Alexander McQueen: Why I'll Miss Him

Alexander McQueen. High Heeled Shoe 2009

By whatshewears

Flickr Creative Commons

The death of Alexander Lee McQueen so shocked and upset and touched me that I left my deadlines to spend an hour or so that evening setting up a post, just a few pix, to express my feelings.

Next morning I took it down.  "What am I thinking?" I thought.  What exactly are my feelings?

You see, my formative years were spent in the women’s liberation movement, which still has a beating heart.  We had then, and still have, concerns about the objectification of women.  And here I am, wanting to comment on the death of someone who made his living by objectifying womanhood, if not women themselves, sometimes in the most extreme ways.  I cannot let that go by me.  I have to interrogate myself on that one, I thought.

He was at the pinnacle of a profession about which one must ask questions, and he seemed to be asking them.  Nevertheless, he was hailed as a genius by even its silliest propagandists, sycophants and hangers-on, those one would most want to question, as well as by its serious and thoughtful adherents. Did they not see the questions, or where the questions not there?  Did they not see the anger? I am quite perplexed.

So today I have to spend another hour thinking about that, sorting it out and re-posting.

Now (full disclosure), I am not a fashionista, or even minimally fashionable, come to that. Those who know me might chortle at the thought.  I don’t read the magazines that peddle destructive fantasies to women, nor even flick through them in waiting rooms. All that stuff made me very unhappy once, and I totally reject the rampant consumerism that they promote.  Today I dress for comfort not for speed.

But fashion is not simply clothing (and perhaps on the catwalk its not even clothing), its also art and creativity,  and something about this guy's work got to me.  There is social commentary,  less widely noted than the brilliance and originality of his styling, but the fact that it reached me, about as far from the fashion world as it is possible to get, is evidence in itself of the power of the message, whatever it is.

His work is very, very edgy: teetering like his models at the boundaries of composure, terror, glamour, melancholia, sexuality, the macabre, the sweet and the terribly painful. This teetering is interesting in itself: he manages to convey so much contradiction and complexity, to use the extremes of his industry to criticize it, and to suggest, more than suggest, that things are not quite right, not as they aught to be. 

He was part of Claire Wilcox' hugely successful exhibition on “Radical Fashion” at the Victoria and Albert Museum for the Decorative Arts, way back in 2002.  His models were in glass cages, and thousands of moths were released   Moths?  *blinks rapidly*!  Talk about a many-layered metaphor!

And take a look at this little number, that is so sweet and lovely in concept, and yet so strangely armoured and tense in execution, so threatening.  There's a dissonance there: hard to define, but definitely there, I think. That is what he does - makes you feel uncertain.  And yet a beautiful dress, beautifully made.

And then there are those astonishing shoes of his.  So incredibly extreme and high and sexy, so odd, so puzzling, so outrageous and glamorous, but at the same time so downright ugly, and hinting at disablement: the club foot, the bound foot, limitations in mobility. And talk about teetering ….

 

 Dazed and Confused Magazine.  October 2009

Downloaded from Flickr

....  hints of stilts, the circus, the illusion, the freak show....

This video is fascinating.  I hope you have time to view it.  Its of his last  show, for Spring 2010.  Maybe you saw it streamed live, in itself an innovation.

In stark contrast to the lovely, feminine and familiar McQueen silhouettes, the parallel (literally) between the models and the cameras (or are they machine tools?), different kinds of automata, each on their respective runways, endlessly mirrored in the backdrop, is shocking, isn't it? And perfectly clear.  It's actually a terrifying image of  the self-absorbed, self-referential elements of the fashion industry, isn't it?

And what about the lightly reptilian fabric, and the distinctly reptilian hair-dos, and the stalking gait of the models, forced on them by the shoes? Combine this with the predatory silhouette of the cameras, like a couple of praying mantis: and we all know what praying mantis do with their own, with those they "love".

And what about this one?  The machine tools, this time spray guns, actually attack the model innocently pirouetting between them in her flouncy white dress.  It's very beautiful and original, and got thunderous applause, but it looks like a gang rape, or at least an absolutely devastating hissy fit.




