Halloween is everyone’s business in America. Standing along sixth avenue for the annual parade, the only distinction I can make between the spectators and the participants is that if you’re in the parade, you’re able to move. Everyone is in costume; if you look at me you’ll get a flash of vampire teeth. The usual explanation for everyone’s enthusiasm is that Halloween is a secular island in a sea of otherwise religious festivities. This is rubbish. Like Christmas and Easter it has clear, if barely observed foundations in Christianity and paganism before that. A more compelling theory is that dressing up is just plain fun.
Whether consciously or not, however, something deeper is going on. Like so many things American it seems to occur on a mass scale with minimal direction or oversight, but despite the incredible variety of approaches to costume, a binding theme emerges: Halloween affords Americans the opportunity to confront and ridicule their obsession with fear. On this day, you quite literally are what you are what you’re scared of. The first and greatest American fear is death, the second is pain. Combine the two and you have the majority of costumed people rolling around with fake gashes, knives sticking into and out of them, ribcages peeled open, and/or dolled up as skeletons and zombies. Others dress as scary things that kill you. The dude standing next to me was done up as an impressively toothy shark, while a number of people made the bold and uncontested decision to sport the clothes and fake weapons of the archetypical campus shooter. In a jittery country like the USA, where irony is less popular than cricket, the only possible explanation is that for one day a year, nothing is taboo.[1] Despite its prominence in popular culture, sex and sexuality remain great areas of discomfort among the general public. Perhaps in honour of this, or perhaps cos it’s a hoot, some gals get their slut on, dressing skimpily in tight satins and lace, while some guys stamp around dressed up as loose women. Political protest and satire stride confidently in this parade, as thoughtful wags take the chance to expose and ridicule the most current purveyors of fear. An enormous puppet eyeball, labelled ‘NSA’ makes sinister sweeps of the crowd. Others dress as policemen, medical doctors, soldiers, the statue of liberty. A black man saunters along costumed simply and unfussily as an eighteenth-century colonist. Idealised Disney characters walk side by side with a family of fat suits. Behind them waddles my personal favourite: a man dressed as a dollar bill. The most topical allusion comes from a number of men in black, tightly-drawn hoodies in somber homage to the murdered Trayvon Martin. It’s also interesting to note what is missing. I was surprised, after more than a decade of wars foreign and domestic, that terrorism, drugs and immigration don’t rate an overt mention. Fear, like any habit, is a difficult thing to sit with every day. Ancient societies had regular blow-outs to upend the general order of things. In Greece, one festival saw masters become servants and servants become masters for the day. Another gave the female folk the chance to set aside the mantle of preservation and responsibility in order to charge around the countryside in a bacchanalian frenzy snaring wild animals and tearing them apart. Here, the lack of sobriety is purely sartorial. The celebrations are characterised by a maximum of dress and a minimum of drink. But in affording Americans the chance to acknowledge and mock the things that scare them, Halloween seems to do an important public service. Long live the night of the faithful departed. [1] CF the annual willingness to allow local children (supervised to within an inch of their lives) to go from door to door, collecting sweets from strangers. I am expecting an award-winner to land on my doorstep at any moment. Anxious host that I am, I’ve spared no effort preparing for the arrival. I’ve spent the past few days getting up a little earlier and writing a little longer - I didn’t want my visitor to get here before I’d finished the initial draft of my screenplay, and I’ve done it. Just in the nick of time. Given that I will be the only one of us to know about or appreciate this achievement, it may seem an odd affectation, but by the time UPS rings my buzzer to present me with my copy of Eleanor Catton’s Man Booker prize-winning novel The Luminaries, I want to satisfy myself that I’m working hard enough, and in the right direction. The truth is that Ellie’s achievement makes me envious, in the best possible way.
Envy gets such a bad rap. As one of the seven deadly sins it is considered to be a ‘capital vice’, meaning that it is believed to act as a gateway to other moral crimes, in the same way that marijuana is accused of being first stop on the fast train to heroin, and Harrison Ford is accused of murdering his wife in The Fugitive. In all these cases, I believe that a more sober revision of the facts could help mitigate fears. Envy: A feeling of discontent and resentment aroused by and in conjunction with desire for the possessions or qualities of another. To me, the sin in that description is the word ‘resentment’. If I was making a list of gateway sins, ‘resentment’ would be close to number one, and envy stripped of resentment would be a cardinal virtue. I’d even argue that most of civilisation’s greatest achievements have been based in that emotion. In my case, Catton’ s honour has caused me no resentment whatsoever, but it has spurred what I believe to be a healthy “discontent… aroused by and in conjunction with desire for the possessions or qualities of another.” I would like to work as hard as her, to achieve a similar reward in my own field. While expressing and justifying my envy necessitates a little word-play, I think it's a better description of my feelings than other contenders. ‘Aspiration’ is ‘a strong desire for high achievement.’ Too simplistic. Surely everyone desires to achieve highly, just like everyone desires to be beautiful, skilled and slim, but in an intellectual and somewhat passive way. What envy does is provide a boot to the buttock. ‘Inspiration,’ defined as ‘a person, place, experience, etc., that makes someone want to do or create something’ is also close, but it feels a too happy-clappy to capture the sense of hunger caused by seeing someone else achieve something you hadn’t even realised you’d like for yourself. Inspiration may make you want to do something, but envy convinces you that you need to. Beyond envy, on the far end of the spectrum of excellence, exists a deadening influence: that of wonder. I find this to be a creatively sterile emotion, because while it is important for us to witness extraordinary pieces of dexterity, the sense of wonder, which is comprised of awe and astonishment, does not offer us the feeling that we could in any way match the achievement. I often experience wonder when I watch musicians and sportsmen, who operate at sublime levels of ability in fields in which I can never hope to participate. As a playwright, Ellie’s novelistic achievement should probably be at such a remove from my medium as to inspire wonder in me, but there is something about the fact that she’s a compatriot, and of a similar age and background, that fools me into thinking that there is some possibility that I could hope to emulate her success in my own way. This may be bald and naive optimism, but it is also a powerful fuel that stimulates the desire to better oneself, and in doing so, affords the opportunity to surprise. Eleanor Catton - thanks for making me envious. Some of my best friends are actors. I hold a tertiary degree in the craft, and I follow its evolution with great interest, so it gives me no pleasure to report that a midweek meeting with a major Broadway producer has led me to reflect that if acting were an animal, it would be a polar bear, stranded on an iceberg due to an unfortunate quirk of climate change.
