Page 576 – Cherwell

First black head of an Oxford college appointed

News

-

4th August 2019

First black head of an Oxford college appointed

Baroness Valerie Amos is set to become the first black head of an Oxford college, following her appointment as Master of University College.

The former cabinet minister and diplomat is taking over from Sir Ivor Crewe, who is retiring after twelve years in the role.

A Labour Life Peer since 1997, Baroness Amos served in the Cabinet from 2003 to 2007 as Secretary of State for International Development and was subsequently Leader of the House of Lords.

The Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator at the United Nations from 2010-2015, she became a Companion of Honour in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in 2016 for her services to the UN.

Baroness Amos said: “I am honoured to have been appointed as Master of University College Oxford. I look forward to taking up my role next year and joining a community which prides itself on providing an outstanding scholarly environment, excellent teaching and world-class research.”

“Univ has been engaged in opening up access and opportunity through its Opportunity Programme and I also look forward to making a contribution to that work.”

Currently the Director of SOAS University of London, Baroness Amos will take up the post on 1^st August 2020 as the first woman Master of the college.

The Vice-Master of University College, Professor Peter Jezzard, said: “The College was fortunate in attracting a number of outstanding applicants to become its next Master to follow Sir Ivor Crewe in his distinguished tenure in the role.”

“The Governing Body is excited that Baroness Amos agreed to accept our invitation to take on the role from next summer, and we very much look forward to welcoming her to the College and to working with her in the future.”

“She brings a wealth and diversity of experience to the role, including a deep knowledge of the higher education sector, and will help us continue Univ’s outstanding reputation for excellence, access and innovation in Oxford.”

How to Read: the Long Vac

Books

Emily Parker

-

4th August 2019

0

‘Once the vac starts…’: a common phrase heard amongst many Oxford students. Whatever their subject, year or lifestyle, Oxford terms can, on occasions, feel like a constant battle for time against an overwhelming current of work, responsibilities and commitments. Essay deadlines, problem sheets, societies, sport: all of these combine to eat into the precious and inevitably limited free time which the typical Oxford student enjoys during term, and it is thus perhaps not entirely surprising that pleasure reading often falls by the wayside between first and eighth week.

As an activity intrinsically associated with leisure and arguably requiring some degree of time commitment to be enjoyable, carving out hours to read with no other aim than enjoying that book can seem nigh on impossible. Indeed, pleasure reading is often (relatively) very time consuming; opposed to the instant gratification offered by a standalone one-hour episode of Black Mirror on Netflix, many novels require several hours at least to fully appreciate and enjoy. Moreover, this enjoyment is not guaranteed; there is always the risk that the book will not be enjoyable, making the idea of spending previous hours on reading it even less appealing. In a world free of time pressures, this mystery is exciting – could this novel be entirely different from what I expect? Will it be a hidden gem, and totally contradict my expectations? But in reality, it simply makes it far easier to veer towards the reliable pleasure offered by other sources.

These ideas tie into wider contradiction between leisure reading and what could be called an ‘efficiency’ mindset. I (and many of my friends) find myself constantly trying to streamline my time commitments and make the most of the hours in the day; we strive to work and use our time efficiently, to constantly maximise the outcome of a time investment. Yet again, it can feel like reading for pleasure goes against this in many ways; beyond requiring a large time investment for only possible pleasure as a result, it also provides very little in the way of other, measurable returns. Spending some free time playing football (for example) not only provides pleasure, but can also be very social and help someone keep fit; by contrast, reading is generally a solo activity, best enjoyed sitting comfortably alone in one’s room.

And yet, the value of pleasure reading cannot be underestimated. After all, there is something which still draws people back to novels again and again, something which means that many of even the busiest Oxford students still have a half-finished novel sitting on their bedside table. The immersive escapism reading offers is in many ways unparalleled, it is not without reason that reading is not simply abandoned, but postponed to the holidays, for the ‘one day’ when we will hopefully have more time and be able to fully savour that new book.

Yet it is easy to always think about the ‘one day’ and forget about the days that are passing in the moment. For scientists spending hundreds of hours in the lab and on problem sheets, and humanities students reading literally thousands if not millions of words through the course of a normal term of academic work, reading for leisure can seem like an impossibly inefficient use of time in the mania of term, and it is fair to say that for many, there will be periods (whether a week, a month, or even a whole term) when other activities and work will force reading into the background. But it would be a great shame for the pleasures and value of regular reading to be neglected. Besides the classic value of literature in allowing us to understand perspectives and experiences beyond our own, reading in some ways reminds us of the bigger picture. Time spent reading is a longer term investment in ourselves; while it may not immediately benefit us in terms of our work, social life or CV, spending time on an activity with the sole aim of personal enjoyment (and possibly eventual appreciation) also reminds us that life is about more than the here and now.

So while I will be spending this vac on catching up with at least some of the books I intended to read in Trinity, but never quite seemed to get round to, I hope to spend next term enjoying not only the busyness of life in Oxford, but also savouring moments to read for and by myself.

In the Spotlight, at Last

Features

William Atkinson

-

3rd August 2019

0

When Theresa May solemnly made her resignation speech at Downing Street, I couldn’t help be reminded of Malcolm Tucker’s description of the hapless Nicola Murray’s resignation as party leader in The Thick of It: the ending of a chapter that nobody enjoyed reading. It’s a cruel insult to a lady who worked tirelessly in pursuit of what she thought were her country’s best interests. But it also rings true. May’s short and turbulent premiership has left Britain bitterly divided and politically dysfunctional. She hands her successor the most poisonous political chalice in recent history, mostly of her own making. However, in spite her faults and failures, many would consider that successor to be even worse.

Boris Johnson needs no introduction. For committed critics, Johnson’s sins are legion: he is a reactionary, philandering, incompetent oaf. By contrast, ardent supporters portray him as a second Winston Churchill: a bullish Tory providentially arriving at his nation’s darkest hour. Either way, Johnson enters office with unprecedented challenges on multiple fronts. In the last few days, we’ve seen an insight into how Johnson might cope with such issues, in the position he has coveted for so long.

For many, whatever Johnson does won’t be enough to tackle their natural apathy. Through his long and eventful political career editing The Spectator, leading the Leave campaign and proving himself to be an undiplomatic Foreign Secretary, he has accumulated an endless list of enemies and detractors. I have had many doubts about Johnson; with a distaste for some of his foolish behaviour, his appointment caused me some severe trepidation. Yet, I’m cautiously optimistic. To the dismay of many, it cannot be denied that his first week has seen him get off to a flying start. He’s marked a decisive and welcome change from the incompetent technocracy of Theresa May. His cabinet appointments, policy announcements and rhetoric herald a government ready and willing to tackle some of our major national problems. Most importantly, he has outlined a hopeful, confident and outward-looking future for a Britain that has so often seemed narrow-minded and demoralised under his predecessor.

However, it’s still the case that Boris has become PM in what even an optimist might call less than ideal circumstances. Politically, he finds his position under attack from every side. His parliamentary majority is paper thin, and dangerously reliant on hostile MPs. Outside the Commons, Johnson competes in a new world of four-party politics, with Jeremy Corbyn, Nigel Farage and now even Jo Swinson breathing down his neck. In Scotland and Northern Ireland, Brexit tensions are being used to advance nationalist arguments, pushing the Union to breaking point. Paradoxically, Boris’ accession is both the beneficiary and victim of a UK steeped in unprecedented political turbulence. No wonder bookies are taking bets on whether he’ll beat George Canning’s 112 days as our shortest-serving Prime Minister.

