Was Bill Henson caught out by postmodernism?

In Australia we have just had a major controversy caused by an art exhibition featuring the photographic work of Bill Henson. Henson is a one of our most famous living artists and has gained widespread international acclaim. However, last week the police were called to a gallery where his latest exhibition was to be opened. For non-Australians who read this blog the key details are: Henson has for a long time included photographs of young pubescent children. In his own words he likes to express "..ideas about humanity and vulnerability and our sense of ourselves living inside our bodies and our bodies in space" and has been interested in the transition from childhood to adulthood (amongst other things).

What triggered the confrontation with police was the use of a photograph of a naked 13 year old girl on the invitation to the exhibition opening and the use of some images of the same girl on the gallery's website. Hetty Johnston an activist for Braveheart (an organization fighting against child pornography) contacted the police, the exhibition was shut down, the art removed from the gallery by police and the images removed from the website. The police are still investigating and are expected to lay charges against the artist and gallery.

I haven't written this post to comment on the work itself and have never seen it except via the media in the last week. Nor am I trying to make judgements about the artist or his motives. However, it appears that about one third of the images in the exhibition featured photographs of a young teenage boy and girl in varied poses including one of the girl fully naked with exposed genitals. If this is true then I think that there is good reason for concern.

But for me, what is intriguing about this confrontation has been the way various individuals and groups have responded. For some his work is viewed as pornography while for others it is seen as high art exploring issues that are important. Edmund Capon, Director of the Art Gallery of NSW has described his art this way:

"Henson's images are veritable symphonies of decadence and beauty, of squalor and opulence, of mysterious darkness and ominous light, of quiet obsession and subversive ecstasy."

The Prime Minister described some of the images this way:

"Whatever the artistic view of the merits of that sort of stuff - frankly I don't think there are any - just allow kids to be kids."

Hetty Johnston (Braveheart) commented:

"You can call it anything you want, but at the end of the day, these are images of naked adolescents."

Judy Annear (Senior Curator at the Art gallery of NSW) in defended Henson's work in the Sydney Morning Herald but acknowledged that his 'edgy' work can cause some people to "take a step away" from it. She suggested that:

"In the end it's only a representation. We're not being asked to agree or approve."

Postmodernism asserts that meaning or interpretation varies with the individual, circumstances and time. You can almost hear the postmodern art critic saying ‘the art might be offensive to you, but not for me’. In Annear's words, "it's only an interpretation". Postmodernism shifts the focus from the artist and the work to the viewer and his or her context. In a sense postmodernists would claim that we don’t go to a gallery to discover what an artist has depicted representationally, but rather to experience the artwork and to discover for yourself just what it might mean. The meaning is seen as in the knower not the work, and all such meanings or interpretations are relative.

Of course, while supporters of postmodernism focus on the interpreter they also see others as influencing our meanings. While not commenting specifically about art, Stanley Fish suggests that it is in interpretive communities, rather than any work (whether text, art, film) that meaning and interpretations are produced. In considering the relationship between an interpreter (e.g. a gallery viewer), an interpretive community (e.g. art enthusiasts) and a source of knowledge or interpretation (e.g. photographic art), Fish sees the interpretive community as determinative. And here is the problem for Henson. While the relatively closed community of art critics might well see his work as a “veritable symphon(y) of decadence and beauty”, others outside this limited interpretive community might just see it as pornography and as photographs that are in breach of the law. Non-members of the art community have not been prepared to accept the deconstructionist view that there is no connection between the signifier (e.g. a photo) and the signified (e.g. a naked 13 year old girl). They have asked why was this young girl photographed this way? Is she old enough to give consent? What responsibility did her parents have in this? Could these images be exploited by others?

For many outside the art community, the photos are not a representation, they are a photo of a 'real' 13 year old girl. What’s more, they might assert that the very artistic devices used by Henson (e.g. subtle lighting, poses that appear sexual to many etc) signal that the artist might just intend for the viewer to see the art as concerned with teenage sexuality and hence object to the work on moral and legal grounds. Furthermore, they might just conclude that this is exploitation and perhaps even abuse of children.

