A New Experience

Kevin Barry's Night Boat to Tangier was one of the novels I picked up in my recent foray to Kinokuniya, and I'm very glad I did. There's not much in the way of plot, though enough fragments of a coherent storyline do come together to satisfy, but there's no shortage of poetry on every page: smouldering, dark, funny, menacing; rhythmically compelling; viscerally evocative.

I have no acquaintance with the world of drug-running and addicted Irish gangsters, I'm happy to say, but Barry enabled me to vicariously experience something of that world in all its rich bleakness, fortunately at a distance, but close enough to feel for its denizens. And enjoy them. And learn from them.

Back In Time

We listened to a fair amount of jazz or jazz-influenced music in my time at university but I remembered today that most of all we listened to the Dave Brubeck Quartet, especially from the Time Out period. I suppose the sheer mellifluousness of it all represented a way in for young guys like us who knew next to nothing about the tradition. But once in we had a foundation to build on and, I'm embarrassed to admit, that some four or five years later I would have regarded Brubeck as just a little passe.

This all came back to me when I chanced on a video of the quartet at the height of their powers and popularity in the mid-sixties, playing the stuff we listened to over and over around a decade later. Listening today I was able to take in just how phenomenally good the DBQ were; I don't think I'd quite registered the drop-dead brilliance of the Morello-Wright rhythm section back then - but, my  goodness, I did today.

I'd suggest that listening to them live is a useful test of one's musical taste: if you aren't in love with the band after seven minutes there's no hope for you, I'm afraid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfZruW3NI6c .

Pointless Moaning

I can think of four different subjects I wouldn't mind having a bit of a moan about this evening. In the great scheme of things none of the subjects counts for much at all. I'm not sure they even attain the status of being trivial. So it's odd and disconcerting that I'm so strongly drawn to moaning about them, almost as if I'm trying to mildly inflate them to the point they have some status. I suppose this is a way of avoiding confronting my own lack of substance. Ouch.

(One of the moans involved my thoughts on razor-blades and how I dislike all those now available on the market. Must say, I'm happy to have spared myself the trouble of writing about that.)

The Way It Was

Was talking to Noi just now about queuing to withdraw money from the bank every Friday (I think it was) when I was living at Firth Park in Sheffield. The invention of the ATM changed that particular routine.

I suppose I'm glad to say that, but for some reason the routine never felt all that inconvenient. In fact, I've got a feeling I regarded it as a sensible way to get some money in my pocket. It was just the way things were, and the memories don't feel like at all like unpleasant ones. Quite the opposite.

But it is difficult to connect with that version of my life. Like watching tv programmes from that period. Odd, yet completely familiar.

The Dominant Species

The birds occupying the garden area outside SAC were in good voice this afternoon. Such was their volume, I wondered if some avian dispute was taking place, but saw no signs of aggressive behaviour on the part of our feathered friends. In fact, part of the pleasure of listening to them was linked to the invisibility of the birds, at least in the early stages of tuning-in to their tuneful cacophony. I suppose something territorial was going-on, but they may have just felt like announcing their dominance of our little world.

And I mean dominance. Birdsong in a relatively confined space has a rich thickness about it that leaves no doubt as to who is in charge.

Celebratory

A bit of a burden was lifted from us on Friday when late in the day Noi received an email telling her she could pick up her renewed passport on the coming Monday. I've previously recorded, in early August and September, some of the obstacles we've faced relative to the renewal of said document, and the relief we felt on actually getting confirmation of something close to success was considerable. However, I resisted the temptation to really celebrate until today. Noi braved the queue this morning and is now officially passported - and I don't care that there isn't such a word because there is now.

All we need to do now is to get the pass she needs for her continued stay in this Far Place, and previous experience suggests this will be trouble-free since considerable effort has been put in over the years by the bureaucracy here to ensure this is the case. I can assure you though, we don't take the smooth working of that system for granted. Exposure to other ways of doing things ensures we recognise the privilege of being dealt with efficiently when we're lucky enough to encounter it.

In The Crowd

Went to the big Kinokuniya in town this afternoon and was taken aback at how crowded it was. Perhaps the nation has discovered a passion for books since the lockdown? Must say, I was pleased and relieved that there was nothing of the run-down quality I noted at the smaller branch of the bookstore in Jurong. The shelves looked well-stocked, though they still don't seem to me to match what's on offer at the store in KL. Case in point: I was on the lookout for Graham Swift's Last Orders, but they stocked only the recently published Here We Are (in some abundance, ironically.)

Oh, and there was no sign of anything by CJ Sisson anywhere. Unforgivable, almost.

