State of the National Theatre

Does  the UK’s National Theatre reflect the UK? Divisions over Brexit, elite metropolitans vs countryside; populism/commercial vs artistic; identity wars - gender; state funding vs commercial funding. Leftist vs Rightist. Small state vs large state. [Not so far as to look at State Capacity Liberterians, cf. Dominic Cummings (?) H/T Tyler Cowen]

Helen Lewis takes on these ideas in a review of the National Theatre as an organisation and its conflicts with a dose of the Arts Council (after an interesting take on how the state effectively subsidises the commercial by allowing artists to develop in the state sector first).

Lewis notes the new language at Arts Council of “relevance” instead of “excellence” although with some push back that one can be both excellent and relevant.

Many commentators (theatre practitioners in my feed) on Twitter have critiqued the binary and polarised juxtapositions - which reflect debates on gender, and Brexit; and places David Hare (as a proponent of canon, traditionalists and, supposedly, an elite; remain) opposite Stella Duffy (as community, Leave). 

Comments like: 

NT primarily artistic or social? Can’t it be both?

Excellence or relevance? I write plays to be both.

I think those comments have validity, but I don’t think Lewis was proposing the nuance or spectrum here.

Lewis was asking if the conflicts at the NT reflected conflicts at a nation(s) state level. That the NT itself is a state of the nation play. And in that, Lewis draws some comparisons that do seem to reflect this idea. (Toilets one battle ground). This I think is interesting for non-theatre makers. Or, once you move past the opposing construct, it gives some intriguing insights into the conflicts that an organisation like the NT has.

Do our institutions reflect our society? Often institutions are more ossified and slower moving than where society is, in my observations. So the idea that the NT is of its time (and that some of its debates eg Peter Hall vs the Unions) stretch back in history.

On that idea, if the left did win the battle of culture and the NT is a result of that, but if the right have won the ideas on market economics - a binary that I’m not entirely sure I agree - and are currently re-shaping institutional funding - does the NT survive because it is as cherished as the NHS or as important as science funding; or does it decay attacked by left and right (cf. BBC) for losing of relevance - neither excellent nor popular rather than both excellent and popular?

Given Lewis interviewed some of our major theatre figures like Stella Duffy, David Hare, Rufus Norris, Dan Rebellato - I would have loved longer notes and insights into what they actually thought.

Full article in the Atlantic here.

Lewis’ take on subsidised theatre subsidising commercial.

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My £10K microgrants programme here.

Me on what theatre teaches business.

Zadie Smith Q&A here and her writing tips here.

Hear about the chat with legendary agent, Mel Kenyon.

Some notes from listening to the literary manager of the Royal Court, Chris Campbell. (soon to be at Oberon Books)

Be inspired by Artistic Director, Kate Wasserberg’s Dauntless Theatre.

TS Eliot's love letters to Emily Hale unveiled

The love letters of TS Eliot to Emily Hale (likely inspiration for many of his famous poems) have been revealed (around Jan 2020), 50 years since Hale’s passing.

Eliot wrote a statement - more a letter - to accompany the letters, whenever they were to be unveiled.  The letter goes:

“It is painful for me to have to write the following lines. I cannot conceive of writing my autobiography. It seems to me that those who can do so are those who have led purely public and exterior lives, or those who can successfully conceal from themselves what they prefer not to know about themselves – there may be a few persons who can write about themselves because they are truly blameless and innocent. In my experience, there is much for which one cannot find words even in the confessional; much which springs from weakness, irresolution and timidity, from petty self-centredness rather than from inclination towards evil or cruelty, from error rather than ill-nature. I shall be as brief as I can.

During the course of my correspondence with Emily Hale, between 1932 and 1947, I liked to think that my letters to her would be preserved and made public after we were dead – fifty years after. I was however, disagreeably surprised when she informed me that she was handing the letters over to Princeton University during our lifetime – actually in the year 1956. She took this step, it is true, before she knew that I was going to get married. Nevertheless, it seemed to me that her disposing of the letters in that way at that time threw some light upon the kind of interest which she took, or had come to take, in these letters. The Aspern Papers in reverse.

I fell in love with Emily Hale in 1912, when I was in the Harvard Graduate School. Before I left for Germany and England in 1914 I told her that I was in love with her. I have no reason to believe, from the way in which this declaration was received, that my feelings were returned, in any degree whatever. We exchanged a few letters, on a purely friendly basis, while I was up at Oxford during 1914-15.

