Almost Forgotten

The month concludes with another rich & rewarding day - but this time with something of a gap at its centre. My morning was spent enjoying the Teachers' Day festivities in school, followed by a satisfying lunch related to the same. I got home around 2.30 pm and soon happily conked out, and I mean completely so.

Then waking at some time after 5.00 I fortunately remembered that I had an evening duty overseeing a couple of classes. Somehow this had managed to completely slip my mind despite being of enough importance to have made me think in the early part of the week that I couldn't possibly forget about it. I also needed to complete some marking, answer a bunch of messages, and go out to shop and eat and get various other things related to the domestic front done with The Missus.

Now feeling happily satisfied and more than a bit relieved that everything eventually fell into place. And looking forward to a lie-in tomorrow. Over and finally out.

Feeling Full

A richly non-stop day, featuring an awards ceremony, an excellent game of basketball (which we lost, unfortunately) and two exceptionally filling meals with excellent company at both. Not quite sure how I'm going to cope with what will probably be another rich version of lunch on the morrow. But I'll find a way.

I'm pretty good at coping with first world problems.

Real Work

There's always been a part of me that says what I do isn't quite real work. The real thing is physically tough, leaving you worn down at the day's end. And for the real thing you need a union to protect you.

Today's story about a guy dying of heat exhaustion in a factory in Memphis reminded me of this. I suppose I'm expressing a sort of prejudice in my almost atavistic distrust of so-called management, but the older I get the more I know my instincts are founded in an unappealing reality. Since 2011, there have been 436 work-related deaths caused by environmental heat exposure, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. And that's in a nation in which workers are accorded some basic protections. Or so they say.

Rough Ideas

So what goes on in my head when I'm watching a play or reading a novel or listening to music? I have next to no idea, but I know something goes on. Today it struck me that it might be interesting to transcribe some rough stuff I jotted before our final performance of As You Like It, just for the sake of trying to capture it before it faded. (I've already forgotten all of Old Adam's lines, having agonised for four weeks or so to inscribe them in memory.)

Anyway, this is what I jotted, in poor handwriting, backstage, insofar as we had a backstage:

from a love that is amiably intense & simple to one that has all the signs of being rich & strange & complex & capable of change & development in the fullness and sprawl of time. Because Rosalind can do strange things and can teach strange things in a complex, strange & transient world sounding suspiciously like our own. Nothing can last. But what there is can shine preciously. In imagination. And in a generosity of feeling for others. Whoever/whomsoever comes into the orbit of Ros will be the better for it. whoever goes into/comes into the Woods will find something of themselves - in losing other somethings.

Odd what passes for thought, eh? (I reckon the first bit is copped almost verbatim from Shapiro's 1599 which I'd been reading just before the show. Always steal from the best.) 

A Question Of Detail

Finishing The Stand I was struck by just how good the ending is and just how much I had managed to forget about it since my long-ago first reading of the novel. Which was pretty much everything. Indeed, I vaguely thought that the last section was going to be a bit predictable and perfunctory - which is why I couldn't remember anything - and was pleasantly surprised at the strength of the chapters centred on Las Vegas and the Stu & Tom return to Boulder coda of the final stretch. The only way I can explain my oddly thorough forgetfulness is through the assumption that the supernatural apparatus shows through most obviously in Book 3 and my younger self was going through a stage of dissatisfaction with this aspect of King's work and sort of switched off to the merits of it all. Or possibly I didn't have the staying power for the epic back then and read the final chapters too quickly simply to have done with it all.