Broadway is always looking for the next big thing, by which it means the next big money-spinner, and the model on every producer’s mind right now is Sleep No More. It’s a show unlike anything that has been seen on Broadway. In fact, it’s not even on Broadway. But excitingly for everyone, in an era of sharply declining theatre attendance and ageing audiences, Sleep No More is attracting full houses of hip punters who are happy to commute to an out-of-the-way part of Manhattan and pay at least $85 a head for the privilege of chasing a stray story through the nooks and crannies of a specially refurbished hotel. From a producer’s point of view it’s a dream come true. The audience does most of the work to create its own fun, and it needs little bidding to flock to an event with almost none of the traditional overheads associated with mounting a show on Broadway, including, and this is the kicker: it doesn’t have to employ actors. Due to the nature of the work, Sleep No More can hire non-union performers, generally dancers, who to be fair, spend most of their time generally dancing. Still. It's the latest manifestation of a familiar process. Actors are an expense, and people have been trying to get rid of them for more than a century. Edward Gordon Craig was the first to formulate an actor-free theatre. He was a designer who worked at the time of the industrial revolution. Filled with the spirit of the age, he became frustrated by the organic inconsistency of anything not machine-tooled. Actors can fluff their lines, quibble directions, deliver inconsistent performances and find endless nefarious ways of diluting the intentions of the show's all-knowing creator. EGC's idea of the theatre of the future was to use fancy lighting and pulley systems to animate large pieces of set in a mechanical ballet analogous to watching giant driverless dodgem cars bumping into each other at the fair. The turgid awfulness of his vision is best illustrated by noting that his work was warmly received in Germany and the USSR. Actors are not blameless for the current state of affairs. The biggest misstep has been to cultivate the audience expectation that great acting is the ability to behave naturally in artificial circumstances. Constantin Stanislavski pioneered the modern technique of helping actors to do this. His practice can be summarised as 'a method of distraction.' The actor learns to so whole-heartedly to invest in the reality of the artificial circumstances that she is able to forget about the fact she is being observed and behave ‘naturally’. This is a simplification, but a relatively accurate one. The technique came to America and evolved into the ‘method’ acting stereotyped by actors walking the streets as vagrants in order to get into character. This is all fine and dandy and the results are fairly spectacular, but it is a technique that is more valuable the more artificial the circumstances. Stage is the most obvious example - intimate drawing rooms are transplanted into large theatres and performers operate within a few feet of hundreds of watching eyes and straining ears. On the movie sets of the past, large cameras, and the expensive nature of film stock and crew time meant that an actor who could do what had been planned convincingly, accurately and on the first take could save producers a lot of money as well as pleasing audiences. Some of those conditions are still present for blockbusters, but thanks to the reduced size and cost and greater mobility of cameras, anywhere can be a set. This means that the artificial circumstances can become less and less artificial and the level of distraction required to overcome the performer’s self-consciousness becomes commensurately reduced. In addition, digital film stock affords the ability to shoot piles of footage at no extra cost, allowing editors to sift through many hours of cheaply acquired content for a few seconds of gold. Over the last few decades, directors have also learned to apply methods of distraction to non-actors with a remarkable result: reality TV. I don’t need to tell you that reality TV is in fact incredibly well-crafted by extremely competent people, but it takes a lot less of them and the talent doesn’t need to be trained or paid much. The distraction technique used on non-actors is a version of the one used by Stanislavski, and its origins lie in Aristotle’s unassailable contention that personality emerges from activity: character is plot. So, to get interesting performances from regular people all you need to do is to make them perform a distracting activity. Make Jenny cook a flan in slightly less time than is comfortable, or ask a known bigot and a progressive to work together to retrieve food from the top of a coconut tree for breakfast. The activity allows these people to display character less self-consciously, and lots of footage and clever editing allows the audience to witness the bits that were most interesting. None of this would pose a problem for actors if it wasn’t for the fact that audiences draw little distinction between activities performed by actors and non-actors, and often display a preference for the latter, cheaper version. Look at primetime viewing figures and you’ll see that programming involving unpaid customs officers rifling through the suitcases of unpaid passengers draws at least equivalent eyeballs to shows that require vast staffs of highly-skilled story makers. In August NZ On Air agreed to subsidise two shows for screening on TVNZ.