It Only Takes a Minute To Lose a Pitch: A Tough Time for Optimists

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn ‘The Sampling Officials’

'We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorns have roses.’
Alphonse Karr, ‘A Tour Round My Garden’

I consider myself an optimist.

I was certainly optimistic about our pitch for the prestige pen brand. We had assigned a top team and worked really hard over the previous six weeks. We had a pedigree in the sector, and, what’s more, we had arrived at a compelling proposal.

Luxury goods the world over had been de-coupled from the expertise and craft that originally justified their premium. They had been reduced to names and logos, gold and glitter, soulless fixtures in airport retail. If appointed, we would re-harness our pen brand to the skill and artistry of its design and manufacture, and embed it in a community of like-minded craftspeople and makers. We would re-position it within the emergent world of artisanal care.

We presented in an airless room in an anodyne airport hotel. There were neatly arranged water glasses, nondescript mints, blank notepads and a dispiriting flip chart. Arrayed before us was a panel of suited executives from the key sales regions around the world. Our audience looked on - stern, impassive, pokerfaced. One talked quietly into his mobile phone every now and again. Another popped out for something important.

Undeterred, we gesticulated and enthused. We were animated and energetic. We radiated positivity. I nodded my head a lot. 

We had been told to pay particular attention to the Chinese representative, as he carried a lot of commercial clout. But he wasn’t giving anything away. 

A trolley of mayonnaise-soaked sandwiches was brought in.

Our Creative Director took to the floor with a flourish, and presented our idea across a range of platforms, tasks and territories. The work was elegant, thoughtful and intimate. It completely eschewed the tired category conventions of bling, gloss and glamour. 

I summarised our pitch and invited questions. 

There was a stony silence. 

At length the Chinese representative put his hand up, gestured towards our creative work and, with measured enunciation, asked:

‘Where is the luxury in this?’

I mumbled something about new prestige codes, opinion leadership and the artisanal aesthetic. But, of course, I knew immediately that with those six words we were defeated. 

It only takes a minute to lose a pitch.

Ours is a curious business. All that industry and innovation, argument and anxiety; all that energy and enthusiasm, those late nights and early mornings - they can just go up in a puff of a smoke. 

What a waste.

'Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.’
Voltaire

We are, of course, sustained by our optimistic outlook, our relentless positivity. Upwards and onwards. Let’s learn the lessons. Let’s get up and do it again. 

But relentless positivity can be exhausting. And through the pandemic I’ve been struck by the fact that optimism can sometimes be a curse. I’ve personally been steadfastly optimistic: expecting waves to recede, targets to be met, data to improve. And I’ve been consistently wrong all year. 

It takes its toll.

The Stockdale Paradox was popularized by Jim Collins in his book ‘Good to Great.’

James Stockdale was a US naval officer who, while flying on a mission in the Vietnam War, was shot down and taken captive. He was held in the Hỏa Lò Prison (the infamous ‘Hanoi Hilton’) for the next seven-and-a-half years, and was routinely tortured and denied medical attention. 

When afterwards he reflected on his traumatic experiences, he concluded that the people less likely to survive were the optimists. They pinned their hopes on getting out by Easter, and then Thanksgiving, and then Christmas. And each time they were disappointed. 

‘They died of a broken heart.’

The Stockdale Paradox suggests that, to get through an ordeal, we must confront the reality of our situation, however grave it may be; that we must find an appropriate balance between realism and optimism.

‘You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end - which you can never afford to lose - with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.’

Admiral James Stockdale

We should have known from the first chemistry meeting for that prestige pen brand - from the bureaucratic process and fragmented hierarchy; from the sales-driven culture and conservative communication to-date - that this was not a pitch for us.

But hope can make you blind.

‘Pessimism is the one defence I have against optimism.’
Arthur Miller

Of course, we should continue to regard the inherent optimism of creative professionals as an asset. Optimism catalyses camaraderie and inspires innovation; it prompts industry, ambition, and often success. But we should also nurture Resilient Realists: people with the objectivity properly to assess a situation; and the fortitude to endure disappointment.

As the old saying goes,‘we should hope for the best and prepare for the worst.’

'Son, don't put your hat
Where you can't reach it.
It doesn't make no sense.
Good things come
For those who work hard for it.
Adjust yourself
To the life you can afford to live.
The road to the top
Is long and winding.
A foolish dog
Barks at the flyin’ bird.
Patient man
Ride donkey.
Cool Out Son.
Cool Out Son.
Junior Murvin, 'Cool Out Son' (J Gibson)

No. 320

Last Year in Marienbad: Setting Ourselves Free from Stories and Storytelling

‘You still wait for someone who will never come. Someone who may never come, to separate us again, to take you away from me.’

'Last Year in Marienbad' is a 1961 French film directed by Alain Resnais from a screenplay by Alain Robbe-Grillet. It’s an elegant exploration of memory and dreams, of the process of thought. It is wilfully enigmatic. And it sets to one side conventional approaches to narrative structure.

An unnamed man (Giorgio Albertazzi) paces the long corridors of a baroque chateau hotel - past a few silent servants, past empty salons with stucco ceilings and gilt ornamentation; past hallways with sculptured doorframes, grandiose chandeliers and crystal mirrors; past potted palms and walls hung with sombre oil paintings and horticultural prints.

There’s a performance of an Ibsen play in the hotel theatre and the formally dressed audience sits in rapt concentration. When it’s over the guests talk in hushed tones. Their conversation is banal. Sometimes they stare, impassively, like statues frozen in time and space. A couple argue.

‘You confine me in a whispering silence worse than death. Like these days that we live through, side by side, and almost hand in hand - our mouths forever apart.’

Our man addresses a beautiful Chanel-clad woman whom he finds standing in a doorway (Delphine Seyrig). 

‘You haven’t changed. I feel I left you only yesterday.’

He shows her round the hotel, explaining the architecture. They dance. She is amused, charmed perhaps, but cannot recollect ever having met him.

‘It was not me. You must be mistaken.’

He, however, is sure of it. 

‘It was last year. Have I changed so much? Or are you pretending not to know me?’

He recalls their first encounter in the gardens at Frederiksbad. He remembers the precise location, her posture, their conversation. They had a romance and agreed to meet one year later.

‘You’ve still the same faraway eyes, the same smile, the same sudden laugh. The same way of holding out your arm to ward off something in the way, of raising your hand to your shoulder. You’re wearing the same perfume.’

The couple wander about the hotel and the opulent geometric gardens - along gravel paths, past pools, waterfalls and hedges.

And then he is alone again, walking through the labyrinth of halls, foyers and corridors, in silence.

The other guests play at cards, dominoes and matchsticks. Some compete at target practice. The woman has a partner (Sacha Pitoëff), a mournful fellow, who, whilst repeatedly winning the games, keeps a wary eye on her movements.

‘I suggest a different game, a game I always win.’
‘If you can’t lose, it’s not a game.’
’I can lose, but I always win.’

Our man encounters the woman repeatedly at different spots around the hotel. She persists in denying that they have ever met, and asks to be left alone. He begins to lose confidence in some of the details of his story. Perhaps they first made their acquaintance in Karlstadt or Baden-Salsa. Or Marienbad?

We notice that, on the various occasions we have seen the woman, she has been wearing different dresses. Conversations are repeated. The chronology and locations are scrambled. The gothic organ music of Francis Seyrig is unsettling. The people in the garden cast long shadows, but the trees do not.

'Last Year in Marienbad' is certainly puzzling. 

Is the man trying to recall events or wishing them to be true? Is he an author pondering different storylines? Is he Orpheus attempting to recover Eurydice from Hades? Is he the woman’s psychoanalyst? Is it all going on in her head, not his? Did he assault her? Did her partner kill her? Is everyone dead?

Director Resnais suggested that the film explores cognitive mechanics.

'For me this film is an attempt, still very crude and very primitive, to approach the complexity of thought, of its processes.’ 

