Hooked (In A Fashion)

Back in early April, when things were getting going again after the happy hiatus of the Fasting Month, I predicted to myself that I would relish reading The Makioka Sisters. I was right. It's a blast. Which is utterly the wrong word to use of a text that is wonderfully ordinary and subtle in that ordinariness. But the word will serve as a placeholder for now. And a placeholder is what I need since almost a month has gone by and I've still not reached the halfway point in what is a reasonably lengthy, but certainly not overlong novel.

This is not the fault of the estimable Mr Tanizaki. It's down to my grievous lack of oomph in getting on with a great read due to being weighed down by the toad, Work. I really should be doing better than this at my age.

Losing It

I signed up for a free medical check-up the other day and discovered I am now 171 cm tall. Since I was regularly measured at 174 cm up to 5 years ago I'd like to know why I seem to be gradually disappearing. I could once console myself that I am at least taller than the mighty Paul Scholes (usually measured at 170, I hear.) But I reckon that that's likely to be in doubt this time next year if the shrinking continues.

On the other hand, I was pleased to discover that my metabolic age is 44. Sounds good. Wish I knew what 'metabolic age' actually means, though.

Rising Damp

Today has been one of the most humid I've experienced here in almost 40 years residence within these shores. The palpable stickiness of the humidity became apparent as early as 7.40 am when I was standing outside for flag-raising. For the first time in some years I felt fidgety during the proceedings, but managed to control the impulse to seek some respite from just standing and looking vaguely attentive.

And things were worse at 4.00 pm when I arrived at our outside basketball courts. It took less than 15 minutes for my dark blue shirt to become several sweaty shades darker. Fortunately our basketball guys proved a good deal hardier than myself, working with genuine momentum and intensity for a good three hours. I suppose in the long-ago days of my youth I might have managed to do the same, but then again English summers were never exactly humid.

I suppose it's good to face the occasional challenge. Just hope it's very, very occasional, that's all.

Another Of Those Days

Very much a day of celebrations. And very glad am I to have the inestimable privilege of being around to enjoy the unlikely good fortune of being here to enjoy it. See a bit of the evidence below:

And here's further evidence of the pre-birthday walk in the park, just to affirm the supreme joy of the public parks in this Far Place (and of wearing silly hats therein):

A Walk In The Park

Noi suggested that we get out for a walk on Sunday earlier in the week and, nothing loath as they say, or used to say once upon a time, I agreed. I'm glad I did back then because by early this morning, at the time for the Dawn Prayer, I felt pretty loath indeed and probably would have resisted going had I not so enthusiastically agreed days earlier. Apart from feeling tired I was facing a day of grading orals for IB examinations and wasn't sure I could afford the time.

But we went ahead and I'm very glad we did so. I could afford the time, as things worked out, getting a bit of work done before we finally set out. And we had a fine old time at East Coast Park, topped by teh tarik and prata at a jolly little eatery at what is now known as East Cove. It was Noi's first extended outing for a while and she struggled a little bit with leg-pain, but coped with what just be the start of a new regime.

The park was lively indeed, filled with folks of all shapes & sizes, and dogs similarly - I've never seen quite so many of our canine chums there previously - and trees similarly and pretty gloriously if you ask me. Lots of other signs of life too, all of it with its Sunday face on, looking relaxed and like itself as it should be.

The Way Ahead

I've arrived at that time of year when it's necessary to lock into survival mode. This entails seeking to get through each day without looking too far ahead, but far enough to avoid on-coming traffic and potential crashes. The great thing is that at some point in June I'll be able to spread myself again, and that time isn't too far off. And that month will also see the World Cup getting underway.

Now considering if I'll need to lay out some of the green stuff to ensure adequate coverage. Time was when it all came for free. A lost paradise. (And the football was glorious. Was there ever a better time for the Beautiful Game than the World Cup in 1970. Pele's Brazil, eh!?!)

At Ease

Now feeling at ease having reached the end of the working week. I can't honestly say there's any real sense of achievement or fulfilment involved. I'm not sure there ever is. But it's more than enough to avoid disappointment and frustration. A sort of truce with the world. Luckier than most, I suspect.

Still Mildly Ranting

The mild rant apropos the iniquities of IT in Education in which I indulged back in January and expanded upon, rather more intemperately, a few days later never really went away. It never does. Every time I hit a hitch with a screen that doesn't function, a cable that doesn't connect, a connection that suddenly goes slow for no reason I can fathom, a bureaucratic webpage that I have to fill in which doesn't allow me access, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, I get hot under the old collar.

