Books for Prisoners
April 25, 2014
In 1981 I saw the TV premier of A Sense of Freedom, a film about violent convict Jimmy Boyle. Serving a life sentence for murder, the Glasgow gangster faced down one attempt after another by the prison authorities to crush his spirit. Perhaps they thought they could beat the bad out of him. But it …
Emotions
March 16, 2014
They get in the way of wise action, drive you to reckless decisions, have you in tears over small matters, or lead you to sacrifice everything in pursuit of a dream. The emotions are one of the most distinctive elements brought to the world by humanity (and a few other animals). At times they seem …
Making Sense 1
February 22, 2014
Images hit the retina whenever our eyes are open. Mostly we let those images pass by, ignoring them in favour of more pressing thoughts. Sometimes an image deserves our attention and we take a perception, an action that makes sense of the visual manifold. There is a special kind of perception that we can take: …
Perfection
February 16, 2014
Knowing when to stop is one of the most difficult decisions of the creative process. It is not always easy to judge when a work is finished. Perhaps a painting needs one or two more brush strokes in a few places, a poem could do with an extra word added and a couple of them …
Comedy is no Laughing Matter
November 17, 2013
‘The art of comedy’ is an expression that sometimes gets used but I’ve never known how seriously it’s meant to be taken. It’s far from obvious that comedy is respected as a credible art form and, just as the theatre of war is not a real theatre, talk of the art of comedy does not …
Solitude
October 20, 2013
A precondition for much great art is solitude. We all have a tendency towards sociability, communication and laughter, yet this tendency must be curbed if one is to make progress on worthy artistic endeavours. Writing, painting, composing, sculpting, choreographing, philosophizing and designing will all require deep concentration at some point, best achieved in loneliness. For …
Performance
July 14, 2013
Hyper-sensitive and irritable. Unable to think of other matters. Waiting for that moment when I am called. My stomach churns every time I think of stepping forward and speaking into the microphone. Around 1,700 people will be in front of me and film cameras are pointing in my face. It is live-streamed around the world. …
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