Hair Today And Gone Tomorrow

One of the great joys and freedoms of poetry is that no subject, however apparently perverse or prosaic, is taboo. It just depends on how that subject is treated: the style's the thing. I once wrote a poem about a tooth extraction, and now I seem to have cobbled together in bed last night a piece of the lightest of verse about body hair. As is often the case when I write a poem — though I would hesitate to call these flippant and casual stanzas a Proper Poem, so Simon Armitage can rest easy — I toyed around with a few lines in bed last night (don't worry, it's perfectly legal), then finished it off in my head on waking a couple of hours ago. Although I have a reasonable head of hair, it has been pointed out to me that there is a gently thinning patch at the back. It's impossible for me to see this — except when, at the hairdresser's, my sadistic coiffeuse, seeking approval for her cutting and styling skills, shows me the back of my head in a mirror. Needless to say, I never look, turning my gaze towards the woman in curlers on my right who's reading 'Hello!" magazine or the old hippie on my left with hair spilling thickly over his shoulders. To think that my own hair was like this when I was eighteen!   

Hairy Poem

Hair sprouts in most mysterious ways
And in unwanted places;
In cracks and crevices it coils,
In erstwhile hairless spaces

Like in the ears and up the nose
And even from the shoulder;
Yet hair upon the head grows less
The more that one grows older.

Some think it cute to be hirsute
On chest and leg and thigh;
Myself, I'd rather trade this for
A thicker thatch on high.

I suppose this could go on and on, but I think we've all had enough, and, anyway, it's time for breakfast. Oh, and I mustn't forget I've got an appointment with the hairdresser later...

Communication Breakdown

I don't know about anyone else, but Blogger's new word verifications have left me keystroking in the dark. Do I need fresh glasses, or a new Rosetta Stone? Please help!

The Goode, The Mad And The Shrigley: Cultural Adventures On The South Bank

Richard Goode

To the Royal Festival Hall last Sunday to see the American pianist, Richard Goode. This is a big venue — potentially hazardous for a pianist renowned for his shyness and musical introspection. But what a performance! (Luckily my seat was reasonably near the front and on the keyboard side; I felt a bit sorry for those at the back.) There was not a sound from the audience, only a concentrated hush, as Goode  captivated us with an emotional yet precisely balanced interpretation of Schumann's Kinderszenen, then his Kreisleriana suite. The second half was all Chopin: a nocturne, a scherzo, a ballade, a couple of waltzes. In some pieces he brought out, particularly with the left hand, melodies I swear I'd never heard in those pieces before. The piano sang with a rare intimacy — a welcome change from the extrovert, key-thumping renditions of so many contemporary concert pianists. I quietly warmed to Goode's sensitive, self-contained personality, and his ability to lay bare the inner depth and beauty of the music with the lightest of touches.

Afterwards I spent a very happy hour going round the David Shrigley exhibition next door at the Hayward Gallery. How to categorise Shrigley? First of all, he's very, very funny — but the humour has a dark, mordant edge to it. You smile — but often feel quite uncomfortable doing so. Shrigley himself hopes that his work will provoke laughter, intrigued confusion and disquiet. He uses all types of mixed media to put across his quirky, left-field take on life: cartoons, handwritten texts, sculpture, photography, animated films, neon signs, music, tattoos.

Stepping through the portal of Shrigley's Brain Activity retrospective, you enter a mad world. The writing on the black, metalwork, spider's web-like entrance says 'Do Not Linger At The Gate', and you don't; but you do linger before many of his other faux-naïf artworks and installations. You try to figure them out: there's intellectual activity involved here, as well as an immediate emotional and blackly humorous reaction!

In one photograph, a sign in the middle of a river announces: RIVER FOR SALE (the capitals are underlined with a wavy line). Another photo shows a small, rough box with a door-like flap at the bottom, situated on a razed urban plot where a house used to be. On the box is written in crude capital letters: LEISURE CENTRE. Yet another photo features a plastic-smiling Barbie doll, grotesquely rounded and fattened from neck to knee in a pumpkin dress. And another — my favourite — is a close-up of a piece of paper, roughly torn from a spiral-bound notebook and pinned to a tree, upon which is written:

LOST GREY + WHITE PIDGEON WITH BLACK BITS. NORMAL SIZE. A BIT MANGY LOOKING. DOES NOT HAVE A NAME. CALL 257 1964

(Could this be a real objet trouvé, not a work created by Shrigley? How do you lose a pigeon? Isn't there something quite hilarious about it being a pigeon, rather than a dove, or a canary, or a parakeet? And isn't it amusing that 'pigeon' is spelt incorrectly, with a 'd' in the middle? Yet isn't that also a bit patronising — to laugh at someone who can't spell 'pigeon', particularly if they've recently lost their 'pet'? [Anyway, 'pidgeon' is the old, archaic spelling for 'pigeon'.] And what is a normal size for a pigeon? And how would the fact of it having a name help you if you found it? Birds don't respond to their names like dogs, or do they? And would you really recognise it, anyhow, from the whole description? We can smile — yet there's a poignancy there too, and you can quite easily believe that Shrigley did actually find this rather pathetic notice on a tree, and that possibility makes it touching and sad, and you feel a little guilty for laughing...)

