In The Neighbourhood

Not sure if it was a wise thing to do, but I got out for a run this morning, circumnavigating the taman, for the first time in quite a few years. Since running at West Coast Park earlier this year didn't do me any lasting damage I thought it worth taking the risk of trotting around the estate and getting a bit of exercise here. And it was certainly enjoyable. In distinct contrast to working out in the gym, I don't feel running in the open air to be any kind of imposition. Far from it, in fact; it feels something like freedom.

And then there's the sense of genuinely getting up close to where we live. It engenders a feeling of something like belonging. There's so much detail to take in of the happy ordinariness of it all, of life just going on.

Second Childhood

Zonked out to an unusual depth just now listening to Debussy's ravishing La Boite a Joujoux, his ballet pour enfants of 1913. I'd rate this in my top five of impressionist pieces alongside Ravel's La mere L'Oye. I suspect the part of me that never grew up is calling the shots on this one, and I'm more than happy to let it.

The Quiet Life

Earlier today, with her usual perspicacity, Noi remarked on the dominating feature of life in our comfortably working abode in KL: It's very peaceful here. And it is, to the point you forget we've actually got neighbours here on the taman. Must say, this suits my present mood which is one more than ready to embrace the easy quietude of it all. Even my musical choices today have tended in the direction of the gentle and mellifluous. I'm now playing Dylan's magisterially sleepy-headed Shadows in the Night, a disk worth the admission fee just for Donny Herron's utterly beguilingly gorgeous pedal steel, rightly prominent on every cut. If this isn't the perfect choice for late-night listening when you're licking the wounds of the day I'd like to know what is.

The problem in all this is that it's just so easy to give oneself up to the ease of it all. I need to force myself to get stuff done. And I'm not just talking about work-related matters, which, funnily enough, I've had no problem getting on with for a couple of hours today simply because I'm accountable for it and it has to be done. It's the unaccountable that needs the willpower to get moving on.

To which end I've been persevering on Stephen Kotkin's Stalin: Paradoxes of Power 1878 - 1928. This is the first volume in the writer's acclaimed three volume bio of the Russian tyrant and it's easy to see where the acclaim comes from. The detail Kotkin provides is overwhelming in a good way - you know this is the real deal in terms of in-depth research and it feels (if that's the right word) insightful. The problem is that the reader has to provide enough energy to live-up to that of the writer and it's hard (but rewarding) work. 

In tandem with the bio I'm also starting out on yet another novel I really should have read years ago but somehow didn't. I'm ashamed to admit I've never read anything by Stendhal and I'm now rectifying the omission with The Red and the Black. It's about time.

Switching Gears

How good it felt after completing the Dawn Prayer at 6.30 am to get back into bed and nod off for another two hours and some minutes. And how good it felt to arrive here at Sungai Petai yesterday leaving enough time to iron out the creases before taking to our bed. And how good it felt to wander just now along the road side up to the little mosque for an unhurried Friday Prayers.

It even feels reasonably okay to get with some unhurried marking, listening to Dylan sing of paying dues just getting through, thinking that if this is how I need to pay my dues I'll settle for it.

And some time later, in the capital: How bad it felt stuck in a 1 hour, 20 minute jam, hardly moving, just beyond the Sungai Best toll into Kuala Lumpur. I suppose this sort of thing has a flavour of natural justice about it. In its way, balancing the day out.

Fullness

A full stomach is a blessing, but one that's a bit too full is a reminder of the need for moderation in all things. Fortunately the time for feasting is at an end, at least for the moment. And whilst I'm on the topic of filling up, unfortunately those good people running the exams for IB seem to enjoy filling my inbox with emails regarding scripts that require re-marking on appeal. Just when I thought it was all over...

Feeding Time

Now facing the not unwelcome prospect of consuming a great deal of grub over the next couple of days. This evening we're off on our annual Hall Outing, cunningly going back to the stellar buffet at Swensen's. (There's one just up the road now.) And tomorrow it's going to be the Teachers' Day lunch at some hotel or other.

This is in addition to the fact that the last few days have seen a proliferation of snacky items arriving at our place: some brought back by Noi from her Indonesian jaunt; other bits & pieces arriving as the advance guard of the goodies that come my way for Teachers' Day. Chances are that the numbers of such will increase tomorrow and it's likely we'll be taking a fair amount north of the border, assuming we get time to pack it away before setting off.

