Saturday, March 21, 2009

Back Into The Light

Left the hospital this morning a little after 11.00, after possibly the most restful break I've had in years. No regrets though - real life looks awfully good in real life again.

No operation found necessary yet, though this is a possibility for the future, depending upon my right leg's ability to fix itself (with the assistance of a few good pills) and just how much more slanted my gait becomes. So far, so reasonably good.

Got a fair amount of reading and listening done, though it wasn't all beer and skittles. To be honest when you've got weights pulling the top of your body from the bottom there's not a lot else to occupy yourself with. Except for eating - hospital food very good, very plentiful, and the missus provided enough extra cakes and teh tarik to keep me awash.

The peculiar intensity of a confined space in which to read and listen brings its own extraordinary sweetnesses. I consumed the following tomes with huge delight: Murdoch's The Sea, The Sea (overlong, patchy, too rich, but who cares?); Ibsen's Hedda Gabler (second reading of the year and better than the first); Chekov's Three Sisters (loved the Frayn translation, and now keen to re-read the more familiar Hingley, in World's Classics); McEwan's Atonement (so much better than Saturday it was startling to recognise the gaps); lashings of Lowell's Collected Poems (I finally started on History which is difficult but in a trustworthy sort of way); half of Orhan Pamuk's My Name Is Red (which I stalled on just a few months ago - unfathomably so, it's unputdownable now); the beginning of Ackroyd's London - The Biography (and which I would definitely have finished if I'd taken some time off next week.) Oh, and I got most of an issue of The New York Review of Books out of the way and so felt less guilty about buying it. That was the one I took with me to Indonesia and barely glanced at.

Listening-wise I was a touch more circumspect, going for intensity rather than volume (in terms of length, I mean.) I did a straight run of Porgy & Bess (the Rattle, Glyndebourne version) and am now convinced it is a masterpiece from start to finish. I used to think the ending fell away, but when you're getting something of the intensity of real theatrical performance, albeit in a hospital bed, you realise that the brevity of that last stunning chorus as Porgy makes his way to find Bess in New York is theatrically, musically, right. The handsome illustrated booklet that comes with the 3 CD set also helps you realise the communal vision of Catfish Row essential to understanding what makes the opera work. I also loved the sort of reprise of Plenty o' Nuttin' towards the end, which never worked for me before as I never really listened. Other than the Gershwin I eschewed the so-called serious stuff as I suspected the necessary ambient noise of a hospital ward (I was in a four-bedder) might not be overly favourable to brooding Sibelean silences, and the like.

In fact, the first CD I put on was Kurt Elling's Nightmoves and all I can say is this it gets better with each hearing. After that, it was pretty much Dylan all the way - and what a way! I'd intended to just ask the missus to bring along the late stuff (yes, she was my supplier) but, fortunately, she stuck in the Live 1966 Bootleg Vol 4 performance (in sunny Manchester!) and I fell in love again with the acoustic first half of the concert.) Then Tell Tale Signs arrived and I was lost, lost, lost. It's embarrassing to say this, but there are moments, lines, phrases, when something suspiciously like tears spring to the old eyes. I hadn't even noticed before what an amazing song 'Cross The Green Mountain Is. More healing than a single-bedded room even. After that it was just a case of grooving to Modern Times and 'Love And Theft', for which I developed several Bean-like prone dances - one of which is captured in a pic above.

In the middle of all this, joy of joy, Noi was regularly around to keep my life in order, massage my cramped toes, keep me in socks, as well as keeping life going on the home front. Visiting hours were nominally until eight, but she far exceeded these, including two memorable late night viewings of American Idol (for yes, there was a tv set.)

So all I can say is, I was richly blessed. Lucky me.

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