Whatever the explanation, we are invited to consider untrustworthy memories and illusory dreams. 

We replay events in our minds, in the theatre of our imagination. We precisely recall isolated moments, fragments of conversation, while vaguely forgetting the context, the before and after. We have memories of memories. We reconstruct the past as we would wish it to have been. We reconfigure recollections to relieve our doubts, our regrets, our guilt. We are unreliable narrators of our own lives.

‘There is an experiencing self, who lives in the present and knows the present. Then there is a remembering self, and the remembering self is the one that keeps score.’
Daniel Kahneman

Certainly the film was revolutionary in its day because it cast aside conventional narrative and plot development. It offered instead a complex set of thoughts, moments and impressions. And in so doing it presented a different kind of truth.

Of course, stories can be insightful, educational and entertaining. Of course, they provide reassurance. They make sense of the world. They bind us together. 

But stories also reduce our understanding of the past to crude linear constructions, rationally ordered and causally connected. We instinctively find patterns in events and experiences. We assign cause and effect, agency and victimhood; heroes and villains, beginnings, middles and ends. And yet life, experience and relationships are rarely so neat. Thinking, remembering and imagining are seldom so tidy. Sometimes stories over-simplify. Sometimes narratives are partisan. And in the modern world of unchecked falsehoods, stories and narratives too easily become conspiracies. 

Resnais suggests that we should occasionally hold in check our natural instinct to impose order, to locate obvious explanations. Sometimes a more compelling truth can be found if we set ourselves free from the constraints of stories and storytelling.

At the conclusion of 'Last Year in Marienbad' the couple endeavour to leave together at midnight.

'The grounds of the hotel were symmetrically arranged, without trees or flowers, or plants of any kind. The gravel, the stone and the marble were spread in strict array in unmysterious shapes. At first sight, it seemed impossible to lose your way. At first sight... Along these stone paths and amidst these statues, where you were already losing your way forever in the still night, alone with me.’

'There are places I'll remember
All my life, though some have changed.
Some forever, not for better,
Some have gone and some remain.
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall.
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I've loved them all.
But of all these friends and lovers
There is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new.’

The Beatles, ‘In My Life’ (J Lennon / P McCartney)

No. 319

Miles Davis: Head Chemist in the Creative Laboratory

Photo: Herman Leonard Photography, LLC, courtesy of the Miles Davis Estate

‘Music has always been like a curse with me. I’ve always felt driven to play it. It’s the first thing in my life – go to bed thinking about it and wake up thinking about it. It’s always there. It comes before everything.’
Miles Davis

I recently watched a fine documentary about Miles Davis (‘Birth of the Cool’ by Stanley Nelson Jr).

Davis was a revered jazz trumpeter, a titanic bandleader, a revolutionary composer. He was cool jazz, orchestral jazz, hard bop, post-bop and fusion. He gave us ‘Birth of the Cool’,’’Round About Midnight’ and ‘Kind of Blue;’ ‘Milestones,’ ‘Miles Ahead’ and ‘Miles Smiles.’ He was a restless pioneer, a sensitive soul, a troubled genius.

Let us consider what Davis teaches us about living a wholehearted creative life.

1. ‘Go Where the Action Is’

Miles Davis was born in Alton, Illinois in 1926 and raised in East St. Louis. His family were relatively affluent landowners, his mother a music teacher and his father a dentist. 

Davis received his first trumpet as a gift on his 13th birthday. To escape his feuding parents, he would go out into the woods, listen to the wildlife and play what he was hearing. He began to perform in the school marching band, in talent shows and local ensembles. 

In 1944, Billy Eckstine visited St. Louis with a band that included Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. When a trumpeter fell sick Davis was invited to fill in. 

‘The greatest feeling I ever had in my life – with my clothes on – was when I first met Dizz and Bird. I was 18 years old. I decided right then and there I had to be in New York, on 52nd Street where the action was.’

2. Learn Your Craft

Davis moved to New York and hung out in the jazz joints on 52nd Street. He followed his idol Charlie Parker from club to club, immersing himself in the intense bebop scene. 

At the same time Davis enrolled at the Juilliard School to study classical music theory. Though he was mocked by fellow jazz artists, he was keen to learn his craft.

‘A lot of the old guys thought that if you went to school it would make you play like you were white - if you learned something from theory, you would lose the feeling in your playing. I would go to the library and borrow scores by all these great composers. I wanted to see what was going on in all of music.’

3. ‘If You Want to Keep Creating, You Have to Be About Change.’

Soon Davis was performing and recording with Parker in cities across America. In 1948 he met pianist and arranger Gil Evans with whom he struck up an immediate rapport.

‘We heard sound in the same way.’

They assembled a nine-piece band, the Miles Davis Nonet, which included the French horn and tuba and embraced a textured orchestral sound. Davis was bringing into play both his experiences on 52nd Street and lessons learned at the Juilliard. It was a radical combination.

‘Living is an adventure and a challenge. It wasn’t about standing still and becoming safe…If anybody wants to keep creating, they have to be about change.’

After signing a contract with Capitol Records, Davis’ Nonet released a series of tracks that were subsequently compiled on the 1957 album ‘Birth of the Cool.’

4. Find Your ‘Illusion of Possibility’

In 1949 Davis was invited to perform at the Paris International Jazz Festival. 

‘This was my first trip out of the country. I loved being in Paris and loved the way I was treated.’

Davis enjoyed the freedom and respect he found in post-war Paris. Moving in creative circles, he socialised with the likes of Sartre and Picasso. He began to appreciate the scale of his own potential as an artist.

‘Paris was where I understood that all white people weren’t the same – that some weren’t prejudiced and others were. It had only been a couple of weeks, but I was living in an illusion of possibility. Maybe a miracle had happened.’

5. Dig Your Way Out of the Holes

Davis’ return to the States was marked by disappointment and depression. He developed a heroin habit, lost his sense of discipline and his career spiralled out of control. He also gained a reputation for being detached and irascible. 

‘I was just cold to mostly everyone. That was the way I protected myself – by not letting anyone inside of my feelings and emotions.’

Davis’ somewhat forbidding presence was enhanced when an operation to remove polyps from his larynx went wrong and left him with a raspy voice for the rest of his life. 

He retreated to his father’s farm for several months to clean up. 

‘I figured there wasn’t nowhere for me to go but up. I was already on the bottom.’

Davis was partially successful, but in the early ‘50s he was in and out of work. He managed to sign a recording contract with Prestige and gradually evolved his style. He took to using a mute, placed close to the microphone, and his phrasing became more spacious and relaxed.

‘Miles had a way of playing that sounded like a stone skipping across a pond. He just touched on the waves.’
Herbie Hancock

In 1955, Davis' fortunes turned when he was invited to perform at the Newport Jazz Festival. 

‘Miles put the bell of his horn right into the microphone and changed the whole of jazz right there - and changed his career right there. Because the beauty of that song, and the beauty of Miles’ trumpet, made bebop a music that could be accepted by everybody.’
George Wein, Promoter

6. Speed Can Be a Creative Ally

After Davis’ performance at Newport, he was snapped up by Columbia Records. But his incumbent contract with Prestige required him to release four more albums.

Davis assembled his band in the studio: Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on double bass, Philly Joe Jones on drums and John Coltrane on saxophone. This line-up has been labelled the First Great Quintet. Together they recorded four albums in two one-day sessions. ‘Cookin'’, ‘Relaxin'’, ‘Workin'’ and ‘Steamin'’ are regarded as some of Davis’ best work. Speed can be a creative ally.

7. Allow Space for Spontaneity

In 1957 Davis embarked on a five-album collaboration with Gil Evans. He greatly enjoyed the experimentation: playing a flugelhorn, interpreting classical pieces, employing orchestral arrangements. 

In 1959, he recorded ‘Kind of Blue.’ Rather than turn up to the sessions with a finished score, he built in the opportunity for improvisation.

