Light Reading

I've somewhat surprised myself over the fact that I've been thoroughly enjoying reading David Hawkes's translation of Volume 1 of the classic The Story of the Stone aka The Dream of the Red Chamber. The tome in question covers only the first 26 chapters of the full 120 (or thereabouts) and is entitled (or sub-titled, I suppose) The Golden Days. I had it with me back in December in the UK, but read hardly a page, being completely unable to get into it. And then I made a bit more progress in June, ahead of the text being taught to a class I was co-teaching, but only a 'bit' in terms of bits & pieces, without ever feeling comfortable as to what the writer, Cao Xueqin, was up to. The tale felt completely 'foreign' to me.

But after being in a few lessons related to it I started to register some sense of what was going on at a narrative level. Oddly enough it was the connections, tentative as they were, with Proust's A la Recherche du Temps Perdu that began to bring The Golden Days to life for me, as I found myself beginning to grasp the playfulness involved and the quality of refined soap opera.

So after 'completing' the text in the classroom I set out on a rereading, but a highly relaxed one, with no real consideration of following details - essentially just superficially following the 'story'. Even then, I hadn't much of a clue as to plot for the first three chapters. But then the magic started. I began to ease myself into the novel - if that's an appropriate term for a work that bears no close resemblance to any novel I've previously encountered. And now, approaching the end of the first volume, I'm loving it, whilst remaining entirely relaxed about the stuff I don't get, which is plenty.

Just to mention one aspect of the text that lends itself to reading for pleasure: most of the characters are basically good-natured and enjoy life and each other in an uncomplicated manner. It reminds me a bit of the best of Thomas Love Peacock, as in Headlong Hall; the feeling of celebrating a life of pleasure in good yet silly company. Yes, there are shadows; but the light shines and it's nice to step into.

On The Mountaintop

Strange how you can know something and not really know it at all. I've been familiar with the conclusion of Dr Martin Luther King's final public speech, when he talked of having been to the The Mountaintop for many years. And I thought I had some grasp of its context.

But listening to an outstanding episode of The Rest is History podcast this afternoon centering on The Assassination of Dr King knocked me into a loop. I think the presenters themselves were deeply moved by the words of the man as they explained the extraordinary circumstances that gave rise to them. And I've got a feeling that at some level they'd agree with me that something greater than himself was speaking through the man.

And we'd do well to listen.

Going Beyond Further Delight

I'm winding up the little music-themed trio of posts which sort of happily came out of nowhere this week with a brief mention of yet another superlative song/performance/piece. An article I read a couple of days back on the mighty Radiohead going viral prompted me to partake of some heavy listening to live versions of the song in question. And I'm glad I did.

Which is what you too will undoubtedly feel if you click on to the link I've so thoughtfully provided to a stunning bit of them doing the business back in 2016. You certainly won't feel in the least bit Let Down. Hah!

Further Delight

I'm on a bit of a roll at the moment with regard to finding sweet sounds to sooth the savage breast. My hunting around for a video of Dexy's Midnight Runners' classic Geno, after I'd chanced upon the interview with the redoubtable Kevin Rowlands, led to my discovery that he'd revived the band (or band name) some time back and they'd produced some excellent work.

Mr Rowland is looking his age in the video for the stellar Incapable Of Love, but that's the point, it seems to me. The street cred passion of Geno has given way to the weary worn half comical passions of exhausted middle age. And it works like a dream. Blissfully cheesy. What's not to like?

Beyond Hyperbole

In the normal run of things I reckon I can hyperbolise with the best of them (with the possible exceptions of Messers Shakespeare & Marlowe.) But I'm lost for superlatives that might do justice to the Tiny Desk Concert involving Shakti. 

When the link popped up in my YouTube feed I was taken aback since I wasn't aware that the band were actually still on the go as late as 2023. As far as I knew, the recent death of the great Zakir Hussain implied some years of inaction prior to his passing - and it was wonderful in itself to be proved so utterly wrong-headed in that lazy assumption. And since I was vaguely that the Mahavishnu himself, Johnny Mac, had to be in his 80s, I sort of thought, if I thought at all, that his days as a 'live' musician were likely to be at an end. Gloriously wrong wrong wrong!

Immediately I clicked on the link. And went to heaven. I advise all right-minded listeners to do the same.