But this is not out of blind stupidity. I don't expect the world to run smoothly for me; in fact, I'm mildly surprised when it does.

No, the thing is that when these silly hitches occur in the classroom I recall the earliest very difficult months of my job, when I was learning painfully - but eventually successfully - how to do it. And that involved figuring out the basics. Like how to get a class of extremely non-compliant kids to get on with what needed to be gotten on with and do some real learning. And that involved ensuring every step of a lesson, especially the tricky stuff at the start, flowed. Which meant that each step needed to work, had to work, non-negotiably. 

And now, when I'm dealing with yet another unpredictable malfunction as a lesson begins, I feel for the long-ago younger version of me who would not have been able to guarantee what was necessary to guarantee to function competently. And eventually excel. And I wonder about all the 'beginning' teachers I encounter, especially those faced with kids of the non-compliant variety, of which there are more than a few even in this sunny Far Place, and how often they have to deal with problems created solely by the stuff that everyone was told would somehow make teaching easier, more efficient, more 'fun', yadda, yadda, yadda.

Kids' Stuff

An excellent 'listing article' (not sure if there's a proper word for the genre) ('listicle'? no, don't think so) published earlier in the month in the Graun has stuck in my mind. 25 books to read before you turn 25 isn't exactly a memorable title, but the list itself is. And has reminded this reader how much he misses books aimed at kids. 

Must say, I think seven is a bit too early for the classic Tom's Midnight Garden, but that's the title that most triggered my longing. Just brilliant. Wish I could teach it again. And again.

Putting It Into Words

I mentioned to a class today that sometimes when I'm struggling with a piece of writing that I can't quite 'get' - especially a tricky poem - I read it out loud and surprisingly often something clicks. I didn't expand further on this, but it occurs to me that I experience something similar if someone asks me to explain something I'm not quite sure of. When I try to articulate my understanding I frequently find myself clarifying what it is I think I understand and, again, ''getting it' in a way I don't think I really did before I started talking. It's all a bit odd.

And here's a further thought. Putting all this in writing can help precipitate what seems an even deeper, or possibly more confident, undertanding.

Of course, there's always the possibility of being wrong and just not knowing it. But that's all part of the fun, I suppose.

The Best Bits

As I hope I made clear yesterday, Randai Macbeth was all good in this spectator's eyes, but I'll have a go at specifying the best bits by way of a clumsy review: 

The bits where the musicians came in suddenly (musically, I mean, and usually loudly) at the completion of a scene/act/segment, ensuring a rapid pace forward; the bits where the super-athletic chorus moved in snappily, crisply, synchronised fashion, creating their own sound effects with clapping & cries; the bit where King Duncan's corpse was carried out, but it wasn't a body, it was just a cleverly folded piece of white cloth that shrouded the unseen late king; the bit where drops/streaks of red stuff streamed repetitively across a screen above the stage action during the aforementioned murder; the bit where Lady M smiled knowingly in melodramatically hypocritical style towards the audience (getting a few laughs, and rightly so) having feigned innocence after the murder as suspicions mount; the bit with the beautifully choregraphed killing of Macbeth by his nemesis Macduff, suggesting something like a genuine slaughter; the bits featuring the manically over-the-top witches, fairly glowing with unsettling intensity; the bit where Banquo's ghost came, looking down the tunnel of the chorus at the king, in a nicely underplayed sequence, wisely eschewing the manifold melodramatic possibilities for once; the bit where the actor playing Macduff performed the set-piece introductory speech, with details of the theatrical traditions involved, and suitable apologies for any short-comings on the part of the performers (at which point I decided I wouldn't mind being cast as Macduff myself & getting the speech); the bit with Macbeth sprawled very dead at the end (but keeping his head) in a neat, unshowy, but striking little tableau.

Need to stop there. Take it from me, it was top rate stuff. I loved every minute. (And I just completely forgot to reference the great songs interspersing the action!!) 

An Afternoon To Remember

It was Noi who noticed that, as part of the Pesta Raya season celebrated in and around the Esplanade, a play entitled Randai Macbeth was to be performed over this weekend. She sort of half-shyly asked if we might go along some three weeks back, and I'm very glad indeed she did. We caught today's matinee (and sadly final performance) this afternoon and I have to tell you, it ranks up there as one of the best things I've ever had the pleasure of seeing in any theatre anywhere.

