Refreshment

18.50
It's been a day of fasting, amongst other things, ahead of tomorrow's feast day. Wondered whether I might feel a bit wiped out by this time, given that I've not exactly been practising self-denial of any kind lately. Actually feel quite sharp, with no sign of a headache, though I've been yawning a fair amount in the last half hour or so. Must say that when the Missus suggested we fast (it being entirely voluntary rather than the prescribed fasting of Ramadhan) I didn't have a lot of enthusiasm for stretching myself at the end of a busy term when I'm still busy. But I'm very glad I did. Feel refreshed, somehow, as if I'm getting the world in some kind of proportion.

Roth And Ready

We're off north on Sunday for a bit of a break - one week, and grateful for it - but there's plenty to negotiate first with a camp for our Drama guys starting tomorrow and celebrations for Hari Raya Haji ahead. (Flooded with memories from last year's Hajj of late, wonderfully so.) Looking forward to getting a bit of concerted reading done soon, particularly in terms of making inroads into the McGilchrist tome that young Jordan sent over. It's packed with fascinating stuff on the brain, though my brain, being not so young as it was, is struggling to unpack it all. But enjoyably so.

Also considering getting down and dirty with a bit of fiction, with a couple of items that came my way entirely unexpectedly today looking likely candidates. Since one just happens to be by the entirely wonderful Philip Roth, I think I know which is going to occupy me soonest.

Postscript: Mighty puzzle from yesterday. How did I neglect to mention my reading of Walcott's Omeros? Especially since this modern epic seems twice as good as when I first read it way back when - and it had quite some impact on me then. Why does the best poetry get better with each reading? An answer isn't required, though I can think of one. Or even two. Just the simple fact of the experience is enough.

Last Things

I think the final chapters of Motion's biog of Keats are the best in the book. The pages on the dreadful voyage to Italy with Severn and their last months together in Naples, then Rome, have an hallucinatory power, as if you're there with them. The biographer is particularly good at bringing Keats's friends to life and, for me, Severn emerges as a fascinating, touching figure in himself. Strange that however disregarded and unrecognised JK felt at the end there were those who seemed to know the greatness of what they were dealing with all along. And what a gift for friendship he had, despite his isolation. Given the current fashion for 'group biography' I reckon the group that seemed to form around Keats would make for an illuminating volume.

One small point: I'd love to know what became of the Miss Cotterell that Severn & Keats encountered on their journey to Italy. She too was dying from consumption and was only eighteen (when Keats was twenty-five.) By the sound of it she was remarkably brave as well. It'd be nice to think she managed a few more years of life than the great poet. Somehow I doubt it.

The little tragedies are as sad as the greatest.

Sad Times

I'm approaching the end of Andrew Motion's Keats with the now clearly consumptive poet making plans for the final journey to Italy. If anyone has vaguely 'romantic' ideas of what it meant to suffer from consumption in the early nineteenth century this biography will (ironically) cure them. I was startled to read about the common assumptions in the period about the condition, which help to explain, to some degree, why Keats was so long in denial about it.

The segments about JK's final dealings with his younger brother George also make for extraordinarily melancholy reading. In fact, the brief account of George's career in America up to his death in early middle age is, in a curious way, one of the most compelling parts of the book. A reminder of other lives and their triumphs and defeats and despairs.

Motion somehow manages to get inside the poet, or at least give you a sense of what that extraordinary interior was like, the way his mercurial mind worked, in a way that profoundly alters the way you read the poems. He also convinces you, though I'm not sure this was his intention, of just how straightforwardly likable as a person JK was. I suppose this has something to do with his many vulnerabilities. It's striking just how many friends he had and how important those friendships were to him.

A sad book, then. But life-enhancing in its way.

Good Times

Managed a couple of reasonably extended walks over the weekend. Yesterday saw me exploring the NUS campus to find the Faculty of Engineering (of all places) where the annual GEP Lit Seminar was taking place. And today I made my way to Holland Village and back - by way of the futuristic Star Centre - for a taste of the cup that cheers at the Coffee Bean there. I was a little uncertain about ordering my usual chai latte since the last two cups I'd drunk there had left something to be desired, but today saw the establishment back on form, with normal service tastily resumed. Sitting outside, listening to Zappa's Strictly Genteel as performed by the London Philharmonic on the headphones, and reading Motion's fine analysis of the writing of Bright Star as the crowds dawdled by, was suitably relaxing. 