[1] Each production company has been charged with making six television-hour-long episodes. The one that will use actors costs six million dollars. The one that won’t costs six hundred thousand. Without making any qualitative predictions about either series, it’s hard to think that the more expensive one will attract ten times the viewers or advertising revenue. Skillful screen-makers have taken the time to adjust to the competition, and have been developing sharp and brilliant distinctions - look at the calibre of cable comedy and drama that’s characterised the last ten years. What has not happened in a particularly successful way until now has been for this competition between the ordained and the lay to creep into stage, which had been the unassailable fortress of the trained actor and the bull-pen for the great screen performers to warm into their task. On stage, it’s the actor who is responsible for live editing, lighting and framing of their role in the story in which they’re participating. Where they stand, how they speak and what they do when they’re not ‘in focus’ are all crucial to the audience’s reading of the tale. In Sleep No More all these responsibilities have been divested to individual members of the audience, and they pull it off just fine. Like the polar bear, actors are the cute face of a greater extinction that threatens writers, directors, technical and production staff. By alerting the public to their plight I have every hope they will be plucked off the iceberg in the nick of time, and create the methodology to save some other creatures in the process. [1] http://www.nzonair.govt.nz/funding/fundingsearchpages/fundingsearchtvprograms.aspx? "To wipe all tears from off all faces is a task too hard for mortals; but to alleviate misfortunes is often within the most limited power" - Samuel Johnson: The Rambler Number 107
Poverty has caused an uproar in my condominium. Our building has been ticketed for littering by the sanitation department, after a trash bag was opened by a vagrant during the night, and the unwanted contents strewn all over the footpath. It’s the second citation we’ve picked up for something that happens throughout the city every garbage day, and my neighbours are disgusted at the injustice - of the ticket, of course, not of a situation that incentivises individuals to rummage through refuse in the hope of finding... ? In so many places, misfortune looks you in the eye every day and asks for relief. It’s hard for the most worldly among us not to feel a bit like Young Buddah[1] when he discovered age, sickness and death in the countryside surrounding his palace. YB was stunned to learn that these things happen to everyone. No less difficult to comprehend is that penury could happen to anyone. For those not blessed with caring and fiscally liquid support networks, an accident, illness or sudden job loss is all it takes for the wheel of fortune to steer you from the highway into an irrigation ditch. From the point of view of a more fortunate individual, it seems that both anything and nothing will help, and so energy must be devoted into formulating a strategy. America’s most popular export is the myth that anyone can succeed through hard work and effort. The other side of this coin is that those who fail are also enjoying the fruits of their own labours. Given the cockroach-like ability of this perception to survive the most nuclear of contrary proofs, I’m pleased to say that I have never witnessed any bums being berated for ‘bringing it on themselves.’ Unfortunately, an almost more sinister attitude prevails. It’s the result of philanthropy being uprooted from the soil of its religious origins and transplanted into a decorative pot to be plopped in the main square of the capitalist citadel. For charitable individuals of bygone times, say a Rockerfeller or a Carnegie, charity was a benevolent reaction to the fear inspired by the biblical parallel drawn between the rich man’s chances of getting into heaven and the camel’s hope of squeezing through the eye of a needle. In Carnegie’s essay Wealth he asserts that “the man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.”[2] Now, the idea of charity for charity’s sake, and even charity for the sake of embarrassment has fallen victim to the same rhetoric of efficiency, outcome, supply and demand used in the manufacture and distribution of products. This filters into the general population through a preference for giving alms to those who ‘earn’ their charity dollar or give best bang for the philanthropic buck. This is a Dadactic gauge, used empirically and unwittingly by everyone including yours truly to the relief of absolutely no one. My own prejudice was for a good story, and those of you who read my last blog will have sensed my intrigue at the way subway stories seem to have organically assumed a form as rigid and effective as that of an elevator pitch. The solicitor has to tell a story sufficiently brief and emotive to not only encourage donations, but allow him (usually him) enough time to collect them from passengers before the train reaches its next stop. I gave generously to a man who claimed to have spent twenty-six years in prison for a crime he did not commit, and to both individuals who followed quick on each others heels with the same story of being dismissed from the armed services after testing positive for HIV. It was only when I met a man who began to mime-reenact the homicide he allegedly committed that I worried that I was confusing my charitable intentions with my desire for entertainment, and obliging the destitute to spend serious time learning stagecraft purely to offer ‘value’ to their auditors. My current technique has been gleaned off a public health student at Columbia University, whose method of relieving poverty seems to best replicate the vagaries of the fate that caused it. She carries a fixed amount of change in her purse every day, which she parcels out to those who ask on a first come, first served basis. She then apologises to those who approach her after she’s run out. It’s not perfect - the amount could probably be more, and the early beggar becomes as privileged as the early bird, but I think it is morally superior for not asking or expecting any ‘return’ on the ‘investment.’ [1] Note to self: Great movie concept. Discover the whereabouts of Yahoo Serious immediately. [2] Metrics Mania:The Growing Corporatization of U.S. Philanthropy by AlisonR.Bernstein quoting Carnegie, Wealth. "The opportunities which every day affords of relieving the most wretched of human beings are overlooked and neglected with equal disregard of policy and goodness." - Samuel Johnson: The Rambler No. 107. The streets of New York are littered with losing lottery tickets, in the form of human beings. It's a constant, confronting situation for the better heeled, and one that contains all the necessary nutrients for a variety of approaches and attitudes to flourish companionably. As I was preparing this week's issue, I was inspired by a coincident that I witnessed on a downtown train. It has taken the shape of a short film script, and acts as a precursor for next Tuesday's issue. To read it, just click on the link below.