‘I didn’t write out the music for ’Kind of Blue,’ but brought in sketches - because I wanted a lot of spontaneity in the playing…I knew that if you’ve got some great musicians, they would deal with the situation and play beyond what is there and above what they think they can.’

Cicely Tyson and Miles Davis. Photo Credit Ron Galella

‘Kind of Blue’ was an instant success and is still the best selling jazz album of all time. 

8. Don’t Be Embarrassed by Success

Davis enjoyed his success. He invested in sharp suits and fast cars. He wore silk scarves, directional sunglasses and an intense look.

‘Being cool and hip and angry and sophisticated and ultra clean, I was all of those things and more. But I was playing the f**k out of my horn and had a great group. So I didn’t get recognition based only on a rebel image.’

When asked how he tallied owning a sports car with parenthood, Davis replied:

‘I tell them to get a taxi.’

9. Know When It’s Time to Break Up the Party

Success didn’t protect Davis from the racism endemic in America at that time. 

Taking a break from a recording session at Birdland in New York, he stepped outside to escort a woman to a taxi. A policeman told him to ‘move on.’ When Davis explained he was working at the club, he was arrested and beaten up. His head wound needed five stitches.

‘That incident changed me forever. Made me much more bitter and cynical than I might have been.’

Despite the success of ‘Kind of Blue’, Coltrane left the band to start his own ensemble, and soon the others followed. Davis recognised that it was time to break up the party and rebuild from scratch.

'In the last years that Trane was with my group, he started playing for himself. When that happens the magic is gone out of a band and people who used to love to play together start not caring anymore. And that’s when a band falls apart…. I had always been looking for new things to play, new challenges for my musical ideas. Now it was time for something different.’

Miles Davies In New York City 1955. Photo: Tom Palumbo

10. If You’re Good Enough, You’re Old Enough

Between 1963 and 1964 Davis put together what became his Second Great Quintet: Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on bass, Tony Williams on drums and Wayne Shorter on saxophone.

Hancock was 23 and Williams was just 17. Davis regarded their youth as an asset. 

‘Creativity and genius in any kind of artistic expression don’t know nothing about age. Either you got it or you don’t. And being old is not going to help you get it.’

11. Set Up a Creative Laboratory

The Second Quintet could play at great speed and embraced elements of free jazz, all five contributing simultaneously as equals. The band was a creative laboratory for ideas.

‘We were looking at every night going into a laboratory. Miles was the head chemist. Our job was to mix these components, these changes, this tempo, to something that explodes safely every night with a bit of danger. And it happened every night.’
Ron Carter

Davis encouraged his musicians to work outside their comfort zone.

'Miles wanted us to live on the stage in front of the people, creating in front of the people. In other words, don’t lean on what you know. What he was looking for is the stuff that you don’t know. Miles even told us, ‘I pay you to practice on the bandstand in front of the people.’’
Herbie Hancock

12. ‘Play As If You Don’t Know How to Play’

'Do not fear mistakes. There are none.' 

One of the fascinating aspects of Davis’ working practice was his special relationship with miscues and missteps. He found merit in mistakes.

‘The note next to the one that you think is bad corrects the one in front.’

Herbie Hancock relates how Davis was completely non-judgemental: he regarded errors as creative opportunities.

‘I played this chord that was so wrong. I had destroyed everything. Miles took a breath and then he made some notes that actually made my chord right. How do you do that? I had judged what I had done. Miles didn’t judge what I did. He heard it and heard it as part of the music - something new that came into the music.’

Davis was a true pioneer who wanted to take his music right to the edge. And beyond.

‘Do you ever get tired of playing music that sounds like music? Do you ever feel like you wanna play as if you don’t know how to play?’

Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, Miles Davis & Tony Williams | Miles Davis Quintet

13. Stay Competitive, Stay Ambitious

At the end of the ‘60s Davis was increasingly conscious that the younger generation were into rock, soul, and funk. He became an enthusiast for the work of James Brown, Sly Stone and Jimi Hendrix.

‘1969 was the year rock and funk were really selling like hot cakes. People were packing stadiums to hear and see stars in person, and jazz music seemed to be withering on the vine. We played a lot of half-empty clubs in 1969. That told me something.’

In particular Davis was aware of how lucrative the rock business model had become.

‘I started realising that most rock musicians didn’t know anything about music. I figured that if they could do it – reach all those people and sell all those records – without really knowing what they were doing, then I could do it too. Only better.’

Davis threw away his sharp suits and restyled himself for the hippie era. Having expanded his band to include multiple percussion players, sitar and electric bass, he started recording long, dense improvisational fusion pieces. 

‘I told the musicians that they could do anything they wanted, play anything they heard. So that’s what they did.’

For the 1970 double album ‘Bitches Brew’ Davis adopted studio techniques like splicing, distortion, multi-track recording and tape loops. The album went on to sell a million copies.

 ‘I wanted to change course - had to change course - for me to continue to believe in and love what I was playing.’

14. Never Look Back

By the mid ‘70s Davis was suffering repeated health problems. He turned to alcohol and cocaine for support, and became violent and abusive. Artistically drained, he gave up playing and became a recluse.

But by the early ‘80s Davis was back with his horn. He continued to record and perform, collaborating with artists like Prince, appearing on talk shows and in movies, learning to paint. 

As his son Erin observed, he never looked back.

‘Miles never talked about his old records. He didn’t keep them in the house. He didn’t have any of them - not one of them. He didn’t want them in there. He only wanted the stuff he was working on.’

Davis carried on creating until he passed away in 1991. He’d had a five-decade career, lived an extraordinary life and left a phenomenal musical legacy. On his deathbed he observed:

‘When god punishes you, it’s not that you don’t get what you want. It’s that you get everything you want and there’s no time left.’

No. 318

Don’t Be a Busy Fool: My Stressful Experience as a Debenhams Dishwasher

Kitchen Maid with the Supper at Emmaus, Diego Velasquez

'It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?'
H D Thoreau

In my holidays from College I took a number of random jobs. I distributed law reports around Chancery Lane (beautiful buildings). I delivered the Christmas post around Romford (great canteen). I dug holes in Harold Hill (excellent for sun tan and body tone). And I did a fair amount of filing - which was a major occupation in the pre-digital age (not good for anything really, other than mind control).

My most stressful employment was in the kitchens of the Debenhams Department Store in Romford Town Centre.

I was stationed on my own alongside some large stainless steel sinks and industrial dishwashers. A conveyer belt brought me dirty crockery, cutlery and glasses in a steady stream from the adjacent customer restaurant. All I had to do was sort and stack the items as they came through.

The problem was that I had no control of the speed of the conveyer belt or the volume of the dishes. And I couldn’t prevent myself pausing occasionally to finish off an attractive unwanted pastry. 

As the lunchtime rush accelerated, I struggled to keep up. Pots and plates, mugs and jugs, saucers, soup bowls and serving spoons presented themselves to me in an ever more confused, messy muddle. I piled and loaded with diminishing care and increasing anxiety, spilling gravy on the floor, dropping the occasional glass. I became somewhat flustered, which hampered me even more. 

And the conveyor belt kept on rolling. And the dirty dishes kept on arriving, unrelenting, unforgiving. 

It all got a bit too much. I shouted through the plastic flap to the restaurant, begging the nearby waiters to slow things down. But they carried on regardless, pacing the floor in a catatonic stupor.

I read somewhere once that stress derives in large part from lack of control. The problem is out of our hands, beyond our ability. There’s nothing we can do. Well, dishwashing at Debenhams was the very definition of a stressful occupation.

Eventually, as lunch turned towards afternoon tea, the volume of crockery declined and I recovered my composure. 

I helped myself to one last custard tart.

President Dwight Eisenhower made a celebrated distinction regarding the challenges he faced in office (quoting Dr J R Miller, president of Northwestern University):

'I have two kinds of problems: the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.’ 

