Jotted down a quick list to day of a number of CDs I just have to buy from those good people at amazon.com. Included a couple of books in there as well. And then decided I wouldn't do anything about the list until at least mid-November. Impressive, eh?
(It's just occurred to me that the owners of the impressive organisation name-checked above might consider me a worthy recipient for some reward for such subtle product-placement. Not likely to happen, I know, but let me make it quite clear that I'm not the sort of person to cling to those anti-Capitalist principles I have been known to espouse once the green stuff has been waved in front of me. Just saying.)
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Back In Harness
Went to the gym earlier this evening for the first time since I had the problem with my back when we were in KL. I could have got back to serious exercise last week, actually, because the problem had pretty much cleared by last Tuesday. That's why I could go to the mosque on Thursday for prayers for Haji, something I didn't think likely to be the case the Thursday before that when nothing seemed to be healing. However, the Missus was adamant that I needed to wait longer before subjecting my leg muscles to a work-out and that seemed sensible to me.
I took it reasonably easy just now, limiting myself to thirty minutes on the elliptical trainer and deliberately under-doing it. In fact I was pleased at being able to keep myself in check in a reasonably disciplined way and not get carried away - though the fact I was thoroughly knackered after twenty minutes contributed to my atypical good sense.
It's a relief that I feel okay now, giving a degree of confirmation that I haven't done myself any damage, but I'll only really know when I get up tomorrow. Part of the pleasure of aging is living on the edge like this - never quite knowing if tomorrow is the day you'll find yourself unable to walk.
I took it reasonably easy just now, limiting myself to thirty minutes on the elliptical trainer and deliberately under-doing it. In fact I was pleased at being able to keep myself in check in a reasonably disciplined way and not get carried away - though the fact I was thoroughly knackered after twenty minutes contributed to my atypical good sense.
It's a relief that I feel okay now, giving a degree of confirmation that I haven't done myself any damage, but I'll only really know when I get up tomorrow. Part of the pleasure of aging is living on the edge like this - never quite knowing if tomorrow is the day you'll find yourself unable to walk.
Monday, September 28, 2015
After Such Knowledge...
Chanced today upon a long and detailed review from the online London Review of Books of the recently published KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps by Nikolaus Wachsmann. It's obviously a brilliant and necessary work, and one the world must be thankful for, but I'm not sure I could bring myself to read it. Getting to the end of the review, elegantly written as it is, was difficult given the level of depression the content engendered. It felt so strange to complete the final paragraph and get to the magazine's usual line: We hope you have enjoyed reading this free book review...
No I didn't. Nobody could.
No I didn't. Nobody could.
Sunday, September 27, 2015
A Taste Of Paradise
The only complaint I can think of regarding Ursula Vaughan Williams's eminently readable biography of her husband is that just the mentions of the great pieces of music for which RVW was responsible make me urgently desire to listen again to the pieces in question and I haven't got time to do so. Can't blame her for that, though.
Tried to deal with the problem today by bunging on Sancta Civitas and donning the ear-phones to get as up-close and personal as possible. Chose this since I've been haunted by it ever since first getting acquainted in the 1980s, yet for some reason I've not played it as often as the symphonies and Job and the other obvious stuff.
Gentle Reader, it blew my mind. When the solo violin kicked in at about the mid-way mark with the pentatonic-Lark Ascending-sort-of-phrasing I felt as close to heaven as I'm likely to get in this life (and maybe in any other.) I know the old chap purported to be an Agnostic but it's a very peculiar kind of unbelief that can cut right through to the heart of things, if you ask me. This man had seen the Holy City.
Tried to deal with the problem today by bunging on Sancta Civitas and donning the ear-phones to get as up-close and personal as possible. Chose this since I've been haunted by it ever since first getting acquainted in the 1980s, yet for some reason I've not played it as often as the symphonies and Job and the other obvious stuff.
Gentle Reader, it blew my mind. When the solo violin kicked in at about the mid-way mark with the pentatonic-Lark Ascending-sort-of-phrasing I felt as close to heaven as I'm likely to get in this life (and maybe in any other.) I know the old chap purported to be an Agnostic but it's a very peculiar kind of unbelief that can cut right through to the heart of things, if you ask me. This man had seen the Holy City.