To explain my sudden marriage to Vivienne Haigh-Wood would require a good many words, and yet the explanation would probably remain unintelligible. I was still, as I came to believe a year later, in love with Miss Hale. I cannot however make even that assertion with any confidence: it may have been merely my reaction against my misery with Vivienne and desire to revert to an earlier situation. I was very immature for my age, very timid, very inexperienced. And I had a gnawing doubt, which I could not altogether conceal from myself, about my choice of a profession – that of a university teacher of philosophy. I had had three years in the Harvard Graduate School, at my father’s expense, preparing to take my Doctorate in Philosophy: after which I should have found a post somewhere in a college or university. Yet my heart was not in this study, nor had I any confidence in my ability to distinguish myself in this profession. I must still have yearned to write poetry. For three years I had written only one fragment, which was bad (it is, alas, preserved at Harvard). Then in 1914 Conrad Aiken showed Prufrock to Ezra Pound. My meeting with Pound changed my life. He was enthusiastic about my poems, and gave me such praise and encouragement as I had long since ceased to hope for. I was happier in England, even in wartime, than I had been in America: Pound urged me to stay in England and encouraged me to write verse again. I think that all I wanted of Vivienne was a flirtation or a mild affair: I was too shy and unpractised to achieve either with anybody. I believe that I came to persuade myself that I was in love with her simply because I wanted to burn my boats and commit myself to staying in England. And she persuaded herself (also under the influence of Pound) that she would save the poet by keeping him in England. To her, the marriage brought no happiness: the last seven years of her life were spent in a mental home. To me, it brought the state of mind out of which came The Waste Land. And it saved me from marrying Emily Hale.

Emily Hale would have killed the poet in me; Vivienne nearly was the death of me, but she kept the poet alive. In retrospect, the nightmare agony of my seventeen years with Vivienne seems to me preferable to the dull misery of the mediocre teacher of philosophy which would have been the alternative.

For years I was a divided man (just as, in a different way, I had been a divided man in the years 1911-1915). In 1932 I was appointed Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard for one year; and even Vivienne’s mother agreed that it was out of the question for Vivienne to go to America with me. I saw Emily Hale in California (where she was teaching in a girls’ college) early in 1933, and I saw her from time to time every summer, I think from 1934 on, as she always joined her aunt and uncle who took a house every summer at Chipping Campden.

Upon the death of Vivienne in the winter of 1947, I suddenly realised that I was not in love with Emily Hale. Gradually I came to see that I had been in love only with a memory, with the memory of the experience of having been in love with her in my youth. Had I met any woman I could have fallen in love with, during the years when Vivienne and I were together, this would no doubt have become evident to me. From 1947 on, I realised more and more how little Emily Hale and I had in common. I had already observed that she was not a lover of poetry, certainly that she was not much interested in my poetry; I had already been worried by what seemed to me evidence of insensitiveness and bad taste. It may be too harsh, to think that what she liked was my reputation rather than my work. She may have loved me according to her capacity for love; yet I think that her uncle’s opinion’s (her uncle by marriage, a dear old man, but wooly-minded) meant more to her than mine. (She was fond of her uncle John but did not get on very well with her Aunt Edith). I could never make her understand that it was improper for her, a Unitarian, to communicate in an Anglican church: the fact that it shocked me that she should do so made no impression upon her. I cannot help thinking that if she had truly loved me she would have respected my feelings if not my theology. She adopted a similar attitude with regard to the Christian and Catholic view of divorce.

I might mention at this point that I never at any time had any sexual relations with Emily Hale.

So long as Vivienne was alive I was able to deceive myself. To face the truth fully, about my feelings towards Emily Hale, after Vivienne’s death, was a shock from which I recovered only slowly. But I came to see that my love for Emily was the love of a ghost for a ghost, and that the letters I had been writing to her were the letters of an hallucinated man, a man vainly trying to pretend to himself that he was the same man that he had been in 1914.

It would have been a still greater mistake to have married Emily than it was to marry Vivienne Haigh-Wood. I can imagine the sort of man each should have married – different from each other, but also very different from me. It is only within the last few years that I have known what it was to love a woman who truly, selflessly and whole-heartedly loves me. I find it hard to believe that the equal of Valerie ever has been or will be again; I cannot believe that there has ever been a woman with whom I could have felt so completely at one as with Valerie. The world with my beloved wife Valerie has been a good world such as I have never known before. At the age of 68 the world was transformed for me, and I was transformed by Valerie.

May we all rest in peace“ (Source TS Eliot Foundation)

Scholars think these lines in the Four Quartets may have been about Emily Hale:

“What might have been is an abstraction

Remaining a perpetual possibility

Only in a world of speculation.

What might have been and what has been

Point to one end, which is always present.

Footfalls echo in the memory

Down the passage which we did not take

Towards the door we never opened

Into the rose-garden. My words echo

Thus, in your mind.”

In his letters he wrote to Hale:

“You have made me perfectly happy: that is, happier than I have ever been in my life; the only kind of happiness now possible for the rest of my life is now with me; and though it is the kind of happiness which is identical with my deepest loss and sorrow, it is a kind of supernatural ecstasy.”

In the end, he didn’t marry Hale after his first wife died. He married Valerie.

And, no one exactly knows why. All Eliot wrote:

“Emily Hale would have killed the poet in me; Vivienne nearly was the death of me, but she kept the poet alive.”

Poetry as mysterious as poets as people as love as everyone else.

Theatre teaching business, teaming, trust and speaking up

-what theatre teaches me about elite teams and business 

-speaking up and empowering people 

I work in a high performing team within investing. This is a very competitive “sport”. There are many smart teams also competing and it’s a mix of skill and luck which is complex.  It’s very hard to beat the benchmark and competitors over time. There is a large amount of noise and bias.

In my view the best teams learn from other “sports” and industries. I’m fortunate that I’ve been part of elite teams within theatre. I happen to assess elite management teams within business and healthcare R&D, but that’s another story. 

