English Music

I'm finally getting my reading on track after a hesitant couple of weeks. This morning I finished Peter Ackroyd's wonderful Albion: The Origins Of The English Imagination. I had already dipped into the penultimate chapter English Music having noticed that its main concern was the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams and I enjoyed it even more the second time around having got a better idea of what Ackroyd regards as the essentials of the English imagination. It seems to me utterly right that he chooses to focus on VW rather than Elgar, though the latter gets an honourable mention. One line in particular, concerning VW, jumped out at me for its personal applications: His music is instinct with that sense of belonging, so that the act of listening to it becomes a form of homecoming.

I'm now considering rereading Ackroyd's novel English Music. I found it the most difficult of all his novels when I first read it but I remembering enjoying it, especially the brilliant pastiche of Blake's prophetic books. The problem is though that I frequently consider rereading Ackroyd's early novels and can't afford the time for such a digression. I think if I had to name my favourite novels then First Light and Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem would be vying for places right at the top of the list. As it is, though, his latest book The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein lies enticingly on the shelves and I've promised myself a reread of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein Or, The Modern Prometheus before I let myself loose on it.

And all this in the shadow of our imminent trip to England (and France) on which I've vowed to take only one or two books to read in recognition of the fact I'll be buying more when we get there.

Meantime I'm pressing on with the very English Pat Barker and her distinct music, but finding The Ghost Road heavier going than I expected.

Loud And Clear

Noi is off jet-setting again. She's gone to Penang, to cook for and attend a wedding, taking one of the local budget airlines to get there. Happily for me, she'll be back early tomorrow - the morning flight being cheaper than the one in the afternoon - bringing with her niece Ayu (who'll be experiencing her first time ever on a plane.) Also happily for me, Noi got cooking to in the later part of the week in order to provide for yours truly. I'm just heating up a sensational oxtail soup having munched a fabulous salmon fishcake earlier in the day.

Noi parting words to me involved, amongst other things, a quip about my being able to play 'my music' extra loud. She knows me well. Although I don't really consider the present volume (I'm playing Yes's Relayer in the other room) particularly loud. Others might, I suppose. Anyway I must say I've been enjoying a fairly disparate variety of disks today, generally accompanying me as I've been working. (Quite unusual for me, actually. I can't listen to music as I mark, for example. But today's work was, for the most part, utterly routine to the point at which real thought was hardly necessary.)

I kicked off with a bit of Bax, Symphony No. 5 and the tone poem The Tale the Pine Trees Knew. I'm thinking of playing this again later, after the Liverpool - City game as a way of signing off for the day. After that came Pink Floyd's Umma Gumma (the studio album) Joni Mitchell's Hejira, Gentle Giant's Octopus, Depeche Mode's Exciter and Yusof Islam's Roadsinger. All of which, including the stuff from Yes now shaking the living room, reminded me of how much I've got that I don't get round to playing anything like enough. Riches indeed, at whatever volume you choose.

On The Run

If you happened to be in the HDB car-park behind the Darussalam Mosque in Clementi just after Friday Prayers you would have been exposed to an extremely rare sight: i.e., my good self running, or rather trotting, I suppose, at a reasonably fair lick. It is over a year since I ran anywhere, due to the problems caused by the trapped nerve in my lower back. So why the sudden burst of energy? It was part of a desperate attempt to avoid being soaked by the rain which had suddenly decided to fall.

Ironically, on my way to the mosque I had been congratulating myself on the fact that it was not going to be necessary to carry an umbrella with me as it was an unusually fine day for this wet November, with no sign whatsoever of any imminent precipitation. How wrong I was, though I was not aware of the fact until I was on the way out. Normally you can hear the rain coming down from inside the mosque but today there wasn't a sound or any kind of hint of a storm, so I'm assuming it began just as I was leaving.

But this is a story of celebration - for two reasons. First of all, although I was fairly wet by the time I made it to the car, it took less than fifteen minutes to get almost completely dry. It's the climate. Even the greyest November day here is essentially warm. In Manchester I'd have suffered for hours if I'd got that wet.

And secondly, I was actually running, and do not appear to have done myself any harm. I've been pain free now - I'm talking of sciatic pain - for two weeks. I'm starting to believe that the trapped nerve has mysteriously and wonderfully untrapped itself. If this is the case I can seriously begin to consider seriously exercising this tired old body of mine. And I didn't think that would have been possible even a month ago.

Rushing To Judgment

When I was last in the excellent Kinokuniya bookshop in KLCC in Kuala Lumpur a couple of weeks ago, I found myself sorely tempted to buy what looked like a tasty little tome by Ian MacDonald entitled Revolution In The Head. This was on the music shelf, being a sort of run-down of all the tracks recorded by The Beatles (241 of them, it seems) with other bits of essay-like pieces thrown in. It looked enticing for its chubbiness alone, but the various words of praise from sensible sort of chaps like Noel Gallagher dotted over the cover and on the first of the inside pages made it even more attractive. However, somehow I held back (having already purchased two other books when I had promised myself to abstain until I was in England) and this proved to be an unexpectedly wise decision. Last Friday I came across the same edition in the NTUC just across the road at the Esso petrol station on their cheapo cheapo book rack, just one copy, going for a mere 9 bucks! It was duly snaffled.

