A Very Very Very Dark Matter explained

What on earth is A Very Very Very Dark Matter about?

I have loved everything by Martin McDonagh I have seen so far, in order: The Beauty Queen of Leenane (at Young Vic), In Bruges, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. All this created high hopes for McDonagh's new play, at the nearly-new Bridge Theatre on the south bank of the Thames near Tower Bridge in London. However, I walked out of the play completely flummoxed: I'd watched ninety minutes of a racist childrens' writer and a foul-mouthed novelist and couldn't understand what it was all for.

In my bafflement I pleaded with a member of the bar staff, "Have you seen the play? What on earth links Hans Christian Anderson and the Belgian massacre in the Congo?"

She told me that she had no clue either. I suspect she just wanted me to work it out for myself. Perhaps Martin has told everyone at the Bridge not to give the punters an easy way out.

After a couple of nights sleeping on it: here's what I think it's about:

Hegemony

The play is about the lasting effect of colonialism, and western economic and military dominance generally, on arts and culture.

The narrative focuses on Hans Christian Anderson, and to a lesser extent Charles Dickens. They are two celebrated writers, still widely read 150 years later. This is because they were great writers, which is widely acknowledged, but also because they lived in powerful rich western nations, which is perhaps less acknowledged.

The could have been other, just as talented, artists living elsewhere but they did not, and do not now, enjoy the same success and exposure as Anderson and Dickens. For example, the greatest author at the time might have been a Pygmy woman living in the Congo. Hans Christian Anderson did not literally steal his work from a Congolese Pygmy but he might well have stolen her cultural prominence through the mechanism of Western military and economic dominance which excluded the voices of non-western artists.

The play deals in part with the genocide committed by Belgian troops in the Congo in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, some eighteen years after Anderson's death. The violence and economic extraction  of those events are the obvious features of empire, but McDonagh wants to expand on that and tell us about the cultural effect of empire.

History is written by the victors. McDonagh is telling us that the victor also gets to dominate arts and culture. To take an example: India's most prominent artistic symbol, the Taj Mahal, was created, and is a lasting monument to an oppressive colonial regime*.

In the real world, ghosts go unheeded

Anderson's racism and dismissiveness of the true author reflects the general attitude of entitlement of the rich west to the cultural centre-stage. He is deliberately ludicrous: McDonagh lampoons his, and by extension, the West's outrageous divisiveness of the rest of the world, and its creative output. Anderson has a similar function to  Sacha Baron-Cohen's absurd Borat when he is used to ridicule anti-semites.

Anderson sees apparitions of Belgian soldiers. This mirrors Scrooge's dreams in A Christmas Carol (neatly by Dickens) and there are three time periods in the story: the first act, the second act ten years later, and the massacre eighteen years after that representing a horrific, avoidable future. The killing of ten million people is a gruesome real-world amplification of Christmas Yet To Come. Unlike Scrooge, and despite the far greater evil, Anderson does not repent. As a result, 'Marjory' must take up arms to resist her oppressors.

McDonagh is making a point about the tragic difference between morality tales (neatly by both authors) and real life. In the real world, people fail to repent, mistakes are repeated infinitely and real suffering is the result.

Controlling the means of production

The Belgians took the hands of people in the Congo to punish them for not producing sufficient rubber. This has symbolic resonance as hands are often the means of artistic production as well. There is a myth that the hands of workers who created the Taj Mahal had their hands cut off to stop them producing anything as beautiful again: the coloniser is able both to project his own culture and then throttle the culture of others.

The heavy symbolism continues as 'Marjory' receives a machine gun hidden inside an accordion to fight the oppressive soldiers. This blunt instrument** of a prop-metaphor has an artistic instrument literally being used as a weapon***. Amidst global power-struggles, a medium of entertainment becomes a tool of violence. The gun is given to her by another marginalised group: 'gypsies'. Perhaps McDonagh is suggesting that oppressed groups can work together against Western cultural hegemony.

Rhodes must fall, but that must only be the start

The play ends by telling us about the statues of King Leopold II in Belgium. This is an example of a western nation's continued unwillingness to discuss the negative impacts of empire, and doing so through the use of art and cultural symbolism. Tearing down some statues is clearly not enough but it might be a good start. If we can start to reject the permanence of imperial left-overs and make our own decisions about the cultural landscape, perhaps we can do so from a more enlightened and inclusive viewpoint.



* I am aware that this doesn't fit the West-as-oppressor theme but a) it's a neat image, b) there have been plenty of non-western empires and it seems narrow-minded to ignore that, and c) I wanted it to work with the call-back later on.

** ;)

*** I wrote this before reading any of the reviews for the play. I wanted to form my own opinion. As I result, I missed the even more obvious prop joke. Michael Billington in the Guardian notes that Charles Dickens has a LITERAL SKELETON IN HIS CLOSET. Facepalm.

