Thoughts on Orhan Pamuk

A really fascinating guy to chew over when you've got absolutely nothing else to be concerned about.

The Complete Stories by Truman Capote: A Review

I nearly called this The Truman Show. I just couldn't go through with it. Sorry everyone.
 
Reynolds Price's introduction to the Modern Classic version of Truman Capote's Complete stories thrusts the diminutive Southern gentleman alongside the globetrotting bar-room aficionado and occasional war correspondent Ernest Hemingway. When I think of what I know about Hemingway and how busy he seemed, all the damn time, Capote is not a comparative figure in my mind's eye. He's just a very intelligent guy who had a fine eye for detail and character and spun woozily evocative yarns around his upbringing and New York living.

And yet I hugely prefer his careful, refined style, not effete as such but deeply interested in a feminine way for me. Capote's style seems perverse in streaks; never asexual but capable of occupying both genders in back to back tales.

The cover is a charmer; a precious young Truman stares intensely into a camera, wispy fringe combed across freckled brow and his clear blue eyes fix you in your place as a cigarette stub dangles from fingers that it feels insulting to describe as lithe, because it's a lazy term and this man would never appreciate slothliness in word or wit.

Twenty vignettes set all over America make up this collection, ranging as far south as Texas and as far north as New York. He's a writer I've always seen in New York thanks to his toothy personality, a fetish for etiquette and an alleged amphetamine habit that would stop Hemingway's bull in Pamplona. And indeed most of my favourite tales, including the exquisitely sinister Miriam and the famous Headless Hawk, are set in that snowflaked city.

As a Southerner, his taste and touch for gothic is refined and seems to possess an ancient wisdom. Elmore Leonard once advised aspiring writers never to describe the weather 'just because it's there': sound advice, and Capote's landscapes creep around their subjects almost tenderly. He has a particular talent for the night. 'Tall trees, misty, painted pale by malicious moonshine towered steep on either side without a break or clearing', make for an oppressive backdrop in A Tree Of Night, a sinister story of a lonely young woman travelling alongside a freak show compere and her savant partner, (relationship never clarified).

Like the sticky Southern heat Capote grew up in, the writing is regularly uncomfortably close to the skin. A surgical knife seems to hovers over each character, trimming and distilling a cast of dozens with a few short, sharp strokes. His brutal treatment of Walter Ranney in Shut A Final Door would be shocking if it weren't so unconcerned with itself, instead annotating his pain with merciless aestheticism via a silent hand. And it seems no background, age or indeed culture is beyond his tender grip. The writing feels amazingly tactile, like it had shook hands with its creations and perhaps sat down for coffee before committing their existence to paper.

Preacher's Legend depicts a decrepit Negro in semi-glorious senility, having finally made his peace with his unseen God in the woods near his shack home. Capote's forensic style lifts the tale off the page here - -it's commonplace to point out the inherent hazards involved with a creation of this broadness and contemporary whims would doubtless cause a younger writer to ironically stretch further than Capote probably did in his depiction. Instead what's captured is almost bitterly honest and gently funny in its exposure of loneliness and the beliefs that gather, like dust, in the spaces between living.

What really stands out is his almost tender appraisal of the most subtle of emotional changes in his characters throughout - I imagined him combing his delicate fingers through that fine hair as he stripped and planed for the depth and dimension that's so insistent in his style. The omniscient position he assumed at the hub of East Coast society in the Fifties and Sixties no doubt played into the development of his style and there's equally no doubt of the relationship each held throughout the author's professional life.

But the most fascinating aspect of all of this was considering where the man drew his abilities from; paradoxically his social nature, his known propensity for gossip and discussion of those around him enabled him to draw on deep wells of understanding of human character that a more reserved individual would never have access to. That alone is not a talent, but these stories feel as fresh today as they did fifty years ago. The man himself would surely tell you that that is a price worth paying.


Pictures courtesy of Penguin.com

The Grand National

They chose their name because it was 'bland and means nothing'. For more and more people, The National's music is anything but.

Not every band gets ten pages in the New York Times. Not even Rihanna gets ten pages in the New York Times. But The National appear to get everything an artist could want without, well, wanting it, at least outwardly. OK so that's part of the appeal. But if modesty and a certain sort of introspective nature were benchmarks of talent it'd take a month to read one issue.

There's something very popular, something rings very true with many people about the Cincinnati band now based in Brooklyn. And there's a temptation to tag that interest under the new narcissism that's crept into much of modern living off the back of social media - narcissism being the apposite term although the negative qualities it connotes are a bit heavier than intended.

But if it were all about transferring sob stories from vinyl to your studio apartment, their success would not be so resounding, so massive. That NYT article is the tip of a huge iceberg. The band have toured some of the world's biggest festivals as well as occupying high spots on critic after critic's end of year best of lists. In short it goes deeper than that, and inevitably there's a certain sense of traditionalism to their work that makes it so completely fascinating.

