NEW MEDIA: POWER TO THE PEOPLE?



And the gardens are neat and tidy.

WATSON

WORKS

Blog 34

Watsonworksblog.blogspot.com
 
James Watson
Friends and contributors

A Writers’ Notebook

 

CONTENTS

Photo of the Month
Gable end, Derry, July 2012
Media: that ‘demotic turn’
Part 2 Preface to 8^th edition of The Dictionary of Media & Communication Studies (Bloomsbury Academic, 2012)
Contributions
Saved within the saved
Auschwitz: a prospect
           Tony Williams
Two Dialogues
          Bron O’Brien
Poems of Place (11)
           Prayer cards at Ilam
Correspondence
‘Getting under way’: A letter from Councillor Morgan informing us of Ned Baslow’s letter campaign to put Wickerstaff-cum-Fernhaven annual festival on the international map. Concessions to readers.

 

Media: that ‘demotic turn’

In Blog 33 an edited version of the Preface to the 8^th edition of The Dictionary of Media and Communication Studies (Bloomsbury Academic, 2012) by James Watson and Anne Hill asked whether the phone-hacking scandal that engulfed the media empire of Rupert Murdoch has brought about a fundamental change in the way the media go about their business in relation to government, the police and the public.

Less sensational than the hacking saga, but of equal interest is what Graeme Turner calls ‘the demotic turn’. In Ordinary People and the Media: The Demotic Turn (Sage, 2010) Turner writes that the media audience ‘is mutating from a model of receptiveness we might identify with broadcasting, towards a range of more active and more demotic modes of participation that vary from the personalised menu model of the YouTube user to the content creation activities of the citizen journalist or the blogger’.

  As for whether increased public (demotic) participation is, as some digital optimists believe, also empowering, whether the new media are a force for democratisation, Turner remains sceptical, believing that outcomes ‘are still more likely to be those which support the commercial survival of the major media corporations rather than those which support the individual or the community interests of the ordinary citizen’.

Primacy of entertainment

The demotic turn is a shift ‘towards entertainment’ and this ‘may prove to have constituted an impoverishment of the social, political and cultural function of the media; the replacement of something that was primarily information – as in, say, current affairs radio – with something that is primarily entertainment – as in, say, talk radio – is more realistically seen as generating a democratic deficit than a democratic benefit’.

   The 8^th edition of The Dictionary of Media and Communication Studies recognises the options and the possibilities with regard to technology and cultural change but also acknowledges that the pace of change of one is more rapid than the other.

    It is undoubtedly true that the Internet has opened portals to individual and group participation and interactivity that permit a diversity of viewpoint and expression rarely if ever experienced in the past.

Salem and Slim

Cyberspace is a constellation of bloggers, a territory of streams emerging from and flowing in to and across contemporary life, and on a global scale. Salem 9, blogging from Iraq, fed an information-hungry western society glimpses of life in an invaded and occupied country which traditional news reporting could not match.

   During the so-termed African Spring of 2010-11, blogger Slim Amamou’s invitation to join the interim government of Tunisia was described by Jo Glanville in her Index on Censorship (No. 1, 2011) editorial, ‘Playing the Long Game’, as ‘one of the most remarkable acknowledgments of the role of digital activists in civil society, not to mention the symbolism of his appointment in a country that has stifled free speech for decades’.

Twitter ‘revolution’?

Yet for every optimist such as Glanville there is a pessimist such as Evgeny Morozov whose The Net Delusion: How Not to Liberate the World (Allan Lane, 2011) puts the case that the ‘twitter revolution’ might do more harm than good to the cause of democratisation.

  The jury is out, as it is on the efficacy of what has come to be termed citizen journalism. This raises lively issues concerning the relationship between amateurs and professionals particularly in the light of the cost-cutting in news services by traditional media organisations intent on putting profit before public service; the result, Graeme Turner’s ‘impoverishment of the social, political and cultural function of the media’.

Threat to the open network

Equally we note the concerns of Tim Wu, inventor of the term net neutrality (and author of The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires, Knopf/Atlantic Books, 2011), when he posits the theory that traditional media moved from the freedoms of the open prairie to corporate enclosure and this process may be being repeated in the network society.

   Already, he writes in his Introduction, ‘there are signs that the good old days of a completely open network are ending’. Acquisition, alliances, expansion, synergies are pursued with missionary zeal by the new leviathans. Industries become empires. Jostling for attention becomes jostling for control, not unlike that exercised by governments rarely hesitant about legislating against freedom of expression.

    It could be said, to look on the bright side, that the difference is that new technology has greatly loosened up patterns of hierarchy and may even have made inroads on hegemony. Students of communication would do well to carefully scrutinise competing visions of the future of the ‘networking society’, in particular the role of information and knowledge in a context driven by economics and ‘must have it now’ public attitudes.

   Above all, the case must be made and re-made that in the information age the communications industry is, in Tim Wu’s words, ‘fundamental to democracy’, needing to be resistant to wholesale appropriation and to the controlling ambitions of governments.  