Short Fiction: Your Shape

I come home this evening and climbed the stairs of my empty house to reach my bedroom. Opening the door I am surprised to see the duvet heaped on the left side of bed as though a person were stretched out underneath. It could be you. It could be you lying under that duvet. There on your side, dozing and waiting for me. As long as I don’t disturb the covers the illusion is real and you remain, sharing the room with me as you sleep. I reach out to touch your hip, to wake you and let you know I’m here. My hand hovers above the duvet, a layer between your skin and mine. I smile, anticipating the contact, the pleasant warmth of awakening. My hand lands and the duvet yields and collapses. It deflates, cold and empty.

Review: London Library

I don’t like to get sentimental about books. I mean – I don’t like to think of myself as someone who gets sentimental about books as physical objects*. It’s so whimsical, so twee to romanticise the block of printed paper held between cardboard covers. That thing in itself is just a transmission method. Plenty of us enjoy cinema but we’re unlikely to obsess about the reels of Polaroid (or whatever it’s made of. It’s not worth looking up). What excites us, rightly, is the stories, characters and ideas that the medium delivers to us.

It’s the same with e-readers. ‘They don’t smell like a book’, ‘You can’t crack the spine’, ‘It’s not like the real thing’. These phrases come from people that don’t like books as much as what they’re printed on. Should we not celebrate the things that make Virginia Woolf different to Lee Child, rather than the thing that makes her the same?

I could make this argument all day but Alan Bennett sums it up beautifully in the Headmaster’s trite eulogy to Hector in The History Boys:

‘He loved language; he loved words. For each and every one of you, his pupils, he opened a deposit account in the bank of literature and made you all shareholders in that wonderful world of words.’

With his absurd metaphor, the headmaster exposes his lack of understanding about the value of literature. Just as books are a medium, so are words.

I’ve yet to mention London Library but I thought I’d try to give some perspective with a framing-device (a technique of literature and not of book-binding, I should note).

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London Library is on the corner of St James Square, just North of Pall Mall and South of Piccadilly. With the East India Club on one side and Chatham House on the other, it completes a trinity of august institutions around the North and West sides of the square. Inside, it is an architectural hotchpotch: dark-varnished wood in places, institutional white-washed walls in others due the gradual evolution of the building. It has been repeatedly extended (both side-ways and upwards), with the interruption of World War II bombs, resulting in a delightfully confusing maze. As the collection has grown, and space become scarcer, the librarians have been forced to expand outwards and upwards.  Three further floors are currently being added to one section and a tiny courtyard has been covered in glass to create a delightful reading room.

For all its change, London Library is all about permanence.  ‘Nothing is thrown away’ was our guide’s oft-repeated mantra. In this place, history is palpable, not pulpable**. The ‘book-stacks’ – a phrase that rings with ageless strength to my mind – are Victorian. The best technology available at the time to maintain even humidity and heat (vital to preserve the books) was to replace solid floors with wide grills, allowing the air to circulate vertically. The result is that the browser, whilst tightly enclosed by the shelves either side of him, can see through several floors above and beneath: a strange twisting of perspective.

The library precedes the wide-spread use of the Dewey-Decimal system. As a result, books are organised by category and then alphabetically resulting in odd juxtaposition of titles, particularly in the wonderfully wide-scoped ‘Science and Miscellaneous‘ section. Apparently it is haven of serendipity for blocked writers.

Our guide referred to the ‘old and special’ books being locked away in a separate space. I couldn’t help but imagine the magical tomes in Terry Pratchett’s Unseen University library, chained up for the protection of browsers due to their violent inclinations. She went on to say that these books could not be taken out. My suspicions were confirmed.

We were told that, due to the structure of the bookshelves built into the walls, and sheer weight of the amassed books, if all the books were taken away the walls would cave in and the building would collapse. It’s so wonderfully magical that I was more than willing to suspend disbelief and live with that possibility. With its purpose removed, the living structure would capitulate to gravity and give up – like an elderly couple whose lives are so centred around one-another that one passing shortly precedes another.

The books and the building have a symbiotic relationship. Just as the building provides shelter and a stable environment for the books, the books lend their strength to the building, holding it upright.

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It would be lazy to leave my frame disassembled. For all my cynicism, London Library is gorgeously romantic. If Anthony Powell was right and Books do Furnish a Room***, the library is finely appointed, a triumph of interior design.

Tours are available on Monday evenings and are free. Call 020 7766 4704 to book.

*Mutatis mutandis x 2

**I’m so sorry about this.

*** I actually have no idea what he meant by this. If you’ve made it through ten volumes of A Dance to the Music of Time, do let me know.

Drink-along Chekhov

Some people find Chekhov a little.. slow. I’m confident the below could turn any Cherry Orchard into a Cheery Orchard.

