Something didn't happen in 2025. As the final hours of the year play out I realise I can't recall a single case in the last 12 months of my suffering from a cranky back. Never needed to take a single tablet just in case. Seems like trivial stuff, especially in relation to a world that seems to be doing its best to fall apart, but hugely important for me in terms of quality of life.
Hoping for continuity and its attendant great good luck in the months ahead, but wisely not counting on such.
It was whilst enjoying the magic of Maggie O'Farrell's novel about Shakespeare earlier this year that it struck me that it might be worthwhile to reread Anthony Burgess's fictional account of the love-life of the Bard, Nothing Like the Sun. And it turns out that it was worthwhile, if only to enjoy the linguistic fireworks involved.
The earlier novel has none of O'Farrell's impressive emotional power - the death of Hamnet in Burgess's work left me entirely dry-eyed - but it's hugely entertaining and deals far more with WS as a working dramatist. And it too captures something of the feel of daily life in the period in a way that's sometimes little short of magical.
Anyway, there's no competition involved. Good to have read both novels (though I doubt I'll be paying either any further visit. It's time to move on.)
I'm not at all sure how I could do this but after starting to enthusiastically re-watch the excellent version of Macbeth featuring Denzel Washington back in early October, I only managed to complete that viewing almost three full months later. Tonight I watched the Act 5 material and, as with everything previous to this, I found myself hypnotised by the visual richness of the movie. Every frame could go into an art gallery.
I suppose that's why I drew out the viewing experience. Since I'm achingly familiar with the play, the narrative held out no surprises, so I didn't feel any need to find out what direction the film would take. And having watched it already I knew the interpretive spin of its director, so no compulsion there. Taking forever to re-watch was by way of a homage, a recognition that the details are so memorable that it felt natural not to have any sense of urgency.
I first read T.F. Powys's novel Mr Weston's Good Wine back in the 1970s when Penguin re-published it in their Modern Classics series. Didn't really know what to make of it then and found it a bit of a slog to get through. Decided to attempt it again in my old age and this time I quite enjoyed it, though I can't say I followed the allegory involved other than the obvious idea that Mr Weston represents God, sort of in a Christian sense, and his wine stands for various aspects of his grace.
To be honest, I'm not sure it's necessary to have a firm interpretation of the text since Powys seems to be more interested in developing a sense of the uncanny than dealing in definite ideas about the godhead. On that level I found much to enjoy in the strangeness of the various episodes as the inhabitants of Folly Down received their comeuppances. Indeed, I've got a feeling that if someone were to explain it all to me I'd end up disappointed.
Spent the early afternoon getting very sweaty indeed, ministering to the books and magazines on the shelves outside the apartment with our trusty vacuum cleaner. I'm not convinced the bi-annual clean-up does the objects in question all that much good, but it makes me feel better. In fact, the stuff outside gets a bit more attention over a year than the books inside since I think there's a bit more dust out there. So the bi-annual notion applies to the stuff inside, plus the books and magazines in KL and my desk at work.
This end-of-year clean-up was spread over a month, starting towards the end of November and finishing today, so it felt a bit less frenzied than it has sometimes felt in the past, when I've tended to leave it to the last minute. Must say, I feel particularly virtuous as a result, hence, I suppose, the odd compulsion to record this for the world to know.
Played Dylan's Christmas in the Heart yesterday, following the tradition I've established of playing the only Christmas-themed album I enjoy once a year. The restrictions on playing the CD mean it remains fresh despite my familiarity with its contents. I played it in the morning in an attempt to conjure some nostalgic Xmas magic. That didn't work at all. What worked splendidly for me were the beguiling arrangements, the humour, the quirky sincerity, and that voice in contrast with the otherwise slick vocalising of the backing singers. It felt new. Just what I needed on a morning when the temptation was to feel old.
One can only hope it delivered its best to all who strive to keep it today.
I'm trying to come to terms with the fact that Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart was first published some 68 years ago. That's almost a decade more than the gap in time between Achebe's first novel and Conrad's Heart of Darkness, that being just 59 years. Both incontestably great works, though I suspect Achebe would contest that statement since he famously considered Conrad's novella an offensive and totally deplorable book. I think Achebe was wrong, but I can understand why he felt that way, and reading Things Fall Apart again was a powerful reminder for me of what he knew that Conrad didn't which led him to that conclusion.
It's astonishing how fresh Achebe's novel seems, especially placed side-by-side with Conrad. The great English (or Polish?) writer's prose reads as decidedly dated, for all its virtues, but this is not at all true of Achebe's writing. The great Nigerian achieves something quite remarkable - a version of English that transcends any kind of nationalism: it reads as effortlessly international, incorporating a story-telling voice that is recognisably African, generally sounding quite simple, yet making subtle demands upon its readers to recognise the complexities of the world it delineates. It's also astonishing just how much he crams into his short novel, less than 200 pages in the Penguin edition I finished yesterday, reading the whole in just a couple of days.
In fact, Achebe doesn't really cram things into his work. If anything he leaves things out, judiciously so. His characters suggest depth, but we are never given much in the way of actual detail. So it would be easy for the casual reader to see Okonkwo simply as an unpleasant bully, rather than a genuinely tragic figure. His complexities in fighting against the humiliations involved in being the son of a negligent, hopeless father and then facing what must seem like deep betrayal from his eldest son are brilliantly implied.
What struck me most of all on this reading of Things Fall Apart is just how desperately sad the plight of the people of Umuofia is as they face the collapse of all that gives their lives meaning and purpose. Perhaps that's one of the reasons the text seems so fresh? We live, after all, in a world of collapsing values with a bleak awareness of how nothing is guaranteed to last.
Back in the gym this evening. Had hoped to improve on Saturday's poor performance, but this was worse, despite me being reasonably rested prior to the session. Woeful whimpering through the first half hour, and then got even weaker. Prayed that no one would come in to inadvertently witness this pathetic display.
Kept going though, so that's something from the wreckage.
Grateful to be safely back in our usual abode. Arrived very late last night, but today's been an easy day, so we've been able to gently manoeuvre into our routines, including me getting this cranky old body to the gym.
I suspected I'd struggle, given a lay-off of some three weeks - and such was the case. At the half-hour mark of my stint on the elliptical trainer I noticed a distinct and necessary dip in my pace, and struggled after that, though never to the point of wishing to just give up and get off. It wasn't easy but, then, it wasn't supposed to be.
Hoping my next session will seem a bit more 'normal', if that's the right word for what is, after all, not exactly what most folk choose to do to themselves on a typical Sunday afternoon.
