Philip Roth on writing

If you write every day, eventually you’ll have a book.

I can’t explain the fact that there have been a series of books coming rather regularly out of me. I work most days and if you work most days and you get at least a page done a day, then at the end of the year you have 365.

-from a 2009 interview with Tina Brown for The Daily Beast

Learn to edit yourself.

Part of being a writer is being able to read what you’ve written and see what’s missing, see what needs development, see what’s suggested by what you wrote. It’s like a trampoline. You know, you’re jumping up and down on this draft, and each jump is an idea.

-from an interview with Robert Siegel at NPR

Write towards what works for the story (or for you).

You go with what’s alive. Two thousand pages of narrative and six lines of dialogue may be just the ticket for one writer, and two thousand pages of dialogue and six lines of narrative the solution for another.

-in a 1984 interview with The Paris Review

Work sentence by sentence.

Solving the problem of the book you’re writing always remains hard work, and your progress is snail-like. Even if you write a book in two years, sometimes you get a page a day, sometimes you get no pages … every sentence raises a problem, and essentially what you’re doing is connecting one sentence to the next. And you write a sentence and you have to figure out what comes next or what doesn’t come next.

-from a 2013 interview with NPR

Note the sentence advice echoes Zadie Smith. In her 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.

The Philip Roth words are H/T Emily Temple at LitHub.

World echoing language and lacuna choices

Four observations on the power of language and lacuna.

Language can take us out of context. But, language and artistic choices will and should always reflect the wider world, when made public.

The choice to use a puppet to portray a severely autistic boy in a recent play in London has had much criticism from the wider world outside the play.*The creative decision is mediocre, but beyond that the social political world beyond the play cannot be ignored. We live in a world of metaphor and symbols.

The decision for a German CEO to use words that echo the phrase that appears on the entrance of Nazi Auschwitz, even if accidental shows a lack of judgment for the reflection it would bring to the wider  Germanic world.

The casting of a queer-phobic actor into a leading bisexual role (the Color Purple) has echoed angrily and awkwardly with queer audiences and creatives.

On the flip side, the New Zealand Prime Minster, Jacinda Ardern has evoked  “Damnatio memoriae”. In Roman times the state condemned the memory of a person and erased their name from history, it’s been done within many civilizations.

"I implore you, speak the names of those who were lost rather than the name of the man who took them. He is a terrorist. He is a criminal. He is an extremist. But he will, when I speak, be nameless."

She’s condemned the recent terrorist to no name, such that their cause and “fame” fail.

Our words and actions echo like small and major myths. If you will speak to the wider world, the world will judge what words and actions you use.

*

https://www.thendobetter.com/arts/2019/3/6/autism-stories-representation-and-all-in-a-row-review

CEO blunder:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47566898

UK casting of Color Purple

http://exeuntmagazine.com/features/color-purple-gets-play-gay/

No name to the terrorist.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-47620630

What’s a performance lecture?

It’s a form of anti-TED talk.

A genre of performance with roots in conceptual art.

Existing since the 1960s as a subgenre of performance, the lecture-performance or performance-lecture has its roots in the performance and conceptual art of the 1960s, and balances on the boundary between art and academia.

The lecture space becomes a performance space but fuses other disciplines

It’s a type of presentation that goes beyond the academic format of the lecture. Artists (not only visual or performance) use the lecture to turn it into a performance space which fuses aspects of drama and of visual and other media disciplines.

Hybrid it borrows heavily from anywhere else

It’s hybrid nature then often expresses in borrowed hybrid elements such as storytelling, the mass media, internet, adverts, slogans, images, and technology.

It acts on multi-levels to juxtapose and contrast

The performance lecture at its best has varied functions and elements operating on multiple levels. These can form a visual rhetoric or performative actions and artistic non-sequiturs  Techniques of advertising and propaganda or more straight forward education lectures and slides are used to explore the relationship between the image and the text or between consensus and the facts, or contrasting ideas or narratives.

It questions the audience/performer/viewer divisions and plays with interaction

In its artistic investigations the relationship of perception and of understanding, the audience and the performer and performance ideas can all come under scrutiny.

In that sense it is nothing like a Ted talk. It’s almost an anti-Ted Talk.

A TED talk gives you an idea and a smooth talker and tells you it’s the truth.

A performance-lecture gives you a part-idea that you have to complete, challenges you to assess its truth, your truth and the performers truth and like all good theatre can leave you activated and different from when you started.