I asked the question in the title to this post "Was Bill Henson caught out by postmodernism". The outrage by the arts community is unwarranted in my view. The defence of Henson that I've hard in the media has typically been based on three lines:

* he's one of our greatest artists;
* he's been doing this for 30 years;
* it's art and so should be viewed differently.

None of these arguments have convinced me of anything, nor have they negated the concerns raised by those outside the arts community. There seems to have been long-term acceptance of Henson's work within the arts community, but things went pear-shaped when the gallery did two things. First its used one of the images on the exhibition invitation and sent it outside the tight arts community. Second, it placed some of the images on the Internet opening the images up to the whole world. This permitted new interpretive communities to examine Henson's work and draw different conclusions to the arts community. And this highlights one of the problem with postmodernism, it promotes meaning and interpretation as relative, but its adherents often seem to want to place limits on interpretive possibilities when the viewpoint is at odds with their own.

You can read a Sydney Morning Herald article about the exhibition here.

C.S. Lewis: Two letters to which he did NOT reply

Anglican Media published a brief piece this week on the letters of C.S. Lewis. The article was written by Greg Clarke and spoke about (among other things) the amazing record Lewis had as a correspondent.

Lewis received a stunning number of letters daily - perhaps akin to the number of emails we each receive now. Lewis, unlike most of us, read them and answered them seriously and courteously. Whether it was a reader’s complaint that a character in The Screwtape Letters could not have seen Bus 73 from where he was standing in London (VIII, p.1562) to comments on the comic reading habits of children (VIII, p.1178) - Lewis thought adults were hypocrites about this - he penned a genuine reply.

But here's a scoop. I have at least two letters to which C.S. Lewis did not reply (the letters shown in the images below).


It seems that the power of Lewis to invite response lives on. These young students from Ontario Canada seem to have been so gripped by the writing of Lewis for children that it moved them (and perhaps their teacher) to include him in a "quilt that they are making of pioneers". It seems they weren't aware that he died in 1963. They sent letters to him at CASE (New College) presumably because we ran a conference on C.S. Lewis in 2007. It seems an old link led them to our College website. Perhaps the 'Meet CS Lewis' section that contained a description of Lewis and his work, led them to conclude that C.S. Lewis 'Today' is at New College. Of course I will write to these two children pointing out that Lewis couldn't answer the letters himself.

I could say a lot about how some children do research and read on the Internet, but I have a piece that partly addresses this topic to appear in the next edition of Case Magazine which will be available in about 3-4 weeks - "Truth and the Internet". I also have a related previous post on this blog that might be of interest.

One key thing that the letters also demonstrate is that Lewis was a remarkable apologist whose legacy for the gospel of Christ lives on!

More information on all three volumes of the The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis can be found at these links:

Volume 1 (2004)
Volume 2 (2004)
Volume 3 (2007)

You can also read Greg Clarke's short review of Volume 1 here

Time and the family

I wrote a blog post back in April titled Loss of mealtime: Is it important? In this post I discussed research data on family mealtime that indicated family life was changing. Of course there are many other indicators we could use to assess how families are changing.

Some might quickly respond that change isn't always bad either. And, it's probably worth saying up front that the Bible doesn't seem to dictate a set recipe for daily family life - you'll be hard pressed to find guidance on how many meals we should have together as a family, how much time should be devoted to play and so on. But there is teaching about our responsibilities as parents and the priority that we need to place on the nurture, care and teaching of our children. And while I don't see a picture in the Bible of families giving up useful work to blissfully waste time together, there is a clear message in Scripture that it is within the family that children are primarily nurtured and taught about God. As part of everyday life children are shaped and marked for a life of obedience to him (Deut 6:4-25). The Israelites were not only to obey God's commands, decrees and laws, they were to understand and demonstrate that they loved the Lord with all their heart and with all their soul and with all their strength. They were also to teach Gods commands, laws and decrees to their children as part of life in all its forms. God's word was to be an important part each individual's life and that of family life together.


