A Matter Of Priorities

Nice to meet up with Yati & Nahar and Mei & Boon this evening - the first time we've all six been together since the lockdown. Sadly the occasion was the wake for Mei's mum who passed away yesterday; hence we were allowed to meet as up to thirty mourners are allowed at one time. A reminder, if I needed one, of what counts in this life.

Still Learning

I thought I knew a fair amount about the history of popular music, including jazz and the blues. Then three days ago I watched and listened to Sister Rosetta Tharpe for the first time. I'd vaguely heard of her but what a privilege it was to finally listen to someone this amazingly good. Now sitting at the back of the class, for the slow learners, but happily so knowing there's more of this to come: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOrhjgt-_Qc.

On The Mountain

I've got four books on the go at the moment and I'm happy to say I'm thoroughly enjoying all four. And I'm reading all at a very slow pace indeed, which I think is adding to the enjoyment. I suppose I'm savouring them all.

One of them is the Collected Poems of Ted Hughes, which has been occupying me for some months now. I've just started on River, which at the time of publication struck me as a bit of a disappointment, I suppose because the original book, like Remains of Elmet, featured an interplay of text and image and the images didn't work for me at all. In the Collected there are no images, of course, and I think River gains by that. Having said that, I was struck by the mixed quality of the opening few poems. The Morning before Christmas struck me as Hughes on something close to concrete top form; Flesh of Light, I struggled with, not quite tuning in Hughes in mythopoeic mode (I think, I really didn't get it, I'm afraid).

Then there's Iain McGilchrist's The Master and his Emissary, regarding which the whole point was to reread at a pace that guaranteed I followed the fine detail of the argument. I'm happy to say it's working, such that material I thought was a bit tricky the first time round turns out to be obvious - and even more convincing. It's a bit like reading a murder mystery for the second time where the biggest puzzle is how you didn't figure out the killer right away the first time round.

The third tome under slow scrutiny is a handsome compendium from Thames and Hudson entitled The World of Islam. It's got lots of fascinating illustrations and features a number of essays from various experts - but of a fairly 'orientalist' persuasion, being edited by Bernard Lewis. It's been on my shelves for a few years and I've frequently dipped into its pages, but never tried to read more than a few pages of an essay at a time. I think I know why. The style resembles that of an encyclopaedia, never really seeking to excite the reader, but strong on basic information. In some ways this is the right time for me to carry out a sequential reading since I know enough to feel that I'm benefitting from the gaps in my understanding being filled in as opposed to learning about the world under view from scratch.

And, finally, the latest thing on the fiction front is a classic I've had in view for some years and never got round to: Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain. I'm embarrassed to admit that I'm highly deficient in German lit and the only Mann I've read is Death in Venice (as a teenager) and Buddenbrooks. I thought both were brilliant, so it's a bit of a surprise I've never got beyond them. Also the status of The Magic Mountain as a modernist classic, with all that that implies in terms of its relation to the work of Joyce and Proust, adds to the puzzling aspect of the gap - though simple laziness probably suffices as an explanation. Anyway, I'm sixty pages or so into Castrop's arrival at Davos and completely bewildered as to where any of this is going, though relishing the detail of every paragraph. An excellent sign.

In The Detail

In a world so astonishingly various, so complex, so incorrigibly, contradictorily plural, how can we ever be sure of the simple truth of anything? It's useful to acknowledge that often, possibly always, we cannot.

But what we can do is attempt doing justice to all that detail, indeed, welcome engaging with it. Which is a pretty good way to evaluate what is likely to be misinformation. By definition fake news is lazy and recognising lazy thinking is not difficult at all.

Making History

The thing about the present is how quickly it becomes the past and how very unstable it is. I remember being vaguely concerned about the counting of votes in Florida in the Bush-Gore face-off, but not with any sense that fundamental democratic values were at stake. How far-off all that seems now, and how strangely innocent - even though politics never is, and never was.

