More Catching Up

I've still got a few journals to read - a Philosophy Now bought at Holland Village and three literary mags I picked up in December in the UK - but I'm pleased to say I finished reading the most recent Mekong Review ahead of the next edition coming out (which will be the February 2020 issue, assuming they continue to publish.) As with previous issues I was hugely impressed with the quality of the material published, this time round feeling I've begun to understand the intensity of feeling in Hong Kong, especially on the side of the protestors with two strong pieces related to recent events there, one by Kong Tsung-gan, the other by Antony Dapiran.

But it was a poem by the Singaporean writer Robert Yeo that I'll most remember this edition for. I've generally enjoyed his stuff in the past, thinking it well-crafted and worthy of attention, but not exactly outstandingly memorable. However, his funny, charming Small town romance, so beautifully captures a kind of archetypal street talk typical of the pasar malam that it constitutes an instant minor classic.

Another Lesson

Got to the gym this evening to remind myself of just how difficult it is to maintain even a basic rough and ready kind of fitness. A lesson always worth learning. A struggle to be embraced.

Holiday Reading

I've heard such good things about the Shardlake novels of C.J. Sansom that it was almost inevitable I'd start out on the series one day. Murders set in sixteenth century England against a background of deep religious divisions, with a protagonist in the service of Thomas Cromwell and his programme of Reform - what's not to like?! The paperbacks themselves look good and smell great. In fact, I would have bought the first in the series, Dissolution, back in December in the UK were it not for the fact that John & Jeanette were already familiar with the series, it being my grand plan to leave the book, once read by myself, with them to avoid having to tote it back all the way here.

In the event, I bought a copy at the Kinokuniya branch in KLCC and read it over Chinese New Year. All the good things turned out to be true. I'm now officially a fan, possibly even a fan-boy, and figuring out when I'll have a bit of time to address number 2 in the series. Also wondering to whom to lend volume 1.

Of Some Concern

Big headline in today's paper - BARRED. Thought for a moment it referred to banning anyone from China coming into Malaysia, but then realised from the small print it was only concerned with visitors from Hubei Province. So not quite the over-reaction to the spread of the coronavirus I vaguely assumed, but such a reaction isn't beyond the bounds of possibility given how understandably spooked folks in the region are about the current emergency. The virus was the main subject of the two conversations I had with residents of KL in our time there, both of whom had connections with international schools in the area with students from the PRC, which helps explain their concerns to some degree.

Back in our usual Far Place, whence we'll be wending our way on the morrow, the authorities are responding with typical alacrity and thoroughness to the situation as it stands, which is typically reassuring. There's a lot to be said for sound organisation in times of uncertainty. Let's hope the uncertainty turns out to be not so uncertain, eh?

Caught Up

When I first got hold of Tony Green's beautifully produced Kapal Haji: Singapore and the Hajj Journey by Sea, back in late-September 2019 I knew immediately I would enjoy it. It helped to have heard Tony talk about his concerns when writing the book and the engaging lay-out and organisation of the text made it perfect for dipping into on an almost casual basis, knowing that something of striking interest would most likely emerge from every segment. And such was the case.

But despite having immersed myself (dippingly) in the tome pretty thoroughly at that time, I felt it important to give the work its due with a cover-to-cover reading, and I'm glad I did. Somehow doing so over the last couple of weeks helped bring together what is necessarily, by virtue of its sheer geographical and historical range, a fragmentary text. One aspect captured of the many, many individual experiences of the pilgrimage is the quiet heroism displayed - or, rather, implied, for those undertaking the journey were not prone to display in any of its forms - hence the disregard History has shown them.

It's good to know that, finally, attention has been paid.

Catching Up

When you find yourself reading the 15 August 2019 edition of The New York Review of Books in late January of the next year, you know you've got a bit of catching-up to do. As I'm reading I'm struck by how interesting the edition is, so it's not as if there was anything that put me off reading it when I first got hold of it.

I suppose I could claim I've been busy, but when has there been a time I haven't been busy? I suspect that time I used to spend reading my journals has been eaten up by reading stuff on-line. Indeed, oftentimes it's the same stuff. But - and this is the genuinely odd thing - I suspect I read the hard-copy versions with greater concentration, somehow in greater depth.