In The Nature Of The Thing

Highlight of the day: listening to Steve Reich's Tehillim in the morning and getting caught up in the ecstasy of it all. This time I tried to follow the actual words from Psalms, and very beautiful they were. Struck by the thought that the expression of the Divine in music is quite natural when one considers the nature of music itself. Perhaps it's what music is for?

Getting Back To Normal

Managed to get a booking for Friday Prayers at Masjid Darussalam for the second time since mosques started opening up again. The number of worshippers allowed has doubled since last time (if my count is right) with some of us placed on the second level. I attended the third shift with the azan sounding at 2.50 pm, and I think I'm right in saying that the number of shifts has increased since last month. It remains an odd mixture of the novel and the familiar. Waiting to pray a good two hours beyond the normal timing was in itself a bit disconcerting and felt sort of wrong even though it was entirely right.

But it's a very positive kind of experience in every way. Apart from the fact that I could finally pray properly in congregation again, I found myself feeling proud of the way those running the mosque were scrupulously following all the sensible regulations helping all to feel safe. And I think everyone could see a logic in the gradual easing of the rules in a way that feels genuinely progressive as opposed to just abandoning all restraint.

Other parts of the world would do well to take a good hard look at what is being achieved in this Far Place. Of course, there's no guarantee the ride won't get a lot more bumpy, but it's that understanding that seems to be fuelling the good sense of the response.

Necessary Discomfort

Read a couple of Flannery O'Connor's early stories today, the ones she wrote as part of a thesis when she was at university. Beautifully crafted, both had race at the forefront, with black characters playing key roles. Both made for uncomfortable reading. It would be crass to say they reflected overt racism on the part of the writer, but I can't imagine a teacher wanting to take them into the classroom as exemplars of balance and insight, despite their virtues. I suppose it didn't help matters that I happened to read a James Baldwin essay this morning on the subject of the rage he felt as a result of the racism he was on the receiving end of.

Perhaps that's the best way to read white writers in the Southern Gothic tradition: cheek by jowl with those unlikely to have any deep sympathy with them. (Mind you, I'm completely ignorant as to what Baldwin thought of her as a writer, if he bothered at all. Must try and find out.)

Hours Of Pleasure

Discovered the link today to the archive of Bob Dylan's wonderful Theme Time Radio Hour. I've been vaguely aware of the existence of the site for some time now but somehow avoided going there. Why so? Well, there's a lot of hours involved and once I get there it'll be very difficult to get away. But some addictions are worth slipping into.

Now listening to Episode 1: Weather. (Slim wrote a bunch of songs with his wife, Lavelle... Boy, wish I had a wife like that to help me write songs.)

For the risk-takers amongst you here's the link: https://www.themetimeradio.com/.

And don't say I didn't warn you.

Serious Stuff

The other day I mentioned current uncertainties as to the fiction I intend to read in the next month or so. Those uncertainties partly relate to a sort of plan I have in mind with regard to what I regard as my serious reading. I've been thinking of rereading Iain McGilchrist's The Master and his Emissary for some time, and I've decided that now is that time, with the end of year break not far off. I'm talking about a very slow reading indeed to ensure I've picked up every nuance of McGilchrist's argument, such that I can defend or promote it in genuine fine detail. The first time round I bought into his ideas big time, and now he's become a bit of presence in terms of on-line talks it's been easy to re-visit those ideas in a broad iteration. I'm absolutely convinced now of their value - I'm certain he's got it right. And since I now think in the same terms I need to ensure those thoughts are clear at every level.

In a similar way, I need to seek similar clarification with regard to Ed Feser's highly persuasive arguments that Aquinas got it right with his proofs of the existence of God. Though a convinced theist myself, I've sort of taken it for granted that such philosophical arguments, whilst broadly persuasive, can't deliver a genuine certainty of proof. But the last time I was reading Feser's The Last Superstition I had one of those moments of thinking that he'd achieved (through Aristotle & Aquinas) precisely that and knew I had to get back to the metaphysics involved with more mental energy than I was prepared to put in at that point. I've since acquired Prof Feser's Five Proofs of the Existence of God, and that acquisition has made aware I need to rise to the occasion with some serious thought (and some urgency.)

I have enough self-knowledge to acknowledge a fundamental laziness of mind. I've done enough thinking to know how hard it is to think, even when someone has provided the thoughts to think about. But it feels like letting the side down if I fail to get my neurones moving. Actually, I know where these thoughts lead; I just need to get there in a genuinely rigorous fashion.

