June 28th, 2009
I’m lying face down on the bed crying into a pillow. It’s sodden from tears and the tissue in my hand is not faring any better. My breath is ragged but I sob loudly. Without lifting my head from the pillow I reach out to the bedside table and grab my notebook and pen. Despite the pain, despite the terrible loss, part of me thinks, ’I must write this down …these physical sensations of grief … I can use them for that character.’
How sick is that?
Because it’s my feelings, I don’t care – but if someone came in and said, ‘Excuse me, I’m a writer. I know you are hurting but do you mind if I just take some notes?’ I’d pick up my pillow and thump them with it.
I have friends who, since I’ve been writing, look at me nervously and make anxiety-relieving jokes about their worst habits turning up in my books. I reassure them by saying, ‘Don’t worry, I would never do something like that.’
But would I?
Just where do I get my characters? It’s a curly question all right. As a lecturer in art one of the most common questions from students was, ‘Where do you get your ideas from?’ There is no snap answer to that. I wish I could say, ‘Just go down the shop and buy some, then customise it,’ – which is what a lot of us have done, particularly when starting out. But it’s not an answer for the long term.
I’ve no idea where ideas come from. Observation, rumination, acquisition and disposition. Being open to everything that passes through your mind is a good place to start. No self-editing at the beginning, no censor, no negative self talk, no embarrassment, no cringing. A prominent artist who lectured when I was a student woke every morning and wrote down her dreams. A dream can never be captured by language, to my mind. But for artists it is a very good place to start – if one’s internal world is the driver of your work.
But for fiction writers, recording dreams is probably not much use. We observe others and ourselves, scavenge in reality, pick over the smoking ruins, notice small gestures, speculate on emotion, motivation and always have the radio telescope switched on and scanning for stories. We scribble away in notebooks, tucking away morsels to bring out when times are lean.
When I decided to have a go at writing I knew little about the processes. Now, I slowly grope toward some sort of understanding. Three years ago, fingers poised over the keyboard, I decided I didn’t want to write about my internal world. I wanted to move away from the introspective, over-thought place I’d inhabited for years as an artist. That place may have been of supreme interest to me, but my prospective reader’s eyeballs would roll back in their head after only a few words. Nope, I was to be invisible – the hand that taps the keyboard, no more. My characters would be themselves. Such an idea appears rather sweet in it’s naivety, now I look back on it.
The truth, as I am discovering, is that I am in all my characters. As are people I’ve known throughout my life, and those I haven’t known. The characters take part of me onto the page with them, but only a part. One of my favourite actors, Daniel Day Lewis, said in an interview that it could sometimes take up to nine months to ‘get over’ a character, so thoroughly had he inhabited them, and the letting go of that character - once the project was completed – generated a lot of grief.
I understand this very well. My sense of loss is acute when I finish with favourite characters, (I know some writers can’t wait to be rid of theirs). While recently revisiting my old favourites during the editing process, I sat back in my chair, scratched my head and thought, ‘Oh. Did I really write that? There is more of me in her than I realised.’
I can never ‘get over’ a character if that is the case. I don’t know how to feel about that – amused, appalled or simply curious. Writing was not going to be about me, I was adamant. But I’m there in the story, I can see that now. My internal world is there on the page – and if I set out to write by-the-numbers formula book it would be an abysmal failure, it’s my inner world, which gives it life.
More experienced writers and thinkers might yawn as they read this. But as a writer with no formal training in Creative Writing I stumble along and bang into these truths, perhaps a few times, before I sit down and examine them, shins bleeding and impatient at my own obtuseness.
People often assume fiction writers place themselves as the main character in their novels. I don’t think that is necessarily true. I consider the notion of writing as author wish fulfilment to be too simplistic. But I smile when I recall a friend’s reaction to one of my manuscripts. He handed the manuscript back and said of the sex scenes, ‘I read this and thought gosh! Did Phillipa do all this?’ I laughed and replied that I wrote fiction, not memoirs and no, I hadn’t ‘done all that, and nor did I wish to.’
But some part of me must have for it to turn up. How very disorienting. Was it me on the page … or was it the character?
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June 23rd, 2009
I love clothes. Not fashion and not necessarily expensive ones, but interesting, unusual clothes that suggest an era or an idea, a country or mood.
I used to wear a bias cut satin slip from the thirties that had been my grandmother’s. I had astrakhan coats and Victorian nightgowns, Chinese silk shirts and nineteen forties silk dresses, heavily beaded cardigans and thick gold Edwardian necklaces, marcasite and bakelite costume jewellery, glorious spotted shirts from the nineteen fifties, sundresses with cinched in waists and flared skirts and a swimming costume with shirring and a halter neck from the fifties, scarves…. masses of them.