The three concepts I’d like to discuss are:

Psychologist Safety or SpeakUp

Teaming, or when it’s not possible to do it all

Prosocial, or giving as a way to excel 

I’ve blogged previously on the Amy Edmondson work and the Google studies on the importance of psychological safety within teams. (Link end).   This is the idea that you need to be able to feel free to say anything to your team and when you can’t or don’t feel safe - then a team fails to perform at its best. 

The best theatre teams I’ve worked with always nurture this.  While it’s often led by a director, this doesn’t have to be the case. I’ve seen ensemble and collaborative work, not director led.

These teams encourage all members (including lighting, sound, costume, stage management and so on) to speak up if they have an idea or see something wrong. 

Part of this is the observation that much theatre has no “correct” answer. It’s an act of creation which may be finally somewhat completed or judged by an audience but has no answer.

I’m aware of some directors that lead by sheer force of ideas and personality. On occasion these create spectacular works but the dark side is that teams don’t or can’t speak up and feel safe. 

As I will reflect on giving and vulnerability this has allowed at times a culture of abuse where people didn’t speak up. (cf. MeToo)

I speculate as to how much greater their works might have been with an ensemble vision over a singular vision. As theatre like football is mostly a team endeavour unlike golf which is more singular.

Still there is something special about the rehearsal room. This is a space specifically designed to learn, experiment, practice and “fail”.  It’s accelerated and intense. 

Business teams would benefit from seeing elite theatre makers - directors, actors, backstage, design - in action. 

There is no failure in the best rehearsals because there’s only learning on what might work for this group at this time. Final completion can’t be until audience stage (and that may continue to develop too). There’s no fixed mindset. 

On top of this, theatre is not an activity where you can do it all yourself. Actors don’t work in a vacuum and even solo shows have lights, directors, maybe sound or movement, design or costumes and so on. There is a definitive understanding of this from the start. 

While most businesses today are in an hierarchy, they most often operate in teams and while CEOs might lead them, they rely on numerous sets of teams to keep their businesses running and they themselves - although they might not realise it - are part of a team. 

Rehearsals teach businesses and teams about continuous improvement. In terms of innovation or acts of creation, they teach about how to learn and how no learning occurs without “mistakes, dead ends or failures” - which seem to me be words with the wrong tone for innovation. 

The acts of theatre should remind business people that no one works alone and that we work best in teams. And in reality business people are already leading teams.  

Where do theatre teams go beyond the normal? It’s often in how much the players give.  Of themselves, to others. In theatre, there is (and was) the danger which we now see in MeToo but that is giving without safety - and psychological safety embedded by the whole team must come first.  

But where that is in place then the best theatre is very generous in what the players give. 

Turning to business this is embodied in the idea of servant-leaders.  Leaders who lead by giving back to the whole organisation and help try and raise up everyone else. 

Why does this giving behaviour seem to work? I don’t have solid evidence but my speculation is that what is happening is that the value of the social and relationship “asset” grows from this type of pro-social behaviour. Trust grows. Of course, it doesn’t always pay-off.  The world is complex. But typically giving is a form of investing in our relationships and our social value and humans after all are social creatures and we value that. 

There’s much more theatre can teach, which I may come back to another time, but I will leave it with those observations on the importance of psychological safety, of teaming and of how giving builds trust and that can lead to extraordinary performance.

More? Here’s my blog on what Google found on what makes great teams (Amy Edmondson work).

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Check out my £10K micro-grants for people looking to make positive impact.

Dessa, rapper, writer; memoir

I listened to Dessa rap and sing with the BBC Wales orchestra, this month. Her sparkly character glittering about the stage. Her voice has a sensual, draw you in, complex timbre. Her lyrics are complex and playful. She’s written memoir essays about her time on the road, falling in and out of love and the like.

It’s a keen intellect that shines through. One peppered with a life hard and well lived. Touching lightly on mental health and the craziness of forging your own musical path:

She writes in her first essay:

“... Today’s conventional wisdom says that the best way to live a life is to keep all the components partitioned—love, money, friends. You’re not supposed to date your boss, or go bowling with your analyst, or borrow large sums of money from your drinking buddies. We think of ourselves as a store-bought cake with a sheet of wax paper separating all the slices so that they never touch: neat, single servings. But hanging out with Doomtree, it was all one thing—social, professional, romantic. I did all of it with the same people and often at the same time. There were no hobbies and no off-hours, no work-life balance; there was just writing songs and walking to SuperAmerica for cigarettes and drafting set lists and drinking with the guys and making album budgets and goofing off and collapsing into sleep tucked into the leopard print of my boyfriend’s left shoulder. None of it came apart from the rest….”

And on deciding to be an artist:

“...Like a meteor shower, a series of questions flashed through my consciousness at regular intervals: Q: How long should I do this before I give up? Part of the challenge in becoming an artist is that you have to place your bets before you’re fully dealt. You have to assess your talent, still half-formed, and decide what you are willing to stake on it. There’s no best-practice handbook for the pursuit of unlikely dreams. How much of your life should you spend trying to be an astronaut or a fashion model or a professional rapper before deciding it’s time to redirect your energies? A year? Two? Ten?