It is certain that, whatever be the reason, most men have a very strong and active prejudice in favour of their own vocation” - Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, No.9
I’m not quick to quibble the word of God, but recent adjustments to my cultural milieu are suggesting that the adage of “do(ing) to others as you would have them do to you”[1] is as well-intentioned and misguided an approach as Kevin Costner’s three-wood on the final hole of Tin Cup. Unlike wooly mammoths in blocks of ice, adages are not preserved accidentally. Instead they tend to be polished and bequeathed from one generation to the next in the manner of grandma’s silver teapot. Like that teapot, I can conceive that the golden rule has been put to great use in the past. Homogenous societies (e.g. Sweden in the nineteen-nineties) seem obvious breeding grounds for homogenous tastes and expectations. In places like this, what’s good for the Sven is good for the Svenja. In the twenty-first century there is nothing general about general populations, and hopes and expectations vary so greatly between different people that a walk down the street on collection day provides empirical proof that one man’s treasure is another’s trash. I have been reflecting on this subject as the results of the once blossoming, and now wilting relationship with my street corner watermelon dealer, who also trades in pickled pigs’ feet. For the uninitiated, these are exactly what they sound like. They float in large glass jars and would not look out of place in the laboratory of a mad scientist. My watermelon dealer genuinely finds them delicious, and chain sucks them. My insatiable appetite for watermelons has led him to view me as more than a customer, and he is forever trying to fling a free trotter my way. Here the golden rule has led us to an impasse. From his point of view, kindness is a free pickled pigs foot. From my perspective they are an abomination to the human mouth. This has led to something of a standoff, where he has stopped waving trotters at me from across the street, and I have stopped eating watermelons. I suggest that the golden rule is best applied in its negative form and to strangers. We should not do things to other people that we wouldn’t like done to ourselves. This will help most drivers choose the correct course of action when deciding whether to mow down a slow pedestrian. In its positive sense however, when deciding what we should do for another person, it seems the only way of avoiding solipsism is to somehow figure out what the other person would want done for them and try to do that. Anything less dooms us to forever feel as slighted as the cat that plops a mangled bird on its owner’s carpet. Therefore I propose an update to the golden rule, in the language of the King James Version. From now on we should ‘do unto others that which they would like done unto them’. This will require compassion, communication, empathy, careful deduction and sacrifice. In short, I have to eat a pickled pig’s foot. [1] Luke 6:31 NIV "The general remedy of those, who are uneasy without knowing the cause, is change of place; they are willing to imagine that their pain is the consequence of some local inconvenience, and endeavour to fly from it, as children from their shadows; always hoping for some more satisfactory delight from every new scene, and always returning home with disappointment and complaints" - Samuel Johnson. The Rambler, No. 5
A man will do great violence to himself in his quest for inner peace. A man will find himself folded like a place card in a Bikram Yoga studio, 105 degrees Fahrenheit, forty percent humidity, with the tip of his head pointed at the floor. Sweat trickles down from his crack and balls and pools in the cup of his nose. He snorts away the sweat and sinks to the matt below, face down in a pool of himself. He cannot leave. That was the solemn promise he made to two; the one to whom he gave the money and the one to whom he gave his heart. Leaving is failing. Leaving is disrespecting yourself and those around you. It may take time to adjust, but if he JUST STICKS AT IT he will become addicted to the sense it peace it brings. Inner Peace. The man rolls on his back while the class folds on. He regards the playful plaster mouldings on the ceiling. His head lolls from side to side as he traces the spirals, dimples and lines. The bumps begin to bustle and hum, baa and bark and he is transported to the white paddock, the flock, the blood and the pen. He is transported to a moment he’d forgotten: the day he first met peace. Rewind ten years, fly across the North American continent, the bowl of the Pacific Ocean, and slide down the South Island, three quarters towards the base. This is Nowhere, Waikuaiti. He is a student of the arts, and has devoted his long summer break to better understanding his country. The real one. The one from second-hand books. For four brisk weeks he’s been painting a shearing quarters high in the hill country. Red for the roof and doors, the weatherboards in whipped butter yellow. It is a busy time in the local sense. People are here. It’s early summer and the shepherds need hands to separate the ewes and cradle the lambs so their tails can be cut and wethers can be made of young rams. It's hot and bloody work, and he is hot and bloody when he spots the gammy ewe. He shows her to the shepherds. Their judgement is swift, the prescription brief: She’s broken a leg and must die. She won’t go to waste. The dogs need tucker. He’s asked to lead her to the shearing shed while the shepherds fetch the gun. A single bulb hangs from the roof. It’s dim light soaks into the lanolin-waxed boards on the floor. He could leave now, but he stays. He wants to see. The ewe doesn’t begrudge the wait. The tall shepherd enters. The one who fought in Vietnam, whose only regret is he didn’t have time to finish the job properly. He slides the rifle from its pouch and fishes in his pocket for shells. Cares fly off him quicker than the butt he flicks from his fingers, concerns press softer than the barrel of the rifle he rests on the head of the ewe. She looks at