Just One Look

Just before I went off to the bedroom for the Isha' Prayer, Noi enjoined me to have a look out of the window after praying to take in the crescent moon floating above the big tree we have the privilege of gazing out onto. I did so and a day that had gone pretty well all told blossomed into something even more special. The book of the world repays close reading.

The Way Ahead

I'm trying to figure out what to put on my reading list for the next two or three weeks. The big Hughes's Collected is on-going, so that's a done deal, but I'm blank on the fiction front having completed reading all the books I was given on Teachers' Day. I don't think I would have actually chosen to have read any of them, but they were all rewarding in different ways. Actually I forgot to mention the first of them I read, an off-beat novella entitled The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Postman, a translation from the French-Canadian writer Denis Theriault. One of the students I went to Japan with last year, Priya, got me this, I think because of its employment of the writing of haikus as a central feature of the plot, and general reference to Japanese aesthetic thought. I'm glad she did (though all my students please do note that giving books as presents goes way beyond expectations and is to be discouraged) because it's a nicely crafted, appealing text, which, I'm guessing, has brought the writer some success since he's now written a sequel. The writer has a gift for deploying post-modern artifice in a light, almost fluffy manner, which is a lot more enjoyable than the usual 'look-at-how-clever-I-am' approach.

Anyway, having this and the other two novels that made their ways to me meant I didn't make a visit to the bookshop that I'd intended and now I find myself thinking I should continue to put that visit off and get on with a whole bunch of plays sitting on the old bookshelves alongside some serious reading I've been setting up for the final months of the year. But I'm also hankering for a good murder and a good frightener (King-style) so I'm feeling oddly undecided as to exactly what comes next.

The Price Paid

Found an excellent Tony Palmer documentary about Sir Malcolm Arnold on YouTube today - having listened to the disturbing Ninth Symphony in the morning. I knew before this that the composer was a bit of a mess as a human being before this, but I did not realise the extent of his problems; and I knew how gifted a composer he was but had never quite taken in the range of his achievement. More than one contributor to the programme linked those two ideas together, which is in itself disturbing. Was the mental turmoil a kind of price for the gift of the music?

Actually, my answer to the question is a 'no'. I've ceased to believe in that archly Romantic trope of the madness of the artist. But it isn't an emphatic 'no'; the jury remains out on the verdict, and witnesses like Sir Malcolm don't exactly instil confidence that we can trust in some kind of essential sanity in the creative muse.

(You can find the documentary in question at:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZsuYbn8DaE.\, by the way. Well worth a watch - or even two. Great tunes throughout, even if you don't care much for MA himself.)

Better Days

Just watched an interview on CNN in which the interviewee seemed to think it was a good idea to rant at the interviewer for his 10 minutes of air-time. As a result the interview was extremely difficult to listen to, which was a pity as the case the interviewee was putting was genuinely interesting, even if you fundamentally disagreed with his political position. I can remember a time in which politicians being interviewed generally seemed to think it was a good idea to sound reasonable in their arguments and seek to win the good opinion of most viewers. I suppose I'm naïve in hoping we might see such days again.

In Space

Spent part of the morning thinking about space, as in the space, or spaces, we inhabit and through which we move. Was struck by how differently we experience common spaces and uncommon ones, for that matter. Found myself re-experiencing in memory the small back yard at Gresham Street and the games I devised within that oblong. I suppose I knew it was small and shabby but I can't recall any sense of constriction. Far from it. Indeed, I never felt constricted in any of the houses we lived in. I felt properly at home.

Big houses always seem empty to me.

A Kind Of Magic

I finished Nguyen's The Sympathizer today, and I'm conflicted about it. Specifically I'm not entirely sure of the exact superlatives I want to apply to this wonderful novel, though entirely convinced of its brilliance. I can't quite figure out whether I think of it as a superbly crafted text, pursuing a necessary thesis with regard to the nations and ethnicities at its centre, a kind of thesis-novel in the best possible sense, or evidence of an extraordinarily inspired writer who may have individual greatness within him regardless of subject matter. (Both?)

In a sense, it doesn't really matter because either way we have a great book. Remarkably Nguyen goes some way to doing justice to the terrible cruelty at the heart of the Vietnamese experience of the war and its aftermath in the dark violence of some of the later sequences in the novel. I didn't see this coming at all when reading the first half, but there wasn't any contrivance at all in the plotting. Everything just falls into place.

I suppose the strangest thing for me as a reader was the way I turned Vietnamese as I was drawn in to the narrator's world. At one level that sounds weirdly arrogant, as if making claims for some laudable capacity for empathy, but I don't mean it in that sense. The writer worked this magical transformation by addressing a Vietnamese audience so you are forced to live up to expectations, however shabbily you can manage it. Having a superbly observant guide helped considerably, I can tell you.

