially rap, the vibe and energy of a tune is SO MUCH about the lyrical content that putting vocals on tunes that you, or perhaps more importantly a major chunk of your audience don’t understand is just weird to me. I feel that you are using these people and their words as an idea, or a reference or a signifier in a way that’s totally disconnected from their artistic intentions. If you, the producer can’t understand all the layers of what they’re saying and the audience can’t either then the words are just rhythmic or melodic noise, a kind of cultural texture.

I couldn’t agree more, which is one of the reasons why the recent passing fad for gypsy brass (go Guca!) is so puzzling to me. It’s fantastic music, and you’ve got to love Basement Jaxx for loving it too, but really – do listeners in the UK really understand where it’s coming from? I don’t, and I live there. So for my final contrarian moment, I’m posting a track by Saban Bajramovic, who died earlier this year from too much living. Raise your glasses and fire your guns in the air; it’s what he would have wanted.

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writing — 2 Comments
13
Sep 08

Flying Dream Number Three

I am the bullet, your dream of flying.
My path takes me low across the land
“On wings” – not on wings,
I fly on laws of physics, arc and drop,
Closer like a camera until I can’t hold back
The camera lens bumps his nose
Canned laughter erupts in the kino -

This is not comedy.
I break bone, I break skin,
I break people and I break him,
Just as you wanted.
I am not the dream of flying;
I must be that other dream,
The one that ends in tears.

Far behind me, you forget me,
Your trusted messenger,
The dream you dreamt
Seconds before your finger crooked,
Trigger click and muzzle flash.
Now flip the sight, lock the case,
Now roll on your back and breathe.
You look like him, you know,
The man I killed when you asked me to,
Lying there all loose-limbed on the land.
You know too well that one day
One of my brothers might come for you.

(Unfinished on the train, September 2008)