High Volume

Driving over to Serangoon Road yesterday evening, I was listening to Television's classic album Marquee Moon at a most satisfactory volume. Prior to the journey I'd never thought of it as a particularly well-produced record, despite the excellent musicianship and songs, but I came to realise that the slightly jangly quality I've always associated with it, as a result, I suppose, of the dual guitars high in the mix, disappears when you get the chance to listen to it really loud. That's when you realise what an exceptional rhythm section underpins it all and how authentically real that sounds when given its due. And how well the treble sounds blend with the lower frequencies once all is unleashed.

I suppose at lower volumes that heft is lost and since the band deliberately avoided the huge smacking drum sound producer Andy Johns was associated with (via John Bonham et al) you assume the bottom end is generally a bit thin. But heard as it should be heard I reckon Marquee Moon is one of the best produced albums I've ever heard. Guitarist Richard Lloyd talked of a dry sound with a nice, tight, smaller kit and that's what Johns delivers.

It sounds wonderfully uncluttered - sort of simple, really. But I suspect it's a kind of deceptive simplicity.

Volume

Question: What could be better than to come home to King Crimson played loud?

Answer: To come home to King Crimson played very loud indeed.

Hah!

The Frog Chorus

Spent a fair part of the evening considering some aspects of people's behaviour, sadly its less attractive aspects. There are many of these, by the way, in case you've not had the chance to notice. Then went down to lock up a couple of rooms located near a rather jolly pond. The frogs nearby could not be seen but, my goodness, they could be heard. And how wonderfully resonantly clean and sane they sounded.

Snoozing

For the first time for some three weeks I crashed out in the early evening in the deepest possible manner. I had a full stomach from an early dinner and nothing to stay awake for after the Maghrib Prayer, so the crash was deep and spectacular and fulfilling, even though it lasted less than an hour.

I've always felt that of all Shakespeare's tragic figures Macbeth gets the worst of it, simply because he can't sleep anymore. This evening's precious fifty minutes or so confirmed that intuition.

Not So Clever

Just watched the last episode of an extremely melodramatic Malay drama series. It dealt with a dark family secret in the most Dickensian manner. Thoroughly enjoyed the unlikely intensity of it all. Was reminded of how much we need this kind of story - as Dickens knew, of course - and how impoverished a culture becomes when it grows overly ironic, overly sophisticated, too clever by half.

Well Spent

We spent the morning, with niece Zahira, helping deliver packages from Darul Arqam as part of their Qurban Drive 2019. On our stint last year a couple of the intended recipients were not around, but this year we did rather better, managing to deliver all that was assigned to us. Funnily enough the final addresses we went to took me back to my old stomping grounds in Bedok, being adjacent to the school I taught at from 2004 to 2006. The buildings are now deserted since the place shut down some three or four years ago. A bit of a waste really since the site had been refurbished back in 2005 and was quite a pleasant location in which to teach.

Fortunately our morning felt quite the opposite of a waste. In an odd sort of way I reckon we benefitted quite as a much as those getting something to help fill their pantries for a little while.

Not Exactly Respectable

Spent the afternoon listening to a wide variety of students presenting their ideas on a wide variety of texts. Struck by the fact that this is all so new to them. Found myself trying to remember when Catch 22 was a new discovery for me and recalled the almost visceral excitement engendered by the simple fact that someone could write something so dark, so funny and so true. I hope the kids talking about the novel felt at least a little bit the same.

Isn't it fine, that moment you discover that great Literature not only doesn't need to be remotely respectable but gains immeasurably through not being so?

Something Different

I've been making extremely slow progress with The Portable Nietzsche, but it's not the great philosopher's fault. I'm not too sure it's really mine either. I suppose the Toad work's to blame, along with the siren song of Crimso's Radical Action blu-ray disc which I've found myself watching obsessively in what little spare time I've been carving out of late.
 
I'll tell you what, though - Nietzsche's thoughts on the Greeks are as ferocious as his astonishing moustache, and make for compelling reading even when there isn't time to read. Some familiarity with the basics of Greek culture (I've read my Homer, I know my tragedians, my Plato, my Aristotle) tends to lead to a sense that they're much like us, a sort of comfort in their company (despite the nightmare-inducing qualities of The Iliad.) But Nietzsche summons their Strangeness, their Otherness.

The greater and more sublime a Greek is, the brighter the flame of ambition that flares out of him, consuming everybody who runs on the same course. Golly. I don't think I would have lasted too long back then. 

Waxing Poetic

Not entirely random thought for today: If it survives your analysis, then it's poetry.

Not So Comfortable

I keep trying not to think of the state of the nation of which I am a citizen, and failing. It feels like looking at the scene of a very bad accident when you know you really shouldn't be doing so. I didn't want to read the piece in the London Review of Books entitled How Bad Can it Get? but I did. And I wish I hadn't. 