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Saved within the saved

Auschwitz: a prospect
By Tony Williams

We have seen the images so often, the watchtowers, the railway tracks, Arbeit macht frei, endless rows of barrack huts in Birkenau. What I was not prepared for on a visit this summer was the masses of visitors being bussed in from all over the world and the total absence of the feared tourist carnival atmosphere. People went from station to station in silence, only registering their visit with the ubiquitous phone cameras.

   There are at least five stations of homage: the former Jewish area of Kasimierz in Krakow, Auschwitz, Birkenau, Oskar Schindler’s factory, the Wielicka Salt Mines. Including the latter might seem odd since it is not a sad place and not directly linked to the Holocaust. But there is a link.

Notices of dismissal

One Sunday afternoon in 1943 one of the underground caverns hollowed out by salt miners over the centuries and famously decorated with religious sculptures in salt, was the scene of a works outing, a banquet provided by the Schindler factory in Krakow.

   After the meal was over all the workers were handed envelopes which they were not to open until they had reached the surface. This envelope contained their wages and a mystifying notice of dismissal together with a stern warning never to approach the Schindler Enamel Factory again.

   The following day the factory was paid a Gestapo visit and over the loudspeakers a list of workers’ names was read out. After each name the works secretary said ‘dismissed’. So they missed their call to the gas chambers. Saved within the saved.

 Sabotage

The Schindler Enamel Factory Museum gives an extensive picture of life in Krakow after 1919, especially the Jewish population and their contribution  to Polish cultural life. Many poster announcements document the series of increasingly harsh measures taken by the invaders after 1939 against the Jews.

   Another note on the Schindler story. Not content with sticking his neck out to save his Jewish workers, Schindler actively engaged in war sabotage. The Zossen munitions plant south of Berlin had to discard the bulk of war munitions and supplies received from the  Schindler Enamel Factory as worthless. Fighter plane radiators, for instance, contained traces of tin which melted when hot and blocked the valves. Unbelievably the neck which Oskar Schindler stuck out did not end under the guillotine.

 

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Two Dialogues

By Bron O'Brien 

Dialogue 1: A*

 

 ‘Dad,’ said four-year-old Daisy. ‘I just can’t get my head round Pilgrim’s Progress. Or for that matter Dante’s Purgatory.’
   ‘Daisy, you’ve got to persist with these things if you are to please Mr. Gove. I told you when you were poo-pooing Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina for falling for a soldier, give credit where it’s due. Perhaps it was the English translation.’
   ‘I read it in Russian, Dad.’
  ‘Okay, it’s a great book in any language.’
  ‘To be honest, I’m too taken up with Chopin at the moment to focus on reading, regardless of Mr. Gove’s view that music butters no parsnips.’
  ‘You’re strong on mazurkas. But your Grade 8 in piano shouldn’t suggest you rest on your laurels.’
  ‘Why do we talk in idioms all the time, Dad?’
  ‘Forget the idioms, how about your maths?’
  ‘Are these problems really degree level?’
  ‘Taken from a Finals paper.’
  ‘Does that mean I could start my PhD next year?’
  ‘Harvard won’t consider anybody under ten. Just concentrate on the National Curriculum.’
  ‘School’s dropped it.’
  ‘So it’s become one of Gove’s academies despite your letters to the prime minister.’
  ‘We’re to have four hours a week of spelling and punctuation. That could help with my novel, only I was planning to write it like James Joyce and forget the full-stops. Dad?’
  ‘Was that you on Radio 4 this morning?’
  ‘Yes me and Teddy. He’s been worrying about me again.’
  ‘Meaning?’
   ‘Teddy thinks I’ve been overdoing it.’

 

Dialogue 2: E-

‘Dad? How could I win 21 gold medals?’

  ‘Pinch ‘em.’
  ‘But if I was honest.’
  ‘You’d have to get up before eleven in the morning.’
  ‘I think I’d like to ride one of them horses that jump over fences.’
  ‘There’s no grass round here, son, to feed em. They dug it all up for the car park.’
  ‘I could fetch some in Uncle Joe’s wheelbarra.’
 ‘We’re not speaking to Uncle Joe. Anyway, where’d you put yer grass?’
‘Hay. I think they call it once it turns yellow. Maybe in Mrs. Ashton’s backyard.’
 ‘Mrs. Ashton aint speaking to us no more since Rex ate their Sunday joint. Listen, how about me helping you with something I know about? Me as yer coach?’
  ‘Thievin an connin? Are they in the Olympics, Dad?’
  ‘Boxin, I mean.’
  ‘We’ve enough punchbags in this family.’
  ‘That’s yer Mam talking again.’
  ‘Swimmin – that looks easy.’
  ‘You never been swimming.’
  ‘I fell in once an reached the shallow end in no time. Old Louse-face, our PE teacher, actually clapped me.’
  ‘He was clappin you drownin, son.’
  ‘One of them posh bikes with no spokes, then?’
  ‘Aye, Velodromes, but they’ve no brakes, so you’d do yerself an injury.’
  ‘So you don’t think I should train for the next Olympics, Dad?’
  ‘I never said that.’
 ‘You think I’m in with a chance? Like you got confidence in me. ’
 ‘I never said that either.’
 ‘Well what did you say?’
 ‘I never said nothing.’
 ‘Then that settles it, Dad.’
 ‘I reckon it does, son. After all, there’s more to life than bloody medals.’