Some members of Doomtree are genuinely art-for-art’s-sake creative types. Cecil Otter is like that, I think. He’ll emerge from a thirteen-hour production session bleary-eyed and blissed-out by whatever he heard through the headphones. I’ve never been that kind of purist. For me the communication of an artistic idea is fundamental to the endeavor. If there wasn’t someone at both ends of the line, at some point, I’d just want to hang up.

Q: What are the opportunity costs here? I knew that I was capable of making a good living in another field—I had gotten good grades, could interview well, was willing to work hard. If music wasn’t going to be my life’s path, then the time I spent writing songs and bios and press releases might be better spent doing something else—going back to school, or applying for a full-time job, or maybe teaching English abroad, where at least it’d feel like I was contributing. I was a lousy waitress. I was a pretty good tech writer, but couldn’t envision it as a long-term gig. And I couldn’t butterfly forever.

Q: Am I delusional—like, fully out of my damn mind? I’d venture that there are thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of young women at this very moment who aspire to be the first female president. And one of them will be. The problem is it’s impossible to tell if you’re the one. When small children say they want to be quarterbacks or tap dancers, they’re applauded for their audacity. Aunts and uncles toss a ball around the backyard and buy a little fedora for Christmas. When you are a grown-up who says she wants to be a rapper, the blush is off the rose. The conversation at the Christmas table is more likely to include the words compound and interest than follow and dreams. And it is a little crazy to believe that you can navigate a career path that seems to pan out so rarely. The numbers say you’re almost certainly wrong.

Q: Could wanting it badly enough make it real? This question isn’t about hard work—that’s a prerequisite. It’s about taping blinders to your temples; categorically writing off the critics who don’t like what you do; categorically writing off the counsel of the people who love you and worry about how you’re doing, to insist, I am going to will this into reality. This is the Tinker Bell model. She’s only real because she is clapped into existence. The children refuse to entertain any alternative, and the force of their desire and their determination has metaphysical consequences. The Tinker Bell model is the nuclear option. It taps every reserve. It permits no Plan Bs. It’s bold, reckless, conceited, juvenile—right up until it works. And then, in hindsight, it’s brave, windblown, and scored with strings that sustain right into the commercial break. I’ve known artists who’ve tattooed their hands and faces to ensure they’d have no recourse, no desk-job escape chute…”

I’ve heard artists talk about no Plan B. I don’t know how many burn out - an exploding star.

But those that survive are forged into some alchemical metal.

The above passage is some of her least lyrical more business like writing. Mostly it’s cheeky and funny. Rhapsodic with Street smart lyrical-ness and amazing erudition that her rap-cleverness can’t hide. I’m somewhat in awe and a tiny bit in love. This must be what her audiences feel.

She paints faces (dressed as a butterfly) to make money before her music has taken off. The children ask her:

“...Most days, I fielded the same set of questions: Q: Can I get two? “Unlikely. This line is very long. But if there are no blank faces, come back and I’ll do your other side.”

Q: Are you a kid or an adult? The costume made it tough to tell if I was a giant child or just a parent in disguise. “I’m an in-between.”

Q: If your wings are real, then can you fly? “Kid, nobody can paint while flying.”

Q: Is this, like, what you do? Your job? Well, honey, that one’s complicated. Some days I paint faces. Yes, for money. And sometimes I write instructional manuals as an independent contractor. And sometimes I wait tables at a sports bar downtown. And sometimes I work as a temp for an agency like Dolphin Staffing—which is not as magical as it sounds—but at night, I am a rapper at a precarious point in her—

Q: I saaaaid, is this, like, what you do? Your job? “Well, I’m face painting and you’re waiting to get painted. So is that your job? Being second in line to get face painted? Are you a professional paintee?”

Q: Do you have a boyfriend? I do, but only for a little while longer. He’s becoming a famous person, I think, and there is no competing for first place in his heart because that position was already occupied by music-making when I met him. And maybe the best spot in my heart is reserved for the same thing. But all sorts of people want a piece of him now, including beautiful women who I don’t think he has the self-discipline to turn away. And I am a sizzling mess: angry and jealous and vengeful and sad. That’s the truth, but I can’t share it with you because you’re too young and this is supposed to be a party and I’m being paid by the hour.

Q: Do you have a boyfriend? “How come? Are you single? Are you asking me on a day-yate?”

And like the best heroine-quests she ends…

“...Now, years after that first NPR review and my last face-painting gig, I’ll sometimes stand at the edge of the stage during a Doomtree show. I’ll put my finger to my mouth to quiet the room. I’ll hold my mic off to the side, a gesture that will usually send a round of shhhs through the crowd. Unamplified, I’ll yell something like: “Hey, we’re Doomtree. I’m Dessa. That’s Sims, that’s P.O.S, that dapper gentleman is Cecil Otter, and my guy Mike Mictlan is the hero who thought to grab the case of waters from backstage. Here behind the tables, where the magic happens, is Lazerbeak and Paper Tiger. If it’s your first time seeing us: welcome. If you’ve been coming for ten years: thank you. The reason that seven musicians can play a two-hour show to a sold-out room—even though we don’t have a big song on the radio, even though we aren’t in Sprite ads, even though we write pop songs that are eight goddamn minutes long—is you. Our growth has been slow, and if you’ve been here from the beginning, you know that’s true. But because we make our money in ten-dollar increments at that merch table right there—wave, Ander! That’s Ander—we’ve been able to maintain total artistic control. We don’t have to ask a record executive if it’s a good idea to pick the song with a clarinet sample in 6/ 8 as the first single—of course that’s not a good idea—but it’s good art, dammit, so we’re doing it. Doomtree runs on word of mouth and pixie dust. We are real because you’ve said we are. We’re the Tinker Bell of this rap shit. So thank you….”