As I said, not unwelcome. But I'm keenly aware of the need to put the brakes on and not to give too much room to the gods of gluttony. Back in the long-ago days of my early manhood I certainly had that capacity, evidenced by a waist that demanded trousers a few sizes up from those I now fill out. I really don't want to need to have to move up a size or two in my dotage.

Energised

Made a conscious attempt to throw off yesterday's creeping lethargy. I was keenly aware from early on this morning how easy it would have been to surrender and allow for a gradual winding down of all systems ahead of the holiday break - which will kick-in when we take off to Alor Gajah this coming Thursday. I was powerfully tempted to abandon any kind of target for the marking of scripts for the day, especially when I suddenly realised just ahead of setting off for work that I'd forgotten about some checking of submissions for IB and would need a couple of hours just to get that done. In the event I did the checking and marked my quota of scripts and got a few minor but necessary tasks out of the way. And it's still relatively early in the day, so I can easily manage a session in the gym this evening. Must say, I'm unreasonably pleased with myself for my discovery of the energy needed to get it all done.

Funnily enough I'd been thinking of the virtues of energy over the weekend, after viewing Christopher Nolan's excellent film on Friday evening. It struck me that what I'd found so engaging about The Odyssey, above its obvious technical qualities, was its sheer oomph in terms of telling a good tale. The film-maker had somehow managed to string together all the great little bits into one pulsating whole, and had done so through a obvious determination to make it all cohere, even in its contradictions. The whole point of his Odysseus, it seems to me, was the lack of any consistency in the great hero - except for consistently being heroic in some broad sense in the many and varied situations he had no choice but to deal with. And I must say that I reckon this is true to Homer's original, a character possessed of the many-sidedness you'd expect in a figure dreamed up by the fertile imaginations of many and varied bards, fascinatingly coalesced into the 'official' version that maintains unity through the kind of imaginative generosity we allow ourselves when we know we're making it up as we go along.

Above all I thought that Nolan's re-telling of the discursive epic worked wonderfully well in the way he managed to jump - with relentless energy - from narrative to narrative: from Telemachus's tale, to the fall and sacking of the great city, to our hero canoodling with the lovely Calypso, to the monstrous Cyclops (and subsequent encounters of Odysseus and his crew in their peregrinations on whatever sea they are sailing), and back to the bloody reckoning in Ithaca. Maybe I had a bit of an advantage in having been soaked in the stories from being a kid, as I found it easy and enjoyable to follow, but from what a few of my students have said of the movie I get the feeling that contemporary film-goers have enjoyed the weaving of it all into a master design.

Oh, and one other thing. It struck me that the director had elicited great performances from pretty much everyone in his film, something that isn't the result of just sitting around to see what happens. If I ever have to cite an example of perfect casting, this would be it.

The End Of Something

The month reaches its close and I feel a bit like closing down myself. It's been one of those days when any effort has felt like an effort, if you know what I mean. I'm hoping that tomorrow's new month will feel like a refreshing new start; but I'm too wise, too old, too knowing to count on that.

Slow Reading

It took me just over a week to read Samantha Harvey's Orbital - which I completed this morning, having saved the final four pages for a leisurely read before getting on with my marking for the day. Since the whole novel (novella?) comprises just 136 pages I can't make up my mind whether I'm pleased or embarrassed that such a slight text took me so long. 

Pleased because: this is a work that in its sheer intensity cries out to be read slowly.

Embarrassed because: time was I would have read that number of pages in a day, or possibly two, and I'm really just making excuses for an old chap's lack of focus. 

Anyway, I reckon it's a brilliant book. In almost every way highly original. Gem-like in its beauty. And convincing in its often radiant picture of our poor planet in a similar light.

Found And Lost And Found

Noi has returned from her adventures in Surabaya and Malang, so life is returning to its usual satisfying routines here. I met her at the airport just now where she arrived happily on time after a smooth flight, but unhappily without her watch which she had taken off in the restroom at Terminal 2 before getting her luggage and left behind. When she tried to retrieve it, it had gone. I assumed for good, but we made a report at the info desk at Arrivals before grabbing a bite at the Cafe O upstairs at Departures.

Astonishingly we received a text there, telling us the timepiece had been found and handed in by the restroom attendant. And it was back on Noi's wrist by the time we set off back home.

Yet again the airport staff score maximum marks in this writer's unofficial title race for world's best staff at a great airport. Somebody here is definitely doing something right.