Sub-optimal

My right arm has been hurting for quite some time now. Today my right wrist decided to join in. Marking anything is very painful. As in: Very. Painful. Indeed. But what to do? as the Missus so elegantly puts it.

Continuing To Impress

Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Sympathizer continues to impress in a big way. I was wondering whether the writer would maintain the effortless mastery of the narrative as demonstrated in the first half of the novel and the answer seems to be emphatically affirmative. There are some darkly violent stretches of writing in the second half but nothing is gratuitous. The excessive is rendered quite normal and the sense of a lived reality is pervasive.

I think I mentioned some comparisons to Catch 22 in my previous reference to Nguyen's novel. There are some superficial links in terms of satirical content, but the texts involve different kinds of satire. What links them is the simple brilliance in each of a fully realised world, brilliantly imagined.

Playing False

Inaugurated the great Mozart Opera listen-through project this morning. Quite by accident, as it turned out. I'd finished playing a bit of VW and was wondering what to turn to next when it occurred to me that after listening to my box-set of the big 7 operas helmed by John Eliot Gardiner (the Archiv set) some time in the distant past I'd hardly played anything from them again. The thing is that operas have this way of demanding you play them all through and follow the words and action, which is a pretty big demand in terms of time. I had no intention of (or time for) listening to the whole of Idomeneo, but I thought I'd sample a bit - which turned out to be Act 1 and the interlude that follows. And having had a thoroughly good time I decided that this would be my approach to the full set: one act, or the rough equivalent, at a time.

The thing that very much took me by surprise was that somehow I managed to adjust to the fact that the male lead is sung by a woman (which seems to have been an opera seria convention of the period.) I recalled the first time I played the disc when Anne Sofie von Otter's singing of the role of Idomeneo's son Idamante completely threw me, especially when duetting with his love interest, Ilia, given voice by Sylvia McNair. The first time through I honestly was unable to distinguish between them - whilst this time the difference was so obvious I was baffled as to what got in my way the first time round.

I suppose it was an inability to accept the convention such that I was unable to enter even the highly accessible sound world on offer. But what makes this convention any more strange than a soliloquy in Shakespeare? I suppose we're so used to being deceived by the apparent realism of acting on the tv and film that we've forgotten how to forget. It's useful to be reminded just how much we must learn to play false in order to render something like truth.

A Find

I'd somehow managed never to have heard of Viet Thanh Nguyen, the winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, before finding myself in possession of a copy of his prize-winning novel The Sympathizer - a Teachers' Day gift from a colleague. The blurb features comparisons to Greene, Conrad and Le Carre and a reference to Catch 22, and I can see why, though all of these are misleading to some degree. Nguyen is very much his own man.

I'm just over halfway in and thinking that this is one of the best novels I've read for the last few years. The opening chapters on the fall of Saigon effortlessly hooked me - and it's the seemingly effortless ease of the narrative that strikes me. There's no sense at all of a writer trying hard to impress even as he's deeply impressing.

In Time

Stepped into the Drama Room today for the first time since early March. On the white board in there, frozen in time, never to be achieved, the plans for Assortments 2020 and As You Like It. The one regret of this year.

But it was good to be back and there was a sense of things stirring, of things being set in motion. The mercy of time is that in its flow we begin again and again.

Locked In

Now and again I've thought about posting a list of my favourite ten bass-players / guitarists / drummers - that kind of thing. And I never do, because it's fundamentally silly, as we all know. Fun, yes, but stupid. My favourite bassist is usually whatever great player I happen to be listening to at the time, and there're a lot of great players.

But it suddenly occurred to me today, when I was goofing off and listening to a bit of Cream from the brilliant 2005 reunion concert at the Albert Hall, that I'm pretty sure that the Baker - Bruce combination is the greatest rhythm section of any band ever simply in terms of complete tightness and that extraordinary sense of being entirely, seamlessly, locked-in to each other. Two virtuosic players who mysteriously don't get in each other's way. They drive the music inexorably but there's so much space, so much clarity in the glorious noise they create.

No shortage of evidence, of course, but this is surely conclusive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-D_jhVX8y4 .

And it doesn't hurt matters that Clapton is on fire on this one.

On Not Listening Well

Noi wasn't at home when I got back today having gone out with a friend. Although I had a bit of work needing to be done, I found myself with a good hour or so to just relax before I really needed to apply myself. It struck that circumstances had conspired to allow me to carry out an experiment in listening I'd vaguely thought about for a couple of days.