her killer with all the concern of a pedestrian clocking a passing car. The gun pops, the ewe drops. She translates from feet to floor instantaneously, rotating stiff and fast as a tetris block as it clicks into its ideal shape and spot. There is no blood. It’s then he sees her eyes. Open. Empty. Filled with inner peace. Ascend the island, leap the ocean, fly the continent, rush from then to now. Drip like sweat from the ceiling onto the brow of the pronate, sweating man. He wipes his face and sits up straight. He came here for peace. For peace? What’s peace? Peace is a dead sheep’s eyes. The last thing he wants is peace, that morbid prize. He would now trade every easy breath for the swarming buzz of thoughts, the hum of petty concerns, anything at all that makes him blink. Class is over. He did not leave. HE JUST STUCK AT IT. He crawls to the door on limbs of wilted spinach. In the corridor the temperature drops, he finds his legs, water, stairs, the curb. He disgorges the contents of his stomach on the road. The instructor will not ask him to return, the girlfriend will not ask him to return. Never again. He feels the exhilaration of a joyful thought: as long as he lives he will never, ever be at peace. “He who has so little knowledge of human nature, as to seek happiness by changing any thing but his own dispositions, will waste his life in fruitless efforts, and multiply the griefs which he purposes to remove.” - Dr. Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, No, 6
As I look in the mirror and gaze over the forest of my crown, I feel like a Bornean Orangutan surveying the aftermath of a fresh bout of illegal logging. “When the jungle is gone, what will be left of me?” Given its widespread and inevitable nature, male hair-loss should perhaps be considered another rite of passage, comparable to a second puberty. But it’s not, because of one crucial distinction. Despite its individual variegations, adolescence is a predictable chain reaction detonated among the the general public within a designated era. As such, it can be planned for, contained and endured. Balding affects less than half of less than half of the population, so in this sense is more analogous to being a white man playing in the NBA. In these as with most issues pertaining to minorities, society is loath to countenance appeals for special treatment. What pale-skinned b-ballers are not exposed to, however, is emotive and targeted advertising to convince them they could be darker. Lotions and potions abound, promising almost as much as they cost. Antipodean sports fans will be familiar with a company that supplies new hair to certain high-profile cricketers. The business is quick to mail out glossy brochures, but slow to divulge its methods, for the same reason that you don’t take children to an abattoir. It’s a jelly scalp, sewn with human hair (your own I think, from round the sides, categorically not the bum) that is stuck to the top of your lid and necessitates a monthly glueing down. All of these ‘treatments’ rely on the creation and maintenance of a sense that depilation is somehow undesirable, which seems particularly nonsensical when it is considered that hair removal is another lucrative industry that preys on members of the opposite sex. I propose a radical change of disposition; one that will save money and worry, and also free us from the clutches of a vain and universal heresy. Balding is proof negative of a theory that has achieved supremacy in the philosophical parliament of the western collective unconscious: that we are the sole authors of our lives. This fallacy has emboldened us to behave uncharitably towards the poor and unhealthy (who brought it on themselves after all) and praise the rich and renowned (who got there all on their own). So strong is our determination to claim authorship that for any inheritances for which we cannot take credit, we rush to take the blame. As our bellies slacken, we rue the extra beers. As our hips and knees become worn to a grind we curse our younger selves for not exercising more or less. We grudgingly accept the pity of others for the development of inherited health conditions, but only after finding ourselves not guilty of baiting the grizzly bear of genetic predisposition by smoking or eating KFC. The glaborous dome encourages us to rejoice in the thought that we are genetic cycle-couriers, dashing on our fixies through the rush hour of life, carrying a package of physical instructions from our ancestors to deliver to our unwitting progeny, no signature required. Hopefully this simple change of disposition will also address the latest great injustices of the world: that a full head of hair has become a prerequisite for high public office, and that Jason Statham’s acting talents have been confined to action films. In the meantime it behooves the thinning, like myself to lead the charge. The Orangutan in me must treat it like an ant on a blade of grass, and suck it up. No more shaking fingers through my scalp to froth my curly hair. “There are many ways of telling a secret, by which a man exempts himself from the reproaches of his conscience, and gratifies his pride, without suffering himself to believe that he impairs his virtue.” - Samuel Johnson, The Rambler No. 13
