anaesthetized

The Stack

2010-04-10T18:40:00.004+01:00

Outside the snow was beginning to melt. Using the already-stretched sleeve of her cardigan, she smeared a hole in the condensation on the window. It was still snowing. Yes, it was a little damp, perhaps, a little direct. But no one could call it sleet. The sight of the piebald ground – straggly tufts of unkillable grass puncturing the white; infectious mud discolouring it from below – was, for some reason, unbearable. Her mouth opened, but a sigh didn’t quite come out. It was only another moment before she had on her Wellingtons, waterproof trousers, and a sturdy jacket. Her ears were enveloped by a hat slightly too large, her neck wound in scarf. She crammed the thicker of her pairs of gloves into a pocket, and set forth. It would still be snowing on the mountain.

After five steps, she could no longer see the front door. It may have been sleet, but it was still thick, and, if she were honest with herself, it was getting a little dusky. The melting of snow had always frightened her. Ugly glimpses of the dark squelchy earth beneath. She began to jog a little, glancing around to see if she must worry about looking silly. Knowing she was not a running person, she could not quite commit to it. Consequently her motion was a strange loping jog. She realized she could have used thicker socks – wellies were not ideal on a steep incline. Although her ears were muffled by fleece, and beyond the wind applauded, she could hear the annoying swish of her legs in the waterproofs. The blue stripes on her boots began to glow like gas as the daylight dimmed. She climbed further, looking down both to be aware of her footing and to avoid squinting into the sleet. The fingers of her gloves poked from the top of her pocket like a litter of black joeys.

After fifteen minutes, she was rewarded. There was no more mud to be seen, and no wet darts of sleet – just snow fairies, ambling and dancing their way down to her. She had reached a small false peak. It was getting lighter again, as she was above the valley and more of the sky to the west was visible. She turned to look back, her back to the wind, the snowflakes swirling past like a universe rushing away from her. The view was no different – the bluish dusk had given way to dove grey once more. Snow grey. She put on her gloves, realizing this past quarter hour her hands had been freezing. It was a relief not to feel the sting of the weather on her face.

She had not the time to acknowledge this, before black feelings piled on her like ants crawling on ants in her head. Facing the snow again, she walked on, her feelings lost in her struggle with the wind and slope, just as the swish of her trousers now was. But even altitude could not hold back the progression of evening. It surely wasn’t getting dark? Surely the snow was just a little thicker higher up. The sky was still a shade of white.

All was going well. It snowed and it snowed. White spots meandering against the white sky like an infinity of tiny babies all coming to meet her. When she trod down, her whole foot was immersed, only a stripy tube led to her knees. Suddenly… she lost her footing… lurching… scree shifting under snow, away from scrambling feet, but her hands saved her. She tested her unsupported ankle. Then, on, forwards, upwards. She did not notice how much harder it was to see her feet and their placement. She did not notice her laboured breathing.

And then she stopped. She had to. There was nothing ahead. No ground, no laid snow – just: Sky. And its snowflakes. She was confused. She knew her mountain. This was not any of her paths. There was no cliff. Where had she…? She turned to retrace her steps, but after only two: another cliff. Had she not just come from here? She walked to one side, another, and another still. All dead ends. She was calm, she could reasonably expect that in at least one direction there was no cliff, because had she not, just this last minute, walked to this spot?

Never mind. What she wanted to do was shout. Very loudly. That must be why she’d come up here. But what if somebody heard her? What if they mistook her jubilation for trouble – a cry for help? She could hardly explain to Rescue. Of course nobody could hear. Nobody could possibly hear. She coughed. Aaaahh she said, dentally. She tried again, aaaeeeeehh…, she didn’t bother to finish. She wasn’t really the screaming type.

Each snowflake exploded on her face in a numb starburst. She lay down. The area on top of the apparent stack was just large enough to accommodate her length. The sky was undeniably grey. The snow against it grey and less discernable. She banged her gloved fists against the earth, impacting circles of snow, and screamed so loud it felt like her lungs had flown out: What are you afraid of? She did not notice the flakes of snow landing in her eyes, their sting and water. She did not notice that now she could no longer see. What was that expression? If you look into the snow too long you’ll go blind?

Early 2005

Letter from America - Part 3: Publish and be Damned

2010-02-06T03:26:00.003Z

My hair has metamorphosed into some kind of ravening beast atop my head (altitude? Soft water? Galtonesque sub-optimal genetics?) I examine it with mild fascination each morning, but largely leave it to its own primal devices. Perhaps it is on-message – this is, after all, my wild and free adventure. As I roam, so does my hair.

And the adventure into which I roamed this week was transcendental meditation. I bartered a day’s work for charity in exchange for tuition. I’m destitute, so genuinely could not have paid a cent towards it, but also harbour healthy suspicions when asked for large sums of money by such organizations. Whilst I’m wary of being suckered into any kind of weird belief system, I am here, one could argue, to expand my horizons and to change my life for the better – so I will not yet sniff at a constructive way to reduce stress and anxiety.

I cherry-pick the practical technique and retain a rounded scepticism about secret words, rituals, and all the stuff that smacks of insidious religion: hubble-bubble cauldrons that bypass the conscious mind, prize us open and defenceless, and reduce us to credulous sponges. (Much like advertising, in fact.) Religion is religion is religion, whatever your flavour: and they all prey on the vulnerable.

Dr. PJ (yup!) doesn’t actually have a beard and sandals, but I do strongly suspect him of lentil-eating (J’accuse!). I am charmed by his constant and surreal use of broccoli in his analogies to describe meditative techniques. And even a jaded old bastard like me can’t find a less-than-glowing adjective for the man: he’s a one-man charity crusade. Arguably he’s a zealot, but in the nicest possible way (besides, there’s something pretty unthreatening about a meditation zealot). I do believe the world is a much better place for his existence: he has my appreciation as well as my genuine admiration.

I become keenly aware of my abrasive cynicism when surrounded by such sincerity (a Brit in America – say no more). As to the question that any sentient Brit would ask: does all this earnestness preclude a sense of humour? I will continue to report back from the spiritual coal-face…

My charity work will be for the local adaptive ski programme that takes out disabled kids and adults to ski – I’ve seen them on the mountain a lot. I must admit, I tend to give them a wide berth – am not sure if that’s politically incorrect or just pragmatism. I’m really excited about it, but as yet I’m not sure they’re so thrilled to have me. (I know, hard to believe…)

My meditation training meant I missed my usual Monday night date with the Summit County Choral Society – cheerful murderers of the classics, from Faure to Mozart. As Alison was there with the car, I got the bus home.
“Is this the Boreas Pass bus” – I knew it was but, you know, belt and braces...
“Where you go?”
“Wildflower...?”
“I stop there just for you” In fact, I was fairly certain this bus always stopped there.
“I stop Wildflower just for you. You sit here”.
John, it transpired, was an Uzbekistani dental surgeon. (I am actually inclined to believe this after some gentle quizzing on implant techniques – conveniently I have an ex who is a dental surgeon.) His wife (ex) had won some sort of immigration lottery and lo, he now had the privilege of being a Colorado bus driver. I was relieved when the bus pulled off and he stopped pinning me to the spot with his over-familiar gaze. Despite blushing and not knowing quite where to look, I did manage to convince him that Scotland Yard was not in Scotland, and Braveheart was not entirely historically accurate. He was crestfallen. “Was he not a real person? Did he not fight and die for his country?”

“And Scotland – it is still under England, yes?” Ummmm.

Instead of waiting for the bus to wheeze around its circuitous loop, I hopped off early and opted to walk 10 mins in the arctic conditions. Which is not to say the wisdoms with which John favoured me did not impact.
“In Uzbekistan, people are not poor – not like Africa – but not rich like here. Are the dentists in England rich? (Yes.) But people – they are happy – not like here. I work for government – economy does not affect me – people always have sore teeth. I help them. I make them feel better. It made me happy. People come here – they discard their culture. There is no culture here.”
Clearly John had his criticisms of the American way of life, and whilst I could not agree with all he said perhaps we were in accord on certain points: Money does not bring happiness; consumerism feeds, but does not fill, an inner emptiness; and hardline libertarian economics will not cure the world’s ills.

As for culture – how can so many peoples of such vastly disparate identities and backgrounds be convinced they have something in common – something that is ‘Americaness’ – unless they are forced into somesuch mould. Some of their identity crushed out, like a scrap car, reduced to a nice bland stackable cube of Americana.

I am put in mind of one of the cultural habits that still leaves me confused. Everywhere I go, “How are you today?” is the greeting. It is expected that one will not answer the question, but merely give back the required response “good” or some contentless equivalent. Whilst on the one hand I love people’s cheerfulness and politeness here, I also find it difficult to cope with this constant wall of insincerity. It’s like a courtly dance – an intricate etiquette I have not quite mastered. Of course I do not have such trouble in just the U.S. (I have little or no small talk at the best of times – my failing!); it’s just more pronounced here and hence more flagrantly insincere. But it is, after all, just exaggerated politeness – a social ritual of which all cultures have their version, to make life more pleasant for us all. Ah what a lost and distrustful Annabee I am.

We all conceal our feral animalism beneath artfully tailored cloth, within beautifully structured walls – and behind a gloss of socialisation: in other words, a wall of insincerity.

I adore the people I have met – I love their warmth and kindness, their can-do attitude, and sheer optimism. But the flip side of that optimism can be a certain blinkered lack of self-doubt. This is surely a key to success, but a tariff I am unable to cough-up. Once you realize that you are being pragmatic in casting aside your self-doubt – it is not about the truth-status of those doubts, it is about realising the lack of them is a tool to success - it feels like a world of contrivance. Your belief-system is merely an empty functionally-effective life-strategy. (Rather like religion, in fact – the constant looming presence of which both depresses and disappoints me.)

I realize my way is not the way to a happy life, and perhaps there is no nobility in sacrificing a bliss to cling madly to truth – no, not even a truth, but the idea that truth is important. I reflect upon what a strange little girl I was, even as tiny ‘un, sitting apart from the world, contemplating such existential agonies before I had the vocabulary to frame them. How little we change in substance – I am still but a lonely separate little girl seeking and clinging to invisible truths of my own, wishing to share my little island with someone who will willingly cling there too. (Can you imagine the personal ad…?)

My current conclusion is that there is a fakeness about uniting so many disparate peoples and cultures and attitudes under one banner. A fabulously winning strategy, but with what collateral damage? The building up of America itself as a religion. The brainwashing that to admit doubts about capitalism is sacriligous. That to be un-patriotic is the most heinous and socially unacceptable crime. Like God, the concept of America and its values are protected above criticism by this sly contrivance – if one questions or rejects, one forfeits the right to be a member of society at all. It means that the risk of having such doubts is too great, and should you succumb to them your dangerous voice will be rendered impotent lest it affect others.

Dissent and questioning, and a right to verify truth for oneself, rather than to place one’s faith in authority unquestioningly: is that worth sacrificing to be happy - with God, with bland politeness? To be the world’s greatest superpower? Probably. Yet I will huddle nobly on my little island with my brittle moral superiority and my ignoble truths. Lonely.

Wasn’t America build upon a foundation of free-thinking? Humanity may go around (all the way across the Atlantic, even.) But in the end it comes around.

I watched a PBS documentary the other night about Lincoln, which served as a timely reminder to me that he was but a politician. He had no great humanitarian conviction that the races were equal. He just thought that slavery narrowed the opportunities for working white men, and that it was inherently corrupting to those white men (who were, lets be clear, his actual concern) to own slaves. The thing that interests me about this is the disparity between the public myth and the reality. What is the difference between truths that become common knowledge, and those that refuse to circulate? There is a real unwillingness to re-evaluate the popular narrative that is Lincoln. I felt a completely different sort of pathos watching old reel of Marian Anderson singing under the great square be-throned Lincoln – clinging to the hero that never was a hero.

Surely there are no heroes – they are just people conjoined with time and place and circumstance and we make of them what we will in our folklore. Like history – they are constructs. We adapt the telling of our past to the version that suits us. We project what we need in a hero onto whatever hapless inadequate is in the right place at the right time. Lincoln, Jesus, George Clooney…

Entirely by coincidence, a fellow volunteer was telling me about ‘President’s Day’. It’s now ‘President’s Week’ (Heck, lets celebrate all of ‘em), but there used to be two days – one for Washington and one for Lincoln. According to the version of my (New Jersey-hailing) friend, the South didn’t recognise Lincoln’s day because they were still mad about the abolition of slavery. I can’t believe this version is true for a moment, even as a non-American with very little knowledge of American history. But I’m both flummoxed and fascinated by this mish-mash of event and perspective, and completely unable to tease one from the other. It is not always so?

Ah well – Lincoln is still the beardy dude in the big square chair that he always was to me! (Actually – they showed him pre-beard in the documentary and his features did look like chiselled rock even before they immortalized him…)

I have come in for criticism in more than one quarter for the personal nature of some of the content I write. I am beset with concern that people read my little travelogue (both outer and inner) as a self-indulgent personal catharsis – indecorous, crass, boundary-less, adolescent dirty-linen-airing. It’s difficult to hear an external voicing of one’s own self-doubts (self-belief being precarious at the best of times), and for a moment I lost faith and swore to take down every piece of poetry and never publish again. Perhaps I should not write, lest people think me innapropriate for being so intimate. Should I censor, and sacrifice the honesty that allows me to be creative? Perhaps I should produce a jolly but sterile account of my adventures – all frothy wit and anecdotes. Lift music. I find myself engaged in this constant battle between the lingering desire to be socially acceptable, and a growing need to just exist as who and what I am (whatever that is…). There’s a real tension between trying to live my real life, alongside the more public life that is necessary if I am to continue to work and publish. The conflict between the rather brutal creative and the pink-and-fluffy self is exhausting. That I’m so reticent about sharing my work at all is precisely because of worries about how I will be perceived: thus I am a coward who sells the creative down the river to accommodate the needs of a shy girl who needs people to think well of her. The artist provokes comment or offense: but the girl suffers the fall-out. I am striving to build an inner resilience that will allow me to further the creative without, in turn, sacrificing that fragile girl.

Far be it from me to elevate myself with inappropriate comparisons, but I do wonder if all people who work in a medium that involves revealing something of the inner have to weather accusations from their ‘real life’ that they’re inappropriate. Do Tracy Emin’s friends express disapproval of her exhibiting pictures of her cunt?

I’ll leave you with that edifying thought. This blog was brought to you today by the letters A and B, and by a number of fractured modernist identites, and post-structuralist epistemological doubts.

Do tune in again. I promise to make the jokes thicker on the ground…

Foties link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=179608&id=533893668&l=e970d7c1a8

Letter From America - Part 2

2010-01-20T02:53:00.003Z

(Physically America, mentally still mid-Atlantic-ish)

Although I am settling in to the new culture and lifestyle, I find my thoughts still direct themselves towards certain parties left behind. Perhaps a transitional period.

Acclimatizations include constant mild nosebleeds resulting from the altitude. This creates copious amounts of peculiarly orange snot. Makes a change from black London smog-snot. There was the one exception of alarming day-glo yellow after my visit to the pool – they must have different ideas about pool-chemical recipes over here.

The day has a different rhythm here – going to bed much after 8.30 pm seems quite unnatural. I must admit that almost unawares, I find myself inhabiting a sickeningly wholesome lifestlye. I crave almost no coffee at all (those of you familiar with my usual habits may find this hard to swallow, but I assure you it is the case). Tea is more refreshing, although goes almost immediately cold, as water boils at 80 degrees at this altitude. There no room for microwave-tea snobbery here. Apparently the rules for baking are all different, and an altitude cookbook must be acquired if one is to have any hope of success.