Slightly surprised myself by finishing Victory today. Found it unputdownable for the last two days. Not sure, though, that this is because I ascended to the seriousness that Conrad demands of his readers. In fact, I didn't really get what exactly was going on between Heyst and Lena, which is really the core of the novel, so that in some ways the ending escaped me. I grasped the desolation of it all, especially in the deaths of the trio of villains, but not what was specifically motivating the central couple at key moments. I suppose I missed the ways in which they failed to understand each other, rather taking it for granted that their relationship was a good thing, which may well have not have been so clear to the characters themselves.
What I didn't miss was how wonderfully nasty the antagonists in the novel are. It seems there's a school of thought that sees them as overly melodramatic and lacking in basic realism, and I think that's a reasonable point of view. But if you allow yourself to suspend disbelief and enter into enjoying the horror of it all they make for great reading. Also they are strangely plausible as comically trivial yet dangerous predators. I can see why Victory was another popular success for Conrad following Chance given the hypnotic power of the chapters dealing with the bad guys' invasion of the delicate paradise of the lovers' hideaway.
By the by, the sheer range of Conrad's work is astonishing, isn't it? What a pity he seems to have been reduced to just being the writer of Heart of Darkness for so many.
My progress on Conrad's Victory, which I embarked on towards the end of last month, has been fitful to say the least. Of the obviously great novelists I find Conrad among the most demanding (not quite in the league of Henry James, but getting there) but there's a certain pleasure in reading him at very slow pace to ensure both a genuine grasp of what's going on and why the writer thinks it is important. I suppose that's why I've come so late to this novel, despite having a sense of the high regard in which it is held by some major critics. (I'm thinking F.R. Leavis here.)
Conrad's sombre view of life and human effort can also feel somewhat overwhelming. I've just reached the well known lines: he who forms a tie is lost. The germ of corruption has entered into his soul. I didn't realise that this is actually articulated by the protagonist, Heyst, in dialogue with the woman he gets involved with. And it's so strange that the writer describes his tone as light as he tells her this.
I feel I need to become more serious about life when reading Conrad. A good reason for persevering with his work in a world that often appears to value only what is fleeting and superficial.
15.40
We're setting off for Mak's house in Melaka later today. Noi is putting the finishing touches to her final cleaning up of the premises, and we're assessing what still remains to be fixed and made ship-shape in 2026, when we'll next be here again. There's always something, of course, as a reminder that any home is a work in progress - and it's the kind of progress that, in its way, is worth looking forward to. Anyway, we're used to moving on, as this week's survey of my back pages was a powerful and sometimes melancholy reminder of.
22.25
Arrived about an hour ago here at Alor Gajah after a reasonably easy drive south. Every exit is an entrance somewhere else, as a wise man wrote (or something close to that wording.) More pages to be written. Hoping to avoid pointless repetition.
Finished working through my appointment diaries up to 2023, and will be discarding them in Melaka, where we're off to on the morrow. (Noi wants to burn them.) Going back over the years was an interesting experience, but not something I want to spend too much time doing at the kind of length making my notes involved. The version of the past I garnered turned out to be a burden of sorts. Not because of bad memories. Far from it. It was the amount of quiet happiness accumulated over time that felt strangely burdensome.
Best to fare forward. Especially since we have little choice but to do so.
I have two large cardboard boxes here filled with my appointment diaries stretching back to 1988. For some time I've been intending to throw them out once I've made a note of the major 'events', like vacations taken and shows directed, across the years. Not sure why I feel the need to record in this fashion, but it seems important as a way of capturing a few milestones along the way and I don't think I'll be able to discard the decaying diaries unless I do this.
I made a start today, transcribing key stuff from 1988 - 2000, and I'm hoping to finish the remaining years tomorrow, then take the diaries to Melaka to burn them there. It's been quite strange revisiting the past in this way, especially given the careless nature of the various scribbled entries. I only noted as sparely as I could what I needed to do to keep my life on its tracks, and little on the page makes coherent sense now.
I can't help but notice how the diaries tend to increase in terms of the detail of what I recorded over the years. Either my working life got more complicated, or my memory got worse, or a bit of both. I'm also struck by how the terminology I employed changed over time. There are quite a number of acronyms I suppose I must have understood then and deemed of some importance that just seem downright strange today. So much that mattered then that's entirely lost.
Ashraf worked very hard yesterday to enable us to download the Sooka app on our new telly. This will enable Noi to watch all the Astro stuff she wants, assuming we're able to subscribe to their various offerings without any hassle. We haven't really tried to use the app yet as we've plenty to occupy us on Apple TV, which we've been watching late at night. So it looks like we can do away with the Astro box and cancel our subscription, the only problem being that terminating the service is a bit complicated and we're not going to have time to get that done on this visit.
In the meantime we're quite far into the second season of The Morning Show and there's a lot, possibly too much, going on in terms of storyline, so we're happily watching an episode a day and getting what we regard as value for money.
I've come to realise that one hour of viewing on any given day is quite enough for me. That's something that my childhood self, pretty much addicted to the goggle box, would not be able to recognise. So some kind of progress there.
One of our priorities coming over has been to visit Sharifah in Shah Alam and catch up on how she's faring under the treatment she's been receiving. Very unfortunately we've not been able to do so as the treatment hasn't been going so well, resulting in her being hospitalised for most of the last couple of weeks and not being allowed visitors due to concerns about her picking up infections in her weakened state. She's at home now, but still not allowed to see people.
We're going across anyway later today, to take Hamzah & Aziqah & whoever else is around to dinner and offer whatever weak support we're able. To say this is not a happy situation is an understatement, but these are the kind of people who I know will find whatever positives are available and make the best of them.
Let me be frank - painfully, brutally honest. At 10.30 this morning I didn't feel in any way whatsoever inclined to start cleaning the many windows in this house. But I'd cunningly told The Missus I would do the job the night before, and before coming up to KL I'd imagined the satisfaction of completing the job, so I really had no choice.
I started slowly, lethargically, and the pace never picked up. But that's the point. You can't clean windows quickly. By its nature it's a tedious job and needs to be done in a steadfastly tedious manner. Which meant the exercise worked well for me. It took me until the late afternoon to get every window done, but done they are, and I'm now highly satisfied by how I've fooled myself into some kind of minor accomplishment.
It would be misleading in the extreme to claim that the second part of Frederick Douglass's Life and Times is a gripping or compelling read. Little of interest happens to Douglass other than his achieving a fruitful life in terms of supporting his chosen causes, unless you happen to find the finely wrought rhetoric of his many speeches something that demands attention. This wasn't true for me, though I suspect that hearing the speeches delivered live by the great man might have done the trick. But I've found it very easy indeed to break off from reading this part of the autobiography.
On the other hand, I've also found it very easy to pick up the tome and start reading again. There's always much to admire in terms of Douglass's supreme command of his rhetoric, such that just following the flow of his thoughts is pleasurable. And I find it striking just how often I've found myself recognising that this isn't empty rhetoric. The style is allied to substance. The thinking is clear but can be complex, as in his speech on the unveiling of the Freemen's monument to Lincoln, in which the dead president comes in for some pretty trenchant criticism in places, making the praise for his achievements all the more convincing.
