As human beings, we are needy little animals seeking the comfort, connection and occasionally, the procreative talents of a significant other. Our needs are primal, emotional and occasionally aesthetic (wouldn't you like a muse who inspires?). So how do we meet this elusive other when your life consists of sleep, work and self-inflicted bouts of soap operas, sporting events and cultural excursions ranging from the pub to the Royal Opera House? We do what the modern guy or gal about town does, we forget random meetings around the aisles of the supermarket and freaky flirtations in dimly lit basements where bass heavy music pounds like a heart in the throes of an attack, we embrace the Net.
Online dating is at its most basic like the pick and mix counter in a shop. It covers all angles and needs; some sites cater for people who like their partners to wear uniforms whilst others serve the fetish market that prefers their partner covered from head to toe in Muller Yoghurt or chocolate spread. The one factor that unifies all of the websites I have encountered is a fascination with the superficial. Each website is image obsessed. Users of the websites are encouraged to post profile photographs of themselves to entice likely buyers who may take a fancy to their winning smile because no photo equals less responses. Now correct me if I am wrong but physical appearance changes. Personally, I don't care how someone looks, I do care how they make me feel. Maybe, I am weird but I want to know all about a prospective partner, I don't care if you can apply make up to your face or smile seductively, I want to know about your likes and dislikes.
So as a prospective consumer as let's face it, most of the websites require you to give a regular amount of money, we are being encouraged to pick the people we are most attracted to on a physical level as the descriptions are hardly enticing or extensive. If I never have to read the line, 'I am looking for the One' again, it will be too soon. The 'checklist' approach to love is scary and is very odd. I have this image of users of online dating websites sitting in front of their computers with an A4 sheet of paper next to them listing the pertinent points, they are seeking in a partner. In many respects, not disimilar to a job interviewer basing their selection criteria on an aptitude test alone. Does s/he have blonde hair, a high level of solvency? Can s/he embroider clothes with the emblem of my favourite football team? Does s/he buy their clothes from Primark or Harvey Nichols? Do they roll over and snooze after sex or spout poetry in Sanskrit? These 'checklists' are hopefully unconscious, although I am sure they regularly exist in a physical form result in virtually no-one meeting anyone else physically in a date situation where you might actually have some fun or at the very least, make a new friend. Although, another interesting aside about online dating is the fact that friendship does not regularly seem to be an option. Looking for the love of your life is a full time occupation with hopefully the future benefits of accumulative capital investment (i.e. carnal knowledge leading to children who will help to disseminate the ideologies, moral codes and long guarded recipes to future generations) or else simply a companion to hug you and pick Pringles out of your nose whilst you watch a costume drama about Victorian rodents.
Okay, you have probably guessed I am single. I have also used these websites. I have tried free sites, I have tried subscription sites, there is essentially little difference between the two. My funniest experiences include receiving a message expressing 'how much I looked like David Tennant' and how due to her likeness to Billie Piper what a wonderful relationship we could have together. Now discarding two essential truths, one that I look nothing like David Tennant (our only similarity being that we are both men) and that Billie Piper has never struck me as my 'ideal woman', she may have been right but I still don't want to dress like Dr Who and court her wielding my sonic screwdriver. Another funny experience involved perhaps, the most arduous and teeth pulling attempt to get a date with a seemingly intelligent woman. Bar cutting off my own arms and legs or showing her every essay I wrote at university for her critical approval, we were not going to meet up. Jumping through hoops like a performing animal might be fun in the circus but in real life, it hurts and wastes time. I hope she met her ideal partner though. I assume that he danced like Nureyev, sang like an angel and practised tantric tea making, whilst rearing their two children in a beautiful home where birds ate from china plates and were punished for eating insects.
I achieved one date from my efforts and it went nowhere. The punchline to this blog is the fact that there are many users of online dating websites who meet their ideal partners, although it hasn't worked for me. The moral of this blog entry is simply be honest, be kind, be gentle and be watchful. There is someone for everyone but I offer no guarantees. If in the next year, you haven't met someone, don't come after me! I miss being in love or maybe, love has simply missed me? But I have met some really great people along the way. At the moment, that's more important.