· Drink every time someone brings in a samovar.
· Drink if there’s a doctor.
· Drink if there are soldiers.
· Drink if someone drinks (obv).
· Drink every time someone complains about the heat or cold.
· Drink every time someone worries about money.
· Drink every time someone worries about trees.
· Drink if someone kisses someone they shouldn’t.
· Drink every time someone attempts to prophesy the future.
· Drink every time someone complains about unrequited love.
· Drink if someone is frustrated by how uncultured the people around them are. 
· Drink every time someone is WASTING THEIR LIFE IN SOME PROVINCIAL BACKWATER.
· Just drink. It’s the only way to dull the pain of awareness of the futility of life, wasted talent, lost opportunities for romance, inability to find motivation and the callousness of people towards the natural world and each other.

Art Review: People and Places: Mo Farquarson, James Hawkins @ The Gallery in Cork Street

A friend kindly invited me along to a preview of this exhibition on Cork Street. I didn’t know what to expect and could see little connection between the two artists’ works but each was a delight in its own way.

Mo Farquarson sculpts animal and human figures in bronze. She has a clear affinity with animals: from the farm-yard to the river-bank to the desert. She creates a connection between statue and viewer by tapping into our desire to personify: her camel is certainly arrogant, her geese inquisitive. The connection is heightened by touch: what a pleasure to be able to feel the artwork and give two senses over to the shapes created! It gives some impression of the realism that Farquarson conveys that I found myself absent-mindedly petting her otter like it might a dog.

Her human figures include dejected bus-shelterers and hurried, anonymous commuters in streets and stations; but mundanity is contrasted with performance. There is a pair of acrobats, one balanced on the other’s upstretched arm, showing confident strength and skill. The eye is drawn to two parallel, vertical lines: one of force through the performers’ arms and the other of connection between their eyes.

The one exception to Farquarson’s theme of life is an unridden bicycle finished in matt grey to emulate a pencil sketch. It barely seems like an exception at all: something about the warp in its frame and it’s jaunty, unstable angle imbues it with character. I found myself spirited away to the surreal village in Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman where people and bicycles start to exchange souls through prolonged contact. Men start needing to lean against walls whenever they stop moving and bicycles, much like this one, start to develop a life of their own.

Leac an Tuadh, StrathVaich

                                                        

There is something quietly spectacular about James Hawkins’ landscapes. Most of them are suspended cut-out shapes, perhaps designed to reflect the focus of the eye: the periphery is done away with. He surrounds placid bodies of water with harsh rock formations or lush vegetation to provide striking contrast. In the mountains, layers of paint are chipped away like rock. Massive brushstrokes, as though the paint has been washed across glass, give the impression of seams of igneous formation.

Loch na h’Oidiche , Flowerdale

Hawkins' subject is the Scottish landscape: a gift of beauty in itself. He has set about conveying cold harshness in Leac an Tuadh, StrathVaich and the rich variety of colour in flowering heather in Loch na h’Oidiche , Flowerdale. Where his other paintings may be monumental, Spate is urgent and powerful: an unstoppable river falls through the painting and bursts outward from its lower edge. Much like David Hockney, Hawkins has the gift of observation of colour and mood, he is able to capture the sense of place and season and convey that on his canvasses: could we ask more of a landscapist?

This exhibition runs between 5th and 9th March at The Gallery in Cork Street.
www.mofarquharson.com
www.jameshawkinsart.co.uk

BONUS REVIEW: Roy Lichtenstein @ Tate Modern

Everything was so flat.

Profound Object

The issue and use of this Oyster card is subject to TfL’s Conditions of Carriage, copies of which are available at tfl.gov.uk/fares or by calling 0843 222 1234. Where this Oyster card is also valid for use on another operator’s services, the Conditions of Carriage of that operator will apply in relation to travel on its service. Copies may be obtained from these operators.

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This piece, by Michael _____, brings the visual art concept of ‘objet trouvé’ to the written word. Visual artists have long re-presented mundane or functional objects, creating art simply by exhibiting those objects as such. In 1917 Marcel Duchamp famously placed a urinal on a pedestal, elevating an overlooked item to the status of art, and more recently artists such as Damian Hirst and Tracy Emin have shown a shark and an unmade bed as artworks. In the same way, Profound Object presents a functional, non-artistic text and asks us to re-examine it as an aesthetic creation.

Short Fiction: Typewriter

It was Thursday evening and I was at a drinks party. I had come along with Paul, a friend from work, and I did not know most of the guests so he was showing me around.

‘That’s Marc, my flatmate, over there. He’s quite a character.’

‘Oh, why’s that?’

‘Well, he’s always fancied himself as a literary figure, not just an author but a really great writer’

‘That’s certainly ambitious, have you read anything of his?’

‘Not yet, but he’s told me a bit about his technique. He works as an assistant in the University science labs and he’s always taken a scientific approach to things. Perhaps stretching that to literature is a step too far but it’s an interesting experiment anyway.’

‘I don’t really understand; there’s no formula for producing art. Did he work out the best time of day to write by finding out when we’re most awake?’

‘It’s a bit more technical than that and, I would say, a lot more fanciful. You see, the scientists were working on psychological feedback effects. When you’re feeling happy, you smile: that’s a given. What’s interesting is that the smile creates a feedback loop. The activation of the muscles in the cheeks releases endorphins which make us happy. It works both ways, you see?’

