Being Here

As the year stumbles to its conclusion, I stumble to my own conclusion that it's good to be here. Something not to be taken for granted. And something that looked, frankly, unlikely, when the first tentative steps for the renewal of my employment pass were made back in July.

To cut a long story short - which Mum always said she would do and never did - we spent late July, August, September, October and early November in a state of dire uncertainty as to whether the government of this Far Place would countenance my further employment in their nation in 2024. In fact, I was turned down for an employment pass in November - but was given an S Pass (the sort of next best thing) for one year just before the end of the school year.

So, lucky. Very. And here. For now, anyway.

Seeking To Connect

Early in the month I was moaning about not being able to get into Lowell's sonnets from 1973's History. Well I kept at it and have now reached roughly the halfway point of the book (which is very long at something like 200 pages) and I'm still not all that comfortable with what Lowell is doing here. I can't recall a single poem that seemed to me entirely successful despite occasional lines flaring into life. Once or twice whole sections have worked for me, as in a couple of the sonnets relating to Rimbaud, but this has been atypical of my reading. 

So why am I keeping going? I keep asking myself that, and I think I've figured out an answer that goes beyond sheer bloody-mindedness, even though there's an element of that going on.

The thing is that I know Lowell is a great poet from his earlier books. I felt tuned in to almost everything in Life Studies, For the Union Dead and Near the Ocean. So assiduously reading the sonnets is my way of honouring that greatness, an act of something like gratitude. Also I'm hoping that I'm going to come across something that explodes in my consciousness as did Waking Early Sunday Morning. That would make it all worth it.

In Luck

A day of meetings. Wore my lucky socks and nothing went wrong. Just saying.

(Mind you, nothing went particularly right either. So the jury remains out on this one.)

On Task

Now gearing up for the start of the teaching year on 2 January. Suddenly my inbox is full to overflowing, a timely reminder of how busy I'm soon to be. A bit of a shock, even though it's the same shock every year - but good to awaken from the end-of-year lethargy.

And since this might possibly be my final year of teaching there's a sort of added piquancy involved in doing the usual as it might not be so usual in future.

On Hold

On the way back to Melaka soon. Couldn't get much done about the messed-up floor in our brief visit, but made some arrangements for getting things fixed when we can come up here for a few days next year. Most likely early March. Looking on the bright side, at least there's been no major further damage since the problem first emerged. And there are worse places in the world to be.

First world problems, eh?

On The Mend

We drove up to KL today basically to check on the house and try and attend to the problem of the popping tiles in the living room. Odd to think of a headache connected with a floor hanging over one, but that's the way it is. Good news: the problem doesn't look much worse. Bad news: it won't correct itself and we need to figure out what exactly to do. We should be seeing Ah Seng tomorrow and, with luck, he'll let us know of a solution; and, with more luck, the solution won't be overly expensive.

It's never easy, is it? But you knew that already.

Wishing

When I was a kid I genuinely believed that somehow peace mysteriously descended upon the earth on Christmas Day. Wish I still did. 

Keeping things positive in a time when the news of various conflicts evokes a sense of desolation, it's been good to see some fresh posts over at On An Overgrown Path in recent days. I always find something new to learn and to listen to. The one asking Do they know it's Christmas? is a timely reminder that in all the troubled places there will be no winners, just far too many victims on all sides. But it manages to point to some lovely music available despite the darkness.

Wishing well to all who keep the season. And the same to those who don't.

Passing The Test

I completely forgot that I needed to take the annual cyber security test set by my employers, until this morning. Having remembered I surprised myself by actually getting down to the job this evening rather than putting it off to 31 December (the deadline.)

I further surprised myself by passing the three sections with reasonable ease despite not understanding a fair number of the trickier questions. Of course, it helps that you are allowed multiple attempts and that most answers can be figured out by applying a strong dose of common sense. Let's face it, in the real world common sense is what everyone needs to fall back on with regard to IT systems (or any so-called system, for that matter.)

In fact, now I think of it I suppose I must be reasonably sensible with regard to cyber security concerns since I've somehow managed to avoid getting into trouble over this stuff for quite a few years. Hope this streak of good fortune lasts for at least another year - though I'm not exactly counting on that given the number of attempts I needed to get some of the answers right just now.

In Need

The helper here in Melaka urgently needs to get back to Indonesia for an operation on a swollen thyroid. Unfortunately the terms of her employment here appear to be riven with uncertainty such that it's not at all clear when she'll actually be able to go and whether she'll be able to come back to a job that I think she's happy in and helps her make sense of her life.

It's always a bit frightening to think of our vulnerabilities, no matter how well-placed in the world we appear to be. But to be in a position in which it's so easy to lose almost everything in a way that seems cruelly casual must be deeply destabilising.

Onwards

12.45

We'll be setting off for Melaka later today when I've cleared what needs to be done at work. Since there's lots of talk of late about jams into and out of Malaysia we're mentally prepared for what might turn out to be something of an ordeal. More later. Perhaps.

02.15 (Saturday)

A bit of an ordeal, I'm afraid. But good to be here. And good to have enjoyed an excellent concert by some students in the afternoon before setting off. A reminder of what makes the trickier bits of life worthwhile.

Looking Ahead

Struggling along on the elliptical trainer just now I thought it might be useful to devote some time to thinking ahead to 2024. Not that I was capable of genuine joined together thinking. Rather in those moments when I wasn't agonising about just keeping going, consideration of my physical health in the months ahead sort of came naturally.

And this is what I concluded. I don't see much hope of getting fitter than I am at the moment. But trying to keep up what I've achieved is feasible. It just needs working at in conscious fashion. Giving it some degree of priority. And taking a bit more care of diet. Going to a bit of trouble to get fruity. And increasing my intake of vegetables.

It's easy to let go, unfortunately; and gets easier with age. Which is why there's a need to embrace other ways of dealing with the basics.

Learning Something

It's the season for end-of-the-year obituaries. So, a lot of filler. But sometimes something genuinely informative and memorable creeps through. I'd include in that Elvis Costello's obit of Burt Bacharach. Not sure I'd have expected something like this from the Elvis I started listening to in the late 70s and it's good to reflect on the development of wisdom alongside the undoubted talent EC possessed from the beginning. Also worth reflecting on how much the mentorship of BB helped develop that wisdom and talent.

I find it helpful to consider just how much I've learnt from others over the years in my limited areas of expertise. (The answer, by the way, is pretty much everything.)

Somewhat Awkward

I've recently been alerted to the joys of the Awkward Puppets videos through my YouTube feed. For once the algorithm got it right. Not sure why I find these so funny, but am very sure it doesn't speak much for my moral character that I do.

Quietude

We found ourselves at the very, very busy Vivo City this afternoon. Everything in abundance: lots of people buying lots of things in lots of places. Lots of energy, I suppose, but I couldn't help feel detached from it all.

At one point, enjoying a cuppa at the CBTL therein, I noticed a little girl completely immersed in an Archie comic. She was with her parents but looked entirely detached from them, in the deep seriousness of whatever tale was holding her attention. I didn't see anyone else reading at all, except for those, in abundance, looking down at their phones. But somehow they didn't seem to have escaped like the little lass had.

We need the richness of other places in imagination, don't we? But I'm not sure we're keeping the roads open as we used to.

In Sadness

A sombre evening. Attended the wake for Mr Deven. Such a decent, kind man. Good to see so many there, though not a surprise considering the nature of the man.

Staying Virtuous

Resisted the temptation to do nothing in the evening other than a bit of reading and got myself to the gym. And when I was in the gym I resisted the temptation to curtail my stint on the elliptical trainer on the grounds I didn't feel so great. And then forced myself to do something on the weights after said stint. 

None of this felt good. But it did feel necessary and I'm pleased I did it when I really, really didn't want to. It's not much to boast about, but that's not going to stop me.

Virtue Signaling

Had an appointment at NUH today, one of the reasons we came back from Malaysia yesterday. I'd undergone another scan of my lungs a couple of weeks back, following up a previous scan in February, and needed to get the feedback. In case you're wondering why I've been in need of so many scans, it relates to the fact that there still signs of the gunk that put me in ICU in September 2022 hanging around back in February. The doc assigned to this aspect of my recovery wasn't especially worried about this, but did mention the very, very faint possibility that I'd contracted TB and felt it best to do at least one more check late in 2023 as to how recovery was proceeding, by which time the TB, if it was lingering in the background, would be fully apparent.