A life is a polished thing in this century, a highly fussed-over object that brings as many earthly delights as spiritual lows. Whilst pointing out the obvious, The National seem to be a bunch of guys that recognise poverty comes in many different forms and all are worth raking over and combing through in a search for peace, solace and respite. They're also intelligent to recognise the inherent conflict that doing so will create.

And a band that seems so familiar with conflict is bound to be a band that strikes a chord in the hearts of millions, although their grace in the face of difficulties is an almost aspirational quality, and befits their apparently resoundingly sensible outlook. It's a kind of stoicism for the 21st century. It's apparent, in varying amounts, in all of their back catalogue, and will doubtless surface in their new album, Trouble Will Find Me, due out May 20th/21st.

Obviously this isn't the sort of philosophy practised by Diogenes and his buddies. and that outlook has changed markedly since the turn of the century. The early dot-com boom (which some of the band's members worked through whilst playing shows on New York's Lower East Side - hipster credentials complete) and more recent global economic events have seen to that.

But tensions necessarily create toughness, deepening of reserves of willpower and occasionally a more willing attitude to consider the whole picture. The best bit about The National is that not all of their characters fit that ideal mould.



A really good picture of Matt Berninger

Their stories are extolled knowingly, filled with fully drawn characters that have rolled with life's punches and avoid clichés with the contemporary toughness tightly defined. If class was a factor, their troupe are upwardly mobile in aspiration, yet spiritually unconvinced of their direction. Here is a world where actions cause concern and inaction makes for uneasy emotional truces and stasis, sometimes all inside one head.

In other words, they make for tremendous and accurate portrayals of contemporary living and it's no wonder that their fan base has grown so dramatically in the last part of the noughties. Their biggest hit to date, the simple, folksy Fake Empire, has been given real and imagined weight in both a US election campaign (the band are fully signed-up Democrats) and shows like Grey's Anatomy, and is a striking example of their biggest talents; an unassuming piano line ambling along to Matt Berninger's bar-room baritone, drums tiptoeing along before almost incidentally rolling into a gentle yet spine-tingling crescendo of percussion, brass and piano before drifting off just as quietly.

Only once have they tried for a sense of showmanship and on Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks the narrative feels almost forced; sharp lines poke through the story and the protrusions are strange to see. Otherwise the comments that seem commonplace in almost every 'new album' press story feel almost vital to the group's existence.

 And that's even before we get to their credentials. Impeccable, although you already knew that. Their first band was a Pavement tribute and their latest tour partners are Dave Longstreth's Dirty Projectors. They regularly play gigs for great causes (Dark Was The Night is the biggie although there are others) and they're politically 'tuned in' as aforementioned, lending their pulling power to worthy and powerful causes.

As with their craft, the accolades are worn lightly and their demeanour suggests a group of men focused on more personal levels of self-improvement, a journey they are making in public because they want to for more than just a single reason. Their tour diary Mistaken for Strangers, named after a song from Boxer, has recently been presented at Tribeca Festival and the highlights trailer shows shadows of the characters that haunt the band's songs, although there's no sense that you're hearing real tensions being played out. Indeed although it's almost obligatory to mention it when writing about the group, the fact the band has two sets of brothers surely gives certain ingredients their flavour.

I wrote this after being inspired by a short story by Truman Capote named The Headless Hawk, a slim tale portraying Vincent, a character of deftness with a self-deceiving heart who finally unravels in New York rain, burnt out and exhausted by an obsessive and inquisitive savant whom he sleeps with and makes his own.

Vincent feels like a character who could walk straight into a National song and considering the author who created him, I'd like to think that's a fair old compliment. But I can already see what the response would be, and that's what I like the most.

Pictures courtesy of ifthemusicsloudenough.com and chartattack.com

Seize The Day (Tomorrow)

There'll be a subheader here in a bit but I'm going to watch TV first. That show that I like is on.

This weekend's 'suggestion' from Marina Hyde: ban all meetings. Number Ten have apparently resized their negotiating table so even more spads (abb: special advisers) can chivvy around it. Living standards and therefore people's general happiness will not improve with more people having their tuppence, suggests Hyde, as it's a clear example of professional procrastination/ urinating contest. Plus a reason for the UKIPs of the world to weedle out of the woodwork. You've got my vote Marina.

The other thing that caught my eye from that paper was Will.I.Am, a man who to my mind should be a giant, benevolent god of partying; a 21st century Dionysus if you like. His Q&A consisted of questions so generic no wonder the responses are near-monosyllabic and sound catatonic to your ear.

Example 1: What did he "deplore" about himself? 'I can procrastinate a little bit', he drawled (my adverb). I admit the response shocked me a bit. 'When does he do that?!', I thought as I waited for YouTube videos to load.