It would take a hundred blogposts to describe all these Shrigleyisms. Just type 'David Shrigley' into Google Images if you want to see the real things (or rather the reproductions of the real things). Myself, I think they're brilliant, and they make me smile, and they make me think — but they make me wince too.

Later, walking through London, Shrigleyesque images seemed to pop up everywhere: in stick-man signs, in shop windows, in street furniture. A little of Shrigley's sideways view of life had obviously rubbed off on me.

Show Me The Place

A Spanish Triptych

It will come as little surprise to many of my blog readers that I consider Spain one of my spiritual homes. I love the country, though it's a kind of love-hate relationship: I've had devastating, almost annihilating experiences there, as well as spiritually uplifting ones. You can't ignore Spain. It gets into your blood: a potent mixture of strong Rioja wine; darkly enticing Catholic rituals; the agony and ecstasy of Lorca; the protean genius of Picasso; the passionate duende of flamenco; the stark, arid mountains; the occasional, unexpectedly lush pastures.

The night was silent. No circle of barking dogs or crowing cocks. No loud, harsh voices interlocked under the window. Then dawn came, and with a clicking of hooves on cobbles and a patter of goats and cows, the village emptied itself into the fields. We drank some coffee and went out. And there in front of us, at the first break in the street, stretched the great plains of air with beyond them an inextricable tangle of coloured mountains. The sound of water was all round us and there was a sense of greenery and freshness. No, I said to myself, the picture I formed of this place was not an illusion.

GERALD BRENAN South From Granada

The singer´s voice quavered and droned, thin and nasal like a muezzin´s. Jazzy chords spilled from a guitar: major then minor, fast then slow, confident then unresolved; cool and dark as a shaded courtyard in old Seville. Suddenly the dancer, Ascunción Pérez — dressed in red and black, with flashing eyes and jet black hair — strode quickly through a high doorway and mounted the small, wooden stage on the patio of the nineteenth-century palace which is the Casa de la Memoria. All three — singer, guitarist, dancer — were young, local artists from Seville, performing flamenco in a modern style: fresh, unsentimental, but still firmly rooted in the old tradition. This was the real thing — not the castanet-clicking touts chasing the quick euro, nor the rough amateurishness you get from the hillside cave-dwellers above Granada. These were three serious students of the dance.

Complex rhythms flowed, faltered, petered out. Then began again, sinuously following a different direction, half-scripted, half-improvised. Hands clapped on the beat, off the beat. The dancer arched one arm over her head and stamped diagonally across the stage, head bent back, her body-shapes changing second by second, fingers stuck out at crazy angles like the tentacles of an octopus. She hitched up her dress, slapped her thigh. She was proud, provocative, defiant, sexy, coy, tragic, strong, yielding, ecstatic; one moment a majestic matriarch, the next a bashful señorita. Studied awkwardness gave way to still composure. She squatted, legs akimbo, as if giving birth — grotesque as a figure from a Paula Rego painting — then became all beauty and grace, like a Velázquez princess.

Her red heels went clack, clack, clack. Clack, clack across the wooden floor, as the tempo rose and quickened. All hands clapped in unison, as faster and faster she twirled and spun in a vision of red and black, in a frenzy of movement. Clack, clack, clack. For a moment she became all the women of Andalusia rolled into one: the smart, Spanish women parading in the gardens of the Alcazár, the Arabic gypsies scraping an existence in the shacks by the Guadalquivir river. At the crescendo she stood face-on to her spellbound audience: stiff, erect and proud; all fire, all heart, all corazón. The house erupted in swift, spontaneous applause. Olé! The lights came on and we shuffled off, mesmerized, as if a dream had ended.

THE SOLITARY WALKER Flamenco Dancer, Seville

(A quick word of explanation: the centrepiece of the above word-image-word triptych is a Spanish collage created by my wife, Carmen (who is not Spanish!); the first piece of prose is the last paragraph of my very favourite book on Spain, Gerald Brenan's unforgettable memoir, South From Granada; and the concluding piece is my own impression of a flamenco evening at the start of my Via de la Plata pilgrimage in January 2010. The three 'panels' are emotionally rather than strictly thematically related, and are meant to form a collage in their own right.)

Quiet

Laurel at The Forest Garden has just posted a terrific review of the book I mentioned yesterday, Susan Cain's Quiet: The Power Of Introverts In A World That Can't Stop Talking. You can find it here. This is Laurel's concluding paragraph:

Overall, though, it was great to read a book that was carefully researched and shone a new light on the varied strengths of introverts — she even managed to explain how the habit of blushing can be a positive thing because people actually respond well to it — they deeply TRUST people who blush! After reading this book, the introvert who has always felt substandard or abnormal for not being the outgoing party animal so adored in our culture, will understand not only why there is nothing substandard or abnormal about their inborn quiet, observant, sensitive traits, and love of harmony, but will be enthusiastic about embracing, as Ms. Cain puts it, one’s 'quiet power' and, as the reader will discover, that is no insignificant thing.

