Think About It 082: JILL TWEEDIE

 

If you are to reveal yourself, warts and all, to another human being — and this is an essential part of growth, as well as being necessary for mental health — self-preservation demands that that person has no reason to use your vulnerabilities against you.  Any inequality provides an ulterior motive to do just that.  An 'inferior,' whether by class, caste, employment or simply in the world's eyes at the time, might be a true friend and confidant unto death but there are many reasons why he or she should not be; and if, for instance, a livelihood is dependent upon a 'superior,' the motives for using that friendship are heightened.

      Between 'superior' men and 'inferior' women, the same distrust occurs, foundation for the battle between the sexes.  Many a woman does not receive the full confidence of her husband because he knows, however much that knowledge be concealed, that the relationship is a dependent one and that if a crunch comes, her economic survival may oblige her to use her knowledge against him.  For the same reason, women conceal things from their husbands  — there is too much at stake for them to afford such intimacies… In any unequal relationship, the two concerned must devote a precious amount of energy simply to jockeying for position and the relationship devolves from a frank exchange to a tiring and constricting conflict of strategies.  It is not easy to be honest with an equal who has no reasons to use your weaknesses.  How much more difficult when the motive is there.

 

In The Name of Love (1979)

 

 

 

 

 

Use the link below to read a tribute to pioneering British feminist and writer JILL TWEEDIE (1936–1993) posted in the online archive of The Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/apr/18/gender.uk

 

 

 

 

 

You might also enjoy:

 

Think About It 070: WENDY L PATRICK

 

Think About It 058: ELIZABETH PALMER PEABODY

 

Think About It 027: MARION WOODMAN 

 

Poet of the Month 081: AMANA IFTHIKAR FAWAZ

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A SHADOW

 

 

 

I wonder why it keeps following me,

I think it has nothing else to see.

At times it stands as tall as a giraffe,

Sometimes it's as small as a dwarf.

 

 

I've sometimes heard people say,

That your shadow never goes away.

But I've sometimes wondered why oh why,

Shadows always disappear when the moon is high.

 

 

Always remember fear not your shadow,

More than others across the meadow.

For your shadow cannot do you any harm

But with others you'll always need to be calm.

 

 

 

 

 

2016

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sri Lankan poet Amana Ifthikar Fawaz, who describes herself on her LinkedIn profile as 'a stay at home mom,' is also a freelance journalist who has published articles in Chokolatte, Sri Lanka's leading youth-oriented lifestyle magazine.

 

Fawaz is also the author of SINCE NINETEEN91, a book of philsophical observations self-published on Amazon in October 2017.

 

 

 

 

 

Use the links below to visit the Kindle eStore of Sri Lankan poet and journalist AMANA IFTHIKAR FAWAZ and to read more of her poems on the Poetry Soup website (where she is identified as Fathima Amana Fawaz):

 

 

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/SINCE-NINETEEN91-there-will-way-ebook/dp/B076BW89P2

 

 

 

https://www.poetrysoup.com/poems_poets/poems_by_poet.aspx?ID=81538

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You might also enjoy:

 

 

 

 

Poet of the Month 070: RIBKA SIBHATU

 

  

 

 

Poet of the Month 048: AMRITA BHARATI

 

 

 

 

Poet of the Month 045: NICULINA OPREA 

 

 

 

 

The Write Advice 176: ELIAS KHOURY

 

…Repetition is, I might say, a way of insisting that every story contains many stories inside it.  The same story can be told in any number of different ways, of course.  My novels try to suggest this richness, even though I can only tell a limited number of versions.  In other words, I'm a student of Scheherazade — I don't tell the story, I tell how the story has been told.  There's an important difference here.  The whole tradition of Arabic literature teaches us how important it is.  All classical texts tell us that there's a prior authority or source for the story about to be told.  There's always a chain of transmitters, or translators, even though each version differs.  And in Arabic, the word for 'novel,' riwaya, also means 'version.'  In this sense, there's no such thing as pure repetition.  To write multiple versions of the same story is to suggest that every story is a form of potential, an opening onto other stories.

 

The Art of Fiction #233 [The Paris Review, Spring 2017]

 

 

 

Use the link below to read about the life and work of Lebanese novelist, critic, screenwriter, journalist and public intellectual ELIAS KHOURY:

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elias_Khoury

 

 

 

You might also enjoy:

 

The Write Advice 072: BADRYAH AL-BISHR 

 

The Write Advice 065: SHUKRI AL MABKHOUT 

 

The Write Advice 031: JANA EL HASSAN  

 

Words for the Music 024: JAMES FREUD

 

JAMES FREUD

29 June 1959 – 4 November 2010

 

 

BARBADOS

MODELS 

from the 1985 Mushroom Records LP

Out of Mind, Out of Sight

 

 

 

BARBADOS

 

 

All I see

Is washed away

I am the voice

Left from drinking

I celebrate

My love for you

Into the calm

Say I believe

That all the bitterness

Will last for hours

 

Maybe

I would blind the girl

Who is drowning

In the silence

She turns to grey

Into a cold stare

Into a storm

I have to be

Wake up to anger

And mixed emotion

 

In the sun

I will come

To see Barbados

In the sun

I will come

To see Barbados

 

In the sun

I will come

To see Barbados

In the sun

I will come

To see Barbados

 

All I see

Is washed away

I am the voice

Left from drinking

I celebrate

My love for you

Into the calm

Say I believe

That all the bitterness

Will last for hours

 

In the sun

I will come

To see Barbados

In the sun

I will come

To see Barbados

To see Barbados

In the sun

I will come

To see Barbados

To see Barbados

In the sun

I will come

To see Barbados

To see Barbados

  

 

 

 

Words and music by Models

© 1985 Mushroom Records Pty Ltd Australia

 

 

 

 

 

The following is a notebook entry I wrote on 4 November 2010 after learning that James Freud, bassplayer in the popular Australian band Models, had committed suicide at the age of fifty-one.  If its tone seems bitter that's because it is.  Fifty-one is much too young to die, leaving behind a wife and two sons in their early twenties. 

 

Shocked and saddened to learn that singer/musician James Freud (real name Colin McGlinchey), ex-solo artist & bassist/vocalist in popular 80s band Models, committed suicide in Melbourne today after a long battle with drug & alcohol addiction.

    Although I haven’t heard his music for many years, I was a fan of JF's back in the 80s.  Like so many musicians who can neither live up to nor recapture their early success he became a victim of his own celebrity.  A musician needs to go on making music (as any artist needs to go on creating art) even if their work isn’t applauded by the critics &/or valued by the public.  The music industry chooses to ignore this.  The music & the person who creates/performs it become instantly disposable the minute they/it cease to have an exploitable commercial value.  JF is dead because he stopped being a money-earner & probably struggled to accept that his days of stardom were behind him.  (Is it a coincidence that one of his closest friends was Paul Hester, ex-drummer of Crowded House, who took his life a few years ago by hanging himself from a tree in a Melbourne park?  Doubt it.)

      JF summed up what had happened to him in a 2002 interview:  ‘OK, you were successful once, now you're an old guy, see ya… In the end, I just said, “You win – I've had enough”… For me, the last straw was when we [Models] were taken to court [by former manager Adrian Barker who was suing them for unfair dismissal] and I thought, “I walked out of it with nothing and they want more — more of what I don't even have.”  The music industry won and they eventually always do — unless you're very lucky.’ [The Sun-Herald, 27 Aug 2002].  Despite this, when asked if he felt he’d been ‘badly burned’ by the industry, JF replied: ‘No, I don't think so. How stupid is that?’  Saying that took a lot of class, especially after being told by none other than Ian ‘Molly’ Meldrum (the least perceptive, most overrated ‘rock guru’ in the world) that he was ‘a fucking has-been’ & should deal with it.  Being told that by a talentless prick like Meldrum had to have influenced his decision to take his own life.  Had to.

      Been listening to JF's best (?) song Barbados a lot this morning, remembering how unusual it sounded when first released in 1985, not just stylistically but lyrically as well.  The contrast between the upbeat calypso-like melody & melancholy, self-accusing language in the verses makes it clever & intriguing.  Requires real talent to pull off & JF had it despite the industry's decision to ignore him. 

 

Use the links below to read about I Am The Voice Left From Drinking, the bestselling memoir by JAMES FREUD published by HarperCollins in 2002 and his second, much darker memoir I Am The Voice Left From Rehab published by Penguin Books in 2011 which describes his descent into chronic alcoholism and ultimately unsuccessful efforts to combat the disease:

 

 

https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9780732274405/i-am-the-voice-left-from-drinking/

 

 

https://www.penguin.com.au/books/i-am-the-voice-left-from-rehab-9781742745534

 

 

 

 

Special thanks to everyone who takes the time to upload music to YouTube.  Your efforts are appreciated by music lovers everywhere.

 

 

 

You might also enjoy:

 

Words for the Music 014: DAVID McCOMB

 

Words for the Music 012: JIM MORRISON

 

Words for the Music 017: SANDY DENNY