Procrastination comes in many forms. Multimillionaires do it apparently. Ironically, sometimes it comes in blog form (but the author might not know it so best keep it to yourself eh dear reader?) but often it'll appear in tasks so middling, chores so yawnsome, it's apparent what's going on well before the pencils are all sharp, let alone the same size.

Monk, my go-to TV show of
choice when procrastinating.

The rules aren't hard and fast when considering who'll miss a deadline. How much a person drinks for example, or whether their formative environment was a relaxed or disciplined one. The answers feel off-kilter - procrastinators statistically drink more but also come from more controlling parents. They are honest but tend to self-deceive whilst also being an extremely optimistic group. You'd have to be when leaving that essay until the night before.

Surely the most fascinating part is why people procrastinate. There are the indecisive (no brainer there), the avoiders (yup) but interestingly, some people actually get a rush from pressure. The downside to all that down time? Your health suffers. One college found that students who procrastinated the most got more cold and flu viruses and suffered from insomnia more than other groups (no prizes for guessing why).

So procrastination looks like a term describing a set of behaviours basically not conducive to what's unconsciously agreed upon as successful living. But did it exist a century ago? To me it feels contemporary, a symptom of something else much bigger. A phenomenon that's metastasized in a body of culture many now want out of.

I don't think this is about cash or a lack of it; that's another branch of the same tree. It's a natural side effect of choices we made six decades ago in a near-bankrupt nation exhausted from conflict. That people could twiddle their thumbs in the face of unprecedented ruin is unthinkable, but maybe the very industry that brought about a country we know today equally provided seedling of a different type.

The tyranny of choice.

Basically it's hard to continuously create without people falling into other modes of thinking. Creating is hard core stuff. I mean the act, not the end product. And yet I think that comment earlier nicely represents a terrible, painful paradox; we can continue trying to inspire ourselves and inspire others because the alternative has physical and emotionally unpleasant symptoms of decay, stasis.

Whilst stretching the argument rather thin, the fear of standing still - of doing nothing- could actually promote less healthy behaviour. Businesses, democracies have diagnosed a lack of choice as the heart of the matter. But giving people more choices does not necessarily empower them, and plenty of smarter people than I can elucidate on why that is. Check out Barry Schwartz's brilliantly straightforward take on a profoundly complex problem. His TED talk's here.

Here's my possibly controversial conclusion: creation is harder than ever to stimulate and not because of the usual excuses like time constraints (last fascinating fact: procrastinators can also be excellent at managing their time. Weird right?). Creation is hard because everyone is trying harder than ever to be good at it, and as more people are sucked into a semi-professional state at all stages of existence, creation no longer represents what we want most: happiness.

Photos from MonkMania and guardian.co.uk

Picture Perfect

The success of Rear Window hinges on the everyman qualities of Jimmy Stewart

When questioned once about his approach to acting, Jimmy Stewart suggested one of the most important things was 'to try not to make the acting show.' At first glance the prosaic nature of the remark's only unusual when considering the undoubted depth of the man who said it.

But it's misleading to take at face value. A man who nearly avoided movies altogether to complete a masters in architecture at Princeton would have understood the importance of form and structure, and why an edifice owes as much to the ground it was founded upon as the more subtler aspects.

For a long time I thought this guy represented the quintessential icon of American popular culture; a post war icon, encapsulating family, small town patriotism and conservatism with a small c that was conscientious enough to listen to the liberal voice in its ear. I've been pleasantly surprised to find the evidence to this superficial perspective has sat on my rapidly crumbling shelf (never buy MDF folks. Life lesson right there).

Stewart, kind of appalled, kind of fascinated at once

Although I've owned his films for over a decade, it's fair to say I've only recently become a Jimmy Stewart fan. When I say recently, I really mean in the last week. The film that did the trick was Hitchcock's Rear Window, one of numerous films I own by the rotund Essex gentleman who by everyone's estimate was decades ahead of his contemporaries in understanding the psychology of film (more there shortly). I'm not the first nor best qualified to claim it as a masterpiece, but there you go - there's no sense in disputing it, certainly from these quarters.

Stewart seems an interesting guy full stop. He did Frank Capra's films - many of which I also own (including that one) but before dismissing his work as dreamy sentimentalism, watch them again. Anyone who's a bit of a Capra enthusiast understands the inferences - he knows, as well as his audience, that something fundamental is being lost as the film is being watched; that it's impossible to exist in the nigh-blissful scenes that his characters do and consequently that these films will remain films forever more. I don't believe Frank Capra wasn't really interested in capturing reality - his sniffier supporters might suggest he was better than that. I prefer to think he saw enough reality in real life.

Back to the subject. Stewart is the archetypal Capra protagonist - not naïve but big-hearted, straightforward yet not cruel towards men, and seeming to exist within a moral code miraculously unspoken throughout. These elements are almost believable in his acting, amongst the best I've seen. But Hitchcock made him into something a little different.