Read her memoir essays on Amazon here. So many interesting artists still to be discovered by me. Sign up to me monthly newsletter below.

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Here’s a Dessa song

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Fancy another blog? Zadie Smith Writing Tips here.

Craft: a guide to making Poetry happen

This is not a traditional how-to book. The Editor, Rishi Dastidar (a friend who’s given me an ARC copy) acknowledges that. There are other places for dactyls to land and pentameters to dance.

In broadening what it means to be a poet in today’s world - this messy glocal - global-local - live and digital - multicoloured - multishaped world.

Rishi advocates:

“... I want you to recognise that, to write poetry today, you need to be thinking about more than just your technical, prosodic abilities. How do you perform your work? What about the ethics of using real life in what you write? Can you use technology as a way to push your work to new places? These are ‘craft’ questions, as much as knowing how to get the most out of a sonnet, attempting your own translations and improving the titles you give your poems – all subjects covered here…”

And so expands our notions of craft.  The craft of food, the craft of joinery, the craft of work - life everywhere - are involved in these questions and this book adds wonderfully to these wider challenges. 

It’s a minority art with a perceived lack of minority visibility with an occasional enormous society life changing impact wrapped in an economic paupers cloak.

These poets pack punches and dance jazz while in packed in an essay form. 

As might be expected from poets pithy notions jilting aphorisms open ended contradictory thoughts are all present - in their best sense.  

If you’ve ever pondered writing form and especially how it might not really be working for you - then join a fine company of poets who question this very area and come up with some insightful ideas and provocations.  Perhaps my only note of caution might be the complete beginner into this world may initially be overwhelmed - yet step further and the discussion of form is wide and fascinating. 

Dive into the ghazal - and the ghazal adaptation - challenging when is ghazal not a ghazal, when a haiku not a haiku and the challenges of different linguistically roots. 

Discover the golden shovel…. “Poetic forms can liberate or constrict writers. I’ve found that forms that carry the weight of history, like sestinas, sonnets and villanelles, can sometimes be intimidating. These forms risk shutting writers down before they even start, or make them try to stiffly imitate the masters, most of whom died long before they were born. I’m not suggesting that we don’t try these forms, but I’ve found a new form–the golden shovel–that provides an entry-way to form which is often more accessible and inviting. It promotes creativity, while providing scaffolding by borrowing words and ideas from another writer.”

Learn the tools of the short story as applied to poems. 

Then after form grapple with making..

“...Writing a poem is impossible and once you realise this, you’re free. Rimbaud said that the language of poetry is not brain to brain but ‘soul to soul’..”

With tools to take into the impossible

“...When a poet is willing to risk not-knowing, that’s when something might happen.–Chase Twitchell People talk about the fear of the blank page. Turn this thought upside down–the blankness is the best bit. The blankness is vital, it’s the “continuous I don’t know” that births the poem, the breath that precedes the words, the thin air from whence something can magically appear. You can’t have magic without thin air, and you can’t have inspiration (whatever that is), without blankness, and so our first job, in the writing of a poem, is to resist the temptation to thicken our air with pre-empting, to let go of the need for an outcome. First drafts are entirely about discovery and you can’t plan a surprise. But it’s counter-intuitive isn’t it? Why would you step forward without the certainty of ground? How do we trust nothingness? Unlearn in order to encounter? And how on earth can ‘getting lost’ be a discipline?...”

• Sound 

• Line breaks

• Imagery 

All have significant essays  plus 

• Titles

And there lies another part of the genius of this collection - taking the small details of word smithing of poetry and expanding it the deep levels of practitioners grappling with their work. 

And referencing widely - and why I can’t call a poem Rain.  

Another essay is a notebook - it’s almost like a memoir of the making of a poem - again a different lens into the poem making business 

We go on

• Voice and vernacular 

• Character 

• Translation 

• Technology  (which I feel only starts to touch this area but with many jumping off points) 

• And performance 

As applied to poetry but by now I start to feel this somehow comments and applies to the world today as well as the world of words -

Research / politics (and touching on found poetry)  and on to family and your real life and crossing myth, class, identity  and forms of truth -

In this section of poetry speaking truth to power the essays also speak to a political time in big P politics and small p politics - an intersectionality (referencing the sections of form and making) which is unique to my reading as it weaves a thread from form to making to speaking to politics.

Ending with a set of questions, tips, provocations and exercises - the idiosyncratic coda is a lovely quirky finish. 