Anyway, the news was good. There's less gunk and so signs of TB, and since physical exercise is going well I don't need further scans. The doc strongly recommended vaccinating for Covid and I felt a picture of virtue informing him that I'd already had the jab. It seems I'm about the only one of his 'elderly patients' who'd done the right thing.

To be honest I'd sort of expected good news so it wasn't that I was overly concerned about the results. But I'm still enjoying thinking about them.

Breaking Up

We're now finishing off the jobs that need to be finished here at Maison KL such that we can feel we've left the place in good nick ahead of our journey back to our usual Far Place. In general the house is more than presentable, I'm happy to say. However, I'm less happy to note that something a bit troubling cropped up around mid-day on the premises.

We suddenly heard a very odd cracking sound, or, rather, series of sounds coming from the floor in the downstairs living area and it became apparent to us that some of the marble tiles of the flooring were slightly 'giving way' under foot. It looks as if several are coming loose such that they are popping up in a way they are clearly not supposed to. Everything seems to have settled now, but there's obviously quite a bit of damage to attend to. The thing is, though, that we really have to go back today and so we'll we'll need to put the problem on hold until we can get Ah Seng, our contractor, in to do the necessary. Which will most likely be messy. And expensive.

The joys of home ownership, eh?

A Question Of Scale

We just got back from KLCC. To our surprise the atrium in the centre is not dominated by the usual outsize Xmas tree this year. In its place there's a sort of mini-Xmas village with quite a few small trees - affording some nice photo-ops for the kiddies. Not unpleasant and suitably seasonal, without going over the top.

The ginormous tree turned out to still be around, however. It's now situated outside, in front of the musical fountains. But it doesn't seem quite so intimidating in the open air. Unfortunately though, when we popped out for a quick look they were blasting out the song Memories, from Cats, at a volume that would have no doubt frightened away the most fearless of felines.

Why do things need to be so big and loud? I remember when Christmases were on the human scale, and very pleasant they were. How did they get so overly-inflated? Even in the Far East?

Vulnerabilities

Earlier in the month I was moaning about my seeming inability to constructively read pretty much anything, and most especially the three periodicals I acquired around April-May. Well today I finished the third and final one of these, the May-July issue of the Mekong Review. I'm relieved to say it didn't fall quite as flat with me as the other mags I've struggled with. At the very least it served, as always, as a fruitful reminder of what an utterly fascinating part of the world I live in and how much I just don't know about the wider environs of South East Asia.

It also featured a piece by an ex-student of mine, Daryl Yam, who is turning out, not unexpectedly, to be a resonant voice in the region. His enthusiasm for the work he was reviewing, the fourteen essays comprising Queer Southeast Asia, was heartening, especially in the light of the personal struggles he delicately hints at in the essay in relation to the uncertainties he faces as a queer man in Singapore.

If the only thing we really learn of through our reading is the vulnerability of others, that seems to me sufficient reward.

Arriving, Again

Now in residence in Maison KL, having driven up - The Missus at the wheel - this afternoon. For some reason the highway contrived to be jammed on a perfectly unexceptional Monday, so it took quite a bit longer than expected. But the fridge is working and so's the telly, so life stumbles on. I'm feeling a bit better than I've been for a while and seem to be over the worst effects of the vaccination jab, though still a bit thick-headed. (More than is usual, even for me, I mean.) Now I think of it, it's a good job I wasn't feeling too much under the weather in the car today, otherwise the world and his uncle & auntie & family in general would have heard about it.

A Peaceful Evening, Sort Of

Found ourselves at Rozita & Fuad's this evening where we polished off a number of puffs, curry & mushroom, and all sorts of bits & pieces from Subway. Also watched a movie entitled 21 Bridges and rather wished I hadn't. Lots of people shooting and getting shot for no good reason I could fathom. 

Heartfelt

I'm not quite sure why, but for some reason I didn't play Dylan's Christmas in the Heart this time last year. Decided to reinstate the annual tradition today, and was very glad I did so. Wonderful arrangements, stellar playing and that voice. Playful and sincere - enabling me to reconnect with the mythical Christmases of early childhood for at least forty minutes or so.

Also discovered two videos from the album - the bonkers (in a good way) Must Be Santa and the straightforwardly gorgeous Little Drummer Boy. I suppose these are the stand-out tracks, but it struck me today that it's a wonderfully sequenced album in which every song holds its own. In fact, strange as this might sound, I'd put it in my top ten albums from His Bobness.

Poorly

I seem to be experiencing some kind of reaction to Tuesday's vaccination jab. Woke in the early morning with the kind of headache that suggested I hadn't slept at all and things have gone downhill since. Now sniffling and coughing and aching and almost shaking and feeling, ironically, a lot worse than when I actually came down with Covid last year, late in December. Managed to get to Friday Prayers and did a bit of admin in school, but haven't been genuinely functional since 4.15 pm.

Noi is managing to put up with my moaning, heroically so. I don't like to complain when I'm not well, but am spectacularly good at doing so if I have a sympathetic audience.

A Voice, Silenced

Took my copy of Talking Turkeys off the shelf upon hearing of the death of its author, Benjamin Zephaniah, this evening. Possibly my favourite book of poems for kids. It's the general sense of warmth and generosity of spirit that makes it irresistible - in addition, of course, to the cleverly crafted poems within that speak in such a beguiling voice. Felt sad over the idea of the writer being silenced, and at such a relatively young age, but also some consolation in the certainty that he will continue to be heard and read.

Lost, Again

Why would anyone spend a great deal of time and energy, and some little talent, making a video about all the terrible movies they've watched this year? And why would anyone, except for a complete fool like myself, waste fifty minutes of precious time watching it?

Sometimes I'm a mystery to myself. Except that I know the answer to the puzzle and am just too lazy to do anything about it.

Jabbed

Noi and I went for round five of our jabs for (or against) covid this afternoon. It's been a year since we tested positive and felt the ill-effects of the virus, so the timing seemed right.

And how different it all was since I originally got the vaccine, early in 2021. At that time it all felt very intense; this afternoon seemed routinely casual. We've lived through strange times of late - with a large share of luck. Though I suppose it's reasonable to claim that all times are strange in their way, and the ultimate in luck is being around to experience them.

In Debt

We enjoyed the company of Tom and Rita this afternoon, the first chance we've had to chat with the two of them in a long time. Had to tell the story of my breakdown last year, which I've managed to edit down to what seemed a reasonable length, though Tom was understandably looking sleepy at the three-quarters mark.

It's interesting how I continue to make my own discoveries in the retelling. Today I was struck with considerable force by the certainty that my sudden recovery of the self had nothing to do with any kind of resilience on my part. It was so obvious that it was the care & expertise of the medical staff at NUH aided & abetted by the care & consideration of Noi plus various friends and family that pulled me out of The Delirium. I was entirely passive and entirely despairing. The lack of agency on my part was central to the nature of the experience.

What I will give myself a little credit for is getting on with things once I'd come back, but that was the easy, almost inevitable, part. 

Not Connecting

Not sure why but I'm experiencing one of those periods in which I just don't seem able to connect with anything I read. I'm struggling with the poems in the History segment of Lowell's Collected Poems and struggling to read the three periodicals that have been waiting for my attention since May. I took these with me to Rome & Amsterdam back in June and made no progress then, but that was partly because I had some novels with me to read. Now there's no excuse.

I did manage to finish the February issue of the NYRB yesterday, but didn't find anything of value in any of the articles, nothing that got me even mildly excited. And just now I gave up on a couple of articles in the issue of Philosophy Now from the same period as my brain kept wandering.

I'm not intending to give up on this stuff. But I'm not quite sure what good it's doing me.

Nothing Left

Got to the gym today after something of a pause caused by our socialising ahead of Noi's birthday - yesterday evening having turned happily into a bit of a family do. Expected I'd be in good form given the fact I'd rested well since Tuesday's session, and eaten plentifully. In the event I had nothing left for the last 15 minutes on the elliptical trainer despite peddling a lot slower than usual. Very disappointing.

But now back with the birthday girl, quietly enjoying the last of the bits and pieces she's been cooking up over recent days. So all is well, despite the fact it isn't.

For Sure

Spent a long time at the bank this afternoon making changes to the details of an account I hold there. At the time I came to live over here I needed to make quite a few arrangements closing accounts in the UK and opening them in this Far Place, but I can't remember things taking as long as they do now. This leads me to the conclusion that Modern Life Is Rubbish. Of course, I've stated this before, but now it's definite.

