Amsterdam Watercolour: Two Sheds in Autumn

At the end of last October, my partner and I departed Amsterdam and returned to York. The cause was my commencing a PhD in literature at the University of York. While there were possibilities for undertaking doctoral research at a university which would have enabled us to continue living in Amsterdam – including an excellent opportunity with the University of Antwerp – we ultimately decided that York presented the best scenario for study. Preparations for the move occupied much of late October; there was the fact of the move itself; and then followed the process of finding and inhabiting an apartment in York while also developing a working habit at the University.

That serves as a loose explanation for my lack of posts between last September and mid-March; but as much as I was preoccupied with other things, I simply fell out of the habit of posting. More, during September and October, I began and wrote significant portions and passages for articles which were intended for the site, but never finished. Aside from no longer possessing a surfeit of time, and aside from the diminishing of a regular article-writing habit, the existence of these unfinished pieces served to further pervert the end of publication. As those articles which I had begun became less and less relevant, the inclination was to consider how their material could be repurposed – rather than focusing on what else I ought to write. What had been written became a barrier to further work. The situation in Ukraine and Crimea compelled several pieces last month, and marked my return to posting.

In the last few weeks before we left Amsterdam, I painted a small number of paintings comprising views from the rear balcony of our apartment, in the ‘Oud-Zuid’ of the city. The paintings are in watercolour and ink. Some of their views will be visible in earlier collections of photographs posted on this site; or else via my Instagram account. This first painting looks down upon two sheds, and contains all of the relevant fallen leaves and foliage.

WrestleMania XXX: New Stars Emerge as WrestleMania Triumphs

WrestleMania XXX, held at the Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana, and drawing an attendance of 75,167 people, took place on Sunday night, 6 April 2014. The WWE’s flagship event continues to expand in scope. Aside from the now well established week-long series of engagements which precede the event proper – autograph signings, fan meets and television appearances culminating on Saturday evening in the WWE Hall of Fame ceremony – this WrestleMania was the first to be broadcast via the company’s recently launched WWE Network, and it also offered an enlarged, two-hour-long pre-show. Yet where the two preceding WrestleMania’s had been headlined by The Rock, returning to fight John Cena for the WWE Championship, and had seen performances by celebrity musicians including Diddy, for the occasion of the thirtieth WrestleMania there was a relative lack of star power scheduled. Hulk Hogan was to host the show, but the focus was very much towards the in-ring action, centring on Daniel Bryan’s quest to overcome Triple H and become WWE Champion. With this focus and a relatively concise card, WrestleMania XXX surpassed many expectations, and can lay genuine claim to the title of greatest WrestleMania. As several bouts vied for match of the night, and with no match palpably inferior or serving no apparent purpose, the event succeeded in shocking and satisfying wrestling fans, and enhanced the majority of the wrestling talents who appeared.

The first hour of the pre-show functioned predominantly to build towards the event. An entertaining panel, hosted by Josh Matthews and featuring Booker T, Shawn Michaels, and Mick Foley, discussed the impending matches, interspersed with video packages hyping what was to come.  The panelists spoke essentially in character, with Matthews a solid host, Michaels excellent at enthusing over the matches, and Foley – arguably the best speaker the business has seen – offering the unique insight he always brings to such affairs. The second hour of the pre-show, exclusively broadcast via the WWE Network, saw Jimmy Hart replace Foley, then later Trish Stratus replace Hart; and it featured a match for the WWE Tag Team Championship, as The Usos defended against The Real Americans, RybAxel, and Los Matadores, in a four-way elimination bout. The match adopted a lively pace, as teammates double-teamed their opponents in the ring, and frequently took matters to the outside. Los Matadores performed planchas onto the mass of their opponents on the floor, before being eliminated when Jack Swagger forced one of their member to submit to the Patriot Lock. After more back-and-forth, RybAxel were eliminated when Cesaro gained the upper hand on Ryback, and hit the Neutralizer for the pinfall.

Cesaro is rapidly becoming one of the wrestlers most over among the fans. His rise has been organic and built on solid foundations: without a lot of time on the microphone, he is physically impressive, a supremely lithe 6 feet and 5 inches; he has an amiable personality whether heel or face; and he is exceptional in the ring, able to excel with any opponent, and with a highly distinctive moveset. The Neutralizer, Cesaro Swing, and all the variations upon his European Uppercut comprise some of the most cheered moves today. After The Usos performed dives to the outside on Cesaro and Swagger, The Real Americans won the advantage in the ring, only for Cesaro to inadvertently bump Swagger out to the floor. With Cesaro at the mercy of The Usos, they landed a double splash from opposite turnbuckles and pinned Cesaro to retain their titles. After the match, Zeb Colter proved unable to reconcile his team: Swagger snapped, and put the fallen Cesaro into the Patriot Lock, before relenting; but Cesaro was not inclined towards forgiveness, and threw Swagger with the Cesaro Swing before leaving the ring, effectively disbanding The Real Americans.

WrestleMania XXX could not have opened more strongly. Inside the Superdome, the stage and the setting befitted the magnitude of the event, with a Shakespearean purple and gold colour scheme offset by white ‘WrestleMania’ lettering. Hulk Hogan made his way to the ring to open the show, to a great reception; and despite erring when he twice referred to the Superdome as the ‘Silverdome’, he usefully put over his bodyslam on Andre the Giant at WrestleMania III. He was interrupted by Stone Cold Steve Austin, returning to WrestleMania for the first time in three years. Austin came down the ramp to a tremendous reception. He joked with Hogan, but affirmed his respect for Hogan’s achievements and for his legacy in building the event; before focusing on the current crop of superstars, and on the importance of putting in a substantial WrestleMania performance. While Austin’s appearance had been announced several days before the show – and he and Hogan had sat next to one another during the Hall of Fame ceremony the night before – one of the surprises of the night occurred when The Rock’s music hit, to a roar from the crowd. As The Rock spoke and the three men cycled through their catchphrases, beyond the sheer enjoyment of seeing the three together in the ring, they successfully added weight to the wrestling at hand. Their appearance together constituted an unforgettable moment in its own right; but it was also a rousing demonstration for the fans and for the wrestlers in the back regarding the meaning and the value of the event.