Barry Watt - 30th December 2012
Sunday 30 December 2012
Friday 28 December 2012
Amour or learning to embrace what will some day be lost.
This is a tricky blog entry from me today because I want to write in as fluid a manner as possible but in doing so, I may inadvertently give away the plot of a film that I have the utmost respect for. So what to do?
Tough, here goes! Amour is the latest film from Michael Haneke, one of the few directors who I would argue can be properly coined an auteur. His output is unique, stimulating and at times, incredibly disturbing. Discarding his rather dubious decision to remake Funny Games and set it in the US with a much more American friendly cast i.e. Naomi Watts, his films are essential viewing.
Amour is a film about illness. Depending upon your level of cynicism, the title name is the illness but seriously, the film documents the decline of a woman named Anna as she endures two strokes and the impact her condition has upon her husband, Georges. There are other characters involved such as their daughter but the primary emphasis of the film is on the couple. The couple are seemingly quite wealthy, she was once a music tutor and it appears that Georges was too. From the start of the film, their love for one another is apparent. They seem to complete each other. In many respects, they mirror each other. They have the same interests and a comfortable life.
Stylistically, the film is composed of long drawn out sequences. The director is concerned with showing us other detail of the couple's relationship, so that the eventual denouement hits home even harder. It's a film that forces a serious analysis of a variety of issues including euthanasia, the care industry and indeed, whether love actually grows stronger at the point of imminent loss. Without giving too much a way, there are points in the film that resonate, not only because of the strength of the acting but in the details. For example, Georges wakes from a particularly vivid dream involving a mysterious unseen caller who presses the doorbell then disappears. Upon going to check who it is, he is grabbed by an arm and abruptly wakes up. This richly symbolic dream serves to reinforce how dependent Anna is upon her husband and how powerless and vulnerable she would be if he were not around. At another point in the film, he criticises and fires a nurse who comes in to help again illustrating her dependency upon him. Without him, her life would be so much worse.
The most tender moment in the film involves Anna screaming the word 'pain' over and over again. To calm her down, Georges relays a story from his childhood concerning an unhappy experience he had at summer camp. During this exchange, the two protagonists look at each other and she gradually quietens. The very thought of this scene inspired me to write this blog entry.
As a film, Amour is possibly one of the most intense and emotionally harrowing experiences I have had for some time. I saw it at the Curzon Soho with a friend and it was interesting to observe the audience as the film continued. Initially, certain members of the audience were engaged in brief conversations yet after Anna's second stroke, you couldn't hear a pin drop. I have never felt a sense of communal empathy as strong as I did last night. Once the film finished, we all look traumatised. This is a hard film to recommend because although it is brilliantly made, its sense of pace will not appeal to all viewers. But for those of us who still have a heart, this is essential viewing. Please see the link below if I haven't persuaded you to see the film yet.
http://www.sonyclassics.com/amour/
Barry Watt - 28th December 2012
Tough, here goes! Amour is the latest film from Michael Haneke, one of the few directors who I would argue can be properly coined an auteur. His output is unique, stimulating and at times, incredibly disturbing. Discarding his rather dubious decision to remake Funny Games and set it in the US with a much more American friendly cast i.e. Naomi Watts, his films are essential viewing.
Amour is a film about illness. Depending upon your level of cynicism, the title name is the illness but seriously, the film documents the decline of a woman named Anna as she endures two strokes and the impact her condition has upon her husband, Georges. There are other characters involved such as their daughter but the primary emphasis of the film is on the couple. The couple are seemingly quite wealthy, she was once a music tutor and it appears that Georges was too. From the start of the film, their love for one another is apparent. They seem to complete each other. In many respects, they mirror each other. They have the same interests and a comfortable life.
Stylistically, the film is composed of long drawn out sequences. The director is concerned with showing us other detail of the couple's relationship, so that the eventual denouement hits home even harder. It's a film that forces a serious analysis of a variety of issues including euthanasia, the care industry and indeed, whether love actually grows stronger at the point of imminent loss. Without giving too much a way, there are points in the film that resonate, not only because of the strength of the acting but in the details. For example, Georges wakes from a particularly vivid dream involving a mysterious unseen caller who presses the doorbell then disappears. Upon going to check who it is, he is grabbed by an arm and abruptly wakes up. This richly symbolic dream serves to reinforce how dependent Anna is upon her husband and how powerless and vulnerable she would be if he were not around. At another point in the film, he criticises and fires a nurse who comes in to help again illustrating her dependency upon him. Without him, her life would be so much worse.