Mind you, the young lady we were dealing with was incredibly patient and guided us through all the excruciatingly tedious documentation such as to considerably diminish the pain involved. Somehow I doubt that she was getting paid as much as she deserved, but I hope I'm wrong on that front.

A Question Of Justice

A very jolly afternoon with lots of friends around for high tea and Noi surpassing herself on the hospitality front. The only downside on the proceedings came in the form of a number of critical comments concerning my seniority in terms of years spent on the planet. I found all this unnecessarily ageist - and said so, pointing out that I now self-identified as a handsome and charismatic forty-year-old. People failed to take this at all seriously.

All you social justice warriors out there need to take up my cause, I reckon.

Something Lost

I'm very annoyed at myself. I contrived to waste forty minutes of my life this morning watching a supremely dumb video on YouTube about the 'downfall' of a famous 'influencer' from the early days of the Internet. I'd never heard of the young lady in question prior to watching the video and I learnt nothing of value to myself, or anyone else for that matter, in the excruciating trawl through her sad life.

I suppose I vaguely thought I was finding out something about an aspect of our culture that I'd previously been blind to, but really that wasn't the case. I'm well aware of the fact that a lot of young people are capable of behaving very badly indeed in public and that a few paradoxically get rewarded for this, with disastrous consequences for themselves and a fair number of the people around them. It's no great secret either that the substances often used to fuel such behaviour don't help, especially when there appear to be serious mental health issues involved.

The funny thing is that the video itself, though dismally parasitical in nature, feeding off the emptiness it documented, was really well put together in terms of its production values. Someone with a fair degree of talent had worked hard to create something that was fundamentally worthless, except in terms, I assume, of making money somehow. 

And there I was, watching the darn thing. Stupid or what!?

Something Gained

It's an odd sort of time of year. On holiday, but lots to do. Happily managing to find some time to do absolutely nothing though. Crashed out spectacularly after the Zuhor Prayer this afternoon. I suppose some might see it as two hours being lost, but it felt like time well spent to me.

A Bit Bothered

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, despite enjoying Matt Haig's The Midnight Library there was something about the novel, something I couldn't quite place, that bothered me. Now I've figured it out. It's the fact that his protagonist, Nora, is so gifted. In some of the various lives she is able to live, through the various volumes of possibility offered in the titular library, she is able to develop her talents for music and swimming and academic philosophy. Now it's true that she doesn't achieve great things in all the many lives she inhabits, but for a presumably Everyman (Everywoman? Everyperson?) character it's not bad going to win an Olympic medal and become an internationally famous rock star in just a couple of them. 

I can see a point being made here about the possibilities involved in making full use of our talents, but this all seems more than a bit heavy-handed to me. And it conflicts with the celebration of simple ordinariness that lies at the heart of the story. Of course, that may be the point but for this reader it doesn't quite work.

I suppose that's the problem with any 'thesis-novel'. Once you interrogate the premises involved the work will start to wobble, and just to have a thesis is to invite interrogation.

Still think it's a good read though.

Happy News

It seems that my sister Maureen is doing pretty well these days, according to the latest from my niece Cheryl back in the UK. I really should write more often for updates but I tend to operate on the foolishly timid principle that no news is good news. So actually confirming today that all really is well came as a bit of a relief. Maureen's short term memory is gone, something we've known for some time, but it sounds like she's happy with what life gives her and particularly enjoys the visits of grand-daughter Imogen each week when they can do a bit of drawing together.

The longed-for calm after the storm.

Seeing Red

This is weird. If anyone had ever told me that my all-time favourite version of Crimso's Red would not actually feature KC themselves I would never have come close to believing them. But I reckon the one that features on the latest series of Daryl's House fits the bill. It's the two keyboards that do it for me, especially the honky-tonk stylings of Mr Hall himself. And to think the band were playing the piece for the first time ever - with its steely-eyed progenitor along with them. Talk about nerve; talk about edge.

Great to see the Frippster clearly having the time of his life, by the way. 

Literature As Therapy

Finished Matt Haig's eminently readable The Midnight Library this afternoon. I don't think I've read such an avowedly therapeutic novel before. Not sure I quite approve of the potential genre, if this turns out to be the beginning of a new school of fiction, but I approve of Mr Haig's inventiveness and his soundness of heart. I can understand why so many readers love the book and I suspect it'll do a lot of good in the world.

Am still trying to figure out what exactly is bothering me about the novel, but something is, despite my admiration for what the writer has achieved.

Staying On Message

One of the most subtly irritating aspects of modernity is the whole business of communications in the context of work. Who was it, I'd like to know, who thought it would be a good idea to generate numerous platforms for sending messages as to what suddenly needs to be done or undone or might be done in the event that somebody else in the chain thinks it would be a good idea to do it? 

When I started teaching in the last century most messages were conveyed by word of mouth (supremely efficient) or written down on pieces of paper and delivered well in advance of whatever 'events' were in the offing. We managed to get lots of things done - pretty much all the stuff that schools do now - and, on the whole, things remained calm, even when busy, because people knew they needed to make their messages clear and avoid last minute changes.

These days even what might appear to be a firm date for something turns out to be speculative and pretty much everything seems open to renegotiation until it's actually happening (or not.) I'm sure someone, somewhere is going to tell me that this is all mysteriously efficient and boosts productivity (a word that should be banned from serious educational discourse, methinks.) I intend to avoid that person.

Perfection

Have discovered the perfect music for the gym. I've never quite been able to make up my mind about Miles's 80's albums, and Tutu is a case in point. I should like it, and sort of do, but the production sort of drives me crazy. I can't unhear the drum machines. On the other hand, Miles is Miles and weaves his way through the funky aural wash in typically unexpected and expressive style.

But in the gym it doesn't matter. The funk drives you along on the elliptical trainer and the brilliant variations keep the brain alive and alert and distracted from suffering.

Catch It While You Can

One of the unexpected fascinations of reading the somewhat academic tome A History of Russian Theatre has been finding out about famous Russian actors of the nineteenth century whose work was obviously of the highest order in creative terms yet now is lost for us forever, except for very general reports of what their performances were actually like. It's strange to think that despite being reasonably interested in the world of theatre in general I'd never heard of the likes of Martynov and Shchepkin, two giants of the Russian theatrical world around about the 1830s.

In some ways, though, the very loss of their work adds a kind of value to it. From a distance we can catch echoes of how meaningful it was for their enraptured audiences, and I suppose this is still true of theatre today. When I think about my life-time of theatre-going I realise that very little of what I've experienced would have been captured on film - and there's a strange sense in which even the best films of theatrical performances can't ever quite completely capture the reality of the moment.

Perhaps, at some deep level we don't really want to capture it. Part of the magic is the fact we know it happened as a gift in time, but we never expected or needed the gift to last.

Fulfilling Expectations

Was taken completely by surprise by the ending of Flow My Tears in a sort of predictable manner. Philip K Dick is just so good at coming at you from unexpected directions. 

Just started reading Matt Haig's The Midnight Library about which I've heard lots and lots of good things. Judging from the opening pages they are all true. 

Honestly, I just can't wrap my head around the idea that generally people don't read all that much. Astonishing to consider how much they are missing.

A Couple Of Certainties

Am now quite certain that I've never read Philip K Dick's Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said before, and even more certain that I'm on a roll reading it now. It's utterly disorienting in the best possible way. I'm guessing, with a quarter of the novel to go, that the writer is playing tricks with time in relation to his protagonist's confounding dilemma of no longer existing except in brief, uncanny glimpses of his former famous self. But in a way I don't care as to what might be actually taking place - it's the sublimely crazy reality of impossible conversations with generally pretty crazy people that makes it all so gripping.

I've also realised, after scanning the list of Dick's works, dated by year of publication, that the publishers handily provide that I definitely haven't read anything after 1981's Valis. Which means I've got one heck of a fictive good time ahead of me once I get my hands and eyes on the later novels.

Attending The Wake

Have been re-thinking the shape of my project for reading Joyce's Finnegans Wake in retirement. After reading a piece in the Graun about a reading club dedicated to the great epic of the night it occurred to me, after sharing the article with Boon, who assumed I was suggesting starting something of the same myself, that a version of the club based in this Far Place (Singapore At The Wake) would be fun but unlikely to attract more than two members - myself and a very reluctant Mr Boon. But what was doable would be a quick, essentially largely uncomprehending read-through of the Wake prior to retirement and then begin the great read-through over a span of 29 years, posting on-line about it, and sort of dragging in anyone who got interested to critique the posts, as well as reading the book.

