A Small Moment

Today the school played host to a competition that draws in teams from schools of all levels from all over the island. By the afternoon the place was swarming with lots of kids, almost all of whom seemed to be having a thoroughly good, extremely noisy, time.

At one point I was walking along a walkway outside on my way to a meeting and two little lads were approaching in the opposite direction. There happened to be a patch of grass to their right and my left. Suddenly one of the lads launched himself sideways, for no reason I could fathom, onto the patch of grass, and proceeded to roll over, laughing exuberantly. His companion joined in the mirth but resisted the desire to achieve take-off. It occurred to me that it would be rather a good scheme to launch myself onto the grass also but I also resisted the temptation as good sense made me aware that it would be 1. difficult to do so whilst carrying two bags and a laptop computer and also 2. highly disturbing to our two small visitors to discover that at least one of the teachers in the rather grand school they found themselves in was quite mad.

Actually it's misleading to say the boy jumped for no reason - you don't need a reason for a swan-dive when you're that age. I think I spent a fair proportion of my childhood rolling around on grass, at least in the summer months. And a jolly good place to be it was.

Family Values

It seems that the first President Bush preferred the Waltons to the Simpsons. This explains a lot.

I was informed of his preference in an entertaining little piece on the World Service on the way in to work. A channel on Venezuelan tv has just cut Homer & family to replace them with episodes of Baywatch as they have decided the cartoon lacks educational content.

Incidentally when I was last in KL I noticed an edition of Lat's brilliant cartoon book (nowadays graphic novel, I suppose) Kampung Boy with a nice commendation from Matt Groening on the cover. Genius recognises genius. The great and good tend only to recognise the obvious. But having said that, someone, somewhere (in Venezuela) recognised the educational value of Baywatch. Now that takes some imagination.

Yet More Aches & Pains

My body decided to let me know it wasn't entirely pleased with the way I was trying to run about fighting various fires this morning by allowing me to experience a biting pain in the vicinity of my right knee. It wasn't so bad when I was standing still, became very uncomfortable when on the move, and got into gritted teeth territory when climbing or coming down stairs. There are lots of stairs where I work.

The nice thing about this kind of pain, apart from when it stops (which it still hasn't), is how it helps to remind one of the joys of not actually feeling any kind of discomfort whatsoever. My own experience of chronic pain over several years, from a bad back, had the beneficial side effect of making me no longer take health for granted, and I have managed, on the whole, to hold to that thought over the last few years of blessed release.

Tonight I'll be devoting a prayer to those for whom such release is denied. It's impossible to imagine the reality of such extremity but only too possible to understand how awfully common this must be.

Fiction

How does the real get into the made-up? asks Seamus Heaney in Known World, possibly my favourite poem from Electric Light. The line jumped out at me on the way home from work (listening to it read on tape), bashing me over the head with its calculated simplicity. The poem itself is based largely around the drunken escapades of Heaney and fellow writers at a poetry festival somewhere near Greece. I assume it to be about a 'real' experience, but the possibility of some deft fictionalising on the part of Heaney cannot be discounted, if only because his own question makes you aware of that possibility.

My answer to the question is: by a kind of magic - which successfully, deliberately avoids any real answer. Frankly, I like the question and prefer it unanswered. I suspect Heaney feels something similar, for the next line in the poem ruefully runs, Ask me an easier one.

A wise unknowing is at work here.

Paying The Price

I'm not a fan of local newspapers, but there are times when they do get it right. On Saturdays The Straits Times usually attempts some kind of feature running across a few pages and will make an effort to cover a number of perspectives on whatever the issue in question is. Yesterday it was looking at escalating food prices, which are hitting the region hard, and focused on typical families in countries from this part of the world. The result was a group of touching and informative snapshots of the kinds of problem faced by people on a daily basis concerning the most basic of needs. It wasn't exactly deeply researched stuff, but it didn't need to be. The simple facts were enough to make one realise that fluctuations in various aspects of the world economy make huge waves for those at the bottom.

One article focusing on foreign workers in Singapore trying to make ends meet with prices shooting up was particularly thought-provoking. And I'm painfully aware I need to do something that goes beyond just thinking.

Seeing The Light

I've been listening, on and off, to Seamus Heaney reading his collection Electric Light on the car stereo. The verse is so densely packed I find I only want to sample two or three poems a time, though it would be easy to just let the tape run and enjoy that wonderful Irish lilt without really trying to take in a word.