The most common question asked of an author is invariably the most discomforting. ‘Was that all true?’. The customary source is a satisfied viewer, floating like a balloon before its inflator and seeking the final filling puff. As a writer, it galls me to think that the only honest answer will deflate. The most accurate response is ‘no’. I’ve been inspired to denounce myself in solidarity with Mike Daisey, one of America’s premiere storytellers, who is currently performing a lengthy public penance at a theatre in New York.[1] Daisey soared to attention on the back of a later discredited monologue in which he visits China and bears witness to the vile conditions under which Apple products are alleged to be manufactured.[2] The key moments of the story, that is to say the ones that audiences find moving or morally compelling, are misleading to say the most.[3] In his new show, Daisey tells wild and fanciful tales at such a rapid clip (one a day for twenty-nine days) that he seems to be wilfully prohibiting himself from displaying the craft or verisimilitude that led to his popular acclaim. Then, towards the end of a strange parable, Daisey gently lobs a verbal grenade from the mouth of a moping giant: “people don’t really want to know the truth.[4]” It detonates to little effect among the assembled, who perhaps feel peppered in irony, but the way Daisey deploys it fills me with that sense of fear that is synonymous with respect. The law of decency states that once the cat is out of the bag it can no longer be drowned, and must be grudgingly fed and petted. Here, kitty kitty. Every storyteller knows or quickly learns that audiences are never, ever interested in the truth. The truth is challenging, miserable and often just plain dull. Like regular exercise, it is more commonly praised than practiced. Stories are processed hunks of soul food, manufactured to be wolfed down with ease. The majority of people who believe they have experienced a truthful insight during the course of a story are as mistaken as those who believe their yoghurt-coated muesli bar is a nutritious healthy snack. A moment applauded as truthful by an audience is more likely to be a familiar prejudice, repackaged and wrapped in a colourful bow. The injustice that Daisey (to his credit) barely mentions, is that he was castigated by journalists - the sneakiest storytellers of all - whose morally questionable craft is predicated on casting unwitting members of the public as heroes or monsters. The ‘truth’ so widely touted as the foundation of journalistic integrity is about as praiseworthy as the actions of a film-maker who manages to spell everyone’s name right in the credits. Almost all of the criticism levelled at Daisey relates to details about his cast list - whether or not he really encountered underaged or crippled workers. The more damaging lie, the flesh of the show and the heart of its popularity, never appears on the charge sheet. The more damaging lie was dispensed in the form of a dangerous sugar-coated placebo, one that continues to be swallowed with glee any time it is made available to an English-speaking audience. It is never made explicit, to the point where it is fair to question whether the transmitter is as unwitting as the recipient. It’s broadcast at the frequency of a dog-whistle. I will endeavour to summarise it here: “We’re so lucky to live in the West. Asia is a giant labour camp, where greedy foreign overseers can be bribed by us to entice their dispirited compatriots into serfdom. It’s win-win, because the low cost of labour means we get things cheap, and they’re incentivised to spend their time engaged in social suppression rather than the technological advancement needed to beat us at our own game, so we stay on top of the world. It’s a bit sad, but also a relief.” To combat this lie, some brave sucker would have to force an audience to sit through a show about how continental Asia is a dynamic, forward-thinking, technologically adventurous and systematically competitive gigantosaur. The show would need to posit that not only can we not make iPhones, but we can’t actually afford them either. It would suggest that the only thing separating the majority of them from the majority of us is our superior access to credit. From them. This show would possibly draw an analogy comparing us to an articulate gaggle of Foie Gras geese who boast about feeling quite well fed. Rather than guess at the box-office potential of a show like this, I’ll simply retweet Daisey: #peopledon’tactuallywanttoknowthetruth. Now, after pointing out the beams in everyone else’s eyes, it’s time to address the mote scratching away in my own. My play On the Upside Down of the World is openly ‘based’ (clue, and blessedly explicit caveat) on a brilliant diary that I discovered and crafted into a story about a wry, witty woman and her struggles to take root in a strange new land. The message is universal and timely, and it’s found so much favour with audiences that it’s led to both me and the show coming to play in New York (see right). In all honesty, if you met the real Ann Martin, the one who wrote the book, and asked her what she was banging on about, she’d tell you she wanted to correct a popular nineteenth century misconception that the Maori didn’t take well to religious instruction. Throughout ninety minutes of my play there is not one suggestion that Ann Martin is motivated in any way by religion. I didn’t think it was relevant. It wasn’t what I wanted to tell an audience, or what I thought they wanted to hear. And I still don’t. I also felt entitled to make some educated assumptions about things she hid from her readers - her severe disability, her inability to have children and her feelings about being sent to the other side of the world in the wake of a finger-snap wedding to a man she hardly knew. I flatter myself to believe that in the stories told by Ann and me, any false or misleading impressions are created to serve a noble cause. In a last attempt to burrow back into the friable moral ground like the intellectual worm I am, I will say in all our defences that life without story is as unpleasant as life without clothes. Given that, we must either choose to knit our own underwear, or engage the services of a master tailor. If we do the latter, and discover that the finished garments flatter rather reveal our faults, the tailor should be paid in thanks not spanks. In issue number 4: I wrestle with the bald facts about genetic predisposition. [1] All the Faces of the Moon. http://tickets.publictheater.org/production/?prod=22237 [2] The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, by Mike Daisey (2010). [3] http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/460/retraction [4] Or something to that effect. https://soundcloud.com/mikedaisey/moon-13-that-hideous-strength “that observation which is called knowledge of the world, will be found much more frequently to make men cunning than good.” - Samuel Johnson The Rambler, Number 4.