I know nothing of the theory of fashion, nor much about McQueen or his life, so I should not, but I do, dare to comment: there is something about his attention to both the beauty and the horror of fashion that is important, as well as arresting.  He was angry, in fact I think he was deeply angry, and he was asking very big questions about his industry, from deep within it.

Not questions about the objectification of women, perhaps,  more about the cruelty and rapaciousness of the fashion/entertainment world, and perhaps also, by implication, the society of which it is the expression. This last is perhaps not impossible, although the focus was  clearly his love-hate relationship with the fashion world.

And now it is all in the past. And we are left with an enigma, and the awful tragedy of genius dying way too early.

And, sadly, yet another disturbing example of the fashion industry not looking after its own, even its greatest.

And I'll miss him: he had serious things to say.

Alexander McQueen 1969-2010

By Po Li

Flickr Creative Commons

History of the World in 100 Objects

Am I alone in thinking that the sub-text of the rather fabulous BBC/British Museum radio series / media extravaganza "History of the World in 100 Objects" is actually the text?

I haven’t seen a single comment on its lightly argued position that the loot in the BM should stay there, and I’m feeling pretty lonely.

It’s a terrific programme.  Fifteen minutes of un-missable delight every week-day, as one selected object from the past, and its historical implications, are described by the highly-regarded Director of the British Museum, the brilliant, unassuming and engaging, if hubristic, Dr. Neil MacGregor.

Go to the websites, both of them, (BBC and British Museum) see the objects, get the podcasts, upload your own historical object, be a part of emerging intellectual history.     You can listen to the story while looking at the object, brush-stoke close if you want to. New technologies are yielding new insights from old objects, and the latest multi-media communications bring it all alive. 

But there's a bit of a whiff in the air ....

For starters, under all this wonderfulness, its pretty weird, isn’t it,  that all the objects in a programme about world history are in one place:  London.

I mean, seriously, WTF??

And they’re not only in one place: they’re in one institution – the British Museum.

And we all know how all this stuff got there, some of it paid for, some of it not. That world historical process we call colonialism.  Which denied people their own history.

It's almost too obvious to mention, but on the other hand, should we be dazzled into overlooking it? That's the point.

So even while I’m hearing all this terrific stuff about how multi-faceted history is, and how connected we all are, I can’t help remembering that much of the evidence got there through that kind of connectedness we call exploitation.


And precisely because they are there, Dr. MacGregor feels that: "a world narrative can only be told in a museum like this".  Only? (emphasis mine)  If we want to have "world" history, it seems, we have to overlook the rather mixed provenance of the objects: the other history embedded in them.


Here's how the argument goes.  We can understand  world history more easily if, for example , we check out the Elgin Parthenon Marbles and then pop down the corridor and see the Persian sculptures, because Greece and Persia were at war at the time, and we can make a comparison.  

This is true, very true.  And its certainly a very nice thing to be able to do,  if you can, if you happen to be in London, and so much easier for the scholers than having to schlep around all over the place.  But its not the only way to get a handle on world history.  It's not necessary to an understanding of world history.


And how much better if we could look out from their beautiful new museum in Athens and see their original location in the Parthenon itself, and then stroll over and make a comparison with the footworn stones that were there when the marbles were first carved,  and sit on the warm stones in the agora and think about the kind of society that produced both the marbles and democracy, right there where you are sitting.  Feel the heat.  Hear the cicadas, that were also here when the marbles were.  Get a real sense of the place of these marbles in history.  

Through all the multi-media glitz of this glamorous tour de force, the deep message is that it’s OK for us to have hijacked their history because (only) we can tell it as world history, and tell it better.


Bejabers, that’s hubris, if ever I heard it !!

Me, I think its time for the formerly colonized peoples to have their own damn things back, if they want them, and tell their own history.

Then some-one could make a block-buster series about that, and how the objects  transformed knowledge generation in their own communities.  Now that would really be world knowledge.

That would be a great sequel.  

Love it.

Elgin Marbles by Chris Devers

Downloaded from Flickr under Creative Commons.

Rosetta Stone

And in case we forget, it’s not only the objects from places like Greece and Egypt that matter, where their governments have made a high-profile effort to get them back.