I’d go out shopping wearing vintage pyjama tops and carrying knitting bags from the nineteen fifties. I was drawn to my best friend at art school at first because she wore a pair of salad tongs in her long pale hair, and she wore them with incredible style. From across the painting studio I thought, ‘Now there is a girl worth knowing.’
Many of these lovely things have long since disappeared. Some days I approached my wardrobe in a fury and ruthlessly plucked out the offending items. Because some days, unless your choice is perfect, or you are the fabulous Vivienne Westwood, with vintage clothes you can look like a bag lady.
Vintage clothes are hard to find now at a reasonable price, and I don’t have those long indolent Saturdays to stalk them through the city markets, nor do I have that many opportunities to wear them, as I spend most of my time tapping away in front of the screen wearing what I call ‘slops’ – basically anything draped over the bedroom chair that could still pass for clean.
Despite this cloistered life, I love to see beautifully dressed women. It is my observation that many women over seventy can often put themselves together in a most exquisite way. The clothes of their youth are our vintage clothes. Years ago I saw a woman on a train in Sydney dressed in a black suit, sheer black stockings, a small pillbox hat with black net over her eyes and jet earrings. Her hair was grey, her face distinguished and her expression was that of world-weary detachment. She smoked a cigarette in a languid manner and despite being well over seventy; she bore herself like a lioness. I have never forgotten her, nor my intense desire to stare in admiration, and the lengths I went to, behind my book, to drink in every detail of this woman.
Perhaps she embodied the essence of what vintage clothes lover’s are after. An attention to detail and a lost glamour. Not the glamour of instant celebrity, paparazzi, and the gangster/whore derivative dressing found in all the retail stores. (Those who have a girl child will know of the frustration at only being able to find outfits a Las Vegas hooker might wear on the job). But a glamour that comes from within one’s self and the attention paid to presenting that self.
I have a dress, bought a long time ago in the Paris flea markets. The dress is pale green and ivory stripes and dotted with sprigs of pale blue and lilac flowers. It’s too fragile to wear now, but when I did wear it I felt myself going for a summer stroll through a Renoir painting.
It had been handmade, perhaps in the nineteen fifties or earlier, sleeveless, with a tight bodice, a little peplum, lined with beige silk and with sewn in cotton lace and tulle petticoats. I had a dressmaker fit it properly and even she cooed and clucked over this pretty confection, marvelling at the hand stitching and the lost loveliness of a home made Parisian dress.
Whoever made it must have worn it with pride. Perhaps, as they did in those days, she selected matching shoes and handbag. Or perhaps she wore no shoes with it and simply ran through a poppy filled meadow, her hair flying. Whatever she did, whoever she kissed, and whatever meadow she ran through, it’s in that dress. I see it and it fills me with pleasure.
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June 17th, 2009
Nick Cage as writer in Adaptations
When we were not staring blankly into space, my closest friend at art school and I spent hours debating why the hell we were actually there. We examined the topic of “What was the life of an artist and did we, in fact, want such a life?” After reading about artists and their lives we were both aware that there would be sacrifices to make. But would it be worth it?
We both decided that in order to devote ourselves to sculpture we would have to get healthy, eat well, eschew all alcohol, get plenty of sleep, work long hours, cultivate the right people, save every cent, live a Spartan and rigorous existence and accept that no matter how hard we worked we may still be, at best, a mid ranked artist, with few sales and always struggling for grants and a way to survive.
Upon graduation she gave me a copy of Patrick White’s novel on the life of the artist, The Vivisector. It was a very hot summer that year and I had bought a child’s blow up wading pool, filled it with water, and lay in it most days reading The Vivisector. Lolling in the tepid water, engrossed in the story, I began to have my doubts I was up to as self-absorbed a life as Hurtle Duffield’s, (the best artists, I think, are the most self absorbed). But I fell for Patrick White in a big way and read every book of his I could get my hands on, as well as David Marr’s biography. There is a picture of Patrick White taken at a neat writing desk, looking affable and well groomed. He captioned this ‘a writers life, as it isn’t.’
I think of that photo often. And I think of the illusions that abound regarding the life of an artist or writer. My friend at art school and I thought we understood the tough road ahead. But when young you can’t really have a true appreciation of the harshness life can send your way, or how difficult it is to survive on little but belief in yourself. If you have no money but have emotional support and public respect for what you do, maybe. But if you have no money, no emotional support and struggle for exhibition space let alone respect, it is a one-way street to despair.
Many, many artists set off blithely down that street but turn away – realising it’s not going to happen and they may as well try something else. That is a tough decision to make - to give up the dream and to find something else to do. There are success stories of painters who have gone into gallery ownership, writers into publishing, musicians into orchestra management, but taking that decision can feel like the death of part of one’s self.