And often with more excitement than I feel reading on-line. For example, there's an excellent highly enthusiastic piece on a Swedish poet named Harry Martinson and a sort of epic poem he wrote in the 1950s set in space entitled Aniara: A Review of Man in Time and Space that got me considerably fired-up. It seems there's also an opera based on the poem and a recent film, along with other miscellaneous responses. I'm now thinking of a way to expose myself to the work in one of its guises.

At Ease

Yesterday's decision to delay our journey until evening proved uncannily canny. Our passage north was almost effortless, apart from actually doing the driving, sailing easily across at Tuas with nary a jam in sight. We got here before 2.00 am, having enjoyed lavish roti bakar at the ARAB café, and happily collapsed, surfacing only late in the morning. Actually I've got some work to do whilst we're here, but I'm treating myself to a day off, thank you very much.

For some reason my ears seem particularly keen on sweet sounds at the moment, having feasted on the gently acoustic side of Richard Thompson and the monstrously live side of King Crimson (in Chicago) on the journey north. This morning I listened to Haydn's Symphony 95 with a curious hyper-intensity and it was like hearing it for the first time. Glorious beyond words. Decided that the world would be a better place if Haydn were compulsory listening for all each morning.

In Delay

Now I know the Bard didn't think much of hanging around - In delay there lies no plenty, and all that sort of thing - but the Missus and I are practising the cunning art of necessary delay at this precise moment and I reckon it makes good sense. We've been informed of the jams at Tuas on the eve of Chinese New Year and reconsidered the master plan, which was to set off directly after the conclusion of Friday Prayers. Instead I came back to sleep for a couple of hours and generally just chill through the afternoon.

We're now targeting an evening take-off, hopeful that the traffic might have thinned out a bit at that point. Mind you, there's fair chance we're going to get this horribly wrong and curse our bad judgement, but that's all part of the fun of public holidays in these parts.

I'll let you know how we fared tomorrow, Gentle Reader, assuming we've arrived elsewhere by then.

Rushing Around Again

Now grabbing bits and pieces we'll be taking up to KL tomorrow. Yes, we're off north again for Chinese New Year and, as ever, dealing with the last minute flurry of baking biscuits, changing money, figuring what CDs to take, trying not to forget passports, and the like. I sound like I'm complaining, and I am, sort of, but I suspect at some level I enjoy all this.

Mystery Man

On the anniversary of his death I've been thinking of Dad and his rages today.

Now that's a very strange sentence, and anyone who knew my Dad would tell you so. He was one of the most gentle, self-effacing of men and very, very rarely lost his temper. In all the time I knew him I can recall such a loss twice, hence the rages I refer to above. But these were real rages, as if something quite extraordinary had been unleashed in him.

The first time happened on the road outside our house at Haughton Green. Dad would have been in his forties, I think, and a much younger guy from up the road got funny with him. Dad didn't respond well and after a prolonged exchange of colourful words the guy ended up running away. I was startled, and pleased, to see my father clearly more than capable of sorting the youngster out: as the row concluded he was heading towards him and you just knew he wasn't going to stop. The second time the rage was aimed (quite rightly) at me (being snarkily insufferable.) Dad did stop, because I think he knew he'd really frightened me, even though I tried to save face and not back down. It was startlingly out of character, but I kind of guessed the capacity for such rage was part of who he was.

I mention this because it occurred to me today that my own capacity for extreme fury (thankfully much reduced and controlled in recent years) comes from Dad. I'd kind of assumed that, along with my propensity for being generally irascibly bad-tempered when things aren't going well, it came from Mum, but what's involved in such moments is something quite different - and much more disturbing. I don't know where Dad got it from or how he'd had to control it over his life. Which is a reminder of how much a mystery even those we are close to often remain. Indeed, it further occurs to me that I remain a bit of a mystery to myself in my own fragmented way.

In Too Deep

Silence is hard to find. Even harder to hear.

Top Girl

By a stroke of good fortune I followed my reading of Simenon's Little Restaurant story with Jean Rhys's Good Morning, Midnight. One led perfectly into the other. Funnily enough, when I'd read the opening pages of Rhys's novel back in December I'd found it more than a little opaque in terms of the fractured consciousness of its narrator. This time round it seemed so easy to read I really wondered how I'd felt so blocked initially.

The extraordinary thing about Rhys is the complete artistic control she possesses when dealing with material about the most extreme states. Good Morning, Midnight lacks the ambition and range of Wide Sargasso Sea but, my goodness, it lacks nothing of the sheer power of Rhys's final novel and, just possibly, its sly humour gives it a dimension that WSS for all its dazzling brilliance falls short of.