All of this sounds a bit crazy, but then so does the novel, of course.

(By the way, if there are any enthusiasts out there who think Singapore At The Wake has legs, do let me know. But I'm not thinking of making this work on Zoom, as Boon was sort of suggesting, as I can't imagine debating/interpreting/chanting/enjoying the text in any fewer than three dimensions.)

Keeping Busy

The last day of term turned out to be quite a busy one. Ironically things will get even busier when I start some IB marking for the November papers on Sunday and find myself in work everyday next week for various activities, including a major admin task involving financing which is the traditional lowlight of my year. But don't worry, I get to rest tomorrow by pretending I don't have all that much to do.

Missing Out

So here's the thing. I'm sure you'll agree, Gentle Reader, that the curry puffs above look a bit tasty. And I can assure you they were since a number of my colleagues this morning emphasised to me that this was the case. You may have already guessed that they were cooked by Noi - for some of our staff involved in a meeting this morning to enjoy. The problem is, however, that yours truly never got a sniff. Having carried them across and put them on the table with a number of other goodies provided for the pot luck, I needed to talk to a couple of people about some pressing matters. Less than twenty minutes later I proceeded to said table intending to grab a puff to scoff, selflessly also meaning to grab one for Saravanan, only to find the greedy gannets had eaten every single one!!

There is no justice in this world. Fortunately, the Missus is intending to make some more for the last day of term. And I will get my share, eventually!!!

Something Forgotten

I read a lot of science fiction as a young teenager. All of it from the local library, and most of it in those old yellow-jacketed Gollancz editions. I'm not sure I finished everything I started and certainly struggled with one or two books at the level of simple understanding. And for some strange reason I know I thought of sci-fi as pretty lower-class sort of reading, on the same level as the detective stories Mum loved so much. What a petty little snob I was!

I mention all this in connection with a minor crisis in my reading yesterday with regard to Philip K Dick's Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said. As I pointed out a couple of days back, my reading has got more than a little undisciplined lately, yet I didn't have a novel on the go and was feeling the lack. The result was an even more complete breakdown in discipline as I took myself off to the library at work determined to grab some reasonably short work of fiction to add to my current reading - that work turning out to be the one referenced earlier in the paragraph.

Within thirty minutes of leaving the library with the book in my hand I'd read Chapter 1 and was enthralled. Which is what precipitated the crisis, sort of. It suddenly occurred to me that I might have already read the novel, despite the fact that it appeared entirely new to me, since I thought I had a couple of the lovely Library of America editions of Dick's works from the 60's and 70's and I'd read these within the last five years or so. I was horrified by the idea that I might have managed to so completely forget an entire book in such a short period. A 'senior moment' on an epic scale. Hurriedly I checked on-line at the LOA website and realised that Flow My Tears did indeed appear in one of the collections I thought I owned. I glumly found myself considering rushing to my neurologist at NUH and asking to take the test for dementia suggested earlier this year.

Then it further occurred to me that it might be a good idea to check just how many of the LOA editions related to Dick were actually on my shelves. It turned out that I possessed a solitary volume, and it didn't have the novel in it. I'm not sure why I thought I owned two volumes, but it didn't seem quite so bad losing count of editions I own as opposed to forgetting reading an entire book. Plus I could now continue my reading very happily indeed, enjoying something quite new.

Except, going back to what I said at the beginning, I can't help but wonder if I actually have read the book before, back in the dark ages of my misspent youth. And, I really should add that I'm baffled as to why I don't own all three of the LOA collections available.

Further Education

Odd day on the health front. Slept very well last night after an excellent dinner - the Missus having magicked up an extremely tasty Hong Kong Mee with lots of vegetables. Despite these good omens I felt mildly off all morning, as if about to develop an iffy tummy which never quite manifested itself. We took ourselves off in the afternoon to Jem and had an excellent cuppa (coffee, in my case) and an entirely fulfilling scone, but still I felt on the edge of needing to make a run for the nearest rest room without ever actually having to do so.

As a result of all this I went to the gym after the Maghrib Prayer with a distinct sense of wariness. And here's the funny thing. I'd done 32 minutes on the elliptical trainer when I felt the kind of sweatiness you really don't want to feel on the half hour mark and just knew I had nothing left. So I dialed down the pace, by quite a rate of knots initially - and surprised myself by adding another 23 minutes. But I didn't even look at the weights afterwards.

The lesson, as ever, is to listen to what your body tells you. But don't necessarily believe all it says. 

An Early Start

The Christmas decorations have gone up at the Fairprice supermarket at Clementi Mall.

Arrrrrgggghhhhh.

(Just saying.)

A Bit More Diversity

In the interests of full disclosure I thought I'd follow-up yesterday's post on my current reading with something related to my current listening. This is what made it to the turntable in our household over the weekend, in the order the CDs got played in: Radiohead - In Rainbows; RVW - Sancta Civitas; Radiohead - Kid A; Richard Hawley - Coles Corner; King Crimson - In the Court of the Crimson King.

It's not a lot, is it? But that can be accounted for the fact that these days I rarely, if ever, play music as 'background'. I can't work along to it, and I can't read to it. I now need to give whatever I'm listening to my full, undivided attention. Multi-tasking is not my thing. Indeed, I strongly suspect it can't really be done and dilutes one's experience of whatever 'tasks' are involved - except listening to YouTube talks when shaving, and Stevie Wonder et al when working out.

Interestingly, at least from my perspective, today was the first time I really 'got' Kid A from start to finish, enjoying the actual programming of the CD. It's taken some 20 years to get there, but nice to eventually arrive. Similarly today was the first time ever I really tuned in to the dynamics of the improv section of Moonchild on ITCOTCK. That's taken more than 50 years to manage, though for many years I skipped the section through what I thought was judicious fast-forwarding. What was I thinking!!

A Bit Of Diversity

My reading has become a bit undisciplined of late. For a long time I'm been restricting myself in broad terms to one main book, usually a novel, and poetry on the side in the form of a cover to cover reading of a chunky collected from someone or other. There have been, of course, embellishments here and there, like an extra work of non-fiction that proved irresistible, or a thinnish poetry collection. Oh, and there's been stuff I've had to read for work, but that doesn't count.

But of late my discipline has really broken down such that I'm now reading no fewer than four tomes, with not one being a novel, meaning that a bit of fiction will inevitably be added, probably in the week ahead. Must say, I'm struck by the oddness of the list of four, a sign of a happily eclectic mind, from one point of view, or someone who's just very peculiar from another. So here it is, not in any order of merit: Robert Lowell's Collected Poems; A Treasury of Hadith - A Commentary on Nawawi's Selection of Forty Prophetic Traditions by Ibn Daqiq al'Id; A History of Russian Theatre, edited by Robert Leach and Victor Borovsky; and Gary Larson's The Pre-History of The Far Side - A 10th Anniversary Exhibit.

As you might guess, only the last one of these makes me laugh, but it does so immoderately, so there's some balance there, I suppose.

Good News

Decided that the news has been so unrelentingly depressing lately (not to mention the footy results) that I had to go looking for feel-good stories. Found a couple in The Graun that made me smile.

The headline Species named after David Attenborough believed extinct rediscovered already sounded pretty wonderful, and the fact that said species happen to be next door in Indonesia added to the piquancy of the tale. The lovely photo of Attenborough's long-beaked echidna further added to the cheerfulness of the piece.

But to my surprise I cracked open an even bigger grin in relation to a brilliant article from the Experience series: Stevie Wonder secretly played on my band's single. Good grief, imagine not just meeting the great man but having him play harmonica on your stuff! It made me wonder what I might say if I ever encountered him. Probably something completely stupid like: Mr Wonder you've been the soundtrack to a lot of my life and I play your albums when I go to the gym and I am just not worthy. By the way, I found the Feelabeelia track featured very tasty in itself - and not just because of Stevie on the mouth harp.

Just A Suggestion

When we were in the Fairprice supermarket at Clementi Mall this afternoon the Missus suggested buying some jacuzzies to munch on. I found this both intriguing and faintly horrifying in roughly equal proportions. It turned out that she was actually thinking of buying a zucchini, some sort of vegetable I believe. Bit disappointing in the end, though I'm sure she'll do something spectacularly delicious with the veggie in question.

