Limitations

Saw Fafa off at the airport this morning for her trip to China and then came back to enjoy a day of rest. Unfortunately this wasn't exactly what I'd had in mind for the day. Actually I'd planned to take myself and the Missus off to the Esplanade to watch Bryony Lavery's play Frozen being done by Arian Pang's company. This wasn't to be due to the lack of availability of tickets. I'd not tried to book until too late since I'd not been sure of whether we were going to be free to watch the play. Must say, I'm pleased at the sell-out for Pangdemonium since I'm pretty sure running a group doing serious theatre on a regular basis on the island is hard work deserving of reward. But, as so often is the case, I'm irritating at missing something tasty when the diet of good theatre here is so thin.

The problem is that nothing out of the mainstream ever gets a decent run - Frozen was on for little more than a week, for example. Even the mainstream musicals come and go pretty quickly so you need to be on your toes to catch them. And the demands of my line of work are such that quite lengthy periods of time are often wiped out in terms of a life beyond. And when it comes to one-off concerts, it's a cause for celebration when we do manage to get to something.

But I also have to admit that if I put a bit more effort in I could get myself to a few more events than I now manage annually. I suppose that the youthful energy that got me to Halle concerts on a weekly basis back in the 80s has thinned out along the way. I suspect I was equally busy then, but less prone to excuses. And just how was it that I managed to turn out to play for Whiston FC pretty much every Saturday in the football season?

Yep, at least some of the limitations I'm moaning about are my own and no one else's.

Revaluation

Before re-reading it I assumed that reacquainting myself with Vonnegut's Player Piano was going to be a bit of a chore. For some reason in my teens I'd somehow formed the opinion that the writing was a bit flat and the novel too long by a third. I now realise what a fine, sustained work PP actually is. True it lacks the stylistic and thematic fireworks of what would follow appearing to be in most respects a fairly conventional piece of sci-fi, but it's a beautifully controlled satire of corporate politics and behaviour, written before most folk had become really aware of just what the corporate world was/is like. Come to think of it, it's hardly sci-fi at all in the usual sense.

I'm guessing I just didn't have any real connection with the essential subject matter of the novel all those years ago and, understandably, just didn't get it. Would that I might be that innocent again.

Tension

There's been much tension in our little household pretty much every night this week, around 10.45 pm. The current series of Masterchef airing on BBC Lifestyle is, as so often, responsible. And I thought cooking was a relaxing sort of activity.

Amazing levels of skill and creativity on display, by the way, despite the pressure. Perhaps because of it, mayhap? At least one of last night's contestants was demonstrably high on adrenaline, and was more than happy to say so.

Genius

I decided a little while ago to purchase an iPod thingy on account of the fact I'd discovered how to download stuff from iTunes onto more than one computer and realised that if I could get said stuff on said Pod thingy I could play it through the stereo in the living room. Thus making life complete. Well, not really, but it would be a nice add-on to the plenty I already enjoy. I've got a reservation or two about iTunes, most of which are based on the fact that from what I can gather the remuneration for the musicians involved is not exactly equitable, but it's all too murky for me to figure so what the heck is my carefully thought through conclusion, at least for the moment. But I'm still managing to drag my feet over actually getting the device and getting down to business. And I think I've figured out why.

The case of Bill Frisell sort of sums it up for me. Browsing the albums available at iTunes I realised that at a conservative estimate I would download at least fifteen immediately. Now I can afford these, but I'm not at all sure I could do justice to all of them in terms of giving them the listening ear or two they deserve. And then I'm pretty sure I would discover in double-quick time some other equally worthy name whose material was urgently in need of making mine.

So as long as I stave off acquiring the technology I can hold back from drowning in the glories of Gone, Just Like A Train and the like. But surely no one can resist something so urgently, wonderfully marvellous for too long? On the Frisell-front I'm a gone case, as they used to say.