And where in all this, you ask, was the Missus? Sadly - from my point of view - she took herself off on Friday for a visit to Mak, but should be back any time now. Happily she left me with a stupendous shepherd's pie, which took me three days to consume. So, all in all, a good time has been had. (Oh, and I've not even mentioned the fine start to the season of the Mighty Reds.)

No End In Sight

Discovered another excellent on-line resource this evening, after coming across a review of Peter Adamson’s Philosophy in the Islamic World at The Los Angeles Review of Books. In the latest issue there's also an interview with everyone's favourite Sufi Muslim Guitar God and Rock Genius, the one and only Richard Thompson.

Funnily enough I'd been thinking earlier in the day how the quite limited range of websites I visit already provided me with so much material to broaden my horizons that I really didn't need to add any more in the way of Bookmarks & Favourites. Think of it: all this, and the new football season really getting underway. If there's a dull moment, I don't know where it is.

Not Learning

Just had to throw away five movie DVDs that no longer play properly. They were all cheap copies, bought in Indonesia though, so it serves me right. Indeed, a kind of justice has been served and a lesson learnt.

Though the deeper lesson lies in the fact that I only viewed each of them once in the days they were playable. Why is it I find it so hard to watch films these days, and almost impossible to watch them a second time? Since I don't know the answer to this question, the deeper lesson remains enigmatically unlearnt.

Not Exactly Optimal

Lived up to the promise I made in Monday's post of getting myself to the gym by finally getting the key to unlock the padlock and inflicting 40 minutes of the elliptical trainer on this aging frame. The frame appeared to take it, but, as you might say, not exactly in its stride. Gentle Reader, I struggled, but manfully, and appear to have lived to tell the tale.

Tomorrow is another day, as they say, and, no doubt, will speak further of the damage done.

Bliss

Over the years I've become increasingly lazier over trying to explain, even to myself, the nature of my experiences, particularly what might be termed mental experiences in relation to art and ideas generally. (See what I mean: basically I gave up on that last sentence.) I'm also vaguely aware that as well as the very real laziness there's a sort of superstitiously magical way of thinking involved, that somehow if I over-analyse those experiences I'll prevent them.

So I'm not going to say too much about what happened to me late last night, on the very edge of sleep, listening to L'Alouette Lulu (The Woodlark) from Book 3 of Messiaen's Catalogue D'Oiseaux, as performed by Peter Hill, or why it happened. I'm just very glad indeed it did.

(It's the bit at the end that's the killer, which sort of recaps the beginning. Deep, slow, rich chords - or is it just individual notes? - for the left hand, then these gorgeous sort of trills high up for the right hand, fading away. And then just nothing, silence, like stepping across the normal boundary of time into...) (Gave up again.)

The Lessons Of History

The news coverage of recent events at Charlottesville has reminded me of just how little I really know about 19th century American history despite being all too familiar with so many images from that period. I suppose my problem is that what I know, I know from the literature of the period - especially Twain, Melville, Whitman - and whilst I deeply trust these writers and their respective visions, I have little grasp of what might be termed attempts at an objective history.

So it's been a pleasure to read a couple of excellent essays in the most recent edition of the NYRB, respectively titled: Charlottesville: Why Jefferson Matters and Southern Comfort. Of course I'm aware of the possibility of ideological agendas informing each, but each also manages to sound reasonable and authoritative. It's of some small comfort to think that in an age when those who deal in evidence and reason and careful thought are under attack, it's impossible to prevent clarity of thought and insight and a desire to deal in historical realities. Let's hope there's an audience out there to read and carefully evaluate all this.

On The Increase

It's been quite some time since I've used the gym, and it really hasn't been my fault. I've been champing at the proverbial bit in my desire to torture this aged frame of mine, but the gym is inaccessible on account of a breakdown in the biometric entry system. And the system is so wonderfully sophisticated it will take months to fix. The wonders of technology, eh?
 
I suppose I could have found ways to get hold of the key to the padlock that helps secure the main door. And here's where I have to admit to a degree of guilt. Frankly it was just about troublesome enough to do so, and I've been so busy dealing with the bloated Toad, work, that I've not tried hard enough. But I'm planning to put that right this week, inspired as I have been - believe it or not - by the PM's National Day speech.