 Ed: Contributions are very welcome including selections from longer works. Please send to Watsonworks@hotmail.co.uk

 ****************************************

 

Poems of Place (11)

                        PRAYER CARDS AT ILAM

                                    In the sweet silence of Ilam

                                    Summer-soothed beside Manifold
                                    And beneath Thorpe Cloud
                                    Where lord and lady lie
                                    In death’s stone: read
                                    The prayer cards of the living.

                                    ‘Please God, pray for Katy,

                                    Help her stop wetting the bed’;
                                    ‘For my Dad, Oh God,
                                    Who has a drinking problem’ –
                                    Carelessly scattered for interlopers
                                    To leer over: jokes in church.

                                     Crushed by reverence,

                                    It was never easy in the poor light
                                    To keep your face straight.
                                    And yet, here in Holy Cross speaks innocence:
                                    ‘Please pray for my family and friends,
                                    Especially my Mum, who does try her hardest
                                    To help with my pony.’

                                    Spoken from the heart.

                                    Do I hear you titter, Lord, yet smile
                                    With love at the lonely whispers;
                                    Or do I opt for the cold tomb’s tale
                                    And admit: these missives, being unstamped,
                                    Are returned to sender;
                                    Or gather them in a pile
                                    Marked ‘Not known at this address’?

 

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CORRESPONDENCE

Ed: The editorial team were delighted to hear from Councillor Gilbert Stokoe MBE announcing the Wickerstaff-cum-Fernhaven international arts festival planned for the summer of 2013. It is not the first W-c-F arts festival by any means.

‘Lord Gilbert’ as he is popularly known in the locality, explains: ‘The Events Committee decided that to celebrate our 25^th, we have opted to go truly international. We have in the past recruited artistes from as far afield as Cromer, Preston, Newcastle-Under-Lime and on two occasions from across the border in Wales, one of our most enjoyed concerts being mounted by the Bodelwydden Male Voice Choir.

A match for Edinburgh?

Councillor Stokoe's letter continues: ‘As press officer of the Festival, Mr. Ned Baslow has volunteered to write to a number of celebrities in the world of entertainment inviting their participation in what we hope will put Wickerstaff-cum-Fairhaven on the international arts map along with the Edinburgh Festival, Bayreuth, the Venice Biennial and the Turnditch All-Comers Brass Band Carnival.

    The committee were delighted to be asked by the editorial board of your illustrious blog to provide copies of Ned’s correspondence as plans progress, with a view to maximising publicity for the festival. As I think I mentioned in my September letter, there will be special concessions for your readers, both for the many outstanding festival events and B & B accommodation at a number of venues, including the two-star Kilt and Thistle Hotel.’

Ed: Many thanks, Lord Gilbert. On account of the fact that Ned’s letter suffered an accident with a cup of black coffee and a melting chocolate bar, we have requested him to avoid using washable drawing ink in future.

Decipherment has been a problem, but Ned’s wife Betty has kindly promised us a typed copy. This much we can tell readers: Ned’s first letter is addressed to a penniless Austrian composer.

 

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THANKS FOR READING THIS.

WHY NOT CONTRIBUTE TO THE NOVEMBER ISSUE?

MEDIA: POWER TO THE PEOPLE?

A Writers’ Notebook

WATSONWORKS  Blog 33, Sept 2012

Watsonworksblog.blogspot.com

 

Back from a summer(!) break

James Watson

Friends and contributors

CONTENTS

FEATURE: MEDIA: POWER TO THE
PEOPLE?
Poems of Place (10)
Letter from America: playing games
Correspondence

MEDIA: POWER TO THE PEOPLE?

With the coming of the Internet in the Digital Age many commentators have argued that new technology has empowered ordinary people; that it has acted as a balancing restraint on power and influence of media corporations. Further, as in the case of the popular uprisings in North African countries during 2011 and2012, has the ‘media centre in the palm of the hand’ given subject people power to act against their masters?

 An edited selection from the Preface of the newly published 8^th edition of THE DICTIONARY OF MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION STUDIES (Bloomsbury Academic) by James Watson and Anne Hill.

If there is one word which defines the evolution of media since the 7^th edition, 2006, it is participation: the audience is king; and this has largely come about as a result of the opportunities for feedback and interactivity made possible by new and improved technology. Once upon a time there were TV sets. The whole family sat in front of them and the choice was either or.