Thinking about this today led me to an odd moment of illumination apropos of how Tony must have read the novel in even earlier days. It forcefully occurred to me just how much of a man for details of the plot (of any work, including films & musicals) he was. He'd frequently remind me of specific moments or scenes in stuff we'd both encountered and harp on about these in a way I found faintly tiresome and broadly pointless. I remember a lot of this in relation to King's stuff in general but most of all with regard to Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time sequence - the twelve novels comprising which he'd borrowed from me soon after we finished university. I suppose this was the most obviously genuinely 'literary' work we had in common and he was always on about particular details, especially with regard to the early novels in the sequence. So this led to my moment of insight: I reckon Tony saw novels as things he needed to, in some sense, learn. He needed to remember exactly what happened as a kind of proof he had assimilated them and they were now of use to him, they were worth something in terms of what he could remember of them. In contrast I've always regarded what happens to me in the process of reading the whole point of the exercise. I don't care much for plot detail unless it somehow really counts in enhancing the process. And I'm happy to forget a novel, a play, a poem so I can enjoy it all over again when I return to it later - usually a lot later.

Of course, there are texts, especially notably elliptical, nuanced ones, for which a grasp of detail is essential in terms of a solid general understanding - The Great Gatsby springs to mind. And when I'm teaching a text I strive to have a reasonable handle on all the details. But I'm often struck when teaching quite well known stuff, especially Shakespeare, of how much I've forgotten, or never bothered to pin down in the first place. At the moment I'm enjoying teaching Hamlet (yet again!) and I keep being surprised by fairly major bits & pieces that have managed to escape me. Like his dad's ghost popping up in the bit with his mum towards the end of Act 3. This manages to surprise me every time I teach the play, or watch it, for that matter.

Happy final thought: I really must get round to buying the Music of Time novels again (since I never got my boxed set back from Tony) and reread. What a joy that's going to be, insya'allah.

Time To Relax

Got a fair bit of work done this morning but spent the rest of the day hanging very loose indeed - though I did finish The Stand. Stuffed my face just now with Noi's signature salmon dish while watching one of those BBC programmes featuring various chefs doing incredible things with all sorts of foodstuffs. The collapsing of two treacle showcases provided quite enough stress to add spice to the day. And now I'm hanging spectacularly loose in between various moments of nodding off. Nice.

Continued Outrage

It's pretty much a year to the day that I sank for some three and a half weeks into what I have come to think of as The Delirium. After considerable reflection upon the process of that sinking, a frightening period of semi-lucidity lasting a little under 24 hours, including some sleep (I think), from around 5.00 pm on Thursday, 25 August to the conclusion of Friday Prayers the next day, I've come to realise that the closest I came to something akin to a restoration of sanity was connected to an article about Stephen King in the on-line Graun.

I must have read this early on Friday morning, and I read it with enough attention to make a coherent note in my journal that I needed to get hold of the extended version of The Stand and all of the Dark Tower series. And I was also outraged at the omission of The Shining from the recommendations on where to start with the Horrormeister. In fact, I still am outraged which is the main reason I'm writing this now since I couldn't manage anything from my hospital bed back in 2022.

Must say though, other than that one faux pas it's a great article.

A Bit Of Gratitude

Elisha, one of our Assistant Hall Tutors, and a lovely guy, led some students in a sort of 'gratitude exercise' this evening. I joined in, filling in the little slip of paper distributed to me with some gusto. It turned out that I was supposed to put several items as answers under the first three headings, but I filled it in too quickly and my writing already filled the spaces available by the time I'd realised what the actual instruction for answering was.

Anyway, in the interests of full disclosure here come my answers, to the grand total of six sort of questions:

I thank God for: People: My Wife; Places: SAC, the Oasis stall; Things: teh tarik.

I thank God even though: 1) Spurs beat Man Utd; 2) life isn't fair; 3) I have 15 Paper 1 essays to mark tomorrow.

Must say, I felt a whole lot better for filling it in.

The Ghost Reader

My reading of The Stand continues to lumber along - meaning, I'm enjoying every step of the journey, but other considerations mean I can only make progress in stolen moments. 

I've now arrived at the final quarter - Book 3, with our heroes on the way to Las Vegas and their 'stand'. (By the way, I'm reading the older version of the novel, the original, not the full length, unedited, second version that King published in the 90s. So this is just around 800 pages overall.) As I said earlier in the month, I've forgotten all the fine details of the plot so it all seems new, yet mildly familiar. But something I didn't say earlier: there are times when I seem to be reading through the eyes of my old chum Tony, long gone to his long home. Why so? Well he read The Stand before I did in our long ago glory days, much of it in a pub at Summit, where he was living at the time, in the room set aside for playing pool. The novel made a huge impact on him for reasons I never quite understood. Possibly because it was the first 'long' book he'd ever read? He told me about how the other guys in the room couldn't work him out at all and themselves became fascinated with what he was reading (between beating them all at pool.)