This set of essays are modern and current yet speak to traditions of many poetic forms.  Its focus on modern challenges such as technology, politics and performance all in one collection by practitioners flourishing mostly  in the middle of their careers should be a useful source for the early poet or even a fully fledged one who would like to be provoked or reminded of paths not taken or yet to be danced. 

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Order a copy from Nine Arches, 14.99 + PP. Contents below.

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Cost of living in NYC

NYC.  Wow. It’s been a year but you remain such a concentrated blast of humanity.

I land in the wind. Some planes are cancelled so it’s lucky I make it. 

LaGuardia is under going construction. I ponder if they had any climate protesters.  The cars are jammed packed trying to drop in and out of the airport. It’s so crammed, that groups of us are bussed 5 or so minutes away to a taxi area. 

Yes.  A bus to catch a taxi. An Uber would have been a better idea. 

The taxi driver suggests airport staff don’t really care much about efficiently moving passengers as they are paid by the hour.  Unlike him. 

Later, another taxi driver and I discuss the prices of taxis. He has the unexpectedly wise assertion that everything has a value/price and why would you buy something at a high value/price   Expressing limited sympathy for those driver who bought taxi medallions are very high prices which have subsequently crashed. 

Drivers still have the pulse on certain aspects of a city. The traffic is bad. Speeds are slow and mobility is not great and fairly expensive by taxi or Uber. 

Subway still moves but looks dilapidated and a similar impression vs. Last year of under investment in this area

I ride the A train to JFK on a Friday evening.  The carriage is predominantly black, the dress seems “lower class”, no suits, no obvious wealth. The middle class seems absent presumably in their Ubers or simply not in the A train route. 

I like to walk and ride and bus to find the pulse of a city.  I don’t have the time in my few hours to do that here.  

The centre on Manhattan feels as crowded as ever. Gawping tourists, focused and exasperated locals.

The everyday cost of living seems to have increased again in a year. Milk is $8 in a random shop.

The buffet breakfast a notable expensive and Hotel Staple is over $30 with the tipping reaching 20% levels as a consistent nudge up.

I was in NYC over Sep 11. I’ve only fleetingly passed the world trade centre since but this time I’m deep in the bowels of Brookfield Place / Westfield / World Trade. 

The feel is man made almost space-sci-fi like. Lots of white. These arches and patterns and humans and humans and humans moving and moving and moving.

I sense we must look like ants to any higher beings.

We pass by some of our modern consumer temples occasionally stopping by to give an offering and to receive candles, tea or headphones - a human paraphernalia. 

I’m mostly in mobility or a hotel or an office-temple.

These corporate temples.  Very hard to describe to outsiders. But I invite a handful in to see Thinking Bigly. It goes well only mildly subversive. I joke… It is the closest I’m going to come to Broadway.  

Source: Numbeo / RHS = NYC , LHS = London. Milk turns out to be cheaper in NYC in this. But while there are some super markets eg Trader Joes and the like, there are seemingly more places like Tesco supplying cheap groceries in London than NYC. I sense Londoners might cook more too.

Chatting with my old friends, I’m surprised to find out how much more the cost of living in NYC has become.  Especially in terms of groceries. This was only anecdote about the price of milk and chicken and the like but I went to check it out on comparison websites. These show that NYC is almost 80% more expensive on groceries than London. The gap between restaurants and groceries is closer - perhaps one reason why there might be more takeout in NYC than cooking at home (many NYCers don’t cook much). 

It means for $7000 dollars cost in living standards  in NYC can be had for $5000 in London.

While average salaries are higher in NYC it must be a real squeeze for the  lower earning parts of NYC. 

Still it’s culture is super vibrant- even if you might have to pay for it.

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Free speech, political truth and fake news

Free speech, political truth and fake news 

Mark Zuckerberg’s latest thinking

Aaron Sorkin open letter

Mark Zuckerberg gave a (long) speech setting out how he is drawing the line on FB in terms of policing what people say or not. (Link end) extract here and then Aaron Sorkin’s reply and then Zuck again. 

“...  Our idea of free expression has become much broader over even the last 100 years. Many Americans know about the Enlightenment history and how we enshrined the First Amendment in our constitution, but fewer know how dramatically our cultural norms and legal protections have expanded, even in recent history.

… We now have significantly broader power to call out things we feel are unjust and share our own personal experiences. Movements like #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo went viral on Facebook -- the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter was actually first used on Facebook -- and this just wouldn't have been possible in the same way before. 100 years back, many of the stories people have shared would have been against the law to even write down. And without the internet giving people the power to share them directly, they certainly wouldn't have reached as many people. With Facebook, more than 2 billion people now have a greater opportunity to express themselves and help others….

While it's easy to focus on major social movements, it's important to remember that most progress happens in our everyday lives. It's the Air Force moms who started a Facebook group so their children and other service members who can't get home for the holidays have a place to go. It's the church group that came together during a hurricane to provide food and volunteer to help with recovery. It's the small business on the corner that now has access to the same sophisticated tools only the big guys used to, and now they can get their voice out and reach more customers, create jobs and become a hub in their local community. Progress and social cohesion come from billions of stories like this around the world….