 

Today young people see less of their parents. They retire to their rooms, click a button and a universe of information, entertainment, games opens up to them. They can contact their hundreds if not thousands of ‘friends’ on Facebook, watch scores of videos a night on YouTube – and may appear to have less need to interact with real people in the real world.
    Ironically, for this same generation many educational experiences will be shared with others, in the traditional manner, in seminars and lectures. True, cyberspace will be available on electronic whiteboards but what happens on a daily basis is little different from the educational experiences of their parents and or indeed their grandparents. We ask, has the bounty of the Internet, the access our smartphones have made possible, changed culture that much?
   Are people meeting each other less frequently, reading less, watching conventional TV less; is the newspaper on the verge of extinction?

The degrees of change

Also, taking in to account the fashionable political mantra, the ‘big society’, in which we all rise up and take command of the heights of decision-making, opening our own schools, running our own libraries, choosing where we’ll have our babies or our heart surgery, are we experiencing the beginning of a world turned upside down, of power rising from the depths to assert itself over former privilege, of the power of smart mobs?
  Whether the answer is a qualified yes or no, what is important is who is asking and attempting to answer the question. For example, has power of a sort shifted in to social networks where petitions and protests can be organised swiftly and on a large scale? Faced with public opinion expressed online, do the power elite adjust their position, promise more public consultation in future, reverse their decisions – or do they wait till online interactivity returns to the more normal, ‘I hate Monday mornings’/ ‘So do I’ discourse?

Interactive culture: the big ‘I am’

Technological innovation is not the only source of change confronting the 21st century citizen. To use Eric M. Eisenberg’s phrase the socio-cultural ‘surround’ in which much everyday social interaction takes place has also changed for many of us. Most Western societies have seen a growth in cultural diversity. The challenges this presents for successful interaction has been the focus of much contemporary research within the field of interpersonal communication.
    Arguably the forces of globalisation usher in social fragmentation and uncertainties – not least uncertainties about self-identity. So, research focused on the contemporary odyssey of the search for self-identity –  Anthony Giddens terms this the  project of self –  deserves its high profile.
    Much of modern life is mediated and thus the interplay between interpersonal and mass communication also needs to be considered. Advertising and other aspects of media culture contain many messages that may impact on the development of a sense of identity. For example, the arrival of Facebook and other social networking sites also opens up the debate about what it is to have a ‘sense of self’.

Perspectives on power

The Internet has not so much taken over and transformed traditional media as appropriated the way we think about the broad spectrum of communication. Change has been in the air, but how fundamentally has hegemony been shaken, how seriously has it been stirred?
    A key issue concerning claims to ‘democratisation’ and popular involvement in the exercise of power is whether the ‘usual suspects’ – the corporations, the financial organisations, the mass media – have at any time of late lost or surrendered their powers.
    It could be that we are so busy talking among ourselves, networking, vanishing into the magic whirlpools of our iPods, iPlayers and iPads that we fail to notice something: that the power elites have not gone away; nor have they undergone any Pauline conversion except to embrace the opportunities, for commerce and control, that the Network Society offers the alert entrepreneur.

Paging Mr. Murdoch

This is not to say that predictability rules. Until the summer of 2011 the global media empire ruled by Rupert Murdoch was widely seen as an unstoppable force, a threat to the plurality of media and a malign influence on governments, obtaining from them concessions in return for a generally supportive press: ‘Touch Your Forelocks to Mr. Murdoch’ was embossed on the dance-card of every politician ambitious to achieve power or hold on to it.
The phone-hacking scandal involving News International’s News of the World and the dramatic closure of the 168 year old paper in July 2011, may well have brought about a sea-change, not only for the ‘Murdoch effect’ specifically but for the media generally in its relation to politics and policing.
   Some would say it is ‘not before time’ politicians and public in the UK paid attention to the systemic practice of prying electronically (and illegally) into the lives of citizens high and low. Public outrage and a united parliament forced Murdoch to retreat, at least temporarily, from his ambition to own the whole of BSkyB; something the culture secretary Jeremy Hunt had, until revelations turned from a trickle to a tsunami, been ‘mindful’ of accepting.
    It is fitting to celebrate the true purpose of journalism in action, holding power – that of government, corporations, institutions, the police and the media themselves – to account. Varyingly called ‘the best political thriller of our times’ and likened to the ‘crumbling of the Berlin Wall’, the hacking scandal – fearlessly revealed by the Guardian, initially alone in the UK, battling against denial and indifference – raised wider issues concerning media ownership and its connection with politicians and police.

Meanwhile, back on the ground

For the present, we leave it to media watchers to monitor the after-shock of such seismic events; to track how far remonstration, indignant headlines, mass petitions, committees of inquiry actually impact, in the long run, on the status quo; whether a new dawn will produce a less exploitative, more balanced media; more answerable to public interest, to the law and to media ethics.

Part 2 of this brief overview of media today will appear

in Blog 34.