Coupled with its outstandingly weak political position, his government faces daunting challenges both home and abroad. His domestic in-tray is stuffed. Crises abound over knife crime, affordable housing and, of a particular focus to Johnson, how to successfully approach the so-called Northern Powerhouse. Overseas, issues such as the Gulf tanker incident simply cannot wait, whilst the forces of China and Russia simultaneously push the post-Cold War international order to breaking point.

Yet, these aren’t even the Prime Minister’s biggest tasks. His victory came primarily as the Tory party trusted him more than his rivals to do in 90 days what May didn’t manage over three years: to successfully take our country out of the European Union. The auspices don’t seem favourable. May’s withdrawal agreement failed to pass through the Commons three times. Brussels has rebuffed any renegotiation, and views Boris with distrust and disdain. A large number of MPs have publicly condemned Boris’ willingness to leave without a deal, and there’s speculation that this distrust could shatter the current government. The man who led the Leave campaign to victory, against all odds, faces an even harder task in leaving itself.

Few predict success. It’s easy to see why the Queen reportedly wondered aloud why anyone would want the job, as Boris kissed her hand and took up his burden.

Prime Minister Johnson has thus entered Number 10 having been dealt a very bad hand indeed. Those who so often dismiss him as a scruffy charlatan must relish their expectation that he’s finally bitten off more than he can chew. The commentariat’s perceived wisdom is that his premiership will fizzle out before it can even leave the launch pad.

But as ever, I’m thriving on being a contrarian. Yes, Boris has been dealt a very bad hand – but in the last few days he has shown himself adept at playing it well. His government has hit the ground running with a confidence and brio that has been sorely lacking for the last three years. Boris has seized the moment and sought to transform the political situation, with greater vivacity than any alternative leader possibly could. Churchill said of becoming PM that he felt “as if I were walking with destiny…that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial… I was sure I should not fail.” Something tells me that this quotation wasn’t far from Johnson’s mind as he crossed the threshold into Number 10. If he can conquer this moment, not only will he go down as our most successful PM since his hero, but as the transformative author of a new age and a dynamic future for Britain.

But where does this transformation come from, and how much is down to Bojo himself? After all, many fundamentals are out of his control, from a hung parliament to an antipathetic EU. But he’s approached the areas under his control with verve, and its paying off. His Cabinet appointments featured the largest political reorganization outside a change of party since the war. Stern-faced and uninventive May loyalists, such as Greg Clarke and Karen Bradley, and implacable opponents of No Deal, like Philip Hammond, were summarily removed. Your opinion of figures like Priti Patel, Sajid Javid or even Jacob Rees-Mogg may vary, but they represent a dynamic and purposeful shift after three years of tepid managerialism.

Behind the scenes, Boris has assembled a formidable team. His backroom staff have mainly come from his time as London Mayor or at Vote Leave. From the former, he has selected policy adviser Munira Mirza and Chief of Staff Sir Edward Lister: experienced operators proven to be more than capable to take on such tasks. Most importantly, however, was the shock appointment of Dominic Cummings as his chief adviser. This more than anything else showed me this government was going to be far from business as usual. Cummings is a Marmite maverick, and anyone who saw Benedict Cumberbatch’s portrayal of him for Channel 4 can attest that he combines a unique mind with an approach that takes no prisoners. Yet, he successfully drove reform through an intractable education department, and pulled off one of the greatest upsets in British political history when heading up Vote Leave. He’s the perfect man to shake things up in Whitehall after Theresa May’s years of sterile stagnation.

Moreover, in the last week Boris has used his unique talent for cutting through to the wider public to bolster his apparently precarious position. He’s announced popular policies for areas within the public’s priorities, whether that’s 20,000 more police on the streets, more frontline funding for hospitals or long overdue investment in the North. You may loathe the man, but it can’t be said his agenda isn’t one that much of the public is crying out for. Whether these promises can be realised remains to be seen, but the immediate public response seems favourable. The Tories have rocketed back to their largest polling lead in months, including in Wales for only the third time in living memory. The Bojo bounce is real; it simply remains to be seen how quickly the ball comes back down to Earth.

For the time being, however, Boris can be satisfied with the reaction. Johnson’s initial public support is essential for addressing the two places that will decide his fate in the next few weeks: Brussels and the House of Commons. By bolstering his support nationally, the Prime Minister hopes to pressure both the EU and his backbenchers to come to terms. The current opinion in Brussels is that Boris won’t be able to pull off a No Deal Brexit, with the government either being brought down before October 31^st, or the British outcry against the situation forcing the government back to the negotiating table almost immediately. By convincing them he’d win a general election on his platform, Boris can push MPs into supporting his government, demonstrating to Brussels that he is serious about No Deal. By appointing Cummings and preconditioning the recommencement of negotiations on the removal of the Irish backstop, the Prime Minister is showing a newfound stubbornness, which May’s government lacked. Whether Johnson’s gamble pays off is yet to be seen, but it certainly makes a change from May’s series of capitulations.

But perhaps the biggest change of the Boris era has not been of personnel or policies, but of tone. Soon after entering Downing Street, Theresa May was the most popular post-war Prime Minister according to polling. This was primarily because of her message: not only was she seen as tough and patriotic, but her claim to want a country that works for everyone and to tackle various burning injustices struck a deep chord with a public so desperate for change that they would vote to Leave the European Union. Via a terrible general election campaign, she became a demoralised Prime Minister, who was pigeonholed by the civil service into a style of bland technocratic managerialism with a tone of hollow platitudes. This has led to a deeply disappointing legacy.

May failed to understand that the Brexit result was a vote of confidence in the United Kingdom and its future. Her Home Office tunnel vision transformed it from a push for national renewal into an attempt to simply clamp down on immigration. As such, we had her appalling tone deafness with the Windrush Scandal or that appalling policy of getting employers to register the number of foreign nationals they employed. By the time that Prime Ministerial Jaguar left Downing Street, the optimism of the transformative agenda she initially outlined was entered long gone, and she left the country in a state of disillusion and despair.

Boris has struck an instant and positive contrast, with his opening speech outside Number 10 affirming his confidence in Britain’s future and its potential. But it was at the Despatch Box where he proved revelatory. Boris has had less Parliamentary experience than any other Prime Minister since the war. Traditionally, his strengths lie in speeches to public crowds, or newspaper columns, or meet and greets in packed shopping centres, not in the pompous verbal jousting of the Commons. Expectations were thus low for his House debut as Prime Minister. He entered to jeers from the Labour bench and a muted silence from his fellow Tories. His speech was received with some support, but it was in his response to Corbyn that he really found his voice. In less than seven minutes, he had the Tory benches clamouring for more and the Opposition looking shell-shocked as he hammered into the Opposition leader. Many Conservative MPs with serious doubts about whether Boris was up to the job would have left with those fears well assuaged.