Rear Window's a clever piece of work and a more cynical perspective of community life within a major city - witness the emotional outpouring in the dead dog scene for confirmation of Hitchcock's rejection of the Capra code. But Stewart really nails the picture as an everyman with an eye for the narrative thanks to a time and life-consuming job as a magazine photographer. Slowly Stewart sloughs off the shell of disinterested citizen, becoming the recorder and narrator of blithe and unassuming community existing together in a steamy apartment block. Fascination's the seed of the carapace that grows apparently organically over the mundaneness of his lonely wheelchair-bound existence.

Between takes in Stewart's Greenwich apartment

But what prompted the fascination to grow? David Thomson writes really engagingly about a subconscious awakening in American pop culture upon the release of Psycho, the undertones of sexuality, gender and violence providing nourishment to a blooming voyeurism planted by an increasingly pervasive media, mainly thanks to TV. That film was released six years after Rear Window, but you can see the tendrils slowly yet inexorably enfeebling Stewart's perspective to be replaced by one which is created, prescribed and received as gospel.

In spite of that I guess what I most enjoy about this is the general vibe of relentlessness with which Stewart sets Jefferies up in every aspect of his confined life. There's a real element of self-preservation inherent in Stewart which naturally comes from his day job (nb as you'd expect the attention to detail in every aspect of Vertigo is fantastic) but he too is a product of his environment; his class-dominated perspective is a metaphorical straitjacket for him to both defend himself with and attack from. That broken leg is more than broken bones - a literal symbol of L.B's postwar attitude to life, both comfortable with and railing against a society fracturing with every passing world event (detail!)

Grace Kelly, the syrupy-voiced faux-celebrity girlfriend is absolutely brilliant at adapting to his stoic attitude and puncturing holes in his bullish demeanour - more than once it seems there's a boxing match going on between a heavyweight fighter and a quicker, nimbler counterpart who weaves in between the crushing blows. Her opening scene recounting her 'working day' - and Stewart's bored reaction - is hilarious. Both parties seek to concoct stories for L.B's neighbours, L.B in particular appearing almost pathologically addicted to narrative and coherence.

Of course the interest lies in whether his stories bear out the truth or crumble, and it's interesting to observe the camera watch its protagonists. And therein lies the second point, neatly wrapped up by Kelly just when it appears (spoiler!) the villain of the piece will escape unpunished. "Whatever happened to that old saying, 'Love thy neighbour'?" she quips as the corpse of L.B's neighbour's dog is ceremoniously withdrawn into the apartment amid wailing and recriminations. Hitchcock couldn't have guessed how television would make fleeting stars out of the everyday people in his flats and apartments but the draping of fictitious narrative over a real life is amazing to watch - this film is nearly 60 years old but feels as contemporary as ever.

A brief word on the camerawork- it's been covered in more expansive and frankly better detail elsewhere but this is one of the only films I've ever seen that makes it explicitly clear that everything you are watching is being manipulated. The protagonist is a photographer. Many of the film's scenes include views from his binoculars/ camera lens.

But even outside that, Hitchcock achieves a sort of free indirect style with his camerawork, strongly inferring that the visuals reflect Stewart's own interests rather than his. For me that's the distinguishing mark of a masterpiece over merely very good. But even more, it's a demonstration of the talents of a man who understood - whether it was in film or architecture - never let the joins show. Maybe I'll take that on board when I buy my next shelving unit.

Pictures courtesy of The Lightning Bug's Lair and HHHHound.com

The Rise and Rise of the Living Dead

Why an empty vessel makes a brilliant metaphor. Too blasé?

Hordes of people are mindlessly grazing all over the planet. In New York, in the Midwest, in fictional towns in the north of England. And those hordes of people are being watched by other hordes of people, mindlessly grazing, all over the planet.

Zombies (of course!) have always had a particularly strong bond with their human brethren. In the age of phablets, multi-purpose televisions and '3D' films (now you don't have to use your eyes' ability to perceive depth!) we're arguably closer than ever to becoming the walking dead.

But that's enough Romero chat. Why the popularity? The Walking Dead, one of the most successful non-cable shows ever in the US, attracts so many viewers Barack Obama's electoral boffs placed ads before, during and after it (could be a very tongue-in-cheek statement by Democrats but I doubt that). World War Z, Hollywood's filming of the exceptionally popular Max Brooks novel has almost twenty million views on YouTube. And in the space recently vacated by Being Human BBC3 recently aired In The Flesh, a rather creepy bit of work examining a small northern town's reaction to the homecoming of a 'cured' zombie teenager to his doting parents and sort-of militant, mostly confused sister.

Steve Ovett: great in everything. Watch him everyone!