The US take on English is salted with inexplicable quirks, but when choosing their autumnal noun the locals knew exactly what they were doing. The fall is a term that prosaically and poetically describes a season characterised by natural defoliation and original sin. For as sure as the desiccated leaves will drop, somewhere, often everywhere in America, electoral billboards will rise, political pamphlets will unfurl and white-toothed candidates will promote themselves for public office. In New York they line subway egresses like professional beggars canvassing your vote. The locals are inured, but for an out-of-towner, the initial reaction is one of pity. You’ll wish you had the legal status to vote for them all. But if you take the time to talk with them and flick over their glossy handbills, you will be troubled to learn that most of these people have been in political office before - often repeatedly - and given the opportunity, all of them intend to remain there for the bulk of their natural lives. They are career politicians. It’s a phenomenon that both characterises, and claws at the face of democracy. The founding fathers got together for the express purpose of constraining over exuberant authority. They dreamed of government of the people, not a people. No one who helped invent or inculcate the democratic process ever championed the notion of the career politician. Unfortunately, just as no gardener tills and sews a pumpkin patch with the intention of growing weeds, it’s the inevitable result. Despite their genius, the founding fathers failed to constitutionalise a pesticide to combat the constant legislator. Perhaps they thought dire warnings would suffice. Just as the Lord warned Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree of knowledge, Thomas Jefferson cautioned that “once a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.”[1] The modern embodiments of this rottenness, when confronted with their sin, tend to puff themselves up with lungfuls of pride and boast of the ‘benefits’ of their ‘political experience’. At least when confronted with their nakedness, Adam and Eve had the decency to blush with shame. To attempt a proxy Alford plea, it has always been difficult to the point of impossibility to enter public office without really setting your mind to it. Creating the profile to garner the public tick necessitates the expenditure of so much time and money that it has become the sole preserve of those who can make campaigning and reigning into a full-time business. Once you’ve managed to mount that pony, there no incentive but to cling on. In scouring recent history for examples of other means of attaining elected office, I have to resort to citing farce: Robbie Coltraine's unwitting ascent to the head of the Catholic church in The Pope Must Die; Eddie Murphy scamming his way into congress in The Distinguished Gentleman; and the continued political relevance of the New Zealand First Party. The first two are the clearly fictional, the latter curiously not. Interestingly, what both the films have in common, besides low levels of critical approbation, is a plot that revolves around the central character being mistaken for a career politician (/ cardinal) with a similar name. Even in the realm of fantasy it seems that creative minds cannot envisage government as being of the people, but by the established. In the real world, New Zealand First Party leader Winston Peters has devised a clever way to exploit New Zealand’s electoral system to use his personal popularity as collateral for several extra seats in parliament. He fills these via a candidate selection policy that is rumoured to be analogous to tossing sticks of dynamite into a stagnant pond and scooping into office whatever floats up stunned. It’s not pretty, nor are his methods replicable in any standardised way. While humanity generally takes pride in emulating and surpassing its every prior achievement, the most fashion-forward member of the pantheon of civic virtue remains Cincinnatus, in his ancient, dusty toga.[2] . He was a private citizen, in the midst of ploughing his fields when his compatriots called on him to accept dictatorial powers in order to right the ship of state. After making short work of a pack of uppity neighbours, whom he put down like a sack of feral cats, he resigned his office, and returned to his farm to pick up where he left off. The end. Despite the admiration accorded to the story, it has yet to spawn a homage. So much of the hypocrisy, ineffectuality, and intransigent injustice blamed on modern democracy is rooted in the requirement for career politicians, and those who aspire to become them, to press flesh, grease donor channels, and choke down what seems to me to be the mangiest rat of all: the need to join one of a limited number of political parties and somehow alloy your own concerns with its stubborn dictates. More worryingly for democracy, the necessity to be reëlected obliges even the most admired official to devote a significant percentage of his time in office to raising funds for the next campaign, and sucking up to whomsoever may disburse them. An enlightening episode of This American Life[3] puts a representative representative’s reëlection tab at ten to fifteen-thousand dollars for every day of his two-year term. With apologies to Johnson, the knowledge required to thrive in this political world will be found much more frequently to make men cunning than good. I can fix this bug through one significant upgrade aimed at the establishment of a true and better functioning democracy. This is my modest proposal: Public office, steeped in the principles of public rule and civic duty, ought not to be earned by birth or achievement, but should be thrust upon citizens by way of ballot conscription. It’s an idea with precedents in execution, if not in scale. Many countries press-gang citizens into jury duty, a few retain compulsory military service. This is a similar ‘call-up’ system that will result in a more perfect, more literal government of the people, by the people and for the people. The electoral roll will record each citizen’s current age, sex, sexual orientation, religion, ethnic allegiance and physical address. Because we live in a glorious and unabashedly capitalist society, I suggest that we also record the occupation to which each citizen feels most passionately aligned. Before the start of each electoral term a computer programme randomly selects a proportional group of citizens over the age of eighteen to create a parliament truly representative of the wider whole. Elections would be built up and televised with all the fanfare of a jackpot lottery. The new parliament is formed, and haggles briefly amongst itself to discover the members most suited to head the necessary ministries. They adhere to the system by which bills are to be proposed, considered, voted for and passed into law. I suggest a term of office of three years, in which case a citizen could be called up twice in her lifetime. An upper house, a governor-general, president or other form of parliamentary oversight? No thanks. A strong fourth estate? One, please. Our new politicians will be well-paid, their actions publicly scrutinised and they will be as answerable to their families, friends, neighbours, personal vanity and the vox populi as ever before, perhaps more so, because they’ll be subsumed by thoughts of what they can achieve in their short allotted time, rather than consumed by compromises geared towards maintaining office. Of course they won’t know exactly what do do from the outset, who does? It’s an open secret that the first six months of every new job is spent masking your incompetence while you scramble to get the knack. I refute that this would place any greater strain on the judiciary or civil service, most of whom already spend the greater part of their careers bemoaning the political monkeys to whom they have to fling cerebral peanuts. It will be questioned whether a parliament thus composed could ever get anything done? Here I have to direct a barb at the question itself, as I think it arises from a subcutaneous anti-democratic layer of fat that has always been a part of the body politic. We love the idea of democracy, but like doting parents confronted with the reality of handing the car keys to our beloved teenager, we struggle to muster the faith to actually let her drive. This will not be a victimless coup. The first against the wall will be the concept of career trajectory. People will be plucked from their normal lives at the worst possible time - soon after parenthood, just when a business is finally getting traction, or right at the point you intended to retire. Some will be summoned to the lesser glory of local council, others will never represent their fellows in any way at all. Too bad. Like those heroic volunteers who set aside their plans to fight the fascists in Europe, it’s a necessary sacrifice we’ll gladly make to live in the land of the free. For those that would lament the demise of the political class, I commend your giant hearts. You lovely lugs. You want people to be useful and happy in their chosen careers for as long as they draw breath, but I ask: ‘do you weep for the coopers?’ The fashioning of barrels was once an impressive and time-honoured craft, often imparted through intergenerational lines. Unfortunately, it was simply usurped by time and technology, and its practitioners forced to learn another trade. For those that will argue ‘we’re not ready’, I have a warning: Flip back a few pages in your missal. You’ll find you’re preaching from the same tatty and apocryphal book that says that Africans, Asians, Arabs and Antarcticans ‘aren’t ready’ for democracy, and that the women of days gone by were fit for little more than fucking and boiling tea. You’re wrong. But I know that changing your minds will be as arduous as animating lumps of clay into a charming feature film. Today I begin to craft my Chicken Run. Like a medieval mason breaking ground on a magnificent cathedral, I don’t expect to live to see this idea sanctified, but I’m happy to put foot to spade regardless. [1] Jefferson to T. Coxe, 1799. [2] Well, kind of. He loved Rome, but loathed its people, which is extremely unhelpful in terms of the point I’m about to make, but in the interests of full disclosure, I feel obliged to bury the admission here. [3] http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/461/transcript "It may not be unfit for him who makes a new entrance into the lettered world... to believe that he possibly may deserve neglect." - Samuel Johnson, The Rambler No. 2.