I'm still not sure of the ending of Midnight, though. I can think of at least three interpretations, but they contradict each other. Not that that's a bad thing - especially if it invites a rereading.

Top Notch

I wasn't all that sure about acquiring A Christmas Maigret and Other Stories back in December, from Waterstones on Deansgate in Manchester. If Fifi hadn't needed to make up the Buy One and Get One Half Price deal they were offering to save a bob or two on her book I wouldn't have bothered. Of course, any Simenon is worth getting hold of, but I knew I wouldn't read the stories until well after Christmas and thought they might fall more than a bit flat, out of season, as it were. But I needn't have worried: they made an excellent January read.

The Maigret story itself was typically solid stuff, a bit plodding but in a good way - very comfortable reading. But unexpectedly it was the two stories that didn't feature the great Inspector that really stood as a reminder of just how brilliant a writer Simenon can be. The second story, Seven Small Crosses in a Notebook, was very much in the Maigret vein, being based on the perspective of the Parisian Police, and was genuinely gripping in its evocation of the police switchboard and an unfolding mystery being played out on its lights on Christmas Eve. Very clever and, as always with Simenon, very human; indeed, very humane.

Then came The Little Restaurant near Place des Ternes - A Christmas Story for Grown-Ups. I thought this was going to be a bit of filler for the volume. It turned out to be one of the best short stories I've ever read. Possibly now my favourite 'Christmas story' ever. It took me two readings to really 'get it', but the second of these was just pure appreciation of its mastery. Simenon adopts the perspective of a down-at-heel, lonely, hard-faced prostitute and is so entirely convincing inhabiting her frame of reference that it's spooky. And the fact that she's the source of a kind of ultimate goodness in the tale is carried off without the slightest sense of sentimentality. Astonishing. If this isn't great writing I don't know what is.

Worth Watching

Doing a bit of Keats on Friday his phrase watcher of the skies plunged me into a brief reverie involving early Genesis, the classic 1972 line-up, performing their Watcher of the Skies, bat-wings around Gabe's head and all the accoutrements. Today I went searching to see if any performance from that glorious era had survived on the ocean of being and, to my not inconsiderable delight, discovered an extraordinarily well-filmed and well-performed live version from 1973.

On the small screen the theatrics look a bit cheesy, I suppose, but I can tell you that the real thing packed one heck of a wallop. Enough to come back vividly to mind in a Lit lesson almost 50 years later.

At The End Of The Day

At the end of a very long day, at the end of a very long week, I'm reminded of the importance of a place that, thankfully, isn't so far. It's good, indeed, to be home.

Ups And Downs

The worst thing about going to the gym: that inevitable realisation after seven minutes on the trainer: Oh dear, or words to that effect, I'm really, really struggling and I've got another forty-three minutes in which to keep struggling.

The great thing about going to the gym: that moment on the way back that you accidentally cross the path of a colleague and you know they must be thinking: Woah, it's Connor on the way back from the gym again - he's the MAN!

Just saying.

Beyond Us

Attended a talk related to mental health issues this morning. Some good points made with an appealing explanation of the notion of us occupying an insecure position on a shifting continuum of mental health. But I was struck by a paradoxical aspect of that model. Whilst it's straightforward enough to identify the negative pole of the continuum it's not so easy to give a convincing account of what might be seen as optimal mental health. The version we were given was essentially, and understandably, functional in nature - the idea that the mentally healthy individual can function socially with success.

Now it's easy to see the logic of this, and in some ways the model is useful. But isn't it missing something, a sense that there may be possibilities beyond simply functioning, fitting in, as it were? Yet getting a clear picture of what that optimal state might be is, almost by definition, beyond us since it's so hard to recognise what we ourselves don't possess.

Could it be that the state we're thinking about is such that it escapes definition, yet we somehow know it when we see it in somebody else - if we're lucky enough to meet someone who's truly, deeply sane?

Mistaken Identity

Was feeling quite cheerful this morning in my usual vacuous fashion when I received an email which I think was intended to be vaguely inspirational. The attachment told me that on this Monday morning I was to be reminded that I was powerful beyond measure and capable of pretty much anything I wanted. This seemed so unlikely I had a strong sense it had been sent to the wrong man. Felt quite depressed for a while afterwards, but then had a cup of tea and ate a banana and equilibrium was restored.