My friend Leone Ross, the brilliant Jamiacan/British novelist and short story writer, has reminded me that there are plenty of people who bitterly wish they could take back their things when they go into museums, even if their governments havn't made a big show about it, and I can well understand the sentiment.

That makes this particular representation of “world” history seem pretty much a masquerade, doesn’t it?  Pretty darn hollow?

Here’s what I think should happen: there should be a world network of, say, 100 museums, big and small  (especially small), that are collectively, jointly, presenting a holistic view of world history, with the originals where they belong, and copies elsewhere.  We have the technology to make perfect copies now,  and all the networking bells and whistles to bring it alive.

That would be world history.  That would be context.  I think the public would be delighted, and everyone's bottom lines would benefit.  Terrific idea!

I'm hoping that someone more in the loop on these things than me can tell me its already in the works. 

That’s the way to go.  It would be hard to arrange, but would make a cosmic world-class multi-media blockbuster. 

Love it.

 

Mooretown Museum, Jamaica.  By Wayne Gunne

Dedicated to Nanny, a Maroon Heroin, who defended her people right here in this valley.

Downloaded from Flickr under Creative Commons License

The Gift

I'm still deep in deadline management (see last post), but can't resist this quotation, courtesy of the always interesting Diet Iced Me.

“ …The task of setting free one’s gifts was a recognized labor in the ancient world. The Romans called a person’s tutelar spirit his (sic) genius. In Greece it was called a daemon … "

"In Rome it was the custom on one’s birthday to offer a sacrifice to one’s own genius.  People didn’t just receive gifts on their birthday, but would also give something to their guiding spirit. Respected in this way the genius made one “genial”: sexually potent, artistically creative, and spiritually fertile…"  

"An abiding sense of gratitude moves a person to labor in the service of his or her daemon. The opposite is properly called narcissism. The narcissist feels his or her gifts come from himself/ herself. They work to display themselves, not to suffer change... The celebrity trades on his or her gifts, and does not sacrifice to them."

"And without that sacrifice, without the return gift, the spirit cannot be set free."

adapted from “The Gift” by Lewis Hyde 1983

I've changed some of the nouns and pronouns to remove any implication that it is only men who have creative genius. Seems that's what they thought way back in 1983.  I made about 10 changes, and left one.  Anyway, it's still a great passage about self-respect and creativity.

Now I'm an Aries, so its not my birthday today, but I don't think we need wait for birthdays.  I find it's fun to dish out gifts to my inner genius on a daily basis, in fact even more frequently.  A walk?  Some journaling?  A little bit of chocolate?  A few moments staring into the middle distance (one of her favourites)?  a stretch?

I am also grateful to Diet Iced Me for reminding me of Kafka:  "the purpose of a story (a book, surely?) is to be an axe for breaking up the ice (frozen sea) within us", or something like that.  It's quite a free translation, but all the better for that, perhaps.

I prefer "frozen sea" to "ice" - deeper and fuller of mystery, but I prefer "story" to "book".  Storytelling has a lot of power for inner healing and growth, more than books themselves, I would say, in general, with some exceptions.

And talking about Kafka .....

Kafka, By Rue Meurt d'Art, StreetArt, Paris, France
Originally uploaded by balavenise

It's difficult to read what Kafka's saying here, especially if you don't speak French.  It says: "A person is not created from bottom to top but from the interior to the exterior." Or something like that.  Its by an entity called "Street of the Death of Art". Not that Kafka actually ever wrote that gobbledygook, but its a nice piece of street art.  Intellect in the midst of decay. Very kafkaesque.


I like Kafka actually, despite my (delightfully? nauseatingly?) bright and sunny take on life.  As I have said elsewhere, positive thinking is my default mode.  Thats how I deal with decay and decadence


And if you pay attention to your inner genius, as Lewis Hyde suggests, it tends to bring out the positive side.  I mean I wouldn't have used Kafka's notion of and "axe", or even a "frozen sea" because that's not how it feels to me, but the message is pretty positive - break down inner barriers.  


And there's nothing like a gift to yourself for breaking down barriers: depending on the barrier of course. Sometimes only an axe will do.

You may also enjoy:


Happiness:  The "Cruise" part of Financial Cruise Control


Food Group Dilemmas


And, for story-telling


What can we do about Berlusconi-think?