A Jolly Good Show

Noi and I have been very firmly gripped by the series Presumed Innocent. We finished the last of the eight episodes yesterday having, as usual, failed to guess the killer, and having very much enjoyed not having much of a clue as to the identity thereof. Incredibly good cinematography (if that’s the right word for a tv series. Anyway, it looked great.) Obviously extremely well written and superbly acted. Great entertainment. So what’s not to like? 

Well, just one thing from me. I think the makers of the series may have felt they were saying something important. About stuff & life. Like the psychology of a killer. The pressures of being high powered lawyers. The media in America. The workings of justice. That sort of thing. But I don’t think much of that genuinely worked for me. It all looked beautifully crafted as if it should have depth, but the detective in me suspected it was all surface. 

Just one example. The lawyers were supposed to be brilliant (I think that was the idea.) But at times they behaved like simpletons. Now, I’m happy with the idea that brilliant people are often stupid and pretty much everyone behaves like a simpleton. But not when they are actually doing the job they get paid for. So a top lawyer almost exploding with rage under cross-examination works in an entertaining, dramatic way. But not as a commentary on the way things are. 

Of course, this observation is a bit petty, especially given the pleasure delivered by the makers of the show. But if I can't be petty over an American tv show what can I be petty over?

At An End

Finished Mahmoud Darwish's In the Presence of Absence earlier today. It took me quite some time to read due, no doubt, to the poetic intensity brought to what is referred to as a unique hybrid of verse and prose on the back cover. I had the feeling as I read, especially in the early chapters, that it's one of those texts that is basically untranslatable. Initially it seemed extremely abstract to me, and not in a good way. But I must say that the second half, dealing with the writer's later years in what I slowly began to realise was intended as a kind of poetic memoir, struck me as far more accessible. As he moved from exile in Vienna & Tunis & Beirut & other far places back to Ramallah the specificity of his experiences made my reading a good deal more rewarding. But I was glad to finish, which isn't a good sign. I sort of feel bad I didn't enjoy the book more, but that says more about me and my limitations as a reader than the work itself.

A Dilemma

Had a very jolly time this afternoon zooming into the annual Lit Seminar run by the Gifted Education Branch. I've been employed for quite a few years now as a 'Lit Critic', sort of passing judgment on and giving feedback to various accomplished youngsters presenting their research to and for each other. Since I'm not exactly simpatico with the academic side of lit, and the writing of analysis of such makes me increasingly queasy, I usually feel like a bit of an imposter in the role. But the enthusiasm of the participants always wins me over with regard to the essential worth of the enterprise and invariably fuels my own. Which equally inevitably leaves me with the headache of deciding whether to incorporate aspects of what comes up in the course of the presentations into my own further reading. (But that's a happy enough headache, in its way.)

So now, reflecting on this afternoon's offerings, I'm wondering if I need to get hold of a Collected of Arthur Yap's poems. (There's one published by Epigram Books.) The possibility that the poet might just be the genuinely major figure of the earliest decades of Sing lit had previously occurred to me, but I've never engaged with anything like the full body of his work, and now might just be the time. The problem is, though, that I'm committed to the great Henry Vaughan read-through as things stand and I foolishly jotted down a list of other poets that might well follow, given the contents of my shelves. In the interests of full disclosure these comprise (not in order of merit, chronology, or even personal taste): Clare, Pound, Frost, Tennyson, Eliot, Dryden. Wow, quite a gathering, eh? The thing is, though, that I'm very familiar with all of these luminaries, but Yap would be a lot 'newer'. And I really need to read more from the region.

It was great, by the by, that three of the presentations this afternoon were located firmly in the local scene. I detect a growing confidence regarding the value of the work created in this Far Place. Must say, I'm hoping I might have influenced one or two of the participants to set about creating their own stuff (as opposed to writing dreary analysis - which I managed to avoid saying.) Unfortunately I forgot to round off with that as my final message - the thing about creating, not the slur on analysis. But since most young people have the wisdom not to listen to their elders' advice but do their own thing I doubt there was any harm done by the omission.  