And duly perused over a less-than-routine weekend, basically because with the usual pattern of things disrupted, a book that could be easily, painlessly dipped into at random was about the only thing I could really settle to read.

And for once the blurb was spot on. It's a great book, a real labour of love. MacDonald is illuminating in every respect but particularly on the musical content of the songs. He brings a genuine sense of expertise to what one might loosely term popular criticism.

But there's one aspect of the book that puzzles and fascinates me in roughly equal measures, with a dash of something like irritation thrown in. He is extremely clear in his judgments of almost every song and not afraid to rubbish what he regards as rubbish. But the problem is that quite a bit of what he rubbishes seems to me to be well worth equivocating over. Whilst his expertise, and obvious love of the group, might seem to earn him the right to judge decisively, it's a bit hard to take scathing dismissals of songs like Helter Skelter. In this particular case it had never occurred to me that anyone might dismiss a track I just assumed was universally accepted as brilliant. Oddly enough I can relate to his particular criticism here, cannily related as it to the development of heavy metal and the song's relationship to that dubious genre, but it seems to me that to belittle a track that has meant so much to so many - presumably to the likes of U2, for example, electing to steal it back from Charles Manson - somehow is missing something about the music somewhere.

As I have noted before, the deep-seated need we seem to have, in matters of artistic judgment, to divide the sheep from the goats is one that we might all usefully question, and possibly restrain.

A Dangerous Man

Caught an interview with Noam Chomsky on the World Service on my way into work today. I think it was one of the Hardtalk series. The interviewer did a good job of challenging Chomsky whilst giving him reasonable room to develop his ideas (the political, not linguistic ones), but it was one of those times when the thirty minute format just wasn't enough. I could have listened to several hours of discussion of this depth and quality.

Which leads to an interesting question: given the epic amounts of time available to cable news, why is it we don't get hours of quality discussion? All they'd have to do is get someone like Chomsky on board with a decent interviewer, let the cameras roll, and they could fill their schedules for almost next to nothing. I suppose they'd answer that nobody would watch, but somehow I doubt that that would really be the case. Chomsky sells well enough and could be wrapped in enough controversy to generate a reasonable audience. Perhaps the real problem is that too many people would watch?

Just as a matter of interest, I've never heard Chomsky when interviewed being other than dryly and painstakingly logical. I suppose that's why he doesn't sound at all like the usual talking heads.

Extremely Ordinary

By 5.30 this afternoon the rain had set in. It wasn't coming down terribly hard, but it was drearily persistent in that spoiling manner to which we are so accustomed in November. The day suddenly felt dingy and dirty and sort of over somehow.

But none of this mattered in the slightest. Because Noi was back home from hospital and the tea was hot and plentiful and the kerepok was suspiciously easy to munch. And there we were, catching up on the events of the day, as usual, trying to figure out what we needed to do for the rest of the week, as usual, and aimlessly gossiping about just about all and everything, as usual.

What stopped it being as usual as it usually is, is that we'd not been able to do this for several days, and been reminded that we rather take for granted that we'll always have business as usual. We won't. But we'll relish how sweet it is while it gloriously lasts.

Confirmation

I've just popped home from the hospital where I've been for most of the day. Noi is looking a lot better and seems to be responding to the antibiotics the doctors have been pumping into her. She's walking reasonably comfortably, though still in some discomfort, and it looks like she won't be going under the knife. Indeed, she thinks she might be out of there by tomorrow.

Her being ill has been confirmation - not that I needed it - on how completely I rely on her for just about everything.

Now getting ready to go back to her bedside, and there's no place else I'd rather be.

Not So Forgettable

Very odd day. Spent the morning and early afternoon at a workshop related to the use of the voice. Spent the evening at East Shore Hospital whence Noi was admitted in the early afternoon. The cause of her stomach pain remains a mystery, despite a CT scan and the attentions of an excellent doctor. So she's now under observation in a safe place, particularly since it's not impossible they may need to whisk her into an operating theatre pronto.

We were lucky to have Siew to help her out this morning in taking her to the doctor again and the hospital, and then Fuad, Rozita and family to make sure she had all that was needed. I'm not much help, I'm afraid, just something of a helpless spare part.

Forgettable

The day started badly and just got steadily worse. As I woke up the rain came down, in the kind of grey storm typical of this rainy season, setting the tone for the whole day. And at the same time Noi started to complain of a really bad stomach ache. Since then she has been nastily, queasily ill all day, poor thing, and has now taken to bed, the only place she can get some relief.

We're hoping for better things tomorrow.

Found Wanting

Why is there so much emphasis these days on how much people must want something in order to validate their getting it?