Feeling Sad

I found reading the final sections of Atwood's Dearly a bit tricky. The poems were wonderful and in almost every respect easy to read. But the subject matter was painful. The sequence relating to climate change was devastating, rightly so. And those on the loss of her husband (I'm guessing that was the background) similarly dark. Not without some vague sense of hope, I think. But dark.

A bit like the final scene of Lear, I suppose. The truth hurts, but it's all we've got, finally.

Now And Now

Just to add something to what I was writing yesterday regarding the video for Now And Then and its relevance to the notion of time and staying young forever. Underlying the beautifully blended shots of the younger Beatles and their later selves is the inescapable truth that we don't stay forever young but, at one and the same time, our younger selves, for better or worse, remain essential to what we become. I suppose that sounds more than a bit pretentiously deep, but the film and song convey the notion in an appropriate spirit of playfulness.

There's a moment when we see for the first time the elderly (80+) Ringo singing back-up to the Lennon vocal, along with Macca, and he's completely, delightfully, lost in the moment. And that's immediately followed by a black and white shot of John & George, circa 1964 at a guess, laughing as they harmonise playing live. We could be back in the middle 60s with all of them, or earlier. We're not very good at time, are we? We sort of float through it, out of our depth. But in those moments when we lose ourselves in the joy of it all we make a kind of sense and learn something of what we are here to do with the time we are mercifully given. 

Then And Now

I wasn't in any great hurry to hear the 'latest' Beatles' single, Now And Then, thinking it was likely to be mediocre late-Lennon with a distinct corporate dad-rock flavour, what with the Peter Jackson video and all. An event that is/was just that - a kind of vacuous PR-driven week or so of a special event that isn't/wasn't all that special.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

The song is gorgeous. Not among the genuinely great Beatles' songs, but a really good one. I know this because I've now listened to it four times and two segments have been on a lovely warm endless ear-wormy loop in my mind since the third listen. And the video is perfection. Somebody decided to go easy on the sentiment and let the simple good humour of the four lovable mop-heads from Merseyside do the job, and got it absolutely right. That's the thing about John, Paul, George and Ringo. They weren't just rock gods. They were always four ordinary (but brilliant) lads from the streets of Liverpool and everyone sort of knew that all along, even when they behaved badly, as lads often do, or said daft things, as lads always do.

And the whole package (horrible word, but let it pass for once) manages to say wise and telling things about time and aging and staying forever young.

Towards The Light

Played RVW's Dona Nobis Pacem this afternoon as therapy. Kept reminding myself that as the Maestro wrote this between the wars (around a century ago now) the idea of peace in Europe must have seemed absurd. Yet even by my long-ago boyhood that peace had emphatically arrived. To think of conflict as the norm in human affairs is a failure of imagination.

Of course, it helps that the music is of itself stunningly beautiful. A living, breathing reminder of what the imagination is for.

On Top

It occurred to me today that I've not read all that widely in the work of Margaret Atwood, four novels, a few essays and occasional poems in anthologies and set for exams as 'unseens', but everything I've read has been excellent. This reflection was brought on by the fact I'm reading her latest book of poems, entitled Dearly, and that it's proving expectedly excellent. I received it as a gift from a student for Teachers' Day and dipped into its pages immediately, instantly unearthing a couple of gems. Now I'm going cover to cover and, to be honest, it's impressing me a lot more than Robert Lowell's 1961 collection Imitations, which I've just struggled to the end of in the Collected.

I suspect I'd feel a lot more at home in an Atwood Collected or Selected.

Learning A Lesson

Over the last four weeks I've been making a habit of finishing my stint on the elliptical trainer with a bit of a sprint over the last three minutes or thereabouts. It's a way of making sure I've genuinely pushed myself and not settled into a comfortable routine.

The odd thing is how unpredictable the various batches of last few minutes have proved. There are occasions when I know I have the reserves to really go for it, and there are times when I've known within 30 seconds that I had nothing left to push with. I thought this evening that I was going to enjoy a feeling of strength in reserve as I hit the 52 minute mark only to discover there was nothing there. I stepped off the machine 3 mediocre minutes later all a-tremble, knowing I had come close to throwing-up territory.

So here I am now, royally aching, happy to have something done, but puzzled as to why it had to be so difficult. I suppose I'm learning something; I just don't know what that something is.

Words Of Wisdom

Minor truth: A half-warm cup of tea - when you expect something nice & hot - is a deep disappointment. 

Major truth: But a deeply hot cuppa when you're feeling less than tickety-boo sets the world to rights.

(Actually I scrawled the above in a notebook some time back, early in 2022, and happened to read it again today. Have no idea of the particular context but was struck by my own insight. No one can accuse me of not knowing a thing or two worth knowing.)  

In The Dark

As I made brief reference to yesterday, I'm sort of trying to avoid what's in the news, but at the same time feel compelled to get some sense of what's happening in Gaza and the West Bank. The fact that what's happening isn't good and isn't likely to result in any kind of positive outcome relates to my desire to avoid learning too much. But learning of the facts in themselves is a kind of moral compulsion.

I suppose something similar is true in relation to learning what took place at the heart of government in the UK in the early months of the pandemic. Except that following the covid inquiry feels akin to watching farce, in contrast to the utter tragedy of events in Israel. But then I recall the staggering death toll brought about by the staggering ineptitude of Johnson's government, and the darkness descends.

Real Horror

On a night on which we might pretend to engage with the dark side, I find myself avoiding reading too much news of the real world and its abiding horrors. There are, as usual, lots to choose from. Too many to take in.

Coming Back

Finished Susannah Cahalan's Brain On Fire a couple of days ago and have been thinking about her experience of a mental breakdown in relation to my own quite a bit since. I'm sure that the causes of our breakdowns were different, hers being firmly identified as Anti-NMDAR Encephalitis and mine being firmly not anything definite. (Well, I'm labelled epileptic, but the doc who attached the label was quite clear that the label was the best he could do but it wasn't exactly firmly stuck on.)

I can see why Stacey who leant me the book thought that the diagnosis therein might be meaningful in my case, especially given what she'd heard me recount of my experience, but I was struck by the huge dissimilarities - most of all by how limited my particular ordeal had been compared to that of Ms Cahalan. I suffered no protracted onset of psychosis and my recovery was almost instant compared to hers. She took months to recover her sense of identity - mine came to me within two or three days, I think, from when I fully came round in ICU and there was a distinct sense of everything clicking back into place when I became me again. I vividly recall the conversation with the nurse that precipitated my re-arrival and the accompanying assurance that I wasn't going to go off anywhere again soon.

The question of what constitutes identity is, as far as I'm concerned, the most thought-provoking of the memoir and it's a strange feeling applying it to myself, something it had never really occurred to me to do until now. But I'm now aware that it's a real question in my case. If I found myself on coming out of the Delirium and knew with such certainty I was back, then who was I when I was lost? To whom did that anxiety-ridden, baffled consciousness belong? Obviously another version of myself, but where has he gone?

Oh, and something else I now realise. Since my recovery was so real, so definite, so complete I came to take it for granted that it was somehow guaranteed, part of the nature of things, like casting off a cold. But perhaps it wasn't. Was I just lucky? Did the doctors work a version of accidental magic? (I say this not in a critical spirit but simply because they all seemed so surprised at my sudden sanity.)

Out To Lunch

Ate well, but not exactly wisely, at a buffet lunch today for Fifi's birthday. Paced myself reasonably, but that meant I managed more than I expected over the two hours allotted for filling our faces. Fortunately I managed to get myself to the gym after the Maghrib Prayer to offset the guilt.

There's much to be said for having access to seemingly endless amounts of lovely grub, and even more to be said for generally denying oneself that access. 

Hearing Secret Harmonies

Read another book from the same cupboard from which I retrieved Understanding Comics. I can't honestly say I found Joseph Vogel's study of Prince, This Thing Called Life, quite as illuminating as McCloud on his beloved comics, though Vogel clearly loves Prince just as much, since I knew most of the stuff in it through a sort of cultural osmosis, I suppose. But one thing really hit home with regard to the production of Prince's albums, especially those of the early 80's. Vogel argues, rightly as I now realise, that what made Prince's sound so distinct, apart from his innate genius, was that he was pushing material out at a phenomenal rate and not over-thinking the production. The result was a sort of rawness, despite the essential glossiness of the product.