Douglass spares nobody, not even himself. But his readiness to praise the good he sees in others, and himself, is deeply refreshing.
Got back from Penang in time to get to the office of our service provider in order to re-establish the functioning of our modem. We've been a bit lost moving around without Google Maps to guide us for a couple of days now, though we somehow managed to get where we wanted to go. Which was a reminder of the seemingly distant past when we get to all sorts of places without any electronic assistance. Mind you, we also managed to get spectacularly lost on occasion. Particularly in Bali for some reason.
By the way, the helpful assistant at the shop who did the necessary for us commented that our modem was very old. That struck me as odd as I had the impression it was fairly new. But since anything that lasts longer than 12 months is now by definition old I suppose I can see where the guy was coming from.
Enjoyed watching the world drain of colour as day turned to night on the beach at Batu Ferringhi. And good food from a very pleasantly appointed beach restaurant made it all even better. Restful, much.
We're very much getting out and about here in Penang. We got ourselves on the funicular railway up Penang Hill in the late morning and spent a few hours in the evening wandering the streets of George Town, playing the role of dedicated tourists. In between we enjoyed the hospitality of our excellent hotel, which keeps a lounge open round the clock with free drinks & snacks in lieu of providing drinks in guests' rooms. Nice concept which definitely suits us.
Just one fly in the ointment. There's a sort of open air restaurant across the road which clearly does good business. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, we just purchased some chicken wings as a late night snack, bringing them across to consume later in our comfortable lounge. But the problem is that at 9.00 pm the live music starts and it's uncompromisingly loud. I thought it might be over by 11.00 pm yesterday, but it went on to midnight featuring a particularly strident female singer who seemed to get more excited as the evening wore on. I thought I would easily nod off to the background noise, but her voice was individually irritating enough to keep drawing attention to itself such that it never quite became background, if you see what I mean.
Not a soothing experience, and sort of being repeated as I write. But tonight we know what's in store and intend to rise above it.
Spent the evening sampling the considerable charms of George Town in Penang. The streets are authentically run-down, yet quietly pulsating with life. We ate at a P, Ramlee-themed restaurant and found ourselves treated to music from the man himself that genuinely sounded amicably charming - and the fact that the food was excellent made for a gently memorable evening.
And since the journey here from KL was uneventfully easy-going, and the hotel we're in is more than a bit pleasant, today joins the count of highly-satisfactory days scored in this vacation.
Took delivery of a new television set today. Now receiving Apple TV, but having problems installing the app which will enable Noi to watch her Malay dramas. Our old Astro box no longer plugs in, so it looks like we'll be abandoning that subscription and watching stuff online. Nice to be able to watch a bit of telly together, but I'm struck by how little we really need this. Still, need to acknowledge we're lucky to have it.
Very glad I decided not just to skim-read the early chapters from Frederick Douglass's Life and Times on his years of slavery on the grounds that almost everything therein is a repeat of the material on those years from My Bondage and My Freedom, which is in itself an expanded account of the pithy Narrative of the Life. For some reason the painful injustices of slavery as experienced by Douglass seemed even more intense on this re-reading and his remarkable strength of personality came through even more vividly than ever.
I'm now embarked on his account of the years of his freedom, so the narrative has a sense of novelty about it as I've only got the vaguest notions of what he achieved in those years. But you wouldn't need to be a detective to guess that his life is going to be an extraordinary one given the qualities he shows in his youth. The man is one of the most abundantly formidable I've ever read of. I'm not sure he always gets it right, but I am sure he lives with an overwhelming drive to do what is right that is deeply inspiring, and chastening.
Enjoyed a neighbourly makan session at our place this evening with Susan & Mike & their daughter, Ashley. Good to catch up on the gossip from the taman, and Malaysia in general, and share tales of adventures overseas - nattering about everything in general and nothing in particular.
Did you know that there are people who need to have the tv series Friends being screened in the background so they can lull themselves to sleep? It seems that the show has been a mainstay of the streaming service Netflix for several years, but now they're dropping their screening, and there's been an outcry from fans who desperately need the comforting familiarity of the many episodes to drop off to. According to the article I was reading about all this, it's the predictability of the rhythms of it all that do the job for these folk, sending them happily to the land of nod. I certainly didn't know this, or suspect anything like it, until I read about the phenomenon today, and I don't think the new information has in any way enhanced my life
Indeed, the way in which I found it out, idly scanning the news just to fill in time, frankly, is strangely reminiscent of what these viewers, or, rather, half-viewers are doing. I'm feeling acutely guilty at the moment at just how little of real value I've accomplished today. I've read hardly anything of genuine value, requiring effort and attention. Just trivial stuff off the phone, with me sometimes scrolling pointless comments on the pointless stories simply to fill in time, it being too much trouble to extend myself further.
So instead of feeling complacently superior to those who employ an old favourite comedy as a narcotic, I'm worrying that I'm only too ready to embrace my own version of brain-rotting substances at the first opportunity.
18.06
A grey day. A lazy day. A sleepy day. A snuggling day. Neat descriptions from The Missus. And we’re on the road. So far, so good. Now supping tea at Ayer Keroh.
20.15
Now munching dinner on the hill after one of the easiest passages north we’ve ever experienced. Talk about smooth-sailing!
22.23
Now installed in Maison KL with most things working. Will be able to stop moving soon!
22.45
Spoke far too soon. Sudden blackout meant we needed to deal with dicey things going on in the main fuse-box. Now celebrating the equivocal joys of home-ownership as things remain dicey. But grateful for a roof over our heads.
Spoiler alert: more first world moaning ahead.
I don't know about you, but I'm feeling increasingly out of sorts with the barrage of advertising I encounter online. Somebody somewhere seems to think I need to subscribe to a course in tai chi for the elderly and interrupts every video I'm watching to tell me so. I'm never going to subscribe to any such course, largely on account of the fact I find the ads so irritating. And weirdly patronising. As are the ads for the six month course in AI that I'll never get involved in.
And why is that every story in the Graun online gets covered up with ads as I'm reading along, often meaning I lose track of where I'm up to? I'm used to the idea of reading as a reasonably soothing activity. Now the online version of the activity is usually mildly unsettling and occasionally feels impossibly fragmented.
The irony of it all is I never buy anything advertised, so if I'm being tracked by the surveillance capitalism they talk about, why don't the capitalists give up on me as a sad loss? I won't mind at all.
We're off to Maison KL next Tuesday, which means we're now figuring out what exactly we need to do whilst we're in residence. It strikes me that I'm quite good at making plans. But not always effective in carrying them through. Mind you, having said that, somehow The Missus and I contrive to keep the place in something like running order, which isn't easy when you consider just how much there usually is in need of repair.
