Ode on an English Poet

Some time ago I wrote a piece about the relationship between artists and critics. The piece went something like this: a lady journalist for the Guardian said that critics shouldn't write about their artist friends. I said she was full of shit, though to be fair, I wasn't quite so rude at the time. Here's an example why I think she's wrong.

Enter stage left, Ross Sutherland. Okay, so I wouldn't exactly call Ross a friend in the friendly sense of the word, but he's not quite an acquaintance either. We haven't had a drink together, but he performed at one of my SALON nights, I've got his number in my phone, and we're 'friends' on facebook. According to the laws of 21st century relations, that probably constitutes friendship.

The reason I so vehemently disagree with the lovely lady journalist is because sometimes your artist-type friends are really good at stuff and just because you're a critic doesn't mean you can't be objective about your own friends. Not only that, but you shouldn't be afraid of telling people how good stuff is, even is said stuff is penned and performed by people you have less than objective relations with. Obviously you want to support these people, but you also want to help the viewing public - to introduce them to something new and amazing.

I had a conversation with another friend at lunch last week about modernism and the decline of close-knit cultural circles. Even though neither of us are that keen on modernist philosophies, we agreed that it was a great time to be an artist: with your Peggy Guggenheims and your Gertrude Steins - your Eliots and Picassos and Hemingways and Pounds - this sort of cultural community that sometimes feels like it doesn't exist anymore. And if lady journo had her way, there wouldn't be any cultural community at all - for how can such a thing exist if critics and patrons are encouraged not to patronise (can you use this word in this sense anymore?) the people whose work they admire and respect.

But one glittering bonus that came out of putting on the SALON exhibition is that I saw a whole different side of London's artistic community. There are people making things happen - this man is a very good example - and making cross connections and doing and supporting and having a jolly good time. Ross is very much a part of this and his show reminded me that I shouldn't be so sourpussed about the golden ages of cultural history past - we're doing pretty fine with what we've got.

So. The kid's got talent. I've seen him read his poetry before - from this book - and he's great: most of his poetry is inordinately clever, and narrative driven, but rather surprisingly steeped in formalist technique. Like the best rules and restrictions always do, though, formalism frees Ross up to do all kinds of crazy stuff. His take on univocalism has me in stitches every time I hear it (though it isn't in the current show) and his N+7 (where you replace every noun/verb with the one seven places below it in the dictionary) reworking of the little red riding hood story turns out the hilariously inspired 'the liverish red-blooded riffraff hoo-ha'. But apart from the fact that Ross' poetry is more than good enough to stand on its own, the framing device offered by this show turns it into something altogether more poignant and provocative. What surprised me most of all is how moving the show is - not something I often experience at more straight-up poetry readings.

Ross does what many of the best artists do - in one of my creative writing courses at Uni, the instructor was always shouting at us to, 'write what you know!'* - and has taken episodes from his own sort of annus horribilis and turned them into a lesson for us all: our future is of our own making. Thankfully, he never bludgeons the lesson into his audience but allows it to creep neatly in via his artful time-capsule. One of my favourite bits of the show was when Ross explained how Keats' 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' inspired the creation of the time capsule - he managed to make Keats totally and hilariously relevant to an audience full of people who I'm pretty sure had never read any Keats in their life, let alone his ode to an urn. Any man who can do that is all right by me.

The point is critics should write about their artist friends because sometimes their artist friends are great. So go see The Three Stigmata of Pacman not because Ross is my friend, but because his show is great.

* funnily enough he sounded exactly like Wallace Shawn. There's a whole other story there, but I'll save that for another time

to all the things i loved before

This is a lazy, mood-boardy sort of post. Been up to lots of interesting things this week but I don't want to write about them in any great detail. Instead, I'll just summarise (and lavishly illustrate).



First and perhaps most importantly: the snow!! I can't remember the last time it snowed in December, i.e. when it's supposed to. I don't know about anyone else, but I've certainly got my fingers crossed for a white Christmas. Edinburgh in the snow is beautiful.

I hunted down this Louis MacNeice poem yesterday as soon as it started snowing. Tis a lovely, evocative piece of writing:

The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was 
Spawning snow and pink roses against it 
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible: 
World is suddener than we fancy it.  

World is crazier and more of it than we think, 
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion 
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel 
The drunkenness of things being various.  

And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world 
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes - 
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one's
hands - 
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.

Also, got sent pictures of these amazing Andreia Chaves mirror shoes. They feel really wintery, even if they aren't very practical and I'd love to be stomping about London town in a pair.



If I ever get round to it, I'll write a sort of 'best of' culture this year, but if I don't the single cultural consumable I'd recommend to anyone is James Salter's incredible book, Light Years. I'm giving it to pretty much everyone for Christmas after re-reading it this weekend. It's one of the most beautifully written novels I've ever read and I've read a lot of novels. Though he's as good, if not better, than Hemingway or Fitzgerald, he seems to have slipped through the cracks of critical acclaim - possibly because he was born 20 years after the two American literary giants - thus fading into their shadows. It's an elegant, elegiac piece of writing and a definite must read.



I've been to see the Nutcracker ballet nearly every year since I was a little girl. I still remember my mother taking me - just the two of us - when I was very young. It helped that we went to see the ballet at Frank Lloyd Wright's amazing Grady Gammage auditorium. Just walking up the illuminated ramps to the main hall was an amazing spectacle, but I'll always remember how thrilled I was when the Christmas tree magically grows through the roof in the first half.