Away for a While

Toon1 by Almagill

Downloaded from Flickr under Collective Commons License

Dear friends, I'm not a guy, obviously, but setting that aside, this picture is pretty much me right now.  My mood is dark as I confront my computer.

I have been ill.  I have been procrastinating. I have been tweeting. I have been planning my veggie garden.  I have not been working: that is, not gainfully.

But two ghastly deadlines are nearly here, and there is no more time to be wasted.  The jobs are tricky, and I still haven't got a handle on them, so I have to FOCUS.  You've been there, I know.

It's a nightmare, familiar but worse than usual.  I have no other choice but to get down to work.

So I won't be blogging for a while.  I will miss the the thinking, the mulling, the honing, the chuckling and the search for images.  And the contacts and communications. I will miss you, whoever you are, the reader I imagine and the reader I know already, or the one I get to know.  Thank you for coming here, and please leave a comment if you feel like it, or send me a tweet, although I'm cutting down on that compulsive activity as well.

Actually, I might squeeze out a post or two.  I might be tempted.  If you are following me you will know.

And while you are here, you may be interested in a few posts from the past, in no particular order:

Frivolity and puff, with a serious tinge

Happiness:  The Cruise Part of Financial Cruise Control

I'm Looking for a Financial Advisor

Food Group Dilemmas

Kiss Goodbye to Sky TV

Bringing Berlusconi Low.

More serious, perhaps with a smile in there too

What Leonard Cohen Means to Me

John Lennon:  Its Christmas and What Have You Done

What can we do about Berlusconi-think?

Life is Just a Bowl of Dialectics

Duality

None of the above, just me and my daughter

The Poem the Solved my Leadership Problem


One of my favourite images.  The photographer explains it at his site on Flickr.  It's really nice.

Connected Version 2 By Visulogik

Peace, Love and Connectedness to everybody!

See you soon!

Oh, and can't resist this one again: Miss Newton finding out that life is dialectical.

Life is Just a Bowl of Dialectics

Pick a Bowl of Cherries by **Mary**
Downloaded from Flickr under Creative Commons License

Warning:  Pompous heavy weather and pretentious obscurity up ahead (but I like the topic anyway).


There could hardly be a sillier take on what life is all about than "Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries", written in 1931 by the now largely forgotten Lew Brown.   The lyrics are also largely, and advisedly, forgotten, but you can see them here if you want to, and get the ring-tone.  

Nevertheless, the title is a catchy phrase which has passed into idiomatic use, fortunately not without a tinge of irony.

So, as we move right along into 2010, change is in the air as usual, and I am thinking how much I‘m totally lovin’ it.  

The reason I am loving it is that I am analysing it (see my post on Epicurus and the analyzed life).   And when I say "just" a bowl of dialectics, I mean "like totally, dude".  I'm only being slightly satirical.  Life itself is totally dialectical:  that's just how I see it, and that's how I'm analyzing it.

Trouble is, its hard to see a dialectical situation if you don't know what you’re looking for. A change of plan can be forced upon you unexpectedly, as little Miss Newton here is just finding out.  (See the end of this post for more on this little cutie)

What Yoga Pose is This? by Colour

Downloaded from flickr with special permission.  

Thanks Colour.  I love this pic.

So you need to know what you are looking for.


My very first sociology professor said, at my very first lecture, many years ago:  "If you don't know what a carburetta is, when you look at an internal combustion engine you won’t see a carburetta".  

I found this to be very true. It exactly reflected my own experience at car mechanic class.  Once you know the various parts of a car engine, it resolves from a meaningless mass of pipes and caps and wires into a thing of rationality, order and purpose.  

And so it is with life itself, without the sense of rationality, order or purpose.  

Car Engine by Greygoatcoat

Downloaded from Flickr under Creative Commons License

Boss 429 Engine by Morven

See what I mean? The colour-coding helps, and that’s what dialectics is in a way: intellectual colour-coding of trends.  Kind of.


Me, I don't care that life is not rational or well ordered, and I can live with all the contingencies of which it is entirely composed.  But I do like to really understand what's happening as much as I can, and here a dialectical perspective can help, because, as I say, life is itself dialectical.  