The last of these shows presented an interesting picture of a town suffering under the indifference of a London government predominantly concerned with the nation's towns and cities, with its citizens clubbing together to form poorly-armed bands of guerrilla fighters in an effort to protect them from the undead.

For anybody that saw it, there was plenty of interesting 'metaphorical action' here but my favourite part was the more social element. Roarton was obviously based on towns in the north of Britain and readers of the likes of John Harris will be particularly interested in the clear allusion to towns and cities like Bradford, Burnley and Sunderland, who have been on the receiving end of, essentially, experiments in cuts in public sector employment alongside private regeneration, as well as new migrants coming to work (or occasionally not) from mainland Europe in recent years.
But the bigger efforts gnawed a different nerve - fears that many are understandably afraid to confront. Romero's Living Dead series was mainly concerned with (hold your breath, long archaic terms ahead) globalised capitalist society, able to get whatever it wanted whenever and subsequently falling into a dazed stupor (breathe).
World War Z is much more interested in more everyday concerns that tap into deep, unrealised fears about government complacency and general competency to do the right things well for their populations. Relationships between nations on lots of levels - diplomatic, economic and military are examples of things that author Max Brooks chews over. It feels contemporary and the zombie saturation provides a great conduit for terrible dangers through relentless demonstrations of mindless and chaotic behaviour.

It's obvious why World War Z is attracting so much interest when you look at the underlying themes and compare to real life. Looking at political engagement for example tells a story. In the UK voting habits have changed dramatically as many voters from all walks of life become disengaged from a crust of society that is perceived as both self-interested and satisfied. There's also less votes recorded year on year relative to population growth. That's the sort of comment Brooks etched deeply into Z.



One of the scariest endings you'll ever see on film.

But that's enough of the boring stuff. It's unsurprising that it's sold almost a million copies but the satisfaction's derived from an inquisitive tone that's dare I say... sensible. Which is weird really, when every other zombie effort falls into straight horror/gore or non-too-subtle grabs for an intellectualism for saps. Sadly, the film looks like being a Brad Pitt disaster movie. Take some sunglasses - messages concerning themes of the above are likely to be delivered 'with bombast'. 

I'm sure many other genre buffs lament over similar points, but the sheer puerility of much of what's delivered in contemporary horror is dispiriting. Which is why I'm (tentatively) excited about the recent streak of entertainment based around zombies. OK so prosthetics have got better, but that's not really why it's so exciting. The original Rec (above right), although now nearly five years old, presents a brilliant dissection of a bitter, isolated group of people in contemporary Spanish society who rely on hearsay and gossip all delivered through the medium of reality TV. A lovely piece of work and subtly smart.
Of course there's a great chance I'll be making the same point in another five years, except this time with... what? Meyer has successfully eviscerated vampirism, presenting their fractured selves in public as ancient versions of contemporary society. And we had ghosts for a bit (oh hi Takashi Shimizu, got any re-remakes coming up?) which were very scary when done in a particular way (Japanese, poorly conditioned hair, female) Forget their tiresome supernatural forebears - I want zombies to take over the world. You might enjoy it.

 

McCONAUGHEY?

How Dazed and Confused taught me to appreciate the talents of Matthew McConaughey, actor and bongo extraordinaire

To think it started with a house arrest, bongo drums and nudity. And, inevitably, Wikipedia. My gradual reappraisal of Matthew McConaughey finally completed a full 180 last night upon witnessing his glorious turn in Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused, but I remember a more cynical time.

A time, admittedly, when I wore gym vests beneath polo shirts because I saw a guy do it in a hip-hop video and a time when I spent 45 minutes in video shops looking at their new releases and smirking knowingly at the film playing (Blockbuster Sidcup I mourn your passing. If I'd had money I'd have helped you out).

The film was the sports-betting sort-of-thriller Two For The Money, involving a very buff McConaughey outgruffing ultimate gruff-voiced shouty guy Al Pacino over American football stats. This was following on from SJP fronted rom-com Failure To Launch (which exec took a punt on that title, I hear you ask). The year was 2007, I was a peaky graduate and owned an armchair, a bed, a laptop, a cardboard box of homeware and a carload of books and music. Life was terrible.

McConaughey staring down Weird Al in less cool times

Naturally McConaughey was gonna get it. Classic Southern gentleman I thought - smouldering looks, a linebacker's physique and hair from a Vidal Sassoon ad. And that voice. Was he weaned on Bullett Bourbon? And just look at those films he was in. The two above were enough for me to convict in the court of cool. I was judge, jury and executioner. Young men are terrible people. But was McConaughey actually a douche? In 2007, in my Bench track jacket, gym vest and polo shirt combo (you could see the gym vest underneath hanging over my jeans - I was that bad) my unwavering response would be a smirking 'Are you serious?'

As you might have noticed I have a thing for re-evaluating my preconceptions. It's the price you pay for what I  like to think of as compassion and what my friends, family and workmates appreciate as an almost childlike naivety about life. There's a famous quote about adults preferring themselves as children that I can't be bothered Googling, but it's there and it's no doubt true.