Saturday, September 26, 2015
Worth Celebrating
Addendum: And whilst we're on the subject of celebrations, just thought I'd mention the Mighty Reds sitting pretty at the top of the league. Now I know you're going to say It's early days, and you're right. That's why I thought I'd get a minor bit of celebrating in just now, while it lasts.
Friday, September 25, 2015
A Good Story
Since I didn't have a novel to hand after completing A Man of Parts I opted to read Ursula Vaughan Williams's biography of her husband as my on-going good story, and I'm very glad I did. (I think I was influenced by a sudden moment of recall that RVW had Wells's Tono-Bungay in mind at the end of the London Symphony which somehow made it feel natural to move on from reading about the novelist to doing similar with regard to the composer.) It's not at all an academic biog, being more in the way of an anecdotally gossipy sort of memoir. The musical life of RVW is firmly at its centre but in a very practical, grounded day-by-day manner: his work as a teacher, the on-going involvement in all sorts of festivals, the correspondence from friendships with other composers: that sort of thing.
The funny thing is that, as well as enjoying the relaxed looseness of it all, I'm finding myself developing a very clear sense of the great man. And I really mean 'great'. The relentless artistic development which sort of starts late and slowly and then just keeps going and going is almost without parallel and surely a model for us to not go gently into that good night. I've just reached the point at which he's composed the 4th Symphony and taken everyone by surprise with its glorious discords. He's clearly regarded as a senior in his field making grand final statements and no one knows he's not yet half way through the symphonies (nor through his wives, not having met his biographer-to-be yet.)
What a guy!
The funny thing is that, as well as enjoying the relaxed looseness of it all, I'm finding myself developing a very clear sense of the great man. And I really mean 'great'. The relentless artistic development which sort of starts late and slowly and then just keeps going and going is almost without parallel and surely a model for us to not go gently into that good night. I've just reached the point at which he's composed the 4th Symphony and taken everyone by surprise with its glorious discords. He's clearly regarded as a senior in his field making grand final statements and no one knows he's not yet half way through the symphonies (nor through his wives, not having met his biographer-to-be yet.)
What a guy!
Thursday, September 24, 2015
An Element Of Risk
Eid al Adha 1436
The grim news out of Makkah - they're now talking about over four hundred pilgrims dying in the stampede at Minah - puts our decision to put off our attempt to get visas for the Hajj to next year in a very different light. Combine this with the tragedy of the crane toppling over in the storm a week or so ago and I'd have to say I'm relieved we didn't try and go, though perhaps if we were there we'd see it differently. Of course we're wondering about the safety of those who did go, especially Ustad Haroun and party, but the reports don't seem to suggest that pilgrims from this part of the world were involved. Not that that makes much difference given the appalling loss of life. Selfishly I'm hoping this will mean even more safety measures being put in place for next year, where we are very likely to be there, insya'allah. But given the very real efforts by the Saudis to ensure crowd safety I'm puzzled by what could have happened. No doubt more will emerge.
Meantime it's not exactly safe back in this Far Place, I'm afraid, especially for those with respiratory problems. The haze is back with a vengeance, as bad as I can remember it, and the air is officially in the unhealthy range. So even breathing's risky these days.
The grim news out of Makkah - they're now talking about over four hundred pilgrims dying in the stampede at Minah - puts our decision to put off our attempt to get visas for the Hajj to next year in a very different light. Combine this with the tragedy of the crane toppling over in the storm a week or so ago and I'd have to say I'm relieved we didn't try and go, though perhaps if we were there we'd see it differently. Of course we're wondering about the safety of those who did go, especially Ustad Haroun and party, but the reports don't seem to suggest that pilgrims from this part of the world were involved. Not that that makes much difference given the appalling loss of life. Selfishly I'm hoping this will mean even more safety measures being put in place for next year, where we are very likely to be there, insya'allah. But given the very real efforts by the Saudis to ensure crowd safety I'm puzzled by what could have happened. No doubt more will emerge.
Meantime it's not exactly safe back in this Far Place, I'm afraid, especially for those with respiratory problems. The haze is back with a vengeance, as bad as I can remember it, and the air is officially in the unhealthy range. So even breathing's risky these days.