Dialectics is, in fact, the extremely useful, if complex, theory, or explanation, of how everything changes (which it does, at various speeds, all the time).  It is particularly good at describing the many resonating impacts of a change process, and especially in identifying the underlying factors, and the further factors underlying them.


First elaborated over two thousand years ago by the Greeks (of course), with multiple developments since, including most famously by Marx and Engels,  this body of thought is still very much evolving (along with everything else).  Some people never look at dialectics because of Marx and Engels, but that's just so naff.


I love it because it enables me to see beyond surface appearances to all the movement, contradiction and interconnection of things. It gives the whole picture. I mean, not just a static snapshot, but the total moving picture in all its reflexivity and flux. All at once, in multiple, inter-connected and mutually responsive layers and dimensions.  Marvelous really.  Cosmic.  Exhilarating.  Look it up.

Not only does it help me with change, a dialectical perspective is absolutely best at sorting out the difference between form and content:  that most things contain their own contradictions, and are at the same time both positive in principle but negative in operation, and/or partially or totally the other way around, depending on the context, the actors and the historical moment.  Still with me?

For example, the United Nations, the European Union and good old congressional or parliamentary democracy, all of which I support actively, are in essence necessary and perhaps even “good”, but are, at the same time, I think we can all agree, hopelessly and inherently flawed, not to say corrupt, and part of the problem.  


So a touch of dialectics helps very much in the whole area of critical support for the things we need more of, and informed resistance to the things we need less of: in other words to steer change in the most advantageous direction (as we see it, of course). 


In fact, its really essential for my goal of financial cruise control for all:  its the control part.

So I'm not suggesting we cherry-pick our understanding of life (hahaha).  Quite the reverse.  I’m saying we absolutely need the whole picture: that nothing less will do,  going forward.

Have I been totally pompous? I really believe this stuff -  I think its important. 


Anyway,  Happy New Year, Everyone !!!

So this is It? by Vimrod

Downloaded from Flickr under Creative Commons License

You may also like: 

What Leonard Cohen Means to Me, especially his remarkably dialectical "Democracy". (spotify or YouTube - live in London).

Happiness: The Cruise Part of Financial Cruise Control (Epicurus and the Analysed Life)

John Lennon: its Christmas and What have you Done?, and especially this lovely video.  I really like what he is saying here, and the respect he has for his young interviewer, and the message of "pay attention" is pretty much what I am saying.  A little less anarchism might have enabled a little more precision on what we need to watch out for, other than "them", but still, he's really thinking dialectically.

And for those of you who love cats, more pictures of the incredibly cute Miss Newton can be found here, in The Daily Kitten (I kid you not).  Colour and Obularity are terrific photographers.

Oh dear, already breaking my resolution not to bring cats into every darn topic (see last comment of the John Lennon post, which is below)

John Lennon: its Christmas, and what have you done?

For nearly 40 years  a very long time John Lennon has meant something really important to me.  First as a teenage rebel, and then as a pretty serious social and political critic.   Nowhere Boy is my one essential Christmas season film-going this year.

His main message - speak your own truth and hold them accountable - is still right bang on the nail.

And here we are at end of the noughties:  Christmas 2009.  Lennon would have had a LOT to say about everything that has been going down.  One of his catchy lyrics comes to mind:

"And so this is Christmas, and what have you done?"

Indeed Ms. Sarah Louise, what have you done, in 2009, to make a difference?

Including, given the sub-text of Lennon's Christmas Song, what have you done about the knotty problem of war?

With failing heart I set to work to list what I have done, and I find I've done better than I thought.  I set the list out below for those who care to read further.

Meanwhile, let's just say that its all messy, and we all have to do our bit.  The main thing is to stay clear, pay close attention, and hold our so-called leaders accountable.  And I still love John Lennon. to say the least.  Here's how he put it:

Still true, still fabulous and still important!

And from the genuinely influential to my little part - 

First of all, what's still to do, for next year.