As we drive between the two vast walls of snow that flank the roads, Alison tells me that this is the worst year in living memory for snow. It is a very bad season (clearly the Annabee-holiday-weather jinx continues to thrive). As I trudge through knee-high drifts in a car park, I try to imagine where all the rest of the snow (in a ‘proper’ season) is crammed in. Meanwhile everyone at home is plastering facebook walls with news of the preternatural amounts of the white stuff back in the UK. (But, of course.) In cafes and bars, in locker rooms, and on chairlifts, I overhear folksy murmerings: it's an El Nino year – the snow will fall in February; the Ullr-fest parade will bring the snow; we will have a storm tonight – did you see the moon on it’s back last evening? I looked at the moon – clearly framed in the cloudless sky – and saw only a lascivious grin.

I’ve done some skiing. Well – I’ve made my way to the bottom of a mountain on a pair of skis. A subtle distinction that would be not-so-subtle if you had the visaid. I find the lift queue quite a surreal experience, principally because of the music broadcast to the queuing masses – I’ve not done that many runs but, as far as I can ascertain, it’s on a permanent Aerosmith loop, with the odd interjection of Toto’s Africa.

It is apparently unprecedentedly warm for January. Nevertheless, I wimpily clad myself in unfeasable numbers of layers, the base of which comprises several depths of M & S thermals. When fully encased, I am so rotundly padded that I could hurl myself ski-less down a slope and merely zorb to the bottom. As I waddle along, local boarders (I am sure I saw him on the plane!) skoot past me in t-shirts.

Runs are colour-coded so you can pick one of a level appropriate to your skiing ability. I find one also gets a strong intuition from the name – I intend to avoid such runs as ‘High Anxiety’, ‘Shock’, and ‘Psychopath’. I did brave ‘Little Hairy’, perhaps aided by a US-to-Scottish translation issue (I thought it was called ‘Little Harry’). Some supposedly on-piste runs appear to me indistinguishable from cliffs (apparently primed for hurling oneself from). Perhaps I have not yet quite inhabitied the skier mentality. Today I was very smug to have achieved a blue/black, albeit unwittingly (I took a wrong turn). Ironically, the run was called 'Volunteer'.

I did two days of ski school last week – helpless adults follow brazen zig-zagging instructors like strings of ducklings. A technique is imparted, and then you try to implement it on a run. For example, after being told to concentrate my weight on the balls of my feet, I whispered from my racing crouch all the way down “balls, balls, balls...”. Not sure what the casual observer made of that.

The work is very varied, and there are many procedures for me to memorize and feel confident implementing at a moment’s notice. You really have to be ready for whatever you encounter, and that could be pretty much anything (including fatalities). My uniform and radio bestows authority upon me - a terrifying and burdonsome illusion I must maintain. In truth, I am currently more lost than the guests! This bluff (along with disguising my current woeful skiing ability) is proving to be quite stressful to uphold!

Highlights of my first day included skiing down a little boy who was out of his depth: moronic parents avoid paying for ski school then tip their unfortunate ill-taught progeny down blue runs unawares. I side-slipped next to him, carrying his skis for 500 yards, assuring him what a champ he was, until he was content to hurtle his merry little way to the bottom once more. I was also given what is termed ‘body snatching’ duty. This involves standing at the top of the Quicksilver chairlift, which serves only beginner runs. Every 10 seconds a new chair deposits six clueless bodies in a guddle of limbs and skis – this needs to be disentangled, individuals extracted, rendered upright and ski-clad, and removed from the vicinity before the pile is augmented by the ever-advancing subsequent chair. The hardest element of this task is that the process must be completed without sniggering, on pain on firing. Tricky.

On the Annabee-welfare front, Alison nags me just the right tactical amount about eating, so the nourishment stakes thus far: Annabee, 1; self-destructiveness, 0. Top marks in Annabee-husbandry. I am hoping to hit an equilibrium soon whereby I can separate my real life – or what should be my real life – from the stuffing I interpose to obfuscate and stall clarity and progress. I must be careful not to, in turn, sabotage this process by becoming absorbed in my skiing ability (or lack thereof) or job performance (it is, after all, a voluntary position). My goal must be to achieve and retain a concrete perception of what I am, and my current relative position, no matter the circumstances (studio drudgery, musical invisibility, skiing ineptitude...). Annabee GPS – a known and fixed point.

To be continued. Possibly. No promises.

Letter From America - Part 1

2010-01-11T02:34:00.003Z

(Actually, more of a letter from Heathrow and mid-Atlantic)

Heathrow was some kind of Kafkaesque airport nightmare - despite staff thrusting palliative sandwiches at wan travellers, who had the appearance of having lost years in desolate stationary queues. Queues that appeared and disappeared amorphously before one's eyes, and for which no end (or, terrifyingly, beginning) could be found. Indeed, I myself fell under the spell and elected to join one. As nobody appeared to know which queue they were in, nor could the end of any specific queue be found, I grasped gratefully at the one end that appeared brig-o-doon-like in front of me. I was seduced by the admittedly random logic that any queue was better than the ice-cold state of belonging to none at all. Frankly, I am reluctant to recall anything further of this chapter of my journey.

Was pleased to get my seat of least-terror (aisle, over-wing). But no sooner had I blessed the absence of proximate screaming children, than I realized I was marooned amidst a host of rubbery American adolescents who insisted on conversing dude-to-dude over my head. Ah well.

300 ‘dudes’ later (just over 4.5 hours) (could this be measured in dudes-per-hour?) we had moved not an inch. We were in another queue, this time comprising planes. The weight of several hundred people occupying this queue-space appeared to be an insignificant factor. (Wondered if this observation could be usefully applied to models of federalism. Brain starting to depart from planet, even if plane not.) Our wings required de-icing. Apparently this would take 40 minutes and smell bad. 40 minutes after the arrival of the (rather cute, as it transpired) spray-bot, that is. Which didn’t happen for, as I mentioned, a significant period of time. Apparently, dude, they have millions of de-icing rigs at the airport in Alaska – it’s, like, skoosh, like a carwash, man, and that’s it. And thus a 9 hour flight became a 13 ½ hour one.

******

Already, merely from the vantage of mid-Atlantic, I was able to cock a rueful brow as I reflected on my real life (the one 38,000 below, and some way South East). Still wantonly not engaging with any of the things I would like to in life. It’s not as if I make a good-faith try, yet fail gallantly – this scenario would be a triumph next to my perpetual tortuous inertia. Does the solution to inaction lie all the way across the Atlantic, I wonder...

This last year has been, without a doubt the best year of my life. Albeit a turbulent one. I was plunged head-over-heels-over-head-over-heels into love, only to be denied thrice (well, technically, I proposed 4 times, but who’s counting?). The U.S. is my crowing cock - no further denial-invitations shall be forthcoming. He is the only other person I’ve encountered who truly understands the nature of anxiety: how it dissembles one’s life brick-by-brick, extinguishing all under its suffocating blanket. Yet it is responsible for forging the most beautiful , and unseverable, of connections between us.

The trials of love aside, this was also the year I embarked on my most ambitious project to date. I was so crap at being what others' expected. I hope I turn out to be rather more successful at being me. So: slowly I sand-off the socially-acceptable topcoat. Perhaps this will be the year we’ll get a peek at the grain.

And so it begins with my little US adventure.

To be continued...
(possibly. Should I find the impetus...)

Miserable Cunt

2009-12-13T20:16:00.002Z

If I have to be so fucking morose and dysfunctional at the moment, then I may as well leak some writing out. Until such time as I become less of a miserable cunt.

I entitle this piece ‘A Collection of Emo Bullshit Scribbled Down Whilst Laying in Sorry-for-Self Heap on Sofa Between 7.15 and 7.25 pm on a Sunday Night’.

(It should be shown directly before the seminal work ‘Thoughts I Tried to Cheer Myself Up With Before Resorting to a Therapeutic Wank’)

(please note, in many regards this is also a therapeutic wank...)

Loneliness stings; the drop drop drop of lemon juice into the paper cut in my soul.

I orbit society; just me in my pod.
Sometimes -
I think I’m making contact!
It’s not just me; my pod; the universe!

But the signals fool me.
Just random noise after all.

When my gaze alights on my love, some rogue magician turns my heart into bunch of flowers, bobbing right there in my chest. But he is not mine. And no sooner do the flowers bloom than they wither and choke my heart, and rot my soul. Tears seep silently from my whole being. But I smile. I stand. I sing.

I am trying to hold myself together. I am gathering a flock of birds in my arms. I puff and swipe. But they big-bang forth in every direction.

My skin is too small for me. They gave me the size too small. I don’t fit. Can’t breathe. I need to break through, but it gives and smothers like latex. If I could just cut here. And a little here. And here. Here and here. Aaahhh - a deep red breath.

How will I mate? What for, these blushing petals and dimpled bud? But tethered to my stem...
I will puff my pollen into the ether until it reaches you. I will scribble; hosing my spore onto cyberspace. You will intersect.

Slug

2009-05-26T18:55:00.001+01:00

My brain glistens with memory of slug
who slavishly spirals my lobes
spreading his seed like syrup as he goes.

He wends his course precisely
coating sulki and gyri
a paintbrush adroitly driven
by each flaccid contraction.

Finishing he begins afresh
keeping his gauche whale wet with residue.
Maybe it’s his breadcrumbs or ball of wool
for the change of wind
that will rewind me to infancy.

Then at night without glint the world is his oyster.
Through an ear or pore he seeps uncoiling
my tethered pink sausages before him surfing
their red carpet. Only the moon
catches a hint of silver highway smeared
like a blurted confession. My bedroom
disgraced with shiny plump tubes as if Mondrian
forgot his canvas and ruler and took
his pencil for a walk.

13/03/01

Letter to Hospicom, July '08

2009-05-23T23:50:00.004+01:00

Further to a recent and infuriating experience, thought this letter may amuse others similarly outraged. Will I get my money back? Watch this space.

Dear Sir or Madam

I recently had the misfortune of spending some time in hospital (The Treatment Centre, Milton Keynes General Hospital, Bay 2, Bed 1, Thu 3rd July ’08). Unfortunately I had the further misfortune of being exposed to your Hospicom multimedia product, which not only didn’t work (depriving me of a phone, internet access, and my favourite television programme) but swallowed £6 of my money in the process of demonstrating to me that it didn’t work.

After hijacking a hapless nurse to help me massage the thing into action, we gave it up as a lost cause, and I set about finding out how to recoup my losses. I was told that a rep sometimes came in the afternoon, but I would be discharged before that, and that all I should do was to ring your number when I got home. After a few further days of recovery, this I duly did.

It galls me that, if such services must be privatized, I, as the end user, have no consumer choice – yours is the only product made available to me. Then, as a captive market, it further galls me not only that your product was so shoddy it didn’t actually work, but that it stole money from me for the privilege of watching it not work. But what really takes the biscuit is, after doing everything in my power as a consumer to find out how to recoup my losses, I am told by some computer-says-no automaton that because I can’t ‘prove’ I put £6 on a card, you will not deign to refund the money you have stolen from me.

I think by this point I don’t need to make it explicit to you that the suggestion that I, whilst enfeebled and recuperating, am trying to rip you off for the grand sum of £6, makes me very angry. Very angry indeed. And do you know what makes me even angrier? Do you know what the most grotesque thing about this is? That you, as a corporation, have made the commercial decision that, given your market is ensnared and choiceless, it is better for you to refuse to refund your dissatisfied customers than to retain customer goodwill – because if you have a monopoly, customer satisfaction or loyalty has no relevance or value to you. Given that your captive consumers are sick and powerless patients at one of the most vulnerable times of their lives, this is particularly despicable, don’t you think?

Such is your dedication to capitalism and the bottom line above all ethical considerations that perhaps you should consider diversifying – I’m sure there’s some Chinese six-year-olds that have yet to get a job, or a place of special scientific interest that hasn’t yet been drilled to smithereens for oil. I hear they’re giving out free tobacco in Africa to create the next market of addicts – if you got into that game you could generate more lung-cancer-ridden consumers for Hospicom all in one fell swoop. There you have it: vertical integration!

So – in short: Give me my money back – all £6 of it – you greedy profiteering capitalist bastards.

Thank you

Anna Berry

Also published for general edification on Facebook 11/07/08
(by the way - I did recoup my money)

Clarifying my Thoughts after an Argument about Gender

2009-05-23T23:38:00.002+01:00

Firstly, we must make explicit the distinction between sex and gender – sex exists, XX, XY (albeit with some grey areas – double Y, intersex babies, etc.). If you believe gender to simply mean the same as sex then the word ‘gender’ is redundant.
Gender is a cultural/sociological/psychological concept. Part of the concept of female gender, for example, will encompass biological femaleness. But it also encompasses a lot of other ideas that are culturally-specific, era-specific, geographically-specific, etc., and have no intrinsic link to sex at all. (Clearly the argument that women are predisposed to liking the colour pink, or shopping, or whatever, is not the kind of argument that will be graced with a response.) The problem comes when we try to marry these two concepts of sex and gender – we fail to make the distinction, and try to ascribe aspects of gender (something non-intrinsic, non-biological) to sex.

There are always plenty of people who are biologically one sex but fail to meet the criteria for our ideas of gender. We reserve words like ‘queer’ for them! Homophobia exists because people want to link sex and gender too closely – they are uncomfortable with, and have little tolerance for, those who would not inhabit the gender box society has prescribed for them. Humans have the tendency to want to ‘cement’ what are cultural and environmental norms by thinking about them as biological (there are various theories in psychology about this phenomenon). This then allows us to call those who would vary from those norms ‘unnatural’ (which is why I have such a problem with gender stereotypes and generalizations – it implies there is one natural and good way, and pathologizes those who would not adhere to it).

So we have men and we have women, biologically speaking. Some XXs and some XYs. What you’re trying to do is ascribe further characteristics to them based upon their genetic sex: i.e., ‘this is an XX and therefore we can further say a, b, and c about them, because that’s what we know about XXs’. But this is all statistics. What we are saying is ‘this is a way that a certain percentage of women tend to behave’, ‘this is something that a certain percentage of men are not good at’, etc.

Firstly, these statistical differences that we find in men’s and women’s abilities/traits/behaviours: how are we going to decide that they are intrinsic, when boys and girls are treated completely differently from birth? How are we going to separate what is biological from what is environmental? We never get the (in my opinion, utopian) situation where children are treated identically (or rather, treated all uniquely and as individuals, with absolutely no regard for gender or other such culture-laden and constrictive categories) so that we can construct such an experiment.

Secondly: If I take an arbitrary grouping – people with blonde hair vs. people who haven’t, people who had cornflakes for breakfast vs. those who didn’t – I bet I can also come up with a host of statistically significant factors. That doesn’t really mean that these two groups are ‘real’, that the members of each group actually have anything significant (in the non-statistical sense) in common with each other beyond that which initially categorized them. I remain unconvinced that we can really extrapolate beyond genetics to further characteristics.

But, thirdly, even if we can: say, we come up with a whole load of statistical stuff about people based on biological characteristics – race, gender, whatever. How do we use the information – and how useful is it? Shall we search more black guys than white when looking for a mugger because statistically it’s more likely to have been a black guy? Can you see no conflict with the interests of the individual in the use of such statistics (‘statistics’ here is interchangeable with ‘generalizations’)? (Again – my principle issue with the gender stereotyping – it inevitably works against the interests of the individual.) Are you going to tell me, for example, that the reason I am not good at manoeuvring my vehicle is because I’m a woman, based on statistics? In fact, you don’t know why I may not be good at this. It may be because I’m a woman, it may not be. On a case-by-case basis you don’t have any way of knowing how and whether gender is affecting somebody’s abilities, traits, and behaviours. On a case-by-case basis, the line of causation is not clear – speculating about causation on an individual level can only ever be conjecture, no matter what the status of the statistics. You have no way of knowing if you’re in error. In fact, what you do by referring to such statistics (even if they are accurate) is to reinforce gender roles that constrict the individual. (This urge to reinforce and streamline cultural divisions is, incidentally, exactly why we do this – not, as we convince ourselves, that we are factually correct when it comes to gender, as I go on to explain.)