After Stephanie McMahon took to the ring, and introduced Triple H – whose elaborate entrance saw him carried out, accompanied by three women, on a throne and wearing a skull helmet – Daniel Bryan and Triple H opened the show. Whoever emerged victorious from the match would proceed to face Randy Orton and Batista in the main event, for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. An excellent match saw Triple H repeatedly work on Daniel Bryan’s injured left arm and shoulder. Both men pushed themselves outside their comfort zones: Triple H introduced several new moves to his arsenal, including a tiger suplex on Bryan; while Bryan utilised frequent aerial attacks, with dives from the top rope and through the ropes to the outside. In the ring, he held onto Triple H for a double German suplex, and hit a sunset flip powerbomb from the turnbuckle, before Triple H turned the balance of the match with a huge clothesline which sent Bryan spinning in the air.

The booking of this encounter seemed obvious: Bryan would grab the victory, but receive such punishment at the hands of Triple H that his chances in the main event would be cast in doubt. Prior to the show, some fans had hypothesised that a drawn finish or some added stipulation would turn the main event into a four-way match. The sensible conclusion received its due, as Bryan picked up the clean victory with the running knee, only to be assaulted after the match by an irate Triple H. Bryan’s left arm was wrapped around the ring post and struck vehemently with a steel chair.

One of the slighter matches on the card followed, as The Shield took on the teaming of Kane and The New Age Outlaws. While part of a broader ‘Authority’ storyline, the rationale for the match was predominantly to allow The Shield and Kane a place on the show. Still, it was mildly disappointing that it received so little time: quickly disintegrating into a free-for-all, Kane was speared to the outside by Roman Reigns, allowing The Shield to take the victory after an innovative triple-team powerbomb on both Road Dogg and Billy Gunn. Nevertheless The Shield – and particularly Reigns, who landed two Superman punches and two spears – looked strong and posed proudly after the final bell. The three men continue to progress and are so over with the fans, especially after their recent face turn, that there is no imperative to split the group in the near future.

The next match was the André the Giant Memorial Battle Royal, announced by Hulk Hogan several weeks ago on Raw. Apparently comprising thirty-one participants, the battle royal was inevitably but exceedingly messy until the numbers dwindled. It then became a highly entertaining showcase for several superstars. Sheamus clubbed away with zeal at Fandango, who had hitherto been dancing on the ring apron; Rey Mysterio hit Alberto Del Rio with a 619; and Dolph Ziggler too briefly shone, before all were eliminated. Kofi Kingston achieved another of those feats which characterise his appearances in the Royal Rumble: thrown over the corner turnbuckle by Cesaro, he landed on the outside with his feet still touching the steel steps; and as they had not touched the arena floor, he was able to reenter the ring and continue to participate in the match. Alas, Kingston too would be eliminated. Kofi must live year upon year in fear that he will botch the often exceedingly difficult manoeuvres by which he remains, for just a little bit longer, in battle royals. When Sheamus and Del Rio were eliminated as a pair, Cesaro and Big Show were left as this occasion’s final two participants. Reminiscent of Wrestlemania III, and receiving a tremendous response from the audience, Cesaro scooped up Big Show and bodyslammed him over the top rope to emerge the victor. Cesaro celebrated in the ring, on his knees with the oversized memorial trophy.

After a video montage, Bray Wyatt and his Wyatt Family emerged from the darkness, as Mark Crozer – a solo artist and a guitarist for the reformed The Jesus and Mary Chain – performed live Wyatt’s theme music. John Cena followed, running down the ramp upon entrance, and the match between John Cena and Bray Wyatt was quickly underway. This was in some ways a difficult card for this match to feature on: with Daniel Bryan presumed to be involved in two matches, and with The Undertaker facing Brock Lesnar, it was perhaps only the fourth most anticipated match on the show. It was necessary for it to take a slower pace, and to eschew some of the overt physicality and extreme out-of-the-ring action which would characterise the other bouts. More, the very scenario of the match was itself intriguing yet challenging: one of the clearest examples yet of a match in which there was neither an accepted nor a posited face or heel. While Cena remains the figurehead of the WWE and overtly a face, he receives many jeers in spite of the respect many fans have for him. Meanwhile Wyatt – who might be perceived as occupying the traditional sphere of a heel – is not really being pushed as a bad guy, and is attaining vast support among a curious and appreciative fanbase.

Where the opening match between Bryan and Triple H had been strategic, this match was richly psychological, playing on the idea that Cena could be discombobulated and even brought to an ill-fitting rage by Wyatt’s mind-games. So Wyatt began the match on his knees, pleading that Cena give in to his darker urges and ‘finish’ him. With some of the bizarre postures Wyatt adopted throughout the match – including an instance where he disrupted a Five Knuckle Shuffle by lifting himself into a stretched position, upside down, supported by his hands and feet, looking backwards at Cena, half-crab and half-spider – and with the overly sombre announcing, the match sometimes risked seeming a little too much of a gimmick; but the action was solid and it ultimately told an effective story. With The Wyatt Family frequently getting involved on the outside, Wyatt kicked out of an Attitude Adjustment; but then Cena, after being cradled in Wyatt’s arms, kicked out of a Sister Abigail, to Wyatt’s evident distress. Wyatt encouraged Cena to hit him with a steel chair. Cena hesitated, but came away with the pinfall victory after a second Attitude Adjustment.

