Not Entirely Happy

Finished The Natural History of Selbourne yesterday. A happy read. Now trying to give my full attention to Joseph Campbell's Oriental Mythology. Not so happy, though. The first section on Egyptian mythology featured quite a bit of the pointless human sacrifice that characterised the first volume in The Masks of God sequence. Tiresome seems an inappropriately trivial word to describe the content, but I'm afraid that's how I find it.

Also reread the opening section of Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea today as preparation for teaching the novel. Painful, but pointedly so. What a deeply unhappy book this is, and how right that it should be so.

Things Changing

Found myself mildly thrown by a review of the Dylan concert in The Straits Times asserting that the stuff from Tempest sounded pretty much like the original recordings. Since I failed to recognise either Pay It In Blood (for a good thirty seconds or so) or Early Roman Kings (got it quicker, but it still sounded different) I wondered whether my powers of recall were severely failing me. Then I came across a review of the show in Perth (comprising an identical set-list), from a distinctly more savvy reviewer, that pointed to the differences, somewhat to my relief. However, the Perth reviewer threw me by asserting that Things Have Changed, the concert opener, could be found on Modern Times when I was pretty sure that wasn't the case. I was fairly certain I'd only ever heard this on-line as it's not on any album I own.

I had a highly enjoyable time checking. It only took a glance at the CD cover to establish it wasn't on Modern Times, but then I simply had to play the album, only to discover that what I personally rank bottom of the run of 'late-Dylan' albums, from Time Out Of Mind onwards, is chock-full of wonderful songs. I realised that if the great man (and his great band) had played any one of Spirit On The Water, When The Deal Goes Down, Workingman's Blues #2, Nettie Moore, Ain't Talkin', I would have gone into minor ecstasies. I suppose that's why Dylan in concert can't disappoint: it's all good and since he's bound not to play easily over a hundred songs you'd love to hear, there's just no point in disappointment.

Sending Off

We'd sort of half-planned to go up to KL over the National Day holiday, but decided that our visit could wait until September. One benefit of the delay is that we were able to attend a kenduri at Osman and Rohana's ahead of their departure for the Haj (on Monday.) His shoulder is giving Man considerable discomfort, despite the morphine patches he's been applying, and seems to be the main worry as to whether he'll be able to cope with the demands of the pilgrimage. But he'll have lots of people there to assist him at every stage so everyone's hoping the positives outweigh the negatives.

Certainly he'll have a heavy weight of prayers on his side. God willing, it will be enough.

Still There

Second and third thoughts on Monday's concert - that's how Dylan hits you; it takes time to process.

I'd been mildly worried ahead of the show that it'd be a reprise of 2011, with a lot of repeats. Of course, knowing how the Bobster likes to keep it new it was a very mild worry indeed, and in the event rightly so. We did get, It Ain't Me Babe, Honest With Me, Simple Twist of Fate, Highway 61, Love Sick, Tangled Up In Blue, Thunder on the Mountain and Ballad of a Thin Man again, but Tangled & Thunder were so different as to be unrecognisable (with something like a third of Tangled sounding like entirely new lyrics, or at least ones that I didn't recognise) and the sheer pleasure of hearing the others overrode any sense of dull familiarity. Actually Love Sick always sounds freshly spooky no matter what.

Everything from Tempest, and there was a lot, sounded instantly classic, and was enthusiastically received by an obviously intelligent audience. It's difficult to think of anyone else who manages so decisively not to be a nostalgia act. Even when you get the shivers-down-the-spine-I-can't-quite-take-in-I'm-actually-hearing-this-live stuff part of the fascination lies in the reinvention involved (as opposed to reproduction) and trying to figure why Desolation Row, When I Paint My Masterpiece, Blowin' in the Wind now mean something important again to him. Or why Tryin' To Get To Heaven needed to become jaw-droppingly new.

And then there are the sort of guilty pleasures. I enjoy Adele's version of Make You Feel My Love, and her version of it in tribute to Amy Winehouse in the Albert Hall concert lingers in my mind as something very special, but the warmth that Dylan (and that band!) brought to it on Monday was extraordinary. Sometimes it's the simplicity of the man that beguiles. (I've read more than one account of Time Out Of Mind that writes off the song as lightweight, by the way. But what did the critics ever know?) I was vaguely hoping for one of the songs from the Christian period as well, having been knocked every which way by the Trouble No More set of late, and sort of exploded with delight when we got a massive, pounding Gotta Serve Somebody.