I've not actually watched the speech, or heard it for that matter, but the press coverage featured quite a bit on some very sensible points made about the prevalence of diabetes on these shores and the need for maintaining a healthy life-style to combat said disease, and a host of other nasty possibilities that become that little bit less possible when you're eating and exercising sensibly.

I must say though, in terms of our general ability to cope with the problem of obesity in developed nations (whatever nation we happen to belong to) some of the figures quoted made for worrying reading. For as long as I can remember there have been pretty intense campaigns here regarding leading healthy life-styles, this Far Place never being exactly short of campaigns related to whatever is on the government's collective mind. And in a generally communitarian sort of society you might expect such campaigns to have some effect. Yet the average number of calories consumed per day per individual has risen from 2100 in 1998, to 2400 in 2004, and 2600 in 2010.

Now I don't know exactly how they compute the figures but there's enough of an obsession here with numbers to convince me that this is measuring something real. Yet I was around in 1998 and there was plenty enough grub and the green stuff to get hold of it to mean that the average Joe could have been munching his 2600 cals then, if he so desired. So what makes him munch them now (and possibly more, assuming one can predict a continued increase to 2017)?

I'm guessing that the forces of consumerism that are so good at persuading us to buy what we don't need are getting steadily better at persuading us to eat and drink more than is really good for us. And I'm guessing we sort of know this but sort of don't care. Scary. Very.

Well Versed

Have decided there isn't enough poetry in my life. I'm still irritated about not having a reasonable Keats selection around to supplement my reading of Andrew Motion's biog - which gets better and better, by the way. So I've dusted off my copy of Derek Walcott's Omeros, last read over a decade ago, and am getting down and dirty with the various inhabitants of St Lucia.

One supplementary reason for doing so is that a few years back I acquired a tasty-looking guide to Walcott's big poem, entitled Epic of the Dispossessed by a chap called Robert Hamner, but I've never got beyond the opening chapter and the bit about the first book of Omeros as it was obvious you really needed to read the poem along with the guide and I didn't feel up to a rereading. Now I do, so it's all systems go.

Not So Good

Phoned Maureen today, it being her birthday. Not sure she's really looking after herself, but it's difficult to tell from a telephone call. John was talking about getting some further treatment for her in the next couple of weeks, so there's some small hope there - but it is small.

Zappa-ed

It suddenly occurred to me the other day that despite holding the late, great Frank Zappa in the highest musical esteem possible I don't actually own all that much of his output. I think I've heard all the really famous stuff, but even that I'm not entirely assured of. I mean, there's an awful lot of it, apart from anything else.

I immediately decided to begin to put this to rights by downloading something from iTunes, and have been listening to said something with abundant delight for much of the week. (In the interest of full disclosure I'm talking about Apostrophe which, I suppose, is just about as close to a mainstream album as you're likely to encounter in the back catalogue.)

The funny thing about Frank for me is that I really should find the adolescent humour, to which he was so obviously addicted, boorish in the extreme but it just makes me smile. As does the music on its own - a quality I can't think of in any other composer.

A Range Of Options

Sad sight of the day: a young man carrying a laptop emblazoned with the well-meaning slogan, Failure is not an option. Made me wonder when he would find out just how much of an option it actually is.

Funnily enough this was just before teaching Miller's Death of a Salesman, a play the deep truth of which anyone believing in the slogan needs to learn (before learning it the hard way.)

Room For Improvement

There are occasions when I surprise myself by behaving in a remarkably mature, almost wise, manner. Fortunately such occasions are few and far between. Much as I'd like to arrive at enlightenment, part of me prefers the adventure of getting there and its many, many detours.

It's Doom Alone That Counts

Just reached the Isle of Mull accompanying Keats on his trip to Scotland and read this devastating sentence in Motion's account: It was on Mull that his short life started to end, and his slow death began. I'm so used to thinking of the great poet as inevitably doomed to an early death that it's never occurred to me before that his death at such a young age was possibly avoidable. He was still worn down by the difficult trudge to the island when a few days later he started nursing his dying younger brother Tom, which left him open to the highly infectious tuberculosis that killed Tom.

It's all intensely sad. But, considering what he would achieve in terms of the works penned after the Scottish adventure, it's also strangely inspirational.