Cena triumphing perhaps wasn’t the preferred outcome for many wrestling fans, who would have liked to see Bray go over. In truth, especially given the standing of the match on the card, neither man desperately needed the victory. Wyatt’s star is rising rapidly, and he came out of the match not only unscathed by but enhanced in defeat: he was part of a strong presentation, given arguably the event’s outstanding entrance, and coming close to victory while proving difficult to beat. If Cena gained little by virtue of the win, still it is standard practise to only make your figurehead do the job when it really matters. Cena emerging victorious did, however, pose an interesting problem within the context of the night: for it suggested the likelihood of a washout for the babyfaces. With Bryan, The Shield, Cesaro, and Cena too all on the side of virtue and positioned as fan favourites, and The Undertaker and Daniel Bryan assumed as the winners of the remaining two men’s bouts, it seemed that there might be no male heel victor at WrestleMania XXX.

A superbly produced video package, narrated by Paul Heyman, preceded the match between The Undertaker and Brock Lesnar. Heyman at once exhorted his man, spoke for his strategy and commitment to the task at hand, and forewarned wrestling fans regarding the outcome: ‘Eat, Sleep, Conquer, Repeat’, Heyman pronounced again and again, before concluding that Lesnar would be the man to ‘Conquer The Streak’. The Undertaker, of course, went into the match undefeated at WrestleMania, with a 21-0 record extending back to WrestleMania VII in 1991. After Lesnar and Heyman came out to the ring, The Undertaker began a prolonged entrance, featuring a coffin which burst into flames and a new, studded, red-highlighted felt cowboy hat.

It would be fair to say that the fans responded lukewarmly to this match throughout its early stages. There were immediate reasons for this: there had been a long pause in the action after the Cena/Wyatt match, as this year’s Hall of Fame class – including The Ultimate Warrior, Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts, Razor Ramon, Paul Bearer (represented by his two sons), Carlos Colon, Mr. T, and Lita – appeared on stage to receive the fans’ applause. Lesnar too is something of a curiosity, in that he is undeniably a major attraction, without appearing particularly ‘over’ in a conventional sense, or drawing a hot response from the crowd in his own right. In his scattered appearances over the last few years, he has sometimes made little attempt to engage the fans beyond his supreme physicality. Paul Heyman has been the bearer of his heat. More, while a decisive match between the two has been years in the making – it was prefigured as far back as UFC 121 in October 2010, when The Undertaker, in the audience, confronted a competing Lesnar – their feud leading directly to WrestleMania XXX proved relatively brief, extending only over the last month.

Indeed, the feud between The Undertaker and Brock Lesnar rested on a simple premise: that Lesnar’s aggression and his background made him an unequivocal and unparalleled threat to The Undertaker’s record. Where Taker’s matches against Shawn Michaels invoked the psychology of the streak, and his bouts against Triple H were intensely physical engagements, with lots of false finishes, this match was slower and took on a different perspective. After a few forays to the outside, Lesnar worked extensively on Taker’s legs, and the match briefly became a mat-based, submission-wrestling affair, as The Undertaker twice locked in the Hell’s Gate, only for Lesnar to power out and respond with the Kimura Lock. The Undertaker and Lesnar had earlier traded near falls, courtesy of a chokeslam and an F-5. Now Lesnar caught Taker again with an F-5 as he went for the Old School from the top rope; but again, Lesnar could draw only a close two-count. As his frustration grew, The Undertaker countered his blows with a Last Ride, and it looked like the streak would remain intact. Yet Lesnar reversed The Undertaker’s attempt at a Tombstone Piledriver, hoisting then dropping The Undertaker with a third F-5: and Lesnar covered, and the referee counted to three.

The disbelief amongst those in attendance was immediate: people’s mouths hung agape. As Paul Heyman raved in the corner of the ring and Lesnar took on a self-satisfied smirk, the arena remained silent, until eventually a 21-1 graphic was displayed as if to confirm the result. Lesnar and Heyman returned to the back, while The Undertaker lingered: but despite some chanting in support of The Undertaker, and several fans booing the conclusion, the audience looked on largely subdued, and The Undertaker maintained a look of strained shock as he struggled to the back – defeated, but neither vengeful nor conciliatory.

The debate regarding the ending to this match can and will twist and rage endlessly. The result largely overshadowed the match itself, and can be interpreted apart from it; but it is true to say that the match, while it improved as it progressed after a sluggish opening, was far from a classic. The Undertaker has been in the ring for the last six WrestleMania’s with ring generals: Edge, Shawn Michaels and Triple H twice apiece, and last year CM Punk. For all of his talents, Lesnar does not control a match like these wrestlers, and with The Undertaker’s growing age and increasing lack of mobility, a great match required somebody who could dictate the right spots and the right tempo. Many will argue that, if the streak was to end, it ought to have ended against a more fitting opponent: against someone like CM Punk, who built an excellent encounter with The Undertaker one year ago; or, alternately, against a talented up-and-comer, a Bray Wyatt or Roman Reigns, for instance, who could have achieved a strong match while being established in the main event by virtue of victory. There is some feeling that Lesnar, aside from being an ill-suited opponent for The Undertaker in the ring, does not deserve to have ended the streak because he didn’t need the victory, and because he has not been a full-time wrestler since departing the company in 2004.

