Flicking Through

Any gallery display that has the title, ‘How We Are’ would be failing in its duty if it didn’t reflect the British sense of humour. Tate Britain’s current photographic exhibition is ultimately successful in depicting our love of a laugh, but it is a slow build-up as the first room is crammed with images of Queen Victoria and numerous other subjects who are not amused. It is, however, always engaging.

The 19th century camera was far from ideal for capturing fleeting expressions of character and the only people with enough space in their diaries to pose were the upper-classes. Consequently, the initial images give the impression that early cameras could capture the moustache, but not the chin. Moreover, it is not until the models start to believe the photographer’s assertions that the contraption won’t explode that we see anything resembling emotion. However as the room progresses, the variety of faces from Britain’s pre-laughter era slowly increases. The poses remain stern but they start to suggest that the subject has a pulse, and, towards the end of the room, there is the first of many examples of our fancy for dressing-up.

The room climaxes with Hugh Diamond’s photos and his collection seems to delineate the moment when the camera captured more than just stoical faces. Unfortunately, the subjects are ‘insane’. They are predominantly women, presumably institutionalised because they were capable of more than one facial expression. How times change. If they were banged up in the Big Brother house, they would be voted off for their inability to emote.

The second room covers the early part of the 20th century, leading to the end of the First World War. The photograph is increasingly used for political purposes and there are some interesting shots of the Suffragettes: the images from the criminal record office proved to be an effective recruitment tool to their cause, a reminder that images can have a power beyond their original intention. This theme is explored further with the arrival of the snapshot camera and the democratisation of photography: a child’s confused face, once just a picture in a family album is now, on the gallery wall, part of a living history.

As the exhibition evolves into its third room, there is a sense that the establishment has cottoned onto the image’s power to manipulate the viewer’s emotions. In the preceding room, the brutal, shocking images of the First World War were damaging to the nation’s perception of itself. However, the shots from the Second World War are largely cosy, such as the one of an injured, but un-bloodied, serviceman being safely loaded onto a biplane by serene members of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. The epitome is probably the collection by Captain Alfred George Burkham. His aerial photos of the Thames are inspiring, but look as authentic as the climax of the original King Kong.

One pin prick to the bubble created by the clean-cut, wartime images is the row of Percy Hennell photos. They are of plastic surgery patients from the RAF hospital. The images are arresting, disturbing, and an effective counterpoint to the propaganda.

The twenty five years following the Second World War is the focus of the 4th room and it provides an interesting snapshot of the nation’s changing focus. There is a prevalence of rural photographs from the 1940s which are highly similar to those of the 19th century. It is as if professional photographers (or, the organisers of the exhibition) were aware of the nation’s need for reminders of simpler times, to help forge on and blank out the war’s blitzed city aftermath. Although it is predominantly an exhibition of urban landscapes, there are regular reminders of the role of the countryside in forming the national psyche.

The gallery traces the hangover of war and the growing aspirations of Britain in the fifties. The people are in these images are fed up with the ‘make do and mend’ movement and fully embrace the decade’s Mark’s and Spark’s revolution. There is innocence on display, captured by Charlie Phillips’ inter-racial shots of Notting Hill, and they are a reminder of a time when we would socialise in the street. There are no shots of the area’s riots in 1958, but neither are there any of the following year’s carnival. These images highlight history by showing ordinary people, living through it, not making it.

The next room, 1970-1990, highlights the growth of possibilities for a career in photography, as professionals pursued more than just studio portraiture. With the rise of Thatcherism, a lot of them found a market for photographic satire. There are plenty of shots of offices but it is a hilarious quartet of images called, ‘Looking for Love’ that provides the essence of the exhibition.

It documents the opening of Britain’s first disco-pub and features four couples coming together on the dance floor. The first three images offer a pair about to embark on their first kiss. Trepidation and uncertainty colour their faces as they fumble forwards, dancers of insecurity and nerves. The final shot features two young men hugging each other and they look ecstatic.