1. Join an organisation that is working actively to charge Tony Blair as a war criminal.
2. Join some effective mechanism on energy reduction, or a composite of organisations.  This is such an important issue, and we are being held hostage mainly by the US congress of capitalists and their chinese equivalent.  Some very drastic kind of Greenpeace-type action is needed.  Copenhagen was such a farce:  how can we get these wankers to take it seriously?.
3. Grow my own veggies
4. Cut down on my airmiles
5. Get my finances sorted, by which I mean properly planned, organised and recorded (this is the main one.  If I get this done I'll be way pleased.  Why am I so finance phobic? see I'm Looking for a Financial Adviser).
6. Keep learning more on web 2.0, and come to grips with html
7. Keep working on my fitness.

Here is my list of eight good things in 2009.

1. Family:  I provided part of a framework for my daughter to climb out of the mapless pit of trauma, depression and chaos into which she had fallen.  Using this framework, a huge amount of effort and a strong network of friends that she has built up, she has turned her life around.  I am very proud of her and all she has done, and the threshold of a new life that she has carved out for herself, and I am proud of myself for my small part in this.  For me, this is the single most important thing that I have done this year
2. Family:  I was able to spend several weeks with my father while he was dying over the summer, an incredible privilege which we both loved, and also to share information and pictures with our somewhat fractured family, which helped us all get through this difficult time together. 
3. Work:  I have participated in facilitating a really innovative and effective leadership training programme for United Nations senior staff, which will continue next year.
4. Work: I have been able to help the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) clarify their strategic priorities on women's and girls' rights, and in the case of UNDP work quite a lot on ways to prevent and provide recourse for violence against women.  
5. War: As a great deal of UNDP's work on violence against women takes place in war-torn and post-conflict situations, in a sense I have made a small contribution to mitigating the effects of war. This also will continue next year.
6. War: I participated in several demonstrations against the Israeli invasion of Gaza earlier in the year, and threw a shoe at the Embassy here in London, specially carried thence for the purpose.  I tweeted madly about the war criminal status of Tzipi Livni, and the distinction of Palestinian and Israeli origin for consumer items.  A very important step in my view, and I will certainly be boycotting Israeli goods.
7. Carbon Footprint:  I have worked quite hard on my carbon footprint this year.  First off I have become a vegetarian, pretty much.  I never buy meat for myself now.  This is because of the extreme carbon costs of producing meat relative to veggies, and also, for me,  the difficulty of knowing whether it has been reared and killed humanely.   That's about 25% off by carbon footprint right there.  Secondly I have stopped using my dryer and hair dryer, and have changed all my light-bulbs and turn them off more diligently.  Small beer, but still, that's what I have done.  I have joined the 10/10 campaign (10 % reduction in energy use by 2010).  Third, I have cut back on my car use considerably.  I did an audit on my average mileage for the autumn.  It was 68 miles a week!  Don't laugh, I travel a lot (air miles, oh dear), and I live alone, and I was sick for part of the time.  So, I will do another audit in 2010, what ever, and I will make sure to reduce it by at least 10% less next year, and, much, much more importantly, cut down on my air miles.
8. Personal:  I changed my life with Web 2.0.  Still enjoying tweeting and blogging

So all in all, not bad Sarah Louise.  Room for improvement, but on the right track.  Keep up the struggle my dear.

And the hardest thing I had to do?  Find a new new home for my cats.  And I succeeded in that too,  painful as it was.

Oh, and another thing for 2010 - don't turn into one of those people who brings their cats into every damn conversation.

Bringing Berlusconi Low.

Milan Cathedral by matteobertelli

Downloaded from Flickr under Creative Commons Licence

Regular visitors to these musings will know that I have a very low opinion of Mr. Silvio Berlusconi, much in the news in recent days.  Indeed, to paraphrase Alexander Pope:

"I find it hard to know where lies the Fault / For BERLUSCONI's well-deserv'd ASSAULT..."

(A tweet by one of my favourite tweeps, @MrAlexanderPope)

My only comment is "wrong pecker, Sr. Tartaglia, but thanks anyway". 


In throwing the tourist trinket, Sr. Tartaglia has achieved something that no amount of demonstrations or arguments could do. He has humiliated Berlusconi. He has unmanned him in his own eyes.  

Berlusconi has taken to a highly successful extreme the applied sexism on which so much political power rests.  It seems that the language of male hierarchy is the only language that this bottom feeder understands, and I am deeply happy that one who trades in degradation has been brought so low by male-form humiliation.