Painful Symmetry

I've been struggling to deal with high levels of discomfort in my right arm - the upper portion - for quite a while now. Marking, both the on-line variety and the pen-in-hand version, isn't easy. But it can be done, which is a small mercy. And it doesn't seem to make things worse - though not assisting in any kind of recovery either. Unfortunately early today, around eleven o'clock, a muscle in my left side, situated around the hip, decided it was time to remind me of its existence by generating a level of discomfort equal, if not greater, than that in my right arm. I felt oddly balanced in terms of the aching diagonal my body seemed to be rotating around for the rest of the day.

The great temptation at times like this is to wallow in self-pity and look at life, the universe and everything in a thoroughly jaundiced way, and I've allowed myself a reasonably deep wallow or two in the course of the day. But the more sensible option, as we all know, is to just get on with things and seek to do what needs to be done, enjoying the small triumph of getting through it all. I'm trying to do that now. Not sure I'm completely succeeding, of course, but I think I'm avoiding accessing the worst of myself, at least for now.

Getting Off

I'm having one of those, Please stop the world, I'd rather like to get off now, days. I suppose having no option but to keep on going is helpful. In its bleak way.

In The Shallows

Surprised myself today when reading about the verdict on the Johnny Depp libel case and realising that somehow or other I know a bit about the background. Celebrity news is not my thing, but I suppose it was the fact this celebrity was suing the Sun sort of interested me since I presumed there was a fair chance the publication had misrepresented the celebrity in question, based on their past record.

In the event no one seems to have come out of this one with their reputation enhanced - though it's fair to say the newspaper in question must have had a reasonable case for running the story they did. Other than that, the emptiness and extravagant waste inherent in the lives of those involved is depressingly striking. I know that sounds judgemental and holier-than-thou, but it looks like straightforward fact to me. The notion that an intelligent and talented guy in his late fifties clings to the notion of the romantic outlaw in relation to imbibing various illicit substances boggles the mind. I mean, you think he might have figured it out by now.

In Depth

Finished the first item on my great Mozart Opera listen-through project for the end of the year today. I'm afraid it took me a full three weeks to carve out the time for genuinely close listening to Idomeneo, but somehow the opera cohered for me over that time. The second and third acts are wonderfully constructed such that even someone with my tin ears can appreciate the glorious, almost seamless, flow of sound from one item to another.

I've been reading the relevant chapter in David Cairns's Mozart and his Operas as I've been going along and today enjoyed his blow-by-blow of the musical delights on offer with which he concludes his account. However, I'm afraid my powers of recall of the actual music were not up to the detail he provides which has caused me to wonder whether to now give the whole thing another spin, this time with Cairns's account in hand rather than following the libretto. I've got a feeling that doing so would prove illuminating, but perhaps in the kind of strenuous fashion I might not quite be up to.

Part of the fascination of Mozart lies in the way that the delicious surface of the music, its obvious delight-in-itself-as-gorgeous-sound, turns out to be just an introduction to its deeper delights.

Hard Times

It's not difficult even at a distance of halfway round the world to get a sense of just how unwelcome the latest lockdown in the UK will prove to be. And if a lockdown doesn't get close to one hundred percent support it's difficult to see it having the desired effect. I can understand why the schools are being kept open, but that exception alone puts the whole thing in doubt. It must be strange to find yourself in a situation when something close to a new way of going about things is demanded but there's nothing in the way of a commonality of desire to achieve what needs to be done.

The degree to which people in this Far Place buy-in to the various measures taken to control the pandemic is striking, but that's been hugely helped by the success (so far) of those measures and the underlying logic of the approach. I don't like having to wear a mask all the time but I absolutely don't mind having to do so because the purpose of doing so is entirely clear. I notice little in the way of Covid-fatigue on these shores, despite the extreme challenges some are facing, possibly because of a feeling that we're winning.

That sense of success may ultimately prove to have been illusory, of course, but just still being in the game at this stage is a boost. It feels good to be able to think that one's efforts, minor as they are, to do the right thing are helping get results.