It’s a penetrating collection of images because it illustrates the fear of embarrassment and then contrasts it with matey, drunken belonging. It nails the theme of self-consciousness, present throughout the exhibition. Seemingly, if we are to enjoy the company of our fellow Brits, we have to be in work, in costume or intoxicated.

What else could explain the ‘Horn Dancers’, a picture of three 19th century sourpusses, seemingly dressed for a frat party, snapped by Benjamin Stone? It’s the perfect image to comprehend how eccentricity can be born from the anxious need to structure time. In some ways, the costume is a comfort uniform: it helps us to avoid that difficult nonsense of, ‘What do you, then?’ and we cannot be accused of making a scene when we are dressed in clothes fit for the stage.

The exhibition concludes with images taking us into the 21st century but still avoids depiction of celebrity and focuses on changing landscapes. Some of the images from the last ten years highlight the process of Americanisation. Multiplexes, shopping malls and industrial complexes are leaping up in the hinterland between town and country. It is almost as if the pioneer spirit is at its most conquering when presented with land that most closely resembles a prairie.

At one of its final points, the exhibition invites visitors to contribute their own photographs to a gallery, where it will be displayed at Tate Britain, Tate Online and The Observer’s web-site. If interested there are further details here.

It is a project to be encouraged because the exhibition works as a comprehensive family album of Britain and it should be expanded. The shared history resonates and thickens the blood. When you see images of people laughing, holding their hats, on the beach at Blackpool, it doesn’t matter if you have never seen the place; you will have been through a similar experience and sent the saucy postcard. In some ways, it is eerie, like seeing one of your facial expressions on a photo of your grandfather; but, when that passes, you feel connected, amused and proud. Maybe even a tad self-conscious. It’s a poignant experience, as it always is when you open the family album.

Teddybook

Imaginary friends are making an uncharacteristic toddle into the limelight. Apparently, they are highly beneficial to a child's imagination and development.

I sometimes wonder whether blogging is the similar behaviour in adults.

Typing away in a world of one's own seems dangerously close to Big Bird claiming another sighting of Mr Snuffleupugus.

But I'm not sure.

What do you think Mr Herbert?

Quotations about poker.

From The Independent's guide book to the game:

Poker is as elaborate waste of human intelligence as you could find outside an advertising agency.

Raymond Chandler

Poker reveals to the frank observer something else of import - it will teach him about his own nature. Many bad players do not improve because they cannot bear self-knowledge.

David Mamet

Poker is a microcosm of all we admire and disdain about capitalism and democracy. It can be rough-hewn or polished, warm or cold, charitable and caring, or hard and impersonal, fickle and elusive, but ultimately it is fair, and right, and just.

Lou Krieger

Poker may be a branch of psychological warfare, an art form or indeed a way of life - but is also a game, in which money is simply the means of keeping score.

Anthony Holden.

Serious poker is no more about gambling than rock climbing is about taking risks.

Alfred Alvarez

Is it a reasonable thing, I ask you, for a grown man to run about and hit a ball? Poker's the only game fit for a grown man. Then, your hand is against every man's, and every man's is against yours. Teamwork? Who ever made a fortune by teamwork? There's only one way to make a fortune, and that's to down the fellow who's up against you.

W. Somerset Maugham

Stop Press!

Eyebrows is honoured to have a guest contributor!

Joey Barton, the recently re-bailed critic and professional footballer, continues his annual appraisal of the summer books.

Here, he offers his insights on the publishing event of the year, the release of 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows*'.

Without further ado, Joey - from the 'ead, son:

"I was a kid. I went to school. It had magic and I had adventures. Here are my books."

So there we have it.

Frank Lampard, writer, home movie enthusiast and weight-watcher, was not available for comment as he refused to leave the comfort of the bathroom cabinet.

We had arranged to have the thoughts of David James, artist, model and environmental activist, but, unfortunately, there was an incident in his local Waterstone's which has left him hospitalised. Trying to bypass the queue, his son threw him a copy of the hardback from the corner of the shop and the player is now receiving treatment for a suspected fractured metatarsal.

In an ironic twist, he is unable to read the book during his hospital stay as medical staff have strapped his hands in an attempt to limit any further injury.