On the other hand, while there was some disappointment over the quality of the match, the immediate effect of its conclusion was to make momentous an occasion which might otherwise have been considered a relative failure. It has been speculated that The Undertaker himself determined, several years ago, that the streak would end at Lesnar’s hands; and certainly the rationale behind this is clear. For the sake of realism, it makes sense that an ageing Undertaker would fall at last to a physical phenomenon, still young, with many accomplishments within wrestling and with a successful recent run as a legitimate fighter in the UFC. The Undertaker is a UFC fan, and seems to buy into the notion that Lesnar’s successes there translate effectively into the world of professional wrestling. It is perhaps ironic that this man – famed worldwide for a gimmick that seems to demarcate the world of wrestling from that of other sports – seems to hold to such a notion of ‘legitimate’ toughness; but there is no contradiction there, and the rationale is eminently understandable.

More, perhaps The Undertaker and the WWE were increasingly aware of the tension inherent in building WrestleMania around the streak, while at the same time the streak appeared unlikely to ever be broken. It is difficult to make fans buy wholeheartedly into a match where defeat for one of the participants seems impossible. The conclusion to The Undertaker vs. Brock Lesnar certainly positioned the WWE one step ahead of its fans, who were forced to respond emotionally to an occasion that perhaps risked becoming too calculated.

There are those who will continue to argue that the streak should never have been broken. Jim Ross and Steve Austin are among those who argued in the past for never breaking the streak. This view essentially maintains that the legacy of an undiminished streak would have been best for the long-term future of the wrestling business: a cap on The Undertaker’s unsurpassed career; a facet adding value to and interest towards future WrestleManias; something evoking deep feeling and deep attachment in wrestling’s followers, a memory that could persist and would bind fans to the WWE. Some might lament what they perceive as a shock for the sake of shocking. Some have even speculated that the decision must have been made late in the day, owing to The Undertaker’s declining physical strength. There are other views too regarding how the streak should have been booked.

Lance Storm, several years ago via his website, outlined a concept for the streak which would have seen The Undertaker announce decisively that the streak would end – and that he would keep competing until somebody ended it, wanting to challenge himself to the fullest extent of his career. This announcement would have served several purposes. It would have made the streak even more of a draw, as fans clamoured to witness what could result in The Undertaker’s decisive retirement. It would have forced the fans to invest in the match at hand, knowing that defeat for The Undertaker was a real possibility. And it would also have softened the blow of The Undertaker’s eventual, inevitable defeat. One of the arguments against his loss on Sunday is that it cast a pall over the crowd which persisted well into the main event. Questions remain over The Undertaker’s future, while there is anticipation regarding the plan of action for Brock Lesnar: logically, he would become a monster heel on the back of the result, and could engage in a potentially era-defining feud with Daniel Bryan; but this depends on Lesnar being embraced as a villain by the WWE audience, and requires Lesnar to be willing and able to work a fuller schedule. Whatever, the end of the streak on Sunday well demonstrated that ‘anything can happen’ in the WWE; it made WrestleMania XXX profoundly, searingly memorable; and it restored a certain primacy to the value and the realities of winning and losing a wrestling match.

This sense would carry through to the main event. First, a pleasant enough interlude saw AJ Lee retain her WWE Divas Championship in the Vickie Guerrero Divas Championship Invitational. Of the fourteen contenders, Natalya, Tamina, Naomi and AJ materialised from a chaotic opening as the invitational’s most probable victors. With the former two wrestlers fighting on the outside of the ring, AJ took the win by forcing Naomi to submit to the Black Widow. Earlier in the show, a locker room segment featuring Sgt. Slaughter, ‘Hacksaw’ Jim Duggan, and Ricky ‘The Dragon’ Steamboat had culminated entertainingly enough in a Ron Simmons ‘Damn!’. Now an indecorous backstage bit brought together the participants from the very first WrestleMania’s main event. Roddy Piper and Paul Orndorff argued with Hulk Hogan, who was joined by Mr. T, with Mean Gene holding the microphone and Pat Patterson interceding. The segment did not seem an exceptional use of the talents involved, and perhaps owing to time constraints was largely insensible; but the group emerged from it as firm friends, former differences cast aside and largely forgotten.

So the main event saw Randy Orton defending his WWE World Heavyweight Championship against Batista and Daniel Bryan; which posed problems of its own, for two of the three participants have struggled over the last couple of months to win a strong response from the fanbase. To an extent, Randy Orton and Batista have suffered from not being Daniel Bryan, as the enthusiasm which has both accompanied and impelled his rise has become encompassing. But there is the understandable perception that Randy Orton has been at the top of the business for a long time, without evolving as a character and without the promotion of suitable challengers; whereas Batista returned in January perhaps miscast initially as a face, but also conceived as past his physical peak, while his passion for the business has sometimes been laid open to question. Batista attained superstardom as part of a well conceived and sustained angle, winning his first WWE title at WrestleMania XXI in 2005, as he broke away from Evolution and defeated Triple H. His current shaven-headed look allied to the natural processes of ageing make him appear today somewhat generic and slightly sordid. Certainly a singles match between the two – which seemed pencilled in for the event initially – would have been hard to reconcile. But the main event was invigorated by Bryan’s involvement.

Randy Orton made his entrance first, as the band Rev Theory performed his theme music. Batista made his way to the ring next; and finally came Daniel Bryan. Within the context of the two match-ups, the contrast between Triple H and Randy Orton’s entrances and Daniel Bryan’s was marked and surely deliberate: where Triple H and Orton appeared grandiose, and therefore apart and conceited in their power, Bryan’s entrance was straightforward and one with the people, as he turned to them and pumped his arms focused, amid the soaring ‘Yes!’ chants, on the task ahead of him.