However, if families spend little time together this is made more difficult. Numbers of people have commented that modern life seems to be working against families spending time together. Recently, the principal of Presbyterian Ladies College (Sydney), Dr William McKeith, commented on the impact of work on family time. He suggested, as I have in other posts, that the mad pace of modern life is having a negative impact on families. He cited an Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) report on how Australians use their time which indicates that "..we are spending less time playing, sleeping, and eating and drinking, but longer working." The ABS survey shows how patterns of time use have changed and indicates that people are becoming increasingly time poor and that working non-standard hours and bringing work home is having an impact.

His personal comments on the pace of life ring true:

"We can feel it and see it all around us. Hairdressers are often open into the night, international banks are conducting business on combined southern and northern hemisphere time, emails and text messages find us day and night, seven days a week.”

"When we adults are busy filling our days and nights with more and more work, where are all the children? Might I suggest that many of the social and emotional challenges confronting our young people are grounded in the work patterns of we, their parents. Parents are not available to supervise the use of the internet and video games, to check on the appropriateness of friendships, to visit the school, to welcome the child in from school. We are tired, stressed, irritable much of the time. Some parents will seek out ways of avoiding contact with their children in order to minimise their exposure to these feelings."

A more worrying feature of the report cited is that according to the ABS survey approximately 25% of children (17 and under) have a parent living elsewhere (perhaps interstate or overseas) and that there are increasing numbers of children in boarding schools who rarely see their parents.

Dr McKeith concluded:
"There is a tension between hours and patterns of work and family values and the care of our children. As a force for the protection of family values and community welfare, government has a role to play. I suspect that in the interests of our children we are well overdue for a realistic appraisal of how we are balancing our work and family lives."

While there are families living in poverty for whom there is no possibility of reducing hours of work if they are to cover the essentials of life (food, basic shelter and daily needs), for many families there are options for reduced hours or for more flexible work arrangements. Dr McKeith suggests that the process used for making life choices may need to place a higher priority on the needs of children and the impact on family life more generally. The issues surrounding why parents are working longer hours are complex, but it would seem that we make daily decisions about careers, the size of mortgages, overseas holidays, private schools, entertainment and so on, that have economic and human costs that are (at least in part) borne by our families. And yet, for many of us, there is freedom to make other choices.

There seem to be two key parts to the impact we have on our children:

* the wisdom of the choices we make as parents and the example we provide - the patterns we set for work and life are the most significant example that will influence how our children see life/work balance (of course some of us saw the example of parents and made better choices later in life, but none of us want to be model negative examples);
* how much time we spend with them and what we do with the time that we share - What do we teach them and how we do it? Primarily our goal is to teach them about God, encourage them to follow Jesus and help them to understand how this should shape their lives. As Proverbs 22:6 teaches, our early training makes a difference for life - "Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old he will not depart from it".

Of course, I think we can achieve the above even in the midst of busy lives, but we need to constantly assess the choices we are making and the way we spend our time. The key is to constantly ask ourselves two questions: What impact are my life patterns, choices and use of time having on my relationship with God? What impact is my life and the way I use my time having on the spiritual welfare of my family?

You can read Dr McKeith's full Sydney Morning Herald opinion piece here or a version that appeared in the Brisbane Times here.

UPDATE

You can also read a more recent blog post on family life on my Literacy, families and learning blog HERE that has relevance to the content of this post

New data on marriage, education and gender: So what?

While the statistics on marriage success don't seem to have improved (about 50% of marriages still fail), there has been an interesting change identified by researchers at Monash University's Centre for Population and Urban Research. We have known for some time that the likelihood of marriage appears to be related to a variety of factors, one of which is the interplay of gender and education. For example, men with university qualifications were more likely to be married in the past than men without a degree. This wasn't previously the case for women. However, the trend data for women has shifted in the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics data from the 2006 census. Highly educated women are now also more likely to be married than women without university education.

Carol Nader summarised some of the key changes in an article in the AGE (7th April, 2008):

• In 1996, women with post-school qualifications were less likely to have a partner in most age groups.
• By 2001, this had started to change.
• By 2006 a greater proportion of highly educated women had a partner than those with no qualifications.
• This was most marked for those in their 30s. By 2006, 61% of women aged 30 to 34 with at least a degree were married, compared with just 53% of those with no post-school qualification.
• The same trends have continued for women aged 35 to 39. 68% with at least a degree were married, compared with 60% of those who had no qualification. The trend continued for women in their 40s.
  