Mind you, I actually feel even worse thinking about climate change and the state of the planet. Not too sure that's much of a comfort though.

Not Too Late

Phoned John & Maureen just now, it having been my sister's birthday yesterday. She's now an unlikely 71 years of age. Unfortunately the list of problems she's facing in regard to her health is a daunting one, and it's not looking any better with time. John, who's an even more unlikely 82, was complaining that he's the one who looks after the house and I can sympathise with his irritation. But I remain hopeful of an upturn in Maureen's fortunes, even this late in the day.

Yes Sweat

Got back on the elliptical trainer this evening for the first time since early June. Didn't try to do too much - following strict instructions from the Missus. But what I did was enough to remind me of just how much it's possible to sweat even in a moderate work-out. The answer, in case you don't know, is a lot.

Will find out tomorrow if I've done any damage regarding my recovery, but so far the signs are good. (Apart from two cramping feet. But no one said it would be easy.)

Radical Action

With mighty help from Fuad the wiring around all the electrical stuff connected to the tv has been reconfigured and a faulty DVD player removed. The machine in question has been replaced with a smaller blu-ray player, recently acquired. I'm told these things are going out of date, but I own enough DVDs to warrant owning one, and I've been the proud possessor of Crimso's 3 CD and 1 blu-ray disc set Radical Action (To Unseat the Hold of Monkey Mind) for some time now without having the wherewithal to enjoy the video of the 7-headed version of the band in radical action. Now I can enjoy it and, having glanced at the first few minutes before taking Fuad & family out for a celebratory nosh-up, I know that enjoyment will be deep and certain.

It's a bit of a mystery to me why being able to see the music I love actually being played enhances the listening experience, but it always has done. Something to mull over as I intoxicate myself with the disc in question in the week ahead.

Starting Gently

Noi was keen on getting out to the track this evening for some brisk walking, so that's where I went to exercise rather than the gym. Perhaps it's not such a bad idea making a gentle start to resuming some kind of regime of exercise and it always feels good to accompany the Missus on these little outings. Plus there was the pleasure of getting out into the night air as opposed to the artificial confines of the gym.

But having said all that, I know I have to get back to some real workouts or lose the last remnants of whatever fitness I built up in the first half of the year. And now I know that a bit of brisk walking hasn't done me the slightest harm, at least as far as I can tell for the moment.

Recovered

Today was entirely discomfort free in relation to my back and left leg. I didn't feel even the shadow of a twinge attending Prayers, at work, or at home working at the table. I regard myself as officially recovered, which means that at some point over the weekend I'll be going to the gym. A bit foolhardy, eh? But you only live once so you might as well make the most of it, say I.

(And in case you're wondering how grateful I feel about feeling well again, let me just say very.)

Not Funny

I found myself distinctly puzzled today on reading an article about some chap called Arron Banks who has got lots of money and seems to be quite famous back in what used to be my homeland. (I'm finding myself increasingly in denial with regard to the idea that I have any homeland at all, but let's not go there.) It seems he's generated a bit of rather silly controversy by tweeting something not terribly pleasant about that young lass who's become the face of the Extinction Rebellion (as I think it's termed. Sorry about all the vagueness - I'm sort of out of touch with the world in any number of ways.)

Now according to Mr Banks, regarding what he had tweeted that so upset folk: It was a joke .. you lefties have no sense of humour. I can vaguely see a point here. It's awful to say this, but there are possibilities of seeing darkly macabre humour in all sorts of situations where you don't really want to admit the possibility of anything funny there at all. King Lear is, of course, a disturbing master class in doing so. I can further see why someone's comments might be fuelled by a desire to cause outrage and that this might itself be seen as humorous, again in a disturbing but genuine way.

The thing is, though, that I didn't find anything particularly outrageous in what the guy tweeted. It just seems too petty for that, but, more importantly, and to me more obviously, the comment just wasn't funny, a crucial point that all the commentators appear to have missed. I mean, I know what's funny. I know how to make an audience laugh. I find most aspects of life funny. I love wit. I love bad jokes. I love stupidity. But Mr Banks's line, Freak yachting accidents do happen in August... fails every test of being funny I can apply to it. Imagine nattering about the girl's voyage with someone and dropping in the Freak yachting accidents bit as a sort of bon mot. It just doesn't fly.

I've come to the sad conclusion that the poor chap just doesn't have an actual sense of humour. I wonder if any of his chums have ever thought to let him know the bad news?

Not Stopping

When things get too much it's useful to just keep busy without thinking too much or looking too far ahead. It's a kind of surrender, but the odd outcome is that things do get done without any distinct intention or definite purpose. They just sort of happen.