I think it would be reasonable to claim that most of the things I needed to do before setting off north have been done, with one glaring exception that I'm managing not to do by posting to this Far Place when I should be doing it. Oh hum. You'd think I'd have learnt my lesson by now considering my advanced and advancing years. But I somehow haven't.
Even when I wrote that's that towards the end of yesterday's post I was half aware that that wasn't really that at all. I'd failed to mention anything about my most recent purchase from Kinokuniya, that being Conrad's novel Victory, one of the bigger gaps in my reading. And I really should have said something about the biggest gap of all: Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. So embarrassing not to have read the major work by one of my favourite novelists, and I can't honestly explain the gap, except to say I've perused so many of the key sections in excerpts it's as if I know the book already. I very nearly purchased a copy along with the Conrad but then hesitated over which translation to go with. And I've still not really settled that question despite having looked at quite a bit of the debate about current translations on-line. My plan is to buy a copy from the Kinokuniya at KLCC once we've settled into the house, and I've made inroads into the Douglass autobiography and Victory, which I'm starting on this evening.
Plus I was seriously wondering about picking up a recent Stephen King novel from the library at work when I suddenly realised that I had on my desk a brand new copy of Achebe's Things Fall Apart which I'm supposed to be teaching in the first term next year. It struck me that the King was likely to prove surplus to requirements in our time in KL given the pile I'd built up.
The thing is that I want to read all these titles at once. It's a kind of greed, I suppose. At some point I failed to develop an adult sense of self-control with regard to my reading. And it's not getting better with time.
Am trying to get my reading in some kind of order. I'm approaching the end of Video Night in Kathmandu with just the segments on Thailand and Japan to read. There's much to admire in Iyer's essays, but a certain sameness in terms of the humour of the innocent abroad. And, to be honest, I'm finding the material on the sex trade in Bangkok just a bit depressing. Surely there's more to the city than that.
I suppose that accounts for my picking up the LOA collection of Douglass's Autobiographies ahead of completing the travel book. I'll be reading the third final Life and Times when we travel to KL and have decided not to skip the opening chapters on Douglass as a slave despite the fact that much of the material from My Bondage and My Freedom is repeated verbatim. The power and integrity of the work deserve further close reading. In fact, in reading the two opening chapters I was struck by how moving I found the child's separation from his grandmother, something I'd not managed to feel before for some reason.
Sadly I've been struggling to find the same engagement in Henry Vaughan's religious poetry which I'm admiring from a distance. Some great lines here & there, and general enchantment in the music of the verse, especially through its metrical variety, but the emphasis on the worthlessness of worldly existence gets a bit much. I just don't buy into it, I'm afraid, though I'm pretty sure it's not just posturing in the poet's case.
But I do buy into Jazz: A History of America's Music which I'm enjoying in an extremely leisurely fashion - and have been for quite some time now as very occasional reading, usually just at the weekend. Lovely book; great pictures. But too heavy to take up to Malaysia with us.
And on top of all that, my read-through of Finnegans Wake continues sturdily apace. I don't understand any of it. But in my head it sounds great.
So that's that. A bit of a mess, all told.
Got on with discarding lots of the unnecessary today in line with my New Year's resolution. The supererogatory material in question occupied my laptop which now feels lighter. Metaphorically. Strange how few of the documents consigned to oblivion genuinely related to the core business of what goes in my classroom.
Still plenty left to shovel away, though, in the days ahead. A veritable mountain. Happily metaphorical in nature. Not quite real somehow.
Took myself happily by surprise at this evening's session at the gym. Posted my best ever numbers on the elliptical trainer. Just a month ago I was convinced no further improvement was possible and I'm delighted to prove myself wrong. (Having said all that, the improvement is by a single digit. But I'll take the smallest of victories, thanks!)
I don't recall feeling in any way genuinely upset when first reading Pico Iyer's Video Night in Kathmandu back in the day. The ways of life of ordinary people in the Far East seemed comically exotic to me, but perhaps I missed out then on reading the essay on his experiences in The Philippines. In this segment, at the mid-point of the work as a whole, the writer openly states how troubled he is by the poverty he encounters in Manila, and it would take the hardest of hearts not to respond to the struggles of those who scrape not so much a living as an existence at the bottom.
Reading it I couldn't help but wonder whether the young people he encountered back then survived into reasonable middle-age. It's frightening that one has to raise the question, but so easy to imagine them simply failing to cope with the extremes they deal with on a daily basis. I don't know much at all about life in that part of the world but am vaguely hopeful that the passing decades have brought some improvement. The problem is that I know full well I might be wrong in that assumption.
Normally I have no problem watching the kind of entertainment show that Noi sometimes tunes into. The singing competitions can have a kind of gentle charm that makes for easy viewing that doesn't take itself too seriously. But tonight's episode of Gegar Vaganza has crossed a line in terms of sheer shoutiness. It seems fueled by a weird neediness, as if some fundamental desperation to impose on the viewer can't admit of contradiction.
Strangely modern in its way.
Highlight of the day: an uneventful visit to my back doc. No pain, no problem. Did not expect this at my advanced age. I suspect that my regular trips to the gym over the last few years have paid dividends, even if each features struggle rather than fulfilment. Worth keeping this in mind the next time I wonder why I'm punishing myself on the elliptical trainer.
Now reading The Red Sea Sharks - a Tintin adventure, that I received as a gift from Fafa. Loved Herge's books as a kid. And love them just as much now. Indeed, if anything I'm more appreciative of them, recognising the brilliance of the artwork. Every panel involves a treat of some kind and the more complex are jaw-dropping in their detail.
Feeling tempted to buy a lot more in the very handsome Egmont editions. But will manfully resist my inner child. For now, at least.
Came quite close to making a mistake regarding the timing of an important meeting in which I'm involved tomorrow morning. I'd noted the timing in my diary quite a while ago and was confident that I could afford an extra half an hour in bed and had planned accordingly. Fortunately I happened to decide on purging the emails lingering in my inbox, and discovered a recent one with a significantly earlier starting time for the meeting in question. So I won't embarrass myself on the final day of term after all.
This kind of confusion rarely if ever featured in my work in the first half of my career. Why not? Well, meeting times and locations were solidly fixed since our modes of communication were limited. As a result, sudden switches were generally out of the question since predictability was uppermost in our minds in terms of making sure it all worked. But these days last minute messaging regarding unexpected changes sometimes seems the default mode for organisations. Life has become interestingly unpredictable and, I suppose, more stressful for those who care about such things.
Happily, I'm now beyond embarrassment; though broadly speaking I'd prefer to be where I'm supposed to be on the grounds that it makes life just that bit easier.