‘I think I’ve heard about that before; they tell depressives they should smile and it’ll make them happy, right? But I really don’t see how that can make you a writer.’

‘So the mental state causes a motor effect in the muscles and the motor effect in the muscles feeds back to create the mental state. Marc’s theory is, if that works for smiling and happiness, couldn’t it work for other things? He doesn’t want to be just any writer, he wants to be a great writer, so his thinking is that he needs to acquire the mental state of a great writer. He’s decided that if he can sit and type out the great books, he can create a feedback loop and the physical activity in his fingers will create the mental state of a literary genius!’

‘Well it’s certainly a theory but I think he sounds a bit delusional’

‘Maybe, but he’s followed through on it. Really testing the hypothesis. Last Saturday morning he popped out to the shops and came back with a copy of The Sun Also Rises in one hand and a vintage typewriter in the other. He’s really thorough about employing the scientific method and replicating the right environment so he had to get the right machine; he’d bought a Royal Quiet DeLuxe Portable, Hemmingway’s favourite typewriter. He said that the keys might be spaced slightly differently on a different model and so his fingers wouldn’t be following the same paths as Hemmingway. The movement of the fingers is vital in creating the neural message back to the brain. If he could type the same words, on the same typewriter, Hemmingway’s mental landscape as he wrote the novel could be replicated, and Marc could become a great writer.’

‘It’s impressive attention to detail but I think he’s going to be disappointed. He’ll spend ages typing out the book and be no wiser for it.’

‘I couldn’t agree more; I said the same thing to him but he disappeared straight into his room. A few minutes later I heard him start, clattering away at the keyboard. This went on for hours, all day in fact. I think he stopped briefly to make some toast for supper, but then straight back to it. Some dedication! When I woke up on Sunday morning, I could hear him already going at it, tapping away. In fact, he took Monday off work to carry on with it.’

‘It sounds like he’s become obsessed’

                ‘Definitely, he’s not one for half-measures. I came back from work on Monday evening, went into the kitchen and there on the table was the fruit of his labours, the entire manuscript for The Sun Also Rises typed up onto a stack of paper. I had to flick through to check he’d actually done it: it was all there, about 300 pages. Extraordinary! Just then, I heard that he was still going. I suppose I hadn’t noticed before because it had become part of the background noise over the weekend. I opened his door and there he was, hunched over that old typewriter, hammering at the keys. He was so intent on the typing that he didn’t even look up at me. I couldn’t help noticing that there were a couple of bottles of brandy sitting on the desk, one was empty and he was half way through the other one. He stopped at the end of a line, knocked the carriage back across the page, took a swig from his glass and just went on typing!’

                ‘It sounds like he’s really getting into the author’s head.’

                ‘Well yes, Hemingway was well known for his heavy drinking. I don’t know if this was part of the experimental set-up or if the tedium had driven him to it. Either way he must have been pretty sozzled at that point; it’s amazing he was able to keep going. One other thing that struck me was that he didn’t seem to copying from anything this time, just typing away, looking down at the keys. I guess he was trying to repeat the book without prompting, trying to ingrain the lesson.’

                ‘That would be incredible though, to memorise an entire book just from typing it out.’

                ‘You should have seen the state he was in, completely focussed. For some reason I think it might be possible, perhaps he’s devised some special technique to remember it? He’s always telling me about theories that he’s picked up from the scientists at the lab. The other week it was The Clockwork Universe. The concept is that if every single atom in the universe is governed by the laws of physics, the motion of those atoms will continue according to the laws as time passes. Everything is made up of atoms and everything we do or think is just a product of those atoms moving. Therefore, we don’t have any choice over our actions; life and the universe just continue like clockwork as atoms move around on a pre-determined path.’

                ‘He certainly sounds like a sponge for knowledge. Maybe he’s the one to memorise that book’

                ‘Well, I suppose we’ll see when he’s finished. Every night this week I come home and he’s still in his room, typing. I’m actually surprised he’s come along to this, perhaps he’s realised it’s not working’

Just then I was surprised by a shout from across the room.

                ‘And.. here it is!’

Marc, staggering and clearly very drunk, was waving a sheath of paper above his head. The two girls he had been speaking to looked distinctly uneasy. My first instinct was to head over and rescue them but I did not know many people there and thought it was really Paul’s duty to step in and take Marc home.

                ‘This is my finest work yet!’

Marc was still shouting, and slurring his words. Paul walked across to him and took him by the hands, trying to calm him down. It seemed to work and pretty soon Marc was slumped over Paul’s shoulder and being walked towards the door. As they crossed the room to leave, the manuscript fell from Marc’s hand, landing on the carpet. All eyes were on the drunkard but I was fascinated to read what he had produced. Had he managed to re-create the whole book blind, and blind-drunk?