Gripped

We're engrossed in an excellent series on Apple TV - a top rate murder entitled Presumed Innocent. I can only take one episode at a time which led to a bit of a falling out just now as Noi was frantic over the likely demise of the lawyer defending the guy we presume is innocent, desperately wanting to know what happens next. I'm keen enough myself, but two hours of dramatic excitement of an evening is one hour too many for me.

So I'm modelling self-control on this, but I don't think Noi's too keen on imitating me.

Vision And Sound

Glancing back to early January I realise that the repairing we effected then of the Bose sound system we use in the living room was worthwhile. The CD player has survived almost a full eight months of usage and sounds good to these old ears. Played the first Led Zeppelin album earlier and was reminded of just how quickly they established their signature sound. There are mild traces of the inspired psychedelia of The Yardbirds, but essentially it's hard rock - with range, especially in the folkier elements - pretty much all the way. And on a decent system John Paul Jones's fluidly driving bass underpins the whole enterprise in a way that wasn't entirely clear to my naive teenage ears.

Plus, the new telly is now not quite so new, but, so far, reliably steady and not too flashy. I'm hoping for a good twenty-plus years out of it, though suspecting it was probably manufactured with about four in mind. Which brings to mind the fact that we need to buy a new set for Maison KL, the original occupant of the family area upstairs having duly expired after a mere twenty-three years. I hate stuff of an electronic bent that doesn't last and come close to despair at the waste involved.

Losing It

Came close to losing my voice completely in the early part of the day, having been struggling with a sore throat and aching head yesterday evening. It was a reminder of a couple of occasions years ago when I did completely lose my voice in my first school  in this Far Place  and had to conduct lessons through writing on a whiteboard. These days there's not much in classrooms in the way of spaces to write, so if my voice had disappeared completely it would have probably been impossible to go on. Fortunately that didn't quite happen.

I'm hoping that drinking a special potion from The Missus will help things along and my voice will be stronger tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Remembering And Forgetting

It's Maureen's birthday today. Found a bit of time in which to think of my sister when she young, full of promise, and radiant in her way. And remembered how she took care of me when I was just a nipper - at one point taking me to and from school everyday. St Mary's RC School, Denton that was, and she must have been only eleven or twelve and me a five-year-old. I think I might have been quite a handful, especially in those weeks, one in two, when Mum was working shifts and wasn't around when we got home - to my intense disappointment.

Also remembering the care Maureen took of her own girls, and realising how much of her twenties she must have lost to them, though with complete acceptance & grace in her role as a great mum. Better than our own, to be honest, in many ways. Funny to think that we never argued at all as brother & sister, partly because we just accepted we needed to get on with making family life work. Which we did.

Sad to think of Maureen's reduced condition, with the dementia making her incapable of recognising me now - though aware when I was with her back in December that this odd guy was somehow the brother who's now a little 'clever' boy to her. But happy that she's found, at least for the momentary present, some equilibrium and peace having buried two husbands as she told us with relish, more than once. Not really remembering either of them, as far as we can tell.

Expectations

I normally begin the EPL season with some expectations. This time round I decided to start with none and, even though it's early days, I can honestly say those have been fulfilled.

(Though, oddly enough, having watched some of the highlights of the game against the Gooners I thought I saw a few signs of hope. I just don't want to take the risk of admitting this.)

Favouritism

Just in case anyone is wondering, trees remain my favourite species by quite a long way. And I've now decided on a favourite tree: the one pictured above (from two angles.)

Why is it my favourite? Three reasons: 1) Proximity. It's within 50 yards of where we live. 2) Audibility. It houses a lot of birds which conspire to produce glorious birdsong every morning when I pass by. 3) I just like it, and I have great taste.

Consistency

Thought I'd have a glance back at what I was doing on this date ten years ago. It turns out that it was a  weekend and I was working for much of the Sunday in question. Oh, and today also featured a trip to the gym and munching on excellent nosh provided by The Missus. The perfect nasi goreng ikan bilis in this case. Not much changes, does it?

Highly satisfactory in its way. Bills paid, still not on the streets.