And why? To reinforce and cement ideas which only need such reinforcement because they are vague, and certainly not self-evident, nor scientifically supported. Ironically it’s our sociobiological urge to create cohesive resilient group structures and identities that leads us to want to find the biological where it is not. To create a biological gender, ironically, has been to our evolutionary advantage and is, in itself, genuinely biological. We need to be aware that we all have a tendency towards making what is called in psychology the ‘fundamental attribution error’ – and we must remind ourselves of this when we feel the inclination to ascribe traits to intrinsic factors. The fundamental attribution error is the tendency to ascribe characteristics to intrinsic factors mistakenly, or when we simply don’t have enough information to do so. For example: I see someone wearing a Xmas jumper – my conclusion is that he’s a geek. It may well be the case that it’s laundry day and he has nothing else to wear. In fact I simply don’t have enough information to draw conclusions, no genuine basis from which to extrapolate. Nevertheless, it is a human tendency to do so, and something which (most psychologists think) we do for evolutionary reasons (there are any number of evolutionary advantages to making a snap forced choice, even when there is not sufficient information). I would certainly argue that it comes into play in constantly streamlining and reinforcing gender division and stereotypes.

Now lets depart from these nature–nurture–type arguments, and introduce one based on philosophy, linguistics, and cultural theory.

The older I get, the more I’m seduced by structuralist and post-structuralist ideas about the extent to which we create our reality based on our cognitive schemas and vocabulary. Structuralism says that meanings of words are relational – no word can be defined in isolation of other similar words – it depends on the word’s status in a ‘paradigmatic chain’ (a set of words related in function or meaning). For example: ‘hovel, shed, hut, house, mansion, palace’. The meaning of one of these words would be altered if another was removed from the chain (didn’t exist). So: ‘hut’ and ‘shed’ are similar but subtley different – one implies something used primarily for shelter (for a security guard, say), the other primarily for storage (in a garden, for example). If either word didn’t exist, the meaning would have to be encompassed by the other word. Likewise we can define a mansion as being bigger and more grand than a house, but not as big and grand as a palace. Thus we define mansion in terms of how it relates to the words either side of it in the paradigmatic chain. This mutually defining aspect of words is even more apparent in paired opposites – no concept of ‘day’ without the paired concept of ‘night’, no concept of the feeling of ‘good’ without ‘bad’ to define against it. So, for example, the terms ‘male’ and ‘female’ mainly have meaning in relation to each other – each designates the absence of the characteristics included in the other. ‘Male’ can be seen as meaning mainly ‘not female’ and vice versa. Saussure (Swiss linguist, and father of structuralism) said: “In a language there are only differences without fixed terms”.

He used a famous example of the 8.25 Geneva to Paris express train to explain this more fully. Is there anything material which gives the train its identity? Given that, each day it will have different engine, carriages, drivers, passengers, etc.? If it’s late, it won’t even leave at 8.25. It may not even be a train – we are all sadly familiar in this country with the replacement bus service! What gives it its identity is its position in a structure of differences: it comes between the 7.25 and the 9.25 – that is, its identity is purely relational.

So: language doesn’t just record or label our world – it constitutes it. Meanings are attributed by the human mind and constructed or expressed through language – it is not already contained in the thing itself. A famous example of this process would be the choice between paired alternatives like ‘terrorist’ or ‘freedom fighter’. There is no neutral or objective way of designating such a person – merely a choice of two terms which ‘construct’ that person in certain ways.

(If we, however, have the courage of our convictions in such a philosophy, the consequences are a rather radical epistemology. We must enter a universe of extreme uncertainty, since we have no access to any fixed landmark which is beyond linguistic processing, no fixed standards by which to benchmark or measure anything.)

All this pertains to the discussion on gender simply in that, people who are dogmatic about gender differences are simply failing to realize how fluid and relative any category is.

So: can you see how the ‘men are men and women are women’ argument is mind-blowingly naïve, poorly thought out, and simply doesn’t engage with the issues, let alone challenge them?

28/05/06

The Failure of Feminism in Contemporary British and American Society

2009-05-23T22:32:00.003+01:00

“I can’t stand whingeing women”¹. I find it disappointing that this was the response of a successful female MP upon being asked whether it was difficult being a woman in the male-dominated sphere of British politics. However, I think few people today would be surprised by this attitude. More and more it is socially unacceptable to acknowledge that opportunities for women still do not match those for men, let alone admit to being a feminist. Indeed, feminism is often something that embarrasses women, particularly young women, many of whom feel that there is genuinely no gender inequality in contemporary society, and hence no effort to be made. So deceived are people that we live in a society of equal opportunity that anyone who questions this is an embarrassment; a ‘whingeing’ feminist. We have been fooled in much the same way that the rhetoric of the American dream has duped the U.S.: it is believed that everyone has equal opportunity in the land of the free. I would argue that subconsciously (and sometimes consciously) it is widely accepted there that anyone who lives in poverty, or who hasn’t achieved the middle-class ideal, has only themselves to blame. (This is revealed, for example, in the collective attitude towards the homeless, who are referred to as ‘bums’ – ‘bumming’ is a term both for borrowing without returning [to bum a cigarette] and social loafing [bumming around]). A fairly unforgiving attitude may be inferred from this terminology.) In the same way, if Western society is indeed a level playing field, yet men still reside at the top of most professions (there are only two female CEOs of FTSE 100 companies), then we must come to the conclusion that women are intrinsically inferior. I think most of us, whether feminists or no, would reject that; hence we must accept that we still live in an overwhelmingly gender-biased culture.

So why is it so taboo to voice this? Are we to accept injustice as part of our lot, with silent dignity and the proverbial British upper lip? Is it now gracious to turn a blind eye to oppression and inequality? Perhaps this holds the key – it is considered womanly to be ‘gracious’ and, more to the point, decidedly unwomanly to be ungracious. To complain about injustice is certainly not gracious. Women and men alike are conditioned to believe that women are innately passive. In order for a woman to protest this limiting categorization she must first shun her conditioning and disbelieve it. Furthermore, the rest of society must shun their conditioning to listen and take her seriously. What happens in reality is that protestations about women’s lot somehow ‘jar’ because of the fundamental clash the act of protest has with our deeply-inured ideas about gender, and are dismissed or ignored as something slightly undignified or even fanatical. Further to this, feminism simply threatens the status quo in general by challenging it – something that people find psychologically very difficult to cope with. It is even more of a threat to those who are most influential; those at the top: if society is unequal, and they thrive, then it is a short step to the conclusion that they are at fault (although not a step I would necessarily take). The psychological need to protect themselves from such culpability is a compelling reason to ‘fail’ to see truth. (I do not think that in most cases white middle-class men have a comprehensive apprehension of the extent to which the balance is tipped in their favour and consciously conspire to keep it that way, as is sometimes intimated.)

Some women are not only embarrassed by feminism, but feel it has actively done them a disservice by cultivating an orthodoxy by which it is necessary for women to have a career if they want to be considered successful. As having a family is also, for most, desirable, the upshot of the feminist movement has been to increase the pressure on women. It is a common trope in the epicentres of pop-psychology – women’s magazines and daytime television – to devote much discussion to the expectations placed on women to be ‘superwomen’ or ‘supermums’. Furthermore, as the emancipated woman is thus far proving to be less attractive to the un-emancipated man, feminism is also held responsible for the loneliness of some women – many believe that there is an epidemic of unhappily single women (the Bridget Jones phenomenon) and that this is women’s own fault for encroaching on elements of what has traditionally been the male role. One way of dealing with this problem has been to reject the progress made thus far. Many women pretend to be less independent and successful than they really are because (apparently) women’s success emasculates men. In America, The Rules by Ellen Fein and Shelley Schneider² has become the definitive women’s guide to dating. It takes a classic sexist ‘men are men, women are women’ stance, advising women to always allow men to pay for meals, not to ask men to dance, etc.

Of course, the real reason why it is so hard to be a woman in today’s Western society is because that society is still as male-orientated as it is dominated by Judeo-Christian values. I would argue that the changes women have seen thus far are largely pragmatic in nature – for example, enfranchisement, the right to own property, employment legislation etc. – so, in a sense, superficial. The greatest hurdle – that of society’s collective attitude towards gender roles – has yet to be tackled. Women are still seen as essentially passive, are required to uphold a standard of appearance, etc. They have taken on new roles, whilst retaining all the pressures of their old ones; hence the current difficulties. I think it is very sad that because we have not yet made the giant leaps necessary such anti-progressive strategies as The Rules have been adopted. As is often the case when achieving something that is worthwhile, the interim stage is a tough one, but it is extremely short-sighted to give up at that point. Whilst it is true that women moving in on male territory can threaten men, it also paves the way for men to break free of their gender stereotypes and behave in ways more traditionally associated with the female role – for example, taking a more proactive part in child-rearing is be a great pleasure for many men. It is often overlooked that feminism can be beneficial to men as well, allowing them greater liberty also. This puts ‘emasculation’ in a positive light.

It is interesting to note that many rejectors of feminism, whilst denying being feminist, actually espouse some feminist tenets. Without knowing really what it is, or that it is a philosophy to which they do in part subscribe, they reject it outright because of its currently unfashionable status. For example, I think it would be uncontroversial to assert that most people in our society, both male and female, believe men and women (however separate their skills are perceived to be) are ‘equal’ (in some undefined way) and as such deserving of equal rights and opportunities. Few under forty claim that they expect the female in (heterosexual) relationships to bear the significant proportion of responsibility for household tasks or cooking. Neither do I think that most regard women as less intelligent or less capable. However, I believe in many individuals there is some tension between the lofty egalitarian ideologies that are held abstractly, and the more ‘concrete’ beliefs that lie behind the plethora of sexist behaviour we observe moment to moment. This is what I call ‘passive sexism’. Whilst aggressive sexism no doubt thrives as well (bum-slapping bosses alas cannot yet be consigned to the museum of quaint tradition), this conduct is so patently unreasonable as not to be a threat – there is no chance that society will be insidiously subverted. Passive sexism, however, is proving remarkably tricky to unseat. Whilst it is difficult to defend the weight of domestic chores being the woman’s responsibility when both partners have full-time jobs, in reality, this traditional domestic arrangement remains predominant. Similarly, whilst it may be regarded as unfair by many that women’s social status is still dependent upon their physical attributes, this too shows little sign of changing. Again, this is down to individual psychology and the conviction with which we hold the validity of the traditional gender characteristics. Incidentally, I don’t think the tension between what I refer to as concrete and abstract belief is peculiar to the issue of sexism – there often appears to be a rift between people’s moral convictions and their behaviour: for example, I cannot think many would condone sweatshop manufacturing and child labour, yet despite much publicity of the fair-trade issue, most people perpetuate it with their consumption habits.

The decline of feminism can also be attributed to the worrying general trend towards anti-liberalism, currently enjoying mainstream status in the U.S. (where ‘liberalism’ is now a dirty word, often prefixed by ‘bleeding heart’) and becoming increasingly acceptable here (much to the delight of contributors to the Telegraph letters page, in which ‘liberalism’ is invariably preceded by the epithet ‘woolly’). Dare to criticize the middle-class middle-aged white male and one is dismissed with contempt as PC. Indeed, the backlash against political correctness is a fascinating microcosm of the anti-liberal phenomenon. Much like feminism, the term ‘political correctness’ has been subverted by conservatives to mean something pejorative. To be politically correct is to avoid using language that will offend and (more controversially) to change terminology in which prejudice is inherent. Like feminism, in reality this is a practice which most of us adopt (although unlike feminism, it is adopted in a very practical way) – few would find it acceptable to employ the terms ‘nigger’ or ‘Kraut’ (I acknowledge that the former has recently been reclaimed by the black community, much as the term ‘suffragette’ [initially a snide anti-suffrage moniker] was by women and ‘queer’ by homosexuals). The avoidance of such terminology is political correctness in action, as is avoiding linguistic stereotyping and racist or homophobic jokes. (It is interesting to note how much better the anti-racism and gay-rights movements have fared compared to feminism – whilst the stereotyping of ethnic minorities and homosexuals is now taboo, as is telling jokes at their expense, sexist jokes are still prevalent and gender stereotyping remains the norm.) Political correctness also extends to linguistic engineering; the adulterating of innately prejudiced terminology: for example, where the word ‘mankind’ would be employed, the term ‘humankind’ might be substituted. The problem here is, of course, that people differ greatly on their ideas of what is prejudiced. Often perceived as a kind of linguistic fascism, this is the aspect of political correctness most often pounced on and decried: “McCarthyism to counteract imagined totalitarianism”³.

Political correctness has now come to be used in a context outwith language simply pertaining to self-consciously democratic policies. This plays right into the hands of conservatives, as it has become a way to demean those who actively practise non-prejudice. “Something is rotten in the United States of America and it threatens the whole basis of that great society’s role as a protector of the free world and inspiration for those who yearn to be free. American politics is being corrupted and diminished by the doctrine of Political Correctness which demands rigid adherence to the political attitudes and social mores of the liberal-left, and which exhibits a malevolent intolerance to anybody who dares not to comply with them.”⁴ I, for one, do not wish to be ‘tolerant’ of, for example, racism. Do we allow atrocities to be committed because to forbid them infringes someone’s right to commit them? The couching of anti-political-correctness in the terminology of libertarianism is a classic ploy. There is a line between protecting decency and infringing civil rights, and accusing political correctness of crossing it is a cheap shot. The anti-political-correctness movement provides a refuge for racists and sexists and, like the new sanitized face of the BNP, allows them to appear reasonable. I’m not an enthusiastic advocate of linguistic engineering, but I object far more to the objectors; those who are vociferously against it. Find me a PC objector and I will point you out a bigot. Arguably there is a silly element to political correctness, and where the line is to be drawn between justified and silly is a moot point. However, to use it as an excuse to condone the unjustifiable is outrageous.

Some cultural commentators⁵ believe the decline of feminism to be symptomatic of increasing political apathy. I don’t think this is a particularly helpful diagnosis because this only shifts the focus of the problem (what causes the political apathy?). Whilst they are related, it seems to me that both are effects of the same cause: a complacent faith in the political and corporate establishment. People are dimly aware that injustices still exist, but perceive them to be anomalies not indicative of a problem with the system. In fact, there is a delusion that democracy has all but been fully realized in 21st century Anglo-American society, (despite history teaching us that this is highly unlikely to be the case). So why is this conviction held? Because it has been ‘sold’ to us by the increasingly honed PR machines of the political and corporate establishment.

PR was invented by Freud’s nephew Edward Bernays, who was employed by government and corporations to create and manipulate consumers. Using Freud’s insights, he designed stunts and campaigns to appeal to the subconscious, manipulating people by bypassing their rational minds. (Freud supported the creation of consumer society because he believed that within the subconscious lurked dangerous urges, and the creation of consumer zombies would be an effective method of social control.) Psychology was (and still is) cynically used to control the masses. This is still not seen as undemocratic or undermining of individuality. One early job saw Bernays contracted by a conglomerate of America’s most powerful businesses, including General Motors, to persuade people that without capitalism, democracy was not possible, and that business and not politicians were responsible for the great modern America. This discredited Roosevelt’s government whose socialist New Deal was costing corporate America a great deal of revenue. So began the corporate takeover. From the beginning PR was also used to whitewash corporate-political atrocities, such as the American bombing of Guatemala. In the early ‘50s, most of Guatemala was owned by United Fruits. The democratically elected government made it their policy to reclaim the land. United Fruits hired Bernays, who created a communist threat to democracy and American values (in fact, the Guatemalan government was democratic socialist and had no connection to Moscow). Whilst Bernays was in Guatemala there was an anti-American demonstration; many think he staged it. He also set up a false news agency, releasing the fabrication that Moscow was using Guatemala as part of an invasion plan – a soviet outpost in New Orleans’s backyard. The CIA were instructed to organize a coup. They trained soldiers and waged a terror campaign that included dropping bombs. Meanwhile Bernays had convinced America that this was a freedom crusade. In 1954 the elected president fled and a stooge favourably inclined towards United Fruits was installed in his place. Marxist literature was planted and then ‘found’. It was said that there would now be “prosperity and liberty” for the people. This was an instance pure fascism, in the name of consumerism.