This sentiment should resonate with many people in modern business. We know that we should really be applying ourselves to the big long-term issues that loom on the horizon. But we just can’t quite get around to them, because pressing short-term problems keep demanding our attention.

The truth is that some of these short-term concerns are not as urgent as they may seem. They’re a distraction, and they should probably be dealt with by someone else. Indeed a few of them may be entirely superfluous. What’s more, some of those long-term issues really need to be addressed right now. 

'Nothing is less productive than to make more efficient what should not be done at all.'
Peter Drucker

Smart business people learn to concentrate on the urgent issues that are really important, and the important issues that are actually urgent. They have the ability to differentiate and delegate, categorise and schedule. Prioritisation of tasks and challenges is a critical skill in life and business.

'Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment, and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.'
Thomas Edison

Gwyn and I left BBH at the same time, and we both embarked on a stage in our careers that is more plural in nature. BBH Founder John Bartle, wary of the pitfalls of such a path, offered Gwyn the following concise advice: ‘Don’t be a busy fool.’

'Got to have a job to put the food on the table.
Got to have a job to keep that party able.
Got to have a job to bring home the bread.
Got to have a job to keep that family fed.

Sometimes your business is all messed up.
Sometimes you don't have your thing together.
And when your thing is all messed up,
Somebody will take that fire, yeah!
So, if you don't give a doggone about it,
If you don't give a doggone about it,
Then they—
They won't give a damn!’

James Brown, 'If You Don't Give A Doggone About It'

No. 317

North by Northwest: ‘You Fellows Could Stand a Little Less Training from the FBI and a Little More from the Actors Studio'

‘North by Northwest’ is a 1959 thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Featuring a screenplay by Ernest Lehman, a score by Bernard Herrmann and titles by Saul Bass, it is breathlessly dramatic, playfully romantic and thoroughly stylish.

Cary Grant stars as Roger O Thornhill, an advertising executive who is smooth-tongued and somewhat superficial.

‘Roger O Thornhill. What does the O stand for?’
‘Nothing.’

While meeting Clients in the Oak Room at the Plaza Hotel, New York, Thornhill is mistaken for a Government agent and abducted. The villains, led by the charming but menacing Vandamm (James Mason), have been smuggling Cold War secrets out of the United States. They orchestrate a fatal road accident for Thornhill and, when that fails, they frame him for a murder at the United Nations Building.

Soon Thornhill is being hunted down by spies, federal agents and the police. He eludes his pursuers at Grand Central Station, and joins mysterious stranger Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) for a Gibson in the restaurant car of the Twentieth Century to Chicago.

Why is she helping him? Why is she seducing him? Can she be trusted? 

Next Thornhill is lured to a rendezvous in an isolated, sun-drenched field in Indiana. Suddenly he is attacked by a murderous crop-dusting biplane.

'That's funny. That plane's dustin' crops where there ain't no crops.’

‘North by Northwest’ is a compelling tale of mistaken identity, of an innocent caught up in espionage and intrigue. It is littered with diversions, distractions and deceptions. It is far-fetched, knowing and mischievous. And in keeping with the theme of artifice, the film is incredibly well dressed.

Grant spends most of the movie in a grey flannel, ventless, three-button suit, tailored by Kilgour, Savile Row. Despite everything he’s going through, he never looks particularly flustered. Saint’s wardrobe was sourced entirely from Bergdorf Goodman. She exudes confidence in a black business suit; sustains her cool in a belted blue-grey dress; holds her nerve in an almost off-the shoulder black silk number, full-skirted with a red rose pattern. The clothes act as protection, as projection, as disguise.

When eventually the Government agents catch up with Thornhill, he needs some convincing if he is to assist them in foiling the villains.

'Now you listen to me, I'm an advertising man, not a red herring. I've got a job, a secretary, a mother, two ex-wives and several bartenders that depend upon me. And I don't intend to disappoint them all by getting myself ‘slightly' killed.’

Of course, as an advertising person Thornhill should have been comfortable playing the red herring. Ours is a profession that can countenance artifice, exaggeration and the occasional rhetorical flourish, if such devices help to achieve our objective. We like to emphasise urgency and heighten suspense; to enhance benefits and excite emotions. We employ all manner of tactics in the art of selling.

'In the world of advertising, there's no such thing as a lie. There's only expedient exaggeration.’

The practice of persuasion often calls for creative flare, a dramatic flourish, a sense of style. As Vandamm observes to Thornhill, the theatrical arts are often underestimated.

'Seems to me you fellows could stand a little less training from the FBI and a little more from the Actors Studio.'

‘North by Northwest’ reaches its climax in a nail-biting chase scene among the huge Presidential sculptures on Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. Grant is now in a loose Brookes Brothers button-down shirt. Saint is in an elegant orange wool suit. It’s gripping stuff.

'If I could turn the page in time, 
Then I'd rearrange just a day or two.
Close my eyes,
But I couldn't find a way.
So I'll settle for one day to believe in you.
Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies.
Tell me lies.’

Fleetwood Mac, ’Little Lies’ (C McVie, E Quintela)

No. 316

The Syncopated Business: The Breathtaking Genius of the Nicholas Brothers

The Nicholas Brothers were two of the greatest dancers of the 20th century. Self taught in the black vaudeville theatres of Philadelphia, they combined rhythmic tap with acrobatic tumbling and balletic grace. They performed breath-taking leaps, spine-tingling vaults, heart-stopping flips, skips and spins. They made jazz and swing music visible. They were style, charm and elegance personified - pure unadulterated joy.

Fayard and Harold Nicholas were born in 1914 and 1921 respectively. They grew up in Philadelphia where their parents led the orchestra at the Standard Theater, their mother at the piano and father on drums.

When Fayard was a baby, his mum would take him to the theatre in a bassinet.

‘She would set me right beside the piano… as she was playing and my dad was playing and the rest of the orchestra. So that’s how I got rhythm.’

Fayard became an avid student of the vaudeville acts that he saw at the Standard. Using the small family apartment as his studio, he set about teaching his younger brother Harold the dance steps he had observed on stage.

‘I was showing him a step and he was having trouble getting this step. And I said “Listen, we’ll do it tomorrow. I see you’re having a little trouble now.” He said, ”No. No. I want to do it now.”’

Their father also took an active interest in their developing talent and gave Fayard some valuable advice.

‘Son, what you’re doing, it’s great. I like it. But don’t do what the other dancers do. Do your own thing… Listen. When you’re performing, don’t look at your feet. Look at that audience - because you’re entertaining them, not yourself.’

Fayard and Harold put their father’s guidance into practice, performing at the Standard as the Nicholas Brothers. Soon they were dancing in theatres around Philadelphia, Chicago, New York and Baltimore. 

'We were tap-dancers, but we put more style into it, more bodywork instead of just footwork.’

In 1932, when Fayard was 18 and Harold was 11, the Nicholas Brothers were signed as a featured act at Harlem's Cotton Club, appearing onstage alongside the likes of Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington. 

In pristine tuxedos and with brilliantined hair, the Nicholas Brothers spin and skip, twist and turn, slip and slide. Fearless and joyful, they dance on tables and up walls; summersault and do the splits. Their bodies float, their arms fly - with effortless elegance. They’re all high jumps and wide kicks. They levitate. Their act is punctuated with comic flourishes. They click their fingers, clap and adjust their bow ties. Holding a handkerchief between both hands, they skip straight over it. It’s physical poetry. 

In 1936 producer Samuel Goldwyn commissioned the brothers to appear in ‘Kid Millions’, which became the first in a series of Hollywood movies. In 1940 Fayard and Harold moved to LA and for several decades they divided their time between films, clubs and concerts, Broadway, television and tours of Latin America, Africa, and Europe.

