NOVEMBER 2014
SAT 1 NOV LETTER TO CHELSEA MANNING
Wrote back to Chelsea Manning, whose letter from Fort Leavenworth prison just arrived.
To Chelsea Manning, Freedom Fighter
I was so delighted to receive your note from Fort Leavenworth which is proof we can communicate. You are a political prisoner. All activists throughout the world recognise the importance of the fight for your freedom. It is one step in reducing the power of our oppressor. Also, everything is connected – We must save the world! The matter is urgent but the solution is easy. We have identified the problem as Capitalism – and this economic system is run by a tiny percentage of people. It is easy to change from Capitalism to a Green Economy. For example, depending on our cooperation, Europe could convert to sustainable energy within three years. But the Green Economy is not only green energy, it’s about the end of destruction.
Capitalism is a war economy.
Love Vivienne
SUN 2 NOV BAN KI-MOON IN VIENNA
Since Andreas was fourteen and at art school in Graz he’s been best friends with Alex. Alex works with us. He designs scarves and ties and if we have a request for a charity project we hand it to Alex to sort out. He organised and designed our carpet for auction for the campaign against human trafficking and I have decided to go to the event – where I can meet Ban Ki-moon. So Alex picks me up and we fly to Vienna.
The evening event is held in the carpet emporium of Ali Rahimi. He and his wife do a lot of charity work; he helped sponsor the Life Ball – that’s where we met. At the moment my speeches all begin from ‘End Capitalism’ so in this speech I linked it with human trafficking, leading out from the fact that capitalism is a war economy which exploits people (cannon fodder and cheap labour); they are dispensable cyphers in a mechanical system and our potential to develop all that makes us wonderful and human is suppressed and crushed.
I decide not to retire to an anti-room to talk to Ban Ki-moon, as he has read my leaflet ‘End Capitalism’. He said he liked my speech and I said that the analyses and warnings from the UN never seemed urgent enough. ‘Oh believe me it’s urgent! We use all our power to stress the fact.’ I asked him at every opportunity to mention two words: Urgent and Capitalism, capitalism being the cause and effect of climate change and the financial crisis.
MON 3 NOV VELÁZQUEZ IN VIENNA
Still in Vienna. The art gallery is closed but we have permission to visit the Velázquez exhibition because there are people working in the museum. (We know the director, Sabine, and Andreas is Austrian and they are proud of us.) This is one of the great world galleries and I look at the Brueghels. You have to. As spectacular and immaculate and alive as ever. Then on to Velázquez. I had seen every painting before but I was in heaven amongst them all. I always have the same sensation when I look at his work – and only with him: that the people are alive and that when you look again they won’t be in the painting. I spoke to my friend Elke, who was working in her studio down below, and she came to join us. She is a picture restorer and works on world masterpieces. She knew just what I meant and explained some of the ways this effect happened – one of them being that some parts of the paintings are out of focus.
Which painting would I save if the fire bell went? I’ll take the little Infanta Margarita Teresa aged three which belongs to the Vienna gallery. It’s like Velázquez just dropped her into the painting and there she is, good as gold and patiently waiting to leave.
Diego Velázquez’s Infanta Margarita Teresa (aged three), in Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum.
TUES 4 NOV JULIAN HALL AND CRAIG MCDEAN
My neighbour in Clapham, Julian Hall, who risks getting kicked out of his house so the council can sell it – same thing Russell Brand is campaigning against – well, a film crew has come to talk to me about it. There is an anti-lethal imperative to build a green economy. The only way is to actually do it, starting with renewable energy. Meanwhile we must fight the present opposing system which is capitalism in extremis. Austerity, short-term cash to fill a gap or plug a hole! Storing up problems for the future. The worst problem about these council evictions, which sell the property to rich people and add to the housing list, is that it breaks up communities; something good is lost forever and the money the council gets is lost in the sand. The only party who wouldn’t do that are the Green Party. The others are all alike – I call them ‘the bloc’. Communities are essential when we build the green economy. Julian indeed stood for election as a Green councillor. Next time he should get in.