Worth It

I loved Dexy's Midnight Runners' debut album Searching for the Young Soul Rebels with a passion on its release back in 1980. Can vividly remember blasting it out of the sound system in Tony's car on the streets of Blackpool on a visit to Stotty's parents' place in August of that year. I had it on vinyl, but I presume we had acquired a cassette tape for the car. It was the horn sound more than anything else that did it for me. A sort of mixture of Northern Soul smoothness and depth with the punch of ska. But I had no idea at all what lead singer & writer Kevin Rowland was all about. I liked the oddly mangled vocals for their obvious passion, but the guy struck me as a bit of a plonker to be honest. And that impression was broadly confirmed by Dexy's subsequent career. Didn't like the second version of the band with the violins, thinking it a bit of a tragedy that the horns had gone.

Fast forward some forty-five years or so, and there I was today listening to an older and obviously wiser Mr Rowland being interviewed for a podcast by James O'Brien. It's a great interview, sounding like an honest, relaxed chat between the two, and is genuinely informative. And it's left me understanding that the younger version of me could be a bit narrow at times in his appreciation of what other young people with a lot more talent were up to, and the pressures that a number of them were dealing with, of which I was fortunately free.

Having had a good listen I played Geno in celebration of our misspent youths, sort of wishing I'd created something a quarter as good in my own.

Proof

I've been carrying out a minor experiment related to my listening to music over the last three weeks. This has involved playing CDs from one of the several sets of shelves I own of them sequentially, without regard to whether I feel like listening to the CD in question at the time. Since there's no real order involved in the arrangement of the CDs, except to say that there's some tendency for CDs purchased at a certain period to end up next to each other, there's a kind of randomness to this process rare in my usual selection of pieces to please my ears. Another rule of the experiment is to pay close attention to what is being played rather than let it become background music. I should add, at this point, that I'm still allowing myself to listen to other stuff, which tends to be music new to me accessed through streaming services & YouTube & the like, in case you think my rules are overly self-denying.

After getting back from work today, and The Missus being out with one of her chums, I thought I'd continue the on-going sequential run of CDs, only to realise that this meant playing Who's Next, the classic album from 1971 by you know who. But therein lay a bit of a problem. Now this might seem odd to you, but I just didn't want to play the CD. I had this very strong sense of knowing it too well (having played it to death at university & beyond, often accompanied by some embarrassing air guitar.) I really thought that hearing it all again, at 4.50 on a Thursday afternoon in the third decade of the twenty-first century would be a disappointing let-down.

But nothing could be further from the truth. I made myself put it on the CD player and by the time the second track, Bargain, was filling the room I was close to some serious air guitar all over again. But happily resisted the impulse whilst even more happily responding to every detail of the playing. So much detail to enjoy. John Entwistle's bass alone worth relishing every inventive second of.

So there it is. The proof of something. Just not quite sure what exactly that something is.

Furrowing The Brow

It was good to see The Graun making Ngugi wa Thiongo's fascinating essay on Decolonizing Language easily available again this week. I'm not terribly comfortable with the great writer's politics, but feel like a nobody next to him given the scale of his achievement and the depth of his engagement with the world. The essay makes me strangely uneasy, though perhaps not really 'strangely' if it's read as undermining my lifetime's work. But this is something worth worrying over.

On The Edge

I don't know about you, but very occasionally, once or twice a year perhaps, I have these days when my body can't seem to decide whether it's about to be ill or intends to soldier through resiliently. I was deeply asleep, almost unnaturally so, when the alarm brought me around this morning and felt more than usually thick-headed for the next hour or so, in which time I needed to wake a number of sleepy-headed young students for the day ahead of them. For some reason the routine felt harder than usual.

And then I proceeded to get on with the day without ever feeling that I was really engaging with it all. Everything seemed to require effort, even stuff that was entirely straightforward. By the late morning I was dealing with an itchy throat. Not quite sore, but not quite right. And by that time I was wondering if I'd get through all that needed to be done, yet somehow knowing I'd cope despite pointers to the contrary. And that's what happened: nothing; except for the fact that here I am, almost at the end of day, still managing to keep going, yet just a bit groggy around the head, and itchy around the throat.

And wondering if I'm going to actually fall ill later, once I'm in bed and the need to keep going has gone. Past experience suggests that by tomorrow I'll have fended off whatever infection has been trying to take over me and all will be well. I hope. Fingers crossed.