Fayard: We did vaudeville, we did nightclubs, we did movies, we did television. We have done everything in show business except opera.
Harold: Did you ever want to do opera?
Fayard: Oh, yes, I’d do a tap dance in opera and sing ‘O Sole Mio.’
Harold: A tap dance in opera?

Inevitably the Nicholas Brothers’ careers were constrained by the racism of the times. At the Cotton Club they performed in front of entirely white audiences and they would only be invited to join the clientele after the show because they were so young. Their appearances in movies were also limited to short isolated sections of so-called ‘flash dancing.’ They were never given character parts and were rarely allowed to sing.

'They weren't writing dialogue for blacks unless they were chauffeurs, maids or something like that... We were never written into the script. They just didn't know how.'  

The actor and dancer Maurice Hines sums up the injustice:

‘Imagine what the Nicholas Brothers could have done if they had the opportunity. Oh, it’s frightening. But maybe that’s why they weren’t given the opportunity.’

The Nicholas Brothers’ most celebrated dance sequence is in the finale of the 1943 movie ‘Stormy Weather’ (which starred that other legendary dancer Bill Robinson, Bojangles). 

Cab Calloway has been performing ‘Jumpin' Jive’ with his orchestra. Fayard and Harold, dressed in immaculate tails, leap up onto a table, exchange a few phrases with Calloway and take over. They swing with the rhythm, skip exuberantly across the orchestra's music stands and strut on top of a grand piano in call and response with the pianist. They leapfrog down an oversized flight of stairs, completing each step with a split. And they rise from each split without using their hands. 

Blimey. And it’s all filmed in one shot without cuts or edits. 

I read somewhere the Nicholas Brothers characterised as ‘syncopated dancers.’ Their dancing is not neat and uniform. Rather it is complex and asymmetric. They dance in and around the beat. They each retain their individuality.

I’m no music scholar, but I’ve always liked the idea of syncopation: the thought that dance music in particular gets its intoxicating swing from an interrupted rhythm, a broken regularity, an out-of-place stress or accent. On BBC Radio 3 recently the writer Tom Service described syncopation as the slight calculated violation of what would otherwise be a metronome’s mechanical beat.

Imagine a Syncopated Business: moving in time, in rhythm, as one - but propelled by deviation and displacement, gaining its essential groove from deliberate disruption of conventional patterns, from changes in stress and emphasis. That for me is the very definition of a successful creative organisation. 

The Nicholas Brothers had a 60-year career, performing on stage, in film and television well into the 1990s. Harold died in 2000 and then Fayard followed him in 2006. You can see a celebration of their remarkable talent in the 1992 documentary 'We Sing and We Dance.'

The film features a charming illustration of their very special relationship:

Fayard: I was speaking for both of us.
Harold: You have to speak for yourself… And then I speak for myself… But that doesn’t mean that we’re not still brothers.

'Lucky number.
Dreaming of lucky numbers.
Hoping that those lucky numbers will show for me,
Numbers gonna show for you and me.’
The Nicholas Brothers, 'Lucky Number’ (The Black Network)

No. 315

‘Simplify, Then Exaggerate’: Why I Lost the Election for Juke Box Rep

Ernie Barnes - 'Dance Hall

I have only once stood for elected office. 

I guess I’m wary of exposing myself to the court of public opinion, to the unforgiving judgement of the ballot box. I’m reluctant to be rejected. 

I was however very keen to become Pembroke College Juke Box Rep.

I loved the College Juke Box. It was an admirably robust, coin-operated, mechanical affair, and it boasted a compelling menu of classic 45s: ‘Ghost Town,’ ’Going Underground’ and ‘The Killing Moon’; ’Teenage Kicks’, ‘Tainted Love’ and ‘This Charming Man.’ There was a sprinkling of venerable obscurities like The Clash’s ‘Armagideon Time.’ And, when Chaka Khan’s ‘I Feel For You’ came on, we would all mimic the scratch, in time, as one. 

The College Juke Box kept us entertained on grim, wet winter’s evenings, when there was no money to spend and nothing to spend it on. We nodded to the beat, sang along with the chorus, swayed to the rhythm. We vied with each other to select the most apposite tunes. And as last orders approached, we took to the beer-sodden floor in our heavy tweed overcoats, Holsten Pils in hand, and broke into joyously uninhibited dancing.

'And all my friends just might ask me,
They say, "Martin, maybe one day you'll find true love."
And I say, "Maybe there must be a solution to
The one thing, the one thing we can't find."
That's the look, that's the look.
The look of love.’
ABC, ‘The Look of Love’ (D Palmer / M Fry / M White / S Singleton)

This is not to say that the College Juke Box was perfect. There were a few discs that grated. Someone kept programming the monotonous drone of ‘Riders on the Storm.’ (I’d happily have shown that tune the door.) Perhaps there was a little too much ‘80s Tina Turner. (Let’s not stay together.) And I’d tentatively suggest that Billy Bragg’s ‘Between the Wars’ - a worthy political statement in the midst of the Miners’ Strike - was played a few more times than it merited musically.

More to the point, coming from Essex, the home of suburban soul, I felt the College Juke Box was somewhat lacking in contemporary R&B, funk and disco. Where were Maze and Anita Baker, Dennis Edwards and Evelyn ‘Champagne’ King? Why no D Train or Patrice Rushen?

'We love so strong and so unselfishly.
And I tell you now that I made a vow,
I'm giving you the best that I got.’
Anita Baker, 'Giving You the Best That I Got’ (Bricklebank / Kenric / Clarke / Bricklebank)

And so I hatched a plan. 

I had in mind a velvet revolution, a covert coup. There was a student role, Juke Box Representative, which entailed managing the maintenance of the equipment and overseeing the replenishment of records. If I were to acquire this responsibility, I could, by stealth, introduce more soulful grooves, more funky floor-fillers, more bass-heavy boogie. I could purge the repertoire of any tedious hippiedom and shallow pop bluster. It would be a quiet storm. All I had to do was put myself forward for election at the forthcoming Student Meeting. 

The College Student Meetings were rumbustious affairs. Held on a Sunday evening, their critical component was a barrel of free beer. Consequently attendance was high, voices were loud and debate was vibrant. We voted to boycott lectures and to have hooks placed on toilet doors. We passed motions expressing our disapproval – of nuclear missiles, Margaret Thatcher and plastic lids on Marmite jars.

Nervously, at the appointed slot on the agenda, I took to the floor and proclaimed my credentials for Juke Box Representative. I described my catholic tastes, my diverse musical enthusiasms, my willingness to take requests, my profound sense of social responsibility. 

I thought it probably wise not to make too much reference to soul at this stage. The truth was I had a sweet tooth musically, and I was not convinced the broader student community was quite ready for full-on Luther Vandross. 

'I still remember in the days when I was scared to touch you,
How I spent my day dreaming, planning how to say I love you.
You must have known that I had feelings deep enough to swim in.
That's when you opened up your heart and you told me to come in.
Oh, my love
A thousand kisses from you is never too much.
I just don't wanna stop.’
Luther Vandross, ‘Never Too Much'

It all seemed to be progressing to plan. I could tell I had a sympathetic audience. 

But my housemate Jez had other ideas. Unbeknown to me, he had prepared a tape of typical Jim tunes from my record collection back at St Thomas Street. And his edit had a particular focus on the more syrupy soul, the more sensuous sounds.

‘If you elect this man as Juke Box Rep, this is a sample of what you’ll be in for.’

And so from his portable boom box he broadcast a medley of Teddy Pendergrass, Barry White and Alexander O’Neil; of ‘Sexual Healing,’ ‘Juicy Fruit’ and ‘Gotta Get You Home Tonight.’

'Kick off you shoes
And lay back and let me soothe you.
I wanna take my time and do you right.
A bottle of Dom Perignon
To get us in the groove,
And an atmosphere
That's sure to please you.
Ooh baby,
I gotta get you home with me tonight.’
Eugene Wilde, 'Gotta Get You Home Tonight’ (J Horton / R Broomfield)

Now these tunes were indeed dear to my heart. But I’m not sure they’re the ones I’d have chosen to promote my tastes to a broader audience. Nor did they seem to chime with the more earnest, indie-loving elements of the student body.