A Different Lens

Read Pico Iyer's This Could Be Home today. Odd little book. Basically about the Raffles Hotel, where he was the first Writer-in-Residence, but also saying interesting things about Singapore in general. The hotel doesn't really represent the island I know, but I enjoyed the book for its insights even though I couldn't relate to what he sees as the peculiarly representative nature of the writer's place of residency. Most of all I enjoyed the sense of the city being celebrated: I was reminded of its many excellent qualities which are so easily forgotten when navigating one's way through the necessity of earning a living here.
 
He sees something special in the brand of multiculturalism embraced in this Far Place, and I think he's absolutely right. It was refreshing to be so forcibly reminded of something so obvious, yet easy to overlook. And he also says interesting things about Maugham, enough to make me consider reading something by a writer I have somehow contrived to sturdily neglect for so long. 

On Screen

At the turning of the year I've found myself viewing rather more stuff on the small screen than usual. On the way back from the UK I watched two movies - one on each leg of the journey - on the nifty small screens provided by Qatar Airways. Both featured excellent acting: All Is True, an account of Shakespeare's later years, post his retirement as playwright, saw Kenneth Branagh and Judi Dench in fine form, plus a gorgeous cameo of Ian McKellen; and then The Post offered Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks in equally impressive, if rather more contemporary, performances in a gripping re-enactment of the Washington Post's publication of the Pentagon Papers. To be honest, it's a shame to just pick out the big names since pretty much everyone around them was darn good.

But the performance that has blown the top of my head off in terms of its absolute perfection at every level is that of Thandie Newton in Series 4 of Line of Duty. Some stellar reviews of the show caught my attention last year and I vaguely wondered what all the fuss was about, assuming I probably would never have the wherewithal to actually watch any episodes. Then I realised that the fourth series was available on the BBC link we get on Starhub, so I ran the first episode with the Missus watching alongside and we found ourselves hooked, and savagely. Compelling stuff and Ms Newton, as the bent DCI, is just phenomenal, managing to be simultaneously deeply horrid and just as deeply sympathetic. She conveys the stress engulfing her character with such nuance and subtlety you find yourself feeling overwhelmed by it all on her behalf.

Anyway, we've got one final episode to watch and I can't wait. Though I must admit, the twists and turns are such that I suspect I'll be uncomfortably dizzied by whatever's in store.

A Good Companion

Read the final poem in Across The River: The Complete Poems by James Wright  just now. Felt like going back to the opening poems again. Good sign. Feel I have come to know JW and am happy in his company.

Mixed Feelings

I was a rabid fan of Yes, those archetypal prog rockers, in the early 70s and regarded Heart of the Sunrise from Fragile as a self-evidently great piece of music. I suppose I sort of fell out of love with the band slowly over time, though still enjoying the Trevor Rabin line-up of the 80s to some degree. But I never quite lost my sense of wonder at the early stuff, like Sunrise. Happily I found that wonder revived today when chancing upon a splendid live version of the piece as performed by the Anderson, Rabin & Wakeman version of the band in 2018. It's stellar stuff, not the least for the astonishing vocal power of the elderly version of Mr Anderson. He may have proved to be a bit of a flaky character over time, as followers of Yes will be aware, but my goodness can the guy sing.

But here's the thing. My intense enjoyment of the performance was marred by an extraordinary act of artistic vandalism which seems to my jaundiced ears typical of the age in which we live. Who on earth thought it would be a good idea to enhance the track by mixing in fake audience noise?

So intense enjoyment mixes with equally intense horror. Most confusing. Not a healthy combination, I'm afraid.

In Praise Of Nudity

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've expressed the thought before in this Far Place that if asked to name a favourite amongst all the species I'd go unhesitatingly for trees. (Sadly Mankind is a long way down the list. Possibly at the bottom. Though Womankind, I must say, does considerably better.)

On our recent trip to the UK I couldn't help but notice yet another example of the general excellence of trees: even bereft of their foliage they contrive to look beautiful. Evidence above.

Words Unspoken

 

When History speaks we do well to listen.