My idea was to put John Luther Adams's become desert on the stereo at reasonable volume and see whether I could engage with it closely throughout its forty minute duration. I should explain here, for those not acquainted with the piece, that's it's a gorgeous single-movement work that evokes the world of the desert, but that not a lot happens within that forty minutes in terms of obvious melody. It's hypnotic in its effect (on me, anyway) but potentially soporific (on me, certainly.)

So I bunged it on trying to avoid any distraction, except for the coffee and chocolate muffin I just had to treat myself to. They proved a big mistake. In fact, the whole idea was. I'm embarrassed to tell the world that I think I managed about ten minutes all told of genuine immersion in the sound world. I enjoyed the whole piece, but as a kind of atmosphere in which my thoughts wandered all over the place (usefully planning one of my Friday lessons at one point.) Talk about the monkey mind, eh.

But despite the disaster, and the damage to my self esteem, I'm determined to have another go. I feel I owe it to Mr Adams, and  the rather wonderful Seattle Symphony Orchestra.

Still Going

At the end of a long, hard day it's good to relax. Unfortunately fate has decreed that this particular long, hard day (including one major, major curveball) isn't over yet. Ho hum.

Drenched

Just reached the Moortown sequence in the great TH read-through. I knew I would enjoy the poems, this being one of my favourite books from Hughes. (My original copy lost somehow in the move to this Far Place. I assume someone took it from Tony's place where I left it. Possibly Tony himself. Whoever has it/had it, good! A book to savour.) What I didn't know was just how explosively wonderful the poems would be this time round. Starting with Rain, the first in the sequence. I always thought of it as a solid, well-observed, but not exactly spectacular piece of writing. Workmanlike.

How wrong I was. Every line hit me with its power, its integrity to the experience. Even the most straightforward was utterly right. Describing the cows in the rain: They are ruining their field and they know it. He's right, isn't he? A line perfect in its knowingness. I felt the rain, reading. It cut through me.

Value For Money

In case you are wondering why I have chosen to upload pictures of a fairly nondescript plastic container of correction fluid, let me tell you that the little red and white bottle above represents possibly the best value of any single purchase in my life. It ran out of the white stuff inside last Friday having provided me years of yeoman service. Yes, you heard me correctly, years. I know this because I used it originally on the official record book for lessons all teachers in this Far Place had to complete weekly in the past, and there wasn't a week went by that I didn't need to blank out something on the page and write over it. And I continue to use the stuff to this very day on the informal 2-week timetables I use to try and keep a rough plan of what I'm supposed to be doing and when. I know for a fact that I was using the bottle for the records I kept two schools back, which means I've definitely had it for at least 17 years - and I suspect it actually dates back to the last century. So kudos to Pentel, the manufacturers. I wonder if they're still in business producing the stuff because now I need to look for some more.

Now I Know

Finished reading Swing Time today. Took my time over the final stretch of the novel and was glad I did. The ending proved a bit flat, but that was in keeping with the unnamed narrator herself, I suppose, and her lack of agency. I glanced at a few reviews today and noted some criticism of the West African scenes, which surprised me. I liked the range of the story, the way it opened up from the narrowness of the childhood in London.

I suppose I did get a bit irritated at the inability of the narrator to settle into any kind of lasting relationship. Bit overly-choosy, I thought; a bit head-in-the-clouds. But I suppose I would think that way.

Stumbling Along

A rich, full, frenetic, rewarding day, at the end of which (nearly) I'm bone-tired. It doesn't help that last night's sleep was interrupted by nasty, digging sort of pains from the big toe on my left foot, probably caused by something of an in-growing toenail. How are the mighty fallen, eh? Actually the pain localised in the toe seemed to set off cramping pains in the whole leg.

Funny how the utterly trivial can become one's entire focus of attention.

On A Need To Know Basis

The last novel I read by Zadie Smith, White Teeth, didn't do all that much for me. I know that simply because I can't remember a thing about it. So I wouldn't have bothered to read her 2016 effort Swing Time had it not been recently offered as a gift to me - or re-gifted, I suspect, which is just as good.

I'm close to finishing it now and, I must say, I've really enjoyed it. I'm not sure that's a guarantee I'll remember much about it a year down the road, especially given my deteriorating memory, but there are a few bits that'll stick, I reckon. The segments dealing with musicals, especially Guys and Dolls and Showboat will linger, I think, partly because of my interest in the genre, and partly because they are very well done.

I'm also dying to find out what happens to the narrator and her chum, Tracey, which is always a good sign. And which is why I'm breaking off here, hoping I'll find out tonight.