I listened to Sign o' the Times at a reasonable volume this afternoon whilst the Missus was out and, my goodness, my ears immediately got Vogel's point. Despite the brilliance and apparent 'finish' of the songs there's a sense in which these are drafts. It hit me most when playing Slow Love which I've always thought of as sweet soul music in the deepest sense, something perfectly made. Yes, but it's making itself up as it goes along. It's akin to grasping the underlying sense of improvisation in Mozart's most achieved works. The voice of something beyond delivered through frail human vessels.

Hey, I know that sounds more than a little over-inflated. But we're talking about Prince & Mozart here.

Not Really Complete

Busy day - so busy I just couldn't make it to the mosque for Friday Prayers. Felt the gap keenly. And felt frazzled by the evening, though thankful to be home. Played some righteous RVW to relax and felt English for a short time. But the gap remains, somehow.

Getting It

Came across a copy of Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics in a cupboard at work. It's in pristine condition and I assume I'm its first reader. Cannot understand whoever bought it originally not wanting to read it. A brilliant exposition of how comics work by a brilliant maker of comics. What's not to like?

(Small extra point: If you're feeling a bit low it pays to turn to the work of someone who's really talented and happily sharing that talent with the world. It just brightens things up somehow, even if you're jealous of the lucky soul with all the talent you haven't got.)

Not Getting It

Have just read Sayaka Murata's novel Convenience Store Woman. It isn't the kind of book I would have picked up for myself, but a colleague kindly gave it me as a Teachers' Day gift and I was happy enough to give it a go. The thing is, though, that I just couldn't grasp what it is about the text that turned it into an International Bestseller, as announced on the front cover in lurid yellow type and won it at least one fairly major-sounding literary prize in Japan. Possibly it lost something in translation?

Actually the idea of having a protagonist who works in a small convenience store and grows a sense of identity based on the routines of her work strikes me as a good one. But I just couldn't see how the flat narrative brought this to genuine life. I didn't smile at all in the course of my reading, though at least one reviewer quoted on the back cover reckons the book is hilarious.

Maybe it's just me. But I suspect it's not.

Getting It Done

There's something unproblematically objective about getting to the gym and achieving one's targets. I'm now up to 55 minutes on the elliptical trainer at full resistance and I don't enjoy it at all. But it's good to finish and great to write about it later. Something has been achieved even if it didn't feel like it at the time.

Ending Well

Must say, I thought Ken Follett's narrative power was somewhat deserting him as I moved into the final stretch of World Without End. After the red hot central segment of the novel with the wars in France and the Black Death reaching Kingsbridge, the stuff about the children of Merthin & Caris & Gwenda & Ralph & Wulfric & Philippa etc etc began to seem a bit tepid and more than a bit soap-opera-ish. It didn't help that I was wondering whether we were going to get something of the magic of the ending of Pillars when everything brilliantly connects to mainstream history and the murder in the cathedral and, I suppose, the gunpowder plot ending to A Column of Fire, though I don't think that was quite as hypnotically convincing as the ending of the first of the Kingsbridge trilogy.

But I was wrong. Despite the lack of historical fireworks the subdued ending of World Without End proved highly satisfying in its final chapters. Continuing the story into a second generation made sense once the idea of the legacy left by those characters we come to admire worked itself out. Most of all it was Gwenda's story that worked for me. In a sense she achieves little other than simple survival, giving herself and her husband and children a life in the most difficult of circumstances. But it's her resilience and tough-mindedness that, in some ways, give the novel its essential character. And her bloody killing of Ralph had me cheering.

I think Follett is consciously celebrating a certain kind of Englishness in these novels and I'm happy to join in, especially since it's distinctly dark and contrary in its nature.

In Parallel

I got hold of Brain On Fire, a memoir concerning a sort of psychotic episode affecting Susannah Cahalan, a journalist at the New York Post, a few days back. It was passed to me by Stacey, a colleague in Boarding School from ACS (International), who has had some experience in counselling kids, after I'd given a bit of a summary of my own breakdown to some of the staff here. One or two of the things I'd said reminded her of details given by Ms Cahalan in her account of what her subtitle calls her Month of Madness and so she kindly passed it on, wondering if it might afford me some insight into my own basically undiagnosed condition. Initially I thought I'd put the memoir to one side for a while, but I have found it quite an easy read and gripping in its way.

However, I don't think I've found it quite as remarkable and shocking and memorable as the reviews quoted on the back cover, simply because I've gone through something reasonably similar. Rather I've been noticing the marked differences in our experiences. For example, the opening section of the memoir focuses on the writer's gradual descent into her madness, over a period of weeks. Mine was very abrupt, taking rather less than twenty-four hours, after which I don't remember anything of what went on after being warded or, indeed, actually being taken to hospital.

So as I move into the second half of the account I'm not expecting stunning insights, though I remain very interested indeed in what happened to Ms Cahalan. One thing's for sure though - I have no intention of subjecting anyone anywhere to a full-length account of what happened to me. She has genuine talent in this direction; I, happily, haven't, and I don't think I'm quite so self-absorbed. (I know that sounds a little bit unkind, but I don't mean it as such. I'm just keeping it real, as they say.)

On The Table

One of our household found themselves a bit busy today, and I'm happy to say it wasn't my half. Noi spent the morning at a cooking class out at Serangoon learning the fine art of frying various snacks, including two varieties of muruku and three involving nuts of all shapes & sizes. The upshot of all this is that our table looks like Hari Raya, as the lady in charge of home affairs succinctly and accurately summed up the state of things in the afternoon (when we started munching.)

It's hard to think of a more productive or happier state of affairs on the home front.

Rising Damp

These days I'm entirely dependent on The Missus for getting ferried around. I wasn't allowed to renew my driving license back in September due to my current status as an epileptic. It feels a bit restrictive to be driven everywhere but has its compensations. For example, getting a ride to Friday Prayers today meant I was able to avoid the long walk across the HDB carpark as I was dropped outside the back entrance to the masjid and, despite the fact the heavens had decided to open up just at that time, I didn't get absolutely soaked in the thirty seconds or so needed to negotiate the path. But I did get wet, despite having an umbrella with me.

It's odd to pray feeling distinctly damp in one's lower regions. Actually it's by no means unpleasant in the sense that it reinforces the notion of some kind of accomplishment being involved and that, somehow, it's been a struggle to get there but being there is the only really important thing and worth abandoning all sense of comfort for. Mind you, if I'd been as wet as some of the other guys were around me, the ones who'd sprinted across the carpark with no umbrellas at all to protect them, I'm not sure that I would have been quite as complacent about the experience.

At The End Of The Day

Tired. In a good way. Not weary. Happily tired after a busy day doing things that were pretty much uniformly worthwhile. The kind of tired that brings with it the certainty of sleeping well, sleeping tight. And not letting the bedbugs bite.

Bad Signs

As I've had occasion to note in this Far Place, I get an odd sort of pleasure from cleaning stuff - like my bookshelves. It occurred to me just now that I might also confess to a distinct frisson when deleting documents from my desktop or various folders that are no longer useful. I'm not sure what this says about my character but I suspect it would not be at all flattering.

I'm not sure as to how much genuine self-knowledge I've attained over the decades, but the little bits I do know are quite enough to be going on with for now.

Paying Attention

When I posted last week about music seeming so much more valuable when you really had to pay for it I already knew the answer to the apparent puzzle, though I was genuinely puzzled in that moment. The value of any artistic experience lies in the quality of attention we bring to the experience. Read a poem badly and it will be a bad poem, for that bad reader. Watch a movie without really watching, listen to music without really listening, and the results will be, as they say, less than optimal.

A full response requires absorption, requires work. And I'm not implying that what I say applies only to what we might think of as 'great' art. Any work of the imagination offered to us will work at deeper levels when we offer it our depths.

But we're in a world that is busily being shallow.

Marching On

Moving along nicely now through my chunky Collected Poems of Robert Lowell. Finished Life Studies over the weekend, when I could myself drag away from work and reading Ken Follett, and embarked on Imitations from 1961. I'm very familiar with the translations having got hold of the Faber paperback many years ago, but it's interesting how fresh they seem when reading them in the light of all Lowell's poetry. The Villon pieces early in the book seem far more authentically Lowell-ish than actual translations to this reader.