I made the decision to walk away from visual art – as a maker - and so did my friend. She is an extraordinarily intelligent woman, with a rigorous self-discipline and original view of life. But after exhibiting for some years she left, disillusioned for Japan. On her return she told me she had seen someone in the street wearing a t-shirt saying ‘I don’t want to make art, I want to be happy.’ We laughed ourselves sick at that.
There were a few tears too. But we laughed because of its truth. Creation is struggle, creation is pain, creation is hard work and what you create may never be good enough for public recognition. You may not get lucky, or you may simply not have enough talent. Or you may just give up.
She returned to Japan and made a life there - not as an artist, and I went on to make prints, teach and have babies.
Now I write. And it, too, is hard work. Hard, lonely and isolating work. If you are looking for glamour, look elsewhere. I love writing, there is nothing I would rather do – but I pay a price. It’s a price some are not willing to pay, particularly people who cherish the illusion of the glitter of creative life.
Most days I schlep around in ancient jeans and torn t shirts, hair dishevelled, my desk buried under a mountain of paper and the inevitable impedimenta that lands there – dentist reminders, coffee cups, cables that don’t seem to fit anything, hair clips, lists of things to do and other, as yet, unidentified ‘things’. I seat myself before this melange, crank up the computer and then stare out the window.
But I have to do it. So I do. I start because if I think about it too long I won’t do it. There is nobody telling me – all discipline must come from within. Can’t answer the phone, can’t look at emails, can’t fritter on Facebook, can’t dream life away flitting through Google images, can’t leave desk to put load of washing on, can’t leave desk to make bed, can’t leave desk for any reason - except coffee - or else it won’t get done.
This is my day. My world becomes feverish. My world is reduced down to my characters and the world I am constructing for them. They are more real, more important than reality. When I leave the house, all I want to do is get back to them.
Once the first draft is done, the incline gets steeper. Rewriting and thinking, editing, rewriting, thinking, editing, rewriting, thinking, editing, rewriting…. . Every day – in shabby clothes, on your own, becoming more and more eccentric as the days roll on.
Does this sound glamorous?
And as the manuscript nears completion you enter a state that requires a phenomenal amount of concentration. Editing. Hours of thinking about the ‘rightness’ of each word, each punctuation mark, each line of dialogue. It is exhausting, and inevitably you will miss something. But you go over it and over it, and your friends – those you have left – read it, and maybe a long suffering partner – if they haven’t left you for a more sociable person. And then you rewrite and you edit and then, finally you submit to agents. And wait.
They all reject you. Another ten agents…another ten rejections…. another three agents and then there is no one left. More rejections. Glamorous? No, not at all.
You put your precious baby away in the bottom drawer and get on with the next project. You have no money and no respect - when you tell people you are a writer their immediate question is, ‘Are you published?’ If not, the face of the questioner may stay impassive but you know they are thinking - ‘wanker’ and dismissing you as a talent-less wannabee.
What they don’t know is the hours and hours of blood sweated out over that keyboard. What they don’t know is the self-discipline required to drive such an effort. What they don’t know is many extremely good and talented writers will never be published. What they don’t know is that you have to have so many factors in your favour just to be able to produce the damn thing, let alone get it out to agents and publishers. What they don’t know is there is not a shred of glamour anywhere in the process.
So why do we do it?
I don’t know the answer to that. But I think of athletes and their ‘high’ when their rigorous training, mental discipline and physical fitness come together. In the past, when painting or drawing, and now, when I write, sometimes a feeling moves through me, a feeling beyond words, and I know there is nothing else on the planet that is as mystifying, as moving and as deeply exciting as that feeling.
There is no other game in town as far as I am concerned. I work hard for that feeling, (and sometimes I think it might be easier to just take mind altering drugs). But it is those moments, which sustain me through the relentless hard work.
Anselm Keifer
“He becomes beyond all others the great Invalid, the great Criminal, the great Accursed One - and the Supreme Knower. For he reaches the unknown.”
Rimbaud
Epigram from The Vivisector, Patrick White, Penguin 1973
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June 11th, 2009
I was looking for the way out of a department store recently. As I traipsed through the children’s’ wear section a t-shirt caught my eye. Short sleeved, black and with the word, ‘Creative’ on the front. Turning around I saw another t-shirt, white, with the words, ‘Poets and Writers’ written across it.
I stared at it. Poets and Writers are what? Are next to godliness? Are drunken nihilistic fools? Are given to terrible internecine bloodletting? Are dreamy and irresponsible? Are a financial burden on the taxpayer?
But it was not that sort of statement.
