SOMEDAY SHE'LL COME ALONG

I've been fantasizing about who would defeat Donald Trump in 4 years time and came up with my ideal candidate.

She would be black or Hispanic or mixed race. She could be of any or no religion. Her personality would contain ingredients of Michele Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Beyoncé, Odetta, Dolly Parton, Tina Turner, Naomi Klein, Vivienne Westwood, Michael Moore, Angela Merkel, Bernie Sanders and a few others, but she would be uniquely herself.

She would be friends with people of every race, class, nationality, religion and sexual orientation. She would be well and accurately informed about social, cultural, economic, environmental and political problems at home and in the rest of the world. She would be able to identify every country on a map and probably speak one or more languages other than English. She would be unafraid, bold, outspoken, able to dish out as well as take criticism, but also kind, attentive, perceptive and observant. She would have a sense of humour. She would be able to sing and dance and write her own speeches.

She would transform politics by removing spin, soundbites, sanctimoniousness, snobbery, sneering, suspicion, sneakiness, slander, subservience and scoundrelism. She would speak her own mind, in her own words, with intelligence, insight, inspiration and factual information. Some day she'll come along.

 I borrowed parts of the image from Paolo Uccello's St.George and the Dragon, courtesy of the National Gallery, Creative Commons licence.

THE PLAY'S THE THING: WHY?

Obama and Trump meeting in the White House today, making the necessary diplomatic public statements, with much hemming and hawing to conceal their true feelings. What strikes me is this: why the theatre? Everyone knows what these two men think of each other and have said about each other. Why couldn't they just have spoken straight from the shoulder and the heart? Just a few seconds of genuine unrehearsed sincerity would have instantly introduced a constructive note into the whole divisive election aftermath. Maybe Trump could even have apologised to Obama for his 'birther' and other insults - wouldn't that have been something?

I'm always bewildered by the theatrical aspect of political discourse and the fact that we generally collude in the fantasy that what is on the stage is real, whilst being aware that it is a play - the manner in which most politicians speak their lines makes this perfectly obvious. But occasionally, rarely, a politician comes along who doesn't play the game and who talks like ordinary people talk when they're saying what they actually think. Not that the content is necessarily better: sincerity doesn't guarantee truth or wisdom or wit. But at least you get to know who you're really dealing with.

Trump played the 'sincerity' role in his campaign, the ordinary guy, one of us. Except that he's not and it's a carefully crafted script by a very crafty individual who has been play-acting all his life.

Obama in the White House must have learned how to play the game but, listening to him and watching him, you can't help noticing that it's stressful for him to play it. In those moments when he doesn't have to act you can almost hear a sigh of relief. It's what makes him endearing, whether you have agreed with him or not.

The Obama family ring true. The Trump cortège will be reality television in a White House setting. Anybody want to write the script?

CONDOLENCES TO AMERICA, TO THE WORLD

CONDOLENCES TO AMERICA, TO THE WORLD.

Victory for the racists, the mysoginists, the wall-builders, hate-mongers, fear-mongers, the fascists, gun-toters, bullies, demagogues, egomaniacs, money-worshippers, the ignorant of and indifferent to everything beyond their own barbed wire-protected enclave.

Courage to everyone else.

I want to quote from a post today by James Brush in Austin, Texas:

So what now? I’ve been teaching for 17 years, trying--often not succeeding, but trying--to work against casual bigotry, bullying, incuriosity, anti-intellectualism and white man entitlement. How does one go on now? How does one try to say to our kids--especially the gay, hispanic, immigrant, black, and girls--that our schools are “no place for hate” when our country clearly is. That so many revel in it.

How do we explain to our son that a man who makes fun of other people for being different, who based his campaign on the idea that so many of the people we know, care about and love do not count because they are of different races and ethnicities, they are LGBTQ, they come from different corners of the world, and have different religions or none can use this ugly message to win the presidency? That so many people are ok with this. I’m not sure what to say or do.
But dammit, I’m going high. And on the side of love.

