Hew Locke

I want to find out more about Hew Locke. Or, what I mean is: I want to see his work in the flesh and I want to see it now. Thanks to Matthew Kolakowski and Jane Eyton (you will never look at a 99 in the same way again) for their top tip-off on this one. They were right: I will love him. I already do. Ah! And it looks like I’m in luck. He has an exhibition at Hales Gallery in September and October this year. And he’s got something in the Royal Academy right now. But Hales will be bigger.

You can hear (and see) him talk about his work here. The piece in the V&A is superb: “It immediately led to this”. Just like that. How come I’ve only found out about Mr Locke now? Why am I so slow?

And he says, this, below, is the future. “So get used to it.”

Meanwhile, the UN is getting weirder.

Julian Richards

is fabulous understated good at choosing wives now here.

limited, arrogant and self-satisfied

No, I’m not talking about him again. I’m referring to Gabriel Josipovici’s views on the state of contemporary British literature. As someone prone to so much self-doubt it’s not funny, I rather settled on this line, towards the bottom of the piece: ‘Overall, [Josipovici] said, while the likes of Kafka were plagued by self-doubt, his modern peers seemed arrogant and self-satisfied, “which is mildly depressing”.’ This makes me want to read his new book more and more. If anyone out there wants to buy me a present for any reason at all (pity, admiration, love, hate, belated birthday… I don’t care) please buy me that. I’ll love you forever.

It’s thanks to the TLS that I first encountered (belatedly I’m ashamed to say) Josipovici. His review of Beckett’s letters had me hooked and searching for more. I came across some of that here and here on Steve Mitchelmore’s fabulous blog, and then this interview at ReadySteadyBook, and another by Jeff Bursey I’ve just found here at The Quarterly Conversation.

Thanks to Nel for the heads up. (And a nod to S regarding the sensationalism, or sexing up, of this piece.)

as you don’t like it

Thanks to Barbaric Document, I have been reminded of the awful things I got up to, years ago, when I worked in this café:

I was a teenager. We were very badly paid. Exploited, you might say. So to help us through the day we – me and the other staff, none of whom I can remember now – used to use the remains of customers’ orders for the servings of the customers to follow. In other words, if you ordered a milkshake but only drank half of it, we’d tip that half into a clean glass and mix it in with some fresh froth and cream and serve it up with a big smile. If a customer had bad attitude, we might tip something less tasty into their tea or Coke or shake. It gave us no end of amusement watching them consume the whole lot, apparently unaware. My months as a waitress have put me off, for life, cafés like this one. I never ever visit them unless I absolutely have to. I’d certainly never order a milkshake or something which is good for disguising unpleasant substances. Soup, for example.

Oh dear Ellis: I really hope you didn’t actually go in there and consume. (If you can stomach his brilliant answer, which I wish I’d known about before I worked at AYLIC, but the story had not been written then, it’s here.) Enjoy? Enjoy? Mr Sharp: I loved it. I want it to be mine. Superb. Thank you thank you.

South African press on LRB letter

Race row over baboon essay at the Sunday Times by Rowan Philp is an interesting piece for anyone who wants to know more about the view from South Africa and some (limited) background on RW Johnson. (It does not talk about his support for Buthelezi, for example, nor for the homelands as was explained to me today by a South African friend who was active in the ANC and the struggle.) I can’t help but feel irritation that the piece states that “73 prominent academics demanded the removal of both an online article by writer RW Johnson, and of Johnson himself…” We (and we are not all prominent academics but anyway) expressed amazement that the piece had remained online for 13 days and that even after someone on the esteemed team of LRB editors had edited it, it still contained an explicit racist linking of baboon and African migrant etc. We expressed our relief when the piece (in that form) was taken down. But at no point did we ask for it to be removed. That was a separate organisation in the UK that had threatened the LRB with legal action if it did not take the piece down: it was not us. Our letter actually went to some lengths to ensure that we did not demand censorship of RW Johnson per se but expressed our concern that the LRB published his racist writing. Which is different. Certainly, I am not interested in RW Johnson as an individual. I do not sit at my computer waiting to read his next blog. I dislike his work and rarely find it enlightening, so – like many writers and journalists whose work I don’t admire – I simply have stopped bothering to read it. His baboons and bananas blog post was brought to my attention several days after it had been up. I then decided to act. I wouldn’t mind if RW Johnson carried on writing for the LRB, so long as the LRB didn’t print him when he was being explicitly racist. His reactionary work is appropriate for say the right-wing Spectator, for whom he also writes, but sits oddly in a publication that many believe to occupy a centre-left position. It sits even more oddly when they so rarely given any other writer any space to write about South Africa. If the LRB invited other South Africans & Africans (among others) to write about South Africa, the publication would be succeeding in provoking broader debate on that country, and stimulating deeper thought. Those who accuse us of insisting on censorship have not read our letter carefully enough, just as Mary-Kay Wilmers admitted she and her team did not read RW Johnson’s racist blog post carefully enough.