So what does all this enthusiasm add up to? I’d argue it gives good grounds for optimism. Of course, a new face (and haircut) in Downing Street, some high flights of rhetoric and a few good announcements don’t instantly overcome the many obstacles that Boris, his government and our country face. But they can help. Theresa May promised change but delivered precious little. But if Boris can pull of all he promises, history may well consider her premiership an embarrassing interlude, an accidental aberration before the installation of the Vote Leave government needed since June 24^th 2016. Boris’ government could prove just as hollow as May’s ultimately did, but at least he’s already backing his rhetoric with action.

So I’m optimistic for future under Prime Minister Bojo. I got into politics because I care about tackling the social injustices like poverty and prejudice than blight our society. My vision of Britain is a fundamentally optimistic one. Opportunities should be open to anyone and everyone, no matter their class, race or sexuality. With the most diverse Cabinet in history, a liberal Prime Minister and an agenda in place to tackle the country’s inequalities and deliver Brexit, I believe Britain’s best years can lie ahead. I’m sure I’ll have to eat humble pie sooner rather than later. But hopeless optimism isn’t always too bad a quality; after all, it got Boris Johnson all the way to Number 10.

Review: Arkells at ULU

Music

Simone Fraser

-

2nd August 2019

0

I have to admit, there was a part of me that considered staying home on 25^th July and not going to the Arkells gig at ULU, London. It was the hottest day in 150 years, I was going solo, and I’d spend far too much time day drinking, and far too little time sleeping over the past week. Even though gigs are my favourite places to be, I knew it would be a sweaty one, and I could only pray that the venue had air conditioning. But at 6pm I dragged myself onto the Oxford Tube (complete with Tesco meal deal) and headed on down to London. My god am I glad I did.

A bit about Arkells. They’re an alt rock band from Ontario: lots of energy, charisma and sound, and a phenomenal stage presence characterize them. Fairly big in Canada, they only really broke onto the UK scene last year supporting Frank Turner as he toured around the country. I first saw them at Oxford O2, 5^th May, and once they started playing, I didn’t want them to stop – and considering that Turner is my favourite artist this is pretty high praise. The entire band quite clearly adore performing, especially front-man Max Kerman who really captures the attention of the crowd with a combination of startling magnetism and smooth dancing. I spent the whole of Trinity that year listening to their latest two albums, High Noon (2014) and Morning Report (2016) on repeat, and by the time they dropped their latest, Rally Cry in October 2018, I was a solid fan.

But back to the gig. It was, as anticipated, incredibly sweaty (although they did have air con), but I have to say that I don’t think anybody cared. For the entirety of their nearly two hour set the crowd was having a brilliant time, dancing, as Kerman instructed us to, like nobody was watching. Arkells are unusual in that they have no stand-out hit, but many equally well-loved tracks: my person favourites are ‘Leather Jacket’, ‘And Then Some’ and “Private School Kids’, but there are just too many to pick. Their old pal Frank Turner was enjoying the gig with the rest of the crowd, and everyone there, many of whom know of the Arkells for the same reason that I do, went wild when he came onto the stage at the end to do a duet of Proud Mary, along with Jess Guise, his fiancé and the support act, amongst others.

Yet there are a lot of really good rock bands out there, so what is it that makes Arkells so special? Part of it is the aforementioned charisma, but the also the commitment to being genuinely good people, and using their platform and music to help other people. The band has thrown their support behind Rainbow Railroad, a charity dedicated to helping LGBTQ youth who are forced to leave home, by auctioning off signed Doc Martens, and raising awareness across their social media platforms. Indeed, the most special part of the gig was when Kerman jumped into the crowd to serenade two women who were getting married the week after and were planning on having their first dance to an Arkells song. This kind of personal support and care make them stand out from the usual indie bands that can be found across the world. It’s easy to see how the band have slotted into the same music community that artists like Turner, Felix Hagan and the Family, Laura Marling and others are part of. Their fans aren’t just encouraged to support their music, but to look out for other people at the gigs and beyond.

Indeed, if you were planning on going to a gig solo, Arkells would be one that I definitely recommend. I ended up running into two people I knew from previous gigs and making several new friends just from the people who were standing around me. I’ve been to a hell of a lot of gigs, but this was perhaps the one with the strongest sense of community, and feeling safe and relaxed makes every experience so much better. Overall, this was one of the best gigs of my life, and I don’t say that lightly. Although Arkells tour primarily in North America, they’ll certainly be back in the UK in 2020, and I would encourage you all to listen to them. All I can say is that none of the friends I’ve persuaded to check them out have regretted it yet…

Let’s talk about… Diner Days

Music

Becky Harrington

-

1st August 2019

0

Find Becky’s playlist here

During my A Levels, I worked as a waitress in an American 50s-themed diner not far from my house. Part of the reason I applied for it over other waitressing jobs in the area was my love for 50s and 60s music, which had developed from when I was young. It began through a love of girl bands like The Supremes to a wide-ranging interest in blues from the 30s and 40s that had inspired the Rock’n’Roll, Soul and Motown movements that followed. This playlist is a (very limited) selection of sentimental songs from my time working in the diner, as well as other fond memories and discoveries from the 20 years I’ve been around so far. Enjoy!

Long Tall Sally – Little Richard (1956)

When the diner was really busy, this song was so fitting. The loud chatter, the sizzle of the fryers in the kitchen, the rumble of the milkshake blenders. Waitresses weaving between tables on the checkered floor with trays of drinks. The arms of those more skilled than I were often lined with 3 or 4 plates of burgers, hotdogs, fries, pancakes, and waffles. Long Tall Sally’s driving 12-bar-blues rhythm accompanied the fast pace of a packed restaurant perfectly, punctuated by the chef’s frantic ringing of the bell, which signaled to us to collect food from his cramped kitchen.

The First Cut Is The Deepest – P.P. Arnold (1967)

I could listen to this song every day until I died. The unusual instrumentation of this record, apparently inspired by similar choices made by The Beach Boys, is what really makes it stand out to me. The intro, plucked out on the harp rather than guitar (most common at the time), opens the song with a vulnerability which is carried through by the lyrics. There are some great interviews with the producer, Mike Hurst, and Pat Arnold herself on the episode of Radio 4’s Soul Music, which you can – and should – listen to as a podcast.

Rubber Biscuit – The Chips (1956)

This song is featured in all its chaotic glory in Mean Streets, a 1973 Scorsese film starring Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro which is one of, if not my favourite film. The song fits the scene perfectly, providing the soundtrack for the characters’ drunken stumblings shown via some brilliant but quite nauseating shots. Some other musical gems featured in Mean Streets are Be My Baby by The Ronettes and I Love You So by The Chantels, along with some amazing Italian pieces.

Stormy Weather – Etta James (1960)

I loved listening to this when the diner was quiet and we’d be busying ourselves with sweeping and cleaning tables. It is lusciously mopey and always put me in a certain mood, one that I’ve only really experienced working that job. There was the resentment that I’d feel while scooping a mixture of condiments and pieces of napkin out of a pint glass left kindly for me by a customer, but that would be combined with a strange enjoyment and pride in it all. I think that enjoyment came from feeling as though maybe if someone peered through the blind-slatted windows at me working away, I’d look as though I could be in The Waitress, or an Edward Hopper painting, rather than in 2017, working in an imitation diner in a London suburb, next to a Pizza Express.

Runaround Sue – Dion (1961)

There’s not much to say about this song other than that it’s great and, although I don’t condone the breaking of hearts, Sue sounds like she’s having a great time.