Put simply - in fact, overly simply - it's a Malay version of the Scottish Play. So when it was first broached that we might attend I did have a reservation - but this was not that we'd be watching something performed in Bahasa Melayu. To be honest, this was something of a pull factor as I knew immediately that the novelty of the language would help me off-set the weariness I feel whenever viewing the play is suggested. I think I said it before in this very Far Place: I've taught the play so often that I'm suffering from such a degree of the fatigue of familiarity that it's the one Shakespeare play I'd refuse to teach again. As it is, I had to force myself to watch the brilliant movie version starring (I use the word advisedly) the mighty Mr Denzel Washington. The fact that I watched it twice is sort of mitigated by my having to break up both viewings into smaller, highly appreciated, chunks.

Anyway this is drifting from the central point about today's experience. The show was fabulous in almost every respect, and I feel the need to tell the world this. But there were so many good things about it that I'm a bit overwhelmed at the moment - and looking forward to my dinner, which is a bit of a distraction from writing too much about the show now. So here's my solution: inspired by my overuse of the word bit in the previous sentence I intend to recall all the best bits, of which there were an abundance, ahead of tomorrow's post and list as many as possible when I put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, or whatever.

Digging Deep

Left the gym just now nursing a deep & abiding thirst, a sign I'd been pushing it a bit, effort wise. Except I hadn't really, it was just that my body had been heavy & out of sorts prior to setting out and it's been a heavily hot day and I'm just that little bit frazzled on account of a week of work that stretched these elderly sinews. And now, with several glasses of chilled water down my gullet and time to recover I still feel like I could down a gallon of juice and nod off for three and a half days without stirring.

All signs I must be doing something right, I suppose.

Concluding

Approaching the end of Syawal, so only one night left for the twinkling lights to serve their tour of duty. And we've been concluding visiting family & friends by having a good time this evening at Nahar & Yati's. A wide range of comestibles (of course) have left us happily thinking of spending tomorrow at home with a simple sandwich to round off the month. It's all highly satisfactory, I must say with a happy, if irritating, complacency.

In A Great Moment

I'm all for living in the moment, zen-mindfulness style, but lousy at actually doing so. Easily distracted, as they say, or used to say, in school reports. Not sure if anyone in teaching is allowed to be that honest now. But generally I try, if given the space, to launch a quick review of great moments of the day. It's sometimes quite surprising how many one can salvage even from a pretty rotten span of hours.

So today involved a fair amount of running about like a maniac. But more than the usual number of distinctly bright spots. And here's the winner, by a short head:

I chanced upon a sensational five and a half minutes of the latest incarnation of Cardiacs live in Manchester of all places. And promptly lost myself, having a minor out-of-body experience in SAC (also, of all places.) If someone had told me they could play Fiery Gun Hand note perfect on stage - making it look effortless - I would have questioned their sanity. But no longer.

And it doesn't stop there. Just after I finished (ready to buzz off to a lesson) I realised that the entire concert!!!!!! is up there on YouTube waiting for me to blow my mind to. Well, that's my entertainment for the weekend fixed!

Re-charging

Another long one! (Day, that is.) But quite a bit of fun here & there.

And now run-down. Like my phone, which is plugged in and re-charging in what looks like a passively, easy, relaxed kind of way. I, in contrast, need to eat & drink the various bits & pieces cunningly provided by The Missus. 

I think I know who gets the better deal between me and my phone. And it's not the phone! Hah!

Long Day's Journey

Gosh it's been a long day. And I still need roughly four extra hours to get done all that needs to be done. Oh dear.

Clarity Of Thought

In troubled times it's comforting to be able to read material of such clarity of thought and expression that it offers hope for our benighted species. For some time now I've found that especially true of my favourite right-wing, conservatively Catholic philosopher Ed Feser, whose political views, on paper, might to be some degree be seen as diametrically opposed to my own. So it's no surprise that he's taken a typically principled position on the notion of a just war.

And a more recent post outlining his ideas on the nature of various addictions struck me as being one of the most insightful things I've ever read on a particularly difficult topic. Funnily enough it draws on the ideas of another philosopher that in terms of political affiliations I really should have no time for at all, and yet invariably read with gratitude for what he has helped me understand. The two passages Prof Feser quotes from Scruton's excellent little book on Beauty struck me as very interesting when I first read them back at the end of last year (if memory serves me well.) Rereading them makes me realise just how deeply insightful they are.

All this reminds me that I need to consciously read outside what I'm comfortable with socially & politically at least 20% of the time - advice I freely offer to all.

In Preparation

Had a brief but jolly time at the Tekka Centre at Serangoon in the early afternoon hunting down the right kind of bones for Noi's patented Sup Tulang Special. She's now doing wonderful things to said bones ahead of a bit of a do scheduled at Fafa's place on the morrow. I for one intend to grab more than my fair share of the pickings.