The BBC reports today that his doctor says "his morale is still a matter of concern".  This is a promising snippet of information.

And fellow deep-chested male self-promotionist Vladimir Putin seems to have understood precisely what is affecting his Latin co-attitudinist.  "Berlusconi", he said on Tuesday "behaved in a manly way in an extreme situation".  A gross exaggeration, of course, but balm to the wounded soul, no doubt.

Only moments before the assault Berusconi had un-buttoned his shirt and asserted his masculine health and vigor to thousands of his delighted supporters.  Now he is depressed, and his departure from hospital twice postponed.   Let's hope he cowers from the press for many days to come.  I am not holding my breath, but I'm not entirely without hope either.

Berlusconi has successfully blurred the boundaries of entertainment and politics by including a former topless dancer in his cabinet and nominating starlets for the European Parliamentary elections. He's running Italy like a cheap bordello.

But if that were the only problem, we would be in a better position to do something about it. In fact the starlet effect is more pernicious and devastating than that. An interesting article in a recent edition of Time magazine How Silvio Berlusconi Uses Women on TV. showed how this reptile has “shaped” his electorate by using his media empire to numb their intellect through mindless TV game shows that are exceptionally demeaning of women.  I think "groomed"  his electorate comes closer to the mark, expressing the perverse and degrading sexuality that is involved.   These shows are nothing but pole-dancing in prime-time, for family viewing (e.g Sunday lunch-time, after church).  It's like total immersion in Zoo Magazine, if you can imagine such a thing.

If you speak Italian, check out Lorella Zanardo's award-winning video on YouTube "The Body of Women" (Il Corpo delle Donne).  It provides a powerful feminist critique of these shows.  Even if you don't have the language, the correlations with food and butchery make the argument visually clear.

This kind of perspective reaches me, and maybe a micro-percentage of those men and women who already understand that the man is a total shit.

But it just doesn't reach the man himself, or those who repeatedly vote for him.  What do they care about humiliating women?  It's what they deal in.

Only one thing has any weight.

I hate to say it, but violent humiliation by another man, especially a socially outcast and highly subordinated man (if the accounts of Sr. Tartaglia's isolation and mental illness are true), seems to be the only thing that has cut through Berlusconi's politico-virility, and if that's what it takes, I am very glad its happened.

Although his other pecker would have been even more appropriate, soft-tissue damage would not have been so comprehensively evident and demeaning as the crunch we are getting from his broken nose and teeth.  So that's OK too.

Or to paraphrase Pope again (but this time penned by me);

"The weighty TRINKET, seized from nearby shelf / expos'd th'Achilles' heal: a fragile (but inflated) sense of SELF".

And at least he won't be a distraction in Copenhagen.

Berlusconi in Copenhagen by matteobertelli

Downloaded from Flickr under Creative Commons Licence

You may also enjoy What Can We do About Berlusconi Think?

Leadership and Otto Scharmer

Thanksgiving weekend in north America, Eidh-al-Adha world-wide, but business as usual in Europe, and I have been in the incredibly beautiful baroque city of Turin, co-facilitating a workshop ethics and accountability in leadership.

The Po River at Turin by Funchye

Basilica of Our Lady Help of Christians, Turin by Flavio Cruvinel Brandao

We are based in one of the most exciting and imaginative learning spaces I have ever been in, the Leadership Centre for the Italian UniCredit Group -  Unimanagement.  So lovely, and such great staff.

Scuola Unimanagement Torino 2008

And I am totally pleased to report that we ran into an anti-Berlusconi rally in the Piazza della Castella on Sunday, and were able to participate enthusiastically.  The total antithesis of ethics and accountability.

Meanwhile at the workshop we have an amazing line-up of leadership gurus and practitioners - John Adair, the world's first ever professor of leadership studies, and still going strong, Otto Scharmer of MIT, Barbara Kellerman of Harvard, The Italian Army's Mountain Brigade, Maestro Kristjan Jarvi of the Orchestra and Chorus of Teatro Regio, the amazing Radikha Coomaraswamy and Thoraya Obaid of the United Nations, Hans Van Sponeck former Humanitarian Coordinator for the Oil for Food Programme in Iraq, Steve McCurry, Pullitzer Prize-winning photographer, Chef Federico Colvi, who is leading an evening of "gastro-leadership", or competitive team cooking, Payam Akhavan, international human rights lawyer and Klaus Leisinger of the Novartis Foundation, among others.