This morning, on the way to a rehearsal at work, I listened to Out of the Bag, an unusually long piece for Heaney, blending extraordinary, almost hallucinogenic, memories of the doctor who came for the delivery of various of the Heaney siblings (at least, that's what I assume) with other times and places, Lourdes, a holiday in Greece and (possibly) his mother ill, later in life. The fact that I couldn't quite pin down an exact 'meaning' for the poem, and still can't despite a more leisurely reading later in the day, seems to add to its impact. Being able to be content with something less than full understanding seems to me a necessary part of the experience of reading - the possibility for even greater illumination somewhere down the road is, surely, liberating. As it is, regarding Heaney, I think I can grasp sufficient to 'get it' enough to be satisfied.

A question: could it be that our rage to understand, our will to know, is in itself a limitation on our knowingness?

Limits

There's a kind of tiredness that goes to the very bone, into the marrow, and that's the kind I'm feeling now. Experience tells me, this too will pass. In the meantime, carry it with you, an offering to the dark.

The best evocation of tiredness I know of in literature is Willy Loman's in Death of a Salesman. I read the play at sixteen, seventeen and thought I understood it, but was unable to feel it to the bone, or anywhere close. I saw it performed in Manchester when I had gone thirty and began to grasp it. One of the party I saw it with, younger than me, has long passed the point of weariness.

Tonight I'm closer to an understanding of Miller's fundamental truth. That's the great thing about feeling shattered - it lets the light in. It makes you a little more human.

A Lack Of Exposure

Guitar Craft aphorism: Turn a seeming disadvantage to your advantage.

I put these wise words into practice this evening by listening to the founder of Guitar Craft's one and only solo album (not counting soundscapes & stuff) whilst making exceptionally slow progress on the way home from work on a jammed AYE/ECP. Generally I'm distrustful of completism as a principle in buying the work of musicians I admire in that it seems to play directly into the hands of the record companies, but owning the full set of Exposure seems to me to be simply common sense in that the various versions so thoroughly complement each other. Tonight I was playing what Fripp considers Edition 3, and found myself bowled over by the Volume 2 tracks featuring Daryl Hall. This is the material that Mr Hall's record company, in cahoots with his then-manager Tommy Mottola, tried to make sure never saw (should that be heard?) public release, on the grounds that it would reduce his (then massive) commercial viability.

Hall's vocals on Mary and Disengage are some of the best I've heard from him (he's great on all the tracks on which he sings, but on these he gets into really extreme territory) and, yes, probably would have upset the more fragile end of the record buying public had they ever been exposed to Exposure. But, then, I don't think it's likely they would have been tempted to distress themselves by listening to such dangerously creative material.

According to Fripp's liner notes, Hall's management delayed release of Hall's own solo album Sacred Songs, recorded with Fripp as producer, for three years, again wary of the damage it might do to the singer as commodity. Very protective of them.

Money Matters

For the last year and a bit I've found myself a reasonably regular listener to Business News, or something like that, on the BBC World Service. It's not that I've developed a sudden interest in such matters. It just happens to be what's on as I'm completing the journey to school at a time when I don't usually feel alert enough to listen to music or poetry (via spoken word tapes.)

As a result of this exposure to the wonderful world of finance, I've come to know that we (the world, I mean, in its world economy mode) are either heading for or are in the middle of a major mess. It seems this mess is the result of rampant greed on the part of quite a few people who've made a lot of money recently (for themselves) and lost a lot also (for the businesses they run.)

This may sound cynical, but I don't find any of this terribly surprising.

Fools

The great ones are those from Shakespeare - Touchstone, Feste, and, greatest of all, the uncanny nameless Fool of King Lear. (All originally played by Robert Armin. What an actor, performer rather, he must have been.) When I first read the play in my mid-teens I was aware of making a new discovery about the deepest nature of things, yet with a sense it was something that I'd always known. I recognised the Fool from the first line and I'm proud to say I think I've got something of that quality in me. A few years back I was consciously cultivating that aspect of myself. Say something honest in the right tone of voice and invariably people, sometimes the most unexpected, will laugh.

Now I'm, sadly, too old to play the fool. (Except unintentionally.)

It's interesting to try and figure out, by the way, how the Fool in Lear should be played. Young? Old? Tired? Manic? Crazy? It's the only part I can think of in pre-twentieth century drama that you can play as if he's just walked in from another time and place and make perfect sense in doing so.

And in connection with all this, Noi and I have found ourselves discussing a sequence of old men in the news who can't bear to let go of power, the latest being Mugabe. I hope someone somewhere is licensed to play the fool for that gentleman. He certainly needs one, urgently.