In No Rush

I've got several books on the go at the moment, and they are all going slowly, extremely so. I suppose this is likely age-related (my age, not that of the texts in question). The younger me would have got quite impatient at the seeming lack of progress, but the older me knows there are no deadlines involved. The funny thing is, when I picked up Mahmoud Darwish's In the Presence of Absence at Wardah Books I thought I would zip though it, but I can't deal with more than one short chapter at a time.

Can't say the same applies to The Complete Poems of Henry Vaughan, though. I suspected it would take me some little time to read the translations and early verse prior to Silex Scintillans, Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations wherein the real mystical poetry flowers and it did. But it felt worth the effort, just to plug into what seems to me verse typical of the seventeenth century and develop a better sense of what came conventionally to the poets of the period. Nice to get to the decidedly unconventional religious stuff, though, which is where Vaughan's individual talent undoubtedly lies.

Still At The Low End

It occurred to me this morning that much as I was enjoying the bassoon sounding rather jolly, if not downright mellifluous in various baroque goodies, I was neglecting its exploitation by the great moderns, especially Dimitri Shostakovich - always a man for unsettling rumblings in the lower winds. So I put on his Symphony No 13 'Babi Yar' with Bernard Haitink at the helm in a recording I acquired back in 1988 when I was beginning to understand just how deeply serious music could be.

It was a bit of a mistake, I must say, to play the symphony at a good volume. The loud bits are more than just loud. They are panicky loud in a way that gets under the skin, even when you might expect the composer to be essaying a bit of triumph. Actually he just doesn't. I still have got no idea what the final movement is supposed to be doing, except for being weirdly sarcastic about the cowardice of those who put their heads down to survive.

And the slow movement Fears, featuring the most uncomfortable tuba introduction imaginable, takes the notion of the unsettling to the edge. The aural equivalent of an anxiety attack.

At The Bottom End

The music for yesterday's gym session was Walter Becker's Circus Money, an album I've come to regard as up there at the pinnacle of Steely Dan related material. For some reason I was particularly struck this time round by the low wind sounds on a couple of the later cuts - God's Eye View and Three Picture Deal. I think these emanate from Roger Rosenberg's bass clarinet, but wherever they're from they wind wonderfully through the songs in question, giving them a kind of whimsical weight.

After the session I was inspired to seek out a bit more of the low stuff and hit upon the notion of searching for bassoon-based music on YouTube. Happily there's a lot, which means I've got a considerable play-list of such for the long weekend.

My two favourites so far both involve female players of remarkable talent. Marlene Ngalissamy plays a Vivaldi Concerto with consummate taste, blending in rather than dominating, and Katharina Matzler does something similar in a splendid piece by Mozart. The sheer youth of the orchestra playing the latter is a bit startling but even more gratifying.

I don't suppose the bassoon has much glamour about it. Perhaps that accounts for the purity of the musicality of these performances?

Running On Empty

At the end of what felt like a long working week I am tired. Very. Felt sleepy in the late afternoon despite having slept well for the last few nights. Didn't feel like going to the gym, but went. Got a decent session in, which has left me drained. Half enjoyably so; half just plain empty. And in need of a bed. Which is where I am now going. 

A Bit Of A Treat

Just finished a more than generous helping of shepherd's pie. The variety patented by The Missus. I'd stored it in the refrigerator after she'd cooked an abundant supply yesterday evening. It was cold and utterly delicious. And, let's face it, Gentle Reader, no matter how good a day you've had, you haven't been able to enjoy a treat of such epic proportions.

Don't mean to show off, but that's what I'm doing. And I have the emojis to prove it: 😁😁😁.

Hard Thinking

Spent an hour early in the day in a sort of meeting-cum-briefing on AI in education. I'm guessing that similar sorts of meetings are taking place in schools and colleges all around the world. Felt sorry for those poor souls in various organisations dedicated to learning who have to develop some sort of policy or strategy or whatever to cope with what seems to me a genuinely radical moment in world history or world culture or the history of education or whatever. This thing is big and I can't wrap my brain around it as things stand and things are not going to stand still.

It's all very exciting and very destabilising and very frightening if you allow yourself to think those kind of thoughts. As a younger colleague perspicaciously said to me, You're lucky to be retiring soon. Yes, I am.

In Employment

Relieved to get notification today that the Ministry of Manpower has decided to give me a pass to continue working here in 2026.