Some years ago I was given a copy of Pico Iyer's book of travel essays Video Night in Kathmandu. First published in 1988, the year of my arrival in this Far Place, it was quite a fashionable read at the time and I'd already read a couple of the essays when it was given to me. I vaguely recall dipping into the different pieces based on the level of interest I had at the time with regard to the various locations involved, but at this distance in time I don't recall reading the work cover to cover, in sequence.
So it occurred to me that I might as well rectify that omission and see what I make of Iyer's work now we're well into the twenty-first century. And having now read (or, rather, re-read) the first piece on Bali I find myself quite startled by just how dated the writing seems. What was in its small way quite cutting-edge just four decades ago strikes me now as being positively old-fashioned in an almost humorous way. I find it quite a stretch to try and remember just how deeply fashionable Johnny Rambo was in his day and it seems extraordinary that the slightly ridiculous Sly Stallone was seen as something of an idol in the real meaning of the word in these parts.
In fact I realise that the Bali I remember visiting, in the 1990s, was already considerably more developed than the island visited by Iyer in the middle 80s. He laments the loss of an enchantment he experienced in his initial encounters with the place; I think back to my own enchantment with a world that, according to the writer, had already lost its magic.
I suspect our sense of enchantment with special places comes from within and that any world can be magical and is always fallen.
My weariness amazed me on two occasions today. Once in the morning; and again in the afternoon. And it's doing so again now. Not an unpleasant feeling if rest is imminent. But debilitating when there's lots to do. The bitter fruit of age, I'm afraid.
Sometimes the simplicities of rhythm & rhyme are all you need. Carol Rumens's excellent choice for the current Poem of the Week is a telling example. Whilst reading I think that this is the world I really belong to. At other times I'm just happy to pop my head in and sample a better time & place. At least, that is, in imagination.
Still processing yesterday's concert. The level of the musicianship from the SSO was stellar. Wonderful choral work in the Haydn mass and a soprano to die for in the final movement of Mahler 4. Yet somehow I didn't connect, beyond recognising the quality involved.
And in a very different context I found something similar in my reading of Thoreau's Cape Cod. Much as I recognised the craft of the writing it didn't work for me beyond isolated snatches of appreciation.
Maybe I'm in a dry season. Encountering good things at the wrong time. Patience & perseverance are the order of the day. Let's face it. They are all any of us have got when things just don't work.
Back from big helpings of Haydn and Mahler. Wonderful to be exposed to such excellence. But paradoxically made acutely aware of my very real limitations in relation to such heights of achievement.
As I write this, Noi is flying in from Doha. I'll be setting off to the airport in a few minutes and we should be reunited in a couple of hours from now. Life will then settle back into its predictable routines.
And all will be very well, thank you.
Attended a briefing-cum-lecture-cum-workshop related to AI in the school this morning. Found much to admire in the efforts of colleagues doing their best to find ways of integrating those tools-cum-platforms related to this into what goes on in classrooms. But also was keenly aware that the possibilities attendant upon the new technology are so spectacular in their range that the best efforts teachers make are likely to prove inadequate to the exigencies of the Brave New World that lies ahead.
Of course, I can afford to be complacent about all this, being at the fag-end of my career. So I'm looking on with a sort of stupefied curiosity, cheerfully hoping for the best, but darkly fearing the worst.
Indeed, I fear that a significant dollop of the worst is already with us, but we're ill-equipped to recognise such.
I'm just being extremely petty here. But I'm missing the SAC at work and I'm not entirely convinced that the place was in genuine need of refurbishment. I like areas with a run-down quality about them as spaces to hang loose in. And I can't think of anywhere in which to ease my rigid bits during the day at the moment. Mind you, things are essentially relaxed in these final weeks of the school year, hence the admission of pettiness.
I suppose there is something genuinely significant about all this, though. A recognition of the importance of trivialities in the workplace, and how deeply reliant we are on the familiar.
My sore feet performed well enough today, wrapped in decent Umbro socks for protection, taking me to Star Vista in the middle of the day to do a bit of shopping to replenish supplies ahead of Noi's impending return on Friday. So nothing to complain about there. And the shopping centre itself was pleasant enough. They've put up one of those incongruously huge Christmas trees around their main entrance, but otherwise the decorations for the approaching season are reasonably restrained. And since I've got used to the tree being rolled out every November it wasn't too much of a shock to the system.
But the Christmas music in the Cold Storage supermarket was a step too far. It's 11 November, as the date above this post will confirm. It isn't the time to be musing on what Santa will bring, as one lyrically limited tune enjoined. Funnily enough I didn't recognise a single one of the songs played, which all sounded like something you might have heard in the USA of the 1960s. None of them worked in the November tropics.
It's the incongruity of it all that's doing my head in. (A colloquialism expressing an incisive degree of personal distress, for those unfamiliar with the term.)
It's been quite some time since I've had a good moan here about bodily aches & pains. That's largely because I've been very lucky for a few months now in terms of avoiding the unpleasant results of decrepitude as manifested in particularly nasty aspects of the above. But there is a lingering exception to all this positivity which won't go away, and its a bit embarrassing to record it here because it is so low & petty.
The fact is that my feet remain uncomfortably sore on a daily basis and that some effort is required to pretend this isn't so - a genuine walking through the pain. I suppose this is all down to a lifetime's wear & tear (and having oddly shaped feet which are overly wide) and the only remedy, since there is no remedy, is to grin and bear it.
But, frankly, ouch and oh and ouch again.
It would be remiss of me not to say anything about the morning I spent at the Peranakan Museum last Friday. The carefully curated exhibition rooms offer a deeply nostalgic glance over the shoulder at a vanishing world. Hearteningly that world represents the positive aspects of inter-cultural exchange in the region, something in the way of an ideal. And pitching this for students at the level of Stella Kon's appealing play Emily of Emerald Hill makes for an experience that the average visitor will find easily 'relatable', as people like to say these days. (Never thought I'd use the expression in writing, but I'm keenly aware of the need to move with the times.)
One fascinating aspect of the social world on display was the degree to which it expressed itself in what one might reasonably characterise as creatively artistic ways. Female fashions especially seemed to have an unusual weight, as did music and interior decoration in general. Appearances were kept up and meant something.
Funnily enough I experienced something akin to an attack of nostalgia myself in the course of the morning - actually two quite separate onsets thereof. The first came as I approached Armenian Street, on which the museum is situated, from the Bras Basah MRT station. I'd walked through the SMU campus and was crossing the road leading to the tunnel for traffic that avoids the campus when I realised I could no longer picture the old National Library building which had been situated there and in which I'd spent a number of happy hours in my earliest years in this Far Place. The 'new' tourist area around the museum building had been superimposed on an old workaday world pretty much erased from memory.