It is not clear what this might mean but it is interesting to speculate. Why is it that in an age where many women see marriage as a loss of freedom that those women with presumably the most freedom in secular terms are choosing to marry in larger numbers? Women with university degrees, presumably better employment prospects, and higher income who would be seen as in the best position to live independent lives are choosing marriage.

In a Radio National interview on the 8th April, Genevieve Heard, a research fellow at Monash University's Centre for Population and Urban Research, suggested that:

"What is surprising about these data, is that it's always been assumed that more educated women are at the vanguards of change, that they are rebels, if you like, with regard to traditional steps like getting married. In fact, these data show that they are in fact behaving that they are in fact behaving in a more conservative manner. It was as if those with the most choice in these situations are in fact choosing the most conservative route."

I'd like to think that more woment are discovering the joys of marriage and lifetime commitment, but I suspect this is not the case. My own take on this is that what is happening with marriage is linked to other trends with women, work and families. As women have tried to juggle education, careers and personal life, they have found it increasingly difficult to have everything. Women (and indeed couples) have delayed having children to establish careers, save for houses, travel etc. But now as increasing numbers of 'X' generation women have decided that it is time to have families they have sought security in their relationships. As a result, marriage is seen as a good option for educated women who seek some stability and security.

It seems likely to me that many women are adopting the type of economic approach to marriage talked about by Donald Hay and Gordon Menzies in Case #12. In the economic approach to marriage couples approach it as a set of business decisions to be made; they evaluate the best way to utilise their human capital for the purposes of child rearing, 'nest' building etc. They look for an efficient specialisation of their skills, resources and use of time for mutual benefit. The rise in the number of bizarre pre-nuptial agreements shows how extreme examples of this thinking has strange outcomes.

In contrast the Bible teaches that marriage is instead a covenant relationship where "the covenant reflects the 'inner' being of the couple" (Hay & Menzies 2007). The contractual economic approach to marriage is about two parties fulfilling their obligations for the mutual benefit of the partners, whereas the covenantal approach is about unqualified commitment to one another. Marriage in the biblical sense requires lifetime commitment "for better and worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part." The contractual approach seeks gains, benefits and efficiencies, whereas the covenantal approach starts with a deep commitment of self-giving love and is for life.

I hope that I'm wrong about these trends, but I suspect that I'm right.

The business of world poverty

How do you sell the need to address world poverty to business? The Business for Poverty Relief Alliance (an initiative of 'Business for Millennium Development') recently commissioned a report by Allen Consulting on poverty, which has just been released. The report, Business for Poverty Relief: A business case for business action, seeks to challenge business to understand that world poverty affects everyone, including business. The founding members are ANZ Bank, Grey Global Group, IAG, Pfizer and Visy Industries. I agree with the alliance's goals and much that it says, and applaud the initiative, but I'm uncomfortable about with some aspects of the 'sell' to business. First, some background on world poverty and Australia's aid effort to underline the significant need for more action.

Poverty facts

• Almost 30,000 children under the age of five die every day, mostly from preventable causes.
• 6,000 people die every day from diseases associated with lack of access to clean water, sanitation and poor hygiene.
• Approximately 2.6 billion people live on less than $US2 per day (1 billion of these live on less than a $US1)
• AIDS is the leading cause of death worldwide for people aged 15-49. In 2005 alone 2.8 million people died from AIDS and 4.1 million were newly infected.
• In Australia there are special needs within the Indigenous community with life expectancy at 59 for males and 65 for females.

Australia's Aid Budget

Australia's overseas aid budget stands at 0.28% of gross national income (GNI). The incoming Labor government has committed to increasing this to 0.34% by 2010, which is wonderful, but this would still be well below the 0.47% average for developed countries.