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An early influence on this genre has to be considered John Cage and his work Lecture on Nothing (see below) which may be considered performance art or poetry or music of sorts.

Robert Wilson staged a theatrical version around 2012. Cage himself gave the lecture around 1949.

In any case from the experimental poets and performers has come this cross-genre form. It toys with more questions and answers and tends to critique all sorts of things. Not a mass media genre and less popular in . the UK - it has distant cousins now in stand up comedy and even YouTube performances to a distant degree.

Here’s a review of a recent Berlin lecture performance.

Contemplating other forms of performance for my sustainability arguments, this type of form seemed to suit and hence Thinking Bigly was created.

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Further reads: Check out my £10K in microgrants for individuals looking to make positive impact.

A blog on listening to legendary theatre agent, Mel Kenyon. 

My Op-Ed in the Financial Times  (My Financial Times opinion article) about asking long-term questions surrounding sustainability and ESG.

A provoking read on how to raise a feminist child.

Dementia, end of life

I met C. this week. C has known me since I was born and is now double my age. Early symptoms of memory loss have appeared. C is facing the end of life with dignity and is adamant that life as a vegetable would be no life.

I can see how the case for dementia is more complex than for other end of life states.  This long form profile and essay takes you through the story of Debra Koosed.

Her Time | Debra Koosed was diagnosed with dementia at 65. That’s when she decided she no longer wanted to live. By Katie Englehart.  Long-form read 20 -30 mins in the California Sunday Magazine.

It recalls to me the beautiful and sad moments of seeing my friend Jane Bodie and her mother, suffering dementia, the artist Sue Dunkley at her retrospective exhibition. Small poem here.

Thoughts on a life well lived.

https://www.thendobetter.com/arts/2017/12/20/how-to-live-a-life-well-lived-bernie-de-koven

https://www.thendobetter.com/arts/2019/3/7/on-being-97-years-old

Thought on mortality and the medicalisation at old age.

https://www.thendobetter.com/blog/2018/8/16/mortality-how-to-die-well

Autism, Stories, Representation and All In a Row - Review

​Let’s consider the main controversy first. The use of a puppet to portray a disabled non-verbal autistic boy.

The writer notes: “...Laurence is one autistic character with an extremely profound learning disability and set of behaviours including violence. He is by no means intended to be a representative of the whole autistic spectrum and the people within it. I’m a massive supporter of inclusivity in art I’m currently working on three different projects that feature learning disabled performers all playing characters with the same disability as their own. I believe people with learning disabilities should be given the chance to tell their own stories and the stories of others whatever appropriate.

Laurence is a character with the level of disability that would make it impossible for him to appear in the play especially a play like this one. The task of portraying a non-verbal 11-year-old with a very challenging behaviour is something I decided to do through puppetry. This has proved to be a controversial decision and I am saddened that some people have taken offence.

Laurence lacks agency in his own future. His fate is decided for him by neurotypical people and in many ways he has manipulated by the system he is within. This is one factor that informs the choice of puppetry But not the primary one.

I’ve always loved puppetry the way talented artist can observe life and distil it into an essence that captures the heart of a human being can often be breathtaking and illuminating ….different materials and practices all heavily influenced by two years of research and development and years in the field autism all came together to build Lawrence. During this process we included autistic people and parents of people with a similar level of autism to Lawrence and they all felt that the puppet was effective. We also have two autistic members of the team directly responsible for the characterisation of Lawrence….”

On balance, from an artistic point of view the puppet turns out to be unnecessary, in my opinion.

The puppeteer actor could have played Laurence without a puppet (and his movement was a highlight of his performance although I wasn’t completely convinced at all times). His actor’s body and physical portrayal were a good enough representation and the less convincing moments were typically with the puppet, for instance, when the puppet hands were picking up pieces and placing them not with the actor and his movement. The grey colour of the puppet was not a cohesive choice given the character of Laurence and given the colourful nature of the string design and lighting. (I liked the lighting design and colour squares design a lot and it referenced to my mind the shapes and patterning use of Laurence in a clever way).

One strength of representational acting is that you don’t have to be the character you are acting. Actors are not animals in Animal Farm, they are portraying. While a puppet can portray, as can an actor, in this case the connotations of the lack of humanity within a puppet are too strong.

Two years of R&D with a puppet maker and some focus groups can’t overcome this. (And why the inhuman grey??)