And the second came as I remembered the first musical I'd been involved in directing, back in 1989 for the school I worked in then. The powers-that-be had already decided to put on Flower Drum Song, wrenching it from its American setting, beautifully delineated by Rogers & Hammerstein, and transplanting it to the Peranakan community inhabiting the East Coast of the island. We ended up borrowing a lot of furniture for the show and getting help from various luminaries associated with that fading world. I'd enjoyed it then, but hadn't really invested myself too deeply in the cultural aspects of our version of the show. Something of an opportunity missed.
All our worlds fade eventually, of course. So best to enjoy them whilst they're around.
Was surprised at just how entertaining I found yesterday's concert with the SSO. Proceedings began with a short 5 minute overture from a late 19C comic opera by some chap called von Reznicek. Pure fluff, tunefully so. I found myself tapping my feet, and wouldn't have minded a few minutes longer. In fact I suspected that I wouldn't have minded sitting through the whole show had it been on the agenda for the evening. And even though the Saint-Sains symphony that comprised the second half of the programme is thought of as a serious piece, again I heard it as something close to aural cheesecake - a sort of happy luxury of sound to listen to. Loved the bits with the organ, by the way. Its sound added a gauzy depth and almost cinematic gravitas just when it felt needed.
But it was Sir Stephen Hough's own piano concerto that definitely provided just what the listener who's in the mood for a bit of impossible glamour required. I came across a version on YouTube today and it confirmed what I thought at first hearing. This is meant as pure entertainment, surely, but entertainment of genuine worth.
Interesting that the composer's own programme notes are so well written. Music of real intelligence as well as feeling.
Not bad for just $21.00 eh? (I claimed the discount for senior citizens.)
Fruitfully busy day involving two trips into the centre of the city - one in the morning to a museum; one in the evening to the concert hall. A bit late in the day to try and summarise each of those experiences, so I'll need to make time for that on the morrow.
But just one thing for now. I managed to spend a few minutes at Bras Basah Complex in the course of the day in a rather nifty second hand bookstore there (pretty much the only viable one left, I think.) And it was there I chanced upon a full box set of King's Dark Tower series for a mere $138.00. I surprised myself by deciding (somewhat indecisively in truth) not to purchase. And not only that, I'm fairly sure I'm not going to retrace my steps tomorrow to hand over the shekels.
The reason? I'm not entirely sure, but I've got the oddest feeling that gazing at the whole series on my shelves will be overwhelming and I'll regret the fact it's there and now MUST be read.
Enjoyed my second buffet meal at Swensen's in as many months this afternoon. As I was engaged in some deep and rewarding munching one of my table companions inquired of me whether I missed English food. The answer came easily: not in the slightest. And thinking about it further this evening it suddenly occurred to me that I'd rate my memories of the lingering smell of boiled cabbage as positively traumatic. The ability of the British to get the very worst out of vegetables in preparing them for the dining table is surely unparalleled in world history.
What I do miss, occasionally, about my homeland is the spoken language. Specifically the way people speak in the area of Manchester that I'd identify as my home in the deepest, most abiding sense. But the extent to which I miss it only strikes me in a powerful sense when I'm there to hear it.
It makes me feel rooted, for want of a better word. Which is odd for someone who has chosen a life of happy exile.
It's a funny time of year for me. In many ways I find myself released from the routines with which I am so familiar. No timetable to follow, for example. Yet I can't help but hanker after those certainties as I think of the final days of the week and work out the logistics of how to make their various pieces fit together. Something as simple as figuring out where to attend Friday Prayers, simple as it will be, feels burdensome at this time of the evening.
I'm pretty good at going with the flow once I'm in the water. It's taking the plunge that's irksome.
I first heard Saint Saens's Organ Symphony, more accurately his Symphony No 3 in C minor, in the early 1980s, when I started regularly attending 'classical' concerts in Sheffield City Hall, featuring the Halle Orchestra. I'm guessing this was in 1984, when this particular experience of live music was something fresh for me. I say this as I recall the piece making quite an impact on me simply because of the sonorities involved with the inclusion of the mighty organ. And also because I couldn't come to terms with the idea of said organ being used so sparingly in the symphony, despite its title.
I'm due to listen to it live again this Friday evening at the Esplanade Concert Hall, and have been endeavouring to be rather better prepared this time round than I was in my callow youth. In those days you couldn't just magic up great music from Apple Music or YouTube as you can in this century, so I had my excuses back then for my massive lack of familiarity with the standard repertoire. But I've taken advantage of said magic this week to have a couple of listens, up close through ear-phones, one of these just being completed. And my verdict is that this is very engaging stuff.
In fact, I'm beginning to wonder if my heart, or ears rather, really align with the French composers of the late 19th century as opposed to their German, or Russian, counterparts. I wouldn't call Saint Saens light or fluffy exactly, but he's a whole lot more restrained than the chaps from further east and there's a lot to be said for music that manages to have real weight yet somehow stays easy on the ear.
Have drawn up a reading list of sorts, to give me some much needed direction & discipline up to the end of the year. This involves going back to the Thoreau and Douglas LOA editions I recently broke away from. I'm now accompanying David Henry to Cape Cod, the last of the four full length works in the volume devoted to his writings on the Maine wilderness. It's reckoned to be the bleakest of his works, which suits my mood. Sometimes you need to embrace discomfort, even if it's only through the pages of a book.
When I first read Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test some decades ago I thought of it as a self-indulgent, repetitively sloppy piece of writing. Meretriciously clever enough to capture something of the spirit of 'hippy-culture' circa 1964, of which I knew next to nothing. I know a little bit more of that culture now from other sources, and I know enough about what it takes to create a world through words to appreciate that I was completely wrong about Wolfe as a writer.
His book is painstakingly crafted and, I suspect, very carefully researched. I can't be entirely certain of the latter but the signs are there. The shifting points of view can be traced to individual participants in the on-going saga of the Merry Pranksters when Wolfe is not around and, when he is, everything rings true regarding his limited participation in and understanding of the culture Kesey and his companions were consciously building. (Not one to last, I may add.) As for the style, once the reader is accustomed to the various devices adopted to re-create the mental atmosphere or subjective reality of it I suppose it starts to look lazy since the acid-head perspective on the world doesn't really change in its broad outlines. But the nuanced detail does shift and there are changes in tone and the geography of events which, reading the text closely as I don't think I did way back when, are substantial.
What is astonishing about Wolfe's book is the sheer energy it manifests, almost over-poweringly at times. As a reader you have to bring a similar level of energy to reading closely. It's temptingly easy to skip the lists, obsessive as they are, but to do so means you are on the surface of this world and can never get inside the minds of the young people Wolfe tries to open for us. And being open & non-judgmental is something he's supremely good at. Does he admire Kesey? Does he despise him? Does he think he's deluded? Genuinely illuminated?
Was Wolfe right to build his narrative around his fellow writer? I think time has vindicated that decision. And the narrative, for there is one, is beautifully shaped, I've come to realise.