Sometimes I find myself reading a paragraph with the naivety of the non-specialist, 'innocent' reader. And Tony is over my shoulder or in my head: And there's this fellah called Randall Flagg, kid. He's summat else. Never such innocence again, eh?

In The Moment

After completing the Isha' Prayer just now I wasn't in any great hurry to get up and move. I suppose I was feeling a wee bit tired after the mild rigours of the day and found myself just sitting there, a bit lost, mind wandering. I'm not entirely sure why but it wandered into the worrisome territory surrounding the big story of the week in the UK: the trial and sentencing of that nurse from Chester hospital who murdered all those babies. Without really meaning to I'd picked up quite a bit of the deeply sorry tale from fitfully watching Sky News and referencing the on-line version of The Guardian in the morning.

My thoughts were solemn and sad in nature, of course. A bit despairing. A bit hopeless. What other response can there be to the deaths of children? To the pointless malice involved. To the sense of irreparable damage that will disfigure so many of those families. To the emptiness of it all. 

And then I raised my head to look up through the bedroom window. A thick crescent moon, not large exactly, but somehow filling the dark sky. Eerily bright. It seemed to me that it was something I needed to see, but I don't quite know why.

Funnily enough when I came out of the room Noi, who was involved in a sort of zoom class she's attending, looked up from her screen to ask me if I'd seen the moon. I think we both knew we were sharing that moment of illumination of the darkness. Some kind of grace.

Not So Enthusiastic

Struggled through a lot of marking today, went out to not such a great dinner, and came home to find out that the Lionesses had met with defeat. Some days are better than others, and this one wasn't.

Enthusiasms

Spent the early afternoon at a zoom gathering as part of the Annual Literature Seminar run by MOE and had a fine old time. Listening to very bright students do their thing on texts they are obviously very into is life-enhancing, to say the least. And the great thing is that these days so many of the presentations go way off track in relation to the Lit canon, which means I get to hear about stuff I'm not familiar with at all. I must admit, at times I'm not entirely convinced of the literary quality involved, but what more than makes up for that is the way the kids are obviously convinced of the worth of what they are reading (or viewing), which is what counts.

The funny thing is that at the end of it all I was thinking vaguely patronising thoughts about how wonderful it must be to be young and excited about books when it struck me that I'm still more than capable of feeling the same level of excitement over a hot text as I was when I was sixteen or so. There's part of me that's never really grown up, which is embarrassing and thrilling in roughly equal proportions.

On Edge

It is not wise to listen up close and personal to Shostakovich's 10th Symphony at bedtime. I got 15 minutes into the 1st movement and that was as much as I could take. Talk about stress!

Turning The Tables

Experienced five minutes of something close to panic at 6.55 pm when I realised I was short of forty tables (in two pretty empty classrooms) with classes due to arrive at 7.45 pm. Solved the problem by accessing a key-box I have no actual access to. I'll spare you the details, but I got the tables and was very happy by 7.55 pm (when I was taking attendance of said classes) since by that time England's Lionesses had made it to the World Cup Final and the Aussies had been rightly silenced in their own land. (And justice had been served for us being robbed of the Ashes.)

Lost In Thought

I'm getting very good at not really thinking at all for considerable stretches of time. Highly relaxing, and to be recommended in a world that keeps telling us what to think. A sort of act of rebellion, in the quietest manner possible.

Finishing Off

I'm still dealing with the re-marking of exam scripts related to appeals over the results of the May examinations. It's not exactly overwhelming fortunately since the scripts appear one at a time - or, at least, that's the pattern so far. But it does seem unending. As soon as I complete the marking of a script and submit it, another appears within the day. So I deliberately take my time so as to prevent any rush at all. That's helpful since it necessitates my undivided attention when I do get round to the marking which, after all, every candidate richly deserves. But I'll be glad when this extra work ends since there's plenty of my real day-to-day marking to be going along with.

