Not Exactly Fashionable

In between my marking of scripts & preparing stuff for next week, my multi-talented wife gave me a rather spiffing haircut, and I listened to John Adams's On the Transmigration of Souls, the piece he wrote for the New York Philharmonic after 9/11. I think Transmigration will live beyond its immediate historical circumstances as a powerful threnody for all times. The local detail, like the intoning, if that's the right word, of the names of the dead, as is so often the case, plugs into a kind of universality. There are no tunes to hum but, somehow, the music has got soul.

I've also found myself dipping into The Rough Guide to Bob Dylan by Nigel Williamson, which I picked up at the library yesterday. For a little book it's surprisingly informative & seems pretty sensible in its judgements. The great man's blunders are admitted but Williamson's always on the look out for what actually makes him great, and there's more than plenty of that.