*Any readers who suspect this suspiciously timed post is a cynical attempt to increase the blog's Google hits are hereby accused of not learning the moral lessons of the HARRY POTTER series, written by J.K ROWLING, and adapted into films starring DANIEL RADCLIFFE.

Who needs jackets when you have potatoes?

There is a memorable scene in Mike Newell’s film ‘Donnie Brasco’. Johnny Depp plays the eponymous undercover FBI agent, who has surfaced to give his colleagues the wiretap recordings of his life in the mob. Fascinated by the lingo of the crew, one of desk bound agents asks about ‘forgeddaboutit’, the second most common word on the tapes. Depp, replete in gangster chic and cooling his forehead with a can of beer, says it can mean, “Go to hell”, “I agree with you”, “I disagree with you” but, sometimes, it just means “forgeddaboutit”.*

In the four years my flatmate and I have shared together, the term, ‘your friend’, has reached a similar status. If forgeddaboutit is a diverse shibboleth in the arena of racketeering, extortion and usury, for us, ‘your friend’, performs the same function in the world of quaffing, pasta-boiling and sink scrubbing.

First deployed, I think, by me, it has proved to be an example of evolution as much as the variation in beak sizes on the Galapagos Islands that prompted Charlie ‘The Beard’ Darwin to crack open the notebooks and scribble his way into history.

Real friends or, mates, often arrive at the flat and sense how ‘The Beard’ must have felt. Sea-sick with excitement, they often flaunt their tonsils when they first hear the shared shorthand. When they need to rush off to suddenly remembered engagements, it is because they have glimpsed the future and they are intimidated. If we occasionally have to eat more of the prepared food due to their unforeseen departure then that is just one belly promoting consequence of our communication evolution.

Originally, The Term, simply referred to ‘the one in the bar that smiles when she serves you lager’. It was unsophisticated and now seems as laughable as eighties’ mobile phones. Its original purpose survived for six months until, in a moment now shrouded in history, my flatmate used it to crack wise. Out with a group of friends, (crucially not ‘your friends’) he took me to one side.

He said “I see your friend is working tonight.”

Dumbfounded and impressed, as there had been no sightings for an age, I managed to splutter, “What? She’s back? You mean the Polish girl?”

He sipped on a beer.

“No”

“I mean the Polish girl’s boyfriend.”

If, to the casual reader, the above does not appear to be the height of comedy, I can only say, that night was not one of easy slumber for Groucho Marx. I expect soon, very soon, to be contacted by Malcolm Gladwell, author of ‘The Tipping Point’.

Since That Moment, The Term has proved Its versatility in the unforgiving theatre that is male conversational bonding. Now, It can mean a person glimpsed on Clapham high street; or her ambling companion, nervously avoiding the cracks in the pavement whilst trying to read her own palm; or someone who may, years ago, served frappacinos in a vaguely flirtatious manner in a venue frequented once on a trip to Basingstoke; or her father; or a lass ‘your dad’ might consider sleeping with (‘your dad’ denotes not, as the converted may have gathered, the other’s father, but a nearby gentleman who, usually, has found himself free from the constraints of bricks ‘n mortar, and whose fingers enjoy the texture of brown paper). It goes on and on and on.

It is a conversational journey. Some critics may suggest Its significance in the flat provides incontestable evidence of arrested development and wonder if we wear swaddling. Those bozos could never be a friend of ours. We may not be living the life where everything we want is a phone call away (unless everything is defined as vegetable-free food) and it may seem like we a couple of schnooks making a pansy-assed attempt to talk-the-talk, but without It, life would be duller, our speech more leaden, our friendship more formal. We’d be a couple of regular Johnny Tescos.

It’s us or them, and if your friend doesn’t understand, forgeddaboutit.


*Not to be confused with a scene from ‘Mickey Blue Eyes’, the title of which is missing, somewhere, another word beginning with F.

Skilled 21st Century Human

Whilst not condoning the severe breach of professional ethics and only commenting because there is a healthy distance from events, I do think this guy must be quite a character:

'A German therapist stands accused of taking advantage of a female patient with a split personality - by using one alter ego for sex, another to clean and a third to give him money.'