I cite these examples to show that even during its first few stumbling steps, PR was a breathtakingly effective tool for social control. Today, this industry has come a long way and its skills have had fifty years and billions of dollars of fine-tuning. Capitalism has established a strangle-hold and PR gurus excel at convincing people there is no crisis, whatever the magnitude of a problem (even if it means warmongering to deflect attention from domestic shortcomings – there’s nothing like xenophobia to unite people). Whilst people are aware of political glibness they remain apathetic for two reasons. Firstly many feel unrepresented by the increasingly inappropriate, but self-perpetuating two-party system in both Britain and America. The parties have become all but indistinguishable in policies, which discourages people from voting. If no party represents your values, and neither varies to any great degree from the other, then not voting is eminently understandable. It has been established that in a two-party system, many will vote with their allegiances, no matter what the campaign platforms. The 1992 Clinton campaign in the U.S. was the first in which the majority of policies were tailored to appeal only to a very small minority – the swing voters. Consequently non-issues, such as seatbelts on school buses, became huge campaign platforms because this pacified a particular (in this case, middle class, suburban) swing-vote demographic. Of course, the prominence of such issues is bewildering to the majority of voters, who don’t care about school buses, and is the other reason for low election turn-out. (In Britain, Blair’s government has taken this even further, not only using this tactic to gain power, but to maintain their popularity once election victory has been achieved. Endless spin fronts nothing but a vacuum where substantive policy used to be.)

In short, as a result of increasingly sophisticated methods of social control using public relations, we have become greater consumers, politically apathetic, and convinced that no crisis need ever be responded to: zombified. I believe the decline of feminism can be attributed in large part to the fact that we are now virtually incapable of independent anti-establishment thought. Whilst Tony Blair smiles at us from under an expensive suit, nobody will believe that anything can really be wrong with our society. Nobody thinks that important-looking seemingly-capable white men in suits will really do anything that bad. Much as people are unenamoured of our political parties and system, deep down they actually have an unshakable faith in the corporate, political, and cultural establishment. This is evidenced by society’s reaction to those who demur: the feminists, the environmentalists, the anti-capitalists, and so on, are treated as fanatics whose opinions are invalid by virtue of their non-adherence to the socio-cultural norms. It has always been the case that to question the establishment has been psychologically difficult for humans as a result of our overwhelming herding instinct. As Einstein, a young upstart who dared to question Newton, said “the foolish faith in authority is the enemy of truth”: humanity’s downfall is the ease with which we accept the status quo, and our disinclination to question it. However, the problem is much worse now than in Einstein’s day, when the PR beast had not yet reared its ugly head.

Again, we come back to the weakness of the human mind as being the real enemy of feminism and, indeed, all revolutionary movements. However, it must be noted that society does change, and cultural norms have evolved over time. Such changes always begin with a minority who eventually exert what is called ‘minority influence’ upon the majority. Certain factors affect the extent and speed of this influence or indeed dictate whether there is influence or no, for example, the within-group consistency of the minority, and the consistency over time of the minority position. Lack of consistency may be a problem in the case of feminism (and tends to be a problem in general with left-wing philosophies) as there are many schools of thought splintering from the central idea, some of which have changed over the decades. However I think there is more to the failure of the educated minority to promote change in the case of feminism. Let us compare the relative success of the anti-racism movement. One of the catalysts in combating slavery was when black people adopted some of the cultural traditions of white people (e.g., becoming Christian)⁶, thus highlighting for the whites their similarities. Of course, it is highly undesirable for a culture to be sacrificed in order that it might be assimilated without prejudice into another culture, but as an interim (if unfortunate) step it could be considered a success in the battle for racial equality. Similarly what has thus far been achieved by feminism is showcasing women’s ability to do things that it was formerly considered only men could do. The main causes of racism are ignorance, unfamiliarity, and fear. After the initial hurdle of proving some common ground, this can (and in many cases has been) combated – integration and education dispel ignorance and unfamiliarity, and with them departs fear. However, sexism is not perpetuated by the same factors, but rather by cultural transference. Where ignorance can be educated away, social construct is much harder to demolish, paradoxically because of its arbitrary nature. The gender gulf is greatly exaggerated and upheld in almost all cultures. The extent of the intrinsic gender gap is a matter for science and debate, however I would contend it that clearly it is minimal, and furthermore, rendered irrelevant in the face of individual differences, which are significant. I think that in the case of the gender difference, the lady protests too much (or rather, society protests the lady too much). In order to perpetuate what is essentially an arbitrary categorization (like nationality and most other in-group/out-group distinctions) a rigid and exaggerated gender stereotype has evolved.

There is a social psychological phenomenon called the fundamental attribution error, whereby people are overinclined to attribute the behaviour of another to their enduring characteristics rather than to external circumstance. For example, in one experiment⁷ students were given some pro-Castro and anti-Castro essays to read and informed that the authors had been told to write pro- or anti-Castro essays respectively. They were then asked to judge the real attitude of the author. It was thought that the evidence of the essay content would be discounted; however, this was not the case. The subjects seemed to attribute the essays’ contents to the disposition of the authors, despite convincing evidence that in fact situational factors were predominant. I think there is some similarity between this phenomenon and the mechanism employed to perpetuate gender stereotypes in that this also relies on an error of attribution. The gender element as a causative factor is constantly overemphasized. For example, if a man is a bad driver, then he is just a bad driver, yet if the bad driver is a woman, then it is invariably inferred that she is a bad driver because she is a women (when in reality her bad driving probably has very little to do with her gender status). Although the parallel falls down by way of the characteristic of bad driving also being an internal factor, I believe the overattribution of gender factors is another sort of consistent attribution error. In this manner people are brainwashed by their gender conditioning, which, unlike the causes of racism, is self-perpetuating.

It seems to me that the failure of the feminist ethos to affect real social change boils down to the weakness of human psychology. The predominance of spin in today’s society discourages individual thought, reinforcing an inherent psychological flaw: our unwillingness to challenge the orthodoxy. Fundamentally what oppresses women is the cultural legacy of gender conditioning, something that has thus far proved impervious to intellectual attack. Inculcation of gender stereotypes is self-perpetuating – we must all create ourselves in such a fashion that we thrive, and we can only thrive by adhering to the cultural norms. We may have evolved perfect sociobiological tools for ensuring group survival on the Serengeti ten thousand years ago, but for a truly egalitarian society we are less than equipped. We must examine the very mechanics by which this cultural transmission is perpetuated, which may or may not involve some form of instinctive attribution error. Feminism currently has a poor public image, being perceived as largely irrelevant, embarrassing, or even damaging because its achievements thus far have arguably made life in the short term more difficult for women. This, along with the modern trope of anti-liberalism means that feminism is unlikely to affect change in the near future.

¹Former shadow-home-secretary Ann Widdecombe on BBC television’s Parkinson, 2002.
² 1995, Warner Books.
³ Jasmin Alibhai-Brown, The Independent, 11 Aug 1993
⁴ Sunday Times (20th October 1991)
⁵ e.g., Noreena Hertz in The Silent Takeover, William Heinemann, 2001
⁶ See The Interesting Narrative, Olaudah Equiano, 1789.

04/01/03

Letter Pulished (abridged) in TLS regarding debate on Tuition Fees

2009-05-23T22:10:00.003+01:00

Dear Sir

Whilst I am shocked and disappointed at the government’s proposals for the payment of university fees, I am even more disappointed with the surrounding discussion, which has addressed only the topic of the extent to which the new fee structure will act as a disincentive to students from deprived backgrounds. Undoubtedly this is important, but has obscured the equally important issue of the increasing trend towards vocational degrees such measures will encourage. While a £20 000 debt may be small fry to somebody with a law degree under their belt, if one reads, say, philosophy, the ability to pay this off after graduation will be greatly diminished. The upshot of this policy will be to discourage applications for purely academic subjects in favour of less rigorous, applied fields. The university system will become a production line for managers, accountants, and lawyers; Oxford and Cambridge will become merely pit-stops between public school and The City (in light of the government’s recent misguided apoplexy over the Laura Spence affair, this highlights its blatant hypocrisy). It is very difficult at the moment to pursue Arts or Humanities to a post-graduate level, as funding is mainly provided by corporations for scientific places (explaining, for example, the preponderance of research on economically efficient oil-drilling, and the lack of research into alternative energy, organic food, etc.). Things can only get worse under this proposed regime. The government looks more and more to America for policy precedent. It seems that we are to follow the U.S. down the route of anti-intellectualism as well. Take the inane justification of why one should pay more to go to Oxford by Higher Education minister Margaret Hodge to John Humphries on BBC’s On The Record (Sun 17th Nov) : “don't let's pretend that a degree in theology … from Luton is the same as a degree in accountancy from Oxford.” She is justifying top-up fees on the basis that some degrees are more valuable and more employable than others. However, being a highly academic institution Oxford offers very few applied subjects, and certainly doesn’t offer a degree in the intellectually-void discipline of accountancy. One can, however, take a challenging course in theology. This betrays the government’s lack of regard for intellectualism. If we are to follow the government’s message to its conclusion, there is only worth in education as a means to get well-paid employment; there is no value in academia, intellectualism, or knowledge for knowledge’s sake.

Anna Berry
Bucks

This was published years ago, around the time of the Laura Spence affair. I'm not sure if the facts have changed - perhaps these days the Said Business School offers an accountancy course?

The Othering of Orcs: A Post-Colonial Reading of Peter Jackson’s Lord Of The Rings Trilogy

2009-05-23T20:18:00.004+01:00

In this essay I will show that the Lord of the Rings trilogy is underpinned by racist, sexist, and classist values inherent in the language and imagery employed. Furthermore, the success of the films can be attributed to the familiarity with and acceptance of that language and imagery by western society.

Let me come clean at the beginning – I admit it; I enjoyed every minute of Peter Jackson’s fantasy immensely. At every set-back and every battle, I was right there with our heroes; and at the end of each installment, I was ready to rewind and start again (having prepared with a rigorous programme of dehydration). As a westerner and die-hard atheist, I suspect that swords and sorcery fulfils the same function as religion does in those for whom god is the poison of choice; indeed, it seems to inspire a similar brand of fanaticism. For my own part, whilst in no way being a fantasy geek (no aspersions cast), I find an escapism here qualitatively different from that supplied by movies of a more vérité persuasion. There is something reassuring about a simplified world in which there is good and evil, and one can be clearly differentiated from the other. My mind seeks to order the inherently chaotic, and when it treads the well-worn paths of myth, there is a sense of relief in inhabiting a space without shades of grey. Furthermore, within this realm I can realize frustrated desires. Who doesn’t want to be afforded the privilege of making a sacrifice for the good? But who notices a sacrifice in our world? Where is the nobility; the honour? Such concepts don’t map squarely onto the world as I see it, messy and grey, in which there is no good and evil: only actions and consequences.

Some try to export the simplified world of fantasy into their everyday lives, searching out the black and white and, when it cannot be found, imposing it¹. Things that have no connection become irrevocably intertwined: the relationships between concepts like white and good; dark and bad; ugly and bad; female and passive; and female and unimportant linger in the subconscious, and for some, in the conscious mind. By the same token, that which is intimately connected becomes separate. I find myself celebrating the houses of the aristocracy, tramping round them on a Sunday National-Trust day-out, while at the same time decrying the principles underpinning their existence. Yet, beyond my intellect, I can find no contradiction, and can keep the celebration and the decrying separate. In the same way, there is remarkable ongoing blindness in the west to the intimacy of the relationship between our high standard of living and exploitation in the developing world.

Is the desire for the regular engendered, or at least awakened, in the first place by exposure to these mythical templates? Perhaps. Or perhaps such templates adhere to conventions that exist in someway beyond the individual stories that comprise them, born of a Freudian imperative for self-protection. Whatever the case may be, the overshadowing presence of such myths is undeniable, as is the ease with which their language and symbolism is understood.

The first film in the trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring, opens with a mythology lesson, intoned by an English middle-class narrator. Without commenting on the clumsiness of this device, learning a new mythology of another world is not as complex as one would have thought; in fact it is just the old north European mythologies (e.g., Norse, Arthurian), albeit manipulated. Hence, right from the start we are grounded in myth, and a viewpoint is established. We are comfortable with these ideas both because they are not new, and because they are delivered to us in a voice that we perceive to be authoritative.

The language and imagery of myth reduces difficult issues to black and white: there is simply good and evil, and it is easy to tell which is which (I wonder how many fantasy movies George Bush has watched?). For example, in the world of Lord of the Rings, not only is a creature born to be either good or evil, but is recognisable as such by virtue of their race. With ethnicity comes anonymity; each race is homogenous; you’ve seen one elf, you’ve seen them all (replace ‘elf’ with ‘orc’, ‘hobbit’, ‘dwarf’, etc. at your discretion). The notable exception to this rule is that ostensibly good creatures can be corrupted by the ring – a creature born to a non-Other race, such as Saruman, or Gollum, can be ‘turned bad’ by acquiring the ring². Social mobility! (However, if one is ‘born bad’, for example, an orc, there is no redemption.)

This is especially problematic in the current climate of western islamophobia. John Rhys Davies, who plays Gimley has said that he believes the films to be about defending western civilization against the threat of Islam, both in terms of immigration and terror³:

“I think that Tolkien says that some generations will be challenged, and if they do not rise to meet that challenge, they will lose their civilization. That does have a real resonance with me ... What is unconscionable is that too many of … [you] do not understand how precarious Western civilization is, and what a jewel it is.”

In this view, the films teach that, just as isolationism and appeasement was not the answer to Hitler, so isolationism and appeasement is not the answer to the advance of Islam. Rohan is clearly wrong to retreat to Helm’s Deep; the Ents learn that the best form of defence is attack. However, there is a profound inconsistency here, as much of the currency of Nazism (e.g., racism; an idealized vision of the peasant class) is celebrated by the films.

It is no coincidence that Mordor is ruled despotically; a system of government typically associated, in the west, with eastern nations. In the films, the dire consequences of this kind of regime are underscored by the ugliness of Mordor, emphasized through cinematography and music. It is always dark. There appears to be no vegetation; merely rock (what do they eat?). The darkness is punctuated only by runnels of molten larva. There are no gentle shapes – just sharp corners and jutting angles. Images of this hell are accompanied in turn by a dissonant cacophony and portentous choral music – a staple of the horror genre. Mordor, of course, is in the south and east.

This contrasts with Rivendell and the Shire, which are in the north and west. Both Rivendell and the Shire share a fertile landscape and ever-blue skies. Whilst Rivendell has waterfalls and scenic valleys, the Shire has rolling hills, meadows, and agriculture. The cinematography accentuates this verdancy; the greens are edenic; preternaturally green. In Rivendell, the architecture and jewellery is naturalistic and of a twisted Celtic style. In the Shire, everything is particularly rounded (including the inhabitants); abodes are small hollow hills (I expect the teletubbies will file suit any day now). Furthermore, the Shire is identifiably English – specifically, a kind of idealized rural southern England. It’s a haven of peace, with lush meadows, brown bread and cottages, merry artisans, plenty of hair, food, and flowers, quaint names such as ‘Hardbottle’: a picture of pastoral innocence.

The western world is a civilized idyll, in contrast to the east and south, which are full of adventure and exoticism, but also danger and malevolence. This is a eurocentric projection. Even the animals reflect this: goodies have horses (which imperialists used to terrorize indigenous peoples), whilst the orcs’ beasts are thinly-veiled variations on rhinos and elephants⁴.

The prevailing system of government in the kingdoms of the goodies is kind of a benevolent hereditary monarchy, divine right, and all. Furthermore, the film advocates this modus operandi, taking an anti-republican stance: Boromir is redeemed by accepting his ‘rightful’ king, Aragorn, before he dies; the guardian of Gondor is mad apparently because he has held onto a throne that is not rightfully his – order is restored at the resolution of the trilogy when Aragorn, the true king by virtue of his ancestry, is crowned. This is held up in contrast with the despotism of Mordor. In fact this reveals another internal inconsistency: in reality, these are similarly undemocratic systems of government.