LRB & RWJ climbdown etc

For those who defend RW Johnson’s reputation and track record – and even his explicit linking of baboons and African migrants – on the grounds that he was an anti-apartheid activist of some merit (although there is quite some reason to doubt that), consider these wise words:

“The interesting point here is that if you had suggested to any ANC activist during the struggle that their passion included a certain degree of self-interest, you would have been indignantly told that he/she expected no reward and that their activism was entirely a matter of principle. Now, however, the first reason always given why the same person should have this job or that contract is that this is the reward they deserve for their role in the struggle, exactly contradicting the previous statement.”

Written by a recognised expert on South African politics.

Jay Smooth on telling people they are racist

‘I don’t care about what you are, I care about what you did.’

Serendipity: this went up two years ago to the day that Gary’s pieces went up in the Guardian: part one & part two. Happy anniversary Jay Smooth.

Meanwhile, news is spreading far and wide. South Africa’s The Daily Maverick reports on RW Johnson thus.

RW Johnson…

was at a game reserve.

I swear someone was looking down on me this week. Whoever you are: thank you. And thank you too for not making me dress up in a baboon suit to hand out bananas outside the LRB bookshop. As KEB points out: that was to be my last resort. The wonderful Mr J is relieved too: Are you sure, he asked, that’s the best way to spend your time? What he didn’t know was I was going to drag him along with me, and KEB, and a few others. We would be the coming of those baboons.

Several of you have asked why I haven’t written about this. I want to say this. I had an opportunity to do a piece for The Guardian and then for someone else. But despite being sorely tempted, I decided against it. I’ve made my point with the letter and with this action and I think it’s important to know when to stop. Quit, as they say, while you’re ahead. Moreover, I don’t loathe the entirety of the LRB. One of the reasons I wrote the letter is precisely because I have had a lot of respect for the publication. I’ve had my own work published there (only once, but it’s a start) and was proud of that. However, I would like to write a longer piece about the whole experience, a thoughtful piece, that explores the many issues this nasty episode has raised, for example, the fact that the British media which occupies the left/centre-left doesn’t ‘do’ race. It does ‘do’ a bit of racism, but not race. This, for me, is deeply problematic, and is reflected in the LRB’s initial response to our letter. It seemed, reading the response, that there was an intellectual and psychological block. They were not alone: quite a few people wrote to me stating that they couldn’t see the connection or saying things like ‘but you don’t understand: the situation in South Africa is really bad’. As if that would have anything to do with our charge against RWJ! I’ve got no problem with people writing about the problems of South Africa today, none at all. Anyway. I’m considering doing a long piece on all this – one that ponders censorship, race and British publishing over several thousand words. Not 600 words of rant. All I have to do now is to find someone who’ll pay me to do it…

LRB apologises for baboons & bananas etc

The apology from the London Review of Books is here. Gary Younge’s piece in the Guardian is here. It took a week of work, in the end, with much less sleep than I like, to get this letter (below) together with these 73 signatures. Several people were of huge help: Margaret Busby, Katy-Evans Bush, Shula Marks, Bernardine Evaristo and China Miéville. It just goes to show what you can do. If you would like to see a copy of the offending blog, please email me and I will send you the edited version I saved. Also, to let you know that people have continued to write to ask if they could be included on the list. They include William Beinart, professor of race relations at Oxford University. But there are more. And for all the support and belief, I’m hugely grateful and hugely humbled. Bravo to you all.

20^th July 2010

To the Editor,

With its stress on its own ‘depth and scholarship and good writing’ and its ‘unmatched international reputation’, the LRB has a responsibility to maintain high standards if it is to retain its enviable position of having the ‘largest circulation of any literary magazine in Europe’.

We find it baffling therefore that you continue to publish work by RW Johnson that, in our opinion, is often stacked with the superficial and the racist. In a particularly egregious recent post on the LRB blog, ‘After the World Cup’, 6 July 2010,  Johnson, astonishingly, made a comparison between African migrants and invading baboons. He followed this with another between ‘local black shopkeepers’ and rottweilers. He concluded with what he presumably thinks is a joke about throwing bananas to the baboons.

In the particular arena of football, some fans do not need to be encouraged to produce racist abuse. Across Europe for many years, black players have been spat at, subjected to racist chants often including references to monkeys or apes, and have been the focus of monkey chanting noises during matches. Neo-Nazi groups have also been known to use football matches as target areas for recruiting new members and promoting their racist practice. (How ironic that when Johnson does decide to write about ‘Football and Fascism’, 11 July 2010, he produces a piece about Italy that reveals the dearth of his knowledge.)

While South Africa has made great strides, overturning the racist politics of the National Party, it still has a long way to go in combating the racism that thrives among certain communities and individuals. Elsewhere, in the UK for example, this is no time for complacency about attitudes to race. Although British National Party leader, Nick Griffin, may have been humiliated at the recent General Elections, his party now has two MEPs. Let’s not forget that young black men in this country are seven times more likely to be stopped and searched than young white men, and they comprise a disproportionate number of the prison population.