...People having the power to express themselves at scale is a new kind of force in the world -- a Fifth Estate alongside the other power structures of society. People no longer have to rely on traditional gatekeepers in politics or media to make their voices heard, and that has important consequences. I understand the concerns about how tech platforms have centralized power, but I actually believe the much bigger story is how much these platforms have decentralized power by putting it directly into people's hands. It's part of this amazing expansion of voice through law, culture and technology….

...So giving people a voice and broader inclusion go hand in hand, and the trend has been towards greater voice over time. But there's also a counter-trend. In times of social turmoil, our impulse is often to pull back on free expression. We want the progress that comes from free expression, but not the tension. ..”

In riposte -

Aaron Sorkin wrote an open letter in the NYT. 

“...Most people don’t have the resources to employ a battalion of fact checkers. Nonetheless, while you were testifying before a congressional committee two weeks ago, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez asked you the following: “Do you see a potential problem here with a complete lack of fact-checking on political advertisements?” Then, when she pushed you further, asking you if Facebook would or would not take down lies, you answered, “Congresswoman, in most cases, in a democracy, I believe people should be able to see for themselves what politicians they may or may not vote for are saying and judge their character for themselves.”

Now you tell me. If I’d known you felt that way, I’d have had the Winklevoss twins invent Facebook….”

And Zuck quotes Sorkin back at him:

This will be a pivotal debate of our times in terms of how internet platforms for content are regulated or not. 

Sorkin in NYT

Zuck on free speech (via FB). 

FWIW I don’t know enough to know who’s right, but I sense they both authentically think they are right.

Wendell Pierce

…In Pierce’s vision, art “changes people’s humanity, it changes the air in the room, it changes everything. People always ask me, ‘Well, give me an example of that.’” Then, sat in an armchair, with a coffee in one hand, Pierce embarks on the story of Charles L Black, a white lawyer from Texas, who saw Louis Armstrong play jazz in 1931, and two decades later joined the legal team that would help tear down racial segregation. “He always talked about how he had never seen genius in a black man before. I like to think that moment of art was the thing that changed his humanity — that it was not just an intellectual decision.”…”

From FT interview of actor, Wendell Pierce. Pierce is currently (1 Nov) in Death of a Salesman in London.

Sheila Nortley, Associate Director on the Dutchman

Sheila Nortley is the associate director for the DUTCHMAN by Amiri Baraka, presented by Outer Gaea Company and Théâtre Libre 8th - 26th October, Tristan Bates Theatre. Tickets and info here.

Here’s some Q and A with Sheila.

How did you feel about stories of people who looked like you or stories of families like yours - when growing up or now? Were you aware of an absence of stories? I remember watching Desmond’s and Cosby Show when I was really young. There was a definitely a feeling of familiarity with some of the characters but I think we were all so used to the absence of black stories - particularly black British characters in the screen - that it wasn’t really felt. It wasn’t until I was a teenager and Sister Sister and Moesha came on that I realised just how much I wanted to see more of that. 

And so, what do you make of the awareness of Black History Month?

 It’s a beautiful time. It’s a time of reflection where there’s a collective energy towards re-educating ourselves and reminding ourselves of what our ancestors did.  I’m glad to our unique history recognised: celebrated for the triumphs and lamented for the tragedies at the same time.

What would you say to a more dominant culture which may not authentically portray stories about black women, about women? About otherness?

Nothing. I’m not sure it’s their responsibility to do so. If and when they’d like to there are millions of black women who are happy to portray ourselves authentically. They could easily hire blacks people to tell out stories and they’re been a huge incentive towards increasing diversity on and off screen. I think minorities are no longer relying on dominant cultures to reflect us authentically though.. To the dominant culture we might always be feisty, hyper-sexualised or the extreme opposite (asexual nannies and nature’s) through the White gaze. That’s a perception which is valid. Everyone can have their own perception. But when it’s the only portrayal it becomes problematic 

Any thoughts on what has influenced your artistic practice over the years ?

Just life really. Reality is often scarier than fiction and I find real people fascinating and real stories fascinating. No doubt my real life creeps into my work 

What made you want to be in the creative arts?  

If think for many of us we just kinda found ourselves here out of necessity. It wasn’t really a choice as much as it was where we needed to be as creatives. I’m like a fish out of water when I can’t tell stories and make films. It’s more of a thing we can’t help.
 

Are there any difficult lessons that you have learned ? is there any advice you’d like to give others ?

Advice I’d give others is to remain authentic and to be kind to everyone. 

tell me about your current and future projects?

Currently shooting a feature film called Game of Two Halves 

what was the last artistic work that made you cry ?

 Farming by Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje 

if money was no object what projects would you do?

Oh wow, there are so many things I’d like to do. I love history so perhaps some epic historical drama set in ancient times but with some elements of sci-fi and afrofuturism in there. I think that’d be stunning. 

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Sheila has written and produced several international award-winning productions including ‘Zion,’ ‘Victim’ and feature film 'David is Dying.’ In 2013 Sheila shot the independent hit 'Sable Fable' which premiered and won Best Narrative Feature / Director at the American Black Film Festival in Miami, Florida. In 2016, Sheila was invited to Buckingham Palace where she was awarded the Woman of the Future award in Arts & Culture for her work in film. The following year her film 'Limbo' was selected at various international festivals including Cannes Pan-African Film Festival. Following an invitation to 10 Downing Street to meet the Prime Minister, 2018 saw her become an Associate Fellow of the Royal Commonwealth Society for her particular determination in committing to the Society’s mission of promoting the values of the Commonwealth. 