Even more pernicious is the racial contrast drawn between good and Other. Good guys are caucasian, bad guys are black as well as Other⁵. There is a hierarchy of races, at the top of which reside the elves, who are “immortal, wisest, and fairest of all beings”: a master race. The elves have particularly long faces, and are thin with long flowing straight hair. They are especially pale, and tend to be fair; their features are unrounded. Clearly actors whose appearances could conform to this were selected, and then the ‘whiteness’ of their features further exaggerated with make-up and prosthetics. Goodies, particularly elves, are often graced with celestial light, soft-focus, and pseudo-religious western choral music.

This is reinforced by the representation of the denizens of Mordor, who conform to a very different racial stereotype. The orcs have dark skins and can often be recognized by their deformed features (which suggests a connection between moral fibre and physical appearance – deformity being indicitive of flawed character). Many orcs also sport overtly Asian or African features, such as flatter noses; the first ‘battle orc’ we see has dreadlocks. Orcs are always lit in a harsh dramatic way with only a few low light-sources. The music that accompanies them in the mines of Moria is an African tribal-sounding drumbeat. We are also shown the process of scarification inflicted on the orcs (a white Saruman handprint somewhere on their head or torso), tribalizing them; again a western vision of African practices⁶.

Blackness is further identified with uncivilized behaviour. Orcs are barbarous, bestial⁷, and philistine⁸; they are sub-human. They don’t talk much (they grunt when they do) and give no indication that anything is going on in their heads. They are not born in a mammalian sense, but hatched in some infernal process involving earth and fire (for this reason there appear to be no orc women – women’s use, apparently, is purely procreative). Indeed they are associated with the underground via their mining, their presence in Moria, and the birthing process. They reproduce at a startling rate – from nothing there is a giant army in no time at all – and there are many references to their superior numbers. Indeed, orcs are almost always presented en masse; as a collective; swarming⁹. They appear to be almost of a collective mind. This is reflective of orientalist fears.

Further points (er, haven't quite gotten around to finishing this yet!):
Gender:

Women as child-bearers – the Shire fecund with plump fertile females; absence of orc women.

Hobbit women – maidens or housewives; one of few female moments given over to portrayal of nagging.

Women and sacrifice – Arwen sacrifices, both to heal Frodo, and her eternal life to bear Aragorn’s children.

Aeowen – although a warrior, still requires romantic love. Warrior status not seemly enough to gain Aragorn.

Lack of female roles and screen time – serious shortcoming. Modernist sensibility of thirties poets when confronted with women’s increasingly visible sexuality and role in the important spheres of life¹⁰.

Women’s exclusion – must have nothing to do with important quest. At end Sam marries: women reserved for when real business of the world is finished.

Another homoerotic male companionship film – frisson between Frodo and Sam palpable in final film; the class element – very Ted and Ralph.

Class:

Orcs as working class – evil symbolized by deforestation, mining, smelting, and organized labour; post-industrialization manufacturing

Contrast with Shire’s bumbling agricultural economy; Shire is small-scale, cooperative, not mechanized, artisans, and, most importantly, self-contained.

The real threat – the unthinkable spread of industrialization to rural England.

Industrial working class as invasive – Shire is comfortable vision of working class because self-contained, orcs uncomfortable vision of lower class because not self-contained. Liberal imperialist worries about slum conditions; eugenicist worries/Malthusian spawning in slums.

Hobbits as working class – Sam, Frodo’s gardener (agricultural, pre-industrial worker) portrayed with patronizing affection. Clearly knows his place, suitably deferential to Frodo – always addresses him as “Mr. Frodo”. West-country accent counterpoint to Frodo’s middle-class one. Little credit given for his pivotal role.

Romanticism/celebration of noble savage.

Condescension/patronization of hobbits – wide-eyed; salt of the earth/simple folk; childlike. Regarded from a lofty height. (Whimsical music [compare fellowship’s evocative romantic/epic music]; moments of comic relief¹¹).

Nationalism encouraged – by exaggerated Disney England, like Celtic revivalist’s reinvention of Irish myths.

In the language of myth, that which is familiar is presented as good, just as that which is Other is bad. This language of myth made the film not only intelligible, but attractive, to a western audience, but is problematic, particularly in the current political climate, as it encourages issues to be viewed in a polarized way. Furthermore, the perspective of the film is eurocentric, and its conception of the Other is orientalist in character.

¹ I acknowledge the problems associated with making generalizations, however, I am struggling to express what I believe to be a common way of thinking.
² There is some ‘grey’, but it is an anomaly in the film overall, and services the crass religious imagery: in a lapsarian reference, the white wizard fell to the dark side, leaving the grey wizard to represent us; he is, however, soon reborn as white.
³ Rhys Davies also recently spoke on television about an (unrelated) book that gave him “an insight into ‘the oriental mind’”.
⁴ Ring wraiths have horses, but that is because they are “disguised as riders”4 Ring wraiths have horses, but that is because they are “disguised as riders”
⁵ In fact, we are told that “orcs were elves, taken by dark powers and tortured and mutilated”. Black is a corrupt and inferior version of white.
⁶ Compare this with the great store invested in the Elves’ Celtic trinkets and other regalia.
⁷ e.g., they are cannibalistic.
⁸ e.g., they hurl rocks at the White City – bringing down civilization.
⁹ e.g., in the mines of Moria.
¹⁰ See, ‘Reginal Order’, Geoffrey Grigson, 1933.

01/11/04

¹¹ e.g., Merry and Pippin in the farmer’s field.

Olympia

2009-05-04T17:21:00.003+01:00

Ah met this guy wan time, a backpacker,
When ah wis shit-faced. He says (ah’m thinking
He was stoned, mind) “I saw this pyramid
Right? once on a stop-off when I got lost;
Came across it in a deserted lot.
Honest to God, man – I swear – a fucking
Great pyramid, with stuff inside and two
Guys lounging on top. No love lost if you
See what I mean. Hand on my heart – one was
God; the other a cocky pouting boy
In blue velvet. He met my eye – I thought
He was Art. First I wasn’t bothered – then
I peeked in and saw – you wouldn’t believe –
Everything.

At the top,
Far away, saintliness and pain
Clutched together whilst aesthetics
Nestled beneath the blue velvet bum.
On my level snot and sebum and sperm
And sucked viscous fat from God knows where.
Swirling in between – I couldn’t take it all in – sex and sadness,
Virtue, passion, junkies, brides, and butterflies. Blank verse in English, clocks
That dripped, fresh frozen water, a christ of piss, and so much laughter. There were
Beds left unmade and a virgin-spanked baby, and there, staring back at me was Olympia.
Then: a tremor, and a small clunk.
Them up top rocked to their feet, crouched,
Limbs spread and wary – but – too late – a
Great wrench and the whole damn thing went up

And up
And upended.
For a split second
They dangled, fingers pincered,
But before they could drop down it all came
Like a fallen dart and drove, point first, through the gravel, down
Until its underside was level with the ground.
You might have missed it, had it not been liberally spread with shit
In which – you could just make out – a giant finger had scrawled:
‘Here lies the consecrated, down a peg
Or two: Cop a look, ye mighty, and despair’.
I didn’t like the concrete town and there
Was no more to see so I left quick-smart
To stay, you know, some place more regular.”

09/10/02

The Orthodontist

2009-05-04T17:20:00.001+01:00

Everyone I know had braces.
All our gapes passed under the gaze
Of Ayr’s only orthodontist.
He seemed like a nice man. Perhaps
A bit strange, or just another
English in a small Scottish town.

Even now that we’re all sucked in
To London’s black maw, our network
Informs us – someone told someone
Who told someone else: Mr Woods
Killed himself.
Everyone I know had braces.
Everybody knew who he was.

06/06
Loire

Pen Room

2009-05-04T17:19:00.004+01:00

Notice the faint ink.
My pen is running out on me.
When I was wee, I would not dream
of throwing out a pen.
Mum would bring the box and virgin card
and I would dutifully scratch each nib.
But instead of discarding
the infirm – the frayed felt tips or ballpoints
so dried-up they could cough-up only quiet ink
and trail a parched riverbed across the paper –
I would stow them back, snug, arrayed
chromatically, carefully displaying
the ransacked card as indelible evidence,
but hiding the bin.

Her way was no way to treat those who’ve carried out
your whims, nestling them in slender casing, slimming them from infinite dimensions
to a dense 2,
and depositing them,
a tour de force on every page.
Pens who filled in Dad, even as the door slammed
and kept him filled out and loud
long after Mum’s yodeling diminuendoed
and the soft silence descended.
Pens you could grip, who never
flinched in your soiled plump fist, who always
had a scrawled tornado up their sleeve
when friends didn’t knock.
Pens can graffiti pristine walls, clothes, and skin –

If you press hard enough some pigment goes in,
mingling us as brothers in blood, ink, and arms.
So when they’re done I retire them to the box room
where they coalesce to a tattoo.
I would be upset if,
when I am old and have taken
to copperplate and a blanket
over the knees and my scribbled veins
clamour through parchment skin,
shiny bold pens shunned
my thoughts,
dulled and worn thin,
and wrote other things instead,
or put me away.

06/03

Piblokto n. a culture-specific syndrome…

2009-05-04T17:19:00.003+01:00

“Anybody heard of Piblokto?
It only happens to Eskimos –
just the girls.
One day, maybe
between dinner and foreplay,
they lose it.

Out of the blue
they burst onto the ice,
naked,
and cut loose,
howling like dogs
or stuck pigs.

So she’s stripped, right?
subzero and screaming–”
“but they won’t intervene;
it’s their way.”
[I read in some book I brought home,
it’s a culture-specific syndrome –

caused by long-standing
repression
and frustration.]
Elsewhere
an anthropologist writes
opening lines about open minds:

Culture-bound judgement is a negation
of liberty. And buried deep
in a footnote
– in some cultures, for example, Eskimo,
a woman can be bought, sold, or exchanged
at will.

16/06/00

Yahoo

2009-05-04T17:15:00.002+01:00

yellow face turns grey
he departs our chat leaves me
red pulsating hearts.

mid 06

2009-05-04T17:14:00.003+01:00

this moment

10/07

words words words

2009-05-04T17:13:00.006+01:00

bedtime he reads
becomes embedded below the bookshelf
where gaudy softcentred facades assemble
with orthodontic precision
he devours them plucks their malleable soul
siphons their essence and casts aside
spines creased as used faces
like cherry pips

beside him rumbling
i covet ill have
what hes having
a slice of the pie sometimes
succumbing when my juices are flowing
i sample some
savour it on my tongue
but gag as it sticks in my throat
eyes water brain drowns i am doused
in its slavering tide

what makes me puke
is knowing
this overflowing in bitesize chunks
like nuggets of gentle lamb would be
nourishing sweet morsels without
the bad taste in my mouth
but i cant cut it
so he reads
and it chews me up

21/04/01

Women are Cunts

2009-05-04T17:13:00.005+01:00

Women are cunts.
We don’t start that way, apparently.
Babies don’t have cunts –
They are just cunt larvae.
Little girls have just the whiff of them
Until at some unspecific point they unfurl their wings.

So we start sexless
Then our cunts consume us,
And we are slicked for eternity in heels and lipstick,
Half-starved sticks, picking at each other, honing the bitch,
Tearing the flesh from the rosy and sweet,
A bitter taste hollowing our cheeks.

We can be mums, physicists, poets, chief execs,
It’s all meaningless.
If you don’t want to fuck us, if we are not cunts,
We are nothing.
Please want me. I am woman.
I am cunt, therefore I am.

11/06

Where am I?

2009-05-04T17:12:00.002+01:00

Blank bland Bucks towns
Seeped in and sucked me
Beige dry.

Trapped in ambivalent limbo
Between London and home
Diffuse nowhere alone.

10/06

Tally

2009-05-04T17:11:00.004+01:00

Each time you fuck me,
Mark your tally on my wrists,
Each score a nick with a quick unpick,
Prizing me open, stitch by stitch,
Until I am dry; a husk you can refill
Each time you fuck me

12/05

Tryptich

2009-05-04T17:11:00.003+01:00

I

I am nothing
no one will see me
I say nothing
no one hears me
I am ashamed
bestowing words on looping thoughts
but who will read them anyway?

II

I feel
I feel this way
to me it is all
there is my immense world
shame is meaningless it is this way it is
the flickering of my moods
smoggy sense of sadness
tsunami of panic
the cold ice cold blood of considering exits.

III

In my belly
a ball of insects
crawl over and under all over each other
brittle brown centipedes twisting crissing crossing
spiders pick up slow feathery digits
stick insects are crushed in the ferment
their legs pinging from their bodies becoming flotsam stems.

17/11/06

Real Big Poems

2009-05-04T17:10:00.001+01:00

It’s taken me some time to learn –
The best poems are not beautiful,
Nor precise conceited constructs
(those clever clever card houses,
fragile and mostly air).
They don’t have to say anything. But
Real Big Poems Have Guts.
Ugly wrenchings – inklings of the swamp within –
Hitch, somehow, to hapless passing words,
And free themselves, messily, any which way.
These joyous airborne defecations
Surf the space between, perched on the syllables
That take it all the way to you.
In you.
Real poems let us merge
Like smooshy Venn circles.

11/06

nine months

2009-05-04T17:09:00.002+01:00

bump and grind –
then just bump –
bloodflow goes –
below it thumps –

blunt slit belly –
slithering hands uproot
quivering jelly fruit –
now blares

and blares –
streets stare –
glare back
at –

08/11/00

My Big Brother

2009-05-04T17:03:00.001+01:00

Furled on the floor, behind the passenger seat,
I listen.
Down there with the tarnished wrappers and hair
I hear
Them say He’ll be on Fifty K
Within a year.

I shuffle soiled feet confined to newspaper
They bought
To keep the car clean,
And crane
To salvage morsels of their exchange.

The leather seat seeps a tang of new; I imprint my face
And think
He’s not worth it. Car shudders,
Clink: silver
Seatbelts shut. I rock in my mud.

When will I measure up?

18/04/00

The Moors Murders – an ITV Dramatization

2009-05-04T17:02:00.005+01:00

Landscape once inspired the poets and artists
Swept them to whip us up with paint and words and patriotism
And to calm with definitive answers – yes, that is us, contained therein and framed,
No troublesome disparity between perspective, or self-image, and reality.

Nothing inspires Joe Public like kiddies swaddled in moors
Little secrets peeping out from cold kohl eyes and brittle highlights.
Those black empty eyes enshrined in pixels and newsprint –
They hook you in, get under your skin, and fill you
With wonder and comfortable unedited hate.

I know a fair few Ians, but no Myras –
I wonder about little Myra,
Even as my mind’s eye captures Keith’s little frame,
Cold and mingled with mealy peat, without his glasses,
Accompanied inappropriately by strains of Ilkley Moor,
The soiling pawprint of the poet whore.

I don’t have babies. I have always suspected
That, under my skin, I’m not a woman, nor a man, just a bare-faced thing,
Who somehow missed being swallowed whole at birth,
To stuff some gender husk.
We forgive artists little blasphemies, the re-shaping
And re-raping: how elegant, how illuminating.
Who’s worse than the bogey man? The artist? The hollow woman?

02/06/06

mad

2009-05-04T17:02:00.004+01:00

I'm sick of spilling
my dirty little
secret to smug
shrinks who think
it is synonymous
with me. Just file me
according to DSM
diagnostic criteria
under
?
mad.

26/02/03

Malkovich

2009-05-04T17:01:00.002+01:00

Do you ever have a sense of looking out
Into the world through – from behind – your eyes?

I have interposed myself between the world and I.

At first, it’s looking through a window with the light behind you,
Your ghost a servant, eager to please, hovering in every eyeline.
Then, the horror: I discover
It won’t be dismissed.
And beyond my facsimile I see myself
Out there as well – in books, on TV,
Or in the street, in problems that have nothing to do with me,
In spaces and hiatuses, even the rain that smears my window sill,
And in tiny buttery daffodils.
So now I don’t get out of bed – fuck the world, and fuck myself –
Instead I search volumes for a poem that is not necessarily about itself.