I hope he stays away from poker.

A quick post to recommend ' Big Babies, Or: Why Can’t We Just Grow Up?', Michael Bywater's book about how culture is becoming more and more infantile. He argues that the Baby-Boomers are in control and they are committed to perpetual infantility. As a result, the rest of us become Big Babies.

At times, it's a bit repetitive and he's prone to ranting, but the writing is always first class. It's also short and he's a gifted comedian.

Here he is on the ubiquity of adverts:

'we would be advised not to linger too long over our lovemaking, in case an advertiser sneaks in through the window and glues an ad to our arse'

On the trend to home entertainment:

'Interesting to see how, for example, Blockbuster Video attempts to synthesise the old cinema-going experience with its sacraments of popcorn and coke, both served in a bucket; perhaps they should also sell urinal cakes for that authentic movie-theatre smell and, ideally, you should, for a premium, be able to hire a pervert who would creep in, sit next to you and put your hand on his thing.'

He is not the only voice on this topic but he's one of the most entertaining.

'As far as I'm concerned, progress peaked with frozen pizza'

Bruce Willis has said ‘Hair loss is God’s way of telling me that I’m human’. Presumably, sequels are God’s way of telling the rest of us that we are sheep, but it’s no time to ponder as Bruce is back in ‘Die Hard 4.0’. Combined with the recent ‘Rocky Balboa’, and the forthcoming Rambo movie, it is clearly time to be reminded that important deeds can be still performed by aging, multi-millionaire owners of a novelty restaurant chain. At least Sly and Brucie haven’t gone into politics.

When Willis’ New York cop John McClane appeared in 1988, he described himself as, ‘The monkey in the wrench.’ After 19 years, much has changed, but we can take comfort from the fact that John ‘still has his moments’, although he’s less prone to promoting vest awareness.

This time, all he has to do, is pick up a kid and drop him off to the FBI. ‘How hard can that be, huh?’ The lad is Justin Long, an actor touching 30, but with a boyish face and thus in need of mentoring. He plays a hacker, and when his apartment is hit by serious looking chaps with rocket launchers, SMGs and leather jackets, we are fired into a plot based on cyber-terrorism.

Real life terrorist movements are often amorphous, dispersed into the community and lack handy, cackling protagonist types, but rather than tackle any of that difficult bollocks, ‘Die Hard 4.0’ simply puts Timothy Olyphant in a van, tucks in his shirt and scripts lines like, ‘You don’t know what I am capable of’. It’s pure Hollywood fundamentalism. He’s aided by some disturbed lackeys that appear to have swapped the joys of acrobatics for those of power inputting, and they type ’n tumble their way through the dastardly scheme.

Evil Tim’s love interest is provided by Maggie Q, who has said,

‘I'm just totally into being strong. There's something about wanting to get a jar out of a cupboard, or moving a sofa and not having to call for help. There's comfort in that’

so this time, Bruce is really up against it.

To criticise a Die Hard movie for lacking an intelligent plot is like attacking ‘Tom and Jerry’ for not tackling the plight of domestic cats. Director Len Wiseman, fresh from offering Kate Beckinsale his hand in marriage, proves capable of providing well choreographed action thrills, which, had the palette been more colourful, would not look out of place in The Simpson’s movie.

It’s silly and best seen in a packed cinema, full of enthusiastic drunkards, who are happy to indulge in ‘let’s kick some ass’ whooping. It’s insane, with the character development of a video game and the dialogue is instantly forgettable but, when the action is moving, it’s a riot. The tagline of the original was, ‘It will blow you out of theatre!’ Today, those words are as likely to be seen on a promotional poster as a ciggy in a snug, but we can still join Bruce for some passive smirking.

A Guy Walks Out of the Psychiatrist's Office

SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING!

This post is about the climax to 'The Sopranos' and will wreck your enjoyment if you have not yet watched it.

If the above applies, please do not read any further as the ending is best experienced with as little information as possible.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The edition of ‘The Commercial Appeal’, a Memphis daily, printed on 17/08/77, had a headline, “‘Are you sure there’s no mistake?’