DUTCHMAN by Amiri Baraka, presented by Outer Gaea Company and Théâtre Libre 

 8th - 26th October 

Let’s pretend that you are free of your own history. And I am free of my history.

Dutchman is Amiri Baraka’s award-winning one-act play, revolving around two characters: Lula, a white woman, and Clay, a black man. It lands right at the intersectionality of race, gender and class to present an explosive exploration of white privilege, masculinity, power and sexuality.

For Black History Month we celebrate Amiri Baraka (then known as LeRoi Jones) both for his civil rights activism and as a revolutionary provocateur of African-American poetry; significantly affecting the course of American literature.

Tickets and info here.

Advice from Cormac McCarthy on writing science papers

This from Nature. Aimed at science papers but useful to dwell on for all types of writing. Note his writing has a pared back style, and I sense that underlies his advice. He is world class, so it works!

Use minimalism to achieve clarity. While you are writing, ask yourself: is it possible to preserve my original message without that punctuation mark, that word, that sentence, that paragraph or that section? Remove extra words or commas whenever you can.

• Decide on your paper’s theme and two or three points you want every reader to remember. This theme and these points form the single thread that runs through your piece. The words, sentences, paragraphs and sections are the needlework that holds it together. If something isn’t needed to help the reader to understand the main theme, omit it.

• Limit each paragraph to a single message. A single sentence can be a paragraph. Each paragraph should explore that message by first asking a question and then progressing to an idea, and sometimes to an answer. It’s also perfectly fine to raise questions in a paragraph and leave them unanswered.

• Keep sentences short, simply constructed and direct. Concise, clear sentences work well for scientific explanations. Minimize clauses, compound sentences and transition words — such as ‘however’ or ‘thus’ — so that the reader can focus on the main message.

• Don’t slow the reader down. Avoid footnotes because they break the flow of thoughts and send your eyes darting back and forth while your hands are turning pages or clicking on links. Try to avoid jargon, buzzwords or overly technical language. And don’t use the same word repeatedly — it’s boring.

• Don’t over-elaborate. Only use an adjective if it’s relevant. Your paper is not a dialogue with the readers’ potential questions, so don’t go overboard anticipating them. Don’t say the same thing in three different ways in any single section. Don’t say both ‘elucidate’ and ‘elaborate’. Just choose one, or you risk that your readers will give up.

• And don’t worry too much about readers who want to find a way to argue about every tangential point and list all possible qualifications for every statement. Just enjoy writing.

• With regard to grammar, spoken language and common sense are generally better guides for a first draft than rule books. It’s more important to be understood than it is to form a grammatically perfect sentence.

• Commas denote a pause in speaking. The phrase “In contrast” at the start of a sentence needs a comma to emphasize that the sentence is distinguished from the previous one, not to distinguish the first two words of the sentence from the rest of the sentence. Speak the sentence aloud to find pauses.

• Dashes should emphasize the clauses you consider most important — without using bold or italics — and not only for defining terms. (Parentheses can present clauses more quietly and gently than commas.) Don’t lean on semicolons as a crutch to join loosely linked ideas. This only encourages bad writing. You can occasionally use contractions such as isn’t, don’t, it’s and shouldn’t. Don’t be overly formal. And don’t use exclamation marks to call attention to the significance of a point. You could say ‘surprisingly’ or ‘intriguingly’ instead, but don’t overdo it. Use these words only once or twice per paper.

• Inject questions and less-formal language to break up tone and maintain a friendly feeling. Colloquial expressions can be good for this, but they shouldn’t be too narrowly tied to a region. Similarly, use a personal tone because it can help to engage a reader. Impersonal, passive text doesn’t fool anyone into thinking you’re being objective: “Earth is the centre of this Solar System” isn’t any more objective or factual than “We are at the centre of our Solar System.”

• Choose concrete language and examples. If you must talk about arbitrary colours of an abstract sphere, it’s more gripping to speak of this sphere as a red balloon or a blue billiard ball.

• Avoid placing equations in the middle of sentences. Mathematics is not the same as English, and we shouldn’t pretend it is. To separate equations from text, you can use line breaks, white space, supplementary sections, intuitive notation and clear explanations of how to translate from assumptions to equations and back to results.

• When you think you’re done, read your work aloud to yourself or a friend. Find a good editor you can trust and who will spend real time and thought on your work. Try to make life as easy as possible for your editing friends. Number pages and double space.

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Article available here. Other writing tip blogs:

Zadie Smith: https://www.thendobetter.com/arts/2017/10/24/zadie-smith-writing-tips

Philip Pullman: https://www.thendobetter.com/arts/2017/10/19/philip-pullman-writing-tips

Ursula Le Guin: https://www.thendobetter.com/arts/2017/8/20/writing-craft

Writing Style: https://www.thendobetter.com/arts/2017/9/3/writing-craft-tools