These clothing items, for pre schoolers, were particularly expensive and I wondered at the parent who might dress their child in these garments. Did the kindly t-shirt designer think if little Joss and Jasmine take creativity to chaotic levels and the finger paint hits the fan, it could be easier to slip the ‘Creative’ t-shirt on thus feeling you have done your bit for their intellectual development? Or are these a new line in parental aspiration t-shirts? But you don’t see t-shirts with ‘Mergers and Acquisitions,’ or ‘Financial Acumen,’ on the front. So what is it the parent is buying here?
Lest you think I am parent bashing, let me digress and state that I too am a parent. I’ve had my son, at age four, beg me to buy him t-shirts with a Superhero picture on the front. I have always disliked picture clothes for children. I’m not a stern parent, I’ve been free and easy with the chocolate frogs, but I can’t stomach my child being used to advertise the Big Entertainment Corp’s superhero. Oh, lighten up, Phillipa. But I can’t. It’s a fetish of mine, just as some parents are focussed on singlets, or vitamin supplements, for me it’s picture clothes. I bought him a plain t-shirt and told him Superhero wore similar shirts when off duty. He was happy with that.
We love to think of our children as creative. ‘Oh,’ we say, ‘Angus is SOOO creative…he makes these AMAZING designs with plastic straws and toilet rolls, and Alethea was composing Haiku at aged THREE.’ When you hear this you are suitably crushed and think wistfully of your own four year old who likes lying on the couch eating corn chips and watching Play School. Perhaps this is when a ‘Creative’ t-shirt comes in handy. When asked what ‘after school activity’ (code for ‘how good a mother are you?), your child engages in, you simply whack the t-shirt on said child and silence these competitive types.
I once bought myself a Teach Yourself French book. As the man behind the counter handed me my change he remarked, with an amused look in his eye, ‘Buying the book is not enough, you know, you have to read it and practice.’ I laughed with him but wandered back out into the street feeling a bit deflated. He was right. Like some sort of perverse cargo cult, we feel if we purchase the item - slogan emblazoned t-shirt, language book, ankh pendant, Taoist symbolic earrings, Chanel lipstick, ankle tattoo, - that somehow we will absorb the essence without the effort. How many parents long for t-shirts that say, ‘Silent,’ or ‘Vegetable Eater and Model Student’?
Charles Bukowski
And how many parents would really wish for their children the turbulent life that many creative people live? From the outside it may appear romantic and exciting, but the other side can be very painful. There is no such thing as a free lunch, as they say, get the creativity gene and chances are you’ll get another gene that is expressed in less pleasant ways. Poets and writers may have drinking problems, serial marriages, unusual and distressing compulsions or wild mood swings. These don’t come out in the wash – you can’t take these off and leave them on the bathroom floor for someone else to pick up.
Creativity of thought is essential for artists and scientists, and is important in all problem-solving situations. But many artists and writers are driven to creative activity through distress. ‘Writing is not a profession, but a vocation of unhappiness. I don’t think an artist can ever be happy.’
Sylvia Plath, self portrait
Creativity is a hard thing to quantify or pin down. Some people feel compelled to create - to write or paint or pursue a scientific conundrum – yet have little talent for it. Others who do have the ability do not use it, or lack the discipline or confidence to exercise their ability. It’s not an easy road by any means, and badly paid. In Western culture, music, literature, and visual art, at the highest level, are highly esteemed, but are relatively lowly paid. To be poor in Western society is to be on the margins of society – a tough place to be in such a material culture. Being in that position and pursuing the low paid lifestyle of a painter or poet requires a tenacious commitment.
When childhood is put away and serious study looms, most parents secretly panic if Olivia and Orlando persist in their creative pursuits. By this time the ‘Poets and Writers’ t-shirt will be out in the garage and covered in grease, and the recalcitrant youngsters refusing to even consider trying on the t-shirt with ‘Auditing,’ or ‘Teachers and Librarians.’
If Olivia wishes to pursue the life of an itinerant street poet, living off her wits and nourishing her creative soul, no doubt her parents will suffer agonies of worry for her. But they have the rest of their lives to regret that when Olivia scrawled her stories, while they looked on with teary pride - she wore that wretched ‘Poets and Writers’ t-shirt.
1 (Simenon, Writers at Work, The Paris Review Interviews, London, Secker and Warburg, 1958, Vol 1, P 132.)
Jack Kerouac
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June 7th, 2009
I am not a Frequent Flyer. I am a not infrequent flyer, however, and as I write I am on the third of eight plane journeys scheduled for the year ahead. I know the Frequent Flyer scheme, a loyalty program that awards points for air miles, works for some people. I dislike customer loyalty programs.I purchase what I need, when I need and if I made all my travel arrangements with a loyalty program in mind I would be more likely to end up with a deficit of points and an electric wok rather than a free flight.
