Monday 10 February 2020

Clickety-Click Take Two


Portrait in the Jacobean Manner

This week sees my 66th birthday, so I hope you don't mind this little annual self-indulgence in self-portraiture. For reasons that should be self-evident I'm not especially vain about my appearance, but I have always admired Tudor and Jacobean portraiture – the sheer mastery of Hans Holbein as a portraitist has rarely been surpassed – so I enjoyed mocking this up from a recent, arm's-length "selfie". Taking selfies is not something I'm in the habit of doing – more than a couple of times a year and it starts to seem excessive – and I think I'm probably too old to really grasp the significance of the contemporary selfie obsession; it surely can't just be unbridled narcissism, can it?

Recently, I was hanging around my partner's London office, which has a less than spectacular view across one of those desolate institutional-architectural voids, directly into the adjoining library. As I stood by the window, I was intrigued to watch a Chinese girl, sitting at a study desk by the window opposite, repeatedly posing for her phone, tossing her hair, smiling, simpering, frowning, turning this way and that, all presumably in pursuit of the perfect selfie. This went on for ages: I'd go away, make a coffee, come back, and she'd still be at it. In the end, I felt like throwing open the window and shouting across the void, "Oi, you! Yes, you! Stop that ridiculous preening, and get on with some bloody work!"

It never ceases to surprise me how much more weather-worn – not to say old – my face looks when photographed than when seen in the mirror above the bathroom sink (there are very few other mirrors in our house). Maybe there's some "Haggardiser" filter in the camera I've somehow managed to turn on, together with "Thinning Hair" and "Mad Eyebrows"? Or maybe it's that I simply continue to see the same face I've been seeing for 60+ years – brains are complex mechanisms dedicated to self-delusion – whereas the simple-minded camera records the stark, unmediated reality. I wrote about this five years ago (such wisdom from one so young!) so here it comes again, slightly revised:

I recently read something in an essay by John Berger on Rembrandt's self-portraits that intrigued me. He wrote:
A painter can draw his left hand as if it belonged to somebody else. Using two mirrors he can draw his own profile as if observing a stranger. But when he looks straight into a mirror, he is caught in a trap: his reaction to the face he is seeing changes that face [...]  It is the same for all of us. We play-act when we look in the bathroom mirror, we instantly make an adjustment to our expression and our face. Quite apart from the reversal of the left and right, nobody else ever sees us as we see ourselves above the washbasin. And this dissimilation is spontaneous and uncalculated. It’s as old as the invention of the mirror.
Nobody else ever sees us as we see ourselves above the washbasin.  A troubling thought, that. I've been trying to catch my own "real" face in the mirror ever since. Or, at least, one or two of the many real faces we all wear. I think of the way I must have looked in countless meetings, struggling with boredom or irritation or slipping quietly away into a rapt doodling session. Or when giving presentations beneath the PowerPoint screen, or telling a funny story over coffee, or sharing outrageous get-outta-here gossip. Then there are the faces I make when driving, or playing with my children, or just buying stamps in the Post Office, or any number of public or intimate circumstances. Face it (sorry...), to everyone else you are that person (or those people) and virtually never the one you imagine yourself to be, gurning winningly at the bathroom mirror, toothbrush in hand.

As W.B. Yeats put it, with a conscious level of irony:
From mirror after mirror,
No vanity's displayed:
I'm looking for the face I had
Before the world was made.
Yeah, right. So are all those other truth-seekers, checking themselves out in the shop window, or taking endless samey selfies by a window in the library.

1975... I suppose in our day photo-booth
strips were the nearest thing to a selfie.
Sadly, you couldn't see what you
were going to look like...

By the way, should you feel inclined to join in the world-wide celebrations of this event (my 66th birthday, that is, not Lucy Liu's selfie session) then you could do no better than to encourage your like-minded friends and acquaintances (even your social media "friends") to read this blog. Seriously: I enjoy writing it, but the real pleasure lies in knowing it is being read. Read, that is, by people other than the relatives, ex-colleagues, long-standing friends, enemies, and old school chums who are closely monitoring it for possible legal action. Thanks!