Final point, or, rather, pointed question: Why are American writers so good at energy?
Decided to draw a close to proceedings on this first day of the month by spinning Haydn's Te Deum in C major, as performed by Trevor Pinnock and his merry band of men & women of the English Concert and Choir. As with pretty much anything by Papa Haydn (and Trevor Pinnock et al) this was a jolly good idea.
Interesting historical footnote: Admiral Lord Nelson would probably have got to hear the Te Deum on the occasion of his meeting with the great musician. Pretty wonderful to think of the two heroes (in their own fashions) sharing notes in the Eszterhaza Palace. By all accounts they got on well together.
Just back from Changi Airport & seeing Noi off on a European jaunt with Rohana & Sabariah and other friends. They'll be landing in Milan tomorrow as their first base of operations. Happy to bid farewell as The MIssus goes off on an adventure, especially when I'm set to be busier than usual with workstuff in the week ahead and even more boring than I usually am. But the apartment seems a bit too big without her. I like my places of habitation small & comfortable and she's integral to the comfortable bit. Still, she's left behind plentiful goodies and the excellent advice not to play my music too loudly.
A guideline which I'm likely to break any time soon, just to fill the space.
We bought a scrumptious little cake last Saturday afternoon for our two birthday girls. We'd gone to Star Vista to pick up some bits and pieces Noi had ordered from the Nando's there when she spied a funky little stall belonging to Twelve Cupcakes. I'm not all that familiar with their offerings but the cakes at the counter looked appetising enough, and we were well pleased with our purchase when we tucked into it at Fafa's place in the evening. I can remember thinking as the friendly lady at the cake place served us that the business must be doing well given the good service and general sense of well-being.
I was wrong, deeply so. It turns out that the franchise shut down all its branches abruptly today leaving its employees, who didn't see this coming, in a deep lurch. So that nice, efficient lady who served us is probably in a bit of mess now. Or a lot of a mess.
Three observations: 1) don't trust appearances; 2) belong to a strong union if you're not one of the bosses; 3) enjoy your cake while it lasts - which may not be for too long.
Completed what's become a typical session at the gym this evening. No improvement in terms of cardio, so not getting any faster. But a manageable session with no indications of decline. No improvement on the weights, so not getting any stronger. But, happily, not getting any weaker. So, could do better. But not bothered if I don't. A bit like my school reports from decades back. And very much like my response back then. Some things never change.
I've always assumed - intuitively so - that being exposed to Art does us good. I don't mean it makes us better people morally. I take that to be a very doubtful claim. But I've taken it for granted since late childhood that it makes us feel better on a deeper level than just being entertained (though that's not a bad thing in itself.)
Listening to great music, especially the live variety; looking at great art, especially the real thing in a gallery; reading great poetry, great prose, in complete absorption: three prominent forms of artistic experience that do me a world of good, and probably you too, Gentle Reader.
And today I stumbled upon proof of this of the scientific variety. I knew I would, one day. Nice to be vindicated. But, in truth, I think we all know this. It's part of our unfathomably deep programming.
Continued to think about some of the distinctive features of poetry today, in my experience as a reader of the stuff. Pondered on how often a poem that has seemed to me on first reading distinctly unpromising has come to genuine life when I’ve persevered in attempting to grasp how it works.
This is
exactly what happened to me last week when teaching Margaret Atwood’s Salt
to a class. Frankly I wasn’t looking forward to subjecting the poem to any kind
of rigorous analysis since I felt I’d not really grasped what the writer was
doing in a satisfyingly coherent manner. I understood the basic idea and found
the allusion to the tale of Lot’s Wife looking back on the cities of the plain
and suffering the consequences interesting. But getting involved with the
intricacies of meaning wasn’t appealing.
However, by
the time the class and I had done the necessary I felt the poem working for me.
I was seeing the heaped salt glittering by the final stanza as I think Atwood
intended me to. I can’t say I knew exactly what the glittering meant, if it
meant anything at all. But I saw it and that was enough.
It's rare that Carol Rumens's excellent Poem of the Week feature has involved old favourites of mine, but this week proved the exception, with a belter from Dr Johnson. I think I first read his elegy On The Death of Dr Robert Levet when I was at university and it struck me then as a poignantly powerful exemplar of the genre. Robustly traditional yet so obviously personal as to be super-charged with emotion without displaying the slightest hint of sentimentality. Very English in its way.
I've now re-read it some four or five times over the last week. And somehow it has got better each time. Actually, I can account for the 'somehow' with some confidence. Ms Rumen's introductory reflection is typically illuminating. One of her best - especially on the qualities of the rhythmic force of the verses. And the BTL commentary has been helpful in any number of ways, especially in helping me to a deeper grasp of the practicalities of the practice of medicine in Johnson's time.
So, yet again, I'm left to ponder on the strangeness of poetry. The capacity of the genuinely great stuff to grow and surprise and delight afresh over time.
Another happy nosh-up this evening courtesy of a gathering of the clan at Fafa's place. The excuse was a celebration of Fifi's birthday, not that any excuse was necessary. Piles of grub & plentiful laughter over genuinely bad jokes and nothing in particular.
A timely reminder of the things that really matter.
Just back from happy noshing with Pete & Chris & Kishor & Lia. Unfortunately got caught in a bit of a storm going back, on the way to the bus stop. Fortunately we're talking about Singapore rain and not Lancashire rain, so all was well.
Just lately I've been getting a bit excited over news coming from my homeland. It's not exactly a secret that I am and always have been a rabid republican possessed of the entirely rational opinion that it would be an excellent idea to do away with the monarchy. But I've never really expected that this might be achieved in my lifetime. However, the deeply egregious Prince Andrew has been doing a first-rate job of making that slim possibility real.
I reckon there's a fighting chance we might see the back of the whole bunch in the next decade. Here's hoping.
Enjoyed browsing a fascinating list over at Open Culture of the 100 Greatest Novels of All Time according to my fellow-Brits back in 2003. One joyous surprise, that isn't commented on in the accompanying article: Joyce's Ulysses makes the list at 78.
Since the list very obviously comprises genuinely popular favourites (plenty of Harry Potter in there, for example) this is surely proof positive of something that I've believed for years. This supposedly unreadable masterpiece speaks to ordinary folk outside the groves of academe because it's about them and they recognise this. The so-called obscurities of the text are embraced because it's fun to read and everyone likes a good puzzle.
Long day today, which I wasn't entirely looking forward to as it began. After lessons I found myself out at the basketball courts as our guys resumed practice sessions following the break for the exams. And here's the ironic thing: I enjoyed every minute and, if anything, felt sort of recharged by the end of the session. In earlier years when I have been involved in drama I've noticed a similar effect.