Excited is not the word. It's totally cosmic.

Here is a video of Otto Scharmer describing his theory of leadership, presencing, co-creating  and "igniting a field of inspired connections".   Learning from the future as it emerges.  If you can, go thousands of miles to to see Otto Scharmer speak: its worth it.

Also check out his website on moving to capitalism 3.0.  Interesting.

What can we do about Berlusconi-think?

This is about living in a decent society, which is the subtext of this little blog, and the whole point really.

Here is the deeply awful Berlusconi doing what he does best:-

And here is my first instinct about what should happen to his wretched little line and tackle

The Magnificent Eagle Owl Grab

Too good for him really

Just kidding ......

Or am I?  Seriously,  this jerk represents majority opinion about women and girls.

Most men have their Id under better control than Berlusconi, but millions don't.  We need absolute prevention of this nonsense, because the logical conclusion of tolerating harassment is rape and violence against women.

And for that we need accountability.  The social and political equivalent of the Eagle Owl Grab is progressive law, actively enforced.  And for that we need a well-informed public.

Some very wonderful and principled people are working to change the whole mind-set.

And here's one man's moving journey away from bystander-ness on the question of male violence, developing the courage to step towards what he really cares about, away from his socialisation.

And here is a good explanation of the social pressures behind the mind-set.  The extraordinary view of masculinity, male sexuality and male violence that we pretty-much all grow up with.

There are many organizations actively working on these themes;

In South Africa the Sonke Gender Justice Network have a "One Man Can" campaign, and have also taken Julius Malema, General Secretary of the ANC Youth League to the Equality Court for his sexist and homophobic language.

MenEngage, a global alliance of NGOs and UN agencies that seeks to engage boys and men to achieve gender equality.  It includes Sonke, Promundo, The White Ribbon Campaign and many others.

While Silence Speaks and The Center for Digital Storytelling are getting the word out digitally - the incredible importance of "listening deeply"to each other.

And there are loads of others.

But the main thing is to get rid of disgusting role models like the astonishingly teflon-coated Mr. Sylvio Berlusconi.  Sadly I'm not holding my breath on that one.


You may also enjoy Bringing Berlusconi Low

The Poem that Solved my Leadership Problem.

This is an anniversary of sorts.

I read a poem one Sunday morning in late 1999, and realised that I no longer needed my toxic commute to a toxic workplace, and third, no fourth, toxic boss in a row.

Several months of mulling, of back-burner pondering, resolved instantly to clear certainty.

In less than four short months I was outta there, with my own little biz and never a single regret.  I'm still in contact with the wonderful friends I made there and I'm still doing the same kind of work, but co-creating it now.  And no more brutal, stumbling, neanderthal "leadership".

Thousands love this poem: for me it was life-changing.

Here it is:

Wild Geese, by Mary Oliver 
from her collection Dream Work

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
The world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

The most totally liberating part for me?  The first line.

.

And here's my own little wildgoose.

From her I have learned and am learning almost every other thing I have ever needed to know about loving what I love.  The harshest and most exciting lessons of all, totally wild and wonderful.

Now flying strongly in the clean blue air herself, finding her own place in the family of things.

Wild Geese High in the Clean Blue Air by Under the Influence of Dub

Creative Commons License

And as every graduate of business school knows full well, Wild Geese almost never fly alone, unless they are really sick, and even then another goose accompanies as long as possible.  They fly in formation to benefit from each other's up-draft, and the leadership rotates, so that they all share responsibility.  And, almost best of all, they honk to support each other in flight.

Now, there's a life agenda. To co-create that kind of community.

The follower kind of leadership - that's what I like.  Not only in the sense that leaders pay attention to their  followers, but that leaders are also followers, and vice versa (and its so social networking).

"Real leadership always takes place through 
collective, systemic, and distributed action".  

Otto Scharmer.  MIT