47. Arts and crafts.

Treat writing as a job. Be disciplined. Lots of writers get a bit OCD-ish about this. Graham Greene famously wrote 500 words a day. Jean Plaidy managed 5,000 before lunch, then spent the afternoon answering fan mail. My minimum is 1,000 words a day – which is sometimes easy to achieve, and is sometimes, frankly, like shitting a brick, but I will make myself stay at my desk until I've got there, because I know that by doing that I am inching the book forward. Those 1,000 words might well be rubbish – they often are. But then, it is always easier to return to rubbish words at a later date and make them better.

Writing fiction is not "self-­expression" or "therapy". Novels are for readers, and writing them means the crafty, patient, selfless construction of effects. I think of my novels as being something like fairground rides: my job is to strap the reader into their car at the start of chapter one, then trundle and whizz them through scenes and surprises, on a carefully planned route, and at a finely engineered pace.

-Sarah Waters, from The Guardian

So I'm not actually going to talk about arts and crafts. I'm going to talk about art as crafts. As a teenager, I went to a school filled with - and targeting - wannabe artists. There were more berets and angsty meltdowns than you could shake a finger at. There was much talk about students "having" something inside them that should be lured out on stage. There were excercises designed to bring out traumas that might be helpful when playing roles too big for us. Ultimately, though, there were very few artists. Most of us have gone on to study law or languages, to become parents, or to struggling our way through work.

The more time passes between high school and now, the more I appreciate hard work and crafty artists. Sure, arts come easier for some, but I really took to heart what my dance instructor said recently when talking about showing emotion on stage and expressing instead of just moving. She said something in the lines of "Showing emotion can be learned. Longing is an extended arm, a head-tilt is an emotion. Everyone can learn it. All you need is courage." Courage and a lot of practice.

We can glorify art - or anything else, for that matter - all we want, but what it boils down to simple stuff. Dancers move their bodies, singers move their vocal cords, guitar players move their fingers. This isn't to deglorify the process - to me, it makes it all the more miraculous how swinging your leg through air can bring such satisfaction and so much feeling to both the one moving and the one watching. And it's taken me an embarrassingly long time to realize that practice shows. There is a difference between doing something "alright" or adequately and mastering something.

I love the idea of craftiness also because it gives me hope. I am (re-)learning to dance, and instead of moaning over not being able to do this or that, I try to rejoice over every little sign of progress - which are many if one just has the eye to see it. I am learning to play a new instrument, and I'm realizing that things I thought nigh-on impossible can be achieved - through practice. There is no arcane magic equation, just starting with simple things and progressing onto more difficult ones.

Here are some artists and pieces of art that I think are wonderfully crafty:

Johnny Depp is delightfully physical. His characters have tics, mannerisms, outward expressions of what they're feeling inside. He's not afraid to create caricatures, which often makes his characters seem oddly realistic. I'll always remember the scene in The Secret Window where the character is having a moment of utter confusion and fear, and all of a sudden makes weird "rah-rah" sounds that fit perfectly. Apparently this was a mannerism Depp took from one of his children. He observed, he thought, he acted.

'There Is A Light That Never Goes Out' actually isn't my favourite song of The Smiths' by a long shot, but I do think Morrissey is at his cleverest in terms of vocals. I really love all the slides and cracks. It sounds very effortless and more "earnest" somehow than his vocals in general, but I don't doubt this is because of hard work and attention to detail.

The prologue in Donna Tartt's The Little Friend will always stay in my mind because it is the craftiest passage I have read. While the student of literature in me can't help but marvel at the vehicles she's using, the reader is swept away: run-on sentences forcing a faster pace of reading and a disjointed feel similar to that of the characters. The novel wanes a bit after that, but those few pages are brilliant evidence of how hard work can manifest as effortless and effective.

And then there's stuff like this:

Remember: The only difference between a beginner and a genius is 10,000 hours of practice. The only thing separating normal from insane is 100 hours without sleep. And you know what they say about insanity and genius.

46. Looking on the bright side.

There is a woman who takes the same bus as I do in the mornings at least a few times a week. She never fails to say, "What wonderful weather!" - regardless of whether it's sunny, rainy, -30 degrees Celcius or hailing rats.

What a wonderful way to live your life.

"Hollywood shows people panicking, but my research shows that 9.9 times out of 10, people don't turn into crazed individuals, but behave quite rationally. They tend to help each other, too. -- The knowledge that most people react in a humanist way helps me to get in up in the morning – I come to work knowing that people tend to behave in a supportive, helpful way in emergencies, so any way we can help inform intelligent building design and disaster strategies will help them to survive."

- Ed Galea, a researcher in disasters
Quoted from The Guardian

45. Curling up in bed.

Living as a single woman in a cold, cold climate, I have developed curling up under the blankets into something of an art form. While there is nothing better than sprawling starfish-style in the mornings when you don't have to get up, snuggling in to sleep in a freezing cold room is a necessary skill. Here are a couple of recipes for a good night's cocoon:

The caterpillar: a stout classic

Ingredients:
one blanket, minimum 3 by 6 foot
one human
optional: woolly socks

1. Lie on one side.
2. Grab the side of the blanket closest to you firmly.
3. Flop onto other side. Be careful to cling to the edge of the blanket!
4. Grab other side of blanket.
5. Flop onto stomach.
6. Use your toes and wiggle your bum to gather the rest of the blanket around your torso and legs.