Bryan was marginalised in the early stages of the bout, as his opponents took advantage of his injured arm and worked on each other in and out of the ring. As Bryan gained the ascendancy, Triple H and Stephanie appeared through the crowd – a slightly strange choice for the co-owners of the company, but suitably malignant. Interposing their own referee, the crooked Scott Armstrong, a quick count threatened as Batista dropped Bryan with the Batista Bomb. However, Bryan kicked out on two-and-a-half, and amid the recriminations which followed, his dive to the outside took down all of Triple H, Stephanie, and Armstrong. An enraged Triple H brought out a sledgehammer from underneath the ring, and he climbed onto the apron preparing to strike; but Bryan countered, and taking the sledgehammer from Triple H, clubbed him in the head sending him tumbling to the arena floor.

As Triple H and Stephanie were escorted from ringside, the match continued with the original referee revived. Triple H and Stephanie’s appearance – and it is worth noting that they, as the acknowledged co-owners of the WWE, gain heat whenever the fans become distressed over a booking decision – and Bryan’s use of the sledgehammer had revitalised the crowd, still in a state of stupefaction following The Undertaker’s defeat. It had momentarily seemed that the main event would be compromised by a subdued audience; but from this point the noise in the Superdome rose steadily across a perfectly booked and executed finish. Orton and Batista now determined to see off Bryan together. Their double-teaming on the outside of the ring climaxed with a Batista Bomb into an RKO, through the announce table. This was a double-team move which was almost too preposterous to be fully appreciated: it is not clear that the Batista Bomb alone wouldn’t have caused Bryan more pain and suffering: the RKO arguably broke Bryan’s fall, and it certainly cost Orton, who landed on one of the television monitors and lacerated his back. Still, the move was rewarded by the response of the crowd; and it had succeeded in damaging Bryan’s neck, for the medical personnel who came to check on him put him in a neck brace, and began to remove him from ringside on a stretcher.

With Bryan immobilised, Batista beat on a depleted Orton, only for Orton to turn the tide with a hangman’s DDT from the ring apron onto the floor. Before Bryan had been rolled all the way up the ramp, he summoned the will and the strength to tear off his neck brace, to climb off his stretcher, and to struggle back towards the ring. He applied the Yes Lock first to Orton, then to Batista, but both holds were broken. With Bryan tossed to the outside, Orton caught Batista with an RKO, but Batista kicked out at two and three-quarters. Bryan returned to the ring, and stunned Orton with a running knee. Batista prevented him from taking advantage, however, and tossed him again to the outside, stealing the cover on Orton – but again managing only a near fall. So Batista raised and then dropped Orton with a Batista Bomb, but as he looked up, Bryan was there once more with a running knee. Instead of the cover, Bryan put Batista in the Yes Lock, and he tapped, making Bryan the new WWE World Heavyweight Champion.

Thus there was a triumphant end to the show, with Bryan raising the two heavy Championship belts amid ‘Yes!’ chants and falling purple-gold confetti. Credit for the main event must go to Bryan most of all, for it is he who has engaged the fans over the last year with his energy and aggression in the ring, and with his earnest entertainment outside of it: his achievement gave the event its shape and allowed it to be so successful. But credit goes too to whoever booked the match, with its climactic false finishes, and with the application of the Yes Lock – rather than a pinfall victory – allowing the fans to savour the moment and cheer; and also significantly to Orton and Batista, who pulled out such capable performances. Bryan is now established as a major star, and should be a fixture in the main event for years to come.

And yet Bryan was not the only or even the most enhanced superstar on the night of WrestleMania XXX. The event was monumental for Cesaro, who excelled in the tag match during the pre-show – which also made The Usos look strong – and broke from The Real Americans; then won the Memorial Battle Royal, showcasing his incredible strength and producing a genuine ‘WrestleMania Moment’. He pushed Bryan close for the accolade of WrestleMania XXX’s most valuable performer. The Shield picked up a WrestleMania victory and built momentum, and the character of Bray Wyatt too was elaborated, as a presentation and as regards his in-ring psychology. Putting in solid performances on such an effective card, the WWE’s older stars, Cena, Orton, and Batista, were gently invigorated.

Raw on Monday night saw more superstars emerge while continuing to propel the main storylines of WrestleMania XXX. There was a successful return to the ring for Bad News Barrett against Rey Mysterio; a debut singles victory for Alexander Rusev; and the return to the WWE of Rob Van Dam. WWE NXT Women’s Champion Paige appeared on the main show to a substantial reception, and she produced the surprise of the night when she beat a quarrelsome AJ for the WWE Divas Championship. Meanwhile The Wyatt Family opened the wrestling with a victory over the team of John Cena, Sheamus, and Big E. Cesaro not only confirmed his split from Zeb Colter and Jack Swagger: he revealed himself a ‘Paul Heyman guy’, Heyman’s new protégé, which is intriguing not least because Cesaro is igniting such a strong face response from the WWE audience. How Cesaro and Lesnar cohabitate alongside Heyman should prove an immense source of interest from here on. Raw closed with a stare down between the old and the new, as Daniel Bryan and The Shield fended off the attacks of Triple H, Kane, Randy Orton, and Batista. The mood outside of the wrestling ring shifted sadly late on Tuesday night, upon the announcement of the death of The Ultimate Warrior.

The Unknown Known: The Epistemologies of Errol Morris and Donald Rumsfeld

Errol Morris’s documentary The Unknown Known views the political career of Donald Rumsfeld and his time as US Secretary of Defence between 2001 and 2006. The film premiered at the Telluride Film Festival at the end of last August; was given a limited release in the United States on Wednesday; and has been showing at select Picturehouse Cinemas in the UK this week. Conceived as a companion piece to Morris’s 2003 documentary, The Fog of War – Morris has called the two works ‘salt-and-pepper shakers’ or ‘bookends’ – where that film explored the War in Vietnam, this focuses on the early days of the War in Iraq. Morris views these two wars as disastrous, unjustified and error-strewn, horrific episodes in American and world history. Yet where The Fog of War was a penetrating analysis of Robert McNamara’s decisions, considerations, and regrets regarding the Vietnam War, structured within a chronology of McNamara’s life, The Unknown Known is more amorphous.