The most tender moment in the film involves Anna screaming the word 'pain' over and over again. To calm her down, Georges relays a story from his childhood concerning an unhappy experience he had at summer camp. During this exchange, the two protagonists look at each other and she gradually quietens. The very thought of this scene inspired me to write this blog entry.
As a film, Amour is possibly one of the most intense and emotionally harrowing experiences I have had for some time. I saw it at the Curzon Soho with a friend and it was interesting to observe the audience as the film continued. Initially, certain members of the audience were engaged in brief conversations yet after Anna's second stroke, you couldn't hear a pin drop. I have never felt a sense of communal empathy as strong as I did last night. Once the film finished, we all look traumatised. This is a hard film to recommend because although it is brilliantly made, its sense of pace will not appeal to all viewers. But for those of us who still have a heart, this is essential viewing. Please see the link below if I haven't persuaded you to see the film yet.
http://www.sonyclassics.com/amour/
Barry Watt - 28th December 2012
Wednesday 26 December 2012
Writing for Pleasure or Writing to Expose?
Recently, I have been asked whether I write a blog. Well, in fact I do, but it serves the function of exploring the L.O.P. and its implications to my understanding of London and hopefully myself. I could shamelessly promote it, but I won't. You will find it if you want to or send me a message and I will lead you on your merry way to the joys of the Overground. This new blog will be about something slightly different, it won't be any more coherent but it may occasionally be entertaining.
When I sat myself down and contemplated, what I had to say that would be of any worth in a blog because after all, writing has to engage. If it doesn't engage, it's as valuable as a shopping list although as many people will attest, lists serve a function but perhaps, mean more to the compiler than the poor casual reader who sees a group of seemingly random words for objects that they occasionally have use for such as toilet rolls and Jaffa Cakes.
As an occasional writer who is very undisciplined, the idea of a blog is somewhat anathema to my personality. It forces me to consider and to write what jumps into my head or concerns me. I am often underwhelmed by ideas almost directly in proportion to the good ideas that end up in some kind of wasteland located in the back of my mind, where they linger and rot like fetid waste until I get motivated enough to trudge through the sludge and pick those which are starting to flower. Rot can be creative but not in obvious ways.
So where do I want this blog to go? Should it be autobiographical and the equivalent of my exposing my feelings and anxieties like a Butterfly newly released from the confines of the safety of its cocoon? After all, all writing is essentially autobiographical but do I want to produce a piece of confessional art, so that everyone has access to a mediated view of my emotional life. Alternatively, do I want this blog to take the form of a surreal exploration of cultural endeavours? An almost stream of consciousness exploration of the events, people and sensations that are helping to inform the identity of this 38 year old man. One other option is to just adopt an open and fluid style to see where the blog wants to go. If this opening blog seems pretentious to you then don't worry, it will either get worse or better as I write. I will probably not write with tremendous frequency although I may surprise myself. I have changed in the last year despite my best intentions to remain the same and I am glad I have.
Talking about autobiographical writings, I have recently found myself reading quite a few memoirs and the form is fascinating to me. I have often felt that biographies are a more honest and open exploration of their subjects than autobiographies, although my view has been slightly changed from reading different styles of autobiography. The most recent autobiographies I have read have been The Land of Green Plums by Herta Muller (translated by Michael Hofmann) (Granta Books, 1999) and Who I am by Pete Townshend (Harper Collins Publishers, 2012). From a personal perspective, I would argue that most effective autobiographies are written by people who are not happy with themselves and who do not see themselves as perfect. Both of the above books seem to be written by people who have suffered. Perversely, their sufferings make for interesting reading, which reveals a lot more about the reader than the writer. Why do we enjoy seeing other people suffer through the written word does it make our lives seem more worthwhile and fulfilling? Pete Townshend's autobiography is brilliantly written and is quite revealing yet holds back quite a lot of information. As a child, he remembers being abused yet he is unable or unwilling to convey his thoughts and feelings in words. He clearly identifies the abuse as being fundamental in his development and expresses how he has attended various forms of therapy over the years but he cannot conceptualise the horror of what happened. I imagine that this could be down to repression, that defensive psychological tool used by us all from time to time to hide away thoughts and feelings that could otherwise hurt us. Of course, these thoughts can return to haunt us in many ways and situations. In many respects, Pete Townshend's autobiography is one of the most positive works I have read. It reveals his suffering but also identifies the value of other people in our otherwise solitary lives. His loves, family and friends have helped to inform his identity, creative works and life in general far more comprehensively than his past, which still lingers like a shadow over his endeavours. Essentially and this is not important to any reading of his autobiography, I now really empathise with him as a human being and even like him. Revelation can be the first step towards understanding and acceptance. Openness is a virtue.