For a delicious contrast of warm and chilly, stick out the toes of one foot.


The foetus: a more advanced variation of the above

Ingredients:
one blanket
one human
optional: another human, a stuffed toy

1. Repeat steps 1-6 above.
2. Turn onto one side.
3. Carefully(!) bend you knees towards your torso.

Be sure to create a tight and sturdy cocoon before bending your knees so the blanket stays in a cylinder shape even as you move. An assistant is highly recommended to pat the blanket securely around you, especially to make sure the blanket hugs the backs of your knees rather than billowing about. A skillful curler-up can, however, carefully reach out an arm to do this themselves. For an added illusion of cuddling up, place a pillow or a long-ish stuffed toy between your back and the wall.

44. Democratization of information.

Last summer, I met a woman who was hacking university students' and personnel's passwords to provide access to the world's largest electronic libraries for people who do not have such material readily available to them. I cannot say I am at ease with her methods, but at the same time, I can't categorically condemn her actions.

I've always been a curious cat. My mum still has stupid drawings of the continents I did when I was in kindergarten, and I remember avidly reading my illustrated books on geography, animals, and the human body. I loved coming up with theories ("Lungs are your soul!", "Dogs can sleep with adrenaline in their blood!") and I rejoiced the day my mother's alarm clock ran out of batteries and she let me break it into its smallest components because it was "broken."

I use Google and Wikipedia obsessively - to the point where I dread to think of the environmental disaster I am creating by keeping Google's huge search engines churning. Classics and related fields might have been a bit slow to join the merry bandwagon of free, open information online, but it's catching up fast.

And let me tell you, having professors e-mail me links to their entire body of publications instead of ferociously guarding their copyrights and sitting on unpublished data for years; running searches on entire museum collections complete with context information and descriptions; using specialized (and incredibly expensive if bought) dictionaries online is glorious. Glorious!

I believe having varied, open information available really does make the world a better place. It makes life easier, sure. (How did translators ever manage before Google? Furthermore, I organized correspondence from the 70s between scientists recently and boy, was keeping up-to-date on new research difficult.) More importantly, however, educated women have fewer and healthier children, are more conscious about protecting the environment, and, when empowered, sometimes keener and more capable of solving conflicts. While it's a rocky road filled with potential for complications, I believe in the theory of education -> fewer children, more food -> fewer wars -> happier people.

So no, I don't think it's right to hack people's computers. But I do thank every single author, publisher, blogger, twitterer, etc., who is making their view, their information and knowledge available to as many as possible.


This post was brought to you with the gracious help of roughly a dozen Google searches.

43. Dude bros.

My best friends are female, and I wouldn't trade them for the world. The past weekend, however, reminded me of how much I love the dynamics between my male friends and I. They are wonderful and kind, and there is never any threat of jealousy or envy. They talk me down from the heights of hysteria. They rap while I beatbox. We cackle at rude videos by Jon Lajoie like this. (Consider yourselves warned - they really are rude.) They give the best hugs and help me climb walls and statues despite my weakling upper body. They talk grammar and archaeology with me. They respect me but stand up for me if I'm feeling threatened. They treat me like a human being, not like a girl, and never think my clothes are slutty.

They make life feel light and easy, and that's a wonderful thing to feel.

42. Sylvie Guillem

(Photo by Richard Avedon who has taken stunning photographs of many dancers and other artists.)

I went to see Sacred Monsters by Sylvie Guillem and Akram Khan last night. After the performance my head was bursting with ideas while another part of me just wanted to revel in what I'd just experienced.

Guillem is a stunning dancer. She is the sort of dancer that makes you question what is the point in anyone else even trying: 99 per cent of professional dancers can never achieve what she can. I have no doubt her body is protesting to years of abuse - she is, after all, in her fourties and way past the average retiment age for dancers - but on stage she moves so child-like, so naturally, it really makes you believe doing a 175-degree develope to front and holding it is nothing to her. Her movement is almost paradoxical. She has such perfect control over every fibre of her body that she can move with fluidity and ease; I remember seeing a video where her hands shook, and you could see the perfect isolation of each joint even in that tiny movement. This makes her fascinating to watch.

Of the two dancers, Akram Khan was doomed to come second from the beginning. There were moments when the two connected in a beautiful way, for example a number done entirely with Guillem dangling from Khan's hips, forming a perfect Vishnu shadow with one head and four arms. Khan's solos were in places wonderfully expressive: he did a marvellous job imaging and he has gorgeous hand movements. In places, however, perhaps because of cultural conditioning, his parts paled in comparison to Guillem. (Khan is a classical Indian dancer; Guillem has her background in classical ballet, although she has done a lot of contemporary.) At worst, he seemed amateurish.

The live music as well as offering the audience a glimpse into the "backstage" life of dancers made the performance seem almost intimate despite the big opera house. There was no intermission. The dancers had developed monologues and dialogues to give them a chance to catch their breath between numbers. While I'm fascinated by dancers' thought processes and their attitudes to their bodies - utilitarian tools on one hand, something to obsess over and scrutinize endlessly on the other - some of the chatter was too much. I did enjoy the humour, though.

The performance ended on a lovely note. Guillem was explaining the term émerveillé - "insprired and excited but so much more" - and the last number was filled with skipping ropes and swings. To me, it was a reminder of why there is a point: dance can bring endless joy in the midst of all the aches and the fight against gravity.