McNamara had already shown a penchant for retrospection and reconsideration. His 1995 book, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, and 2001’s Wilson’s Ghost: Reducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing, and Catastrophe in the 21st Century, co-authored by James G. Blight, were both impetuses for Morris’s film, and Morris drew from the former for the eleven lessons which serve as structural points in The Fog of War. Rumsfeld’s participation in such a project comes as more of a surprise. Morris has recounted that when he first contacted Rumsfeld’s lawyer, this lawyer assured him that Rumsfeld was never likely to speak to him on film. Rumsfeld eagerly chose to engage; yet at the close of the documentary, when asked by Morris the reason for his participation, Rumsfeld hesitates and offers only ‘I’ll be damned if I know’, his words accompanied by the grin which has become his trademark over the preceding hour and a half of footage.

Emerging from a closed subject, this grin comes to serve as a point of reference for the audience, appearing to offer some insight into the nature of the man. It can be read in a number of ways: as the sinister smirk of someone unwilling to reflect openly on his own failings or wrongdoings; as the connivance of a lifelong politician; as an attempt to disarm his interviewer; or more plainly as a genuine expression of engagement, of pleasure, or of well-being. For Rumsfeld himself, the smile seems both to challenge and to conciliate. With it, he affirms to his correspondent that they are engaged together in a battle of wits, while suggesting that this battle amounts to a game, to a play of language and personality, rather than to any deeper ideals or absolutes.

Morris interviewed Rumsfeld for 33 hours over the course of one year. The interviews followed the same filming technique which characterises The Fog of War and several of Morris’s other works: Morris utilised what he calls the Interrotron, which allows interviewee and interviewer to sit apart, but to look at one another via a screen while they talk. This enables Morris and his interviewee to maintain something approximating eye contact, while on the other hand providing the separation which Morris believes is conducive to revealing interviews. Morris thinks that subjects will say more to a camera than they will face-to-face with a person; and that with a camera in front of them, he can use pauses to encourage his subjects to fill in the blanks, speaking where they would otherwise remain silent. The Unknown Known centres entirely on Rumsfeld’s face: largely eschewing the archival footage that was a feature of The Fog of War, we are given Morris’s interview, and brief clips from Rumsfeld’s press conferences, while dictionary definitions of words circle against the dark background as Rumsfeld extends his own endeavours with language.

There is a brief recapitulation of Rumsfeld’s earlier political career. After opening in the midst of the Iraq War, and with the suggestive phrase which makes up the documentary’s title, we go back to the late 1960s and the 1970s, when Rumsfeld served first under the Nixon administration, then later under Gerald Ford. As Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity during Nixon’s Presidency, Rumsfeld appointed Dick Cheney and Frank Carlucci, then at the very beginning of their careers in politics. Serving as Chief of Staff under Gerald Ford from September 1974, a reshuffle the following year saw Rumsfeld become the 13th United States Secretary of Defence, with Cheney taking Rumsfeld’s previous position as Ford’s Chief of Staff. This reshuffle was dubbed the ‘Halloween Massacre’, and as Morris shows, Rumsfeld was widely fingered as its chief architect. While it effectively saw Rumsfeld and Cheney promoted – and made Rumsfeld, at 43, the youngest Secretary of Defence in US history – it saw several moderate Republicans fired, and made George H. W. Bush the Director of Central Intelligence, head of the CIA. While ostensibly a promotion for Bush too, the move has been seen as an attempt on the part of Rumsfeld to compartmentalise and therefore marginalise a political rival. Yet in 1980, it was Bush rather than Rumsfeld who Ronald Reagan chose as his Vice Presidential running mate.

Bush would succeed Reagan as President in 1989. Morris suggests to Rumsfeld that, had Reagan chose his Vice President differently, it would have been he rather than Bush in line for the Presidency. Rumsfeld’s response is one of the most revealing in the documentary: a terse, purse-lipped ‘That’s possible’. The prominent economist Milton Friedman once stated that he personally regarded Reagan’s selection of Bush over Rumsfeld as ‘the worst decision not only of his campaign but of his presidency’; and that had Rumsfeld been chosen, ‘I believe he would have succeeded Reagan as president and the sorry Bush-Clinton period would never have occurred’.

Overall, this section of Morris’s film is richly instructive, informing or reminding viewers of an able and precocious political career, and one characterised by maneuvering and ambition, plus some disappointment. After 1977 and the end of the Ford administration, Rumsfeld spent the next two decades developing a career in business, and continuing to take part-time political roles. The most significant of these saw him appointed Reagan’s Special Envoy to the Middle East: travelling to Baghdad in December 1983, he met with Saddam Hussein and Hussein’s deputy, and Iraqi Foreign Minister, Tariq Aziz. It was not until 2001 that Rumsfeld returned to the forefront of politics, when he was appointed Secretary of Defence in the administration of George W. Bush. Fred Smith, the founder of FedEx and Bush’s friend at Yale University, had been the newly elected President’s first choice for the post, but he turned the position down; and Bush’s Vice President, Dick Cheney, forwarded the name of his old colleague, which Bush agreed to despite Rumsfeld’s differences with his father. So Rumsfeld became the 21st United States Secretary of Defence, and he would now become the oldest in US history.