Unfortunately, we have so little narrative plenitude of stories portraying disability that a single potentially misguided artistic choice throws the production into such a storm.

Mainstream shows make misguided artistic choices all the time and that’s somewhat OK.

The pressure is magnified dealing with stories of people who don’t see themselves on stage often.

In that sense, this drama is important as a story to be told and the difficulties of balancing personal and family wants and needs with the best care and wants and needs of disabled children.

The first long monologue by the father is a description of a difficult moment where Laurence attempts to bite a 8 year old girl. That this is “told” not “shown” is notable especially as the writer indicates in his notes the importance of showing Laurence (as a puppet). The end of the monologue also reveals a secret which the audience is then aware of for most of the play, and which the mother only learns about at the end.

To me, this secret and the secret about who calls social services are well telegraphed from early in the play. I think dramatically the father’s secret should have been withheld longer from the audience. We only learn who made the call at the climax of the play, but it was of limited surprise to me. Perhaps others didn’t see it, I’d be interested to know. (Other reviews seem to also view these “twists” as non-events).

Protect the row! (In case you haven’t noted the All in a Row reference)  

Moving on from the dramaturgical structure and early monologues, the drama unfolds in a fairly standard melodrama fashion over the night before Laurence is moving to a residential care home, triggered by an anonymous call to social services. The knives have been out between the parents for some years it seems and they re-hash their old wounds in a raw if sometime overblown manner.

That they both loved Laurence, I was of no doubt. (But an over fondness for ruffling the puppet’s hair was inauthentic to me; the foot rubbing being closer to the mark - note also the foot rubbing was on the actor’s actual feet as there was no bottom half of the puppet)

The carer character was the most sympathetic apart from a strange flight of fancy from the character as to a notion that disabled people might be reincarnated animals - this didn’t seem in keeping with what we knew of the carer to me. I’m not surprised the writer was a carer himself, so sympathetically was the character written.

The father (Martin) was not particularly sympathetic. His anger and aggression were perhaps understandable although after 11 years or so, the portrayal of his handling of Laurence’s behaviour (eg when asking for more pizza, and then cake) was a little off. Still, the mother accuses him of mostly playing Xbox and by implication wasting his life. It was a little unclear how much caring he was doing (Laurence was also going to a school with 2-to-1 support). That the father wanted Laurence to stay at home was clear, whether this was the right decision by Laurence was less clear.

The mother (Tam) was more sympathetic than Martin but with many flaws and had a wider range of characterisation to play with, although again the feelings of being undesired and the need to be loved were well telegraphed - that it made the carer seem clueless that he didn’t see a potential clumsy pass coming at him. The anguish and guilt of what it means to be a good mother to want the best for your child, when the best thing might not be yourself, was well articulated. Charlie Brooks, playing Tam, had some fine character moments particularly in her quieter moments rather than the arguments.

But both parents had few redeeming features and so at their core didn’t quite feel authentically complete to me.

I think the phrase that many might pick upon would be:

“You can love someone and wonder what it would be like if they were someone else. That’s OK.” (spoken somewhat aphoristically)

But, I think the theme I pick up on is

Wishing the best for someone you love, might mean letting them go, might be supporting them in reaching their potential and their dreams.

If Martin truly supported Tam in her venture business… and made a success of her

If Tam could love Martin for who he was, not for who she wished him to be

If a young couple could grow together…

If Tam and Martin could put Laurence’s needs before their own… which ultimately they do

And which ultimately parents round the world do every day for the children they love.

Points to the writer for telling a story, not often told and bringing disability to the stage. Points to Southwark and the AD for staging the play. That the creative decision on the use of the puppet has gone down badly with many is unfortunate as we need more of these stories. Not less.

Read a positive Guardian review (MIriam Gillinson) here: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2019/feb/19/all-in-a-row-review-autistic-child-puppet-drama-southwark-playhouse-london

A critical review here: https://britishtheatre.com/review-all-in-a-row-southwark-playhouse/

See some real footage of a Japanese non-verbal (But can communicate) boy author of Reasons I Jump: here 

 https://www.thendobetter.com/blog/2017/8/5/reasons-i-jump

and some Lessons I learned from Autism here: 

 https://www.thendobetter.com/blog/2017/7/15/autism-lessons-taught-me

Climate Change Art, a NY writer's journey.