– The Desired Answer Never Came.”

30 years ago, the reaction to the death of ‘The King’ was similar to the audience’s response to the climax of ‘The Sopranos’. Its final episode, ‘Made In America’, provided no gift-wrapped resolution and provoked a range of emotional responses from viewers. At first, shock and disbelief reigned. Some threatened to cancel their subscription to HBO, the cable company that had provided their Sunday ritual of family belonging.

Things like the end of important TV shows or the death of rock gods should not happen like this. Tony, like Elvis, was, ‘the sort of god the public wants today. He was overweight, he dressed out of date and he took too many prescription drugs, just like us.’ The end left us, in the words of Soprano crew member Paulie Walnuts, ‘halfway up the ass’.

The previous episode, ‘The Blue Comet’, featured an escalation of the war between Jersey and New York. It ended with Tony holed up in a safe house, gun by his side, trying to fall asleep on an uncovered mattress. Seemingly, some kind of catharsis beckoned.

‘Made In America’ brilliantly continued the tension. Tony, the family-oriented everyman, fills the frame, sleeping, looking like he’s dead. His day begins, like it does for most of us: bleary-eyed, momentarily confused and irritated by media intrusion. The difference, and the dramatic imperative, provided by the bedside instrument of death. The scene evoked Lester Burnham’s comment in ‘American Beauty’, “Remember those posters that said, ‘Today is the first day of the rest of your life?’ Well, that’s true of every day except one. The day you die.”

It was the springboard for 60 minutes of anticipation, paranoia and suspense. Throughout, the creator, David Chase, manipulated the audience and played with its studio-led perceptions of a series finale. The first major scene was a tense, delayed meeting at an airport, which featured an image of Tony, caught in headlights, looking vulnerable. FBI Agent Harris had been responding to a false alarm, a recurrent theme throughout the episode.

We’d been set-up to believe Tony might be killed by one of his own men, an informer for the FBI, a rat. Instead, the scene in the safe-house just had a comment about a stray cat killing a mouse in the cellar. Tony’s depressed son, AJ, fresh out of a suicide treatment centre, parks his SUV on some leaves that are set alight by the heat of the vehicle. Smoke creeps into the car, just as he is about to have sex with his girlfriend. They survive but the SUV explodes, its CD player choked on Dylan singing, ‘Life goes on all around you’.

The mob war between Jersey and New York is resolved without major escalation - there is hardly a raised voice at the sit-down. Later, there is a scene of great tension as Paulie arrives at the strip-club to meet a henchman, Carlo, and we expect blood to spill. Instead, the finger on the trigger becomes the thumb on the phone.

And so it goes on. The crew’s lawyer, Mink, tries to cover his burger with ketchup. Frustrated by his attorney’s clapping noises, Tony tries his hand, but has to throw the bottle away in disgust. Even he couldn’t supply the free flowing red stuff.

So, after fifty five minutes of confusion and misdirection, we are led to the final scene, following Tony as he enters the ice cream parlour. It’s five minutes of brilliantly sustained tension and paranoia.

For a peerless breakdown of the scene’s symbolism, I strongly recommend this excellent post by Bob Harris. It is an extremely thorough analysis of the events and his construction is faultless. He provides a step by step explanation as to why it points to death and a funeral. He begins with the comment from an earlier episode, by Bobby Baccalieri, Tony’s brother-in-law, ‘you probably don’t even hear it when it happens’.

He then mentions the framing of the shot that references ‘The Last Supper’. He also points out that from the moment the guy in the ‘Member’s Only’ jacket (‘when you put it on, something happens’) enters the parlour Chase frequently has him in the frame. The jacket’s trip to the bathroom is a reference to ‘The Godfather’ and the film’s ‘Sollozo’ murder was Tony’s favourite scene.

Bob makes plenty of other points, all valid, that illustrate Chase was foretelling death. My favourite is the onion rings: they are eaten like communion wafers. Whilst in no way denying that many indicators could point to Tony’s death, most of the scenes throughout the episode did not reach the obvious conclusion.