Why Do Fools Fall in Love – Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers (1956)

As you can probably tell from the pitch of Frankie Lymon’s voice, this group really was made up of teenagers. In fact, Frankie was only 14 when the song was released in 1956. The lyrics of this song were apparently inspired by a line from a love letter given to a member of the band: “Why do birds sing so gay?” It was a smash hit in both the US and the UK, and played a vital part in earning the band and their mishmash doo-wop / rock’n’roll style lasting fame in the years to come.

Is That All There Is? – Peggy Lee (1969)

This song is a relatively recent discovery for me. The anecdotal style of it may not be to everyone’s liking, and I can imagine that there’s a certain type of person who would get pretty riled up by the song’s overall message. They might find the song cynical, the sense of resignation that comes across in the lyrics obnoxious, or maybe simply an unhelpful perspective to have on life. Maybe I’d agree with the obnoxious element of that. I don’t think of the tone as pessimistic as such, but rather kind of… satisfied, and equally satisfying to listen to. It seems to me that people spend far too much time searching for significance in every event and interaction. This song’s acceptance and even embracing of the fact that life is often underwhelming and inconsequential is refreshing. Perhaps the more important message from the song is just that life happens and then it’s over, so making yourself and others happy is all you need to concern yourself with. Sounds alright to me.

Smokestack Lightnin’ – Howlin’ Wolf (1956)

Our most popular burger at the diner! This one was cheese, bacon and a smoky BBQ sauce.

Shake, Rattle and Roll – Big Joe Turner (1954)

Another song that gave its name to one of our dishes at the diner. I’ve built such an odd sensory connection between these songs and the meals they represented. Whenever I hear Shake, Rattle and Roll, I think of chicken nuggets. Perhaps nobody else will get quite that level of enjoyment out of the song, but it’s catchy anyway.

Come See About Me – The Supremes (1964)

It was really hard to limit my Supremes hits to just this one. Motown is a favourite genre of my mum’s, so I grew up loving 60s girl groups like The Supremes and The Shirelles. The Supremes might be more famous for ‘Baby Love’ and ‘Where Did Our Love Go’, but ‘Come See About Me’ still managed to top the charts twice and the backing singers really make the record for me.

I Am In Love – Ella Fitzgerald (1956)

This gorgeous song was written by Cole Porter in 1953. It became a classic, and was covered and re-covered by a multitude of artists, like the majority of popular songs in the 50s. I’m particularly keen on the Ella Fitzgerald version, since her impressive vocal range gives her the ability to portray superbly the conflicting emotions of a person in love. Do I order cyanide or order champagne?

I Put A Spell On You – Nina Simone (1965)

Though this was originally written and performed by Jalacy “Screamin’ Jay” Hawkins, I had to choose the Nina Simone version for this playlist. Her voice is truly enchanting, making it ideal for this particular song. And really absolutely anything else.

Mack the Knife – Bobby Darin (1959)

Did you know that this song is the English version of Die Moritat von Mackie Messer, from Brecht’s 1928 Threepenny Opera? I didn’t until a couple of months ago when I was reading about Brecht’s drama for my degree. I’d always liked this song regardless, and when it came on in the diner it always gave my menial tasks a sense of glamour that they really didn’t deserve. It tells the story of an infamous killer, lurking around every corner for his next victim. The delivery of the song is almost smug, and it really plays into the idolisation of famous criminals that can be seen from the gangsters of the 20s and 30s all the way up to the present day and our generation’s sick fascination with Ted Bundy and the like.

Unchained Melody – The Fleetwoods (1959)

I love this song. Yes, it is hard to listen to The Righteous Brothers’ version without picturing Patrick Swayze and a pottery wheel. Although I’m not especially opposed to that image, it puts some people off. There is, however, an earlier version of the song, recorded by The Fleetwoods in 1959, which is of a quite different style. It’s completely stripped back instrumentally, leaving only simple, gentle vocals that swell with harmonies every now and then, before sinking back to a low, solitary voice.

Crimson and Clover – Tommy James & The Shondells (1968)

A regular in the diner would groan at me when I’d put this one on. “Really? This one? Bit of a downer isn’t it?” I didn’t really see what he meant, as to me the song seemed like a pretty upbeat love song. It’s chord progression is as simple as they come, but it’s so pleasing to listen to. What makes this song unique (on this list at least) is the use of the tremolo effect on the vocals at around 2:30, a technique usually reserved for guitar. It’s ridiculous, but I like seeing people’s faces when they first hear it.

Take Five – The Dave Brubeck Quartet (1959)

The title of this song comes from its unusual 5/4 time signature. It wouldn’t be a shock if you recognised this one, given that it soon became one of the best selling jazz singles of all time. It’s been used in a plethora of films and adverts too, for good reason.

Sh-Boom – The Chords (1954)

One of the vegetarian dishes in the diner, which were few and far between. This one was a mushroom burger. Sh-Boom. Mushroom. Get it? A bit tenuous, I know.

The majority of my favourite songs are impossibly sad, which makes sense because I guess there’s a lot more to say about heartbreak than when things are actually going quite well. This song, though, is pure happy-go-lucky doo-wop gold and is definitely still a favourite.

The Leader of the Pack – The Shangri-Las (1964)

Another one that I’ve known since, well, since I’ve known music. The dialogue at the beginning of this song and the “he’s so totally dreamy” stereotypes of wearing Jimmy’s class ring and ‘getting a ride to school’ from a sweetheart slot this song firmly into the 60s girl group scene. What makes it fall into the smaller, even more ridiculous category of ‘teen tragedy’ or ‘splatter platter’ is Jimmy’s sudden and gruesome death. The lyrics are so melodramatic and the rhymes so obvious, it isn’t that surprising to hear George Morton claim that he wrote the song in one sitting, in crayon and on a bit of cardboard.

Rockin Pneumonia And The Boogie Woogie Flu –

Huey ‘Piano’ Smith (1957)

This song is mostly on here for its name. There were many times where I wished I could call in sick to work with a rockin pneumonia and a boogie woogie flu, but I’m not sure my boss would’ve appreciated that joke.

You Go to My Head – Billie Holiday (1938)

This one is a lot older than 50s, but I’d always put it on in the diner when I got the chance to choose the music. Billie Holiday has an amazing voice and often I listen to her and only her, but on this occasion I’ve whittled my long list of favourites down to this one due to its beguiling lyrics. “You go to my head and you linger like a haunting refrain…”

If you haven’t listened to much of her before, definitely try some other hits like ‘I’ll Be Seeing You’ and ‘April In Paris’, and listen to the Soul Music episode on the song ‘Strange Fruit’, which tells its history and goes into detail about her rendition.

Louie Louie – The Kingsmen (1963)

I discovered this song when I was 9 or 10 via the game Donkey Konga, which we had on Nintendo GameCube. The point of the game is basically to drum along to songs on some bongos that you plug into the console, and you’d get points for hitting the beats just right. I loved this game, and only partially because it was the only game where I had a chance at beating my brother. Listening to the song now, I realise that the rhythm can’t exactly have been hard to follow, but I love it nonetheless.