HOT OFF THE PRESS

Warmth and therefore joy are back, thanks to a sympathique, efficient, careful and knowledgeable young Polish-German heating engineer I had the good fortune to chance upon.

He instantly identified the problems (one of which, embarassingly, was spent batteries in the thermostat) and dealt with them all, no hanging about, in less than an hour, for a reasonable fee.

Home is toasty warm now and tonight I'll sleep gratefully, sending sweet dreams to all our fellow Europeans.

COLD AND PRIVILEGED

Up all night wearing coat plus scarf plus two and half sweaters plus tights plus warm trousers but still cold, too cold to get into bed because if I fell asleep I might not wake up early enough to phone boiler repair people.

My flat is currently excruciating because the boiler stopped working and it's all because a plumber I called about two weeks ago to fix a minor flaw (not a heat-cancelling flaw) did Something to the boiler. Something he explained at great length but with little clarity, involving a piece of rubber tubing and a bucket. When he was finished and paid he said he'd come back as soon as he returned from holiday because the boiler needed a new tap kit and he'd bring this. The pressure gauge went down to zero and stayed there but the heating still worked. This boiler has worked well for several years but yesterday it packed up - nice timing! Cold weather coincided. I've left progressively urgent messages on said plumber's phone, at first cheerful, then apologetic, then terse, then angry, then tearful etc. No response of any kind from him. Of course. 

So I've been sitting in the kitchen leaning against my electric oven, waiting for a new boiler repair person to arrive. But that won't be for another couple of hours, so I've been thinking, as one does.

I'm incredibly, impossibly, unfairly privileged. My suffering consists of a malfunctioning boiler on a rather cold day. I'm not homeless, I'm not sleeping on cardboard in the street, or abandoned, lost in a burnt-out jungle in Calais or elsewhere. Compared to millions of people nearby or far away on this planet I'm wallowing in luxury, unimaginably fortunate. So fortunate that it's shameful. Yet I'm dependent on the comforts I take for granted. Even temporarily deprived of them I'm ready to rage at the failure of people and technology to provide me with the instant and efficient services I demand, pay for and can't live without.

I know my shame is theoretical, merely a blog post to while away this cold time while I wait for warmth to be restored.

But still, I'm thinking.

VOICES CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS

It's important to make our voices heard if there's any chance of stemming the tide of xenophobia, fear, ignorance, indifference and selfishness which is creeping, seeping into the fabric of our society, not only here but in many other so-called democratic, so-called enlightened, caring societies.

Here is a petition to sign.

Below I'm copying a letter from George Szirtes (posted on Facebook) to his Members of Parliament:

George Szirtes

OPEN LETTER TO MY LOCAL MPs, RICHARD BACON AND GEORGE FREEMAN, WHO VOTED AGAINST ADMITTING 3,000 UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN TO THE UK

Dear Mr Bacon and Mr Freeman,

I see your name is among those who voted to turn away 3,000 unaccompanied children. I myself came here as a child refugee in 1956 and met a far kinder world than the one you represent. I am well aware that nothing I say will make the least difference to your views, but I want to register my distaste not just at this particular action but at the hostile mood your party has created for all foreigners. I have been a citizen of this country since 1964 but consider myself a citizen of the world, that is to say of humanity too, which, in the judgment of the prime minister - your prime minister - makes me a citizen of nowhere. Nowhere is where you have left so many of us: doctors, nurses, public service employees, students, even widows who have lived here for decades but have recently been asked when they are going home.

Is the condition of what you consider 'proper' UK citizens likely to be any better for either this decision or the rhetoric your party has embarked on? Are the lives of those at the bottom end of the scale, the unemployed, the disabled, the dependent, likely to improve from the condition your government has reduced them to, as a result of this refusal?

If you believe it will improve the conditions of those born in this country, those, that is, who have benefitted from the work of people born elsewhere, people who have given long years of their lives to this country, people who paid their taxes and contributed their skill and labour where it was wanted and still is wanted, if you believe that their changed conditions are going to be any better for the rejection of 3,000 unattached children, please explain to me in what way.

I look forward to your kind and considered answer.
 GS

IS THE INTERNET YOUR PARENT?

