Something Magical

When I first started buying music on vinyl, around the age of fourteen, I listened to every album I managed to buy as much as possible, to get my money's worth. I reckon that might have involved playing a new LP every single day for a month or more, possibly more than once. I can't recall getting tired of anything at that time. I suppose I was usefully learning to listen. But by the time I graduated from university things had changed regarding the frequency with which I listened and no longer played every album to death - with honourable exceptions. I have a feeling that Springsteen's The River featured in my life with some regularity, and I would have been approaching my mid-twenties by that time. But, as I say, that was an exception to the general rule. 

The result of this intense listening was burn-out, generally speaking. If I gave Fairport Convention's Angel Delight - one of my earliest purchases and one I delighted in - a spin this evening (I've now got it on CD) I reckon I'd enjoy it but find it more than a tad predictable and, therefore, kind of tired. 

But in later years the way I listened, and listen now, to 'new' purchases changed significantly. I might play an album three or four times initially, and then put it on hold, happy to go back to it intermittently but not obsessively. I've rarely found myself so besotted with an album that it demanded extremely frequent listening and generally even those that have hit me hard initially will lose that entirely magical edge in a few months.

However, there remain, I'm happy to say, exceptions and I hit upon one on Sunday morning, and have been repeating the magic this evening. The Yellow Shark bit me hard over the weekend and continues to grip. I hear stuff now in every piece that I've never quite picked up before, with an awareness that next time round the textures are likely to strike me as even richer and I'm likely to notice a detail of phrasing or harmony that I didn't quite pick up previously. The Ensemble Modern have got to be the best people to go to for Zappa at his most demanding, also doing ample justice to the Great Man at his most accessible. Let's face it, if G-Spot Tornado doesn't do it for you nothing will.

It helps considerably that the CD package comes with a highly informative booklet with lots of commentary on the music from FZ himself and from Peter Rundel, the conductor of the ensemble and, I suspect, a genius himself.

Out Of The Storm

We seem to have reached the end of the rainy season in this Far Place. It's a typically sunny afternoon out there, and the birds are in especially good voice. Quite a far cry, I must say, from experiencing the high winds that were sweeping the UK at various times in December. As evidence of such I offer some shots of the sea off the promenade at Llandudno, taken on the weekend we drove there from Conwy, just before Christmas. Take it from me, it was uncomfortably cold out there, and almost impossible to walk against the wind.

The Missus, by the by, is pictured looking out on the blustery scene from a very comfy café in the Imperial Hotel (if I remember the name rightly) that had been strongly recommended by Jeanette. And rightly so - the tea and scones were to die for. Funny how so much fun is available, even in the storm. And, in line with that thought, I should add that the gulls pictured against the backdrop of the mighty ocean were obviously having a very jolly time indeed.

Back In Shape

Felt more than a little gratified on receiving the results yesterday of the latest scans and blood-tests related to my liver to be told it's in good shape - the best numbers since it went deeply haywire back in late 2022. To be honest if anyone had told me back then that I would make a complete recovery with all my various bits going back to functioning entirely normally, I would have thought the idea distinctly unrealistic. So now I am back to normal, or my version thereof, I can only express deep gratitude to those who got me back there, including the powers above.

I followed up the good news yesterday by hitting the gym, and doing pretty well there, adding to my small sense of celebration. I'm well aware this may not last - the fact of our complete vulnerability being one of the big lessons I learned painfully in 2022 - but that doesn't matter at all. The mercy I've been granted so far is more than sufficient.

Crossing The Line

Peasants and townsmen alike were vividly aware that some sort of boundary had been crossed when they burned manorial titles or took their knives to the chicken coop. They reassured themselves that they were enacting a kind of primitive moral law authorized by the National Assembly and the King and which wholly superseded the institutions by which they had been held captive. But not far from the exhilaration of release was the apprehension of punishment. What if they had been led astray?

Thus Simon Schama getting into the heads of his French Citizens as the Great Panic of 1789 descends. And he's wholly convincing, making the middle segments of his wonderful Chronicle of the French Revolution powerfully gripping as you're there with the people as they are bloodily finding themselves. At least, that's true for this reader who has to admit to crossing that line into the sheer heady excitement of violent transgression himself - as a younger man.

I'm finding the book slow reading for the best of reasons - the pleasure of soaking in the details and relishing the sense of illumination and understanding of the world so vividly evoked.

Wisdom For The Ages

Learnt a couple of new words today that come together in the phrase, delulu is the solulu. It seems young people use this to mean something like: 'It's good to be delusional as this can be the solution to one's problems' (I think.) This idea strikes me as being both extremely stupid and oddly wise at one and the same time.

A Disappointment

Went to the big Kinokuniya bookshop over the weekend. I found myself still in possession of some book tokens (from the Lit Seminar last year), which I'd tried unsuccessfully to pass on to some of the youngsters in the family, and intended to trade them in for something that felt reasonably urgent for me to read. I had three books in mind related to historical concerns, but not a single one of these was on the shelves. Oddly enough I chanced upon a copy of Citizens, my current reading, and was surprised at the price - a good one-third more expensive than the copy I picked up in the UK in December. In its way that made me feel pretty good at the 'saving' I'd made.

But in general the expedition to the shop involved negative feelings, and not just about the fact that the books on my list weren't available. What bothered me most was the general sense that the place was getting pretty run-down. A surprising number of the books I browsed looked less than brand new. I came across two copies of Vasily Grossman's novel Stalingrad both of which looked as if some careless owner had been reading them and putting, possibly dropping, them down with no regard for their general well-being. If either one had looked reasonable I would have bought it.

But more than this it was the odd way that the general 'literature' shelves often featured multiple copies of a single text by a writer but simply ignored, or almost so, their other works that grated. Anyone glancing at the section devoted to Dostoevsky would conclude that by far his most significant work was Crime and Punishment with The Brothers Karamazov coming in a very poor second. And most egregious of all, the three rows of shelves devoted to Donna Tartt (which strikes me anyway as two and two-thirds shelves too many) featured multiple copies of The Secret History, implying this is the single most important novel in the English language, and just two of The Goldfinch (and none of her other novel, whose title escapes me.)

I'm guessing this weird stacking has something to do with our old friend 'the dictates of commerce' but I'm not at all sure how exactly this works in the mind of whoever decided what might best occupy the spaces available. None of this speaks well for the modern world, but then few things do.

Really Slow

Thought I might put in a good shift at the gym this evening ahead of my stint there. In the event I didn't, to put it mildly. The only good thing about it was finishing the full hour on the elliptical trainer, though at an embarrassingly slow pace.

What to do? as The Missus so often pithily puts it. In this case not a lot. Just keep going and do better next time, I hope.

Stirring Stuff

I was reading Simon Schama’s stirring account of the Citizens involved in the French Revolution fitfully back in mid-December, but broke off on arrival in Singapore to resume familiarizing myself with the horrors of Stalingrad. Truth to tell, the first 250 pages or so of Schama’s work, with their emphasis on the economic troubles of France under Louis XV and Louis XVI, are fascinating but demanding for a reader like myself with, at best, a rudimentary grasp of how economies work (or don’t, in this case.)

But I’m back on track now with the genuinely gripping parts of this Chronicle of the French Revolution. If a reader isn’t stirred by the fall of the Bastille there’s no hope for them – even if that fall is rendered in less than heroic terms.

Not So Slow

We were given 3 months free subscription to Apple TV in connection with the new telly we purchased in early January. Normally I ignore this kind of freebie, having little to no idea as to what the various streaming services have to offer, and no real inclination to watch anything that's time-consuming. However, I'd vaguely heard of a series entitled Slow Horses in connection with the Apple service and decided to give it a go. 

The series stars the redoubtable Gary Oldham playing a character who's a kind of spy, but a very low-life one, working out of Slough House, a dumping ground for various 'failed' MI5 types, who turn out to be pretty good at what they do. The novels by Mick Herron on which the series are based have got very good reviews from those who know about this sort of thing and I'd been meaning to get hold of one to test the waters, but had decided to put this off until retirement. So the ready availability of the tv version was an attractive option in terms of assuaging my curiosity about the series.

And it's proved to be addictive viewing for myself and The Missus. Lots of unexpected twists and turns and an impressive body-count. Sort of an on-the-edge-of-one's-seat viewing experience in which you convince yourself you have some clue as to what's going on when you really don't. A bit like life, but a lot more exciting.

We're now midway through the second series of six episodes. Not sure how many episodes there are to watch in total, but hoping for enough to keep us going up to April when our subscription ends. (I'm afraid there's not enough of interest on Apple TV from my point of view to warrant spending real money on it.)

Still Monkeying Around

Have been enjoying a fabulously relaxed long weekend for Chinese New Year - and there's still quite a bit of it left to go. It's put me in mind of other such weekends we've had the great good fortune to enjoy over the years, though a number of these were spent rather more busily in KL or Melaka, like the one back in the last Year of the Monkey.

Must say, as far as I'm concerned the motto remains the same: Don't you monkey with the monkey! (especially for all you snakes out there.)