It occurs to me that it's madness to be disappointed over Dylan not playing something since the list of stuff to be disappointed over is endless. All you can do is surrender to the perfection of the moment and be grateful you're there.

Forever Young

First semi-coherent thoughts on the Dylan concert after the initial Oh Wowing:

The great man's voice was in fine fettle, certainly sounding a lot stronger than when he last played these shores in 2011. I recall thinking then, as the concert at Marina Promenade began, that he might not make it through to the end of the evening without drying up. Last night he sounded like he could have gone on for hours. Sadly we didn't get any of the recent standards stuff to showcase just how good he can be, but he impressively held some tricky long notes in Love Sick just to show he can (and because the song demands it, of course.)

The band was loud, to these ears a lot louder than seven years back. I wonder if that might be explained by the fact that the earlier gig had been outdoors and last night we were in the fairly cavernous and, I'm guessing, somewhat echoey Star Centre. And they weren't just loud but distinctly raucous, even when summoning some deep grooves. Dylan played piano throughout in the percussive manner to which we're all accustomed and the piano was very distinct in the mix. In 2011 I don't think I could really pick out the keyboards at all. The result was something wonderfully akin to recordings of Dylan with the Band on the European tour of the mid-sixties. At moments teetering on the edge of teeth-rattling sonic chaos, but emerging clean and triumphant. At times the voice got lost in the mix, but, again, I liked the effort and danger of it all.

I couldn't help but think of stories of Dylan as a teenager getting thrown off the school stage for playing edgily unacceptable rock and roll. I wonder if he felt that young again. I wonder if that explains the constant touring: the need to be entirely alive and vital, the need to be new again.

Ill Prepared

It's been a day of almost constant low-intensity irritation, the kind that wears away at the edges. Not the best preparation for an evening spent in the company of the Greatest Living American and most controversial of all Nobel Laureates. But I'm hoping that after 8.30 pm all will fall into place and due proportion.

Not Exactly Connected

I'm finally getting the hang of reading Gilbert White's little classic The Natural History of Selborne (which, according to its respectable Penguin blurb is the fourth most published book in the English language.) On embarking on my reading I entertained the vague notion that there'd be some kind of continuity in the text, that it'd feature a series of anecdotes concerning the village and its wildlife and some kind of broad, linking reflections from the writer upon his observations. In fact, it's much more disjointed than that, often featuring entirely disconnected observations across a series of very individual paragraphs. 

When you're used to the linking of ideas and a certain flow in what you read this is surprisingly disconcerting. Initially I found it almost impossible to read the more fragmentary segments with any real attention since the markers that help focus attention were often non-existent. But then I found myself enjoying the enviable randomness of it all. This added to the already curious but considerable charm of the work as a whole. After all, what does maintaining the interest of the reader matter when the writer is so obviously engrossed in the minutiae of his subject matter that the reader can only feel that he or she is a kind of intruder upon the good parson's obsessions?

I can't help but quote a few of the most disconnected paragraphs (from Letter XL) to help convey the spirit of the thing, and just because I enjoy them so much:

The grasshopper-lark chirps all night in the height of summer.
Swans turn white the second year, and breed the third.
Weasels prey on moles, as appears by their being sometimes caught in mole-traps.
Sparrow-hawks sometimes breed in old crows' nests and the kestrel in churches and ruins.

I suppose it's all connected by the pleasure attendant upon handling each fragment of the jig-saw.

Nicely Busy

Am sort of rushing around, but in a social manner. Some nosh with chums yesterday evening, a birthday bash with a niece this afternoon, and a chance to view some colourful dancing this evening from our students, without the pressure of having to do anything except enjoy the proceedings. All highly satisfactory. This I could get used to.

A Bit Of Everything

I know repeat visitors to this Far Place are thinking that the old geezer in command only posts about dinosaur bands of the Dad Rock variety. Well, eat your hearts out as I offer proof that there's always something new out of Manchester. To this day, the place has everything you could reasonably wish for musically.

A Crimson Moment - 3

What better way to begin the month than with a bit of the only surviving footage of the five-piece Crimso who recorded Larks' Tongues in Aspic? Wonder what would have happened had the brilliant percussionist Jamie Muir stayed with them. Good as the four-piece were, as captured on The Great Deceiver box set, there was something magical about the band I had the immense good fortune to witness live at the Hard Rock Manchester prior to the loss of their genuinely wild man.

Just love what he does with the bird whistles below the David Cross violin solo that closes the footage. And just hate the fact that the tape runs out at that point.