And so the night was lost. I can’t recall by how much I was defeated - just the crushing sense of rejection. 

Geoffrey Crowther, the Editor of the Economist from 1938 to 1956 was renowned for giving young journalists a particular piece of advice: ‘Simplify, then exaggerate.’

This sentiment should certainly resonate with advertising people. Ours is a craft that at its heart has two skills: we must first distil and compress a brand’s essential truth, reduce it to its most compelling core; and then we must amplify and expand on that truth, express it with irresistible force.

My mate Jez had instinctively followed Crowther’s advice and developed a classic advertising campaign. He had simplified my true musical tastes and then exaggerated them. It was unquestionably effective.

After my unsuccessful election bid, I took the short walk back to St Thomas Street alone, huddled up in my heavy tweed overcoat. When I got home I put on a Bobby Womack album.

‘You know life is funny
When you look at It.
Everybody wants love
But everybody’s afraid of love.
You know I’m a true believer
That if you get anything out of life
You've got to put up with
The toils and strife.
Think it over. Think it over, girl. That’s the way I feel about cha.’

Bobby Womack, ’That’s the Way I Feel about Cha'

No. 314

The Shining: ‘Just a Little Story About Writer’s Block’

I recently revisited Stanley Kubrick’s splendid psychological horror movie ‘The Shining.’ Based on Stephen King's novel of the same name and released in 1980, ‘The Shining’ stars Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall and is played out in the magnificent Overlook Hotel.

Set in a secluded spot in the Colorado Rockies, the Overlook had a troubled history. It was built in the early 1900s on the site of a Native American burial ground and in a region where snow-bound settlers were once forced into cannibalism to survive. More recently a winter caretaker suffered a mental breakdown and ran amok, killing his wife and two young daughters, and then himself.

Despite all this, Jack Torrance (Nicholson) accepts the position as caretaker while the hotel is closed for the snowy winter months.

'Physically, it's not a very demanding job. The only thing that can get a bit trying up here during the winter is a tremendous sense of isolation. For some people, solitude and isolation can, of itself, become a problem.'

Jack, an aspiring author and recovering alcoholic, hopes that the reclusive posting will help him concentrate on his latest writing project. And so he drives his wife Wendy (Duvall) and their five-year-old son Danny through the spruce-covered peaks to the deserted resort hotel, and they prepare for a winter of seclusion.

The Overlook boasts high ceilinged halls with imposing fireplaces, elegant balconies and salmon pink pillars. There are wrought iron chandeliers and indigenous rugs, tartan chairs and wood-framed red elevator doors. The Prairie School architecture is a joy to behold. The opulent mirrored bar in the Gold Room, the scarlet walls and washbasins in the lavatories, the mint green bathroom in Room 237.

Young Danny, however, possesses psychic powers and senses that something is wrong. He sees a corridor awash with blood and two young girls screaming.

Danny: Dad?... Do you like this hotel?
Jack: Yes, I do. I love it. Don't you?
Danny: I guess so.
Jack: Good. I want you to like it here. I wish we could stay here forever... and ever... and ever.

Jack establishes himself at a large wooden desk in the spacious Colorado Lounge. He sets out his grey Adler Typewriter - to the left of it a ream of paper and a pack of Marlboro, to the right a jar of pencils and a crystal ashtray. Wendy asks him if he fancies a walk after breakfast.

Jack: I suppose I ought to try to do some writing first.
Wendy: Any ideas yet?
Jack: Lots of ideas. No good ones.
Wendy: Well, something’ll come. It’s just a matter of settling back into the habit of writing every day.

Later we find Jack throwing a ball against a wall. He’s not quite got down to things yet.

We follow Danny from behind as he pedals his blue tricycle through the Overlook’s long empty corridors. Over the geometric patterned carpet - orange, red and brown. Over the hardwood floor. Past white walls, brown doors and through the kitchen. Now the wallpaper is floral. He turns a corner and there at the end of the passage are the two young girls – in white socks and pale blue beribboned dresses, holding hands. 

'Hello, Danny. Come and play with us. Come and play with us, Danny. Forever... and ever... and ever.’

And then they are on the corridor carpet in pools of blood, an axe by their side. A startled Danny puts his hands to his face. When he plucks up the courage to look through his fingers, the girls are gone.

Nonetheless, the eerie events continue. The weather deteriorates and the phone lines go down. There’s a naked woman in Room 237. There’s a glamorous party in the Gold Room. Jack starts having visions.

Getty Images

The film concerns itself with a cursed building, a lonely child’s fantasies and a weak man’s vulnerabilities: his alcoholism, his guilt, his struggle to deal with responsibility. But Stephen King also once described ‘The Shining’ as ‘just a little story about writer’s block.’

'Wendy, let me explain something to you. Whenever you come in here and interrupt me, you're breaking my concentration. You're distracting me, and it will then take me time to get back to where I was. You understand?'

A month passes. Jack becomes increasingly petulant. Wendy finds him screaming while asleep at his typewriter. She also discovers that his writing endeavours have been fruitless. He has been typing page after page filled with one solitary phrase:

‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.’

Sometimes his words are indented, irregularly spaced. Sometimes there are misspellings. There are sheets of neatly stacked paper, all saying the same thing, over and over again. Jack has finally cracked.

Though, it is hoped, we have very little in common with mad Jack Torrance, we may sympathise with writer’s block.

The intractable problem, the insoluble puzzle. The blank sheet of paper and the ticking clock. The displacement activities and failed resolutions. The gentle encouragement and anguished inducements. The veiled threats. The paralysis, lethargy and listlessness. The complete lack of inspiration and ideas.

Like many people in this situation, I have sought solitude and seclusion. I have organised stationery, written lists and imposed discipline. But I have found that the most fruitful means of addressing a conceptual drought is simply to stop and seek fresh stimulus elsewhere. Read a book, go for a walk, visit a gallery or cinema. Sooner or later something will occur to you. Something will crop up. Because you need input if you’re going to create output.

'If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write.'
Stephen King

We were once labouring on a particularly challenging Pitch. After a gruelling Saturday in the office, and with the deadline approaching, we resolved to take Sunday off and return fresh the next day. 

That Monday morning Creative Director John Hegarty walked into work with a spring in his step. He summoned the team and brandished an article he’d read in the weekend newspapers. It had prompted him to conceive an elegant solution to our problem. In the nick of time we worked up a compelling proposal and the Pitch was won.

After I’d recovered from the exertions, I went to see the boss, somewhat troubled. 

‘John, what if you hadn’t read that article? What if the piece had run the following week? What would we have done then?’

John looked up, unconcerned.

‘Oh, I’d have seen something else, I imagine.’

I have come to conclude that unplanned encounters and chance discoveries are often responsible for the most important creative breakthroughs. Serendipity solves problems. We just need to put ourselves in a position for fortune to strike. 

Of course, we could continue to stare at that blank piece of paper into the early hours. But that way madness lies.

'Here's Johnny!’

'I'm a path of cinders
Burning under your feet.
You're the one who walks me,
I'm your one way street.
I'm a whisper in water,
Secret for you to hear.
You are the one who grows distant
When I beckon you near.
Leave me now, return tonight.
The tide will show you the way.
If you forget my name
You will go astray,
Like a killer whale
Trapped in a bay.’

Bjork, ‘Bachelorette'

No. 313

Planning Is What a Planner Does: Bruce Nauman and a Solution to Imposter Syndrome

Bruce Nauman's Human Nature/Knows Doesn 't Know (1983/1986) at Tate Modern Photo: D. Palmer

‘What I am really concerned about is what art is supposed to be - and can become.’
Bruce Nauman

I recently visited a fine retrospective of the work of artist Bruce Nauman (Tate Modern, London, until 21 February).