Whilst it might be unfair to pick on a man for his inability to be funny, we believe that it would be wholly wrong to stay silent when he resorts to peddling highly offensive, age-old racist stereotypes that the LRB editorial team deems fit to publish. (Indeed, we note from the comments that at some point the post was edited – and yet, in our opinion, it remained an appalling and racist piece of writing.)

We were relieved on Monday 19 July when, finally, the post was taken down. However, we remain appalled that it was published in the first place and appalled that it remained up for 13 days. Several of the comments beneath the post pointed out some time ago that the piece was clearly racist and yet the LRB still chose to leave it online. It is not good enough to remove the post – apart from its URL which, we note, ends ‘coming-of-the-baboons’ – and expect this nasty episode to be forgotten. We would like to know why it was published in the first place and we would like to read a public apology.

It is of deep concern to all of us that the LRB could be so impressed by RW Johnson that his racist and reactionary opinion continues to be published in the magazine and now, in the blog too. And there we all were thinking the LRB was progressive.

Yours sincerely,

Diran Adebayo, writer & academic, Lancaster University

Patience Agbabi, poet

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, journalist & writer

Candace Allen, writer, journalist & broadcaster

Cristel Amiss, coordinator, Black Women’s Rape Action Project

Baffour Ankomah, editor, New African

Nana Ayebia Clarke, publisher, Ayebia

Pete Ayrton, publisher, Serpent’s Tail

Sharmilla Beezmohun, deputy editor, Wasafiri

Benedict Birnberg

Professor Elleke Boehmer, University of Oxford

Professor Patrick Bond, University of Kwazulu-Natal

Victoria Brittain, writer & journalist

Dr Margaret Busby OBE, publisher & writer

Teju Cole, writer

Eleanor Crook, sculptor & academic, University of the Arts

Fred D’Aguiar, writer

Dr David Dibosa, academic

Kodwo Eshun, The Otolith Group

Gareth Evans, writer, editor, curator

Katy Evans-Bush, poet

Bernardine Evaristo MBE, writer

Nuruddin Farah, writer

Professor Maureen Freely, writer & academic, University of Warwick

Kadija George, publisher, Sable LitMag

Professor Paul Gilroy, London School of Economics

Professor Peter Hallward, Kingston University London

M John Harrison, writer

Stewart Home, writer

Michael Horovitz OBE, poet, director New Departures/Poetry Olympics

Professor Aamer Hussein, writer & academic, University of Southampton

Professor John Hutnyk, Goldsmiths

Dr Sean Jacobs, The New School

Selma James, coordinator, Global Women’s Strike

Gus John, associate professor, Institute of Education, University of London

Anthony Joseph, poet & novelist

Kwame Kwei-Armah, playwright & broadcaster

Candida Lacey, publisher, Myriad Editions

Alexis Lykiard, writer

Firoze Manji, editor in chief, Pambazuka News

Shula Marks, emeritus professor, School of Oriental & African Studies

Professor Achille Mbembe, University of the Witwatersrand & Duke University

Dr China Miéville, writer & academic,

Professor David Morley, University of Warwick

Professor Susheila Nasta, editor, Wasafiri

Courttia Newland, writer

Dr Alastair Niven OBE, principal, Cumberland Lodge

Dr Zoe Norridge, University of Oxford

Dr Deirdre Osborne, Goldsmiths

Lara Pawson, journalist & writer

Pascale Petit, poet

Caryl Phillips, writer

Dr Nina Power, Roehampton University

Jeremy Poynting, managing editor, Peepal Tree Press

Gary Pulsifer, publisher, Arcadia Books

Michael Rosen, poet

Anjalika Sagar, The Otolith Group

Richard Seymour, writer & activist

Dr George Shire, reviews editor, Soundings

Professor David Simon, Royal Holloway

Lemn Sissay MBE, writer

Keith Somerville, Brunel University

Colin Stoneman, editorial coordinator, Journal of Southern African Studies

George Szirtes, poet & translator

Dr Alberto Toscano, Goldsmiths

Professor Megan Vaughan, University of Cambridge

Patrick Vernon, chief executive, The Afiya Trust

Professor Dennis Walder, Open University

Verna Wilkins, writer & publisher, Tamarind Books

Dr Patrick Wilmot, writer & journalist

Adele Winston

Professor Brian Winston, University of Lincoln

Dr Leo Zeilig, University of the Witwatersrand

PLEASE NOTE: Institutions are named for identification purposes only

further evidence for the generosity of the human spirit

Finally, the sheep’s cloth falls completely from the old wolf’s back while, in a more subdued part of the world, institutional disfunction means we worked ourselves up to what could have been a public execution in modern Britain of a little brother. To think we could have invaded a small country instead. Or persuaded a supermodel to capture a warlord. Could we have convinced Linda Evangelista to chop off Tony Blair’s head & prior to that, to persuade him to admit to the cannibalism we all know European leaders are so fond of (whilst discussing tax-evasion techniques, obviously)? Who cares: it’s so much easier to throw bananas, it keeps them quiet, and at least they can still have a bit of fizzy-pop.

(Here’s the title reference for those of you who like completing circles).