Working Out

Am maintaining fairly regular trips to the gym despite being busy, typically so for this time of year. Hoping to increase the number once we move into September, though past experience makes me wary of making the assumption that this will come easily. The surprising thing is that even at my age an improvement in general fitness appears possible. Not exactly intuitive, eh?

Dining Out

17.10

As far as I can remember I've never attended a dinner for National Day in all the years I've spent in this Far Place. That omission will be put right this evening. Fahmi, in his other life as Mayor of the South East District, has invited Noi and myself to join him and various assorted family members on one of the tables at the Geylang Serai National Day Dinner 2023. Very kind of him. Hoping that the three and half hours set aside for the big do prove profitable for all involved. Unfortunately I can't say I thrive in the context of big dinners, but I'll do my best. Watch this space for further details - assuming we get back at a reasonable hour.

23.05

Incredibly, unremittingly, loud. From the point the announcers came on, just after we arrived at 6.20, to the end of proceedings at 10.00 pm. Brash and psychopathically cheerful. But the folks around seemed to have a good time and the guys doing the announcing were thoroughly professional in the local style and certainly earned their money. Oh, and Noi certainly got carried away in the National Day songs sequence, so not such a bad evening after all.  

Seeing The Light

We've now got no fewer than thirteen bright spots of lights glowing on our tv screen at any given time. I suppose we really should do something about this, and since I can't see much point in trying to repair the thing then getting rid of the set and buying a new one would appear to be in order. But inertia is a powerful thing and both Noi and myself have become very good indeed at just ignoring the problem. Plus there's a feeling of wastefulness about the whole situation that makes it difficult to spring into action. In truth, I wouldn't mind if we could find someone who'd be happy to be given a pretty doubtful television so we could then buy a new one in good conscience, but we haven't come across anyone yet.

This never happens with books, by the way. Just saying.

Along For The Ride

At the mid-point of my rereading of The Stand. Enjoying the sprawling nature of the text. Strong sense that King really was just making it up as he went along. Probably wrong but who cares when the results are this engrossing.

(Have completely forgotten all plot details from my previous reading, by the way.)

Part Of And Apart

Spent the late part of the afternoon and early evening at the Amara Sanctuary on Sentosa, and very pleasant it was. A tastefully designed resort. I could see the appeal in its offer of respite from the trials of living in the city. But the odd thing was that I didn't feel in any way at all the need for sanctuary for myself. Almost the opposite.

An odd discovery of old age. Far from desiring the quiet life I'm generally happy to be in the thick of things, assuming things don't get too thick. I prefer a sense of neighborhood to the solitary life, even though I'm happy enough to be left to my own devices as the world swirls around me.

Comfort Eating

I was asked what I regarded as my favourite comfort food when I was interviewed in school the other day for some video for a school event. If I remember rightly I answered something along the lines of pretty much anything my wife cooks. The truth of this came home to me just now over a plate (or two, or three) of chapatti & keema. Nice way to finish a day. Trust me, I know.

Not A Front Ruuner

Just finished Fontane's Effi Briest. Found reading it fairly rewarding, but hard work. In many ways a subtle novel, but slow-moving for three-quarters of its length. Then it picks up towards the end, with the revelation of Effi's infidelity and I wondered if Fontane was going to do something a bit special in the last two chapters, only for him to fall back into tiresome illness as metaphor - which Dickens and Flaubert, to mention two rivals, do with far greater verve.

The back cover of the Oxford World's Classics edition - which comes with an excellent introductory essay - compares the work to Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina. Sadly that's way off the mark. It's strictly Division 3 in comparison to those way out in front of the Premier League.

Back To Normal

It was around mid-June this year that I found myself experiencing and expressing mild concern regarding a distinct spike in the numbers of visitors to this Far Place. In fact, by the end of the month my notional readership had increased by something in the region of 400% of the usual numbers that get recorded somehow or other in the background. Now it isn't that I wanted to turn folk away, but I'm not in the business of seeking out a readership and the notion that several thousand pairs of eyes were scrutinising my ramblings over any given month was debilitating to say the least.