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
Not Entirely Restrained
We decided to fast today, ahead of Hari Raya Haji tomorrow, this being a time when voluntary fasting in Islam is common. We then broke the fast over at Fahmi's where we went for prayers and food. The food was excellent and plentiful. So I suspect we'll remember today for its excess as much as its restraint, though we've experienced a fair amount of both.
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
Revaluation
I'm so used to reading stuff afresh that I first read as a teenager and responding in a completely different manner this time round that I've come to expect and enjoy the experience. My ability to almost completely forget a good deal of the original reading experience plays a significant role in the process. I seem to be particularly good at forgetting how novels end.
But this doesn't usually apply in the same way to music, except insofar as some albums have lost their original magic for me. I notice the clichés now. However, one magical exception for me over recent weeks has been my sort of rediscovery of Van der Graaf Generator. My purchase of a number of their albums, both recent and of the seventies, both live and in the studio, has alerted my ears to things they somehow missed first time round. This applies to the whole band, but especially the drumming of Guy Evans. If you'd have asked me a couple of years ago what I thought of him I'd have said that he overplays and is a bit too busy for my liking. I certainly would not have thought of him alongside the mighty Bill Bruford or even Phil Collins (with whom I saw him share a stage many moons ago, when all three of us had a lot more hair.)
What was I thinking? Now I put him right there at the very top. Astonishing playing on everything I've been listening to lately. There are some Peel sessions he plays on around 1977 featuring on the live from the BBC double CD set, with the five piece, violin-based version of the band, on which I just can't listen to anybody else because he's so darned perfect just playing in a straight-ahead, four square, almost punk manner.
I just listened again to H to He Who Am The Only One, the only VDGG album I actually possessed as a teenager (everything else I borrowed from friends) to check out the drumming since somehow or other it had never stood out for me and I wondered why. What I realised was that I knew almost every drum-beat on the album, but had somehow assumed that this was sort of routine so the playing had become just part of the musical wallpaper for me. (It doesn't help that the production kind of blends everything together into a bit of a mush.) Listening to it now I heard the drums as they would have really sounded on stage and, believe me, it was quite something.
As usual, it's a fine thing to find out how wrong-headed I've been. And now back to side 2 of the album I thought I knew inside out and back to front. Yowza!
But this doesn't usually apply in the same way to music, except insofar as some albums have lost their original magic for me. I notice the clichés now. However, one magical exception for me over recent weeks has been my sort of rediscovery of Van der Graaf Generator. My purchase of a number of their albums, both recent and of the seventies, both live and in the studio, has alerted my ears to things they somehow missed first time round. This applies to the whole band, but especially the drumming of Guy Evans. If you'd have asked me a couple of years ago what I thought of him I'd have said that he overplays and is a bit too busy for my liking. I certainly would not have thought of him alongside the mighty Bill Bruford or even Phil Collins (with whom I saw him share a stage many moons ago, when all three of us had a lot more hair.)
What was I thinking? Now I put him right there at the very top. Astonishing playing on everything I've been listening to lately. There are some Peel sessions he plays on around 1977 featuring on the live from the BBC double CD set, with the five piece, violin-based version of the band, on which I just can't listen to anybody else because he's so darned perfect just playing in a straight-ahead, four square, almost punk manner.
I just listened again to H to He Who Am The Only One, the only VDGG album I actually possessed as a teenager (everything else I borrowed from friends) to check out the drumming since somehow or other it had never stood out for me and I wondered why. What I realised was that I knew almost every drum-beat on the album, but had somehow assumed that this was sort of routine so the playing had become just part of the musical wallpaper for me. (It doesn't help that the production kind of blends everything together into a bit of a mush.) Listening to it now I heard the drums as they would have really sounded on stage and, believe me, it was quite something.
As usual, it's a fine thing to find out how wrong-headed I've been. And now back to side 2 of the album I thought I knew inside out and back to front. Yowza!
Monday, September 21, 2015
Still Mending
Enjoyed the minor miracle today of actually feeling better: a distinct improvement in my lower back and environs which became apparent around 9.00 am, once I'd ironed out the crinkles attendant upon getting out of bed and really started moving around, led to a very cheerful day. Once you've reached my age you realize you can't take these things for granted, which makes them all the more marvelous when they take place. The human body is a wonderful thing, isn't it? - even a decrepit one like the one I'm lucky enough to get to manage.
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