Another particular example of how fresh even the most familiar material can become when read in this context was how startling I found the end of Skunk Hour, which is, of course, the final poem in Life Studies. This has been a favourite poem of mine for many years and I've always loved the ending with its wonderfully affirmatory procession of the skunks into the town, and Lowell's consciousness. But reading it again, directly following the preceding poems, it hit me just how unexpectedly the mother skunk and her column of kittens march into the text itself after we've encountered all those privileged Lowells and their acquaintances and the less privileged inhabitants of the mental wards that Lowell himself had to escape. The animals are so essentially themselves, so other than human, so sane.

I also got a jolt at the stunning confessional line, My mind's not right. I knew it was coming, but it's the first time I've read it in the context of knowing that my own mind wasn't right for a whole slab of 2022. It's a terrible and frightening thing to know, I'm afraid, but my experience of that extreme was relatively short-lived and, I'm hoping, won't be repeated. Poor Cal. He faced that state over and over. And somehow managed to write some of the greatest poems of the last century. Like the skunk who will not scare - quietly astonishing. 

Gripped

Making reasonably steady progress on Ken Follett's World Without End, now approaching the two-thirds of the way through mark. I reckon it's as good as its predecessor, The Pillars of the Earth, which is high praise indeed. 

One chapter around the halfway mark actually made me genuinely nervous as to the potential fate of the sort of heroine, Caris, when she was suddenly accused of witchcraft. Follett is brilliant at plot twists that illustrate the pervasive fragility of life, anyone's really, in the England of six and a half centuries ago. And the sequence following the English army's invasion of France under Edward III was both gripping and illuminating in terms of the horrendous brutality involved.

I've just been reading about Merthin going back to Kingsbridge (a good thing) after almost a decade in civilised Florence. Unfortunately he gets back just at the time of the arrival there of la moria grande - the Black Death (not a good thing.) Now wondering what the death toll is likely to be in the next few chapters and, honestly, can't wait to find out even though dreading it all more than a little.

Not Going Gently

Just got back from a Sweet Charity concert. Loud & proud old school mat rockers, for those of you who may not know them. Talk about heavy duty! Talk about rocking out! Talk about not going gently - especially given the fact that the central trio have clocked up five decades professionally.

Early in the concert I was reminded of watching Deep Purple live at Belle Vue, back in Manchester, around the time of Deep Purple in Rock. It was the sheer weight of the sound that took me back, especially the sort of hammond organ vibe and deep bass underpinning the shredding guitar work. No wonder back then we used to say 'heavy man' as a sort of supreme compliment. (Embarrassing, yes, but true.) But later in the show there was lots of sonic variation on that theme, including bits of unison lead guitar with a distinct Thin Lizzy, Wishbone Ash, Allman Brothers feel, a spot of Floydian spacing out (though neither of the two excellent guitarists had quite the restraint of peak Gilmour), and one very Led Zep-like piece which gave their Kashmir a run for its money in terms of apocalyptic power. Oh, and some great sort of percussively-led middle eastern type stuff in the middle.

And above all the phenomenal vocal power of Ramli Sarip, whose voice has got, astonishingly, stronger and more expressive with time. It struck me early in the concert that every one of the other bands I've referenced would have sounded better with him at the helm.

Out And About

Got to see Peter & Chris & Lea this evening over a tasty dinner. Good to catch up, but odd to have to recount a few of the events of the last six months or so. Lots of stuff happening without much really changing. The story of my life - and happily so. 

Spotified

I'm now on Spotify and I'm conflicted. To be honest I'm not at all sure if one should talk of being 'on' the 'app', but the thing suddenly popped up out of nowhere on the bar-thing at the bottom of my laptop for work and I decided to listen to something on it - the app, that is, not the bar. At first I was a bit worried it might end up costing me money, but there didn't appear to be any charges involved and I seemed to remember Fifi telling me a while back that you could get the thing for free, so I recklessly plunged in.

Must say, I was also a bit concerned about the fact that I'm aware that a lot of folk I admire regard pretty much all the streaming services for music, and especially Spotify, as a wholly reprehensible business model in terms of the lack of cash going in the direction of the music-makers themselves. But my integrity rapidly crumbled when I realised I had instant access to stuff I'd never been able to get hold of as a youngster but had always wanted to listen to up close. So I went ahead and have listened to the following over the last few days: The Kinks' Preservation, Act 1; Peter Hammill's Over; and Anthony Phillips's The Geese and the Ghost, which is now playing.

All very nice indeed, but, for reasons I can't quite pin down, listening to them through streaming isn't as deeply satisfying as actually 'possessing' these albums on CD (or vinyl, if I still had a turntable.) This reinforces something obvious but puzzling I've been wrestling with for some time: The music I paid what felt like big money for when I was younger seems so much more valuable, somehow, than the music that is now so freely available that I feel a tad overwhelmed by it all.

This is stupid of me, but real. And I sense I need to do something to square the circle on this one.

On Teaching

At some level I'm a natural teacher. Just saying.

Not sure that's necessarily a good thing though.

More Re-Joycing

The problem, or possibly the joy, of committing oneself to being a Joycean is that there are just no ends to the highways and byways of reading and research involved in living up to the label. Case in point: a captivating review by John Banville, himself a spectacularly talented Joycean, of what sounds like a very fine novel about the life, or, rather, alternative life, of Norah Barnacle, entitled Penelope Unbound by Mary Morrissy. The first three paragraphs of Mr Banville's review give the best potted history of the story of Jim and his Nora (he took away the 'h' it seems) I've ever read.

So now I've got to get hold of a copy of the novel, but it doesn't stop there. I've decided it's time for a reread of Ellmann's 'masterly biography' of the great writer (which will be my third reading) and also of Brenda Maddox's wonderful evocation of the great Nora's life (only the second time through.) Fortunately both tomes reside happily on my shelves so that won't involve shelling out for them.

I first read Ellmann in my teens and, strangely, I just knew then that Joyce wouldn't have been Joyce without Nora(h) even though the consensus is that Ellmann underrates her. Thank goodness Jim didn't.

Aiming High

The first project I have in mind to mark the beginning of my retirement, should that day ever arrive, is officially confirmed as a complete read-through of Joyce's Finnegans Wake. I can't lay claim to the title of a true Joycean unless I can achieve this. And there's now so much help to be had reading Joyce's web of words on the World Wide Web itself (see what I did there) that there's simply no excuse for not giving it a go.

Yesterday I happened upon the best version of  The Ballad of Persse O'Reilly I've ever heard courtesy of my YouTube feed. Evidence that the algorithm sometimes happily gets it right.

Something Shocking

A week or so ago I discovered the original video for Bowie's single off his brilliant 1 Outside album of the 1990s Hearts Filthy Lesson. It just goes to show how astonishingly out of touch I can be even with the work of musicians I deeply admire that I had no idea a video existed. In my own defence I suppose I could argue that it's the music that really speaks to me and I've never had much of a visual imagination, so I've never been terribly bothered about looking up this sort of material. But since Bowie has always been deeply interested himself in visual art, and conscious of the importance of the visually theatrical in his work, that defence wouldn't hold up in a courtroom, especially the Supreme Court of Aesthetics.

And here's the thing, in relation to standing in judgement on Art (always, of course, a perilous thing to do.) The video really, really bothers me. It's wonderfully made, visually stunning, entirely simpatico to the music and spirit of the song and, indeed, the whole album. But it's upsetting in its obvious and disturbing implications of the pleasures and pains of sado-masochism. Googling around for a bit of background I discovered it got banned on MTV and, I've got to say that seems pretty reasonable to me. The idea of chancing upon it in some gallery or other and choosing to watch it with some sense of the context from which it springs seems altogether reasonable; but youngish kids watching it as part of some general promotion of music as consumer culture just doesn't seem right.

Now I've always been on the side of disturbance as an artistic strategy, but I've found myself thinking very hard as to how some aspects of the video might reasonably be defended and I'm not sure I have any easy answers. I do have some hard ones though - amongst which is a sense that we need to accept 'outsider art' to achieve an understanding of the totality of ourselves. Must say though, I don't think anyone, no matter how deeply conservative in their tastes, could fail to grasp that Bowie performing the song live is the real deal, and then some.

In Circles

Each day a chance to start again. And repeat the same mistakes.

Pretty bleak, eh?