The Conversation

It was in my late teens that I first became aware that I wasn't necessarily uncomfortable being excluded from groups, indeed, quite enjoyed being out on the fringe. Edges allow a kind of freedom, assuming one can keep one's balance. So it's with some relief I discover that once again I have somehow avoided the mainstream as, according to a recently consulted source:

The conversation seems to have moved on from blogs to Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook and the rest.

Isn't silence restful?

In Place

Chuckled over an article in today's paper about product placement in new novels for e-readers. Way to go! Literature moving forward, eh? If only Milton had had the opportunity: Of Man's First disobedience, and the Fruit / Of that Forbidden Tree, truly Golden / And Delicious entire, whose mortal taste / Brought death into the World, and all our woe, / With loss of Eden... Paradise regained, I reckon.

Anyway, as I sit here, my tasty Coke Light in hand, I can only hope that some major soft drinks company of internationally high repute will recognise the selling power of this Far Place and smile upon me.

From The Top

Have moved on from Red Harvest to Player Piano, Vonnegut's first novel. It's not my favourite of America's finest successor to Twain, I don't think he really gets into his stride until The Sirens of Titan, but since I've now got all the early stuff in the LoA editions I might as well get a sense of his development and read sequentially. I'm fairly sure that when I first read him as a callow teenager (me, not Kurt) I kicked off with Cat's Cradle and assumed pure genius came naturally thinking badly of PP because it seemed so ordinary. Now I'm looking for continuities.

Actually I'm glad to get away from Hammett for a short breather. Don't get me wrong, I love all the novels, but they are intense in a manner that's quite forbidding. Once you get passed the manner, the sheer style of Red Harvest you realise an awful lot of blood has been spilled and at some level this is meant entirely seriously.

Another short novel I'm quite glad to have come to an end of is P.J. Kavanagh's period piece for children, or teenagers rather, Scarf Jack. It's a worthy enough effort at writing in the Kidnapped, Moonfleet, vein of boys' adventure, but it feels curiously laboured for a relatively modern effort - being published at the end of the 70s. The action bits are readable enough, but it gets more than a little bogged down in thematic concerns related to Irish history Anyway, I'm moving onto one of Mary Norton's Borrowers series in my reading of kids' stuff. I need a bit of charm.

Fed Up

Caught up with newly-weds Kate & Rob on their way from sunny Devon to a three-week delayed honeymoon in sunnier Vietnam. We managed a very pleasant couple of hours of their company in between flights, letting them escape from Changi Airport to Bedok Corner where Noi plied them with chicken rice and tea. I overdid it on kachang phool, normally not an item associated with excess, I know, but we were going on to a wedding dinner in the afternoon following one yesterday afternoon and, in truth, I wasn't approaching my nosh in a spirit of moderation. And all this following our rather splendid seafood dinner for Fifi's birthday last week.

Tonight the Missus tells me we are eating something she terms 'fruit' and that sounds like a jolly good idea to me.

Hard Boiled

A lot of people had done a lot of shooting, but so far as we could tell nobody's bullets had hurt anybody.

Thus Dash Hammett around about the two-thirds mark of Red Harvest. Wonderfully laconic, as flat as reality. But the curious thing is that the violence of the novel is rarely, if ever, realistic, even when characters are getting themselves killed, as they do regularly. What is realistic is the sense that Hammett knows the world of the criminal in a way that Chandler doesn't.

And Chandler would have turned the line above into an elegant wisecrack. With Hammett it's difficult to be sure the wit is intended due to the scrupulous flatness of the narrative. Must check whether Camus had read Hammett in translation prior to the writing of L'Etranger.

Just Having Fun

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's unusual for us to find ourselves out and about when it's still the middle of the week and there's a day at work for me to follow, but last night was an exception. We were celebrating Fifi's birthday out at some seafood restaurant at Woodlands, with a nice view of the Malaysian coastline opposite, and lots of yummy grub on the table. A jolly good time was had by all, with lots of immoderate laughter, which is the way things should be. At least occasionally.