Case in point: I recently saw Ben Affleck win a Best Picture for his 1970s set hostage art/reality thriller Argo (and suggested he was a shoo-in 24 hours earlier here) which capped my reappraisal of a guy I used to assume was also classic Hollywood douche, whatever that is. A lot of my preconceptions are based on what I read on blogs and in magazines. Do you get that?

Anyway, that opening line. Good isn't it? And it's true - my preconceptions did change once I read of McConaughey getting busted for being blazed to his eyeballs on pot hammering the hell out of bongos in the middle of the night. In the buff. I loved every aspect of his story, and what had led me to reconsider his talents? The trailer for Killer Joe of course.

I never saw Friedkin's deep-fried slice of queasy Americana, starring a distinctly creepy-eyed M.M as a hitman with unholy desires for his client's sister, but it interested me. What was a guy like this doing in a film like that?

So watching Dazed and Confused last night was akin to discovering a priest's hole in a stately home that led back to a chapel in the middle of nowhere. I suddenly understood how the man responsible for toecurlers like Ghost of Girlfriends Past and We Are Marshall had got to Killer Joe - a connection not immediately visible but definitely a permanent part of the architecture.

Beat that bowl cut/ moustache combo. Fact: you can't.

Of course there's a broader point here of recognising change in yourself and a natural broadening of perspective as you're exposed to more of the world blah blah etc etc but you all knew that anyway. The important element is the blonde mop the man sports (right) whilst wearing rolled up t-shirt, red trousers and a frankly excellent pair of boots that need to make a comeback in 2013, never mind 1976.

This guy's a revelation. I've no idea who Marjorie Baumgarten is but her take on his performance is spot on: "He is a character we're all too familiar with in the movies but McConaughey nails this guy without a hint of condescension or whimsy, claiming this character for all time as his own." As succinct an appraisal as you'll find, but a perfect description of the sincerity of his performance.

Condescension, I guess, is an emotion an actor can't feel if they want to know success (there's a clear parallel with the intro I constructed up there if you're interested) and his portrait of a jock delighted with his lot and a tangible sense of hedonism is brilliant. Incidentally Affleck also shows up, but as the bullying senior who flunked, he's still a bit of a loser at that stage. Different career arc for him, clearly.

Pictures courtesy of www.scoutlondon.com and screenrush.co.uk

I'd Tap That

The York Tap's success reflects a slowly growing interest in local breweries over multinationals. And the beer's amazing.

My first drink of beer was in my parents' house aged 14. I had a half a lager with some lemonade in it, and I remember quite enjoying it. As far as I can recall the brand was Fosters lager, an Australian lager that's brewed here in Manchester, England.

The most Australian thing about Fosters as far as I can tell are the hackneyed TV ads, which themselves aren't really reflective of Australians (I've been, FYI). And that's one of the reasons I've not really drank lager as a preference for about eight years. The other, more significant reason is less sophisticated. Basically I can't stand the taste of lots of lager. Carling, Carlsberg, Tuborg, Fosters, Budweiser, Stella Artois - I hate all of it. It makes me feel a bit ill drinking it.

Ill physically. Despite the clear inference of snobbery in that first paragraph, I'm not using the term 'ill' pejoratively here; I just don't like the taste. Don't get me wrong, I'll drink lager if the taste doesn't require a conscious effort to concentrate my thoughts elsewhere. I quite like Amstel and Heineken for example. And I've not even mentioned Budvar, the gateway pint to full-on Eurolager snobbery. It's just that there's something offensive about a drink that's so conspicuously unpleasant being so heavily marketed.

So trips to North Yorkshire are usually full of exactly the sort of experience my wary drinker persona loves. Especially places like the York Tap, possibly the nicest pub I've ever seen in a British railway station. It's got a mosaic floor and hardback chairs for God's sake; there's a certain Catholicism to these places that's never gone out of fashion with a large portion of British society. Predominantly Yorkshiremen, I'd wager.

The York Tap (right) mostly just sells what is colloquially termed as 'beer' and I'm not sufficiently enlightened nor pretentious enough to distinguish the varieties here. I will say there's a few IPAs (Indian pale ales for the uninitiated), a couple of porters (a sort of stout-y drink that commonly recalls chocolate, liquorice and coffee), some milder stuff and a good selection of mid-strength ruby coloured beer that you would happily trade a day of aspirin and water to sup your way through. The only food they sell is pork pie, which is slightly one-dimensional even to a lover of pork pie, but then no one's here for the food.

The Tap's just won the Best Cask Beer Pub in the Great British Pub Awards 2012 and its monastic style to food and décor extends to its marketing. It has a website, just about advertising the above. Want a menu? There isn't one - until you're in the place. It all infers a certain never-mind-the-bollocks-here's-your-pint (they'd probably snort at 'je ne sais quoi') and it's also riotously popular with drinkers.