Poems of Place (10)

BY EASTLEACH ST. MARTIN

Three by the clapper bridge

            Over shallow cold stream;
            At one end the past,
            At the other the future.

Alone until out of silence

           Came children and dogs
            With a young mother
            Skirt tucked up for wading,
            And a tall elderly companion
             In wide brimmed hat.

 Too many children

             To belong to either;
              Rather they were all
              The daughters of the moment
              This hot tiptoe day
              Where even the black Labrador
               Swam softly.

  Being freshly sprung and

              Moving fast, the river was colder here,
              They said, than in the slow bend
              Under the oaks.

              We dipped beneath the flat stones

              Felt the ache of the cold,
              The delicious cool of the sun,
              ‘Like,’ one of us said,
              ‘The last of the summer wine’,
              While the mysterious lady
              Played poo-sticks with the smallest
              And the dogs waited for the next stone
              Cast almost gently as if
              The spell of the afternoon
               Must not be disturbed.

LETTER FROM AMERICA:

PLAYING GAMES

From British-born K.J. Melling

The ‘London Games’ received very favorable ratings in the US. A high standard combining the new with the old, utilising the city as a remarkable backdrop (looked really great), the immaculate venues both within and outside the city and the organisation (except the security company glitch). The crowds, the presentation of the events and the success of  Team GBR  were electrifying. All  the Brits played the game.

The presentation of the games in the US by NBC was not good. No schedule of events to follow and make plans (what, where and when). Main events prerecorded and shown in (evening) prime time when the outcome was already known. Excessive concentration on US athletes and excessive advertising. It was a case of NBC playing its own game and it was a mess.

However, one commentator on site in London was so impressed he suggested the the UK form an ‘economics committee’ of UK  Olympic caliber to seriously and fairly tackle the economic situation in the UK. We've already had such a committee that made real across the board proposals - to no avail.

15% confidence

We have the biggest mess in history and the election is not helping one bit. The estimated cost of the election is at least $2.5 billion and it's been going on since January, election day is Nov.7. A recent pole puts the confidence Americans have in their Congress at 15%. This reflects the population's dissatisfaction with the hostility between the two parties precluding any semblance of compromise on major issues. Apparently we are clever enough to put a highly sophisticated research vehicle on Mars, but stupid enough to be incapable of governing ourselves to the benefit of all citizens.

 Cutting medicare, increasing defence

Essentially the Romney/Ryan ticket wants to drastically cut entitlement programs (eg. gutting Medicare/ Medicaid and privatising Social Security), but increase defense spending. The Obama/Biden ticket has put forward a plan to cut spending (including defense) and increasing income tax on the top 1% income bracket. The republican proposal favors the rich, the democrat proposal the other 99%. This is a simple outline of a complex subject, but the intent of the two parties is clear. If nothing is done in Congress before year's end, the country is going over an ‘economic cliff’.

 Automatically the tax cuts introduced by the previous Bush administration will be removed and massive spending cuts validated. The effect would be reduced GDP  and increased unemployment, another recession. Our political system is broken. Congress has been and still is playing deadly games. The Americans are proud of their democracy – is this democracy? ‘God save America’ is not enough,’God help US’ is better.

 Correspondence

Readers looking forward to joining Ned Baslow in his lively encounters with celebrities will have to wait till Blog 34 as the following letter from Councillor Gilbert Stokoe, MBE explains.

Dear Editor,

As chairman of the Wickerstaff-cum-Fernhaven Pantomime and Light Opera Society I am writing on behalf of the Society’s secretary, Mr. Ned Baslow, to explain his temporary suspension of correspondence with the likes of King Harold, Homer the Greek, John Milton and Inspector Morse. Our friend has been given the role of press officer for the W-c-FPLOS’ next offering in the summer of 2013.

   This was delayed from this year as a result of my falling off a horse while mounting in order to lead the annual Wickerstaff Hare Hunting Festival. Our plans to create a music, drama and field sports festival of international repute was delayed because I had been cast in the name part of Don Quixote: The Musical, an opera written and scored by myself, with assistance from my daughter Cordelia, a recent graduate of the Northern School of Music.

   My broken hip has sufficiently mended for me to begin rehearsals alongside Ned who successfully auditioned for the part of Sancho Panza (his wife Betty will be understudying Cordelia in the part of Dulcinea).

   Ned has a massive job on his hands, for it is the committee’s intention to bring to our festival the very best of talent. As I said at our inaugural meeting, ‘Our festival will put Wickerstaff not only on the cultural map of Great Britain but will attract global attention’.

   No one is more committed to turning that dream into reality than Ned who is not only one of life’s great communicators he has dreams and visions plus powers of persuasion that, if better known, would be an inspiration for the present generation of young people who so often seem to be lacking direction and suitable role models.

   Having discussed the matter with our committee and had a few words with you on the telephone, Ned is happy to send you copies of his campaign correspondence in the hope that our Festival will prove an attraction to your readers (for whom, by the way, there will be special rates of entry to events).

Yours etc.