On the other hand, Herta Muller's autobiography is equally revealing and open yet paradoxically, in a more oblique form. The Land of Green Plums reads like a fragmented series of memories of custom, ritual and atrocities that linger long after you finish the book. It documents Herta Muller's life in Romania during the height of Ceausescu's oppressive leadership. It's a book about life within an oppressive regime where people are routinely followed and questioned on a whim for 'subversive' views that run in contradiction to the views of the leader and his doctrines. The writing is remarkably understated and at times, matter of fact yet there is always a sense of poetic intensity running through it. This is an autobiography that reveals a lot but through the detachment of poetry rather than the immediacy of straightforward prose. The writing is engaging yet you oddly get the sense that the main narrator is hiding from you, she wants you to understand Romania and its poverty and horrors. I will not forget in a hurry the descriptions of the slaughterhouses, which are amongst the few remaining employers and the horror of the workers drinking the blood of the newly killed animals. The society depicted is one of apathetic disillusionment. The focus of the autobiography is on the students with whom the writer mixes and it's odd how ultimately, the most fully realised or described character (it's odd to refer to characters in autobiographies but when you write in a certain detached way, you do develop characters out of real people) is Tereza, who effectively betrays the other students on at least, one occasion. Although, the betrayal is not particularly condemned, merely acknowledged. Every dysfunctional culture produces its Judas figure and ultimately, do we have the right to condemn them if we tacitly accept the prevailing ideologies rather than reacting against them?
Anyhow, back to the nature of this blog, should I allow it to be autobiographical in a contrived manner or simply allow my writing to go where it wants to go? My life from now is based on how rather than why, so past expositions will merely confuse and delude me. I want to live in the shadow of a smile.
Barry Watt - 26th December 2012
Actually, 'The Land of Green Plums' is a novel, which makes my comments above that it is an autobiography somewhat silly. However, it is described as an autobiographical novel and I have this horrible feeling that a lot of the terrible things that happened in the novel, the author witnessed. The fact that I confused it as an autobiography attests to its power as a literary work or my need for realism at the moment.
Barry Watt - 26th December 2012
When I sat myself down and contemplated, what I had to say that would be of any worth in a blog because after all, writing has to engage. If it doesn't engage, it's as valuable as a shopping list although as many people will attest, lists serve a function but perhaps, mean more to the compiler than the poor casual reader who sees a group of seemingly random words for objects that they occasionally have use for such as toilet rolls and Jaffa Cakes.
As an occasional writer who is very undisciplined, the idea of a blog is somewhat anathema to my personality. It forces me to consider and to write what jumps into my head or concerns me. I am often underwhelmed by ideas almost directly in proportion to the good ideas that end up in some kind of wasteland located in the back of my mind, where they linger and rot like fetid waste until I get motivated enough to trudge through the sludge and pick those which are starting to flower. Rot can be creative but not in obvious ways.
So where do I want this blog to go? Should it be autobiographical and the equivalent of my exposing my feelings and anxieties like a Butterfly newly released from the confines of the safety of its cocoon? After all, all writing is essentially autobiographical but do I want to produce a piece of confessional art, so that everyone has access to a mediated view of my emotional life. Alternatively, do I want this blog to take the form of a surreal exploration of cultural endeavours? An almost stream of consciousness exploration of the events, people and sensations that are helping to inform the identity of this 38 year old man. One other option is to just adopt an open and fluid style to see where the blog wants to go. If this opening blog seems pretentious to you then don't worry, it will either get worse or better as I write. I will probably not write with tremendous frequency although I may surprise myself. I have changed in the last year despite my best intentions to remain the same and I am glad I have.