Sitting in the York Tap, slowly going numb in the hind quarters, supping a half because you actually want to taste the next beer as well as get a bit more drunk, it's easy to assume this is simply part of the beauty of Yorkshire. After all, towns like Knaresborough and Otley offer so many pubs you wonder if anyone ever goes to work. But does this county offer a glimpse of a more diffuse future in British pubs? More bare floorboards, less ItBoxes, pubs that are pubs and not horribly ignorant approximations of 'continental drinking'?

As well as the nationally famous John Smith's, Black Sheep, Timothy Taylor and Theakston breweries, Yorkshire is home to dozens of microbreweries. There are 43 breweries in West Yorkshire alone. Whilst there's no point - or indeed solid evidence - in suggesting that the original English variant of beer - live, just below room temperature, un-carbonated - is claiming its rightful territory back from the invasion of lager beer in the 1970s, the undoubted increase in popularity of places like Manchester's Port Street Beer House (below) is part of a wider cultural change. Smaller is better if you like, as perfectly evidenced by Tesco's blatant grab for the market with its purchase of Giraffe last week.

It's likely an audience would always have existed for the Tap in York, as evidenced by that mass of breweries above. But the success of pubs eschewing the multinational Fosters, Carling et al would have been unthinkable only a decade ago.

As I suggested in an article about embarrassing TV shows, economic downturns prompt many people into overdue introspection which leads to questioning your lifestyle choices - what you're eating has recently come under the microscope (literally in some cases) and inevitably people who were happy spending money when there was lots of it suddenly want more for their buck.

It's an inevitable characteristic although not a little depressing in its origins. It's actually not got much to do with cost per pint - Port Street and new kid on the block Brew Dog are more expensive than their high street counterparts - but they offer a perception of sincerity, commitment to excellence and ingenuity that Yates and Wetherspoons can't - or won't - invest in.

So is beer getting more popular? Possibly not - but people are choosing more carefully. The most encouraging, and maybe ironic, element to this story however is this: the less that people have, the more adventurous they become. That's a great and positive story and bodes well for a small pub in York train station.

Pictures courtesy of Port Street Beer House and Planet Confidential

(Don't) Mind The Gap

It scares the hell out of me. But is understanding art really key to enjoying it?  

Whenever I go to look at an exhibition, a great sensation grabs hold of me. It's part excitement - who doesn't enjoy looking at things they could never create themselves? - but also a state of nervousness, which is rooted in the fear of feeling nothing upon seeing whatever you're intending to look at/ interact with.

The nothingness is linked to ignorance of course, which is probably what every person is most afraid of and engenders different reactions depending on environment and nurture. Broadly speaking I can deal with ignorance; I cross its path so often we're almost bosom buddies, but art unnerves me to an extent that I tend to just look at it and move on.

I 'studied' (was taught) art at school and am a reasonable artist myself (strictly drawing and generally I like cartoons but I can do still life and stuff like that) - indeed my work hangs in my hallway (a jungle scene, with a chimp wearing Air Jordans since you didn't ask) which you can visit any time. So on a primitive, purely intuitive level, I 'understand' style, which is probably why I enjoy pop art so much.

But ask me what it means and you'll get a blank look. So my trip to Tate Liverpool in February represented a chance for me to better understand my relationship with art and actually have a crack at understanding what they're on about, if you'll pardon the colloquial nature. So this might be the only blog you'll read that has no professional/academic/other insight into art whatsoever. It's just what I think.

This was one of my favourite pieces from my visit and is by an artist named Frank Stella, an abstract expressionist. Now I actually know what abstract expressionism comprises of without having to resort to Wikipedia or gallery notes so I enjoyed this picture all the more. Jackson Pollock has always been one of my favourite artists, basically because I have a visceral connection with his work - for want of a better term, it moves me. This strikes me as really personal in composition and the style is almost musical for me; with the colours suggesting something exotic and beautiful. Indeed there's a macaw in there somewhere...

This is a piece by internationally renowned British painter Francis Bacon and was one of the best things I saw all day. There's currently an excellent exhibition showing by Sylvia Sleigh on contemporary Renaissance-style art which, as you'd expect, was incredible to observe in detail and depth, but nothing interests me like this sort of work. Bacon feels like a big influence on JG Ballard and even latterly David Foster Wallace in his warped appraisals of human consciousness and at the risk of exposing my shallow intellectualism, this kind of reminds me of 1920s Picasso in the framing and angular nature of aspects of the work. Genuinely no idea what's occurring here but the somewhat bureaucratic setting and flat, soulless background, in strict conflict with the almost grisly centrepiece of flesh and distorted face in the centre point to something sinister and tortuous.