Holding Up

Deeply grateful that we managed to get back to our usual Far Place yesterday in just 6 hours, 20 minutes. It could have been worse. My schedule today required me to be especially alert and I'm happy to report I came through in what seems to be one piece. Tomorrow is another day, as they say, and the possibility of dividing into a number of pieces cannot be dismissed. But disintegration has its attractions, I suppose.

In connection with which I've just decided to put The Portable Nietzsche, wonderfully edited and translated by Walter Kaufmann, on my list of books to read in the immediate future. I've had my trusty Penguin edition for some time, and dipped in extensively, but never gone cover to cover. Not entirely sure what this has to do with my imminent disintegration, but I reckon some kind of subtext might be underpinning these loose jottings, just about holding things together.

A Bad Dream

It's probably going a bit too far to say that the dream I had this morning was a bad dream. It wouldn't rate highly as a nightmare, but it was unpleasant, to say the least, involving feelings of annoyance, irritation and anxiety I'd rather do without. I woke up from the dream, I'm happy to say, at 8.50 am and was immediately able to push those negative feelings to one side, though whatever relief I felt that it had all been just a dream was tempered by the fact I'd had the dream at all.

The odd thing about it all was that what happened in the dream was so contrary to the reality of my lived experience for many years now that I felt, and feel now, puzzled as to how some part of my brain conjured up an entirely false narrative. The dream featured a show I was directing, some three or four hours before actual performance. The cast for the most part were all there, and obviously prepared, but not the four 'leads'. I gave a little speech explaining the desperately important final rehearsing necessary, noting that with the key people being missing we were unlikely to be able to deliver a good show. Then I settled down to wait for the four absentees, somehow knowing that I was going to be let down. One arrived, and I knew immediately he was weak on a key speech. Then I woke up.

Now I'm used to anxiety dreams about shows in which I am the one who's underprepared and doesn't know what's going on. But I can't recall ever having the kind of dream in which the performers themselves have let me down. And one very good reason I can immediately think of for this lack is that in reality this just doesn't happen. Indeed, in recent years I've been spectacularly blessed by the manner in which performers have somehow delivered despite the many pressures upon them, especially the pressures attendant upon time leaking away. Possibly the dream was a warning against taking all this for granted? But I prefer to think it was a way of reminding myself of the incredible good fortune I enjoy of working in the circumstances I do with the people who share those circumstances.

I think back now to 26 July and wonder, Just how did we do all that?, a question I find myself happily asking every year around this time.

A Sort Of Relief

Eid al Adha 1440

Just got back from Prayers at the masjid at Sungai Petai, followed by a cuppa with Hamzah and Aiman at the Old Town White Coffee just up the road. We have a day of visiting ahead, so I'm putting Foucault at his thorniest to one side. Quite a relief, to be honest.

20.55
Somehow I've contrived to both eat well today and finish The Birth of the Clinic. It helped that the food offered was excellent and I stopped trying to understand Foucault. Reading his account of the development of medicine as a wild prose poem proved far more satisfactory than I expected, whilst the mutton biriyani  put together by the Missus was just as satisfactory as expected, which was highly satisfactory indeed.

In Expectation

18.32
We've been observing the voluntary fast ahead of Hari Raya Haji this last couple of days, and I'm looking forward to the conclusion of today's fast in an hour or so. I can't say it's been terribly demanding to fast when on holiday, but I found myself deeply thirsty when breaking the fast yesterday and very happy indeed to knock back the cranberry juice and hot tea available. And I suspect I'll feel much the same today.

23.45
Must confess to knocking back the tea more than somewhat this happy evening. I need to keep an eye on the need for moderation in all things, that's for sure.

A Bit Tough

Thought I'd try and read Foucault's The Birth of the Clinic over the long weekend. There were not many people around the house today and I had plenty of time on my hands, so conditions were perfect for making real progress. Unfortunately the density of Foucault's writing is such that a single paragraph can wear me out. The result: I've managed to read the first three chapters, actually understanding possibly a third of what I've read. I consider that not bad going.

And on the entirely positive side, I've enjoyed some excellent naps in the course of the day as a result of my efforts.

Miles To Go

It suddenly struck me yesterday that I've never used any music from Miles Davis to soothe the way on long car journeys. Considering the considerable surface attractions of every period of the great jazzer's work, supplemented, of course, by the rewards of what lies below the surface, this seemed a trifle odd. Surely this music would be perfect in this context? (as well as being pretty much perfect in most other contexts that one might think of.)

Having very recently downloaded Miles Ahead and Tutu (the deluxe, remastered version) from iTunes, I experimented with the two as the starting music for today's journey up to Melaka. And I was right: we found ourselves stuck in a massive tailback onto the bridge at Tuas, the Malaysian side being unable to handle the influx of Singaporeans fleeing from their National Day for the extended weekend, yet I felt hardly any impatience at all luxuriating as I was in the plentiful live bonus tracks on Tutu.