The Scottish Ballet does a pretty wonderful new-fangled Nutcracker ballet, choreographed by its artistic director, Ashley Page. There are evil snowflakes and a naughty governess who turns into the mouse queen in act two: it's all good fun, but really, nothing beats the classic ballet version.





The ROH put on quite a show - you really see where all the ticket money goes - with buckets of gold glitter, fantastical costumes, and most importantly, superb dancing. The grand pas de deux between the sugar plum fairy and her prince was absolutely breathtaking. The music is also wonderful, personally I think it's Tchaikovsky's best ballet score, and the live choir was icing on the very Christmasy cake.



Finally for something I don't like. Just been reading on coolhunter that McDonald's is to open a bunch of 'boutique food stands' during the various fashion weeks. I don't care if you dress it up in Hermes, Tom Ford, or Jil Sander: McDonald's is revolting and is SO NOT fashion. Ugh. PR fail.

Manchester International Festival round-up review

That classical music is so rarely taken outside of the concert hall is in no way due to a lack of wanting: rather an �acoustics is everything� approach means that orchestras remain firmly within concert hall walls. In an intriguing marriage between music and architecture, Zaha Hadid was commissioned by the Manchester International Festival to create a performance space for some of the most well-known pieces of chamber music ever written: Bach�s suites for solo cello, piano, and violin.

Hadid�s striking white ribbon layers and wraps around itself to create both a stage for the performer as well as a space for the audience. The ribbon consists of a translucent fabric membrane articulated by an internal steel structure suspended from the ceiling.

There has already been much discussion of Hadid�s concert hall, situated in a large room on the top floor of the Manchester Art Gallery, and it�s successes or failures as a piece of architecture. But certainly, as per the design brief, the most important consideration must be whether the structure works as a concert hall.

I was lucky enough to be one of only 200 in attendance for the evening of Bach�s cello suites performed by virtuoso cellist, Jean-Guihen Queyras, and given the we were essentially sat in a large black box, the acoustics were surprisingly well-balanced. This is surely thanks to the project�s acoustic engineers, Sandy Brown Associates, who enabled minimal sound absorption and maximum sound reflection through use of lightweight fabric as well as shaped acrylic panels hidden within the fabric.

While the structure is intriguing even when not in use, it truly comes into its own as a performance space, enveloping both performer and spectators, making an audience of 200 feel positively intimate. Perhaps more surprising is that the structure heightens, not distracts, the performance: I�ve never been to a recital where audience attention was so focused, not a single cough throughout. With this installation, Hadid has created architecture as Goethe famously referred to it: as �frozen music�.

On the other hand, the raison d��tre of theatre company Punchdrunk is to produce site-specific works of interactive theatre. Their last show at Battersea Arts Centre, Masque of the Red Death, sold out a seven-month run and was a huge critical success.

For their MIF piece, Punchdrunk collaborated with documentary film-maker Adam Curtis to produce It Felt Like A Kiss. Shepherded into a massive, dilapidated office building in a group of 9, we�re sent in a lift to the 6^th floor and told only to �stick together�. This is a �promenade� piece of theatre, which means the spectating takes place on the hoof.

The gutted building has been completely transformed � the attention to detail is spectacular � there are abandoned CIA offices full of dossiers and documents, living rooms with TVs that never turn off � all very much like abandoned film sets. Strangely for a piece of theatre, there are no actors.

Once we arrive at the evening�s piece de resistance, Adam Curtis� 35-minute documentary, things become a bit clearer. The documentary, on how America set out to remake the world 50 years ago, is fascinating, witty, and surprisingly grotesque. It quickly becomes evident that we have, for all intents and purposes, been walking through film sets � the CIA offices and sitting rooms we have just walked through are all there in Curtis� documentary. Hence no actors: the sets are the performance.

The atmosphere is incredibly tense throughout, yet we�re always waiting for actors who never appear - a bit like Godot, but scarier and more frustrating. As a piece of design, IFLAK is simply incredible and there isn�t anything else like it, but as a theatrical performance, I�m still wondering, �was that it?�

Flailing Trees is an installation of 21 inverted willow trees in a 12 x 12 ft concrete base. The installation was commissioned by MIF and created by Gustav Metzger and claims to serve as a �plea for reflection and a plaintive cry for change�. Interestingly for a public sculpture, Flailing Trees grew out of the winning entry to The Manchester Open, the Festival�s open commission call, submitted by CUBE (Centre for the Urban Built Environment) and Taylor Young (Urban Planners and Architects).

Unfortunately, Flailing Trees is not the right scale for the Manchester Peace Garden, where it is on display, and would perhaps make a stronger impression in a more traditional gallery space. The other problem with Metzger�s sculpture is that, contrary to expectation, only the roots and trunks of the trees are on display. Because the trees are so close together, the large root balls act as a substitute for leaves and thus negate the shock of viewing trees inverted with concrete where leaves should be. That the roots look like leaves somehow diminishes Metzger�s intention of Flailing Trees as a catalyst for debate on the role of the environment in urban areas. As such, what should have been a poignant and shocking wake-up call to urban planners as well as to urban dwellers falls someway short of its ambitious mark. There is no doubting that Metzger�s concept is arresting; it is only the execution which lets this project down.

While the MIF doesn�t have quite the buzz of the Edinburgh Festival, Edinburgh should be worried indeed, as this relative newcomer to the world of arts festivals is pulling out all the stops with some truly magnificent performances.