A Moment Of Illumination

At 2.10 pm today I felt utterly miserable. I'd gone down early to a lecture theatre in which I was to give a briefing about an hour or so later, intending to set up my laptop for the accompanying slide show. When I opened the laptop I was puzzled by the blankness of the screen. I'd not shut it down before setting off, thinking that this would speed up the process of preparation. And now, for no good reason, there was nothing to prepare. This had never happened before and I seriously wondered whether the hard disk had crashed or something. (I have no understanding of what that actually means, but I know it's bad, and this looked bad.)

Since I was due to teach for an hour at 2.20 I couldn't hang around and be miserable, so I went off to the classroom to be miserable instead. Fortunately, teaching the bracingly miserable Wide Sargasso Sea helped take my mind off my worries, until I wound up five minutes early to rush down to the lecture theatre to see if the screen had lit up. It hadn't.

Some colleagues began arriving for the briefing and I sort of threw myself on their mercy, pitifully explaining my dilemma and darkest fears. Partly to my mild irritation, but mainly to my huge delight, they didn't take it at all seriously and suggested I simply pressed the button that turns the laptop on for some twenty seconds in order to switch it off (the lights on the side indicated it was on despite the complete lack of action on screen) and then switch it on again. I was gratified when pressing the button actually did succeed in switching the thing off and more than gratified when switching it on again actually switched it on for real: yes, something came up on the screen and the misery and attendant panic were officially over.

So why am I recalling those feelings now? Dear Reader, there is little to match the overwhelming relief of realising that one's darkest fears of not being able to function in any meaningful way in one's place of work have simply evaporated. And I am enjoying the echoes of that relief even as I peer at the screen that caused me so much anxiety just this afternoon.

Coping

We got back to our usual Far Place late last night and so were able to visit Osman at the National University Hospital this afternoon. He's not doing too well. It looks like he caught some respiratory infection whilst in Makkah since he's coughing intermittently, and since he's weak already with the spreading of his cancer it's going to be difficult fighting off the virus.

Fortunately he was not short of visitors and was getting lots of practical attention, like having his back, neck & legs massaged which seemed to help him cope, at least for a while. And just coping in that extremity was deeply heroic.

Not Beyond Belief

Now in Melaka. Having a blessedly quiet time. Viewed some of the commentary on the latest from the White House, post Bob Woodward's book and the anonymous op-ed in the NYT that has inflamed DT. I'd like to say it's difficult to believe but the problem is it isn't.

Dark Matters

I was somewhat taken aback by the final pages of Joseph Campbell's Oriental Mythology. After some interesting stuff about Japanese mythological thought and the practice of Shinto he takes a sudden diversion into various atrocities committed by the Chinese communists in Nepal, post-Second World War. They made for very uncomfortable reading and I'm not entirely sure what they had to do with notions of shared mythological tropes.

After closing the volume I decided it was time to treat myself to my first purchase of a book for 2018, this coming in the form of Art Spiegelman's Maus, which I've been intending to get hold of for the longest time. We took Zahira to the Kinokuniya at KLCC after our arrival here to buy some suitable tomes for her to read, so I grabbed a copy of the Complete Maus, incorporating both volumes I and II, and I read it in just a couple of days. Distinctly unputdownable, but inevitably a dark read, dealing as it does with the writer's parents' experience of the Holocaust and his own efforts to deal with this personal history.

Spiegelman's father, Vladek, is a quite extraordinary character. In many ways he's the ultimately difficult, grumpy old man as Artie tries to cope with him in the final years of his life, and attempts to get from him the story of himself and Anja and their imprisonment in and survival of Auschwitz. And in many ways he's the typical survivor, yet you're always aware that surviving had more to do with simple, inexplicable luck than anything else. Indeed, it seems extraordinary that the much more fragile Anja also made it through - only to commit suicide years later, something that is never dealt with in any kind of direct way in the narrative.

It's the particularity of their story that makes the graphic novel work. Yes, it's a Holocaust narrative, but it's a reminder that every individual's experience of that greater, dark narrative was distinct to themselves. And, of course, most of those narratives terminated tragically early.