                I picked it up. There was certainly a lot of it, several hundred pages, and, flicking through, all typed. I turned back to the cover of the stack and was shocked. The only text was the title: A Farewell to Arms. Hemmingway’s next book.

Fantasy Dinner Party: Alchoholics (2)

Brian O'Nolan (Flann O'Brien)

Dusty Springfield

Ulysses S. Grant

Joan Crawford

Bix Beiderbecke

Short Fiction: Sculpture

I

“It’s just beautiful! And quite real!”

Mary gazed up at the statue. It was a female nude in bronze, standing life-sized on a plinth in the centre of the gallery. There was something outstandingly flawless about the statue, perfect symmetry, perfect proportion, a clinical sort of perfection. 

She was certainly idealised, like classical sculpture, but something apart from that as well. She lacked that characteristic plumpness, she was tauter, slimmer, a more modern ideal of beauty. Her pose was not of womanly deferment; she looked out with a challenge in her eyes, back erect and chin raised: a picture of confidence.

While Mary studied the statue, another emotion found its place beside her wonder. It was envy. She often felt inadequate around slimmer women but never before had a work of art had that effect on her. She found herself touching her belly as she thought:

                “It’s just a pile of bronze. What’s to be jealous of?”

At that moment she heard a cough behind her. Turning round she was confronted with by a tall man in a dark polo-neck, with short, receding hair and rectangular glasses. He was looking at her with interest, and then asked in a Nordic accent:

                “What do you think of it?”

                “It’s amazing, just so.. perfect. I don’t really know what to say”

                “I should introduce myself. My name is Mr Kettner. I am the artist of this piece”

Mary was caught off guard for a moment. She didn’t know any artists, let alone eminent sculptors.

                “Oh! Well.. Congratulations! I think it’s fantastic”

                “Thank you very much. I’m afraid I can’t stay to talk to but let me give you my card”

She smiled, thanked him and took the card. He walked away towards the entrance of the gallery as she put it away in her coat pocket. She turned back towards the sculpture, and was newly struck by flawlessness. It was amazing that that man had created it with his hands; he must have such skill and also such an eye for beauty and understanding of the human body.

II                                                                              

Mary hung her coat on the chair and sat down in front of her laptop. She spent a few minutes browsing diet sites, a habit she’d had for the last few months. Recently all the advertising around the pages was for cosmetic surgery, or ‘body enhancement’. ‘Get the Most from Your Body’, ‘Be Happy in Yourself’. She knew it was all nonsense, a big scam to take advantage of insecure women. At the same time, she spent so much of her time thinking about her weight, about the shape of her body and what other people thought about her. Wouldn’t she be so much happier without all that? 

Just then she looked down and saw that the man’s card from earlier had slipped out of her coat, onto the floor. Mary bent to pick it up and looked for the first time at his name.

Anton Kettner MBBS, MD, FRCS(Plas), RA

He certainly sounded distinguished to have so many letters after his name. Perhaps distinguished enough to be famous. Mary idly googled his name. The first result was an article from the Evening Standard, around a year old:

                ‘Plastic Surgeon Blends Art and Science’

                Leading plastic surgeon, Anton Kettner opened his first exhibition of sculpture today at the Vaughn Gallery in Mayfair. Kettner has found that his skills in moulding his patients into perfect specimens in the operating theatre are transferrable to the artist’s studio and has created a series of figurative works. He says that practising as a plastic surgeon is such an artistic pursuit that there was little difference in changing from flesh and bronze, just adjusting his technique. ‘For me, the pursuit of beauty and perfection in the female form is everything. I have been very inspired by the works of Da Vinci, whose study of anatomy allowed him to create fine studies of the human body. I hope that, in my small way, I can apply the same technique to my art and indeed visa versa’. Kettner’s Show ‘Form’ runs until 26^th May.

What a strange coincidence. Perhaps that sculpture in the gallery had got her thinking about all that. Mary did remember that strange feeling of envy at its perfect proportions. If she were that shape, people would certainly see her differently. She could understand the figure’s assertive pose: with curves like those, confidence comes naturally.

There was a number on the card as well. With those thoughts in her head, it seemed like the next natural step. She reached for her phone and dialled the number. She was answered immediately.

                ‘Practice of Mr Kettner.’

                ‘Hello.. umm.. I wanted to ask about..’

Mary didn’t really know what to ask for.

                ‘You would like an appointment? Let me take your details.’

Within a few minutes she had booked for an appointment on Harley Street the next week. There were a few things that struck her as strange during the call but the secretary’s efficiency was such that she was just swept along. She was told that she wouldn’t be meeting with Mr Kettner, but that he would be performing the procedure. His ‘philosophy’ was of a ‘universal beauty’ that does not vary between individuals so there would be no need for a consultation. Mary was quite shocked and wanted to ask some more questions but was interrupted by the secretary telling her about the cost. It seemed incredibly reasonable! Mary thought about the surgeon’s amazing skill, she couldn’t let the opportunity pass her by. As she put down the phone, she was shaking with excitement.

