Tag Archives: samuel beckett

June 12, 2010 · 9:28 am

Poet files #3

Secret poet in the corridors of power?

The dust is settling now and it’s all about money. As Robert Graves said, “there’s no poetry in money. But then there’s no money in poetry either.” So somehow we have already begun to forget the secret poetry of the man who made the pact with the Tories (as he is now known), Nick Clegg.

He reveres Samuel Beckett. Now, some might think this was a disturbing tendency for a man who is supposed to be forthright, dynamic and in charge. But maybe not. Time will tell. Maybe as we go on his speeches will get slower and slower, the pauses longer and longer… But then he also says Yeats is his favourite poet. So maybe it is the speeches themselves that will get longer and longer…

Clegg famously wrote a poem for his school magazine – a tragic love poem, of which the second stanza goes:

But now. Yes, I can see you now,
Too dumb, squatted in my eyes,
Poisoned like a dying pearl,
A killer’s vengeance – twisted.

I’m not going to say anything about aademic standards. Or maybe talent really is innate. Those of you who saw the “other George Best’s” poem last week will recognise that Westminster school, and an extra five years, could have done more for Nick.

But let’s not knock it! Fingers crossed for culture funding, then.

pitch ‘n’ putt with Joyce & Beckett

This thing of beauty never fails to get me. I’m sure I’ve posted it before… Just another Bloomsday outing for the day, & thanks in the first place, some time ago now, to Ian Duhig.

And remember, you can tweet Ulysses 140 characters at a time. Here. You need a Twitter account but that’s quicker than watching this delightful video again.

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Filed under bagatelles, Irish, James Joyce

Tagged as bloomsday, ireland, Irish, James Joyce, pitch & putt, samuel beckett, short films on beckett

May 31, 2009 · 1:55 pm

oh a writer’s life for me yo ho!

Is this it?

Okay, time to write a new post. It’s really coming to something when you start getting get blog block. Last week was such a whirlwind, time to slow down and regroup. the terrible news of Craig Arnold is old now; Derek Walcott is old news, Ruth Padel is old news, Oxford University is very old news. Carol Ann Duffy is old news, the news of who Padel sent her famous email to (an old friend of mine) is old news, Salt Publishing’s Just One Book campaign is not old news but it is bedded in… time for a breather. Or something.

I was given a late birthday present yesterday, by the way – preceded by a long, sheepish preamble. It was a themed present with someone else’s, and the giver said: “Once you’ve opened it it’ll probably start another conversation…” Even that clue didn’t tip me off and when I opened the present it made me burst out laughing: Darwin. By… Ruth Padel. Excellent. Very well done.

Plus the rest. Your correspondent is very tired. The house is a shitheap, sorry to tell you. It happens, even here in the Mansions of Baroque. The weater heater is playing up strangely, the broadband is driving my nuts, the cleaner hasn’t been for three weeks and I have no idea when is a good time for her to come, but I shouldn’t be spending the money. The RSI seems a bit better, but I should probably be wearing one of those bandages to be on the safe side. The blood test results should be in this week, but when and how will I get to the doctor. I’ll lose half a day’s pay. Maybe I should try to combine it with the boiler man and the broadband technician. But if I’m at the GP how can I be waiting in…?

Still, I slept much better last night.That’s good and notwithstanding the fact that I could quite happily go back to sleep right now.

Work tomorrow. That’s the thing. And I’m also out the next three nights, unavoidably, so I have to make sure the place is okay and there’s at least some milk & bread here that isn’t off. (This morning I’ve been having sugar in my tea; the milk was a little off.)

There are five piles of books on my desk that need dealing with, i.e., reading, note-taking, reviewing, essay-writing – and just for the love of it. Not for a fee, though it is one thing to reflect that the Urban Warrior has now finally submitted his Housing Benefit application, along with signing on – so at least that particular extra expense may soon go away.

Along with my temp job.

I mean, if we’re so goddamned smart, why do we work so flipping hard for no money all the time?

And then there’s all the rest of it – !

Life is just surreal at the moment, I don’t even recognise it. Nothing is the way it seemed like it was, or might be, or was going to be, even a few months ago. Every single thing is different.

I can’t even change direction and focus on something else. I’ve changed direction so many times that now I’m just spinning around. Soon I’ll just turn to butter.

Then I read this morning that they say anxiety disorders are up with the recession. No kidding.

Though I would dispute that it’s just the recession. Unless the recession itself is maybe an objective correlative…? I mean, it exists only as an external manifestation of the exposure of the inner conflicts, the baseless foundations, the pointlessness of… I mean, this is a time when everything is just gone the shape of the pear, nothing is predictable, no news is good news. I think I was right. This is the quintessential Beckettian moment.