Talking about autobiographical writings, I have recently found myself reading quite a few memoirs and the form is fascinating to me. I have often felt that biographies are a more honest and open exploration of their subjects than autobiographies, although my view has been slightly changed from reading different styles of autobiography. The most recent autobiographies I have read have been The Land of Green Plums by Herta Muller (translated by Michael Hofmann) (Granta Books, 1999) and Who I am by Pete Townshend (Harper Collins Publishers, 2012). From a personal perspective, I would argue that most effective autobiographies are written by people who are not happy with themselves and who do not see themselves as perfect. Both of the above books seem to be written by people who have suffered. Perversely, their sufferings make for interesting reading, which reveals a lot more about the reader than the writer. Why do we enjoy seeing other people suffer through the written word does it make our lives seem more worthwhile and fulfilling? Pete Townshend's autobiography is brilliantly written and is quite revealing yet holds back quite a lot of information. As a child, he remembers being abused yet he is unable or unwilling to convey his thoughts and feelings in words. He clearly identifies the abuse as being fundamental in his development and expresses how he has attended various forms of therapy over the years but he cannot conceptualise the horror of what happened. I imagine that this could be down to repression, that defensive psychological tool used by us all from time to time to hide away thoughts and feelings that could otherwise hurt us. Of course, these thoughts can return to haunt us in many ways and situations. In many respects, Pete Townshend's autobiography is one of the most positive works I have read. It reveals his suffering but also identifies the value of other people in our otherwise solitary lives. His loves, family and friends have helped to inform his identity, creative works and life in general far more comprehensively than his past, which still lingers like a shadow over his endeavours. Essentially and this is not important to any reading of his autobiography, I now really empathise with him as a human being and even like him. Revelation can be the first step towards understanding and acceptance. Openness is a virtue.
On the other hand, Herta Muller's autobiography is equally revealing and open yet paradoxically, in a more oblique form. The Land of Green Plums reads like a fragmented series of memories of custom, ritual and atrocities that linger long after you finish the book. It documents Herta Muller's life in Romania during the height of Ceausescu's oppressive leadership. It's a book about life within an oppressive regime where people are routinely followed and questioned on a whim for 'subversive' views that run in contradiction to the views of the leader and his doctrines. The writing is remarkably understated and at times, matter of fact yet there is always a sense of poetic intensity running through it. This is an autobiography that reveals a lot but through the detachment of poetry rather than the immediacy of straightforward prose. The writing is engaging yet you oddly get the sense that the main narrator is hiding from you, she wants you to understand Romania and its poverty and horrors. I will not forget in a hurry the descriptions of the slaughterhouses, which are amongst the few remaining employers and the horror of the workers drinking the blood of the newly killed animals. The society depicted is one of apathetic disillusionment. The focus of the autobiography is on the students with whom the writer mixes and it's odd how ultimately, the most fully realised or described character (it's odd to refer to characters in autobiographies but when you write in a certain detached way, you do develop characters out of real people) is Tereza, who effectively betrays the other students on at least, one occasion. Although, the betrayal is not particularly condemned, merely acknowledged. Every dysfunctional culture produces its Judas figure and ultimately, do we have the right to condemn them if we tacitly accept the prevailing ideologies rather than reacting against them?
Anyhow, back to the nature of this blog, should I allow it to be autobiographical in a contrived manner or simply allow my writing to go where it wants to go? My life from now is based on how rather than why, so past expositions will merely confuse and delude me. I want to live in the shadow of a smile.
Barry Watt - 26th December 2012
Addendum
Actually, 'The Land of Green Plums' is a novel, which makes my comments above that it is an autobiography somewhat silly. However, it is described as an autobiographical novel and I have this horrible feeling that a lot of the terrible things that happened in the novel, the author witnessed. The fact that I confused it as an autobiography attests to its power as a literary work or my need for realism at the moment.
Barry Watt - 26th December 2012
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