III

That weekend, Mary was returning from coffee with an old friend, walking along a busy Kensington pavement. She saw his name on a sign.

                New Exhibition - Anton Kettner - Progression

As she approached the gallery window, she was surprised by what she saw. Bronzes were lined up behind the glass, but they were abstract, twisted figures; they seemed manipulated to the point of inhumanity. They were clearly his, she could tell from the skill in artistry and the shape of the still-familiar body-parts. This looked like a celebration of power over the body and the power was abused to create these shapes; the natural form had been taken and corrupted. Mary was shocked by own reaction. Why did she feel so strongly about the art in the window? This man, Kettner, seemed to be able to move her so much with his work. She shook her head and walked on.

IV

Mary arrived at the practice in good time for her appointment. The process was impressively organised. The secretary gave her a series of forms to sign and she was swiftly taken through to a private room to change into scrubs. There was barely a moment to observe her surroundings beyond a sense of cleanliness and order. Soon, attendants in surgical masks were surrounding her, she was shown to a hospital bed and wheeled along a corridor.

The ceiling lights were bright, dazzling her eyes. She heard doors swing open around her and the electric hum of medical machinery. The lights were brighter yet, but she could make out ceiling tiles, and the men in masks standing over her. They weren’t speaking, but moving about, preparing. One mask loomed over her:

                ‘I am going to put you under now.’

She just nodded. He brought a gas mask down over her mouth. Something occurred: she didn’t want to inhale. It seemed unnatural to breathe away her consciousness, her power over her limbs. It would leave her defenceless over her body, open to attack. He was holding the mask down on her face and as she raised an arm, she couldn’t help drawing breath. The gas acted fast, she was hit by a wave of drowsiness, she didn’t even feel her arm hit the bed.

Mary’s vision blackened; the bright lights above her faded. Streams of colour started to seep into the darkness, washing past her eyes. These coloured ribbons span against the blackness, forming physical shapes, waving for a moment and then falling apart. The shapes started to acquire more structure; soon they were recognisable as bodies. They were naked human forms, swimming through the void. Before her eyes the trunks and limbs started to twist, as though dancing. They were twisting horribly now, spinning out of proportion, distorting and changing, pulled by terrible forces.

The visions flashed away, there were lights and ceiling tiles again. She saw his face, familiar from the gallery. He looked at her through the same rectangular glasses and smiled.

                ‘Ah, you are awake. I feel I have really created art this time. Let me get you a mirror’

Short Fiction: Gallery

She said to meet her at the gallery. I arrived, stepping in from the cold and looking around for her. The room was white-walled and brightly lit. The mingling crowd was surrounded by close-up, full-face photographic portraits of weight-lifters at full strain, eyes open and blown up to twice life size. Looking through the people there I couldn’t spot her. It was the usual unvaried morass of gallery-goers: inward-turned, champagne-handed and voices bleating over the background buzz.

I weaved through to the next room, separated by a thick blackout curtain. It took a while for my eyes to adjust to the lower light. The photographs were calmer this time, of subdued, attentive audiences, possibly for classical music, in rows of tiered seating. Pine panelled walls echoed the photos and the mood seemed to have filtered through to the guests. People spoke in quieter tones, like a massed conspiracy, a prelude to a coup. I could move more easily through this room and, seeing she was not there either, pushed aside the curtain to push on.

I was greeted by a chaos of waxwork sculptures in jubilant poses, wearing bright military marching band uniforms in disarray. There were no weapons but dented tubas, drums and trombones littered the marble floor. The sculptures crowded the room so I could not see the opposite wall and the guests were forced to take a circuitous path around the still riot. I weaved through, peering ahead and anxious to find her.

I saw her ahead of me, framed by false wax bodies and all the more alive for it. She looked so elegant.

Art Review: Bronze @ Royal Academy of Art

Kapala-Hevajra and Nairatmya

For their Bronze exhibition, the RA have pulled together an outstanding array of 150 fine bronzes from all over the world, covering many different styles and spanning a period of 5000 years. Naturally I was excited to see it so flew up the stairs of the gallery past the other visitors to get into the exhibition!

The very first artwork is the Dancing Satyr of Mazara del Vallo (Greece, c..200 BC), an amazingly refined study of musculature and movement, only rediscovered in 1998. I stayed staring at it for minutes, just fascinated by the play of light on the dancer’s outstretched arms and the brilliant sheen of his smooth skin: quite a sight. The Chimaera of Arezzo (c.400 BC) on loan from Florence is considered by scholars to be one of the true Etruscan masterpieces so I felt honoured just to share space with it. I think the exhibition’s lighting really shows off the shiny surface of the beast’s ribbed flanks and unnatural snake-head tail. The exhibition has impressive cultural breadth: the early Ming period statue of the gods Kapala-Hevajra and Nairatmya (c.1400) (pictured) has a beautiful metallic lustre and a gleaming array of arms. Considering its age this piece has retained its shine very well and the jewels set into its base have a mesmerising sparkle.