These questions ocurred to me today while on the bus to Camden Town.

Is posting on the internet our thoughts, our pictures, our stories, our rants, our activities, then eagerly, hungrily, checking for responses, is it a bit like being a child again, seeking parental approval or if not approval, any kind of response? Are all internet social media like metaphorical parents of whatever sort of child we were (and still are to some degree)?

For my part I can answer a hesitant yes. Does anybody else reading this feel the same?

I cross-post to Facebook and some people have replied over there.

ODETTA

Same period of time (1962), same place. The reason why Reg and I are in Rome is only because my sister Anne and her Italian husband, the writer Gerardo Guerrieri, said  'Come! You can work with us.' when we were wondering what was next after our years in Paraguay ended (more about all of it in my ongoing online autobiography).

So we're both working in the office of the Teatro Club, an extraordinary organisation created by Anne and Gerardo which brings international theatre, dance, music - myriad roads really leading to Rome. I'm designing posters for a forthcoming show by the Moisseiev Russian ballet company but meanwhile, Odetta is about to give a solo performance and I'm helping out backstage. 

Odetta, whose unforgettable voice I've never heard before and whose majestic presence overwhelms me, is standing calm and serene before her curtain call while I'm running around panicking in case I've forgotten something and catastrophe is imminent.

Odetta, the Odetta, turns to me smiling like a Buddha and says something...why why why why can't I remember her actual words?...something which means don't sweat the small stuff, but so much more eloquently, and in that voice, with that presence, so calm, it's like a shower of blessings and all my panic melts away and all the panics melt away and you have to laugh.

She goes on stage and she sings her songs and now, all I have to do is to put her records on and I'm back in that moment. If you've never heard Odetta, or even if you have, listen to her. This is from one of her blues albums:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDWxl5Z0bbI

MEMORY THE WIND DIDN'T BLOW AWAY

It's 1962 or 1961. My husband Reg Dixon and I have left Paraguay behind and are living in a rooftop apartment in Trastevere, Rome's left-bank. In the evenings we often drop in at the Folk Studio, a cavernous musical haven for world citizens and restless locals, run by Harold Bradley, a hugely talented African American singer, actor, painter and all-around exceptional human being. His deep velvet basso profundo version of the old Gospel classic God's Gonna Cut You Down can easily persuade you Harold is God (but he'll never cut you down because he loves you too much). 

We've made friends with Harold and since Reg plays the guitar and we both sing, sometimes we perform our American, English, French, Spanish or Mexican repertoire. Other amateur and professional musicians often come on stage from the audience and, one winter night, a skinny kid wearing a casquette (you know, those flat caps) gets up there. 

To my shame, I cannot remember what or how he sang or even if he had his guitar with him but I know it was good. Reg and I and another man and the kid, who is very very drunk and hilariously funny with it, go round the corner to a bar for some food. The kid's sense of humour is so sharp and so contagious that we are all falling about in blissful hilarity. The kid's name is Bob Dylan. He isn't yet very famous but his manager Al Grossman is with him protectively on that evening in Rome.

I'm absolutely sure that neither Dylan or the late Grossman would remember the incident but herewith my very good wishes to the Nobel prizewinner.

Looking for a photo to include, I came across an astonishingly detailed account by Olof Björner of Dylan's comings and goings, which includes his trip to Rome in 1961 (I'm pretty sure it was actually 1962 but never mind). I've copied the relevant extract below. Also found a photo of Harold Bradley at the Folk Studio around that time.

 

Harold Bradley (centre) at his Folk Studio in Rome in the 1960s

I found the above photo on this website.

ELECTION SCHMELECTION

Foolishly, I stayed up last night to watch the Trump/Clinton debate - if that word can be applied to the infantile slanging match I witnessed, my jaw dropping so low that I still haven't quite retrieved it.

In 1984, when some of you were still in swaddling clothes (does swaddling still exist?) I won a Guardian competition for political montages and got a bottle of champagne (not Bollinger). Below is my original cartoon and above it is a new version I've just done, simply changing the faces and the context. I rest my case.