Another film crew in the afternoon. This time Craig McDean, who is doing a documentary on my old super-friend Gene Krell. A very, very interesting innovator of fashion. Without him a lot wouldn’t have happened. Of course he’s in my biography, and of course we need a film about him. Thanks Craig.
Gene Krell when he worked in our shop Worlds End
WEDS 5 NOV MILLION MASK MARCH
Bonfire night is such an important night for an old girl like me. I’ve been to one every year of my life and the best ones were when I was a country child – a do-it yourself family festival, rituals and special foods. For whatever reasons I’m not going to a bonfire tonight but we’re off to the Million Mask March in Trafalgar Square. I meet my friend Juergen Frisch from Berlin days when I was teaching fashion. He was my assistant. He teaches in Hamburg and he’s here with ten students. Alice Dellal also comes.
The trouble with the march is that I don’t know what it’s about. It seems to be about: we’re against everything. And it has no focus. I get bored and feel guilty about inviting people. What if it’s their first march? They won’t want to go on another. There were no speeches. We fucked off to the pub and enjoyed ourselves. But then we found out that Russell Brand spoke for a quarter of an hour while we were gone. Well, nobody told us that was going to happen.
THURS 6 NOV AT THE DOODLE BAR
Doodle Bar. To welcome the German students and talk about ‘End Capitalism’ we had also invited the students from the Royal College who are neighbours across from our studio. The idea is we will work with the Green Party. Main reason why: we need a focus for action and they have a national structure. Young people don’t vote and if they voted Green it would send shock waves through the UK and through the world. Because Britain has more prestige re the capitalist set-up than any other country. Our young colleagues from work are enthusiastic about Climate Revolution and come to our meetings and they are up for fighting for the Greens. It was brilliant! Out of seventy college students, fifty want to do it and pooled their e-mails. So now I shall go to other colleges – one a week, starting soon.
FRI 7 NOV THE AGE OF ANXIETY BALLET
Royal Opera House, invited by Alex Beard the director. Three new ballets. Andreas said the middle one, The Age of Anxiety, was ‘the best ballet I’ve ever seen’. Liam Scarlett, the choreographer, is a star: fresh and new. The four dancers were all equally superb: the girl, Laura Morera, was great and one of the men, Steven McRae, I’ve seen before – he has inexhaustible energy, fast and flickering like he’s held on elastic. He played a sailor who comes into a bar – this is set in the 1940s – and makes friends all at once with the three other customers and gets them all relating. When they get chucked out of the bar they go to the girl’s flat. Then two of them – the salesman in a worn light-brown suit and trilby and the young kid in a leather jacket – say goodbye. The kid is upset. He fancies the sailor and so the salesman, who isn’t gay, kisses him on the lips as a token of affection and gives him his business card. When he’s gone, the kid purposely drops the card.
I mention these details to give you an idea of the subtle relationships and endearing qualities of the characters – all expressed through dance. The end was super-happy when the enormous full stage opened up and the kid had the whole world before him and he ran and ran through the space as if he were flying.
MON 10 NOV PIG PLEDGE AT BELLAMY’S
Dinner party hosted by Tracy Worcester to raise money f
or her Pig Pledge campaign. Nice restaurant, Bellamy’s, not vegetarian but you can usually find something. But I had fish. I do eat fish sometimes on social occasions. Some of my friends were there and Tracy did the auction herself. She’s tall and skinny and she was wearing a T-shirt and a sarong – just nothing, a long bit of cloth. Chic!
TUES 11 NOV GM FOODS
I joined two dedicated American ladies – Pamm Larry and Diana Reeves – and we took their petition for the labelling of GM foods, signed by groups and organisations representing fifty-seven million Americans, (including Daryl Hannah, Susan Sarandon and Robert Kennedy Jnr) to No. 10. I’m afraid I said something that sounded stupid and annoyed people (‘People should eat less’ – but it sounded like ‘Poor people should eat less’). But the press brought up public concerns over the farming methods of Big Ag, so we got the right publicity.