G.M. Stokoe, MBE
President, Wickerstaff-cum-Fernhaven Festival  (2013).
 

Many thanks, Councillor Stokoe. From what Ned has told us, the Festival

promises to be an all-star occasion. We can’t wait to see some of Billy Blake’s set designs for Don Quixote.
 

BLOG 34 will appear in mid-October and will feature a contribution by   TONY WILLIAMS on his August visit to Auschwitz and two Dialogues by BRON O'BRIEN.

Answers to the image quiz in Blog 32. The statue is to be found in Glasgow, a dramatic rendering of the Spanish Civil War politician La Pasionara and the saying we associate with her, Non passarin! There is an echo here of the mantra of No Surrender chanted by the people of Derry, Northern Ireland, besieged by the forces of James 11.

Many volunteers from Scotland, Wales, Ireland and England went to fight alongside the republicans in the Spanish War; and a few joined the side of Franco's fascists. The Freedom Tree (see below) tells the story of a group of British volunteers ready to risk their lives in the cause of democracy.

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e-reading

James Watson books.

For the price of less than a pint,

four paper-print novels are available
from Amazon Kindle:

THE FREEDOM TREE (£1.03), set during the Spanish

Civil War, reaching its climax with the bombing of Guernica.
TALKING IN WHISPERS £2.01). Chile during the tyrannical
rule of the generals.
TICKET TO PRAGUE (£1.63). Tale of a friendship between Amy,
a teenage rebel, and Josef, an elderly Czech poet who had lost
the will to write; until she reads him The Good Soldier Sveck.
JUSTICE OF THE DAGGER (£2.03). Earthmovers, the Yellow Giants,
advance on the rainforest of East Timor. The people have only
arrows and courage to resist them.

And for the price of burger, fries and a soft drink:

FAIR GAME: THE STEPS OF ODESSA (£5.15). Uneven playing fields
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resolution and the will to win. Her quest is to discover whether
these qualities translate into life.

PS Cover-designers wanted for three new books in the Kindle

pipeline. Modest fee for single-sheet design (A5).

****************************************

THANKS FOR READING THIS.

NB: contributions welcome; to Jim at
Watsonworks@hotmail.co.uk

 

 

 

SHEEP, SHARKS & FLAWLESS DIAMONDS

WATSONWORKS


Blog 32

Watsonworksblog.blogspot.com
James Watson,
Friends and contributors
                            A Writers’ Notebook

CONTENTS

NOTES IN PASSING
 *   Sheep, Sharks & 8,6001 flawless diamonds:
     Damien Hirst at Tate Modern
  * Bauhaus at the Barbican   *  Poems of Place (9): Arno
  * Correspondence:
     Ned Baslow addresses Inspector Morse on a question of semantics


Who's this, where is it and
what two rousing words was
the lady famous for?

Sheep, Sharks & 8,6001 flawless diamonds
One thing’s for certain: the kids love it. How could they not, presented with sharks and sheep in glass tanks; vast walls of coloured dots, maggots dead by the thousand, and real live butterflies. There’s a hair dryer projecting a table tennis ball on a plume of air and later a beachball is suspended over a coloured box in similar manner. The adults alone will be reading meaning into artefact, looking for clues in the title, checking out the exhibition notes and pondering on whether Loving in a World of Desire is really about the ‘interplay of precariousness and balance’.


Containers and contents
What is striking is the contrast between the frame and what it frames. Thus steel and glass frames –vitrines, shelving – are of the highest specification yet they contain, varyingly, fag-ends, pills and pill boxes, rows and rows of surgical instruments; indeed Medicine Cabinets are succeeded by an entire exhibition room transformed into a Pharmacy.


Everything in the Gold Room is practically that, yet housing the most ordinary objects. Memento mori? Hirst is explicit about this in his television interview: ‘Every work of art that’s interested me is about death’. The fag ends in Dead Ends Died Out, Examined remind us (as if we needed reminding) that smoking half as many as those on display, or those filling the gigantic ceramic ashtray entitled Crematorium is a death sentence. Comes the illness, follows the treatment – the pills and then the surgery.


Short swim, short flight
Sheep and sharks in vitrines filled with formaldehyde, and fish in shelved tanks within a tank (Isolated Elements Swimming in the Same Direction for the Purpose of Understanding, swimming) are subjects reflecting Hirst’s interest in, and use of, the natural world. Dead fish, but live butterflies, these clearly symbols both of beauty and brevity. They stand for vulnerability and perhaps for hope: at least in Room 11 we are treated to Hirst’s relish for colour.


Doorways to the Kingdom of Heaven glitter with the brilliantly varied wings of butterflies within frames resembling stained-glass windows. Alas, Room 12 brings us literally down to earth with a gigantic wall circle of dead flies, Black Sun of 2004. Though it is obvious, it is also fitting with the Hirst story.