The call to business

The up front objective of the Business for Poverty Relief Alliance is to look at ways that Australian businesses, through their various programs, services, markets, and professional staff, can make a difference to global poverty and contribute to the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations which were agreed to by world leaders, including John Howard, in 2000. The Business for Millennium Development (B4MD) project was an outcome of UN work. This objective is sound, as is (to some extent) the stated Mission. The Mission is to:

Provide a leadership forum that will act as a catalyst for change towards alleviating poverty and driving sustainable development in the emerging economies of the Asia Pacific. We will support Australian businesses to operate, innovate and grow in true partnership with the communities in which they operate.

Why "emerging markets"?

But why “emerging markets”? To understand this focus you need to examine the business case and the Millennium Development Goals themselves. These promise that companies which contribute to emerging markets have the potential for "improved supply chain, new marketplace opportunities, becoming an employer of choice, improved corporate culture, staff retention and morale, increased licence to operate, improved investor attractiveness, global corporate reputation, and personal motivation (for business leaders)." In short, tackling issues such as "hunger, universal primary education, child mortality, maternal health and the spread of HIV" will be good for business in developed countries.

The Business for Poverty Relief report has many commendable goals that could help to address poverty in some countries, but what bothers me is the fact that the report uses self-interest as a motivator for engaging with the fight against poverty. The report states:

"Global poverty represents a direct threat to the current and future prosperity of a range of Australian businesses through the loss of potential markets, damage to foreign affiliates and a greater risk of regional instability. In addition, contributing to the development of poor countries - by generating income, creating jobs and investing in local businesses and skills - can present Australian firms with the opportunities of new markets" (p. 8)

This sentiment is also picked up in a quote on the B4MD homepage:

"Companies that are considered leaders in implementing environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies to create sustained competitive advantage have outperformed the general stock market by 25 per cent since August 2005. In addition, 72 per cent of these companies have outperformed their peers over the same period"
Goldman Sachs, June 2007


A right motivation for giving

The question for me is what should motivate concern for the poor? What should drive us to address the injustice of world poverty as summarised by the facts at the start of this post? The Bible speaks nowhere of being concerned for the poor out of self-interest. Instead, a pattern is set first in the Old Testament to consider the poor. The Israelites were instructed to reduce production so that the poor could have more. Fields were not reaped right up to the edge (Leviticus 23:22), vines were not to be fully stripped (Leviticus 19:10), and gleanings were left to be gathered by the poor (Leviticus 23:22b). They were also commended to "....defend the rights of the poor and needy” (Proverbs 31:9b). Another example of justice in action was the concept of the Jubilee year (Leviticus 25) that was given to them by God as a way to redress injustices in the possession of land every 50th year, ensuring the return of land to original owners to avoiding more and more land being accumulated by a few. The Bible has frequent references to the need for concern for the poor:

Psalm 41:1, "Blessed is he who considers the poor!"
Proverbs 14:31, "He who oppresses a poor man insults his maker, but he who is kind to the needy honours him."
Proverbs 21:13, "He who closes his ear to the cry of the poor will himself cry out and not be heard."
Luke 3:11, "He who has two coats, let him share with him who has none; and he who has food let him do likewise."

Isaiah 58:10 provides another insight into the nature of giving:

"If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. And the Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your desire with good things, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters fail not."

This passage follows a discussion of 'wrong fasting'. The Israelites had been embracing outward signs of faith with wrong motives. God demands from them fasting accompanied by genuine repentance, as well as a turning away from exploitation and injustice. "Is this not this the kind of fasting I have chosen; to loose the chains of injustice and untie the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?" (Is 58:6).

Of course this passage also throws up one of the great paradoxes of giving; that blessing comes from self-denial, and that we receive through giving (Luke 6:38). But this, of course, is not our motivation. The biblical pattern is to follow the pattern of Jesus, to lay down our life in order to gain it (Luke 9:24).

It seems to me that while well intentioned, the Millennium Development Goals are back to front. They start with a desire for personal gain and implement actions that reflect this desire. Nothing could be further from the Biblical pattern that Jesus’ life and teaching and sacrificial death on our behalf demonstrates.

You can download a copy of the Business for Poverty Relief report here. There are many great examples of generous giving from business and business leaders. Sacrificial giving based on compassion for the poor and a desire to seek justice for all nations, should be the call we issue to business, not giving based on self-interest.

