Comedy and Poetry

FABER & FABER POETRY EVENT WITH MARK FORD & HEATHER PHILLIPSON - Rough Trade East

Reviewed by James Buxton -Tuesday 21st June.

Poetry may have a reputation as an esoteric art form populated by fustian old men but Faber and Faber have made fresh steps to bring it to a broader audience.  In the second series of readings at Rough Trade East, Mark Ford reads from his Faber Poet to Poet collection on Allen Ginsberg and from his latest book Six Children.  Joining him is a young Faber poet, Heather Phillipson who reads from her new pamphlet.

Heather Phillipson's poems have a charming effect, transforming domestic events of the everyday through a combination of quirky humour and erudition.  She speaks softly but clearly in a demure manner that belies her disarming intellect. Like a cat with a ball of wool, she doesn't unravel the strands, merely toys with them.

Mark Ford’s new collection Six Children takes its name from Walt Whitman’s spurious claim that he fathered six children from six separate women.   In his title poem Ford imagines Whitman’s affairs with these women.  Using amusing personal anecdotes, succinct vivid imagery and clear annunciation, he illustrates how Ginsberg was the natural heir to Whitman's legacy. Ginsberg after all, defied the Canon and archived the Beat Generation. So what better place to expose a younger audience to Ginsberg's rock n roll excesses than at Rough Trade.

JON RONSON & THE PSYCHOPATH TEST at the Festival Launch

Reviewed by Charlie Clarke 15/6/11

When I was asked to review John Ronson’s talk on the opening night of the Stokey Literary Festival I had to admit that I didn’t actually know who he was...Seeing his new book ‘The Psychopath Test’ displayed amongst psychological and philosophical classics in Foyle’s book store gave me confidence that the content of the talk would be intellectually challenging....I was maybe only half right...

Nothing can be more annoying (and dangerous) than journalists and writers or (alternative) TV-presentersusing mockery and anecdote to supply the ‘middle-classes’ with an ‘intellectual’ alternative to the tabloid press.The ‘shock-umentary’ and talent contest can diffuse into prattle and opinion and make no serious attempt to approach what is true and beautiful...We all know this. However, the supposedly ‘intelligent’ perpetrators of cultural critique (think the majority of middle-aged men on most panel-shows) delimit themselves as ‘counter-culture’, or high culture with a comic twist, and fail to realise their very un-radical affiliation with the social norms of the day...At least the X-Factor has no pretensions beyond its blunt commercialism!

The aim of the book is to ‘spot’ psychopaths using Bob Hare’s PCL-R model;a check list providing the ‘spotter’ with the relevant psychopathic qualities:

Pathologic lying, a grandiose sense of importance, lack of empathy, impulsivity, lack of realistic long-term goals etc.

Ronson uses the model to interview suspected psychopaths: A Haitian military commander, a CEO, and the particularly interesting case of a man who proclaimed himself mad in order to avoid a custodial sentence.He became trapped in the mental health system, having to re-establish his claim to normality...As Ronson suggests; it’s much easier to establish yourself as mad, than to certify yourself normal.

Ronson’s method is overtly post-modern: By investigating the psychopathic tendencies of others he’s forced to note his own psychopathic tendencies. The comedy of his journalism, the realisation that an objective determination of madness must necessarily become a subjective encounter is all well and good. However, beyond an inflated expression of his own (not particularly interesting) neurosis, there appears to be very little substantial point to his adventure...

The problem with classification is that it reduces the individual to a ‘static identity’, and presupposes how and why this person affects us. It’s not the difference of a psychopath that disturb us, but that in and between these exaggerated characteristics is a certain ‘humanity’. Only the human can lie, only the human can cheat, and only the human can project their future beyond the restrains of reality... the psychopath is nothing but human.This is what scares us.

We hear that 4% of CEO’sare psychopaths and we shouldn’t be surprised: Capitalism doesn’t de-humanise the human, it humanises the individual- always at the expense of the collective. The psychopath is Capitalism’s hero....The new archetype of man.

As I haven’t read the book I will have to put the point of my review in a kind of giant set of brackets...A possible answer. The focal problem with John Ronson, in my opinion, is that he provides a very much Woody Allen style pitch (a style that is pretty underwhelming) in order to convey a piece of research that has very little originality. If his purpose was to follow (like Louis Theroux ) a stupid argument, inverting its contradictions with muted humour, then this wasn’t clear or successful....If you want a really good mix of psycho-analysis, philosophy and razor sharp comedy, read anything by Slavoj Zizek (not John Ronson).