Beneath the flesh
The exhibition is a constant reminder of contrasts. Hirst’s preoccupation is with dualities, the ‘push and pull' as the exhibition notes put it, the primary one being life and death. Thus in the statue of an angel carved from Carrara marble we encounter first the beauty and seeming immortality of the angel only to realise that under the perfect exterior, she possesses a human skull, under the perfect flesh, human innards and within her perfect foot all too human metatarsals.


That the statue also resembles those to be found in cemeteries is another reminder of the inevitable. Most sensationally, of course, there is the jewel-encrusted skull. The duality here is obvious though overshadowed by another duality, between price (of a mindblowing 8,601 diamonds) and outcome. In his TV interview Hirst lets us in on the secret of the skull’s origin. It came from the ‘Get Stuffed’ company in Islington. The skull’s teeth were given a once-over by a dentist.


There is little doubt that this glittering skull and the price attached to it will rank in terms of public recognition along with the Mona Lisa and other global icons of the art world. It could also be seen in the long run as an outrageous indulgence amounting to little more than a hill of beans (or an ashtray of fag ends). That will not reduce queues to match those waiting to be amazed by Hirst’s Crown Jewels.


Lost for words
If there is a hint of the ludicrous in learning how the skull was seen to warrant a dental appointment, there’s a touch of almost comical anti-climax in Hirst’s first response when he set eyes on the completed For the Love of God: ‘When I saw it, when it was finished, I thought “Wow!”’


Though there is considerable variety of image in Hirst’s work, there is a consistency (or what my friend Phil calls ‘repetition’) that marks him as a thinker, constantly addressing the nature of art and life (and death). Whether he is saying anything new, or even surprising, is debatable; though this may not be important. Key seems to be his comment ‘In any art work I always try to say something and deny it at the same time’. That suggests a respect for uncertainty, an acknowledgement that meaning itself is a tale of push and pull.


The exhibition continues till 9th September 2012.


Bauhaus at the Barbican
In brief, the Barbican’s major revisiting of the Bauhaus years Art as Life, is a must. It is not like walking into a historical period, its images and products interesting but long-gone. It is like entering a world that is new and fresh. Whether it is the design and production of furniture, kids’ toys, carpets, puppets, tapestries or buildings, whether it is the exploration of materials or the potential of the camera, the operative principles are simplicity, colour, understatement and practicality.


What is so impressive about the Bauhaus is the number of staff and students who were soon to become major figures in the art, design and architecture of the period, most notably Feininger, Klee, Kandinsky, van Doesburg, Moholy-Nagy, Albers (the first student to become a teacher) and van der Rohe. But the Bauhaus school was no monastery. Women artists were in profusion, such as Natalia Goncharova, Alma Buscher, Gertrud Arndt and Charlotte Volpel, experimenting in materials, images and abstraction.


What is surprising is the mood (at least captured in this exhibition) which seems to have prevailed at the Bauhaus whether it resided in Weimar, Dessau or Berlin-Steglitz, that is, of optimism, light-heartedness and fun. Feininger’s son Lux, a photographer, ran his own band. Sport and party-going were encouraged, art being a constant guest. The spectacular ‘Metal Party’ was attended by students and staff clad in tin-foil and frying pans. Dancing took place to the sound of bells.


Bauhaus art seems to have escaped the morbid darkness that enveloped German cinema during the run up to Nazi rule. It was a sufficient provocation to the forces about to take a throttle-hold of Germany for funding for the school’s funding to be axed in 1932. The Bauhaus closed in July 1934. Gropius, Albers and others took ship for the New World, taking their new world designs with them.


The Barbican exhibition runs till August. It opens at 11am each day.


Poems of Place (9)

ARNO
Balloons of delicately unburst light
Float upon its inky skin
When the mood of the times
Would rather suggest shattered glass
At the hands of disenfranchised youth.

For here by Arno it would seem
The steely silk loops of faith and family
And the raven beak of old man reverence
Still rule the spirit of rebellion.

Yet above the head of a scavenging cat
Untutored also in the glory of monuments
A bare wall denied the accolade of marble
Betrays its noble masters with terse graffiti:
QUESTA CITTÀ E UN DESERTO.

To the history-surfeited passers-by
An unknown philosopher declares independence
From verities thought eternal as stone.
In my own head the crack of ruptured glass
Begins to spill the dream of place
Into a valedictory of sand.

Correspondence
Now that school headteachers are planning to ignore the new tests in spelling and punctuation proposed by the Education Secretary, Mr. Gove, it seems appropriate for us to include here a letter from Ned Baslow on behalf of the Wickerstaff-cum-Fernhaven Literary, Film and TV Circle. Ed takes up an issue with Morse, the Oxford-based detective and intellectual.

Dear Inspector Morse,
This is first and foremost a fan letter, not just from me and my wife Betty, but from the whole family – Grandad Barney, Grandma Betsie, Benjie our 9 year old, our twin girls Beatrice and Barbara aged seven, baby Bertrand and Auntie Sally. We think you are not only a very clever man, but also very human in that the number of times you grasp the wrong end of the stick in trying to solve a crime cannot just be put down to bad luck or tricky villains.