To finesse the proverb: a journey of a thousand miles begins not with a single step, but with a general sense of direction. And so, to christen the launch of what I hope will be a mutually profitable and delightful ramble over the course of the next two years, I’d like to divulge the in and as-pirations of this endeavour so as to kindle your curiosity and douse my own smouldering suspicion that a blog is a blog is a blog. I met my title in the writings of Dr Samuel Johnson, who in turn was introduced to it by Horace. The profit to which it alludes is not subject to tax. I don’t intend to brick myself behind a paywall, and you won’t receive a pecuniary bean. To miscontextualise Jay-Z feat. Jermaine Dupri: “to hell with the price/ cause the money ain’t a thang."[1] The profit I’m rapping about is a more profound definition of ‘an advantageous gain or return,’ one that seeks to increase the value we extract from our lives and observations of the world, and inflate our delight in them too. I make the bulk of my money as a writer. Overall, I’m happy in my work, and proud of what I do. But the nature of the job means “we contrive in minutes what we execute in years.”[2] My latest play, for example, was delivered last month after a gestation of thirty-four. It’s a real cracker, the best I’ve ever done, but as I steered my slow and steady ship, I can’t say I wasn’t envious of other writers zipping around in smaller craft, sails filled with the popular breeze. Here you’ll find my pleasure boat, in which I get to hoon. This blog owes more to the good Dr than the title alone. Between 1750 and 1752 he published an essay, twice a week, on Tuesdays and Saturdays, in the form of a twopenny sheet he called The Rambler. It was one of a multitude of such publications, eerily similar to blogs, that stampeded through the streets following technological advances that flattened many of the hurdles between thinking up an idea, and committing it to print. Johnson embraced the form, but not the prevailing style of the writers of the time, who can be described crudely but not inaccurately as falling over each other to mimic the biases, concerns and vernacular of the general public in order to tickle its balls. Johnson intentionally wrote in elevated prose to pursue a higher-minded expression of higher-minded aims: he believed the task of an author is “either to teach what is not known, or to recommend known truths by his manner of adorning them; either to let new light in upon the mind, and open new scenes to the prospect, or to vary the dress and situation of common objects, so as to give them fresh grace and more powerful attractions.”[3] I quote at length, because I couldn’t put it better myself. I’ve taken his sentiment to heart as both a truth and a dare. So this is where you’ll find me exercising my resources in the hope of gaining strength; and wrestling common thoughts into higher expressions of sentiment and language. This is not about unrestrained verbosity or trying to show off. My intention is to achieve shades of insight and flavours of meaning that simply can’t be discovered by painting in primary colours, or heaping in the sugar, salt and fat. My relationship with Johnson is that of mortgagor and mortgagee. Like most borrowers I’ve taken on my debt in hope and haste and with little judgement. Johnson was a genius whose furnished his public with quotes and allusions from the vast and well-stocked cellars of his mind. Although my intentions are as generous, my mental supplies are comparatively scant, and you will often catch me dashing to the metaphorical liquor store. For example, almost everything I’m telling you about Dr J I’ve culled from Wikipedia. I have little reading and less news, but I do have the internet, and a full tank of curiosity to get me from A to Ω. So here it is, a gentle start I know, but as my wise teacher says “it is more pleasing to see smoke brightening into flame, than flame sinking into smoke.”[4] I’ll publish a new issue, every Tuesday and Saturday afternoon, my time, from wherever I am in the world. At the moment that’s New York. I’ll remind you via twitter, and Facebook, and if the demand is there I may even create an email list. The subjects under consideration will be many and various; any topic can feel confident of gaining admission so long as it demonstrates its willingness to profit and delight. In Issue 2, Tuesday September 17, I will propose a novel solution to the career politician, democracy’s original sin. [1] Z, Jay-, Vol 2. Hard Knock Life, Roc-A-Fella Records, 1998. [2] Johnson, The Rambler, No. 8 [3] Johnson, The Rambler, No. 3 [4] Johnson, The Rambler, No. 1 |
PROFIT & DELIGHTWhat I'm thinking about what I'm doing. This blog aspires to a more profound definition of 'profit' and the bog-standard sense of 'delight'. Archives
August 2017
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