Cause For Complaint

It's been fourteen days now since Noi was diagnosed with shingles. The rash is still there, though it doesn't look as fierce as it did originally. Fortunately she hasn't suffered from the searing pain that some poor souls experience with an outbreak, but the discomfort accompanying the rash is obvious and obviously we're hoping for more signs of healing, and speedy healing at that. She's coped with it all brilliantly, essentially getting on with everything pretty much as per normal when things are not normal at all. I suspect I would have raised a good deal more of a fuss, but then I'm very good indeed at feeling sorry for myself.

Progress

I'm somewhat baffled by just how long it's taken me to get close to finishing Across The River: The Complete Poems by James Wright. I've reached the final book, This Journey from 1982, after making the collection the sole focus of my reading since getting back from the UK. The strange thing is that I've enjoyed to some degree practically every poem, even the thorniest, yet my reading has lacked momentum, with the exception of the last few days. I can't work out if this lack relates to the poems themselves or some kind of change in my reading habits.

Another thing: as with other collections I've read in recent years the final poems seem more accessible and richer somehow than the early ones, as if reading in sequence grants one privileged insights, yet it would be difficult if not impossible to articulate the exact nature of the insights involved. This ease - that's what it feels like - leaves me wondering why it's taken me so long to get this far.

A Distinctive Voice

I was quite close to the back of the masjid yesterday for Friday Prayers, intending to make an early exit as I needed to get back to work as soon as possible. This meant I was unable to see the Imam from where I was. After the adhan, when he began to speak, I was initially taken aback at the loud forcefulness of his voice, heavily amplified as it was. For a moment I found myself wondering why very occasionally one encountered Imams who sounded quite angry at the world, as if it had let them down somehow.

However, after a further three sentences I realised I recognised the voice, its very distinctive rhythms matching those of Ustad Haron, a man incapable of any degree of lasting anger at anybody. I understood that far from expressing anger the tone of voice conveyed a kind of determined exuberance regarding the message he was about to deliver. I found myself comfortably delighted at being able to listen to his lived wisdom once again.

Of course, most of the words of the khutbah were not his own, but he managed to put his own spin on the sermon which was being heard nationwide such that it felt authentically his somehow. It concerned excellence, and the need for Muslims to pursue this individually - but this was linked throughout to an even more powerful imperative: the need to pursue such excellence for the sake of developing an excellent community.

A simple enough idea, but so powerful in the light of the sincerity of the speaker and in its sane nobility.

Powerless

I'd just got back from the gym and was enjoying the cool of the air-conditioning in the bedroom whilst the Missus was cooking some salmon in the kitchen for dinner, when there was an almighty bang and the lights went out. I thought it would just be matter of checking which fuse had gone in the box in the living-room for normality to be restored, but it wasn't. Indeed, trips to the various electrical risers on the three floors of the Hall in which our apartment is located also proved fruitless. I raised one or two of those little levers, but our place stubbornly remained in darkness.

It wasn't easy to contemplate the loss of the half-cooked salmon still in the oven (from where the big bang had emanated according to the cook) but bitter contemplation was not to be avoided.

However, all ended well when a call to our general handyman, Johnny, elicited the information that there was yet another electrical riser in the bowels of the building which we needed to check. Check we did, and there we found a big lever down over the number of our place. It was the work of a moment to lift it up and dash back up the stairs to find the lights on again.

Noi duly completed cooking the salmon and, let me tell you, it tasted extraordinarily good. I suppose that would have been the case if we'd not suffered our little catastrophe, but sometimes you need things to go wrong to remind you of just how deeply lucky you are.

Glory Days

I've enjoyed the last few albums by Bruce Springsteen in a broad sense, but I've not been set alight by any since The Rising (except, I suppose, for Live In Dublin with the Sessions Band, but that's another kind of story.). I suppose that's why I wasn't in any great hurry to get my hands on Western Stars, that and the fact I'd heard the new album didn't reflect Springsteen the rocker at all. How foolish I was to delay.

Western Stars is so brilliant I'm tempted to say it surpasses everything else in his considerable canon. Of course, when I've calmed down I'll regret that hyperbole, but for the moment it stands. As stunning as encountering The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle for the first time. So powerful it's making me think in capitals: Cinematic, Expansive. Big Melodies. Sweeping Strings. Songs of the Common Man. Memory. Loss. Yearning. Tears. Glory.

Starting, Sort Of

An excellent night's sleep has given rise to my resolution for the year ahead: In 2020 I will harness the power of silence. Sounds good, eh? Now all I need to do is figure out what it means.