16 comments:

Paul Mc Cann said...

I have a CARF face I'm told (Crabbed at Rest Face or Crabbed Bitch Face if you're female) To me this explains the often hostile response I get from shop assistants. Must remember to smile
I think people reflect back to you what they imagine they see in your face

Mike C. said...

Paul,

I think the hardest thing to imagine about your own face is how it moves when talking (or indeed listening). Hearing one's voice recorded is shock enough, but seeing yourself talking on video must be horrendous. Luckily, that's something I've avoided so far (unless the surveillance state is even more intrusive than I thought).

Mike

amolitor said...

What a well groomed fellow you are! I admire your beard. Mine turns into a sort of Forest Dwelling Lunatic beard if I don't keep it quite close.

Mike C. said...

It is a curious thing that most men shave. I cannot understand this, not least because what lies beneath is rarely worth revealing. Curious fact: the Russian word for "chin" is "podborodok" i.e. "under the beard", which is harsh on Russian women, I feel.

Mike

Thomas Rink said...

First: Happy birthday to you! Second: For us bearded guys (I'm too), isn't it like a late confirmation of our exceptional taste that wearing a beard is currently a hot fashion among young men? I mean, after decades of being looked upon as odd hobgoblins?

Some weeks ago, I took my wife to a posh bar and almost all of the male guests -- who could have been our sons -- wore a beard ...

Best, Thomas

Mike C. said...

Thanks, Thomas! These young folk are mainly fair-weather beardies (especially the ones using, like, *stuff* on their beards) who will be shaving again as soon as the fashion-wind changes direction... It takes taste and determination to weather out the other decades (shrugging off cries of "Oi! Farver Krissmuss!" and the like).

Mike

DM said...

Looking extraordinarily like yourself, Mr. C; complemented by the remarkable similarity between your written voice and listening to you in person. Many happy returns.

Mike C. said...

Thanks, DM! Interesting comment, that, about the "voice": I sometimes wonder what readers "hear" internally when they read what I publish here (I'm assuming most of my readers are capable of reading silently, and without moving their lips...). If, for example, I were to podcast these pieces, who would I choose to do the job? Simon Russell Beale or Tim Roth? Tricky...

Mike

amolitor said...

I hadn't really thought of a specific "voice" your writing is read in, but now that you ask, I'm going with Jeremy Irons, 100%.

Mike C. said...

Uncannily accurate! A seductive, baritone blend of suave vowels and perfectly enunciated consonants... I'll see if he's free.

Mike

DM said...

Timothy Spall or Basil Rathbone, the choice is yours!

Mike C. said...

Argh, I suspect Timothy Spall is horribly spot-on... At least I don't look like him. Not yet, anyway.

Mike

Julian Behrisch Elce said...

Michael Caine’s voice! No, no... Trevor Howard’s, or maybe Alec Guinness.
Happy Birthday, many happy returns!

Mike C. said...

Thanks, Julian! I think "all of the above" covers it... I can see I'm going to have to try doing a mini-podcast, and shock everyone. It's the reverse situation of the faces my mind builds around familiar voices on the radio: totally unlike the reality, but *better*!

Mike

Pritam Singh said...

I wish you a belated happy birthday. Thank you for writing the Idiotic Hat.I chanced upon it about a month ago and drink of it when able. There's a lot to take in!
I live in France but this, my first comment, is made from Australia where I'm visiting my children.
I might mention, at the cost of adding to my discomfiture, that it is a right pain in the a*** typing on the pokey little keys of a mobile telephone. I can't wait to get home.
Best wishes.

Mike C. said...

Thanks Pritam, and welcome: it's always good to welcome a new reader, especially one who takes the trouble to identify himself and to comment!

Mike