Some Body

Woke in the early hours - around 1.00 am - suffering from a ferocious cramping of my left leg, the lower bit. Fortunately it eased in the mysterious way that cramp does and I managed a good night's sleep thereafter. Actually I'd completely forgotten about this until just now when I was doing the Isha' Prayer and needed to struggle on with cramp in my left foot. Mind you, I was half expecting something of the sort since I'd only just got back from the gym and mild cramping of the feet whilst praying is apt to follow a work-out.

Funny thing, the body, especially mine. Just lately I've been particularly cautious in relation to my back. Originally I'd intended to get to the gym yesterday evening and decided not to due to a slight but distinct ache right in the centre of my lower back which manifested late yesterday afternoon for no reason I was aware of. All this following a very awkward Sunday morning last weekend when I was moving with all the grace and finesse of your average centenarian on account of a disconcerting pain running down my upper thigh (upper left.)

These days I celebrate being able to get the gym with reasonable regularity, knowing that there's no guarantee that this will continue. That certainly helps when I've been on the elliptical trainer for ten minutes or so and start to wonder why exactly I'm torturing myself on the thing.

A Solid Foundation

Highlight of the day: getting my hands on the kind of week to a view diary that will be the foundation of my functioning at work in 2024, and doing so at my first attempt to find one. Last year it took me until a good deal later in the month to do the necessary, and I wasn't quite so keen on the edition, especially at what seemed a ridiculously inflated price. This year the edition looks like my preferred version over many years (though it's not the same publisher) and the price is a lot more reasonable, though some three dollars more expensive than the 2022 version.

I'm not all that sure why this makes me as happy as it does. But I've learned not to ask too many questions about being happy: I just get on being it.

Highly Rated

Not sure why, but I've never rated Longfellow. Not that I'd ever read much, but I'd vaguely got the impression, from a distance, that he represented the commonplace in terms of mid-nineteenth century verse - and I mean 'verse' rather than 'poetry'. Vaguely pleasant but essentially dealing in romantic clichés after the fire of Romanticism had died away. Nothing to write home about, to throw another cliché on the fire or, rather, the embers of that splendid but sort-lived movement.

So when I read his poem Snow-Flakes over at Carol Rumens's surpassingly excellent Poem of the Week page at the Graun it came as a bit of a shock to realise how wrong I'd been. It's a brilliant piece. I immediately wanted to commit it to memory. Just gorgeously sad and superbly crafted and meant. And, as is often the case when Ms Rumens's picks a belter, the comments BTL are themselves responsively excellent.

I recall having to completely rethink my attitude to Tennyson when I had to teach him for 'A' level back in the 90's. Looks like there's more of the same to come with Henry Wadsworth as soon as I can get my hands on a juicy Selected.

Under Repair

It's been a year and a day since I got out of hospital. Somehow I got repaired. Even my broken thoughts. There are still dark places - how could there not be? - and I may get dragged back to them one day. But for now I'm in the light, and that's enough. More than enough. 

A Very Bright Spot

Another day spent marking, for the most part. But I did make time to listen to a fair amount of sweet sounds provided by Ella Fitzgerald, Richard Thompson and David Bowie. Not a bad little list, eh?

And before you start thinking that my weekend's been a pretty sad one all in all, let me tell you that I got to accompany some students to one of the best productions of Romeo & Juliet I've ever seen (and, trust me, I've been to a fair few.) The company performing are from the UK and known as Action To The Word, and it's on at the Victoria Theatre - one of my old stomping grounds - up to 7 October. We were at an afternoon matinee performance yesterday and it was a blast: very youthful company, ultra-talented, with just 9 performers on stage; everyone seemed to be able to sing well and play at least one instrument and there was lots of music interpolated into the show - not exactly Shakespeare, I know, but Shakespeare never is exactly Shakespeare is he?, and the music was great fun; lots of nicely choreographed highly theatrical stage combat as part of a generally highly theatrical experience; Mercutio played by a young lady, which was completely unexpected, but worked surprisingly well, subverting all the usual Mercutio clichés; the verse spoken really well - oozing clarity and balance and genuine rhythm - oh, and the prose as well, including a Nurse who sounded pure Merseyside, to my delight.

My only criticism is a niggling one, but I'll mention it. I don't think they quite managed the mood in the final sequence, but it's incredibly difficult to pull off. Romeo expired a touch too noisily and evoked some inappropriate giggles (but what can you expect from a young matinee crowd?) And, not a criticism, but everyone looked too young to plug into the Bard's archetypes of youth and age that so dominate the play. Friar Lawrence particularly was entertaining but too young for my liking, and a bit too funny at the end.

On The Bright Side

Arm and shoulders and back aching from several hours of marking, which I've just finished. Oddly enough it hasn't been such a bad day, but it's ended on a bit of a sour, not to say sore, note - though I'll be eating soon, so things can't be quite so bad. Healing's on its way.

Feasting

Noi spent the day at a Sweet & Savoury Soft Bread Class, taught by some international chef chappie from Taiwan. She came back this evening with a number of the products of her labour which I have been sampling since with distinct relish. My favourite so far: the ham & onion toast. Seriously wonderful, but so is everything else.

Not a bad way to end the working week, eh?

Theory And Practice

Gwenda has just announced her pregnancy to Wulfric, and the foundations have been laid for Merthin's bridge. As for Caris, I have no idea why she's making life so difficult for Merthin. And don't get me going on Ralph who's shaping up as a major Ken Follett villain despite the signs earlier in World Without End that he isn't fundamentally such a bad chap.

Why do we get so caught up in the purely imagined lives of characters who don't exist, except in the pages of imaginative fictions? As far as I can tell, this is the kind of question that bothers literary theorists. Frankly, whilst I find it mildly interesting, deep down it doesn't concern me all that much. What bothers me is finding out what happens to Gwenda and Wulfric and Merthin and Caris and Ralph, plus a load of other folk who live in the non-existent but astonishingly real Kingsbridge.

So that's enough for now. I'm off for a bit of a read before bedtime.

Mood Music

There are times when only the songs of Leonard Cohen can fill the space. Today, in the late afternoon, was one such time. I filled it with four off Ten New Songs, and it felt necessary, and I'm glad I did.

The funny thing is LC is the only musician of the singer-songwriter variety I admire that this applies to. Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Richard Thompson, Elvis Costello, Neil Young: any time. But not Leonard. I have to be in the mood, and I don't mean depressed or sour or dark or melancholy. Today I was perfectly happy on getting back from work but, for reasons I can't quite grasp, it had to be Mr Cohen serenading me as I relaxed.

I was thinking of this just now when it further occurred to me that Songs of Love and Hate was a very special album for me when I got hold of it as a fifteen-year-old (I think.) I didn't own that many albums and forced myself to love every one I spent my hard-earned money on. To be honest LC's third album was way too sophisticated for me but I managed to grow into it, I suppose. For example, I knew Avalanche was a great song pretty much on first hearing, but I didn't know why; and I understood it somehow, without knowing what it meant.

In fact, I still don't. But who needs to wrestle a meaning from, Well, I stepped into an avalanche / It covered up my soul ? I've been in that avalanche even if the song remains above and beyond this particular sleeper.

A Rhetorical Question

If you can't lick the plate after finishing your bangers & mash & gravy & onions, then when can you lick the plate? That's what I'd like to know.

Testing Times

Life has a way of not getting easier, which is no bad thing. At least when you're struggling you know that you're very much in the here and now and alive to the struggle.

And, yes, it's been one of those days.

Not Exactly Routine

It's been an odd sort of Sunday. Noi had a baking class to attend up in Woodlands and, since we'd made an arrangement to have dinner with Boon & Mei up there, it was decided that I would spend the day at Fuad & Rozita's so Noi didn't have to drive back to pick me up after her class. I had quite a bit of marking to do and set out my stall on the dining table in their place wondering whether I'd be able to stuck in to the work involved in this foreign environment.

To my surprise I managed the pile of scripts almost effortlessly, with breaks for the necessary teh tarik and to watch the first half of the United game - oh, and to watch bits and pieces of a BBC Attenborough doc. Also managed a quick lunch out with Fuad & Rozita at the Al Ameen food place that we later went to with Boon & Mei. 

It's the first time in a long time that marking has felt not exactly effortless, but not really effort-full, if you see what I mean. Mind you, it's a relief to get back home and prepare for the usual routine on the morrow. It doesn't pay to have too much excitement in one's life.