After celebrating with a cuppa in SAC I got to thinking about my employment history and its attendant good fortune since 1971. Remarkably I've never not been able to work and earn a wage when necessary since I was 15. I got my first paid job working on a production line in the summer holidays of that year, when the school-leaving age in the UK was 15, making me eligible for factory work, and easily got jobs over weekends and vacations from that time onwards. Oddly enough the only period in which I struggled to get a job was in the summer of 1978 when I was applying for a teaching job, my first, and no school seemed to want me. Lots of failures in interviews and lucky to get taken on at Rawmarsh Comprehensive just ahead of the beginning of the school year in September. Which was a particular relief since without that first month's salary I would have been not just stony broke but worryingly in the red. 

Since when I 've never been out of work. Lucky, eh?

Entirely At Ease

Just before her arrival back at the ranch in the early evening, Noi texted me: I am entering the fate. For a moment I was taken aback by the foreboding tone of the message until I figured out the typo. A lifetime spent marking students' work is occasionally useful in broadening one's understanding of the world and its unexpected nuances.

Indeed, it's fair to say we have enjoyed the opposite of an ominous evening now that normality has been restored in the household. Just got back from a relaxing walk across the road to the supermarket, and about to tuck into the last of the quiche. The only fly in the ointment being that Noi is off on her travels again in the middle of the week as she is going with some sewing chums to Indonesia. No doubt it'll be a fruitful trip and in that sense a good thing, and she is already planning the supplies for my good self, which is another good thing. But whether the loudness of the music I'll be playing over the National Day weekend is compensation for the emptiness of our little home is a moot question.

In the meantime I'm just enjoying the moment. And the quiche.

No Real Comparison

Finished Normal People this morning. An engaging read, though I just couldn't connect with the concerns & lives of the young people at its centre. I suppose that's why I had no idea why it ended as it did. What exactly Connell and Marianne are looking for, other than each other, whom they reasonably easily find, I can't figure out. And don't really care, since they are doing pretty well in their lives, as far as I can see. Aside from their odd periods of depression and the like, which strike me as being just a bit non-essential.

On the other hand, the very real concerns of the characters in Douglas Stuart's Shuggie Bain (the last novel I read prior to Rooney's) made perfect sense and gripped me powerfully. I can think of more than one bit that was almost too sad to read, but I'll settle for naming two. The first, the sequence in which Shuggie's mum Agnes eats a pub dinner with her well-meaning boyfriend, Eugene, and he encourages her to drink again after a year of AA-assisted abstinence. You can see the relapse coming and the strange sense that's no one is really to blame makes it worse. The second, the bit in the taxi when Shuggie is off on a mission to find Agnes and the driver assaults him. Or nearly does. In that case the reader is allowed some temporary relief. 

Mind you, other than the fact that reading the novels back-to-back has precipitated these broad points differentiating the two I don't honestly see much of a reason to compare them. They're both well-crafted pieces of writing and it's good to see novelists of some depth achieving what appear to have been popular successes.

Domestic Concerns

Noi has travelled up to KL with Rozita to visit Sharifah, who's in hospital at the moment, and to check on the on-going saga of the new floor in our house there. So I'm left to cope manfully with the basics of feeding myself. Fortunately, more than ample supplies have been laid-in, including exquisite quiche and curry puffs to die for. So no need to be overly concerned about Yours Truly.

On her departure The Missus uttered a gnomic comment about the likelihood of my playing music at a reasonably loud volume. Which is what I'm doing now, so as not to let her down. And, sort of simultaneously, I'm getting on with some reading. Fafa lent me her copy of Sally Rooney's Normal People. Sort of engaging in its exploration of love & sexuality, but not exactly Proust. And not what I'd think of as normal. But each to his own, I suppose.

A Time Of Enchantment

Reading of the death of Allan Ahlberg this afternoon I reminded of that period in my career that was in some ways dominated, happily so, by the enchantment of a number of great writers for young readers. I never actually taught anything by the Ahlbergs but was bowled over by the brilliance of The Jolly Postman and that got me thinking of a series of drop-dead classics by Leon Garfield, Philippa Pearce, Robert Westall, Penelope Lively, Joan Aiken, Jan Mark and Jan Needle, to list a quick seven (which was my response to the obituary.)

Of course, you can't go back, can you? Except you can: through the magic of great story-telling.