Designations

Are you the designated driver, staying sober and responsible, getting everyone home in one piece? Or are you one of the helpless who need ferrying home? I suppose it falls to most of us to act out both roles at one time or another, though I'm not sure we end up choosing which we want to be. I suspect that the role selects us, for better or worse, and we find out which we were all along.

Ducks, Finally

 

 

 

 

 

 

All things, including ducks, come to he who waits. Well, more like ducklings really.

Ducking The Issue

20.00
Nothing duck-related so far today. Plenty that's been sleep-related though, thankfully so given the trials of yesterday's journey.

Lots of noisy kids, almost an entirely good thing, except when I'm trying to mark. But achieved my quota for the day.

23.00
Just back from teh tarik gajah and roti canai sardin and a gun battle with Akmah at Aziz's place. It doesn't get any better.

Still no ducks today.

A Quick One

Travelling north this evening for a brisk visit to Mak's. This appears to be duck-related, of which there will be more anon. Now charging batteries, literally & metaphorically.

Postscript: the notion of a 'quick one' and a 'brisk visit' was rendered supremely ironic by a super-massive jam getting through Tuas, stretching before even entering the tunnel on the AYE leading up to the checkpoint. It took us well over two and a half hours just to get to immigration. Noi reckons it's like this every day which makes me wonder how those who commute from JB and back to work on a daily basis cope with this. Quite frankly, I couldn't, and didn't. We reached Sungai Petai in the early hours and were supremely glad to do so.

Nodding Off

I fall asleep with almost frightening ease these days. This is a talent I'm very happy to cultivate. In a sleep-deprived world it makes sense to enjoy a sense of plenty.

A Bit Of A Gap

I'm a bit annoyed at myself for not having access to my Oxford Collected Poems of Keats at the moment. It resides in its usual place on the shelves at Maison KL, but it was pretty obvious I might need it when tackling Motion's biog of the great Romantic, and it turns out that the biographer and former Poet Laureate includes so much close detail on the works that I feel a bit lost without it. I've just finished the chapters covering the writing of Endymion and they really don't make a whole lot of sense unless you're looking at the actual poem.

Bit of a confession here: sad - and embarrassing - to say, I've never read Endymion from beginning to end. Oh dear.

Which has been making me think of just how many other stone cold classics I've never come to grips with. Byron's Don Juan immediately jumps to mind, though for some reason I don't feel too embarrassed about that. Having said that, I suppose it's a bit of a stretch to claim Endymion as a classic considering the bad press it tends to pick up. But it's obviously major Keats and a bit of a gap in my reading to say the least.

The thing about Motion's account of the writing of the poem is that it creates an urgent desire to read the thing asap. One sure sign of an excellent biography, I reckon.

Dreamplaces

I don't dream much, but when I do the places I find myself in are in England. At least they feel English. Strange. I'm more attached to my nation in sleep than when I'm awake.

Embodying Greatness

It's a strange thing, acting. I'm supposed to know at least something about it, but it remains fundamentally a mystery to me, still essentially magical.

Today I was thinking about the big Shakespearian roles and happened to catch an interview with Ian McKellen on the box. The best Macbeth I've ever seen, by a distance, partly because he was opposite the best Lady Macbeth (Judi Dench), and partly because he got that sense of reckless, manic courage central to the role. How do you fake that? My suspicion is that it wasn't faking.

Earlier in the week I saw a fair bit of Pelham something or other, the action thriller set in the New York subway system (a remake, if I'm not mistaken) with Denzel Washington in the role of the less than heroic everyday guy as hero. As so often with DW, an okay movie with a masterful central performance. The guy makes average movies really good. And again, beyond all the technical mastery in performance there's a weird sense that he does nobility so well because he possesses something like genuine nobility.

Maybe it's all just because we need heroes and will find them in someone, somewhere, given the appropriate staging. Maybe it's because it's real, despite the fakery.

Change

Walked up the road to the somewhat futuristically named Fusionopolis after getting today's quota of marking out of the way. It was shut. Or, rather, there were boards all round the exterior and the former entranceway was blocked. Some shops still seemed to be functioning in the vicinity but 'happening' the location wasn't. So much for the future.

In truth, the speed at which buildings in this Far Place seem to become redundant is extraordinary and more than a bit frightening. I can't imagine how anyone can retain a sense of place. For someone, like myself, who sort of likes old things it's all a bit much, as they say, or used to say, back in the days when change was something you got handed in a shop.