Layla – Derek & The Dominos (1970)

If this song doesn’t make you want to shriek “WHAT’LL YOU DO WHEN YOU GET LONELY?” then quite frankly there’s no help for you. It’s probably a bit too intense to be playing in the diner while people are trying to enjoy a pleasant meal, and it’s just outside the time period, but when the diner was really empty I’d sit in a booth and blast it loud on my headphones while I folded hundreds and hundreds of napkins. Its contrastive piano interlude makes this song an amazing, if sensorily exhausting 7-minute journey.

My Guy – Mary Wells (1964)

Yet another one of my mum’s favourites, written by Smokey Robinson. A sweet love song, but as my mum points out, not actually that complementary: “She’s basically saying ‘he’s a bit ugly, not that successful and a bit of a weed but I like him anyways’ which isn’t the height of flattery is it?” Faint praise aside, this song is pretty cute, and Wells gets just a little bit sultry around 2:25, which always reminds me of ‘Fever,’ a great Peggy Lee record that didn’t quite make it onto this list.

Piano Man – Billy Joel (1973)

This isn’t a 50s song, it isn’t even a 60s song, but it’s got to be on here. When I came to uni, I missed my job a whole lot more than I thought I would. Piano Man would occasionally come on at a pre drinks and everybody would sing along, but I’d often stay quiet to save myself from getting too lost in the nostalgia it caused. I missed the people who worked at the diner and the regulars, the routine, the music, even my garish polka dot dress. For me this song really sums up my experience there, and I think that it’ll always bring me back to that place. It’s bittersweet – there’s the feeling of a community and comfort of familiar characters, but also the memory of a place filled with people who felt like they could be doing something better.

The people working there were at such different stages in their lives. Me, working out of a longing for a place where I felt that I was welcome, capable and successful, studying hard for my A Levels alongside my shifts so that I could get far, far away from a miserable school life. A young mum who needed flexible shifts so that she could get back to work as well as being around for her son. A glamorous sous chef with a little boy back in Romania and a Hungarian chef working himself to the bone every week, both of them learning English on the job. Though it would be wrong to say that the diner was a bad job, or that working in the service industry in general can’t be fulfilling, it did feel like what we had in common was that we were a team of people who all dreamed of something or somewhere else.

Well, that’s it! These songs really do represent a chapter in my life, as well as mark some of the milestones in the development of my love for 50s/60s music – and music in general. So, this whole playlist-making process has been quite self-absorbed really, but I hope you were able to gain something from it if you got this far!

Olafur Eliasson: In Real Life

Arabella Vickers

-

31st July 2019

0

Olafur Eliasson’s “In real life”, which is on until 5^th January 2020, is a truly must-see exhibition at the Tate Modern. All forty of this Danish-Islandic artist’s installations push you into thinking beyond what appears before your eyes, challenging your senses and your perspective of the world outside the gallery walls. Room after room, the sculptures are enthralling, and paintings and photographs defy categorisation. Each room comes as a surprise.

The most thrilling installation is a 39-metre tunnel, pumped full of thick ‘pea soup’ fog, which confuses and amuses in equal measure. It is impossible to see more than one metre in any direction, and people appear and disappear surreally in the ether. Entitled ‘Din Blinde Passager’ (Your Blind Passenger), it is both disconcerting and exciting. The colour of the fog gradually transforms from orange, yellow, blue, purple and finally to white, further challenging your senses. Adding to this assault on one’s sense of sight, one’s sense of taste is also confronted: the fog tastes of candyfloss. Nothing is as it should be: the fog envelops people unnervingly. Nature controls humans – it’s the fog that seems to be playing with us. Unsurprisingly, Eliasson has a keen interest in natural phenomena, hence his thought-provoking incorporation of mist and light in this work.

Olafur Eliasson’s *Your uncertain shadow (colour)*, 2010. Photo: María del Pilar García Ayensa/ Studio Olafur Eliasson
Courtesy of the artist; neugerriemschneider, Berlin; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York / Los Angeles
© 2010 Olafur Eliasson

The use of light and shadow is also explored with ‘Your uncertain shadow’. Here, brightly shining lamps cast shadows in four vibrant colours, getting smaller the closer you are to the projecting wall. The different perspectives and the playful element in this piece is particularly entertaining for the younger visitors, who delight in chasing their own shadows. In another room there are several kaleidoscopes, including one which is big enough to be walked through. It feels as though you are part of an experiment. Eliasson’s hope is to provoke visitors into recognising that there is more to these instruments of light than being mere playthings. The reflections, refractions and somewhat bewildering use of space in fact seem to unite the inside of the exhibition with the bustling outside world.

At the heart of “In real life” is Eliasson’s focus on the environment and the pressing issue of global warming. The array of Scandinavian photographs entitled ‘The glacier series’ displays the melting of glaciers over time, allowing us to reflect on our role in its destruction. It offers a clear yet shocking presentation of the reality of the Arctic ice melting. In the final room, the evidence of our destructive impact on the natural world crescendos. Along one wall, a pin board is covered by news articles and images on this topic. Several films in this room also discuss the exhibition as a whole and tackle the relationship between such artwork and science in an interactive manner. Eliasson does not refrain from making hard-hitting points about the environment. This exhibition educates as well as entertains.

There is a vast array of material on view, and at times the layout is unclear and confusing. It is too easy to miss some of the highlights, like the fog tunnel, due to the higgledy-piggledy arrangement of the exhibition. Perhaps, however, this is part of the fun: we need to navigate the physical reality, as well as the ideas, for ourselves.

If you only visit one gallery this year, make it this one. It is thought-provoking, fun, surprising and serious all at the same time. Eliasson’s originality ensures there is something to capture all imaginations.

Featured image: Olafur Eliasson Big Bang Fountain (2014). Installation view at Moderna Museet, Stockholm, 2015, Photo: Anders Sune Berg courtesy of the artist; neugerriemschneider, Berlin; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York/Los Angeles© 2014

The new commission is a betrayal of European democracy – but Europe’s democrats must support it

Opinion

Angus Brown

-

30th July 2019

0

The new commission is a betrayal of European democracy – but Europe’s democrats must support it

The appointment of Ursula Von der Leyen as President of the European Commission is an unabashed betrayal of the great strides which have been made towards a democratic European Union. The progress made with the adoption of the Spitzenkandidat (or ‘lead candidate’) system in 2014 has been singularly undone by Europe’s national leaders. As the German Social Democrats have rightly complained, this represents a return to the bad old days of a Europe governed by backroom deals and political subterfuge. Nevertheless, Europe’s democrats must move past it in order to save the dream of a strong, free, and democratic Europe. For those who work to reform the un-transparent and undemocratic institutions which continue to blight the European project the choice is dire yet simple: support Von der Leyen or face the bloc’s destruction.

Plenty of excellent criticisms have been levelled against the prospect of a commission led by Germany’s outgoing Defence Minister. One of the best, by the Dutch political scientist Cas Mudde writing for The Guardian, deftly highlights how the political manoeuvring which led to her appointment will likely only heighten disdain for the EU’s anti-democratic bent and will weaken the Commission at a critical point. As Mudde predicted, Von der Leyen only won the support of the parliament by the skin of her teeth, and she remains distrusted by its social democrats, the left, and the greens, on whose support she will depend. Her firmest allies, the European Peoples Party and Renew Europe, led de facto by Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron, respectively, are the very factions whose abandonment of the popular lead candidates Manfred Weber and Frans Timmermans created this mess. Unpopular in Germany and unheard of in the broader EU, Von der Leyen will likely struggle to govern.