I suppose I shouldn't like Tutu very much at all, given the obvious 80s production vibe that pervades the album, yet for once I found myself ignoring the drum machines and slabs of synthesiser. Whatever serves as a basis for Miles to solo thereon works for me given the strength of the melodic and harmonic ideas overlaying what lies beneath. And I suppose this is as good a place as any to confess that I've always preferred Miles Ahead (indeed anything that features Gil Evans & Miles together) over Kind of Blue. I suspect I prefer him on flugelhorn to trumpet, but that's pushing a bit too far into entirely heretical territory.

Our journey here took so long, by the way, that the great Miles Davis needed to be followed by a whole batch of other stuff, all of which cheered me considerably. In the interest of full disclosure here's the list: Oranges and Lemons by XTC; Stevie W's Signed, Sealed, Delivered (the album, that is); Pete Hammill's Singularity; and Steven Wilson's Hand. Cannot. Erase.

One Of Those Moments

I'd been moving non-stop from just after 7.00 am to 11.10 am, when I found myself on duty for an examination with quite a bit more running round to do. It would be 2.00 pm before I would alight upon some sort of break. Fortunately I'd managed to grab a flask of tea, a cup, and the happily substantial piece of fruit cake Noi had prepared for me to help deal with the rigours of a distinctly rigorous day, and they were by my side as I hurried some necessary paperwork. 

At this point in time I figured I had a minute or two in which to deal with the cake, and did so. With considerable gusto.

Suddenly the day blossomed as time stopped. It's rare to encounter utter perfection, but there it was in my hands, then my mouth and, in short order, in my stomach. And if you feel jealous, that's fine - you should. Hah!

A Wild Time

Looking forward to the long weekend ahead - a holiday for National Day followed by another for Hari Raya Haji. As usual we'll be deserting this nation for the one up north. We're off to Mak's house at Sungai Petai to celebrate the big day (and to observe the fast the day before.)
 
When we there for Hari Raya Puasa, on the second day of Syawal we found the main road outside the house blocked by the intruders below. I doubt we'll see them again this time round, but I live in hope:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Not at all sure to whom our chums belonged, by the way. Suppose it was, rather splendidly, to themselves.

Good Cheer

Just realised I've got a fair amount of reading ahead just related to material I need to soak myself in to prepare for what I'll need to teach in 2020. I suppose it says something about what I do for a living that the thought actually made me feel quite unreasonably cheerful.

Strange Days

Shared a splendid cuppa with old chum Tony (Jamal) Green this afternoon. We enjoyed a wide-ranging conversation, mainly centred upon his forth-coming (finally) book on those pilgrims who undertook the journey to perform the Haj by ocean from Singapore in the early part of the twentieth century. The soft copy version of the tome looked gorgeous, and was clearly superbly researched.

We also touched on the shooting at the mosque in Christchurch. I remember hoping at the time that I wouldn't see Tony's name on the list of victims, and it turns out he was in Singapore on a flying visit at the time. Otherwise he would have been there. I think he's in some official or semi-official position as spokesperson for the mosque. He had some engrossing tales of encounters following the dreadful event. I got a faint sense of the trauma involved for the community, both Muslim and non-Muslim, there. It's on-going, needless to say - but I'll say it.

We referenced the news of the terrible shooting in El Paso in the course of our chat, and then I came home to the latest on events in Ohio. We live in strange and awful times.

Bedazzled

Read the final third of Kate Atkinson's highly impressive Life After Life today. So many vividly memorable scenes crammed into a single novel - I was suitably dazzled. Not sure I completely followed all the nuances and implications of the cunningly fractured narrative, but it didn't seem to matter somehow.

The Blitz sequences were powerful indeed, but I think it's the account of Ursula at the Berghof in close proximity to The Fuhrer, followed by the nightmare of Berlin in April 1945, that gives the book a gravitas that takes it beyond being a superior, thought-provoking entertainment and into territory that nudges suspiciously close to greatness.

Good Timing

Discovered that driving from our place to Race Course Road on a busy Friday evening allows enough time to listen to the full performance of The Clash Live at Shea Stadium, assuming that you don't rush to leave after parking but hang on for the rip-roaring I Fought the Law ending the concert. For once I didn't feel the slightest impatience in the various jams along the way.

Going

Caught part of a fascinating documentary just now on a form of Malay dance-drama called Mak Yong. A feisty young lady, one of the last practitioners of the art, was calling on the government for support. But the pervading tone of the programme was melancholic, I'm afraid. I don't think her voice will prevail, more's the pity.

The failure to remember is the ultimate betrayal, no?