Morris’s endeavour is to navigate the Iraq War perceived and conceptualised by just one of its predominant figures. He does not attempt an exhaustive account of the war, nor does he succeed in explaining its causes. Given the nature of Rumsfeld’s responses – by turns resolute and equivocal – the documentary poses more questions than it answers. It is one of Morris’s most provocative searches into his perennial themes: how we wilfully construct knowledge and how this constructed knowledge entangles with truth. We traverse the Iraq War amidst ‘snowflakes’: the name Rumsfeld embraced to refer to the memos he would send other officials and members of staff. He suspects he wrote and sent at least 20,000 of these during his six years as Secretary of Defence as part of the Bush administration: when he finally left the role at the end of 2006, a final memo sent to all Pentagon personnel declared ‘the blizzard is over’.

Morris displays some of these snowflakes on screen, and asks Rumsfeld to read several aloud. Some of the liveliest exchanges between the interviewer and his subject centre upon the two major controversies of the Iraq War: the decision to go to war itself, which implicates Iraq’s alleged but nonexistent weapons of mass destruction; and the abuses of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. Yet even here, while Morris’s opposition to the Iraq War and his absolute disdain for its atrocities is clear, he does not attack Rumsfeld directly or attempt to hang blame heavily about his shoulders. There exists a memo, for instance, written by Rumsfeld on 27 November 2001, which appears to show him willing to concoct motivation for a war in Iraq, rather than responding honestly to intelligence:

Even on the day of 11 September 2001, Rumsfeld is reported to have asked for any evidence that might link the day’s terrorist attacks to Saddam Hussein, and thereby legitimise military action. Morris doesn’t include the above memo in his film. Rather than analysing the motivations for war, he prefers instead to contemplate Rumsfeld’s response once it had been concluded that Iraq did not, after all, possess weapons of mass destruction. He wants to allow Rumsfeld the space in which to express himself, to implicate himself or to reveal some pertinent detail as he sees it. Instead, Rumsfeld embarks on a rhetorical exercise, suggesting that ‘absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence’ – words which, applied to the context of Iraq and the devastating loss of life war has caused, Morris has subsequently called the most disturbing in his film.

Rather than open hostility, Morris expresses scepticism, and at certain moments allows his camera to linger on Rumsfeld after he has finished speaking in an attempt to achieve a sort of dramatic irony: viewers are supposed to understand the flaws in Rumsfeld’s arguments, and to see that his reflections upon and criticisms of others apply equally to himself. Speaking of his meeting in 1983 with Hussein and Aziz, and remarking that he continues to find it difficult to understand their respective states of mind, he reflects that they lived ‘pretend’ lives, fulfilling only their images of themselves. The lingering camera implies that this can be applied equally to Rumsfeld; but beyond the extent to which we all build our selves through images, it is not easy to conclude that there is anything especially counterfeit or deluded about Rumsfeld.

While expressing no remorse for his role initiating the Iraq War, readily chalking up points in his own favour when he feels he has bested Morris or uncovered a misleading interpretation of events, speaking sometimes directly and sometimes ambiguously, and appearing impervious to the lures of self-reflection, still there are few points in the film where Rumsfeld does not appear to be speaking candidly. Morris asks him about Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. Rumsfeld argues that the public opinion of Guantanamo Bay is grossly misguided; and describes it as one of the best-run prisons anywhere in the world. Of course, this lays aside concerns over the ideology behind the prison, and over the morality of the procedures which those who run it are required to carry out. Rumsfeld discusses authorising ‘Special Interrogation Plans’ for Guantanamo detainees in late 2002, but he depicts this as a procedural responsibility, in which he was essentially obliged to sign off from a list different levels of interrogative techniques.

Rumsfeld is adamant that Guantanamo Bay remains a legitimate institution; but he admits himself appalled by the abuses which took place at Abu Ghraib, the central prison twenty miles outside of Baghdad, in late 2003 and early 2004. Morris asks Rumsfeld whether the fact of Guantanamo Bay, its ‘Special Interrogation Plans’, and a lack of clarity within the military regarding these, together influenced events in Abu Ghraib, and after some hesitancy, Rumsfeld admits this possibility. It was his sense that, as Secretary of Defence, he was ultimately responsible for these wrongdoings which caused Rumsfeld to twice offer his resignation – which was twice declined by President Bush. On the other hand, pushed to admit a narrower responsibility for the Abu Ghraib abuses – which saw detainees stripped, tortured, raped, sodomised, and murdered – Rumsfeld declines. Regarding the ‘Torture Memos’ – sent by the Office of Legal Counsel of the United States Department of Justice in August 2002 and March 2003, and advising that ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’, including waterboarding, might be permissable outside the United States – Rumsfeld states that he never read them, which prompts Morris’s most physical reaction: an immediate, incredulous ‘Really?’.

As with others who were part of the Bush administration, it is difficult to discern whether Rumsfeld is a deep thinker or instead a quick thinker, whose strength lies in thinking on his feet and making points firmly and effectively. Still – even for someone who disagrees wholeheartedly with Rumsfeld’s militarist ethos and with so many of his conclusions – The Unknown Known suggests Rumsfeld as a ready intellectual, who might be guilty of intellectual error more than moral malevolence. There is much philosophical interest in how Rumsfeld conceptualises power and its responsibilities, and in many of the things he says – even in his most notorious soundbites.

The film’s title derives from a Department of Defence briefing given in February 2002. Rumsfeld was discussing the lack of evidence for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Utilising a form of tricolon, he said:

‘Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns; that is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don’t know.’