SUN 16 – MON 17 NOV NUREMBERG SHOOT
Worked with Andreas on Sunday, helping him finish the selection of clothes for the campaign shoot. These clothes will be sent tomorrow to Nuremberg where we are doing the shoot in the art school where Juergen teaches.
On Monday, we met Paz and her boyfriend Marcus at the airport. Paz is our model and Marcus will probably get involved, and if it works out the students can join in. We’re shooting very strong women at the moment. Paz is Spanish and an actress living in California. Her name means peace but her real name is a long string of many names – so that means her family is rich. I ask her and it turns out they’re a branch of Spanish royalty and she starts telling me her life story. I’ve never heard anything like it. And I’ve never met anyone like her, either. She uses her power all the time and what happens is that other people use their power too so we’re all interacting on full power.
Throughout the shoot, Paz played a whole drama. Once I thought she’d lost her mind, then I realised she was play-acting. Between changes she was completely nude. She had ongoing jokes – e.g she loudly and beautifully called out ‘Juergen, I’m ready!’ – and because she persisted it got more funny. She continued dancing while a rock band played and people dressed and undressed her on the dance floor. The students, everybody, was on full energy. The photos are something else.
Paz photographed by Juergen in Nuremberg.
Paz and Marcus are sincere and very serious people. They met while doing energy work with the native American shamans. Paz has her own charity helping poor Mexican kids get proper hospital treatment.
THURS 27 NOV JERRY HALL’S THANKSGIVING
We went to Jerry’s for Thanksgiving dinner and I talked quite a bit with Gabriel’s friends – he’s Jerry’s youngest son. I gave them leaflets for which they respectfully thanked me because they knew nothing about ‘End Capitalism’ and what it means. I give the leaflet out all the time (you might have noticed) and then I was talking to the grownups about (you might have guessed) Climate Revolution.
Marsha Hunt was telling me about the book she’s written on her friend Jimi Hendrix. Jimi had to make it big in England, she said. It couldn’t have happened in America. The Jimi Hendrix Experience was Jimi and two white British boys who together created the sound. But that story was airbrushed: Jimi was marketed by the US media as just Jimi – one black boy – not as part of a mixed-race group. It makes you realise that Obama probably could not have been president (no loss there) if Michelle was white.
Andreas was all the time talking to Jerry, whom he adores – as I do. Also to colleagues of Armand, Jerry’s beau, as she calls him. He’s a teacher at Imperial College so now Jerry has entered that intellectual milieu. (I want to talk to the students there. It’s my plan to talk to young people to build Climate Revolution in time for the next election: Vote Green.)
I talked a little to Armand. He gave me his book, The Lagoon. Well, this book has been waiting for me. It’s filling all my interest re the life and thought of Aristotle. But now I’m at a point where we get into detail – Aristotle’s descriptions of each animal taken one by one from observation and dissection. I’ll have to let you know how I get on. Armand is an evolutionary biologist.
SAT 29 NOV MACBETH AT OMNIBUS
After yoga I went to Omnibus, across the road from my house in Clapham. It is the old library, now a multi-arts centre, and we had tickets for Macbeth. I have wondered whether it is best to see Shakespeare when you have not read the play, or to read it first. I read Macbeth at school and saw it now for the first time. Though you may not catch all of it you ‘get it’. Because it overwhelms you emotionally you get it aesthetically, through feeling. And now, later, I am reading the play with notes to examine it more carefully. Next time I see it I will be more informed: e.g. I’ll know that Graymalkin is an affectionate name of a cat (Malkin is short for Matilda) and that Paddock is a provincial name for a toad. But I already guessed when watching that they were names of the witches’ familiars.
The performance is ‘promenade theatre’ and Andreas and I met the other spectators at WC, a hundred-year-old water closet located at Clapham Common tube station, now turned into a wine bar. We were given those little lights you wear on a headband and set off onto the now dark common. At the empty paddling pool we meet the witches, who have a fire, all muffled up and chanting their plot as they await Macbeth and Banquo. One of them rode a scooter round the rim of the pool and had a sheet of plastic hanging down from under her bomber jacket by way of a wind break.
Then over the road to the library (Omnibus) and round the back to the fire escape, at the top of which – as if on the battlements of her castle – Lady Macbeth was leaning, reading Macbeth’s letter. She was in her sleeping clothes – boxer shorts, vest and a white cotton short open wrap – smoking a roll-up. The costume design was ordinary modern clothes but really thought-through: e.g. when Macbeth put on his armour he just slipped on a bondage-type soldier’s harness – the kind you fix a backpack on to – and when he became king he wore an old leather bandeau.
It was really romantic walking over the common, with Andreas and the others. I don’t know if promenade theatre is more or less exciting than theatre on stage but it was so well done and my concentration was at full power.
What made this play was the acting, and of course Shakespeare’s genius. It was one of the truly life-enhancing theatre experiences I’ve had. I’ll always keep it. The casting, too, was well done – electric! Macbeth was skinny and beautiful; Lady Macbeth was little and tough. The convinced as a couple but I could imagine them as teenage kids – sexual attraction and wild ambition. (Macbeth in his letter calls her ‘my dearest partner in greatness’.)
I need to stop here and mention again something that strikes me when I explore the past: the shortness of life. People died young and infant mortality was high, so childhood was not important – growing up was: girls married young. Shakespeare himself retired in his early fifties, perhaps to fulfil (in time) the life of a country gentleman. He died soon after.
This fact was in my mind when I ‘got’ Macbeth. Before, I had not been able to understand Macbeth – how he could do such a terrible murder. Now I realised – these two collaborators had to be quick and ruthless in their ambition to be great. And it was the sexual attraction and the fitting together in their acting that made me believe in them. They were like James Dean and Natalie Wood in Rebel Without a Cause.
Jennifer Jackson and Gregory Finnegan as Lady Macbeth and Macbeth.
The idea of parted lovers – ‘He’s mine and I’m his. I would die for him and and he for me.’ – is a theme throughout history and it is real in life and in literature. As a teenager in the 1950s I and my friends all wanted this: my guy, La Vie en Rose. I’m not so sure today’s kids are into this, and as far as I know, lasting romantic relationships are not current in today’s literary output.
The Macbeths were committed to each other up to the hilt – don’t forget their ambition and the shortness of life. They went too far, and this broke their bond. Macbeth lost his physical attraction for her. He was completely unnerved and when she cleaned up
she could not believe King Duncan ‘had so much blood in him’. Guilt finally overwhelmed her. Macbeth had to keep on going. In order to become a king he had become a murderer. He had to keep on murdering to cover up his crime and to legitimise it – to legitimise to himself his new identity: murderer and king.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
There is nothing more exciting than Shakespeare. The end is mega.
DECEMBER 2014
WEDS 3 DEC CARLO NERO’S FILMS
Some of us from work went to a film studio in Twickenham, invited by Vanessa Redgrave and her son Carlo Nero to see two half-hour films he has co-directed. Bosnia Rising concerns a detergent factory whose workers have not been paid by a crooked boss. This is against a background tide of poverty running through the country because there’s not enough work. People there are on the last point of desperation: without the means to live, to help each other or feed themselves. They are protesting. The Killing Fields is about Wildwood, a forty-acre park in Herne Bay, set in ancient woodland, and where you can see wolves, bison, deer owls, foxes, red squirrels, wild boar, lynx, wild horses, badgers and beavers! (I want to go with Alice Dellal, who lives there.)
The two films have a message: we could conserve the world and eliminate poverty by reducing income taxes and replace them with Land Value Tax (on land and property). This is Green Party policy.
WEDS 10 – THURS 11 DEC DUBLIN WITH LORNA
To Dublin with my friend Lorna Tucker. She is following my activism, making a film and I’m here to be interviewed at the Facebook Women’s Convention. It’s in a luxury hotel, The Marker, decorated for Christmas – so many lights. Expensive menu: amongst the starters, pumpkin soup (exquisite) for £16.
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