Climate Signs |  The New York Review of Books

At two degrees, our best-case climate scenario, melting ice sheets will still pass a point of no return, flooding NYC and dozens of other world cities. In fact, we’re on track for over four degrees of warming and an unfathomable scale of suffering by century’s end. For my part, I’m only beginning to see that the question of how to prepare our kids for the horrors to come is collateral to the problem of how to deal as adults with the damage we’ve stewarded them into. What helped me see this was a road sign—one of those LED billboards you normally spot on a highway alerting drivers to a hazard….

Me: The writer provoked by a piece of climate change art embarks with an initially random acquaintance to visit a series of these LED artwork signs around New York. This journey intertwines art, New York, the future, climate, the nature of art and the writer’s life. It’s a long read (20 to 30 minutes, if you stop and think), for me it struck a whimsical note although I can’t pinpoint why - perhaps it was the mix of the personal non-fiction narrative with the art and the journey. Raises many questions and answers almost none.

Emily Raboteau’s piece here: https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2019/02/01/climate-signs/

The artist’s (Justin Brice Guariglia) work here: https://www.climate-signals.org/the-exhibition

Radio Drama Fund | Audible $5m

Funding for radio drama

Audible has announced the establishment of fund up to $5 million ("Theater Fund") dedicated to the commission and development of innovative English-language works from playwrights around the globe. The fund will support the creation of one- and two-person audio plays driven by language and voice, in keeping with Audible’s core commitment to elevating listening experiences through powerful performances of brilliantly composed words.

Me: I think radio drama can be a very powerful form. (I have 2 radio plays which went on BBC Radio, BBC World Service). Radio drama output is down over the last few years (as BBC was the main funder) although podcasts are up, I think this project could yield some interesting work for audible. There’s some intereting work potentially coming out.

Plus, writers, it’s another possible gig!

https://www.audible.com/ep/audible-theater

Creativity: be a slow-motion multi-tasker

Tim Harford: “"Different researchers, using different methods to study different highly creative people have found that very often they have multiple projects in progress at the same time, and they're also far more likely than most of us to have serious hobbies. Slow-motion multitasking among creative people is ubiquitous."

“...Slow-motion multitasking feels like a counterintuitive idea. What I'm describing here is having multiple projects on the go at the same time, and you move backwards and forwards between topics as the mood takes you, or as the situation demands. But the reason it seems counterintuitive is because we're used to lapsing into multitasking out of desperation. We're in a hurry, we want to do everything at once. If we were willing to slow multitasking down, we might find that it works quite brilliantly.”

Harford has a new Ted Talk address creativity. Harford’s recent FT article has already persuaded me to delete a few social media apps and partially take back control.

His arguments on creativity I find persuasive - because I essentially practise what he advises. I have multiple projects slowly on the go (short summary on 2019 in below picture) and they range across arts, investing and connecting. I have serious hobbies as well.

It is not multi-tasking in the sense of trying to - in the moment - do more than one thing, but it is switching between many projects over time. It also ties into my thoughts on breaking or working across silos of expertise.

Transcripts here:

https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_harford_a_powerful_way_to_unleash_your_natural_creativity/transcript?language=en

He also references Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. I have blogged about him before when speaking about Flow (and why you should turn email off and not check email so much as it breaks flow.

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My blog on email management and why it’s important not to break Flow.

https://www.thendobetter.com/investing/2017/10/25/organising-email-my-system

Why breaking silos is a good idea

https://www.thendobetter.com/investing/2018/8/1/breaking-silos

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References:

Three examples of this research. First: Howard Gruber and Sara Davis emphasize how often highly creative artists and scientists maintain a "network of enterprises" -- different projects at different stages of maturity. Their examples include the novelist Dorothy Richardson and the scientist Charles Darwin.

Howard E. Gruber and Sara N. Davis. "Inching Our Way Up Mount Olympus: The Evolving-Systems Approach to Creative Thinking". The Nature of Creativity, 1995

R. Keith Sawyer. Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation, pp. 75-76 and 376, 2012

Second: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and his research assistants interviewed around a hundred highly creative people, including astronomer Vera Rubin, jazz legend Oscar Peterson and the activist and Nobel laureate for Literature, Nadine Gordimer. Among many tendencies discussed is the habit of keeping multiple projects going on simultaneously, letting some simmer on the back burner while others take priority. One of Csikszentmihalyi's research assistants, Keith Sawyer -- now a respected creativity researcher in his own right -- drew this to my attention.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, 2013

Third: Leading scientists are vastly more likely to have serious hobbies.