My Betty says what Inspector Morse sums up for most people is class, and this she says is indicated by your taste in music and cars. That Jaguar of yours for instance fits you like a glove and is the perfect setting for listening to Mozart and Wagner, though if I might be permitted a personal note, you are somewhat hard on Vivaldi, his slower bits proving a perfect lullaby for our Bertrand.

We like the way you’re never overwhelmed by toffs. That look you give people could freeze a halibut. It doesn’t stop you running after your middle-class quality skirt, however; and I must say your taste in women is not to be sneezed at, though, of course, you usually lose out in the end.

No, our gripe concerns your attitude to Sergeant Lewis which, not to put too fine a point on it, is somewhat out of order, being very condescending. True enough, he’s only a sergeant, and being from Newcastle his education leaves much to be desired, though to do her justice his wife seems to be intent on improving herself.

Much as we have mixed feelings about your conduct towards Sergeant Lewis, the broader picture is what concerns us, namely, your attitude to the letter ‘s’, about which you seem, if you don’t mind me saying, to have an irrational prejudice. Poor Lewis has been the butt of your insistence on words ending in ‘ise’ being both incorrect and vulgar, and those that prefer to use that mode, blatantly ignorant of the niceties of English.

‘Z’ it would seem, is what every educated Briton should know is the proper letter to employ for synthesize, brutalize, maximize, mesmerize, demonize and exercize – or is it? Not even Dr. Johnson would insist on ‘exercise’ being spelt other than with an ‘s’; which means that if we are to be consistent, Z should be shown the door, that is, excised, with the exception, of course, when ‘size’ is being used; which would make ‘downsize’ in this context correct and acceptable, were it not for the fact that this is an ugly latecomer pretending to mean something other than ‘make smaller’, that is, ‘sack the staff’.

Personally, I have a soft spot for S in that its serpentine shape is aesthetically pleasing, while Z, in my humble view, sounds harsh and looks harsh, not to mention that its overuse has ruined many a foreign language. In particular I am thinking of the Poles who, in addition to having to suffer one of Europe’s harshest climates, have a language so stuffed with Zs and Ks that even their intelligencia are prone to emigrate to countries that possess a healthier climate of consonants as well as an attractive sampling of sunrise, surprise, enterprise and accessorise.

Of course, you do have an etymological point, Inspector, and with your classical education and your albeit unfinished studies at Oxford, it’s easily understood how you might insist on all verbs deriving from the Greek, izo, meaning to become, make, use or act like, being spelt with a Z. It would follow that Z must be used in legalize, fossilize or economize.

You might also claim that there are far more words warranting a Z than words from the Latin warranting an S, these not necessarily meaning make, use or act, such as revise, compromise and supervise.

Predictably the rather pedantic Oxford Etymological Dictionary, plus a few others tagging on to their tail, insists that the suffix ‘whatever element to which it is added’ is both Greek and Latin, that is, sounding as a Z, ‘there is no reason why in English the special French spelling – in iser should ever be followed’.

It comes as no surprise that the Yanks elected to go the whole hog with their Zs, and even employ the letter in such words as analyze and paralyze. Surely, Inspector, you would not go so far as to lend your support to such inflexible usage.

Finally, I call upon the late Professor G.H. Vallins to support my argument in favour of keeping Zs to a minimum. The Professor was of the opinion that the ‘artificial distinction based on an etymological subtlety that cannot be known to the ordinary man is an unnecessary archaism, and ought to be abolished forthwith’.

That seems to be, in my opinion, Inspector, both a celebration of the common man – namely in this case your admirable Sergeant Lewis – and a paean for equality, something many would think overdue in centres of privilege such as Oxford.

A dedicated follower of your crime-busting (lately on radio, I see), I would courteously suggest that you focus your attention in future on heeding Lewis’ good sense and judgment rather than picking on his use of language. Being from the north, he may not have passed his Eleven-plus, but without him it’s likely you’d have been on the dole long ago and too inebriated even to fill in The Times crossword.

With best wishes from all at ‘Yer Tis.’
Yours etc.
Ned Baslow
‘Yer Tis’,
Old Roman Road
Wickerstaff-cum-Fernhaven

Ned would be happy to receive comments on the matters discussed above. The editorial team wonders, incidentally, whether information about the promotion of Lewis to the rank of inspector in his own right, complete with his own sergeant (not educated in Newcastle) has reached Wickerstaff, tucked away as it is deep in the heart of the Derbyshire countryside.


Thanks to F.W. who submitted the quiz picture of the Spanish civil war heroine La Pasionara. Her immortal words were, ‘Non passaran!’ Location of the statue: Glasgow.


The Blog is taking a summer break and plans to return in the Autumn. Late correspondence on issues concerning Open Source and the implications of Caroline Lucas’ resignation from leadership of the Green Party will appear in Blog 33.


Happy holidaying!