Due to a bout of vagueness, I was running late for this flight. I tore into the check in, panting and gasped out, ‘Am I too late?’ The girl said no, that the flight was delayed. A wave of pointless irritation washed over me and I said, (calmly, I must add), ‘You know, every flight I have taken with your airline in the last six months has been late.’ She gave me her best smile and chirruped, ‘It’s not our fault, it’s because the air traffic controllers are on strike – they’re on a skeleton staff.’
I made my way through security clutching this nugget of intelligence. This, only days after the terrible loss of an Air France jet over the Atlantic. For me, flying is an act of belief. I don’t want to know the physics or engineering principles that keep us in the air – because although I do not doubt their effectiveness, it’s not an explanation suited to my temperament. I simply try not to think about where I am and get on with whatever distraction I have with me and hope for the best.
However, this morning I could not indulge in my usual denial. As the aircraft taxied out onto the tarmac I peered out the window to see three other planes, all parallel to each other, lining up for their turn on the runway. The four planes sat, engines idling – what were they doing? Playing a game of chicken? With no one telling them what to do, was it a matter of whoever makes the first move? Another plane landed on the main runway in front of us. And then we rolled forward. I kept a stern eye on the other three jets, daring them to make a move, sensing my pilot might need my extra pair of eyes.
The girl who smiled as she informed me of this deficit of key personnel is a credit to her employer. Such unnerving information delivered with such an endearing smile. To me it underlined the importance of the quality of human interaction in determining how you recall or react to a situation. If she had snarled at me, or showed complete boredom I would not have felt so sanguine about the whole business. Indeed, if she had come striding down the aisle while inflight, giving us her best smile, while telling us to abandon all hope because we were going down, it would somehow make it less horrifying.
As a writer one has to air the imagination – take it out for a quick trot around the block. Sometimes I have trouble pulling mine back inside. Some years ago a large jet crashed in a forest in Japan. The newspaper I was reading at the time reported that one passenger had the presence of mind to write a short farewell to his wife and children – the note was found in his pocket. I found this to be very moving and hard to forget. On one flight I took in the recent past the aircraft hit a patch of turbulence – the worst I have ever experienced. As it continued, passengers stopped what they were doing. My imagination burst forth and declared I was going to die fairly soon in a downwardly spiralling burning fuselage and if I wanted to leave a note to anyone I better get cracking.
I wanted to leave two notes, one for my parents and one for my partner. But where would I put them? I didn’t have pockets that day. I could secrete them in my bra. Of course! But which note would go in the right cup and which in the left? The left is over the heart, so would the person who got the right cup be offended? As I agonised over this symbolism we cleared the turbulence. Everybody slumped in relief and the drinks trolley did a brisk trade. I knew I’d have to have the left/right issue sorted for the next flight or make sure I wore something with pockets.
I am far more likely to die in a car crash than in an aviation disaster. Tell that to my imagination though. At least in a car I have a certain amount of control over the variables. In an aircraft I have to give up control to the faceless man in the captain’s hat who could have been up all night waiting for a teenager to come home from a party, and the air traffic controller who could be exhausted from three back-to-back shifts and spinning out on amphetamines.
One Christmas Day I flew from the north-west US to Mexico with an American regional airline who had recently lost a fully laden aircraft into the ocean just off Los Angeles. As the aircraft began it’s ascent the crew casually announced Mr Spock and Captain Kirk were at the controls – a joke they seemed to find incredibly funny. We were all handed small wicker baskets with red gingham lining and a plastic wrapped sandwich nestled within. Upon lifting the sandwich out, one discovered a small piece of paper with a prayer printed on it. How thoughtful. I was reminded of Laurie Anderson’s ‘O Superman.’
When flying one simply has to pack the imagination in the suitcase being checked through. Taking it into the cabin, for me, is asking for trouble. I prefer to practice denial – I like to think I am luxuriating in free time to read or speculating on those around me – how are they dealing with the mystery of flight?
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June 4th, 2009
Chagall
After participating in a few online forums I’ve noticed that some people become annoyed when a thread veers off topic - to the point of banning any deviation from the straight line of thought. I was never bothered by the threads wandering off and getting lost – invariably in food, sex or vitriol. These are writer’s forums, I must add.
My own thoughts often make the most impossible leaps between subjects. I picked up a copy of Jean Genet’s book Querelle in a bookshop the other day and flicked through this new edition, remembering my incomprehension when I first read it. The book was a recommended text at uni and so far above my seventeen-year-old head as to be on its way to Pluto. I am older now .… and I get it. Sighing as I put it back, I looked up and saw a card with the line, “I wish I could be the sort of person my dog thinks I am.” I thought of my own dog and her insatiable passion for me and smiled.