I recently got done reading Constellation of Genius (I reviewed it on this blog if you're so inclined) and as an entry point into the beginnings of what's now termed modernism it's a fantastic read. This piece is by Hans Bellmer, an artist best known for his sculpture and in particular a very famous piece known as La Poupee. Bellmer was linked with Breton's burgeoning surrealist movement in the 1930s and knowing what I do of Dali (also discussed in that book, btw) I found this an immediately identifiable and therefore enjoyable work (all surface, me). A painting that inspires several thoughts all at once is for me a successful one and this one is another piece that's on nodding terms with human existence but also seems weirdly alien and almost percussive to me somehow. Bellmer's appeal to Breton lay in his sexualisation of youth and feminine beauty (he was a cheeky boy after all was Breton) although I must say I don't feel much sex oozing from this.

Liverpool's waterfront is getting better and better; I last visited the Tate for a Picasso retrospective in 2010 and it's come along even further since then. This picture illustrates nicely the fairly radical approach the city's architects are taking towards reconstructing the old shipping yards of the Mersey. I think they provide a great companion piece to the vast expanses of flat, angled walkways on the waterfront, and it's great to see something challenging with a signature style to it - even if I can't explain what it's all about.

Not Sarong After All

The National Football Museum's Strike A Pose exhibition proves footballers can create great entertainment in other industries. Well, some of them can.

Having a week off work has, oddly, made me more productive. That and seeing a former schoolmate living in Australia as a designer anyway. So last week I decided enough was enough. I was done (for now) with marathon lazing sessions in bed watching TED talks on my mobile and eating croissants with jam. Erm:- not the croissants with jam, then.

My first step away from my safety blanket (which really is my bed, ironically) was a baby one. I decided to visit the National Football Museum here in Manchester, which has been part of the city's cultural makeup for the last three years at the Urbis. Which itself is a beautiful piece of work and well worth staring at, particularly on the fine day I got.

As well as many good friends that are my intellectual superiors, my Twitter feed is populated by comedians and football journalists from various media. In my mind's eye the role of the football journalist is a glorious one; Michael Cox's coffee-fuelled dissections of dummy runs and wing counterattacks which probably involve copious Excel somehow, Raf Honigstein's witty rendering of the whinging that's somehow juvenile and intelligent between Uli Hoeness, Jupp Heynckes and Jurgen Klopp, and "the Sunday column" (my prefs: Daniel Taylor and Henry Winter); this last one assumes almost institutional status in my Sunday morning routine and stands as the ultimate bulwark against internet journalism, a form invariably devoid of statistics (read: evidence) and usually as interesting as a Tony Pulis formation.

Any fan will tell you there's a visceral, near-tangible sensation of group thought that's at its most powerful in football, but it's deeply evident in fashion too. I've seen at first hand how trends, new seasons and the famous four cities that make the worlds' fashion weeks inspire people to discuss, debate and commentate on something that feels theirs. It's a wonderful feeling and it doesn't surprise me to find many people in football are therefore very interested in fashion as well.

The Strike A Pose collection at the museum is testament to a lasting cultural relationship between fashion and football and it was easily the best part of what I felt was a brilliant monument to the sport. Whilst few would argue it possesses the depth and history of more established cultural forebears, football shares a powerfully nostalgic quality prevalent in the best art and music, and in fashion it has a partner passionate about re-evaluating history and revising its most interesting elements.



Hello boys. Who's that second from right?

Everything was in there, from Mourinho's chic grey cashmere coat (above) to the (in)famous 'cricket flannels' Armani suits Liverpool wore to the 1996 League Cup final (right). But the most interesting collections for me were George Best's clothes from his fashion line and an evaluation of fan fashion from the 1970s onwards. 

Best would have thrown La Nausee in the Seine; he was a man who lived, never passive in anything and for that reason destined to burn out before the finishing line. For that reason a lot of descriptive English doesn't really apply to Best and never will; he was never ethereal in presence or aloof in attitude. Typically the clothes he designed embodied that life and were an uncompromisingly contemporary and stylish statement, in comparison to the staid postwar suits of Bertie Mee's Arsenal side in the 1960s. Best's collection possessed a floridity and vibrance that lazy people would term 'quintessential';- I prefer to think he just liked mustard turtlenecks.

It was also great to look at fan fashion objectively, without the sinister inferences found in Nick Lowe films and Jeff Powell columns, and see how and why it developed. I particularly loved the more 'tailor-made' stuff that was directly responded to its environment; Massimo Osti's goggled mac (left) is an inspired bit of outerwear that's both practical and infers that a statement's being made.

And of course, the UK's relationship with the national sport meant the afternoon represented a chance to snuffle around a conscience perpetually tearing itself apart over everything before generally making the right call. Except for those Liverpool suits of course. Just look at the state of Neil Ruddock.

Liverpool team photo courtesy of Liverpool Echo