The idea of ‘unknown knowns’ emerged as the logical fourth part of this series. Yet what ‘unknown knowns’ actually are remains a point of contention throughout the documentary, as Rumsfeld himself fluctuates between opposing definitions. At the beginning of the film, he defines them as ‘things that you think you know, that it turns out you did not’. This is a reading whose sense has precedents, for instance in the phrase attributed to Mark Twain that, ‘It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so’. However, Rumsfeld’s initial definition does not follow the grammar of the earlier three; and at the end of the film, he redefines ‘unknown knowns’ accordingly as things that we do not know that we know. As Morris points out, the difference here is polarising: according to the first definition, we know less than we think; whereas according to the later definition, we know more. So do we know more than we think we know, or do we know less? Or is it not both?

Rumsfeld believes that all policy, but foreign policy most of all, requires imagination. This imagination is not cast as empathetic, and it does not, in the view of Rumsfeld, extend directly from knowledge. Elaborating on his quote, he locates ‘unknown unknowns’ as the sites of fundamental, world-altering change – which is to say that, for Rumsfeld, the most important events which occur are often those of which we have not even conceived, never mind expected. For Rumsfeld, Pearl Harbor and September 11 are the defining moments in American history, and they were allowed to come about through a complete vacuum of knowledge: America had not conceived of such attacks, and did not appreciate that such attacks were possible: the possibility of such attacks was unknown and had been unthought. So for Rumsfeld it is in the area of ‘unknown unknowns’ that we must imagine. He believes that the imagination must be harnessed to give the best sense of what is possible, thereby allowing not only for preparation, but for action. This sense of what constitutes an ‘unknown unknown’ may be debated: was there not a store of knowledge out of which Pearl Harbor and September 11 could have been conceived? And at the same time, Rumsfeld’s series raises interesting epistemological questions regarding how we build and access knowledge: to what extent is imagining and thinking through an ‘unknown unknown’ possible, and to what extent is all thought merely a reconfiguration of existing knowledge? Should ‘known unknowns’ be the realm and starting point of the imagination rather than ‘unknown unknowns’?

Whatever, we can allow even extreme or apparently absurd hypotheses as important facets of scientific and philosophical methodology; and we can allow hypotheses an important place too in political thinking. Yet to embrace the unfettered imagination as a source of potential knowledge, which can and ought to then be acted upon, seems profoundly dangerous in the political sphere. Rumsfeld’s philosophy allowed him a justification for war in Iraq regardless of all evidence – essentially on the basis of what might exist, and what, if we stretch thought to its limits, might occur. It is a chain of reasoning which results in militarisation, preemptive military action which in fact initiates rather than counters conflict, and a marked lack of proportionality in all military endeavour.

So in Rumsfeld there is a peculiar compound of narrow accountancy when it comes to analysing military might (as Secretary of Defence in the 1970s he was concerned at trends in comparative US-Soviet military strength, and ordered the development of new weapons and machinery in order to restore the balance in the Americans’ favour) and of free thought when it comes to evaluating the justifications for military action. Errol Morris’s friend and sometime collaborator Wernor Herzog has spoken with regard to his own documentaries about foregoing an accountant’s truth for the ‘ecstatic truth’ of the cinema: but aside from their widely different mediums, Herzog seeks in his films to reveal the full consciousness of individual human beings, while Rumsfeld too readily forgets the lives of others and asserts his own psychology in place of matters of fact. So too when it comes to language, Rumsfeld at once understands how words are used as tools, with nuanced and changeable meanings, yet seeks to fix their power by restricting and defining their application. He is an adroit and entertaining communicator, but his numerous memos seeking after dictionary definitions of words make it clear that he does not feel himself their master. He was content enough with his speech on knowns and unknowns that he incorporated it as the title of his autobiography, Known and Unknown: A Memoir, published in 2011. Considering the aftermath to September 11 and the path towards war in Iraq, Rumsfeld writes:

‘It was a time of discovery–of seeking elusive, imperfect solutions for new problems that would not be solved quickly. There was no guidebook or road map for us to follow.’

In fact, it was Slavoj Žižek, in a May 2004 article entitled ‘What Rumsfeld Doesn’t Know That He Knows About Abu Ghraib’, who first theorised the missing term in Rumsfeld’s series. Žižek argued about Rumsfeld that:

‘What he forgot to add was the crucial fourth term: the “unknown knowns,” the things we don’t know that we know—which is precisely, the Freudian unconscious, the “knowledge which doesn’t know itself,” as Lacan used to say.

If Rumsfeld thinks that the main dangers in the confrontation with Iraq were the “unknown unknowns,” that is, the threats from Saddam whose nature we cannot even suspect, then the Abu Ghraib scandal shows that the main dangers lie in the “unknown knowns”—the disavowed beliefs, suppositions and obscene practices we pretend not to know about, even though they form the background of our public values.’

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A transcript of an interview with Errol Morris, in which he discusses the film, at Democracy Now!: http://www.democracynow.org/2014/3/27/the_unknown_known_errol_morris_new

Another interview with the director via Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/01/us-donaldrumsfeld-idUSBREA300TM20140401

Two insightful reviews of The Unknown Known, by The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/02/movies/deciphering-donald-h-rumsfeld-in-the-unknown-known.html?hpw&rref=movies&_r=0 and The Spectator: http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/culturehousedaily/2014/03/the-unknown-known-errol-morris-tries-to-trip-up-donald-rumsfeld-and-fails/

A 2003 article in The Atlantic on Rumsfeld’s early political career: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/11/close-up-young-rumsfeld/302824/

Slavoj Žižek’s piece ‘What Rumsfeld Doesn’t Know That He Knows About Abu Ghraib’, from In These Times, 21 May 2004: http://inthesetimes.com/article/747

The Unknown Known Trailer: