Something New

Listened to the first track released, Panopticom, from the new Peter Gabriel album today. It's a been a long time coming, but sounds worth it. Made me feel something like young again. Almost.

Remembered seeing Genesis for the first time an eternity ago, third on the bill to Lindisfarne and Van der Graaf. Two loud guys sitting near me, complaining that the young PG wanted to be Mick Jagger. Odd comparison. Even back then he struck me as someone who wanted to be himself.

Reputations

I was mildly taken aback to come across a review of a biography of Norman Mailer in the Graun today having referenced the author last Saturday for the first time in yonks. Bit of a coincidence. And I was even more taken aback to find out that the biographer believes Mailer to be not much of a writer, to say the least: unreadable, ludicrous, incomprehensible, atrocious and hilariously terrible. Now I'd be the first to admit that there are obvious variations of quality in Mailer's work, not least because he wrote so much and so ambitiously, but such a dismissal just doesn't seem fair. Interesting to note that the reviewer of the bio doesn't agree, by the way.

All this got me set me thinking about the fluctuations in writers' (and other artists') reputations after their deaths. I suppose that at one time a damning put-down by an important critic might have meant that a writer would be generally dismissed. But it seems to me that things have changed and mightily so with the development of the web and all its on-going commentary in cyberspace. I sense a democratization of critical assessment. If enough readers like what they read and communicate enthusiasm for it, then a writer's reputation can survive the slings and arrows of higher criticism. 

Indeed, I wonder if this might apply to Mailer himself. I've noticed a heck of a lot of enthusiasm for his work in those review sections frequented by 'ordinary' readers and I've got a feeling folks are going to be reading his best stuff (the non-fiction, I reckon) well into the twenty-first century.

A Happy Mistake

I was listening in arbitrary fashion to a programme about archaeology on the BBC World Service this afternoon whilst driving to Clementi Mall. An archaeologist with a strong German accent was being interviewed and his enthusiasm for his field was delightfully infectious. As I started to focus on the interview he was talking of the beautiness of one of the objects he'd recently rescued from the earth and I was taken by the force of the term, despite its surface lack of correctness. He'd paused when saying the word, as if struggling with the language, and that added to its peculiar charm.

But as the interview went on I couldn't help but notice just how fluent a speaker of English he was. True he uttered occasional mildly clumsy phrases but nothing so obviously wrong as the above. I began to suspect he had known perfectly well that beautiness wasn't actually a word and had decided to make it one in his own surreptitious manner. 

I must say, I'm glad he did. The term conveys something more than the object he was describing as being merely beautiful. It suggests the object functioning as a deliberate manifestation of the quality of beauty in a transcendent manner, as if attaining a significance beyond more than its limited physical self. Writing that I'm aware of how ponderously long-winded and pretentious my last sentence sounds, which is why I like the term beautiness so much since the clumsy mistake of a word does its work by accident.

On The Edge

It's a curious thing that I've never tried to watch anything that the writer Norman Mailer appeared in on telly in the 1960s/1970s despite the fact there's a fair amount archived on YouTube. I'd say that Mailer had the greatest impact on me of any American writer when I studied Lit at university and I've never quite lost my admiration for him, though I've not read much in recent years. Anyway, I thought I'd take a look at a chat show he appeared in with Gore Vidal which popped up on my YouTube feed today and I'm rather glad I did.

It was an episode of the Dick Cavett Show and entirely refreshing in its lack of resemblance to anything you'd get to watch today. Mailer just doesn't care about appealing to the studio audience or the viewer at all and is incredibly unpredictable and edgy, generating the feeling that just about anything might happen on screen and it might not make for pleasant viewing. But he also is determined to talk about what he regards as serious matters using serious language. He comes across as thoroughly unpleasant and unlikable but fascinatingly so.

I was reminded of what made him such a powerful writer. Possibly a dangerous one. I'm not sure he was all that good for the younger me.

Somewhat Loud

I've just been watching The Masked Singer Malaysia with Noi. In truth, I haven't a clue as to what it's all about, other than the fact than various semi-famous folk are singing wearing masks. It's all very bright and brash and definitely loud. By that, I don't mean the singing is particularly strident. Rather everyone commenting on or introducing the singing seems determined to shout - at each other, at the studio audience and at the viewer at home, in this case me.

It's all curiously surreal, possessed of an intensity far exceeding anything its content might reasonably deserve. I can't say I'm a fan, but I can just about understand the conspiratorial appeal of the show.

Paying Up

Spent a fair chunk of the day settling an invoice that landed on my desk. This involved quite a bit of running round for various signatures and photocopying further documentation needed to accompany the pre-existing documentation (thus doubling up on some already bulky documentation.) I suppose all this had a purpose in terms of the financial system employed, but I've long passed the point of being concerned about purpose. I just do what I'm told and am happy to get it all done once I've arrived at that happy conclusion. Fortunately the finance people I work with know what they are doing, so I just follow instructions.

The odd thing is though that I don't remember my work involving much of anything like this for the first two thirds or so of my career, and in the last ten years or so there seems to have been a lot more of it. Times change. Unfortunately.

A Treat

Bit of a delay in posting the above. But it serves as a reminder of the culinary skills of the Missus - in this case as they operated over the New Year weekend to get 2023 off to the best possible start. I thought of saying that it's in simple things that we find the deepest satisfaction, but there's nothing simple about a bowl of oxtail soup once you pay it due attention. And, believe me, I paid this bowl the fullest attention possible.

Gripped

I must admit I'm finding myself enthralled by current developments in the EPL. Who'd have thought that the Arsenal would be seriously looking at a 10-point lead in January? And who'd have predicted they could achieve that by beating Newcastle who'd be in third place when they faced off against each other?

And of course I'm happy at the progress made by the Mighty Reds (the real ones) under ETH. More and more he strikes me as the real deal in management terms. The disciplinary action against Marcus Rashford for the Wolves game looked so absolutely right - and produced the appropriately just outcome.

Having said that, I can well imagine things going awry against Bournemouth in our next game. It's been that kind of season, but that seems to be true for pretty much everyone, which is part of the fascination of it all.

Postscript: And since things by no means went awry against Bournemouth, leaving us level pegging with Newcastle, I find myself gripped even tighter. Now waiting for the City game with some anticipation... 

A Bit Of A Tickle

At the point of testing positive for Covid around mid-December I was pretty much asymptomatic, other than dealing with a bit of a runny nose. So it's been both baffling and irritating that post-Covid I've been dealing with a ticklish cough, prone to bother me in the early hours of the night when I'm lying down. When we were in Melaka and KL it proved fabulously troublesome, keeping me awake, loudly so in terms of my response, for what felt like hours at a time. Indeed, I wondered whether I was suffering from some form of what's known as long-Covid, such was the negative impact of the coughing upon me.

I'm very pleased to say that I appear to have got over the problem, though I still feel the need to clear my throat at fairly regular intervals. I haven't felt the dreaded tickling sensation in the early hours for the last two nights which is a considerable relief, believe me. Strange how something seemingly insignificant, a misplaced tickling, not even painful in itself, can wreak havoc with one's sense of well-being.

Must say, I hope I'm not tempting fate by assuming the problem is over before it can be really confirmed as such. But I suppose I'm at that stage generally where I'm resigned to whatever else might be in store for me.

Somewhat Circular

Managed to get quite a lot of work-related stuff done today. This chimed in with my resolution for the year ahead, to which I gave considerable thought. Not that it was difficult to figure out the nature of the resolution. No, the problem was finding appropriate words for stating the obvious. 

When they eventually came it was their quality of blindingly obvious simplicity which convinced me I'd found the right ones: In 2023 I'm resolved to be resolute. Elegantly circular, I reckon. Or possibly clumsily so. But they do the necessary.