22/01/04

Joe Soap

2009-05-04T16:59:00.002+01:00

Hey Joe, I was sorry to hear
of your loss –
a double for old Joe here –
I heard you found her?
Yeah, in the kitchen
Joe jabbing
the glass at his face. Stiff
upper lip. Stifle the details.

Her: slumped like a sigh,
blue eyeshadow and festering veg
a harmonica wail
of colour clanging
against her husky skin.
Here in the desert of family pics
she chopped to plug the gaping saucepan
at the end of her production line.

Humped on the table,
by a homely spray of half-chopped
spring-onions, her fingers
loosely sheathed the knife.
But she’d left
before she’d finished slicing
her womb into manageable pieces,
so it still sat, fat, at her right hand.

Joe knew she nursed,
in the pouch of her pinny,
where no one had thought to look
or listen,
the black hole that’d hidden
the gun he didn’t press to her head.
Sure, you’ll get over it
clapping Joe on the back.

02/06/01

Life’s a Beach

2009-05-04T16:58:00.001+01:00

On my foot, moored, secure as a lovebite
A sea anemone caresses the
Thick water deliberately like bunched blind
Man’s fingers. The last of the cockles that
Once stuccoed my shins dropped off when the skin
Unpuffed and the rot set in. Sometimes the
Ocean inhales: I’m soused in bitter air.
When hailed by the moon, it slopes off, reluctant
To release my flesh, translucent and laced
With decay, to the whims of what’s out there.

But it soon edges back, bashful at first,
Whetting its thirst on my toe, then my sole;
And on it rolls, nursing my fish-nibbled
Fissures with salt, which the snails massage in;
Keeps me boozy with its sting; cemented
With contented ennui. My arms bob,
Pinned like buoys between sea and sky, slicked
With algae’s creeping verdigris; the parts
That stay dry, like my eyes, are enfolded
With mould’s downy nap. Still I let it sap.

If someone should happen upon me, as
They strode along the beach, sitting, sedate
And stagnant, in an armchair on the edge
Of water, between here and there, they would
Suspect foul play – I must have been tethered
Like a maid to train tracks. Could they guess that
My silence was not frantic? They would not
Understand – my submission to the swell
Would eddy round campfires for a summer
Or two, where bugs kamikaze into

Candles, each carcass becoming waxy
And one with the quivering femme fatale.
When conversation ebbed they would try to
Figure out how many times I’d been re-
Embalmed in brine and silt. How many cold
Embraces did it take to perfect me
To that sorry state? I can’t remember
Why I first sat down here; how I came to
Cower ecstatically; maybe I’ll think
On it… while I stay just a little longer….

07/07/03

In late afternoon

2009-05-04T16:56:00.002+01:00

In late afternoon
The sun works its way
Across first one pane
And then the other.

In winter it never makes it:
Required by its doomed trajectory
To be reswallowed daily
By moth-eaten urban trees
And the square squat church tower.

07/10/02

How to Sing

2009-05-04T16:55:00.002+01:00

Breathe in
Unzip from chin to groin
Part your skin
Flash them
Let them see in
Let them see your innards glisten
Your intestines twist
Let them hear it as it cuds up your throat
Let them smell it close up
Festoon them.

10/05/05

In Japan

2009-05-04T16:54:00.004+01:00

In Japan, Christmas
Is another working day.
My cousin brought back

A santa on a
Crucifix. She’s 5’9:
They are too polite

To stare on the street.
They look at her reflection
In train windows. There’s

Stuff she likes: the rules,
History and samurai,
The trains run on time.

So: tell me about
Manga porn and bukkake.
There’s women-only

Carriages on trains –
So you don’t have to get groped.
Some girls supplement

Their income. The school
Uniforms are so short that
They cover their bums

With their hands when they
Go up stairs. I want to know
If, in the west, we’re

Soft. What of Freud? And
Fun? And parenting techniques?
She says: there’s four times

As many deaths from
Suicide as rta

17/12/05

Jain

2009-05-04T16:54:00.003+01:00

Fat and happy, like a soft piglet,
I barbecued, and wallowed in chlorine,
Drank deep wine, and necked the local moonshine,
And crackled my skin while chewing pulp lit.

When done marinading in factor fifteen,
I waddled from lounger to pristine
Pool, and plopped in, blanching cool my skin,
Succulent in the sticky stretched elasthane

Bikini, which, even submerged below
The brittle blue was exotic as the tick
Of cicadas. Then, it clicked: the ecstatic
Thrashing of the beasties was, in fact, death throes.

I saw them float, littering the surface,
Little crumbs, untidy and vigorous,
Engaged in an epic minute struggle,
When just a lifted pinkie could sort each guddle

Of soggy sorry legs and wings. So I stepped
In – fished out a big black one. And when the thing
Buzzed off, it was really satisfying.
Now I had a taste for it, so I kept

Going, with some success (bar those already
Dying or dead), bestowing steady
Little miracles, until the swept
Water was clean and still: I’d done. Except

On closer inspection, it was speckly;
Seasoned with nothing but dots, surely
Not worth the hassle? And those with bites and stings?
Did they deserve to receive my blessing?

Sometimes I look beyond the made-up ladies,
Gliding thin serene lengths with high faces,
And children churning water thick about me
Tirelessly (crazy scorched pool lady),

To my tangerine towel, abandoned
Behind me, while a great spider, long gone
Drifted down, the water’s puppet, wafts his arms,
Dancing with my feet along the bottom.

28/06/06

Groundhog

2009-05-04T16:52:00.001+01:00

Tomorrow is not a new day;
it’s today replayed and replayed.

The night beats me,
so I bind my sores with TV,
maybe a bit of laundry,
make sure life is tidied away.

When I’m desperate I bash my
self with computer games until my senses are blunt.

By the time dusk bruises the sky,
I realize this patch has been rubbed to a blister.

Don’t think I don’t wonder why I must flounder
up the quagmire stairs in my nightmare.
I know I’m not waving –
how do you think I got here?

14/10/01

selection of haiku

2009-05-04T16:50:00.002+01:00

Bloody Japanese
Circumspection. Bugger that.
Verbosity rules.

Golden moments spill
onto the page. Basho is
spanking the monkey.

I hate redrafting.
Opening a poem like
a wound and prodding.

Poppies billow; each
petal loosely grasps till they
sigh and drift to earth

Chives
Purple bonnets nod
with the breeze until they bow
and finally snap

Oh, why can’t I write
a decent fucking haiku.
It can’t be that hard.

For Rachel Whiteread

2009-05-04T16:48:00.001+01:00

That which is
Only is
Because that which is not
Surrounds it.
Without nothing: nothing.

It took making nothing something
To make me see it.

13/11/06

for Jean

2009-05-04T16:46:00.004+01:00

You are not gone. We will turn
around and expect
to see you, a floral huddle, fragile
and immense as an old barn
that belongs and shelters.

We feel your essence fill the house; an exhalation,
quickening us.
The dent in your cushion and the creak
of your chair testify –
no, you are not gone.

19/07/02

Face-off

2009-05-04T16:44:00.003+01:00

road narrows
lorries slow
face-off
dinosaurs passing
lumbering graceful
rumbling language of their own

24/03/06

Flight

2009-05-04T16:44:00.002+01:00

When I was a kid, I jumped off
Cliffs. I ran
Flapping, head down, till the ground
Dropped away.

It cracked me up, the yelling and cowering, knowing
I could brush bellies with clouds
Anytime, anytime I felt like tickling the birds.

Then I forgot about flying
And became engaged in the pursuit
Of orgasms, consumed in a battle of wits
Until he cracked me, and I was weighed down
With the accoutrements of love:
Condoms, caps, and KY.
They always come, but I’ve never cracked that one.

I finished with my cunt the day I first injected
And drifted
Up

Up

Easter

2009-05-04T16:41:00.002+01:00

On Big J’s big day we stay in and play back-
to-back zombie flicks.

My enjambment with the sofa is severed
only for snacks and the odd piss.

Dead-eyed sheriffs progress, rifles cocked,
arms pulled from sockets by dogs.

Snacks: I eye a mottled salami slice; a bruise
incumbent in my palm.

A mallful of corduroy people are consumed –
when? – the dead seventies? Some time of worse skin.

My arms rise to outwit the cat, blood-pressure blind and deadened
by kibbles, her dilated pupils let slip a red flash.

Convention dictates that they work okay, bar some stiffening
of limbs, eyes, and lateral thought, and they don’t talk.

I roll the meat to a loose clammy sausage and bite down, savouring
the peppered rind, severing its limp resistance,

and white women scream in short skirts
behind cassocks of hair.

Retinas bleeding, ecstatic at ingesting anything
but dry boxed rocks, she bites my finger off.

21/04/04

Enculturation

2009-05-04T16:40:00.002+01:00

In the cage, alone, before the ether
You're okay.
Then, one day,
From up there, outside, the trunks of rubber descend together,

Descend and grasp at your tail's fleshy root - you're ripped up
And dangled for a bit
Like a pulled parsnip,
And you kick yourself for your stasis, your trust.

Next time
You circumnavigate the cage, enraged
At the intrusion: they still get you splayed,
Get grime

On your down.
Nowadays you're stiller; accepting your role
Even as you sniff the cloudy cotton wool.
So now you're done.

White coat slits your white coat akimbo
Sees what made you tick, and goes home
To see his kids and pass on his knowhow
Knowing his grandkids will flourish and prosper

10/00
First Published in The Rialto, approx 09/01

Express Sex

2009-05-04T16:37:00.004+01:00

First I feel it pant hot breath above my legs;
I have time. I lie down. Let it salivate
While I decide – cowboy, date rape, virgin bride.

I ponder the options and part the steam;
My rabbit swims as per our contract.
The swarthy stranger, fresh from combat

Enters the scene. His deep beneath eyes
Lock on hers and I press its buttons
And that changes things
They leave together
And my rabbit kicks

I thrash out

He is rugged and firm she is
overcome she comes over
all sweet but she’s sticky
inside it kicks in

and leap

he puts he
presses its plush
please
he plunders she’s
powerless to

thrash

It kicks and
Buzzes I
LeapThrash about
And kick
Kick and
And
I

O

19/05/05

En France

2009-05-04T16:35:00.002+01:00

We trundle metallically from the ferry, and quickly
Lose the ancient Brits in cars like orthopaedic shoes,
And the silent movies of warring children playing on rear windscreens ahead.
Instead we pursue beleaguered Renault vans and,
It’s hard to put my finger on… but something
In the whiskery number-plate font or
The kohl-rimmed window on the tailgate: gradually
We are in France.

Our journey is measured by snooty poplars, which march alongside us,
Through proud decaying deco towns and dun villages,
Replete with smells of cheese and pate and heat as heavy as Le Creuset lids,
To landscape laid with turrets and spires like piled patisserie,
(Where I stop for a crouched pee, and oversized rudderless beetles thrup into me).
We soon adjust to the stifle of nouveau leftovers, the whips and swirls
From some ‘M’ miles away have crept into even utilitarian places –
From the slant of every shutter to cars’ sulky chassis.

When lost, we are met with shrugs and heavy-lidded laissez-faire
From men whose pates flash in the sun-thickened air, reclining
On plastic chairs by faded cafes in town squares.
Going back to the car, none the wiser, my ears try to hang on
To their babble’s velvet knap – so different from tinny brittle Italian –
Until it is lost amid the hammer of wood pigeons and hot burping crickets.

We become blasé about tackling the markets,
Reaping our bounty and avoiding the chicanery of vendors
Seeking a half kilo of English flesh (je suis Écossaise!).
We acclimatize to tea cloyed with UHT, and living poolside. He sneaks in
To absorb satellite sport – Hanson’s slate tones over Crouch’s ostrich pinocchio,
Whilst I am unable to simply baste in my juices,
But fretfully rescue drowning beasties
Before the swifts cut quick diagonals to snatch them from the sharp blue
Or, worse, they stop waving at me and the dimples where their legs dint the surface are still.

When it pisses down, we confer and agree
To a token shuffle around a chateau, so we go
To Chenonceau. A lunch is packed, our tacit accordance regarding
The avoidance of brusque waiters feeding bloody steak to bloody English
(Je suis Écossaise!).
After our gauche English picnic in the car park
There’s a turn around the tailored garden:
Us, creaking squares in waterproofs, performing
A tightly choreographed route round box-seamed lawns, frilled in pink flowers,
Which remind me of distant men in costume dramas,
Encased in ruffs and embroidery, encrusted in lead.
The castle sits upon arches, traversing the river like the hungry caterpillar.
We improve ourselves, viewing Flemish tapestries, cooing with decorum behind ropes
At booty, dragged delicately over seas after some slaughter or other,
Now coiffed to domesticated objects of décor.

We sigh away our final evening in a fug of barbecue and muzzy holiday love,
A swansong of browned fattened flesh.
The sun sets, coaxing out shy colours of in-between shades,
As if a crack in the spectrum were crow-barred and they escape,
As dusk settles, into the fields,
Where insouciant poppies bob, plump-red in the silken corn,
Like a girl’s sleepy forbidden moue.

06/06

Duet

2009-04-30T10:20:00.003+01:00

You knew I’d worm my way inside.
Coffee? Somehow I feel obliged.
After all it’s cold out.
I stomp the soil and snow from my shoes
On the doormat,

Then sprawl out comfy on the sofa
As you plop in lumps of sugar.
No milk, sorry.
You bend down to present the dirty brew.
I take it, meet your eyes, and then you know.

You slide on like a squid, enveloping and slow,
My bellowing hands swallowed by a wall of marshmallow.
It takes a while to find the hole;
An awkward one-handed amateur fiddle,
And an absent stranglehold.

You cram yourself in, face above me white and taut,
Frantic buttocks beating like a moth at a light,
Pumicing breasts with your chin
Until eyes thank God and teeth clamp closed –
I unload.

Off I roll, but you won’t let it lie
And with the knife that cut the cake I drive
Your lustreless face to ecstasy.
Your juices glove me, overflow,
Assault the front-room floor.

23/07/00
First published in The Frogmore Papers, 03/04

Dignity

2009-04-30T10:17:00.002+01:00

After the decision is made, the first thing that’s done
is to thumb the Yellow Pages, which discreetly
cross-references to clinics. Not so bashful,
the double-page spread bulges with boxes; each proclaims
Abortion
in bold.

You are informed by the nurse that you can’t milk it –
back to work the same day. Then
you wait
in a basement lined with women on plastic chairs
who intermittently shuffle to the toilet,
fidget with their hair, or ferret in their bags for
something lost they won’t find there, each crushed
by the weight of her own fecundity.
My turn.

I lie like an up-turned beetle,
legs dangling untidily from tethered ankles.
The Doctor broaches my transposed squat
to numb my cervix with a glot of cream on a spatula.
Then he passes on to whoever is next in the
production line of exposure, leaving me
marooned.

He’s back and
there’s no overture, just
the clang of a metal dish
by my ungainly gape then
a slick excavation like
the final scrawp of the bowl before
you lick the spoon.
I try to squeeze
all my attention upon
the tinny emanation – I think
it’s Lionel Ritchie – and
not on my contraction.
Not the contraction.
He hums along as he makes
a second pass I’ve been alone
with you inside my mind my
outraged womb coaxed
to expel too soon
Hello… is it me you’re looking for
and then a third.
And then it’s done.

A couple of Paracetemol and I’m on my way,
blinking in the daylight, wondering on the bus
if they took an important piece of me?

03/03

Diseased

2009-04-30T10:07:00.000+01:00

It took everything I could have been. It took me.

At university, It ate my brain. They listened politely
While I tried to explain, but everyone was a bit embarrassed
And surprised to recall
Ambulances in secondary school.
They want to push me into the black hole –
Psychiatry, who sucks in all that isn’t His,
And swarms like vultures to pick the flesh from my brains.