She sleeps only metres away, well within her sniffing distance, and yet every morning she greets me as if I am her one true love who has just returned from a perilous journey across the Gobi desert. I pat and smooch her but inside I’m thinking …’get over it.’
If she were indifferent I would be disappointed considering how much space and time she occupies in my life. But she’s far from indifferent. I can do no wrong in her eyes. Occasionally I have prepared her dinner and wandered off, distracted, only to find her waiting patiently, like a big chump, for me to put it down for her. I know she’s thinking …’if Phillipa left it there on the bench there must be a good reason.’
Of course she is under control at all times. There was a period in her life when she was an undisciplined shambles, a German Shepherd PR disaster, a nightmare of a lolloping creature who conjured crowds of villagers with burning torches and clenched fists. But she’s okay now…. and after four years I’m only just ready to talk about it.
Despite her appearance and her breed’s association with guarding camps and girls boarding schools, she is passionate about people, greeting every human with good-natured ecstasy. But she loses this mellowness when we approach the chicken shed. They are below her in the hierarchy and thus worthy only of a sneer and an insult, muttered sotto voce, as we pass by. If I stop and talk to the chooks she will bark at them as if to say, ‘Shut yer yap, you filthy swill! The boss is talking.’
I have kept chickens for a number of years. I’ve had my favourites – Angela, Daphne, Bunty and Edwina (these last two were given to me as chicks and grew up to be roosters and had to be, er .…. given away). And I’ve had a rogue chook in the form of Pearl, a white Australorp with a nature so vile you’d swear she was Dr Mengele reincarnated.
But the four I have now are a complete puzzle. When fed they hurl themselves at the door to the shed, like some sort of poultry version of The Birds. They scramble for position and when the food comes it’s a free for all. Pondering this phenomenon I came to the conclusion there is no Alpha chook, or she’s not strong enough to keep the pecking order in line. Deprived of the safety of submission they lose control. I don’t like this flock – and have denied them names. They go by the labels Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Epsilon.
As I watched them I thought again of Jean Genet’s book Querelle and the notions of power, dominance and submission. Querelle, a criminally inclined sailor, is a passive creature, only completed in his psyche by others dominating him. His desire for full submission is understandable. My chickens understand it, and they misbehave if there is no one to submit to. The ever-shifting game of domination and submission that pervades Genet’s book is underlined with sexual undertones. The annihilation of self in the service of others, sexual or otherwise, is a not uncommon yearning in humans. But I’m not sure about chickens.
I can feel a huge crack in the earth forming beneath my feet as I write, and I fear I may fall into a chasm of French Theory and never find my way out, so studded with rocky punctuation are its sides, so deep and dark it falls away to the very same annihilation…. Stopping here.
From feeding chickens the mind leaps to French literature and beyond, searching for understanding the quirk in my flock. Will I find it in the pages of Querelle? I know what the answer is …. and it’s not a feminist co-operative of hens. It’s a great big strutting rooster who would keep his ladies in line. When he’s not bullying them and raping them -and roosters can be ruffians in the mating mechanics. I have no great love for my current flock, but I won’t subject them to that.
Maolin Zhang
My dog is a happy dog because she has her boundaries, she knows them and she knows she is secure on the totem pole. If she perceived a fatal weakness in me that would give her dominance, I’m not sure what she would do. Probably push me off the couch.
In humans, unless we are in a hierarchical structure sanctioned by society, we engage in power play, probing for weakness, exploiting it to our advantage and being endlessly socialised to NOT do so. Women, men, children – we all take our positions and push against the limits, try and subvert them, act them out, or abuse them. Men are raised in our society to take control and to seek power, over women and other men. I know times have changed…yes…. I hear you, but it’s still the dominant trope in popular culture that a man should be in control. Women compete for dominance, not hesitating to kick the ladder away from another woman on her way up. And children in the playground….phew! It’s raw power play.
Some days I simply prefer the agreement my dog and I have – I lead, she follows.
Lilli
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June 2nd, 2009
I’m lying under a big quilt on a winter’s night listening to Maria Callas sing an aria from Turandot. I have heard it said (by those who know better than I) that she was capable of producing both ugly and beautiful sounds. But I love her all the more for that. She is like a perfect Blood Orange – a mixture of sweet, bitter and a smoky allure that can’t quite be defined.
I encountered Maria as a young adult and fell under her spell immediately. My parents had been opera lovers, so naturally my sister and I sister shunned it with a passion and retired to our respective rooms to pursue our own leisure projects. For me this often consisted of lying on the bed staring at the ceiling and smoking an illicit cigarette.