In general I enjoyed more the modern creations. Some of them, such as Auguste Rodin’s ‘The Age of Bronze’ (1877), are finished to a really high shine and I found them just dazzling. I could even see my reflection in Willem De Kooning’s ‘Clamdigger’ (1971) but I must say the curved surface made my head look really small!

If there’s one thing that ruffled my feathers, it was the Japanese Bhudda head (c. 1200 AD) in gilt bronze. Most of the gilt had worn away leave a disappointingly matt surface underneath. I think it could really have benefitted from a good buff.

That aside, during the whole exhibition I was so excited by each new treasure that my feet never touched the ground. I must admit that some of the bronzes are so radient that I felt a real urge for a more tactile experience, to pick them up and feel them, even to carry them away!

Check back next week: I’ll be reviewing Charlotte De Sylas’s jewellery exhibition at the V&A. And, yes, my wife and children are very well, thank you for asking.

So it’s a pointless review but I’m trying to make a point about subjectivity.  The magpie only values the art because it’s shiny rather than because it is beautiful, has cultural value or shows fine workmanship. In the same way, a work of art is different things to different people depending on their artistic values. Similarly I want to say something about the usefulness of reviews by art critics. If you don’t like the same things as the critic, you might as well be listening to a magpie. Lastly I just wanted to show that a bird can write a better art review than Brian Sewell. 

Theatre Review: Anthony Burgess's Clockwork Orange @ Soho Theatre

(There’s a review further down but I couldn’t resist a pre-ramble)

Vice

Hogarth’s Rake’s Progress is a morality tale charting the brief rise and subsequent fall of Tom Rakewell, due to his scandalous lifestyle. Rakewell inherits a fortune from his rich father, moves to London and his subsequent profligacy and debauchery leads him first to prison and eventually to a crazed death in an asylum. Clockwork Orange forms an updated version of this story. Our rake, Alex, is worse than Hogarth’s, obsessed with violence and rape but follows a similar path, towards censure and prison. By way of a change, he is offered freedom in exchange for taking part in a scientific process that will give him a permanent horror of sex and violence and leave him unable to re-offend.

The hero rejects moral decision-making and the simple chain of moral cause-and-effect is replaced with a more complex question: is it acceptable to contain dangerous behaviour by turning someone into an automaton, a Clockwork Orange? As far as society is concerned, Alex has become a better, more peaceful citizen having undergone a complete reform and the prison system is freed from the burden of housing him. If every criminal received this treatment we would have a crime-free society. The scientist in the story suggests that the process simply instils the natural horror of violence present in most people; if that is the case then Alex has been improved and not harmed. From a utilitarian point of view this is an open-and-shut case.

The opposing view comes from the prison chaplain. He says that choice is important; an argument for free will. Alex hasn’t made a choice to lead a better life so hasn’t been reformed. He’s saying that we should be free to make bad decisions, and to bear the consequences of them. He hopes that through life experience we can learn to improve ourselves morally. His argument owes a lot to Christian dogma, we save ourselves by choosing the right path, but it has broader value if we see freedom and self-determination as fundamental goods and human rights.

Perhaps the joke’s on the chaplain: he works in an institution that functions to remove inmates’ opportunity to offend in the same way as the scientific process. It is a blunt instrument defending society from anti-social individuals by removing their freedom. He places faith in the system’s ability to reform but given Alex’s violent and calculating nature, that doesn’t seem like a possibility.

Anthony Burgess’s novel eventually arrives at redemption, justifying the chaplain’s beliefs. Alex tires of violence and settles into a peaceful life. However, this ending did not find favour with his American publishers who cut the final chapter leaving Alex as an unreformed, brutal sociopath at-large, thinking that would sit better with their audience. Stanley Kubrick followed form with his 1971 film, stating that Alex’s change of heart was inconsistent with the rest of the novel. Perhaps he anticipated the moral outrage caused by his visually shocking film would be blunted by such a tame resolution; it’s well-known that controversial material sells. Whether or not the original author should have control over his artistic creation is a whole different debate but given the high re-offence rate of released criminals, which ending rings truer as a reflection of society?

I’m not a big consumer of science fiction but I think the genre is at its best when it postulates technologies that raise new moral and social issues. Roald Dahl did this really well in stories like ‘The Sound Machine’ and ‘William and Mary’. With Clockwork Orange Burgess created a thought-experiment* that raises some interesting questions about crime, punishment and the value of free will.

AND NOW AN ACTUAL REVIEW..

I thought this was a superb production, cleverly balancing high-camp with brutal menace. Martin McCreadie as Alex did well to create a convincing persona in the lead part with Malcolm McDowell’s considerable shadow looming over him; I assume the Yorkshire accent was retained by way of tribute. He was quite magnetic as the strong-arm gang-leader, eloquently expressing his delight in violence and Baroque music. Particularly impressive, also, was Stephen Spencer’s double turn as the contrasting Neanderthal thug ‘Dim’ and self-serving politician ‘Minister of the Inferior’.