When I was little and nobody looked, He saw me
And was my companion.
A twinge here, a stab there, the odd collapse
Was not strange, it was what I knew.
Familiarity breeds – after all, Mars is home for Martians.

I was six when He hollowed me out and moved in;
I was too small for him, then.
Now I seem to contain Him, somehow
Nothing gets out, or at least
Nobody sees,
Just the peak of permanent pregnancy
That dwarves foothill breasts in profile;
Not the pressure that leaves my panting lungs
No space to inflate.

Anyway, as time went by, he moved up and broke
Into my skull and ate my brain,
Scooped big bear pawfuls, smacked His chops,
And left the bees in my head with the rest.

And he gave me, or did I give him?
My own little monstrous envy, oh how it must be
To be at home in a body; to have been me.
Now I live to serve his needs.

And they won’t see.
In science, bees can’t fly .
In 20 years, He’ll be a disease.
In 20 years, it’ll be too late for me.

Cat

2009-04-30T09:57:00.001+01:00

So black
When he shuts his eyes
All black
An absence
God forgot to colour in.
A Galactic density
Whirled
Asleep
In an armchair.
But he’s a fraud.
From the hairs left
In the dint
on my Black velvet
Dress where he was
Nap against nap
You can see he’s dark brown.

06/03

Creating the World

2009-04-30T09:56:00.003+01:00

I have written six poems this week.
Also,
It has been six days since I shat.

I am creating the world.

My belly grows and I get further away.
Revolt.
Fill the page fill the page fill the page

17/11/06

Circumspection

2009-04-30T09:55:00.002+01:00

I couldn’t say what it was
That made a little girl
Shut up.
Some are maybe born quiet.
Stuff slides off their stillness
Because it’s natural, not a process
Of internalising, cramming, keeping, and cherishing it
All. Becoming denser;
A black whole. A process
That began
With simple circumspection
And ends
With cannibalism;
The corrosive cargo has finished the voice and now swallows
You from the inside out – and it ends
With nothing.

22/11/03

The Curse of the Adjective

2009-04-30T09:54:00.004+01:00

I hate them.
They lurk and tempt me
To write badly.
Adjectives:
They’re fucking…

17/11/06

A walk after lunch in the snow

2009-04-30T09:51:00.001+01:00

The world accepts the blizzard’s mute,
Complicit and quiescent.
The ghost of a bird. Creak underfoot.
The warmth and parp are stolen
Even from my redolent fart.

2004

Ablutions

2009-04-30T09:46:00.001+01:00

a.m. the sink

Turn on the taps. Put in the plug.
Adjust flow until temperature is just so.
Examine hollows beneath eyes in mirror.
When basin is full, stop the water.
Rub on soap and ablute vigorously.
After washing, apply make-up – remember those bags –
and do note: less is more.

p.m. the bath

Turn on the taps. Put in the plug.
Select comfortable temperature and proceed
to remove, and fold, clothes. Memorize reflection.
N.B. Do not allow to overflow – be mindful of the clean-up
tomorrow. Climb in. Recline.
To prevent mess on the tiles, keep limbs confined.
Open vein lengthways and allow to drain till hollow.

06/03

The African Burial Ground

2009-04-30T09:45:00.009+01:00

to those who built Manhattan

everything depends
upon

the black en-
slaved

paved with lash
scars

beneath the white
money

20/05/03
First published in Orbis May '04

I don’t usually expand on my work, but for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on, I’m inclined to make an exception in this case. It’s one of my favourite pieces.

In short, I was inspired by a fascinating documentary on the recently discovered African burial ground in Manhattan. It seemed a really good tool to highlight the ridiculousness of society’s attitudes to race and immigration, underpinned as they are by flawed ideas about who ‘belongs’ and who’s an incomer. I was excited by the physical presence of remains showing people of African origin to have been in the US from the very moment Europeans were.

This I collided with the iconic William Carlos Williams poem ‘The Red Wheelbarrow’; kind of an American poetic institution:

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens

Williams’s writing is textbook perfection - delicate juxtaposition of detail; first line emphasizing the importance of the precisely focussed image; the mirroring of the wheelbarrow’s actual use in the language; the line breaks controlling how we see the scene, mimicking the manner in which our brain attends visually, etc. ¹

However, I have reservations about the brand of realism showcased in this type of work. I admire the virtuosic precision, which appeals to my own slightly autistic tendencies, but I am wary of an inherent self-referential vacuousness. Poetry that is about poetry. Or even writing that is geared purely to show how well you write, when what is written - the content - is weightless. It’s a concern that pops up with regularity in my work (Malkovich, Real Big Poems, and Behind the White Picket Fence immediately come to mind) and also dovetails with my further post-structuralist worries regarding language, communication, and epistemology (poncy language aside, that’s a wee mission statement for another day!).

I am aware that I am consistent in my inconsistency. I am so seduced by ideas and conceptual celtic knots. I take such pleasure in the craftsmanship of a philosophy - how is it rendered? How have they subverted the medium with which the idea is transmitted? How beautifully is it expressed? How many layers of the onion can I peel? That is what has always delighted me in writing, and in intellectual pursuits. It’s like a game. But it is belied by a nagging anxiety I can’t ignore - is there substance? Is there a wisdom that can be revealed in this manner, or do we beaver with language and concept in a universe that is frustratingly parallel yet never intersects. In truth, I have come to suspect that all art is only ever about its creator and art itself and, as artists, strive as we might to communicate actual content, we can only fool ourselves in this regard. What I put into the world may be a political piece on racism - what the world receives can only be an attitude to politics and to art, embodied in an offering.

Thus, in this poem, I attempt a little artistic rebellion against my own reluctantly-held belief, and deceive myself that I make a meaningful point. (I do keep writing my futile little poems with tragic disregard that they can’t escape their medium and limitations. But how else am I to speak to you?)

Anyway - the poem references the Williams word for word, taking the same degree of precision and accuracy, a respectful pastiche, but with the (attempted? deluded?) addition of meaningful content outwith the self-referential context of writing, making the political point about African American ‘belonging’ (as well as expressing the wider concerns about the nature of art and poetry expressed above).

(I find the above process of expressing these kind of ideas longhand tortuous and painful. I still have to miss out a lot. And at the end I realize how dismally my inarticulate prose fails at communicating. Is it any wonder I express myself in poetry? I can distill worlds of complexity to a tiny near-perfected nugget, just as the ideas are in my head, before I bastardize them by rendering to a communicable medium. The problem is, unless I build a window and explain one from time to time, I suspect they’re hopelessly opaque to you, the world of minds at large...)

¹ nods to Matthew Sweeney and John Hartley Williams, whom I am sure I must have paraphrased here.

Here’s the gist of the documentary about the recently-discovered African burial ground in Manhattan:

Most people are unaware of the city’s history of slavery, and the discovery of the burial ground hightlighted that this wasn’t just something that happened in the South, and not just on the plantations, but in the North, and in the city. The black presence in NY goes back right to the very beginning, indeed to before it was NY. They were there building a society and were essential in building the economy.

Many black people are made to feel as if they have no roots in NY, or N America. In fact they were here from the start; they were the early builders of many US cities. Ironically, the first immigrant to the shores of Manhattan was a black slave, dropped off by the Dutch to claim the land (it became New Amsterdam).

It was, from the beginning, built for profit. The Dutch West Indian Company came to trade for furs. The marshy wilderness was hard to cultivate and labour was in short supply, so they imported slaves. Black slaves working for the Dutch West Indian Company could be granted freedom when they had worked for 20 years, or they could gain it by fighting against the Indians – then they were given a small plot of land. For a period of time there was a small population of free black people. However, the British soon put paid to that when they took control (rebranding the city New York), requiring the slave trade for their expanding empire.

The sheer number of slaves in NY made their masters nervous. This fear led to the slave codes, which were laws designed to control every aspect of a slave’s life. One of the harshest of these laws forbid enslaved Africans to be buried in the graveyard of Trinity Church in Manhattan (even though they had built it!). This was when the African burial ground was established. The enslaved Africans could not hope for freedom through Christianity, either. The Colonies were always debating whether slaves should be baptized. Some felt that if they were read the ‘right passages’ of the bible this would be a good thing – they could be encouraged to obey their masters. Others felt that reading the bible may be problematic – what if they stumble across the story of Moses? There was much legal debate about this in the 1670s-90s. Eventually it was written into law that the baptism of a slave did not alter their status. By baptising them, you were not making them Christians, but ‘Christianizing’ them – teaching them about the role of Christianity, yet they could not partake of it. There was now the situation whereby white Christians could own black Christians as slaves. (Note that Christianity is not the distinguishing element here – it is not religion but race. And gotta love self-serving legal semantics: ‘Christianizing’, indeed!)

Under the Dutch, slaves could work their way to freedom, be granted land, and even be buried in Dutch churches. But under the English, slavery became institutionalized, and outlets to freedom were blocked.

By the late C18th, almost half the white households in NY had slaves. Then came 1776, the American revolution, and the Declaration of Independence. It speaks of freedom for all Americans – all Americans except slaves, that is. Jefferson said “All men are created equal”, but what he meant was that he believed in equality for white men.

Black people were caught up in the war from the very beginning. The British were quick to offer slaves their freedom if they would fight for the king. George Washington, the commander of the patriot forces didn’t want black in his army. He noticed whites and blacks mixing together as soldiers in the opposing forces and could not accept this. He pushed for congress to ban blacks from the military. As the war went on, Washington’s objections were overtaken by the desperate need for manpower – freedom was on offer to any slave who joined the patriot cause. So there were blacks fighting on both sides. Washington’s decision to let black men join up was an important tactical turning point in the war – the patriots began to take the upper hand. Without black soldiers, Washington would not have won the war.

Slavery ended in NY in 1827, after the brutal civil war. The African burial ground had continued to be used until 1792. By the early 1800s, the cemetery was lost under the new metropolis and the black community was pushed further North to Harlem. There are no monuments to the people who built this city. There are statues of George Washington, and the founding fathers, and early white settlers, etc. Artist Frank Bender is making [has probably now made] a memorial sculpture dedicated to those who lay in the African burial ground, using facial reconstruction of 3 of the skulls to form the basis of the work. It will be put in the building that now stands on top of where the bones were found. The human remains are being put in coffins from Ghana and buried behind the building in the small portion of the African burial ground that still remains.

After I Turn the Light Off

2009-04-30T09:42:00.002+01:00

She Curls up,
A comma on the bed, and says
To no one
Please love me.

10/03

Amnesia

2009-04-29T11:07:00.004+01:00

We parted, then.
Then I knew her intimately,
Biblically.
While victors craft their histories
I scrawl a mockery of her face
With a crayon.
More than her cheeks have more than a hint of rose.
She’s still leaving me.

Others are left too,
But left with
A face,
Indelible as a Cheshire Cat.
She was colourful, I’m sure of that.
The past was my mistress.
Aah, the times we had when I had her
And we both had time.

Each grain on her powdered face is
A tear
Meticulously dried, a taxonomy of sorrow.
And I can feel her, oh yes, her breath
Freezes my chest –
Condenses, a mist
My roots fix.
I can’t see her.

My past is a painted Geisha,
Hair high and dry, arms akimbo,
Kimono enfolding her skeleton and her secrets
And I see her in the distance
Make-up blurring to a rainbow
– She is bobbing
Goodbye.
She’s always leaving me.

16/02/01
First Published in Orbis, May '04

Billy Snaps

2009-04-29T10:35:00.005+01:00

Billy snaps:
she’s tethered to the open moment,
buttocks prized, backward glance;
focus not on anaesthetized eyes,
but the depthless face.

Billy breaks a sweat; Big Mike snaps
his fingers: Stop.
Someone brings biscuits and fat glasses festooned with dewdrops.
The boys eye their cards, jean crotches lolling, smokes cocked on their lips.
Billy mops

his brow, shuffling shots; Big Mike notes
You’ve captured her.
She’s sunk on the bed, sucking
juice from a straw, in a waking nap.
She doesn’t look up.

And it’s go again; More lube, make it snappy.
Big Mike grasps a prop; Billy’s lens stops short
of those eyes, and their drugged twanging deepness.
Big Mike plunges and it sounds like soup, slaps and sucks,
and he snaps: Crocodile tears so Billy snaps
and Big Mike’s done, Let’s wrap; Billy holsters the camera, proffers a tissue,
and looks at her,
and she smiles,
and Billy snaps.

29/09/05

The Bridal Salon

2009-04-29T10:32:00.008+01:00

Every day I dust the dummy arms –
a pair of arms on the floor that stretch, fingers erect, sheathed in sequined satin.
Breathless women peer in, picturing their own limbs trussed thus,
their torsos corseted, legs swaddled in rustling petticoats.

I um and ah as they twist their necks to scintillate tiaras.
“Divine”, I murmer, lacing them in, hauling tight enough to leave them winded,
then slink off as they glint in the mirror before triumphantly presenting.

As the assembly bestow approval, I dust, and can’t help conjuring up
a girl,
petrified,
left in an oubliette,
filled in with cement.
Eureka.

One day, after cashing up, when the hard rolls of notes have gone upstairs in bags,
the portcullis grate is heavy-lidded, and only the last light is on,
I will rescue those fossilized arms that implore from the floor,
and, far from here, compensate some semi-naked classical femme, missing something.

Every day, as I bundle the fat wads and turn out the light,
I chuckle at the thought of noble white marble with plastic prosthetics.
Then I turn the key and lock her in.

21/10/05

Burning Towers

2009-04-29T10:03:00.004+01:00

Burning towers boxed safely in the TV
Repeated endlessly etching
Grooves deeper in
fascinated

02/06/06

What Ho, Fellow Colonizers

2009-04-28T19:01:00.002+01:00

I am in Sri Lanka, in case any enquiring minds were wondering. I had intended to post back wee reports from the front, but the internet connection is none too friendly here. I’ll be back with you all next week anyhow, but it still seemed worth dropping a quick note. Apart from anything else, there have been a couple of bombs whilst we’re here, which probably didn’t get reported internationally, but in case they did: relax – am still alive it would appear. Although even as a sequestered tourist, you can’t help notice the intermittent gun towers and constant presence of armed soldiers – a bit unnerving. Apparently one gets stopped often by the police, but in fact this is usually because they want a lift.

Jez is good – a bit pink and stripey after an accident involving a snooze and variable shade on the sun lounger on day 2. This has proved fruitful ground for keeping me entertained, so I feel it was a happy accident, although he may disagree. I have remained cheerfully white under a permanent cement mix of factor a-gazillion. I am ok too, despite a coldsore, which feels grosser to me than is outwardly apparent – I feel I should have somebody go before me with a bell crying “Unclean: Unclean”. And I know the question on all of your lips: Yes, I have managed to poo. On day 4, no less, which is very good showing for a long-haul Annabee.

It’s been quite a weird holiday. Good experience to have seen Sri Lanka – amazing country. Hotel a sort of tourist compound/stalag, with gates and little men in berets and many (I imagine) self-awarded medals walk around with torches. Am not sure who they’re trying to protect us from, but locals hound us with trinkets from the beach fence nevertheless. There are not many guests here at the moment – a tough year – but it means one is constantly hovered at. They are very nice, and very helpful, but the concept of privacy is not known here. I’m also kicking myself for not learning my mantra of “I am allergic to dairy” (which I can now say in Portuguese, Greek, Spanish, Italian, French…) in Singhalese, cos it mostly induces a blank look, followed by the presentation of some dairy-laden dish. Meals are also served to tinny renditions of ABBA in Singhalese on the radio, apart from Saturday nights, when we are treated to a pub singer with a Casio keyboard circa 1986 (beats and all). Impressively he appeared to have learned all the lyrics phonetically, by which mangling allowed songs I thought I knew to take on a whole new light. “Please Release Me” and “My Way” will never be quite the same again.

The TV’s only English channel is a snow-filmed Al Jazeera, which I’ve really been enjoying. It’s nice to see news and comment with a more global perspective. I think I may take to watching it at home if I ever get satellite, although it does remind me of Dad’s visits, where any time you turn on the TV it is pre-set to some 24 hour news channel or other. Music-wise I’ve mostly been listening to Kris Drever on my ipod, and become increasingly convinced that he’s the singer/songwriter of his generation. Bizarrely, his music seems to go perfectly with the landscape here. I keep wondering if it’s ever crossed his mind that someone is listening to his music in Sri Lanka. Am sure the absurdity would surprise and please him.

We are right on a conservation beach, so I got to release baby turtles into the sea at sundown, which I have to say was pretty special. Also went in a glass bottomed boat right above many wizened turtles. They are big and old and somehow give off a sage vibe as they chomp seaweed obliviously. Had a great river safari, and got up close and personal with monitor lizards, which was rather like slipping through a wormhole to several million years BC – they are the most prehistoric things I’ve seen outside sci fi movies and expensive BBC reconstruction documentaries about dinosaurs. Also went on a lagoon trip on one of the catamarans that the locals use around here, which are basically a plastic hollow tube, tied by way of two branches and some rope to a large parallel log. I got to sit at the front and feel intrepid by sweeping aside creepers in the mangrove swamps, and ducking as we went under railway bridges, coming eyeball to eyeball with the aforementioned monitor lizards, who appear to co-exist in prehistoric harmony with the modern mobile-phone wielding people.

It rains a lot – apparently monsoon is a bit early this year. It pleases me, but Jez hates it. We get a dramatic storm every night. Feels like sitting in an amphitheatre watching the Gods rumble. Keep expecting popcorn and ice-hockey organ.

Driving is certainly an experience (and not one I would embark on myself). If you’ve ever seen footage of Calcutta, it’s much similar. About 17 pieces of traffic abreast on a two lane road. Trucks overtaking cars overtaking hay-lorries overtaking tuk-tuks overtaking mopeds overtaking bikes overtaking pedestrians overtaking dogs – all at once, as thin cows roam the entire carriageway with impunity. It’s rather like dodgems without the bumping. I learnt quickly to close my eyes and go to my special place. Entire families of four regularly pile ant-hill-mob-style on the back of a single moped – eventually one stops cringing every time a baby goes by perched in the handlebars. Mostly we’ve ridden about in tuk-tuks, sharing the odd coconut with a straw in it.

If you’re a bit, er, delicate like me, it’s actually a really difficult place to be. There’s a high degree of poverty, particularly after the tsunami and, as with many Asian countries, you are constantly pestered to buy things. Everybody waves and smiles as they pass, and mostly that’s genuine goodwill – they are a really lovely people – but also many are trying to reel you into conversation to get something from you. The beggars will tear your heart out, and learning that you simply can’t give to everyone is a lesson I’m perhaps not yet tough enough to take on board. You just feel sort of futile and guilty and frustrated. I veer from being irritated that I am besieged every time I leave the hotel, to feeling like a guilty corn-fed westerner and buying mercy tat that I don't want, whilst trying not to mourn my lost anonymity.

It’s not very relaxing, actually. I feel quite on edge all the time because I literally can’t just ‘be’ anywhere, either in the hotel or without. In fact, you can’t really leave the hotel without a guide of some sort. I find that I go to bed and have anxiety dreams about being in a big cage, pursued by tuk-tuks and turtles. (Just to add to my ongoing terror about the global economic situation and whether we’ll all end up standing for 4 days outside soup kitchens for stale crusts - Al Jazeera gleefully keeps me abreast of things lest I should forget whilst I'm away.)

There is a real culture of service here, which I guess is nice, but makes me feel quite uncomfortable at times. There is the whiff of servility about it, and one feels there is not nearly so much resentment about the colonialization as there should be. You have to tip everyone for everything, which for someone who feels a bit awkward about tipping a taxi driver at home, is moderately excruciating. I eventually got over myself – I mean, they’re just glad of the money, and who cares about my delicate social sensibilities? But when you do start becoming au fait with it, you really do start to feel like some kind of colonial God. (Remember that scene with C3PO and the ewoks…?)

I’ve been doing a little opportunistic photojournalism as well as the usual annabee satire and travel oeuvre, just to dip my toe in the water, and am moderately pleased with the results. I talked to people about the tsunami and took some pictures. It's a type of work that suits me, being a rather political person, and always keen to talk to people about their culture and political situation. It’ll take a while to process as I won’t tackle it before I get a new PC, but will post eventually on my website (along with more typical Annabee travel output).

On a contrastingly frivolous note, I had an ayurvedic facial, which was actually very good, although much of it consisted of a small Singhalese man manually picking my spots. This meant I couldn’t stop giggling for the duration, which left the poor man rather non-plussed.

I managed to read a whole book whilst I was here, so I can feel virtuous about that. And it didn’t have either pictures, or entirely comprise sudokus. I’ve been saving up my Douglas Coupland, and it duly performed, proving to be exactly as inspiring as I wanted it to be, and now it’s gone I feel slightly bereft and disinclined to start another. Always the mark of a good book when no other book will do.

Anyway – that’s the news from the roving Annabee. Back before you know it.

First posted on Facebook, 19th October 2008

Snow Days

2009-04-26T19:03:00.000+01:00

The news from the Annabee front: Went to Celtic Connections. Had time of my life. Is unutterably shit to be home. Got snowed in. Sledged. Got withering glances from children too old to sledge.

Strange few days watching people trying to dig their vehicles out of drives, or abandoning cars mid-journey at the sort of jaunty angles that we British are usually loathe to do. (When was the last time you saw a car not at a nice crisp right-angle? Why is it that depresses me? But then I am the sort of person who makes it their policy to drive around supermarket carparks against the arrows’ diktats. My own little suburban rebellion...) My whole estate is like a giant slush puppy. (They’re not called that anymore, are they? They’ve been raped by rebranding and given names like ‘Ice Blast’, and sterilized by having all the real sugar removed, and forced to dwell only with cinema junk food.) Anyway, as I’ve been watching my neighbours’ futile revving from my desk at the window, I too have been spinning my wheels. (Gie us a fucking job, mate. Go on...)

There’s that strange air of deflation that happens after snow, and its clean excitement, have left the party, and you are left only with sludgy dregs and come down. I think there is a collective recognition that snow engenders a kind of child-like abandon. Even in a quiet British adult sort of way. People start talking to each other again - even in London, where we all tacitly acknowledge the massive invisible sheet of cling film we must puncture if we are to communicate with ‘strangers’. Snow is a clean white leveller - it makes the landscape uniform, and bright, and strangely happy, and it takes away unfriendly human impositions like flat surfaces and right-angles. I think it has a similar subconscious resonance. Just for a day or two we get a friendly blanket over all the dark nasty stuff of humanity, of life, grit, emotion, and subconscious - we get a free pass of clean start, sins temporarily pardoned. And we embrace it, euphorically. God, but we need it, no? Fucking wasps...

And then the slush and come-down.

First posted on Facebook, 7th February 2008

Irony vs. Sincerity - Behind the White Picket Fence

2009-02-14T13:46:00.000Z

I’m now completely distracted from my work by the thread about irony vs. sincerity that ensued from my status update.

I started by mocking my own lack of irony when listening to power ballads, but ended up issuing a call to arms for the post-modern generation to stop feeling ashamed to be genuine. It was, of course, quite hypocritical, given that my opening gambit was in that vein of humour (although it also began to express my growing conflicted attitude towards it…).

I’m a hypocrite, of course, because I’m never short of a smart remark myself, but I can’t help but feel that there’s a real fear behind the fun – it’s more than a style of banter, it’s a way of interacting with the world for our generation. Or rather, of not interacting with it.

A few things have got me mulling this topic recently; for example, a recent minor tiff with a friend of mine. I was unable to attend a dance event she’d sent a group invitation for, and instead of politely refusing I couldn’t resist gently mocking the high-brow nature of the event (and underlining my lack of interest in this area). Much to my surprise my friend took great umbrage. I was duly apologetic, but I couldn’t decide if I was being in some way mean-spirited, or simply communicating in the style that people of our generation and education-level do. I knew there was no malice in what I said – I was just being myself – and I knew if I took a straw poll most people would have been surprised at her offence, and recognized that I was just trying to be smart. Yet part of me thought she had a point. We are often much more interested in showing everyone how witty we are, than in actually talking to them. We are more interested in our style of communication than in actually communicating. (I am still pleased with what I said, despite the saga that ensued because, hey, it was funny, and that’s the important thing!)

Another thing I keep noticing is that, however frustrating the naifness of some of my American acquaintances is (and may I take pains to point out that I am not tarring all with same brush) there is some merit to a lack of cynicism. That optimism and an irritating lack of self-doubt actually gets things accomplished. We might be ever-so-sophisticated in our analysis, and suitably open to self-doubt, but we’re, frankly, a whole lot less effective. Clearly I’m not about to morph into Ned Flanders – I will always be the depressed sucker who opts for truth over happiness – but I feel less keen to mock the Flanderses out there, because they’re probably achieving a lot more in real terms in the world than me. I have a grudging respect (and jealousy) for those who are not riddled with self-doubt and who live in a simpler world than me.

Recently I was at a wedding where everybody was asked to contribute a comment about the happy couple, which would then be incorporated into a speech. It worked well, and was warm and very funny. What was notable from my point of view is that I was literally the only person who contributed a sincere (i.e., not funny) comment. When asked at the start to think of something to contribute, my first reaction was a stab of anxiety – what if I can’t think of anything funny to say? What if every one else’s is funny and mine isn’t? I suspect not all of that is my neurosis – I’d bet there’s an extent to which everybody else was thinking the same. It was like some kind of gauntlet thrown down to prove that you were as witty as everyone else. As cool, as desirable, etc. I decided quite quickly that whilst I was probably up to the challenge of saying something that would have brought a smile, I would bravely experiment with being sincere and saying something that would be meaningful both to me, and the groom (my friend). Much to my surprise I was the only person who did so. Part of me did feel silly, and inferior, and like I had opted out of the challenge, and like others would mock me for being sincere, or that privately they would think I was incapable of producing something funny, or that I was a humourless person, etc etc. But I also felt quite proud and brave to have eschewed my initial urge to hide my feelings behind humour in that coy British way. We are so emotionally prudish!

I have this sense that it’s a way for people to distinguish themselves from the masses. The masses are sincere, the masses watch Trisha with a straight face, the masses don’t know that Top Gun is really gay, the masses listen to 80s power ballads and enjoy them without irony. But I have a distaste for the Trisha-watching masses. I am apart from that, I am cleverer than that, I am ‘in’ on something they are not. Therefore I will be funny and people will know that I am not the masses, and I will distinguish myself accordingly. That is the thought process underpinning all of this, I think.

Take channel 4’s ‘yoof’ programming, for example – you always feel like there’s an in-joke. The gist of this presenting/programming style is to make you feel part of it (graced to be included), in a way that an older, less media-savvy generation never could. But there’s something nasty and clichy and smart-arsed about it, too. It’s about feeling that there’s some joke going on at somebody’s expense, and you’d better be in on it, in case it’s you. And it’s a social competition to be part of some higher echelon of those with an exquisitely nuanced media sophistication – those who can step back and see the layer upon layer of once-removed self-conscious medium-conscious parodic post-modernism, the like of which you don’t see in either Europe or the U.S. It is something I used to revel in at a formative time, when I began to understand how excited I was by ideas. And there’s a real teenager-ish part of me that’s still excited by it, and still wants to be cool enough to be apart enough from the herd to get the in-joke, and still thinks Joyce is the greatest writer, and is ashamed to admit to liking power ballads without a distancing irony, etc. etc. (Why does everything boil down to still wanting to be the coolest kid in the playground, no matter how old we get…?) But I think it is a more mature part of me that thinks: “This is wank”. There’s a fundamental hollowness about it. It’s cleverness for cleverness’s sake, and after you’ve gotten over the intricate Celtic knot of it, and the self-congratulation, there’s no content.

Maybe I’m just old enough to have acquired enough wisdom to realize that content is the important stuff. I want real. I want stuff. Not just clever hot air. I want to be ok with expressing something genuine, without looking over my shoulder for fear of being mocked, without dressing it in qualifications and caveats to buffer and preclude that mocking. I want to connect to real people, goddamnit, and maybe even have them connect to real me. And whilst I don’t want to be in danger of turning into a humourless lump, I don’t want to be constantly sabotaging that possibility of intimacy by hiding behind ubiquitous snide condescending distancing humour. Is that wisdom, or just foolhardiness? The reality, of course, is that I will continue to be a smart-arse, and make witticisms in the hope the world will see how funny I am, and hopefully not see all of the despoiled reality I wish to hide. The human need for self-presentation and image-management is one of my own peculiar obsessions that constantly finds an out one way or another in my work. The whole ‘behind the white picket fence’ thing is a real recurring theme for me. The disparity between the primal creature inside (and whatever dirty earthy urges that comprises) and the tailored suit and shiny shiny shoes that are presented to the world (and the deference we accord that!). Why are we so ashamed of our fundamental humanity? I can’t help thinking about all of us - all these people living in their own hermetic internal world, lonely and desperate to make a connection. Longing for intimacy, for sincerity. All so afraid of being mocked that being openly sincere is out of the question. God forbid we reveal something of ourselves to the cruel world at large. The long slow dance we perform before letting people see what’s under the skin, when that’s all we truly desire. It’s a sad irony, huh?

Btw – Heart’s ‘Alone’ is the most listened-to song on my ipod. And I say that to you in sincerity and without shame. Well – ok – maybe just a bit of shame (and whether I’m sincere or not, is anyone’s guess…)

First posted on Facebook, 6th November 2008

Making Models

2009-01-24T16:05:00.001Z

Today I observed, yet again, a slightly lost-looking young girl standing like a lamb to the slaughter, semi-naked, in front of a room full of (mostly) middle-aged men. I thought to myself, as I have on many previous occasions at these photography tradeshows, what a miserable job being a model is.

They need someone young and firm for the demonstration of some technique or other; she, presumably, needs to show face where her agent sends her – all high hopes, and willingness to do whatever’s required.

She looked uncomfortable – a little scared, even. She did not look strong and empowered and like she enjoyed the attention. Yet.

By the time they’ve knocked the innocence out of her, and carved her into the part-woman part-pre-pubescent-girl that seems to please our ravenous society, she’ll be cynical, hardened, and narcissistic. She’ll have learnt over and over that her worth lies in her looks; that much, if not all of what she is, comprises her appearance. She will believe that her value – her power, her earning ability in cold hard numbers, her social standing – lies in her physical beauty. And then she will revel in her perceived superiority – the woman others want to be; the woman boys want to fuck. She’ll revel in her power, in being prized, in being the trophy. Whilst underneath, everyday, she will be panicking as one more wrinkle appears, and her breasts begin an inevitable descent, and she has to run an extra mile to stop her periods re-starting.

She’ll panic because we’ve told her that is who she is (all she is), and why she is important. Without her beauty she will believe she is nothing. Then we will deplore her desperate attempts to stay young – we will mock her botox and plastic surgery. We will create a monster, and then loathe it.

Women will always have hated her. And the sort of men with whom she will have surrounded herself will have no further use for her.

I saw, standing up there, a person young enough to be still half-formed. Personality yet to be confirmed, like a baby’s skull before the soft bit has sealed up. And even as I watch, she becomes a piece of meat in front of hungry eyes. Some inner essence or other being bled from her, rendering her blank enough for mass appeal. So she will be primed: ready and willing and open wide when everybody’s fantasies are thrust upon her.

It baffles me that people aspire to this. Ranks of girls ready to throw themselves from the trenches. Sometimes I hate my job.

When I worked with my first anorexic model, half of me wanted to hold her, tell her she was beautiful even with food inside her, yell at her: ‘for crying out loud, don’t mistake thinness for self-worth’. Whilst part of me thought I’d undergone a right of passage – I must be a real photographer now I’ve worked with a bona fide anorexic.

First posted on Facebook, 18th January 2009