Here Come The Introverts

An article by Oliver Burkeman in Saturday's Guardian Weekend magazine really got me thinking. In it he writes about the difference between extroverts and introverts, and mentions a forthcoming book by Susan Cain called Quiet: The Power Of Introverts In A World That Can't Stop Talking. The book rails against the 'New Groupthink' of a culture fixated on teamwork, open-plan offices and the wisdom of crowds. In an argument backed by research, Cain maintains that group brainstorming doesn't work and that open-plan workspaces are associated with high blood pressure and conflict.

All this made me consider again whether I am an extrovert or an introvert. I know I'm not an extrovert, and I've always put myself somewhere between the two if forced to consider the question. Partly, I suspect, because I may have felt there was something slightly sad, inward-looking, even maladjusted about introversion. Now, in my new mindful attitude of rigorous self-appraisal, I realise that, actually, I'm an introvert through and through, and there's nothing wrong with that at all. I can't help it; it's the way I am; it has lots of positive sides; and I wouldn't want to change.

As I've said many times on this blog, I love people (OK, usually one to one or in small groups rather than en masse) and couldn't do without them. In a large social gathering you might, on the surface, find me quite at ease, confident even. I've attended countless sales conferences. I've spoken at meetings. I'm comfortable doing rôle plays and group work on my current Counselling course. However, I do need my solitude. I'm happy in my own company. I can spend days, if not weeks, on my own and be completely unfazed. Indeed, I relish it.

Being an introvert doesn't mean you are shy, misanthropic, egocentric, un-community-minded. I wouldn't call myself any of those things — though I know I'm sometimes too sensitive, and I don't always like all of my fellow human beings, and I can retire into my own mind for quite lengthy periods, and I'd usually rather take a solitary walk than go to the village jumble sale.

The American author Jonathan Rauch defined an introvert as one who finds social interaction tiring and solitude revitalising, while for extroverts the reverse is true. That chimes very much with me. And Susan Cain insists that solitude is crucial to creativity. Which is also very much my own experience.

I often love company on my walks; I like meeting new people; I enjoy stimulating conversation. I like communication and strive for connection. But I can also quite easily say goodbye to the person I'm talking to and stride off on my own. It's the best of both worlds, perhaps.

And, At Last, The Snow Came To Britain...

Quick snaps taken from our kitchen window just now...

Blackbird on the fence, blue tit on the feeder, greenfinch on the bird table and five chaffinches on the ground

Collared dove

Robin: my favourite garden bird

The Aim Of Self-Awareness

	KNOWN TO SELF	UNKNOWN TO SELF
KNOWN TO OTHERS	the public self	the blind self
UNKNOWN TO OTHERS	the secret self	the unconscious self

The  public self is that part of ourselves which is available for all of us to see. The  secret self, we admit to ourselves but keep from others. The blind self is seen by others but not known by ourselves and the unconscious self is unavailable to both ourselves and others, but may continue to influence our emotions and behaviour.

The aim of self-awareness is to increase the open, public self and decrease the other areas. We can reduce the blind self by feedback from others, and reduce the secret self by being more open. There are various ways we can work on our unconscious self, including counselling, through hypnosis or by examining our dreams.

From Counselling Skills In Context by SALLY ALDRIDGE and SALLY RIGBY

Self-Awareness

Therapy training programs and their teachers are merely the whetstones on which the novice therapists hone their instruments. Those instruments are the selves of the therapists. NED GAYLIN Family, Self And Psychotherapy: A Person-Centred Perspective

Some sharp-eyed readers may have spotted a plethora of counselling and psychotherapy books in my 'WHAT I'M READING' widget lately. The reason is: I've just begun an Introduction To Counselling Skills course. According to the book Counselling Skills In Context (edited by Sally Aldridge and Sally Rigby), there are three major aspects to a Counselling Skills programme: learning the skills, understanding the theory and cultivating self-awareness. It's the last one which particularly intrigues me. It's this aspect which clearly differentiates counselling/psychotherapy courses from courses on most other subjects.  

How can we claim to even begin to understand the minds of others if we have no insight into our own minds? It struck me today, as I was wondering what direction my blog might take in the future, that I could harness my blog to this pursuit of self-knowledge. Perhaps, through thoughtful, self-exploratory blogging, I might arrive at a deeper level of self-awareness. It's only by writing down your thoughts and feelings as clearly and honestly as you can, by examining them and expressing them in words, that you can really get to grips with what you are thinking and feeling, and why you are thinking and feeling it. That's what I believe, at any rate. It seems to work for me. And, actually, it's been one of my motivations for blogging from the very start.

I'm not quite sure yet what format this will take — it may be fluid and experimental — but I view it as a challenge: a valuable and enriching one, even though it may be painful at times.

... it is his own hurt that gives the measure of his power to heal. CARL GUSTAV JUNG The Practice Of Psychotherapy