I found my own way to opera when as an art student I shared a house with two students from the National Institute for Dramatic Art ( NIDA), and an opera singer in training at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. The theatricality and expansive gestures of opera appealed to some of the house occupants and often the passion extended to take in Broadway musicals. It was not uncommon to have a chorus line of South Pacific in the living room after a particularly mean batch of daquiris. The next day, usually a subdued day, the voice of Maria would fill the house.
As an introduction to the drama, the music, emotion and general largeness of opera it beat listening to my parent’s choices emanating from the living room on a rainy Sunday afternoon. And although I have many reasons to be grateful to them for introducing me to so much, I did not ‘take’to opera as quickly as I did to lying around with a book.
I am aware of the huge subsidies required to keep opera alive, and the prohibitive price of the tickets. It is not a popular art form…but really, the world needs such glorious baubles. I know I could be pulverized in an argument about it, but this is my blog and I say … I adore the excess, the gesture and sheer extravagant uselessness of it all. What is life without such giddy spectacle?
I have been known to shed a tear at Maria’s version of the aria from Orpheus and Eurydice, ‘J’ai perdu mon Eurydice’. And definitely in the final scene of Madam Butterfly and even once in La Boheme. But that’s what I’m supposed to do. With opera I don’t feel my emotions manipulated as I often do by the Hollywood marketing/film/profit making juggernaut. When Butterfly is abandoned, you cry – that’s what you do. It’s always sad, no matter how many times you see it.
And I have been lucky to see it many times. Not from any excess of spending money but because, while a student, I took a job at a large theatre as an usherette. I was lucky to see many opera productions as well as dance – both classical and modern, plays and even a Slim Dusty concert – and what a showman he was too. I knew the ending of Madam Butterfly from my earlier house sharing days when Puccini was on high rotation in the living room. But many of the other front of house staff were unaware of the tragic ending – and the indignation and disgust at the abandonment of Butterfly and her child rippled through the Green Room every tea break. I loved the power of the story to rouse such passions in people who would otherwise never consider going to the opera.
Maria Callas’s voice is, for me, one of life’s consolations - tragedy, talent, beauty and discipline - it is all distilled in her voice and it fills this cold room tonight. She also transports me back to the lean student life - when I close my eyes I’m back in the theatre and I can smell the sweat from the costume racks, see the chorus singers scuttling up and down waiting for their call, and remember the few occasions I stood in the wings watching. I could never get close enough and although I know some people like to be well back to get the full panorama to me there is nothing like the front row, right in front of the orchestra pit for the full emotional and theatrical immersion.
Many years later Maria still travels around with me, Number One in my Personal Opera Faves, (Luciano is, of course incomparable, although Mario Lanza singing Ave Maria is such a sweet yet masculine affair). Okay, I love them all – but when Maria sings … I understand her.
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June 1st, 2009
Poster for Cocteau's film
Why the gloomy posts on the death of Eurydice and Orpheus’ doomed quest to bring her back from the underworld?
Well, it’s a myth that has always fascinated me for its exploration of human frailty, our inevitable poor judgement at times. And like most of the Classic myths it has inspired a plethora of creative work. Tennessee Williams and Orpheus Descending, Jean Cocteau and his trilogy of Orphic films, Seamus Heaney and his poem Midnight Verdict, Sarah Ruhl and her play Eurydice, the operas La Boheme, Orpheus and Eurydice, Baz Lurhman and his film Moulin Rouge.
Yes, but don’t you write romantic comedy, my reader asks. The fate of Eurydice and Orpheus is not funny, it has to be said, but myths often provide the template or structure for a story and writers are always poking around looking for motifs or metaphors. And so I have settled on this old favourite of mine, but with the twist being my male protagonist takes the role of Eurydice, and my female has the Orphic quest ahead of her.
As with all myths we can assign our own meaning and our own personal mythology. I was moved when reading last week of one of my favourite Australian sculptors, Ken Unsworth, and his installation, ‘A Ringing Glass (Rilke)’ on Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour, which he has turned into a tribute to his dead wife. Unsworths installation, ‘The Forest of Wistful Thoughts,’ has stayed with me for twenty years, and I am eager to take the boat to Cockatoo Island as soon as I can.
Ken Unsworth
His wife Elizabeth was a musician and Unsworth’s muse for fifty-three years. As Unsworth has personalised the myth with homage to his creative and intimate relationship with his lost Elizabeth, I am using the themes of loss, descent into the underworld and redemption as the basis for a romantic and humorous story. Perverse, maybe, but without perversity there is often no challenge and without a challenge there is no writing.