The supermarket just opposite now has machines that you put your money into to pay for your goods. I'm not impressed, though I'm sure someone, somewhere considers this a good thing.

Hearing Things

Having got a heap of marking out of the way by the early afternoon I wandered up to Holland Village, as is my wont when the Missus is not around to organise me. Had a cuppa in the Coffee Bean up there and stuck in the earplugs to listen to some music as I watched the crowd go by.

One of life's deep truths I have recently discovered: you can't listen to Messiaen's Catalogue d'Oiseaux for solo piano whilst observing the world in motion. There's too much silence in the music and that gets taken up with the usual sound effects provided by all and sundry. Anyway, this truth was again confirmed up at HV so I switched to the avant garde sounds of Art Zoyd for a bit of Rock in Opposition. Perfection. As I sat there sipping my chai latte no one could have suspected how deeply subversive I was and, indeed, am. (The album in question, by the way, was Symphonie pour le jour où brûleront les cités and the tea wasn't that great, which is very odd as it's usually spot on. What's wrong with Coffee Bean? I ask.)

No Complaints

This week Noi's been over at Sungai Petai doing her bit to look after Mak, who's continuing to make a good recovery. This is an almost completely excellent state of affairs as it will undoubtedly do Mak a power of good. The only downside is that she isn't here looking after me. But I'm not complaining. (Of course I am, but it's all very subtle.)

Making An Entrance

Happened to be looking at the opening stage direction for Miller's Death of a Salesman this week. Willy's entrance is surely one of the great moments in theatre. Those cases, the sore palms, that profound, heart-breaking weariness. Without a word, except the muttering under his breath, it tells you almost all you need to know about the man.

When I first read the play, at sixteen, for 'A' level I just couldn't see the strange nobility, almost grandeur of the character. Now, despite the deep, comic stupidity of the man I see little else.

Something On

Mum used to complain as a matter of routine towards the end of her life that there was nothing on the telly. And now I sometimes find myself doing much the same, despite the many channels I have access to and the many programmes of which I am aware that I know lots of people enjoy.

But just occasionally I find myself watching something I find completely gripping, and tonight, by some weird coincidence, this happened to me with two items adjacent to each other, though on different channels. First of all I found myself watching a 15 minute piece on Sky News about palliative care for the dying, largely focused on a hospice in Sheffield. I suppose it should have been depressing given the subject matter and the fact that two of the people interviewed actually died before it was broadcast. In fact it was strangely life-enhancing and made me feel considerably more cheerful than I'd felt up to that point - though it was also very sad.

Then I switched over to BBC World on which there was a repeat broadcast of a Hardtalk episode featuring the novelist James Elroy. I only caught the last fifteen minutes and how compelling they were. The guy's a complete eccentric in the great tradition of American individualism. It's rare you see someone interviewed on the box who clearly just doesn't give a damn what you think of him. I felt like cheering. (He announced that he intended to live to a hundred years old and I devoutly hope he does.)

Little People

Have been watching the news out of the US of late with the kind of astonishment I suppose pretty much everyone is feeling who tries to keep up with the on-going soap opera that comprises the White House.

One small detail today particularly puzzled me. The outgoing Chief of Staff it seems was subject to being regularly belittled by his boss (POTUS) and other functionaries of what now passes for the executive branch of government. Now it came as no surprise to me that this particular POTUS might behave in this manner, and from what I've seen of his cronies that kind of bullying might well be expected. But the surprise was that the guy being belittled was prepared to put up with this, especially since he, by definition, occupied a position of some authority.

I don't regard myself as a particularly courageous chap, physically or morally, but I do know for certain that I would never allow anyone I've worked with or for to belittle me. In my first year of teaching I knew perfectly well that I was hopeless and felt extremely vulnerable to criticism as I deserved it. When I began to find my feet I vowed I would never allow myself to feel so very vulnerable again and took steps to ensure I would never need to fear destructive criticism. The result has been that I've never felt even remotely intimidated by any of my superiors.

I can't imagine doing a job in which I'd have to accept being subject to any kind of unreasonable behaviour from those above me. The funny thing is that when you can't imagine such a thing it mysteriously doesn't happen to you. Pity the guy who just got the boot didn't know that.