It is vitally important that those who believe in the European project band together to help her. If the new President is weak – as her ability to gain the votes of just 383 MEPs, fewer than the 400 needed to govern effectively, suggests – then the crises plaguing the European Union from Belfast to Budapest will only deepen. When Viktor Orbán agreed to the appointment of Von der Leyen, a candidacy partly engineered by President Macron (a leading opponent of the Spitzenkandidat system), he no doubt made the crucial calculation that Von der Leyen, a President without the firm backing of the parliament’s democratic left, will be weak and ineffective. This is exactly what the European Union’s opponents, from Britain’s Brexiteers to the anti-democrats of Eastern Europe, want.

In order to ensure that the Commission can continue to fight the good fight for a “united and strong Europe” (Von der Leyen’s stated priority) the social democratic, green, and socialist left must work with her, but she must also work with them. Having accepted and supported Von der Leyen’s appointment, the Social Democrats will be looking for compromises from the centre and centre right, and they should receive them. The pledges Von der Leyen has already made – to invest billions in green technology, to fight for the economic advancement of women, and to champion the rule of law are a good start, but they are not enough. One vital concession which must be made is a commitment to the long-term reform of Europe’s political institutions, and a promise that never again will the Commission presidency be decided by a stitch-up engineered by Europe’s national governments against the wishes of its voters. To restore confidence in, and build support for, the European Union, it must fully embrace democracy, a task which it has avoided for too long.

Reforms should be undertaken to ensure that elections in the European Union matter. The Parliament, as the only body elected by the entirety of the union’s people, must take for itself the power to choose the Commission President and the power to initiate legislation. One means of doing this is to create a set of MEPs elected in a continent-wide contest in addition to national-level elections. Parties should re-empower the Spitzenkandidat system to ensure that the Commission is accountable to the people. Whilst the realities of the European Union’s pseudo-federal/pseudo-confederal structure mean that national governments must continue to play an important role in its political process, backroom deals between the likes of Emmanuel Macron and Viktor Orbán must not be allowed to undermine the democratic process. If it is to continue to be fit for purpose into the twenty-first century’s third decade, the European Union must face a serious internal political realignment which puts power back in the hands of the people.

It must also take real action to face up to the problems faced by the continent today. These are not limited to the problems of the never-ending Brexit nightmare or the increasingly rapid erosion of democratic and liberal institutions in Eastern Europe. They also include soaring income and wealth inequality, environmental degradation, and a refugee crisis which has only been made worse by inconsistent responses by the EU and its member states. These are all areas where the European Union has a unique potential to coordinate action amongst member states, and which demand a unified progressive response. To protect democracy across the continent, fight the climate emergency, alleviate the effects of crippling income inequality, and tackle the refugee crisis, the states of Europe have to work together, and only cooperation between the centre, the left, and the greens to empower the Commission can do this. This is a project which would require compromise between the centre right’s reluctance to effect serious change and the left’s desire to dismantle the neoliberal structures at the heart of the European Union, but it is a necessary compromise.

If Europe’s democratic parties fail to work with one another to guarantee a strong, progressive, and democratic union, they will be as good as handing it to the likes of Orbán, Salvini, Le Pen, and Farage. The next five years cannot be wasted on internecine squabbling in preparation for another farcical set of elections that produce a powerless Commission. The nature of Ursula Von der Leyen’s selection as Commission President is regrettable, but the best must be made of it now that she is in position. The fact that the Parliament’s moderate left held its nose and supported her is a good sign that compromise is possible, but it must be reciprocal. At this moment of crisis, vital reforms to transform the European Union from the imperfect reality of what it is to the soaring possibilities of what it might and ought to be are beyond essential. A better Europe is possible – we cannot let it slip through our fingers.

Preview: Lia Mice at Supernormal Festival

Music

Simone Fraser

-

30th July 2019

0

Preview: Lia Mice at Supernormal Festival

Lia Mice is someone important. The experimental pop creator and film score composer combines dreamy vocals, and otherworldly sonics to create a kind of pop utopia that feels like something your coolest friend would play you at 3am in the middle of a hot summer night. Her most popular hit, Memory Maps is wistful and light, faraway sounds and lyrics combining together to create an abstract kind of story reminiscent of fantastical worlds like Wonderland: “do you remember a time we’d eat hills of cake and drink lakes of champagne?”. It’s beautiful, and more importantly, it’s unique.

In a time of X Factor and Spotify, it can be hard to create a sound that’s truly groundbreaking. It’s difficult to be unique without being unlistenable, but Lia Mice manages to be distinctive and genuinely good at the same time, and I would be unsurprised to see the chart toppers of 2030 naming her as an inspiration. Her real talent is in using a wide range of experimental sounds to create something beautiful and musical with immersive beats to tie the pieces together. She credits this to growing up partially sighted, stating on her website, “I’m always trying to sculpt immersive sonic landscapes like the ones I grew up in… tape disintegration is part of that too. I lived by my Sony Walkman and played so many tapes to the point of destruction. I love that sound.”. Lia’s not the only one who loves her sounds: she’s played everything from a clock tower in Manhattan to a Buddhist Temple in Tokyo, and has thousands of worldwide fans on social media. Her music feels like something to move to, and it’s unsurprising that so many people are keen to hear it live.

Yet we’re especially lucky because Lia is coming to Oxfordshire very soon. The producer will be taking part in Supernormal, a three-day experimental arts and music in Braziers Park, aiming at showcasing the most innovative talent from around the world. The festival aims not just to showcase fantastic artists, but to do so in a way that’s as accessible as possible for everyone regardless of background. I’d encourage you to go, not just to see Lia, but to experience something that looks like a truly exciting addition to England’s cultural scene.

Spectacle of Suffering

Aine Kennedy

-

29th July 2019

0

The culmination of Enlightenment thought, the Encylopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné, defined torture as “an inexplicable phenomenon that the extension of man’s imagination creates out of the barbarous and cruel”. Before the 18th century, torture was essential to social order, with a theatrical function reflected by gleefully macabre representations in verse. The changing depictions in literature parallel radical shifts in Western attitudes. From original Biblical narratives of divine punishment, atrocity, used to stir fear or repulsion and threaten its audience away from offensive behaviour has developed into a means of expressing the irrational and incomprehensible cruelty of humanity and human experience. Yet today’s desensitised society looks complacently upon once-shocking images, from Aylan Kurdi to Oscar Ramirez and his daughter Valeria; in many respects, our indifferent consumption of the spectacle of suffering has progressed little from the days of the public hanging.

Atrocity’s original function was a practical one: to retain the order of power by discouraging disobedience. The most seminal depiction of “the ritual of armed law, in which the prince (shows) himself both as head of justice and head of war” comes in form of the Old Testament. God is judge, jury, and executioner in what Foucault aptly termed the “liturgy of punishment”; he is also the ‘prince’, the institution whose principles have been offended. The emotional volatility of this self-proclaimed “jealous God” leads him to acts of methodical and stylised cruelty which set a precedent for human imitators. His punishment of original sin- the original punishment- sees him curse the serpent with an emphasis on both physicality and the vicious pettiness that will characterise torture for centuries to come:

“On your belly will you go, and dust you will eat, all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel…”

An eternity of eating dust is a creative punishment- it combines mutilation (the loss of the serpent’s legs) with humiliation. The serpent could thus be the original torture victim. In any case, Original Sin is met with Original Consequences, a precedent continued throughout the Old Testament in exotic and gruesome fashion: the Ten Plagues, Sodom and Gomorrah, two bears mauling 42 children to death for mocking a bald guy (4 Kings 2:23-24). Dante picks up this baton with glee in Purgatorio, elucidating equally creative punishments for a variety of sins in the nine circles of hell. Of all the beautiful pieces of music, art, and poetry inspired by the Christian faith, this verse is surely a standout:

“Reaching that point and looking down, we saw
that all of them were plunged in diarrhoea
flowing, it seemed, from human cubicles…
I noticed one whose head was foul with shit…

But he screamed out at me: ‘Why gawp like that?’
‘Because,’ I said, ‘if I remember well,
I’ve seen you once before, with drier coiffure.
You are from Lucca. Alessio Interminei.’

Dante’s dramatic persona is as the passive observer, merely reporting on the fate that God has in store for flatterers like Alessio; in reality, the punishment and scenario are of the author’s own devising. In this case, God provides not only the template but the excuse for torture- although Dante committed no physical violence against Interminei, he is torturing a real person in the fictional domain, “(making) the guilty man the herald of his own condemnation”, as Foucault would put it. Dante’s Hell is the apogee of the ‘action and reaction’ atrocity narrative: while earthly suffering may be meted out as punishment by mortals, God has the power to inflict eternal suffering. While on the one hand this doctrine is tempered in the New Testament, with Jesus taking on physical and spiritual agony so that the real culprits might not suffer, this new ideology turns more closely instead to the theatrical aspect of torture: the emphasis on physical mutilation is translated into the literal theatre of the Eucharist, constantly reenacting elements of betrayal, murder and cannibalism.

Outrages against Christian morality, and their equally outrageous punishments, formed the basis of pre-Enlightenment literature from the morality play to its successor, the Jacobean revenge tragedy. The latter provided a typically gruesome and highly stylised investigation into cause and effect, showcasing the ever-popular element of ritualistic mutilation as an answer to moral atrocity. ’Tis Pity She’s A Whore ticks all these boxes, centering on an incestuous sibling relationship and taking the audience on a whistle-stop tour from cast out eyes and letters written in the author’s blood to a climax of the main character bounding on stage with his sister’s heart kebabbed on a dagger. Yet it might also be viewed as an early attempt to develop the use of torture from simple condemnation to more complex moral questioning; the controversy that dogged the play into the 20th century derived not so much from the subject matter as from the author’s failure to condemn his protagonist, instead portraying him as a virtuous man overcome by irresistible, sinful passion.

The revenge play exemplifies not only the entanglement of human nature with the horrific, but the endurance of human obsession with this relationship. Thomas Pynchon parodies the genre in 1966’s Crying of Lot 49, where the fictional Jacobean ‘Courier’s Tragedy’ is used to link the barbarity of the pre-Enlightenment era with that of World War II, a technique viewed by American critic Sima Farshid as a “simulacrum”, after Jean Baudrillard’s theory of mirrored representations of reality. This is the postmodern face of the horrific: it is a nuanced and self-referential successor to the binary of action and consequence conveyed through extreme and visceral examples in the Bible, or at the 18th-century gibbet.

Before the Enlightenment, daily life was saturated in and indeed thrived upon violence: upon the introduction of the guillotine, French crowds complained that they couldn’t see the execution, and began chants of “give us back our gibbet”. Literary depictions of violence were an effective means of social commentary, as they were grounded in a real-life understanding. In Foucault’s words, when witnessing “the spectacle of suffering truly endured, one could decipher crime and innocence, past and future, here below and eternal”. This connection with brutality died away along with the custom of ritualistic public mutilation, to the point where depictions of fictional violence, much less the real thing, could evoke shock and horror.

The return to extreme dehumanisation and brutality with the Second World War jolted the West out of its moral complacency, demanding a new language to account for an unprecedented kind of atrocity. Violence was stripped of its novelty; accounts which would have commanded the entire front page of a Victorian broadsheet were now innumerable, indistinguishable, stripped of their power to move.

Vasily Grossman with the Red Army in Schwerin, 1945

Writing about the Holocaust, the Battle of Stalingrad, and the Terror Famine in the Ukraine, Vasily Grossman was by definition writing about violence and atrocity; however, his response to the unfathomable scale of the horror was to recognise the futility of attempting an objective account of it, and his works are not centred around depictions of violence. In an effort to form a modern response to barbarity which did not belong to the modern day yet had come to define it, Grossman focuses on intimate accounts of the depth of individual human life and experience, contrasted with reminders of the scale on which these lives were wiped out. In An Armenian Sketchbook, he devotes a paragraph to the sufferings of his aunt, an uneducated, ordinary woman evacuated from Odessa via the Semyonov Pass, after losing her husband and children to state oppression, suicide, or war, and all her Jewish relatives to the Nazis.

“I asked my companions to tell me about the great men who had travelled this wonderful road. It didn’t occur to me to say, ‘You know, my aunt went along this same road in the winter of 1941. She was just one of many, an anchovy or sardine in a great shoal of anchovies or sardines. And, as you know, the biographical details of anchovies and sardines do not enter the pages of history.”

The true story of Grossman’s aunt differs from this version; she was highly educated, and the deaths of her children are fictionalized. Grossman seems to have wished to emphasise not only her Jewishness but the ordinariness, during these years of what might otherwise seem an improbable intensity of tragedy. Repeated accounts of violence could never hope to provide an account of the Holocaust, and would ultimately cheapen it, partly due to humanity’s history of voyeuristic enjoyment in human suffering. Instead, Grossman turns to the accessible and universal to evoke the unimaginable scale of what was lost.

“The ewe had bright eyes, rather like glass grapes. There was something human about her- something Jewish. The inhabitants of a Jewish ghetto would probably have looked at their Gestapo jailers with the same alienated disgust if the ghetto had existed for millennia, if day after day for five thousand years the Gestapo had been taking old women and children away to be destroyed in gas chambers.

Oh God, how desperately mankind needs to atone, to beg for forgiveness. How long mankind needs to beg the sheep for forgiveness.”

Foucault sees humanity as overeager to celebrate its ‘humanisation’, to congratulate itself on moral advances from the 18th century onwards which have civilised away a long history of cruelty and indifference. One has only to look at the current debate over the definition of ‘concentration camp’ to see that we are now in another period of moral complacency: Enlightenment questions of atrocity committed “with scandalous openness or secret cunning” are particularly pertinent in the internet age, where anyone with a mobile phone can instantly watch victims of human trafficking in violent porn, or footage of strangers’ last moments on the Watch People Die subreddit.