After purchasing the bones and chicken pieces and potatoes and carrots and spices and whatnot we proceeded to enjoy a cuppa and appropriate comestibles - samosas for myself and prata for The Missus. Pretty much the perfect outing, I reckon, and I have the evidence to prove it:

In Denial

I contrived to be impressively forgetful over the last 24 hours. My attendance is required for an 'event' at work which will eat up most of tomorrow morning. It involves a not particularly onerous duty, so that isn't a problem. But it means there will be no Saturday morning lie-in and no possibility of an uninterrupted 3 hours or so to get with with some urgent marking. But somehow, despite being entirely aware of said event for at least a couple of months, late yesterday I'd entirely forgotten that the morning had been wiped out, until I suddenly remembered on going to bed.

And then the duty again dropped entirely out of sight for me this morning, until I glanced at my appointments diary over a cuppa. And, finally, by the early afternoon I was considering what music to play on my 'free' morning when the painful reality once more intruded into my day-dreaming. 

Of course, all this might just be a sign of aging, and I'm okay with that. But part of me suspects the truth is that some part of what passes for my mind these days decided denial was the appropriate strategy in ensuring I wouldn't get overly irritated by thoughts of going into work on a weekend. And, I must say, I commend that part for a job well done.

Not Mincing Her Words

Difficult to take in the idea that Mum left us on this date a full fourteen years ago. For some reason I was thinking earlier today of one of her epic anti-Thatcher rants when it occurred to me it's a good job she didn't live to witness the ascent of the current POTUS. Difficult to imagine the kind of outpouring he might have triggered, except for the fact it would have been very long. And very unprintable.

Shouldering The Burden

In those far-off days (circa 1971 - 77) of labouring in factories and industrial cleaning (when not goofing off at school and university) I would never have believed that office work (as performed by the middle-classes) involved any kind of physical strain. And now I know a lot more about it I know it doesn't really. Well, not teaching anyway. Except for niggling little pains and physical irritations.

Like shoulders aching from holding them too tightly, as my shoulders are now doing. It's not exactly painful but it hurts, if you see what I mean.

Generally aching shoulders aren't a problem for me at all, in the ordinary run of things. But when I unconsciously hunch up over the old laptop the folly of doing so can leave its mark. Over time I've come to realise that I need to consciously relax when throwing myself into that kind of work - like getting entangled in e-mails, so generally I avoid the problem. But I've come to realise over the last few days of examining for the oral component of my subject that when I'm engaged with my students in their one-on-one recorded presentations I get extremely tense physically, but not mentally, as if in sympathetic response to the pressures some of them feel.

Much as I've generally enjoyed listening to what they have to say I'll be happy when it's over for them. And even more so for me, just to be more than a bit selfish.

Grooving

Felt a bit flat just now, still on duty after a longish sort of day. Goofed off for 5 minutes or so listening to a great cover of Prince's Kiss, and the world was well, in truth very well indeed, all over again.

Big similarity between Prince & Dylan, aside from the fact they are obvious bona fide geniuses. They invariably provoke great cover versions as well. (The bass on the Phat Hat version is to die for and, of course, there's famously, brilliantly, no such thing on Prince's classic original.) (Oh, and the Phat Hat horns are none too shabby, especially in the final chorus.)

On The Record

As I recorded back in early February I needed considerable help from Dr Shivangi (my current brain doc) and Ms Jessica Koh (the only human representative of the Medical Records Dept at NUH who could be tracked down) to triumph over the hospital's digital bureaucracy and obtain - late last week, finally - the report I needed from the Neurology people to submit to my prospective insurers in Malaysia. It made interesting reading, I must say, for me at least, and shed a little more light on the events of late August & September 2022 with regard to yours truly.

Of course, I struggled with the plentiful technical jargon involved, but it was good to see the word mild featured frequently. At least, this was the case after the reports on the initial scans which featured some pretty heavy evidence of severe brain seizures. Must say, my experience of The Delirium itself didn't feel in the slightest bit mild, but I suppose there's a good chance that some of the various drugs fed into my system to bring me back to sanity might have helped keep me in the strange mental world I inhabited for some three and a half weeks. But it looks as if all I need to worry about now going forward is some (mild) degree of white matter damage in the old brainbox which is pretty common in lots of folk my age. There's no treatment for this - which is why the docs are happy not to see me and I remain happily unmedicated - but the usual stuff about checking for high blood pressure, a decent diet, plenty of exercise, good sleep, etc., etc., applies. Which is very fine indeed by me.