Now Listening

Jardin de Al-Andalus, a very fetching compilation of Arab Andalusian music on Eduardio Paniagua's Pneuma label, is merrily burbling away on our newly restored B & O CD player. We've been without such sweet sounds in Maison KL since the early part of the year, when the aforementioned player decided not to bother anymore, for reasons of its own. (Possibly related to age: it was purchased back in 2004 and I don't think even B & O players are necessarily built to last in our disposable age.)

The first thing I played on it, after returning it to its rightful place, was a CD of 4 Tone Poems by Arnold Bax. They sounded as good as ever, confirmation that, when all is said and done, music is best (with food a close second.)

Not So Easy

Saddened to hear that Osman has been admitted to hospital and put in an isolation unit. We followed his progress on the Haj keenly, through updates from Rohana, and were thankful he completed the pilgrimage, against the odds. In fact, in a couple of the pictures taken after completing all the stages he looked much better than I'd expected, given the rigours of the experience. But Rohana had noted that it had been far from easy for him.

In the last few days, since his return from Saudi Arabia, he's been feeling steadily weaker. I'm guessing he's likely to have picked up an infection over there and, given his condition, fighting this is not going to be easy. Our plan is to visit him when we get back at the weekend, though I'm hoping that with the treatment he's getting he might just be released by then. But even expressing such hope seems too glib, somehow. We are left, as is so often the case, with prayer.

At Ease

Got out and about this afternoon to KLCC, largely in an effort to keep our houseguest entertained. Fortunately she's very good at entertaining herself. My own attempts at engagement are somewhat restricted by the ease with which I am able to fall asleep at almost any time of day at all. I put this down to the strain of work in recent weeks, but it could equally be due to good, old-fashioned laziness.

In Residence

Now ensconced in Maison KL with Noi and Zahira after an eventful journey north. We managed to forget the keys to our house and considered turning back at the Immigration on the Malaysian side before we remembered that sister-in-law Rozaidah holds the spare key. So we stopped off briefly at Melaka, whence we'll be returning on Friday. Arrived to find a lawyers' letter threatening us over non-payment of some bills to Astro, which is puzzling to say the least after all the trouble we went to finding their offices in Melaka earlier in the year especially to arrange for payments of bills which had failed due to a problem with one of my credit cards. And doubly puzzling considering we haven't received any letters from them telling us we owed them some money. No doubt it will be fun settling this. I love dealing with faceless bureaucracy. (Oddly enough the people you meet in offices when you're trying to sort out problems are invariably helpful and obliging.)

Anyway, we're hoping to get a few relaxing hours in whilst we are here, as well as finding ways of entertaining our houseguest.

A Bit Special

Another fine morning, this time helping deliver some of the Qurban meat from Darul Arqam to some folks around North Bridge Road. We had niece Zahira with us to assist, and she'll be coming with us to KL tomorrow. What with meeting up with my cousin Paul this evening, having been gladly surprised to discover he's briefly visiting these shores, and attending the wedding of Raihan's son yesterday evening in a rather plush setting at the Airport Hotel up at Changi, we seem to be enjoying an unusually eventful start to September.

Actually it's all slotted into place rather well, considering the potential conflicts of 'time-tabling' all this. I remember telling Raihan & Khadijah that I didn't think I'd be able to make it to the wedding when we bumped into them at Geylang Serai during the fasting month. We have much to be thankful for, as I pontificated to Zahira in the course of the morning's visits, as wise old uncles tend to do.

Perfectly Ordinary

Had a fine morning at Jurong Regional Library. Got down to the vicinity in which the library is located quite early and enjoyed a cuppa at Ya Kun before meeting our guys to set up for the performance. Then enjoyed watching the busy-ness of the library enact itself in what I would imagine to be the highly satisfactory routine of an ordinary Saturday morning. Lots of kids around, most with parents; a fair number of old folks, men mainly, ensconcing themselves amongst the periodicals, which I assume they can't afford to buy to read at home. Or maybe they are just there for the company?

I suppose our performance was part of the routine. The library seem keen to get schools in to use their very handy Programme Zone to put up various items. It was heartening to be working alongside the staff & kids from Kent Ridge Secondary - and I think they found the experience rewarding.

So there we were, creating something happily communal, really for no better reason than the simple, ordinary, deep pleasure of sharing it. A perfect morning, all told.