Obviously the sense of watching students being able to do something more natural than sitting studying at desks contributes to the feeling of enjoyment. But I don't think it's just that. I reckon it's also to do with a sense of purpose & point. The activity feels educational in the deepest sense, if that sounds coherent? Frankly, there are times when what goes on in a classroom doesn't feel completely right to me somehow.
I suppose I should think this through more deeply. But I'm too old and just can't be bothered. Instead I'll just enjoy the times I really get to enjoy what I do.
Noi and I found ourselves communing with Mother Nature this morning having taken ourselves off to the Rifle Range Nature Park - a first for us, but not a last. Our little outing was partly intended to help The Missus prepare for her forthcoming trip to Italy & Switzerland with Rohana and other chums, on which they are likely to do a fair amount of walking in idyllic spots. She handled this morning's jaunt with ease, so the signs are good. By the way, whilst the location provided excellent access to a close-up view of the natural world (loads of monkeys around!) it wasn't too far from the eateries adjacent to the Beauty World MRT and there it was I later enjoyed a teh tarik to die for, just to make the morning complete.
Sharp-eyed observers will note that for the occasion I elected to wear a spectacularly silly hat, one I picked up for a couple of dollars long ago in NZ. I intend to get full value out of it.
I read bit and pieces of Tom Wolfe's account of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters around the early seventies, when I saw myself, on and off, as a bit of a post-hippy. It was sort of the hip thing to do, I suppose. But I didn't own a copy of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test until I got hold of the Black Swan edition in this Far Place in 1990 or thereabouts. I remember then being mildly impressed at some of Wolfe's clever writing and one or two of the formal features of the text, but not really relating to it on the human level. I didn't have a clue what Kesey was up to or how he saw himself, for example. And I couldn't connect what was going on on the Pranksters' bus with the brilliance of Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. (Or the great movie of the novel, for that matter.)
So my deciding to re-read Wolfe's account was partly based on a desire to try and do justice to the book which had languished on my shelves for so long. And now I'm a good quarter of the way in I'm very glad I did, precisely because the people it involves are coming alive for me. I think Wolfe treats them with genuine interest and insight beyond the obviously ironic elements. There's a whole lot of folly, but it comes across, so far at least, as likable stupidity, of the kind to which we're all prone.
And at times there's tenderness in the writing despite the superficial fireworks. Most of all, I reckon, it's situated in an unstated underlying concern for the well-being of the young people back in 1964 trying so hard to find new ways of apprehending reality. The thing that's so difficult for the reader of today to grasp is their lack of real understanding of just how dangerous the substances they were happily experimenting with might be. The likes of Jimi, Janice and Jim hadn't yet happened. (By the time I was reading Wolfe they had, sadly.)
The ending of Chapter Six, with Hagen's girl, Stark Naked, gone stark raving mad as the Pranksters visit the writer Larry McMurtry hits powerfully home. I wonder what became of her, as I can't help but wonder of all the casualties of substance abuse since then. So many of them.
Still feeling under a considerable spell lingering from the recent SSO concert I went on a search for James MacMillan's Concerto for Orchestra - Ghosts and came across a full version from the LSO that confirmed my sense of how enjoyable the piece was on Thursday. Not sure if this is great music exactly or just extremely entertaining and I don't care. I like it.
As I did everything about the Thursday performance of Bartok's 2nd Piano Concerto which I'd now probably claim as my all-time favourite piano concerto. Now considering I've only heard it four times in full that's a bit of a facile judgement, but since most of my judgements are a bit thin I'll settle for it. Anyway, once you've had the pleasure of hearing Pierre-Laurent Aimard banging it out live all else pales in comparison. The Maestro is a force of nature. I'm not sure I've ever seen a mere mortal's hands move that quickly - or as slowly as they did for the gorgeous encore piece. (My musical ignorance is so deep that I'm still trying to find out what it actually was, but my friend Google isn't helping at the moment. I'm expecting a review in Monday's Straits Times will settle this for me.)
After the electrifying excitement prior to the interval I wasn't really expecting fireworks for the Prokofiev ballet stuff in Part 2 - bits from Romeo & Juliet. And there weren't any. Not for this listener, that is. It was all just satisfyingly lovely.
Now thoroughly stoked to listen to Stephen Hough in November. And feeling distinctly privileged to have access to live music of the highest order.
Still attending Masjid Tentera for Friday Prayers. According to Muis, the Darussalam Mosque was supposed to be back in action last week, but it looks like the closure might be long term. The guys serving at the Al Rayyan Restaurant, where we've recently been popping in for a tea after prayers, reckon so, and they're likely to know being in close proximity to the place.
So it's been an opportunity to explore my 'new' mosque as opposed to just a couple of fleeting visits. And since it's quite a maze of rooms and corridors in its small way there's been something new to discover each week. Today I finally saw the imam in action, which feels a lot more 'actual' than when he's just a voice. And I accessed the building by a different path to the one that winds up the hill.
Realised that much as I love established routines I still have a taste for establishing new ones.
19.27
Now in the Esplanade’s concert hall, waiting for the show to begin. Anticipating good things!
20.55
Half time & Monsieur Aimard crushed it. Jaw now on the floor. Oh, and his encore was the best ever in my listening experience, and I don’t even know what he was playing.
23.00
Back home & managed to eat. Deeply need to get to bed soon. Bit daft to go out on a Thursday evening in an impossibly busy week when I very much needed to do some other stuff. But deeply, madly glad I did.
Just finished reading Knife, Salman Rushdie's account of the horrific attempt upon his life back in 2022. A colleague generously gave it to me on Teachers' Day back in September, otherwise I don't think I would have put it on my reading list. As it is I'm glad I read it as a very interesting account which slipped down easily.
The thing is though, that I can't bring myself to believe the sincerity of the reviewer for Booklist who is quoted in the extended list of quotations in the blurb who claimed: Every electrifying page elicits tears and awe. This is simply not so. There are a few brilliant pages, especially those dealing with the appalling attack itself; there are many thought-provoking pages; and there are a significant number of pages that made me wonder why an editor hadn't told the writer this is all a bit slack.
I feel bad about expressing this degree of negativity, especially over a gift from someone who thinks this is a wonderful book, and especially because the book is a sincere and deeply vulnerable retelling of an extremely painful episode by a man who survived and battled admirably back to a life. But for all its virtues this is, at moments, a deeply flawed text from a writer who, I suspect, isn't aware of those flaws.
I don't want to go on too much about this; it seems, and quite possibly is, unpleasantly ungenerous to do so. But just one simple point for now. Sir Salman notes, with some insight, that we live in a time when privacy appears to many undesirable, an attention-addicted time. He and his wife, he tells us, made a decision to be private people prior to the attack. Very nice for them. But then why go so considerably public about even fairly mundane features of their lives in this account? Isn't this a tad contradictory? Attention-seeking even?