Economists suggest that money CAN buy happiness

Andrew Leigh (Associate Professor, Australian National University) has posted a short piece pointing to new economic research on happiness. The work by Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers seeks to debunk the widely accepted Easterlin Paradox. Essentially, this paradox refers to three observations:

1) Within a society, rich people tend to be much happier than poor people.
2) But, rich societies tend not to be happier than poor societies (or not by much).
3) As countries get richer, they do not get happier."

Christians have seen the above as largely compatible with much biblical wisdom. But Stevenson and Wolfers have sought to re-analyse old data and add some new data not previously available. They argue that their new analysis leads to a very different conclusion, namely that:

• Rich people are happier than poor people.
• Richer countries are happier than poorer countries.
• As countries get richer, they tend to get happier.

This neat alignment between money and happiness is at odds with the Bible's teaching. We explored the theme of happiness in our most recent Case magazine and reached quite different conclusions using both the Bible and economic research. Ben Cooper, writing as an economist and theologian, discussed "happiness stagnation", the phenomenon that once a nation reaches a certain level of prosperity, further economic growth seems to have little or no impact. His interpretation is more consistent with the Easterlin Paradox and at odds with the most recent interpretation of data.

The Bible says little about seeking happiness but says a lot more about eternal blessings. In Jesus’ first major teaching event (Matthew 5:3-12) he makes it clear that those who mourn, the persecuted, the hungry and so on can have more than happiness.

Rather than focusing on external circumstances and pleasure, the key to life, is to “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33). Instead of teaching about happiness, Jesus taught that we are to deny ourselves and follow him. “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?” (Luke 9:23-25). There are bigger stakes than temporal happiness; there is eternal membership of God’s family through Christ.

Even in relation to this short life on earth, the Bible teaches something radically different. As Paul sits imprisoned in Rome he wrote these words:

"I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength" (Phil 4:10-13).

Our contentment the Apostle Paul suggests is anchored to our relationship with Christ. While we can influence our happiness through the things we do, the money and resources we have, the way we think and how we handle life’s situation, ultimately true contentment, of much greater worth than happiness, can only be found in God as we “confess Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:11b).

Back copies of Case #14 that deals with Happiness are available for $15 from CASE.

You can read the full paper from Stevenson & Wolfers (if you're keen) or a short report on the research in the New York Times. I'm sceptical of course about the way happiness is defined and assessed in this study and how they compare data from quite different cultures and vastly different life circumstances. I'd be interested to hear from Christian economists on how they would interpret the new research. You might even want to join the online debate occurring at Freakonomics.

Your life in 6 words?

Great people's lives reduced to just 6 words? Now that's word efficiency.

The Book Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure is a collection of almost 1,000 six-word memoirs. It includes entries from many celebrities including Stephen Colbert, Jane Goodall, Dave Eggers and others. It was the outcome of an online submission process that yielded 15,000 six-word memoirs

Which 6 words (or less) would we use to describe someone famous like Jesus? The Bible provides plenty of options.

"You are the Christ" (The Apostle Peter, Matthew 16:16)
"Son of God" (Various passages)
"The Word" (John 1:1)
"The Lamb of God" (John the Baptist, John 1:36)

How would you summarise your own life. Some might feel this could change every day. But how would you distill your life down to just 6 words? In my case maybe "child of God, husband, father, grandad" or "risk-taking learner, forgiven and loved". It all depends on the perspective you take (sounds very post-modern!). Are you thinking of life roles, your personality, circumstances and events? It's an interesting experiment in self reflection.

The SMITH magazine that was behind the exercise has published some of the examples online (see it here).

Here are some of the examples:

"I still make coffee for two" (Zak Nelson)
"Sperm too potent, now have triplets" (Renee Schunk)
"Never really finished anything except cake" (Carletta Perkins)
"Born in California then nothing happened" (Mark Harris)
"Nothing profound, I just sat around" (Daniel Rosenburg)
"Wasn't noticed, so I painted trains" (Mare 139)
"From Colombia to Columbina: 27 years" (Marisa Casey)

The magazine has recently asked for submissions of six-word memoirs for a future book (here).