Looking Ahead

As 2018 staggers to its conclusion I find myself feeling thoroughly refreshed after our brief stay at Mak's house. Had a fine old time with the family and am actually looking forward to the drive back to our usual Far Place since I've decided it will feature quite a bit of Dylan (Bob, not Thomas.) Not sure that Noi will approve, but she's likely to be asleep as I do driving duty. She's got a bit of a cold and didn't sleep terribly well last night in contrast to Yours Truly who effortlessly packed in the zzzzzzs. Not too sure if we might meet with a jam or two on the way back, but I'll be practising patience and singing along with the Bobster if we do.

Now considering the most important business of this time of year: carving out a meaningful resolution for the year ahead. Funnily enough, I never took this seriously in my youth. I'm not terribly sure I take it all that seriously now, actually. But it's fun to fantasise.

With Enthusiasm

The one thing I missed when we were in New Zealand was a ready supply of music. I thought of taking the iPod along to supply the necessary, but decided in the end to travel light. I think that was the right decision since I rarely, happily had a spare moment in our sojourn on South Island. And now I'm very ready indeed to engage in some attentive listening.

The one exception to the general lack of sweet sounds on the trip was the opportunity to listen to music on the plane journeys. The ear-phones on the various flights weren't up to much but I managed to enjoy a fair amount of Dylan on the ways there and back. On the journey out, flying British Airways, I found an odd, highly eclectic selection of various offerings from the great man. Not exactly a greatest hits collection, it seemed more like a grab-bag of someone's particular favourites, but not in any obvious chronological order. The effect of this was to create some very striking contrasts between individual songs, serving as a reminder of just how extraordinarily varied Dylan's oeuvre is, and also to jar me into giving old favourites a fresh listen. For example, I've heard the live version of Idiot Wind, from the Hard Rain album, at least fifty times. But this time round the ferocity of the performance was startling having accessed the track between calmer pieces. The anguish of the singer became more obvious than ever and, for the first time ever, I felt something like genuine pity for him rather than just revelling in the sonic glory of the event.

Ironically on the way back I found myself listening to a very different version of the song. The Singapore Airlines flight we took from Auckland offered a selection from the recently released More Blood, More Tracks featuring the slower, gentler, essentially acoustic version originally intended for Blood on the Tracks. It was a revelation. I've never thought of the song as essentially tender, almost wistful, but that's how it was in this incarnation. And twice as moving as a result. Genius.

And it's the genius of the Bobster that is conveyed so convincingly in Richard F. Thomas's Why Dylan Matters. I'd heard the prof (of the Classics at Harvard) speaking before (on youtube somewhere) of the connection of Dylan's work to the great writers of antiquity, but never quite bought the argument. However, the accumulated detail of Thomas's book on the connection(s) is generally convincing, and even when you think he's pushing it a bit far the sheer excitement and fun of the writing carries you with it. It's wonderful also that real attention is paid to the greatness of the later albums, post Time Out Of Mind, and Dylan as performer in the final glorious phase of his work. Plus you get the clearest argument so far for the genius of Dylan as a master thief. Finally someone who understands the nature of inter-textuality as real creativity.

With all that in mind I'm about to put the ear-phones on and lose myself for a couple of hours. Bye!

Coming Alive

At Mak's house in Meleka. Attended a kenduri for Mak this afternoon. We read Surah Yasin for her.

The house has come to life again, busy as in the old days. Gosh, can't small kids make a lot of noise? And isn't that splendid?

Down To Earth

A day of meetings. Something of a reality check. Though, ironically, the kind of meetings I attend often don't seem quite real.

At An End

07.45 (New Zealand Time)
Now enveloped in the gentle frenzy of getting ourselves to Queenstown Airport to fly back to our Far Place of residence. Will need to adapt routines accordingly. No need for masses of sun block this morning, for example, which is something of a relief. Intending to enjoy the routineless limbo of the in-flight world, as much as I can.

23.35
A very jolly flight indeed, featuring a good deal of Dylan, both in listening and reading terms, and an excellent movie. More anon. Tired. Very.

A Bit Odd

Talk about a packed day! This being our last full day in New Zealand, we've been on the go since 7.00 am trying to get as much done as possible. This has resulted in a number of highlights, too many to count, though I'll just mention Fafa's first bungy jump and my first ever sighting of a real life kiwi (the actual bird, that is) as an indication of the sheer range of our undertakings

The day also featured one of the oddest works of art I've encountered: a version of the classic painting American Gothic rendered entirely in gourmet jelly beans - some 20,000 of them, in 32 different colours. Beyond strange.

Another Happy Day

 

Started the day in Te Anau, popping into the centre of town to see if anywhere was open (we weren't entirely sure, it being Christmas) before moving on to Queenstown. In the event we enjoyed a happily active morning, finding a few places open and quite a few folk around. I managed to read a few of Thom Gunn's poems, having now reached my favourite collection, Jack Straw's Castle. The ones that I remembered as magical were exactly that, and there were several more that spoke to me this time around in ways they'd never done in the past.

The last time we were in New Zealand we'd spent Christmas Day moving north from South Island all the way to Auckland, if memory serves me right. It had been extremely quiet all the way, with almost everywhere shut down, so I vaguely wondered if Queenstown might be much the same. I couldn't have been more wrong. The place was and is happening, in the happier sense of the idiom. I've never seen a beach, and it's a very small one, quite so crowded. It's a tad overwhelming considering how delightfully quiet our holiday has been so far. In fact, it put me in mind of the bustling Blackpool of my childhood. But with the sun shining and ourselves established in a very cosy apartment and very much at ease that's not a cause for any kind of complaint.

Hope you're having as happy a Christmas Day as we are, especially those who keep the season.

A Bitter Pill

As far as I can tell Julia Lovell's translations of Lu Xun's short stories are excellent. I say this based on the sheer power of the stories I've read so far from the Penguin Classics edition, those that appeared in his first collection Outcry. The ironic harshness, often bitterness, of the tales is extraordinary, and so economically conveyed. It's easy to imagine how their first readers must have felt something close to despair with regard to what is being said about China in the early twentieth century. Yet the fundamental honesty and clear-sightedness of the fiction carries with it a sense of hope.

A bit odd to be reading these vignettes of pain at a time of deep satisfaction and enjoyment. But perhaps it helps create a balance of sorts.

Going Sane

 

Words of wisdom just before our arrival at Monkey Creek, on the road to Milford Sound, with regard to the landscape we were about to step into: It will make you feel small and insignificant. Our excellent guide for the day's tour to the Sound was correct. It did. The walls of granite put things into perspective in a big way, as it were.

Aside from feeling small and insignificant I felt hugely privileged to be there, and in all the other locations which engendered such a salutary sense of wonder. Talk about lucky! It struck me, even as I was feeling these feelings, that these feelings felt enormously sane, genuinely healthy.

Ever Changing Moods

Drove south today from Lake Tekapo to Te Anau. Started in bright sunshine and finished ditto, but encountered a number of varieties of rain in between. Fifi tells me that one of her friends who visited South Island told her that the landscapes become rather boring due to their sameness. Does she (the friend in question) have eyes? I experienced a number of feelings during the drive, but boredom didn't feature amongst them.