Fantastic, flamboyant movement was used to bring out the gang’s amoral delight in violence and the show was visually stark with the palette limited to black, white and orange. The Nadsat vocabulary worked brilliantly on stage, defining the gang by its language and trivialising its unpleasant activities; the cast did well to make it sound real.

*This double-meaning was the point of the whole section. Sorry.

Fantasy Dinner Party: Alchoholics

Note to self: Stock up

Dorothy Parker

Alexander the Great

Janice Joplin

Dylan Thomas

Billy Holiday

Sportspeople: Bad Examples

Jessica Ennis - just selfish?

With the recent announcement of the BBC Sports Personality of the Year shortlist, the press will no doubt be raking over the Olympic rhetoric about achievement and role models. Athletes like Jessica Ennis, Mo Farah and Bradley Wiggins have been hailed as excellent new examples for the nation's children to sweep away the dross of reality stars and rappers. On the face of it, that seems like a good idea. We can replace talentless big brother contestants and misogynistic performers with clean-living, dedicated athletes, focused on pushing the boundaries of human achievement. I’m going to swim (ineptly) against the tide and suggest a few reasons why sportspeople aren’t worth idolising.

ELITISM

All sport is elitist by its very nature. Elite sport is especially elitist. Controversial, I know, but I'm saying it anyway. Surprisingly - as this is one of the least socially mobile developed countries in the world - this isn't a social issue: even the rowing and equestrian teams showed an encouraging diversity of background. This is about physical elitism: an intrinsic quality of professional sport where the point is to establish which competitor is physically superior to the others. Should our children be inspired by a system where only one person can be successful, and that success is heavily dependent on genetics? It’s hardly a good model for society.

The problem with elitism goes further.  From World Champions right down to sports day champions, that status is only achieved by excluding others. Sporting success isn't an appropriate thing for a large number of people to aspire to unless those people are going to be happy with losing. Can we expect that, given how much of our appreciation of these athletes is based on their unwillingness to accept defeat? So maybe people could just be inspired to take part in sport? In that case, why idolise champions and not just your mate who plays Sunday league football?

BODIES

I wonder why there is so much uproar about advertising showing models with bodies unobtainable by most of us, while athletes who fall into an even smaller corporeal niche are celebrated as role models. The message of the anti-size-zero lobby is that our fashion role models should have obtainable bodies; an understandable criterion. Generally this just isn’t the case with athletes; it's more realistic for an average teenage girl to get the body of a model than a world-class heptathlete. Athletes are admired for their dedication and self-denial when it comes to diet as well as exercise; isn’t that just the same quality so denigrated in stick-thin catwalk models? Well at least, you might say, for athletes there’s a better reason for exercising restraint: which brings me on to:

POINTLESSNESS AND MORALITY

I think that two basic criteria for a role model are that she should be doing something good and for the right reasons.

A lot is said about amirability of achievement in sport, particularly about record breakers like Usain Bolt, those overcoming adversity like Ellie Simmonds and endurance athletes like Bradley Wiggins. However it strikes me that these athletes, for all their striving, aren’t helping anyone. Sportspeople are profoundly, almost uniquely amongst all the roles in society, not contributing any good. Bankers, tax collectors and politicians all serve in roles that improve society by providing something that people want or need; athletes provide no direct benefit to anyone but themselves. You might say that they provide entertainment but firstly, that’s only tangential and certainly not the focus of their efforts and secondly much more entertainment is provided by footballers (judged worse role models) than rowers (judged better role models) who are only on television briefly every four years.

Elite sport’s pointlessness is well illustrated by its arbitrariness. Usain Bolt is hailed world-wide as a hero and role model for breaking the 100m record, while James Roumeliotis of Boston, USA holds the world record for consecutive pogo jumps and you’ve not heard of him. James raised over $10,000 for a Scleroderma charity with his record attempt; I don’t have a link to Usain’s justgiving page for the 2012 Olympics.

So what athletes do isn't productive; doesn't that make them more noble for having purer aims? Let’s compare the motivation of a runner to, say, a rapper. The runner’s motivation when he goes out training is either to run faster (socially useless) or to beat his opponents (selfish) whereas the rapper’s motivation when she’s practising could be to do something creative (socially useful) or to entertain (altruistic). The rapper might be doing it just for the money and fame so there’s a chance she’s solely motivated by greed, but the athlete must be selfish as there’s no-one else who can benefit from his achievements. I think that dedication is an admirable quality but it loses all of its impressiveness when directed solely towards self-aggrandisement.

In conclusion, I think that replacing reality TV stars with athletes is progress. We’re replacing bad role models with bland ones. But surely we should aspire to something better?

Declarations:

1. I don't watch sport. Could you guess?

2. This reads like it's born of resentment at sporting failure. I have national medals in two sports.

3. My vote for SPOTY: Katherine Grainger. What a trooper!

Diversion: "Putting a downer on public celebrations of tremendous achievement since 2012"