Image rights: Phillip Medhurst / CC-BY-SA-3.00 – Noah’s Ark and the Deluge, Genesis cap. 7

Byron, Elvis and Kim: Celebrity Now

Culture

George Rushton

-

29th July 2019

0

Here are some things that some people have said about Elvis:

“I wasn’t just a fan, I was his brother.” —James Brown

“It was like he came along and whispered some dream in everybody’s ear, and somehow we all dreamed it.” —Bruce Springsteen

Did they really know Elvis? Funnily enough, they might have done. I wonder, though, whether in their own fame, and after having actually met him, they would still say they feel the same. As the man himself said:

“The image is one thing and the human being is another. It’s very hard to live up to an image, put it that way.” ― Elvis Presley

There’s a fundamental difference between the way that people perceive the man, and the way the man perceives the people. This is not a reciprocal relationship—it’s one-way. We can see that there’s an illusion of connection: this is the driving force behind the phenomenon of celebrity. Only now, celebrity has met with the technology that allows it to reach its full commercial and social potential.

The reason we’re so interested in celebrity is quite simple: we aren’t one.
They illuminate the central conflict of experience: though we know we are insignificant in the grand scheme of things (sorry for the reminder), we have no way of observing the world in a way which reflects that fact. We only know the world in first person; the ‘subjective centrality’ of our lives is in direct opposition with our objective insignificance. Celebrities are a way of managing this troubling truth, because the illusion of connection makes us feel we know them intimately as no other does—but, in the back of our minds, we know that everybody thinks this.

The figure of the celebrity shapes, on the one hand, the social consciousness: it is both a product of and producer of the society of which it is a part. That is to say, it is born of the media and, once born, sustains that very same media by the content it produces as it vies for relevance. Though I’m sceptical of blindly following Marshall McLuhan’s dictum ‘the medium is the message’ (well, yes, but come on, people do say things, don’t they? There’s content in what they say?), I think in this case it might hold. The very existence of an article about a celebrity demonstrates their presence – and that we should talk about them. McLuhan exemplifies this through the idea of a public opinion poll, which both gauges what that opinion is, but also proves that there is a public opinion in the first place. A magazine article does the same thing for celebrity.

The celebrity also sustains the individual, with what, in some cases, may be false nourishment. People absorbing media —believing in both the idea of media and in what it says— is what sustains it. A young girl might think: “if that video says this about Miley Cyrus, it must be true, and I ought to copy her because everyone likes her—otherwise the video wouldn’t have been made— and that’ll help me to fit in with everyone else”. She would then keep absorbing media in order to get more information, and the cycle continues because the media outlet will fabricate content which matches the image of the star to keep selling. As she absorbs it, she changes her behaviour: in this way celebrity becomes a yardstick, an ‘other’ around which to construct ourselves.

**Byron brooding** ‘George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron’ by Richard Westall

There used to be a subtle depth to celebrity: take Byron, for instance, or Liszt—essentially the rockstars of their ages, known from afar. People talked about them; they speculated, word of mouth and rumour accumulated with the force of avalanches, and their legends spread. But the modes of reproduction couldn’t circulate masses of information about them; media was limited in time, space, and, through censors, even in content. Thus, it was always a one-way connection, which allowed no mistake: you couldn’t really imagine Byron was talking back to you or played any role in your life. He was merely a symbol. He may as well have been fictional.

Technology developed, and these mediated representations of a person drew closer and closer to what looked like reality—but was actually a rather a meagre construction of it. The illusion of connectivity grew and where there is a feeling of emotional investment, so come the Omnipotent Forces of Moneys to profit from that emotion. America, predictably, led the way in this, and Hollywood became a factory of images.

Now we come back to Elvis. If we note, though, the past tense, the sort of wistful tone of Brown and Springsteen, we see that they’re reliving what they used to think. Any magic that used to hang over Elvis like a halo has dissipated to some extent, because at this point, they too are famous.

They were once like us. (I say ‘us’ assuming you’re not famous.) When they become like Elvis, the intoxicating thing about him—the strange oscillation between his distance and his closeness to them—loses its power. The twentieth century, a time of exploding advancement, of television, of broadcasting, was a breeding ground for feelings of closeness with people who existed worlds away. So frequent and intense did intrusions of media into daily life become that, I would argue, an illusion of ‘two-way’ connection emerged. This connection needs to be illusory; if you actually become friends with a celebrity, and develop a real two-way connection, then you become interested in them in a completely different way.

The illusion of two-way connection creates a real sense of inspiration which shapes the way we think about ourselves. Psychologists call it ‘motivation by association.’ “If this man Elvis can do it, then so can I.” Of course, everybody else had the same access to him. The more media outlets, though, and the more there was a more regular sense of his face and voice being seen and heard everywhere, the greater was the feeling that one was ‘plugged-in’ to a direct line to Elvis—and wouldn’t we all just love one of those.

Celebrities became symbols of themselves—plus something else, something powerful. The frameworks of mediated representation—the four sides of the TV and the billboard, the bandwidths of the radio—infused their personality with an extra mystique. The difference between Marilyn Monroe and Byron was that Monroe was that much more in the public eye. Paradoxically, the more she is presented, the more she becomes flat: the more the public feels they know everything about her.

Pregnant Kim Kardashian, Image Rights: Larry Busacca (CC-BY-NC-SA-2.0)

Here we reach the present day —yes, I’m going to talk about ‘influencers.’ Their goal is to create the ultimate ‘two-way’ connection, something that was previously impossible. They can literally interact with fans. The product is now synonymous with the advertisement, because, as mentioned, a celebrity is both a product of and a reproducer of a commercial society. The celebrity can now directly sell their personality to brands.

With respect to the ‘flatness’ and ‘depth’ which I’ve mentioned, I’d say that the modern celebrity now appears to be completely flat, which is where their new interest and marketability comes from. If we take the Kardashians, who are nothing if not ‘known for their knownness’—having very little to actually make them famous (well)—we feel we completely understand them. I’m not saying that there isn’t more to them than what Keeping Up with the Kardashians and Instagram present, but the illusion which reality television casts is one of a perfect facsimile of the Kardashians’ lives. The show requires us to believe that we’re seeing everything, even though that may not be the case.

Unlike in Byron’s time, the media is no longer restricted by platform or by time and space. Social media eliminates those limitations. Internet influencers are closer to us than any stranger has ever been. Imagining that we’re able to see everything in the Kardashians’ lives makes us aware of their similarity to us, but also highlights their differences. We like watching (bear with me even if you don’t) because we see distant lives of glitz and glamour; but then, we also know they are only people, because we’ve watched their children grow up. They are similar, therefore relatable; but their otherness also makes us feel we are more, counters our insignificance, because we define ourselves against them: “I’m more than that. I’ve got more nuance than that.”

The Kardashians and the internet celebrities have weaponised personality. They harness the potential of the media to beam a commercialised, cultivated image of themselves straight into our everyday lives; it is all the more powerful because we actively choose to follow them. And we choose to follow them because other people follow them; it is only the technology that has changed. They are free to perform relatability; brands love it because it automatically inserts their product into the everyday life of an audience.

So, things have changed. Celebrities used to be used to be symbols. Now they rely on seeming completely and utterly themselves, on creating the illusion (is it an illusion?) of a two-way relationship. This, if it is nothing else, is the most powerful commercial model yet. How long will it last? Will they always seem so authentic? Or perhaps they’re more like Alexander McQueen’s piece depicting Kate Moss, from his 2006 ‘Widows of Culloden’ show in Paris—a hologram, strangely close and ever, ever distant.

Alexander McQueen’s hologram of Kate Moss

UrbanObserver

Oxford's oldest independent student newspaper, est. 1920