I appreciate David Chase has said, of the climax:

‘Anybody who wants to watch it, it's all there’,

which strongly suggests a definite ending.

However, he has also said:

‘I don’t think art should give answers. I think art should only raise questions, a lot of which may be even dissonant and you don’t even know you’re being asked a question, but that it creates some kind of tension inside you’.

Admittedly, although extremely appropriate for his show’s climax, it was not a direct reference to 'The Sopranos'. This, however, is:

‘This is what Hollywood has done to America. Do you have to have closure on every little thing? Isn't there any mystery in the world? In life, you don't get an ending to every story. You can't tie a little ribbon on everything and say it's over. And yeah, I know...'The Sopranos isn't life.' But it's based on it!'

The series has always reflected American life, so it is appropriate, during a time, ‘where people might be terrorists, or they could be pistachio salesmen’, there is an uncertain ending to the show. To conclude that Tony is popped is to neglect the possibility he looks up and sees Meadow, his daughter. In its final moment, Chase gives us the dominant theme of The Sopranos (and all great art): love and death. To have a debate about which interpretation is more valid is as inappropriate as unleashing an Alsatian in a graveyard.

The last five minutes does suggest death, but I think it is the audience who is 86-ed. It is our time that is over. It also highlights our dependency on television. Even for a show that frequently features characters passively watching screens, ‘Made in America’, has an abundance of scenes depicting people gawping at images.

It has: a monitor showing Bobby Baccalieri’s tombstone; Tony’s crew killing time with ‘The Twilight Zone’; Agent Harris absorbing a broadcast about fundamentalism; Mink peeping at the strippers displayed on the monitors at the ‘Bing’; a screen depicting a heart beat; Tony sees ‘Little Miss Sunshine’; and finally AJ, (‘He used to just veg in front of that TV’) seemingly cured of his depression by watching an explosion, laughing at the dancing Bush. We are constantly reminded of the presence of screens and passive experiences.

We were the tourists on the bus leaving Little Italy. We, like New York mobster, Butch, found ourselves, confused, in Chinatown, wondering where our world has gone. He turns back. We cannot. For ten seconds, we are the cat, transfixed, looking at a screen of death. Chase cut off our life support. We didn’t hear it when it happened.

Desperate, in a shocked state, we found ourselves, (like the characters throughout 'The Sopranos') in denial, trying to create more bearable alternatives: ‘I saw the Meadow ending. It may as well be ‘ELVIS LIVES!’. Jolted out of existence, we expected answers from the puppet-master. Many found themselves at the Pearly Gates of the HBO web-site, clamouring for information, crashing it in the process, learning only that the American creator was not there, he was not in heaven.

He was in France.

Chase has argued that network TV drama is like religion: it offers the same message every week and people find that reassuring. The ending of 'The Sopranos' removes that comfort zone and pops the viewers’ belief system. We will not always be reassured by life, or our philosophies or, shock, our TVs.

Even Bart Simpson realised this:

‘If TV has taught me anything, it’s that miracles always happen to poor kids at Christmas.’ [Later] ‘It seems impossible, but I guess TV has betrayed me.’

With the prevalence of TV sets, it is impossible not to sympathise with Bart. As Michael Bywater puts it in his book, ‘Big Babies, Or Why Can’t We Just Grow Up?’,

‘There is television in taxis now because our minds need to be distracted from being in a taxi, in the world, in the street. And we can’t turn it off. There is no way to turn it off.’

David Chase did turn it off. By ending our existence in 'The Sopranos', he challenged our faith in conventional narrative, our expectation that ‘this is how things are’. Sometimes, the desired answer does not come. It doesn’t matter whether we believe in this:

or this







or this:





there will always be uncertainty. We can only count on death. We left 'The Sopranos' as we will probably leave this earth: wanting more and never knowing, specifically, what happens next. We spent time with a family, we loved them, we were annoyed by them, they made us laugh, they shocked us, but most of the time we were comfortable in their company. Now we are left ‘in a lonely place’.

We had family. Redefined. Now we just have