Root-Bernstein, R., Allen, L., et al. "Arts foster scientific success: Avocations of Nobel, National Academy, Royal Society, and Sigma Xi members". Journal of Psychology of Science and Technology, 2008

Forty-Five Things I Learned in the Gulag | Shalamov

The Paris Review | Forty-Five Things I Learned in the Gulag. Varlam Shalamov claimed not to have learned anything from the Gulag except how to wheel a loaded barrow. But one of his fragmentary writings, dated 1961, tells us more.

Me: Very sobering reading.

1. The extreme fragility of human culture, civilization. A man becomes a beast in three weeks, given heavy labor, cold, hunger, and beatings.

2. The main means for depraving the soul is the cold. Presumably in Central Asian camps people held out longer, for it was warmer there.

3. I realized that friendship, comradeship, would never arise in really difficult, life-threatening conditions. Friendship arises in difficult but bearable conditions (in the hospital, but not at the pit face).

4. I realized that the feeling a man preserves longest is anger. There is only enough flesh on a hungry man for anger: everything else leaves him indifferent….

…15. I realized that one can live on anger.

16. I realized that one can live on indifference.

17. I understood why people do not live on hope—there isn’t any hope. Nor can they survive by means of free will—what free will is there? They live by instinct, a feeling of self-preservation, on the same basis as a tree, a stone, an animal….

More here.

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Sandberg on grief and gratitude. Me on Love and turning 40.

My Play Yellow Gentlemen

Oprah on Gratitude

The current Arts blog, cross-over, the current Investing blog.  Cross fertilise, some thoughts on autism.  Discover what the arts/business mingle… (sign up for invites to the next event in the list below).

My Op-Ed in the Financial Times  (My Financial Times opinion article) about asking long-term questions surrounding sustainability and ESG.

Current highlights:

A thought on how to die well and Mortality

Some writing tips and thoughts from Zadie Smith

How to live a life, well lived. Thoughts from a dying man. On play and playing games.

A provoking read on how to raise a feminist child.

Some popular posts:  the commencement address;  by NassimTaleb (Black Swan author, risk management philosopher),  Neil Gaiman on making wonderful, fabulous, brilliant mistakes;  JK Rowling on the benefits of failure.  Charlie Munger on always inverting;  Sheryl Sandberg on grief, resilience and gratitude.

Buy my play, Yellow Gentlemen, (amazon link) - all profits to charity

Fish cheeks and a story of old China

Our family cook lived in our family house in Ipoh, Malaysia from around the 1930s (I think) to the 2000s before most of the family had passed away and she retired. She was more family than some family.

She cooked on old charcoal stoves (on an old Chinese range cooker) her whole life threatening to leave if gas or electric was installed.

Every dish she cooked was delicious. Two fish dishes stand out. A steamed pomfret with light soy topped with spring onions and steamed with ginger slices. A fish head curry.

This led to a story I was told in childhood, quite likely fictional with a touch of truth, about how the elite used to eat in ancient China.

There used to be a fair number of kidnappings in ancient China. To mitigate against this, the elite used to use servants as decoys. The kidnappers would demand ransoms but there would be no point unless it was genuine aristocracy caught.

The way to determine this was to serve them food. Specifically a whole fish.

Supposedly, the aristocrats would only eat the cheeks of a fish whereas the servants would happily tuck into the body of the fish.

The child-me to ask why the nobles wouldn’t pretend and deign to eat the fish body and was never given a satisfactory answer.

But the truth of the story stems from the highly stratified society of ancient China. Where there were food restrictions to the nobility (partly enshrined in law and partly from economic restrictions). Records show that wars between vassal states were triggered when during feasts where improper meat was served to aristocrats who felt insulted and looked for a chance to avenge themselves.

Still, while fish cheeks and parts like prawn heads are regularly discarded, they are delicious, good sources of nutrients and with some great textual character to them. It’s a waste not to eat them.

So finding a source of yellow tail fish cheek / collar at the new Ichiba Japanese supermarket in Westfield, West London has been a good find for me recently. It’s a favourite and it always seems to be on a sale price!

Plain grill with salt, I take mine medium rare and a splash of yuzu juice (or lemon) and, or soya sauce. Yum.