Nauman was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana in 1941, the son of an engineer at General Electric. He studied mathematics and physics at the University of Wisconsin, and art at the University of California. He went on to set up studios in Northern California and then Pasadena, before settling in New Mexico in 1979. His work covers a broad range of media: sculpture, photography, neon, video, drawing, printmaking and performance. 

Nauman films himself stepping carefully through a narrow corridor, walking around the perimeter of a square ‘in an exaggerated manner’, falling backwards onto a corner wall. He films his studio at night when he’s not there.

Nauman records a scream, puts it on a reel-to-reel tape machine and covers it in a concrete block. He makes a cast of the space underneath his chair. He pinches his flesh as if curious about its material properties. 

‘You may not want to be here.’

Nauman plays a violin tuned to the notes D, E, A and D. He washes his hands vigorously and repeatedly at a studio sink. A cup of coffee tumbles and spills, over and over again. Neon instructions flash on and off:

‘Laugh and Die, Play and Live, Speak and Live, Play and Die, Feel and Die, Sleep and Live.’

he True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths (Window or Wall Sign) 1967 Kunstmuseum Basel (Basel, Switzwerland)

Nauman’s world is disturbing and disorientating. Our anxiety is enhanced by the murmur of projectors; by the hum of neon and amplified footfalls; by distant yelling and screaming clowns.

On a collection of monitors the same bald disembodied head rotates while shouting aggressively: 

‘Feed me, Eat me, Help me, Hurt me.’ 

Nauman seems to be concerned with the big questions: with truth and lies, agency and chance, life and death. He wants to rouse us from our stupor; to shake us from our habituated norms. 

‘You have to kind of not watch anything, so you can be aware of everything.'

Nauman returns repeatedly to the theme of children’s games. We are invited to consider card tricks, balloon dogs, hangman and musical chairs. 

Bruce Nauman (October 7, 2020-February 21, 2021) at Tate Modern, London: installation view featuring “Anthro/Socio (Rinde Spinning)” (1992); (photo: Tate Photography (Matt Greenwood); artwork © Bruce Nauman / ARS, NY and DACS, London 2020)

‘Somebody is always left out. The first one to be excluded always feels terrible. That kid doesn’t get to play anymore, has nothing to do, has to stand in the corner.’

Nauman seems to be asking: Is there some secret in the inherent cruelty of these games; in the unfairness, the deception, the repetition? Isn’t this what life’s about?

'My work is basically an outgrowth of the anger I feel about the human condition. The aspects of it that make me angry are our capacity for cruelty and the ability people have to ignore situations they don't like.’

We are being watched by a camera as we walk along a wall. As we turn the corner we catch a glimpse of ourselves on a monitor. And then we are gone. There’s a wire mesh cage with a narrow claustrophobic corridor. Do we want to go in? A woman takes instructions from an unseen man.

'Sit down, lie down, roll over, play dead, sit up, stand up.’

This is a dark, dystopian place of concrete and cages; of surveillance cameras and flickering screens; of brash neon signs and black marble blocks illuminated by sodium light. It suggests themes of disorientation and disempowerment. It prompts paranoia.

‘Learn to recognise when you need to know something.'

I left the exhibition in awe of the diversity of Nauman’s thoughts and provocations. He refuses to be constrained by conventional subjects, materials and practice. He continually explores what an artist and artwork can be. 

I was particularly struck by Nauman’s description of his evolving relationship with his craft.

'When I was in art school, I thought art was something I would learn how to do, and then I would just do it. At a certain point I realized that it wasn't going to work like that. Basically, I would have to start over every day and figure out what art was going to be.’

Nauman gives a compelling definition of the relationship between art and the artist.

‘If I was an artist and I was in the studio, then whatever I was doing must be art. At this point art became more of an activity and less of a product.’

I wonder, can we learn something here about Planners and Planning?

Still from 'Clown Torture', 1987, by Bruce Nauman. https://theartsdesk.com

In the early years of my career I spent a good deal of time in search of the definitive course, the critical text, the rules and regulations that would qualify me as a Planner. I wanted to learn how to do it. 

I was troubled by imposter syndrome. I had arrived in the trade in a roundabout way, via Market Research. I lacked the classical BMP education and I doubted that I had all the skills, talents or accomplishments of a Proper Planner. It said Planner on my business card, but was that justified? I anticipated that ultimately I would be exposed as a fraud.

I’m not sure I ever got the education I was craving. I doubt it ever existed. Indeed, when I reflect on what we did as a Planning community at BBH over those years, there comes to mind a vast disordered array of methods, styles and approaches to our quest for understanding. 

We interviewed semioticians and psychologists, ecologists and economists, fashionistas and futurists. We sought to comprehend the pioneer spirit, the colour yellow, the meaning of play. We researched in nightclubs and briefed in safari parks. We visited archives, farms and factories. We observed people in shops and doing the laundry, went on roadtrips and barhops. We examined changing definitions of human progress and female heroism, the language of cool and the craft of choreography. We conducted blind taste and deprivation tests. We watched parents watching their children, and asked children to draw their parents.  We commissioned statistical models, regression analyses and price elasticity studies. We created brand planets and media ecosystems, mood edits and manifestos. We drew pyramids, conveyor belts and stadium charts. We rebranded milk and redesigned jeans. We constructed a teenager’s bedroom.

To be fair, while some of these exercises were illuminating and fruitful, others were illusory and futile. But all were embarked upon in earnest endeavour; with a curiosity to find fresh perspectives and compelling answers. 

Planning is a discipline that is constantly seeking to define itself; endlessly striving to delineate and circumscribe, to classify and set limits.

Nauman prompts us to be more liberal in our understanding of our trade. Planning is an activity, not a product. It is not something we learn how to do. Planning is what a Planner does. And we should start every day trying to figure out what that can be.

Nauman’s preoccupations are perhaps best summed up in his piece ‘Clown Torture.’ The artist examines the jester’s obligation to perform; his or her determination to obscure their true self. He is drawn to the fears of a clown.

A clown repeatedly enters a room and a bucket of water comes crashing down on top of him. A clown jumps up and down screaming. A clown sits on the toilet reading a magazine. A clown recites a nursery rhyme.

'Pete and Repeat were sitting on a fence. Pete fell off. Who was left? Repeat.’

'Now if there's a smile on my face,
It's only there trying to fool the public.
But when it comes down to fooling you
Now, honey, that's quite a different subject.
But don't let my glad expression
Give you the wrong impression.
Really I'm sad.
Oh I'm sadder than sad. 
You're gone, and I'm hurtin' so bad.
Like a clown, I pretend to be glad. 
Now there's some sad things known to man,
But ain't too much sadder than the tears of a clown,
When there's no one around.’

Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, ’The Tears of a Clown’ (H Cosby, S Robinson, S Wonder)

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year and an improving 2021.
Look after yourselves. 

No. 312

A Love Supreme: The Spiritual Journey of John Coltrane

'I start in the middle of a sentence and move both directions at once.'
John Coltrane

I recently watched a fine Netflix documentary considering the life and work of saxophonist and composer John Coltrane (‘Chasing Trane’).

Coltrane traveled all the way from bebop to free jazz. He gave us rapid runs and complex chord progressions; cascades of notes forming ‘sheets of sound.’ He embraced experimentation and improvisation; exhibited boundless curiosity and transcendent spirituality. He created ‘Blue Train’, ‘Giant Steps’ and ‘My Favorite Things.’ He was ‘A Love Supreme.’

Coltrane teaches us how to handle the uneven contours of a creative journey; to keep learning, practicing and exploring; to search for a higher purpose.

1. Learn in the Minor Leagues

Coltrane was born in 1926 in Hamlet, North Carolina. A quiet only-child, when he was 12 his father, aunt and grandparents died within a few months of each other. 