Thankfully normal service was resumed in July and, so far at least, August has seen a further healthy decline. So it's just me and you again, Gentle Reader, the way we both like it.

Getting Metaphysical

Enjoyed the latest in Carol Rumens's surpassingly excellent Poem of the Week column in the Graun featuring Abraham Cowley's Platonic Love. Immediately on reading it thought of Cowley as one of the Metaphysical poets of the school of Donne, but now am not so sure realising he post-dates Donne by quite a few decades more than I originally assumed, though this poem seems to me firmly in the knotty tradition I came to admire when studying Donne for 'A' level English Lit.

Also realised that I have a tendency to tell classes that the work of Donne was a set text for me back in the days whilst the truth is we studied a whole bunch of the Metaphysical Poets (using the Penguin Grierson edition, if I remember rightly.) In some ways I preferred the more comfortable George Herbert to the cutting Jack Donne back then. Now I've got an odd feeling that the man for me might just be Henry Vaughan and sort of made up my mind to tackle my crumbling Penguin edition of Henry Vaughan: The Complete Poems once I've come out the other side of the great Robert Lowell read-through (not that that will be any time soon.)

Have also realised I really must read a bit more of Cowley. It's odd how chaps who were once regarded as big name poets seem to fall by the wayside. Considering the obvious merits of Platonic Love it's not exactly fair, is it? Thank goodness for Ms Rumens's sterling efforts in keeping a whole range of otherwise most likely neglected fine writers in view.

Working Up An Appetite

Just been eating an excellent fish dish courtesy of The Missus whilst watching Eat Well For Less, one of our favourite programmes on the BBC Lifestyle channel (I think it's called.) Felt very complacent about how reasonably positive our diet is compared to the folks being shown the right way to a healthy lifestyle on the goggle box. 

In fact, I'm in the curious position of remaining some two kilograms short of my fighting weight despite bouncing back to my usual appetite after feeling not quite so tickety-boo in that direction at the start of the year. The thing is that these days I find myself highly satisfied after a decent meal with no need to any extra munching (or imbibing, for that matter.)

Somehow I've achieved a harmonious balance without really trying. Wish other aspects of appetite were so seemingly easy to deal with.

Low Energy

Ever since the final performance of As You Like It I've felt delightfully low on energy. Why 'delightfully' so? Well, in the run-up to the show and in the days of full scale performance I entered that curiously 'hyper' state necessary to getting the thing done. As usual this involved waking early, yet not feeling in the slightest bit sleepy during the day. Now I'm sleeping well yet I could happily nod off at almost any moment. I'm actually swamped with work, funnily enough, and I'm gradually getting it done, but in a generally relaxed manner. Both states have their attractions, I suppose, but if I had to choose one in which to live out my days I know which it would be.

It's a curious thing, but when I tell people I'm lazy by nature, especially my colleagues, they never take me seriously. But I have a real talent for switching off, which I intend to exploit in the next ten minutes or so.

High Energy

Had a fine old time in the early afternoon watching the youngest of our basketball teams in action. Am really getting into the game - and I must admit it helps when the guys dominate as we did today. Nice blend of grace & aggression. Though the frequent stoppages - American style - take some adjusting to. I miss that sense of the unrelenting need to focus, but the bursts of energy go a long way to making up for it.

A Difficult Person

One good thing from the wreckage of Sinead O'Connor's untimely death: most of the press I've seen has been rightly admiring, or at least healthily respectful. I just can't be bothered to read the other sort of small-minded press, though I suspect it's somewhere slithering around, as is the way of things. Of course, she must have been a difficult person, but the world is a better place for difficult people who so often leave behind so much more than we safe types manage.

At her absolute best she illuminated the world, at the same time leaving the distinct impression she had the force of character to burn it up. (Assisted in the clip I posted by a couple of Smiths, if I'm not mistaken.)