The mystery remains as to why I suddenly lost all touch with reality back in 2022, and almost as suddenly came back again. (Not to mention why my lungs, heart, liver, etc. decided to severely misbehave.) But for me the most pressing puzzle is how I came to sustain what would seem on the surface a kind of double consciousness in the first few days of the breakdown (roughly five or six, I reckon.) Noi and others who were around to try and help are quite clear as to what I got up to on the general ward and it's all highly embarrassing. In fact, just a month or so ago Noi played a bit of a recording she has of me indulging in a spectacular rant and it sounded colourful, to say the least. (Unprintable in polite society, I'm sad to say.)

But all the time I was entertaining, perplexing and generally irritating the world around me in NUH I was in a world elsewhere caught up in a series of interlinked narratives, a place and events I remember extremely vividly. And there is almost zero overlap in terms of the obsessions I manifested in the two entirely separate versions of me. 

Now I can grasp the notion of the Divided Self as made familiar by our chums Dickens & Dostoevsky. But the entirely Divided Consciousness, fascinating as it is, is a step too far. To use a handy colloquialism: I just can't wrap my head around it.

Getting Going

The resumption of 'ordinary' post-Ramadhan reading has proved slower and less steady this year than usual. Probably a sign of aging - a general slowing down. Fortunately I have got going largely as intended (these days I plan my reading ahead, strange as that may sound), so it hasn't been a complete disaster. However, I now find myself still engaging with material I thought I'd have put aside once Syawal arrived - most specifically, the reading of some of the later, shorter surahs from The Holy Qur'an in the translation provided in The Study Qur'an supplemented by another commentary. Actually I find the slow pace of this reading extremely conducive and have half-decided that I might make this activity (confined to an hour or so in the mornings at weekends and holidays) a permanent feature of life in general. We'll see.

The 'big' work of fiction now claiming my attention is Junichiro Tanizaki's The Makioka Sisters. The colleague who provided me with the translation said she thought there were shades of Jane Austen involved in the writing - always a good thing - and after a halting start I'm starting to feel that. Plenty of pages ahead, by the way, and I've a feeling I'm going to relish them. I started the novel after Raya, but I've been rereading Declan Kiberd's commentary on Joyce's great epic Ulysses and Us: The Art of Everyday Living since the last week of Fasting Month. Not sure why. A feeling that I needed to get connected with Joyce again, which has certainly worked for me. Lots of wisdom from Messers Kiberd and Joyce which somehow tied in with key ideas in my mind as Ramadan reached its conclusion and remain pressing in their way as life moves on.

And then there's (still) Finnegans Wake. More than 100 pages on and gloriously, comically, baffled by it all. Plus the great Henry Vaughan read-through wobbles on. Now dealing with various (late?) translations and (gasp!) love poems by the Welsh Wizard and, for the most part, thoroughly enjoying doing so, even if this kind of verse doesn't exactly set my world on fire.

That's all for now, I think. (Believe it or not, I have a list of what I'm supposed to be reading somewhere, but I can't be bothered to check.) Oh, am also rereading and rewatching Pinter's The Birthday Party, but that's not exactly reading, is it? Or is it??

Mixing Around

Paid our first real post-Raya family visit just now. Good to have a public holiday to make visiting seem just that bit more relaxed. I can recall years in the past when getting out and about seemed quite an exertion, even if a necessary one. Perhaps I've mellowed with age: these days I quite look forward to the free munching involved.

Moonmadness

Completely, foolishly, forgot to celebrate yesterday's Great Day of Fools. So as a poor second best today I'm attaching two photos of yesterday's fabulous moon. Hope all who are invested in their folly can happily meet me on the dark side of the moon whence a rather famous bass-playing madman once invited us all.

(Apologies to all for failing to do justice to our lunar chum in my amateurish fashion, but nothing in a mere two dimensions could come close to doing so. Do look up, everyone!)

It's Only Words

I know the Brothers Gibb had a point when they warbled It's only words so tunefully, but words have an odd heft & weight beyond their mere utterance. Today I got to thinking of two words that, through no fault of their own, really get my goat*. 

The first is flourishing (which I even have problems spelling.) And the second is alignment.

To balance things up I'm really rather keen on plurality. And divergence hits the sweet spot.

Not sure what all this says about me, Gentle Reader, but if you happen to figure it out don't feel obliged to share your insight. So often Things are better left unsaid (a phrase which I just goggled to see if anyone has used in a song lyric. It seems that some lass going by the unlikely name Ariane Grande has informed her listeners of such in one of her songs. And good for her, I say!)

*Manchester talk = bother me.