Even though the myth ends in the deaths of both Orpheus and Eurydice, as I pick over the myth for my own purposes, I know the deaths can be whatever I want them to be - symbolic or metaphorical. Because the myth also explores, according to Baz Lurhman, ‘Idealism and adulthood, and the recognition that life throws up things beyond our control: the death of loved ones, relationships that don’t last…according to the Orphean myth, this will either destroy you or you will go into the underworld, face it and return having grown from the experience.’
Orpheus showed his human frailty through his momentary lack of faith. This loss of discipline and his second guessing caused him to turn back, thus losing Eurydice forever. This loss of faith is a large stone that many couples stumble and fall over. When you lose trust and belief in the other, if only for a moment, then usually your judgement fails as a consequence. We act in ways we regret, seek solace elsewhere or do something that inevitably in hindsight we wish we had never done. Redemption and renewal rarely come and a lifetime of regret awaits us. Orpheus sought solace in his music but eventually died, torn apart by furious Maenads, as many of us end old and alone with our memories to tear us apart instead.
This test of faith in one another is the obstacle without which a good romantic story dwindles into a tedious recitation of who, how and where, ending up in front of the telly with a cup of tea and a digestive biscuit. Where would Romeo and Juliet be without that wretched balcony? Scarlett and Rhett without their pride and stubborness, Mr Bingley and Jane with their chronic niceness. And will my lovers redeem themselves and mend their love? I don’t know, because I’m only halfway through writing the manuscript.
Here’s an extract….
A small ancient Roman relief of a woman struck Lily as being similar to the woman on Steven’s frieze. She stared at it, unmoving, until William wandered over to her, and putting his hand on her waist said, ‘That’s Orpheus and Eurydice.’
‘It’s like Steven’s frieze.’
He could see where her mind was traveling and kissed her neck. ‘Yes, Hermes is taking Eurydice back to the underworld, back to the darkness. And he takes the woman on Stevens frieze to the boatman who will row her to-‘
‘I know the rest,’ she said, giving a shiver.
‘Do you know the story of Orpheus?’
She shook her head.
‘On his wedding day to Eurydice she was bitten by a snake and died. Orpheus descended to the underworld to beg Hades to return her. He played and sang so sweetly Hades agreed, on one condition that as he led Eurydice from the shadows he was not to look back at her. But he couldn’t resist and she returned to the ghost world.’
Lily blinked. ‘All these myths are sad,’ she said, wiping a tear away.
He laughed. ‘You are a soft touch, crying at an old sculpture. Or maybe you’re hungry.’ He looked around for the exit. ‘Lets have some lunch.’
They left the Academy and as they emerged into the daylight and the bustle of Piccadilly Circus, Lily said, ‘Well, it is a sad story.’
‘It gets worse,’ he said, taking her arm as they crossed the busy road. ‘There’s an Italian place over here you’ll like. It’s a bit late but I’m sure we can get something.’
‘How does it get worse?’
‘Poor old Orpheus, lost his true love twice, and the second time it was his stuff up that did it. Now that would be hard to live with.’
They entered the restaurant and were seated within a minute. Lily left the food to William and wiped away the tears that wouldn’t stop.
‘Why are you crying, Lilushka?’ he said, taking her hand.
‘But what about Eurydice? It must have been hard for her too? Life as a ghost on her own.’
He sighed. ‘Well Orpheus gets torn to pieces by Maenads.’
‘What’s a Maenad?’
‘They were the female worshipers of Dionysus, insane women who couldn’t be reasoned with. They tore him apart in a frenzied orgy of sex and violence.’ He held her hand and played with the pearl ring on her finger. ‘You remind me of a Maenad when you’re hungry, about to tear me to pieces.’
She snatched her hand away. ‘I am not a Maenad.’
A bottle of water and some fresh rolls were brought to the table. Lily glared at William over the white linen table.
‘No, you’re not a Maenad. Have some bread.’
She picked up the roll and bit into it, chewing and staring at the tablecloth. ‘Dionysus was the’-‘
‘Can we move on to another topic?’ he said.
‘Wasn’t he the Greek version of Bacchus, the plump one with the grape vines?’
‘Bacchus is the Roman copy of Dionysus. Dionysus is much wilder, more deadly, abandoned and ecstatic. ‘
The waiter served two bowls of spinach risotto.
Lily asked, ‘What shall we do after this?’
Taking a deep breath he replied, ‘I think a good lie down is in order, don’t you?’
She laughed and sipped her water, ‘A Dionysian romp?’
He watched her for a moment as she ate. His chest filling with an ache for her, as if she had already gone back to Sydney.”
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Tags: Greek mythology, Lily, Orpheus, William, writing | 4 Comments
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