In 1943 Coltrane’s mother took him to Philadelphia and bought him his first saxophone. He played in high school and community bands, and gained his first professional work in a cocktail lounge trio. At 19 he enlisted in the Navy and played in his base swing band in Hawaii. 

The first recordings of Coltrane from this time do not suggest that he was a particularly special talent. Yet once out of the Navy he set off on the road to learn his trade: working with all kinds of ensembles, playing all kinds of styles.

‘I wanted to find my own way, but I wasn’t ready. There was so much to learn yet… I accepted work from all kinds of groups, even if I didn’t agree with their musical tenets - because I could learn something while making a living. They were, in comparison to baseball, like the Minor Leagues.’

2. Practice Compulsively

In 1945 Coltrane saw Charlie Parker perform. The virtuoso saxophonist became an idol for him, and they played together occasionally in the late 1940s.

‘Charlie Parker did all the things I would like to do and more.’

Parker set the bar high. Coltrane practiced obsessively, ’25 hours a day’. While on tour, a fellow hotel guest complained about the noise. Coltrane simply removed the saxophone from his mouth and carried on playing in silence. He would practice a single note for hours on end and fall asleep with the horn at his side.

‘He was such a compulsive practiser, like he wanted to practise all the time…When you start doing that you get a connection to the instrument… It starts to feel like an extension of yourself.’
Kamasi Washington

3. ‘Be as Original as You Can Be’

From 1955 to 1957 Coltrane played with Miles Davis in the ‘First Great Quintet’. Though Coltrane was still relatively green at this stage, Davis recognised in him a pioneering spirit with an appetite for invention. 

‘Why he picked me, I don’t know. Maybe he saw something in my playing that he hoped would grow. I had this desire, which I think we all have, to be as original as I could be.’

4. Open Yourself Up to a ‘Spiritual Awakening’

The jazz community at that time was plagued with drugs, and in 1955 heroin killed Charlie Parker. When Coltrane himself became addicted, Davis fired him for his unreliability.

Coltrane, determined to kick his habit and clean up, locked himself in his room and went cold turkey. He emerged, through phenomenal strength of will, with a clear head and a fierce commitment to his music.

‘When I stopped drinking and all that other stuff, it helped me in all kinds of ways. I was able to play better right then. I could play better and think better. Everything.’

Above all Coltrane now had a luminous spirituality.

‘During the year 1957 I experienced by the grace of God a spiritual awakening which was to lead me to a richer, fuller, more productive life. At that time in gratitude I humbly asked to be given the means and privilege to make others happy through music.’

5. ‘Tune Yourself’

Once clean, Coltrane worked with Thelonius Monk and recorded a number of albums under his own name, including ‘Blue Train.’

‘I just started to do what I wanted.’

By 1958 Coltrane was back with Miles Davis’ group, and he participated in the recording of the classic ‘Kind of Blue.’ Davis was a brooding presence, but he gave Coltrane space to express himself. On one occasion Davis challenged Coltrane.

‘Why you play so much?’
‘I can’t find a good place to stop.’

In 1959 Coltrane recorded the album ‘Giant Steps,’ which contained only his own compositions and demonstrated his growing self-confidence. 

‘Writing has always been a secondary thing for me, but I find that lately I’m spending more and more time at it. I’m trying to tune myself, to look to myself and to nature and to other sounds in music, and interpret things I feel there.’

6. ‘Keep Experimenting’

Next Coltrane formed his own quartet, and in 1961 the album ‘My Favorite Things’ was a major hit. It incorporated elements of Indian music, modal and free jazz. 

‘I’ve got to keep experimenting. I feel that I’m just beginning. I have a part of what I’m looking for in my grasp, but not all. I like Eastern music, Africa, Spain, Scotland, India or China. It’s that universal side of music which interests and draws me. And that’s where I want to go.’

7. ‘Have Great Confidence in One Another’

Coltrane worked with a number of different musicians in this period, and eventually settled on his ‘Classic Quartet’: with McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass and Elvin Jones on drums.

‘I’m very lucky. I work with very fine musicians. They’re very inventive. I don’t have to tell anybody what to do. We have a great confidence in one another. That’s essential. They’re with me in always wanting the band to move into new areas. We don’t believe in standing still.’

Tyner bears witness to the Quartet’s team spirit.

‘We were like brothers. We were there for a reason, which was to create beautiful music…We were committed.’

8. Resist All Categorisation

Coltrane shut himself away in a room above a garage at his home in Long Island. He emerged ‘like Moses from the mountaintop’ with a fully formed masterpiece.

‘It’s the first time I have everything ready. I’ve completed the project. I know exactly what I’m going to do in the studio.’

Released in early 1965, ‘A Love Supreme’ was a four-part suite expressing the purity of Coltrane’s faith and love of life.

‘I think the main thing a musician would like to do is give a picture to the listener of the many wonderful things he knows of and senses in the universe. That’s what music is to me. It’s just another way of saying: this is a big, beautiful universe we live in that’s been given to us, and here’s an example of just how magnificent and encompassing it is.’

By now Coltrane was casting off the shackles of traditional definitions, assumptions and expectations.

‘I myself don’t recognise the word jazz. I mean, we’re sold under the name, but to me the word doesn’t exist. I just feel that I play John Coltrane.’

9. ‘Have No Fear’

Coltrane expanded his band to a quintet: with Pharaoh Sanders on tenor saxophone, his second wife Alice Coltrane on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass, and Rashied Ali on drums. He determined to push on again.

'Damn the rules, it’s the feeling that counts. You play all 12 notes in your solo anyway.’

When touring, numbers would last up to an hour and include 15-minute solos. Some critics and audience members were confused by this ‘speaking in tongues’, but Coltrane was not deterred.

‘I have no fear about my music being too way out. My goal remains the same. And that is to uplift people as much as I can, to inspire them to realise more and more of their capacities for leading meaningful lives. Because there certainly is meaningful life.’

10 ‘Keep on Cleaning the Mirror’

Coltrane was both mystical and intellectual. He believed his music should articulate raw, unfiltered thought, pure emotion and true feelings; and that in so doing we could all learn about ourselves. This required the artist to maintain ongoing self-discipline: ‘to keep on cleaning the mirror.’

'There is never any end. There are always new sounds to imagine; new feelings to get at. And always, there is the need to keep purifying these feelings and sounds so that we can really see what we've discovered in its pure state. So that we can see more and more clearly what we are. In that way, we can give to those who listen the essence, the best of what we are. But to do that at each stage, we have to keep on cleaning the mirror.’

11. ‘Be the Force Which Is Truly Good’

Coltrane died tragically young, of liver cancer, at the age of 40 in 1967.

By the end of his spiritual journey his music had become an articulation of his true self, drawing from deep inside his soul.

'You can play a shoestring if you're sincere.’

Coltrane encouraged us to think of life and nature as beautiful and precious; to dedicate ourselves to purity of expression. He wanted us to be a force for good in the world.

'To be a musician is really something. It goes very, very deep. My music is the spiritual expression of what I am - my faith, my knowledge, my being. I know that there are bad forces. I know that there are forces out here that bring suffering to others and misery to the world. But I want to be the opposite force. I want to be the force which is truly for good.’

Time for a festive break.
Have a restful Christmas. 
Next post will be on Thursday 7 January 2021.
See you on the other side, I hope.

'Oh my thoughts, I
Return to summer time.
When I kissed your ankle,
I kissed you through the night.
All my gifts I gave everything to you.
Your strange imagination
You threw it all away.
Now my heart is
Returned to sister winter
Now my heart is
As cold as ice

All my friends, I
Apologise, apologise.
All my friends, I've
Returned to sister winter.
And my friends, I've
Returned to wish you all the best.
And my friends, I've
Returned to wish you a Happy Christmas.’

Sufjan Stevens,'Sister Winter'

No. 311