Of course I’m supposed to be writing about that. There’s the pile of books to prove it. Only yesterday morning the postman kindly delivered a packet containing several of Faber’s beautiful new Beckett editions.

As for writing. The question is what. How. When. “Among the many questions…” But I do know one thing. I know who I wish I was. Martina Cole, that’s who. My new hero.

Her and Beckett.

That’s some novel I want to write.

In the fourth dimension.

And that’s without even thinking about the Oscar Wilde project. (Oscar has sort of taken over from Henry at the moment.) (Surprisingly.)

So now I will throw some clothes on, get down the cashpoint and give some money to Mlle B (it is her father’s birthday tomorrow), equally sort out the Tall Blond Rock God with his money for their dad’s birthday, oh and plus I said I’d ‘lend’ the Urban One £40 more to last till his benefits come through; and then go down the road, get a coffee, and see if they sell any novels by Martina Cole in the bookshop. Maybe not; I’ll have to hit Smith’s tomorrow. Then I should get some (cheap) groceries, trudge up the hiill with them, come home and put away the washing, remake my bed, water the windowboxes, tidy up, clean the kitchen, and at some point maybe I will have a chance to continue with Worstword Ho!

And I ache all over because I fell over quite badly the other night and bashed up my knee. Along with the rest.

Hmm.

Editing in: just went to the Stoke Newington Bookshop and of course they don’t have Martina Cole! Vainly seeking in between all the dreary Coes, Couplands, Cusks. The one time in my life I ever wanted a trashy novel and I don’t even know how to do it. I’m like Emma Goldman the time she went on the game to try and raise money for Alexander Berkman’s bomb… Her first punter took her to a soda fountain, in the frilly knickers she’d made specially (come to think of it, maybe a clue), and talked her out of it.

So I’ve made do with Pessoa:

“The only attitude of a superior man is to persist in an activity he recognises as useless, to observe a discipline he knows is sterile, and to apply certain norms of philosophical and metaphysical thought that he considers utterly inconsequential.”

That, and my All Saints scarf.

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Filed under balcony, baroqueness, birthdays, books, coffee, Henry James, Life, Living With Words, oscar wilde, Salt, the meaning of life

Tagged as faber 80th, martina cole, oscar wilde, recession anxiety, samuel beckett

January 4, 2009 · 3:14 pm

an inspirational story for the new year

In my last post – no, last-but-one – I said I wanted to care less and fail better. That was an allusion to the famous quote from Samuel Beckett, which goes: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

Of course we all want to succeed, and we all need to eat, and there are different kinds of success. But, reading one of my favourite book blogs, The Sheila Variations, I just encountered a story that made me happy.

Sheila writes:

“I was involved in a production of Clifford Odets’ Golden Boy in Chicago. It was a wonderful production, but it did not generate an audience.

We had read somewhere that William Hurt was looking for a theatre company to be involved in. He missed the stage. We weren’t just a random group of actors happy to have jobs – we were an ensemble, a company – so we sent a note to his agency, inviting him to come see Golden Boy.

Well – he did come – with his assistant – and on the night he showed up to see it, we had NO audience. Not ONE OTHER PERSON showed up. It was so mortifying. But we did the entire 3-act play solely for William Hurt and his assistant – as though there were a full house. It was one of the weirdest theatrical experiences I have ever had. On any other night, we would have CANCELED if only 2 people showed up … but this was William Hurt! Flown in from Los Angeles!

We were all very embarrassed. We came out for our curtain call, mortified at making him come all that way to see this obvious failure. And he was sitting there, clapping, (an odd lonely sound – 2 people clapping in a big empty theatre) – and he had tears running down his face.

Afterwards, we all sat around in the lobby of the theatre with William Hurt, and talked about theatre, the state of the theatre, and acting – until 3 or 4 in the morning.

He needed a ride back to his hotel. Michael, one of the actors in the show, offered him a ride with the rest of us, in his pick-up truck.

So I sat in the back of a rickety pick-up truck with William Hurt, as we drove through the quiet dark streets of Chicago, my hair blowing like crazy, William Hurt was just beaming – and laughing in exhilaration – He looked so happy.

He hugged all of us good-bye, holding on to each one of us so tight – He said that we had made him believe in the possibility of good theatre again in this country.

It is a night I will never forget: laughing and screaming “Whoo-hoo!!” into the wind with William Hurt, crouched in the back of a battered pick-up truck.”