Coming Clean

It's that time of year I take it upon myself to do a major vacuuming of all the books in our abode (we're back in the place that are most likely to call home as things stand) and run a cloth over the racks of CDs. It's a tedious operation but a good way of reminding me just how much I've got that I've never really done justice to. Also a reminder of past pleasures. Books have an intensity about them which contrives to suggest they are still alive even whilst dormant upon dusty shelves. They won't let you forget them.

Somehow material on-line doesn't possess the same weight, the same presence. A silly thought really since the content cannot in any way be changed. But the physical actuality of a book in a room is a reminder of its need to be read. Even the act of cleaning a book comes close to an act of homage.

At Different Stages

Got a fair bit of reading done here in Melaka, particularly focusing on plays. I completed the four included in the Collected Plays One of Alfian Sa'at and the seven comprising In the Company of Heroes by Verena Tay. I suppose the obvious thing to do now is to compare and contrast the two, traditional lit analysis style, but the obvious is not terribly fruitful. Yes, both writers are Singaporean, both deal with those questions of identity beloved of that tiny city state, and both deal at least to some degree with elements of the transgressive, but they are so fundamentally un-alike as to occupy very different worlds.

One world is familiarly comfortable: its challenges are containable. The other world isn't.

Togetherness

Forgot to mention in yesterday's post that whilst I was busy doing nothing the Missus was locked in full-on cooking mode, preparing what turned out to be a kenduri of surpassing excellence. Originally the purpose of it all was to say prayers for our intended trip to Makkah, but since that has been postponed to December it turned into a kenduri for its own sake - always a good thing.

She arranged for a bus-load of students from a local school to come along - and I mean a literal bus-load, with thirty kids on board - and a satisfyingly high proportion of family members managed to attend. Watching the serving of food to the assembled multitude was a reminder of the power of community within Malay culture. The only spare part was, of course, my clueless good self. My function was simply to observe and enjoy it all, especially the food. And I did.

Not Working

Now in Melaka, after something of an epic journey, involving a two-hour jam at Tuas on Friday evening and various moments of stasis for no obvious reason on the highway itself. This is the first day for at least two-and-a-half months on which I've done no work at all, and, boy, does that feel good.

On The Pills

Paid a visit to my back doctor this afternoon thinking I would get a clean bill of health, only to be informed that my spine was stiffening up and I was in need of some of the old muscle relaxant. It's the first time I've been on regular medication (a bottle of the stuff) since 2010 and I'm not best pleased. Mind you, if it helps me avoid a catastrophic episode like the one in Madrid when the muscle went into spasm and I ended up crawling to the toilet in the early hours of the morning then I'll take the blighters.

Lovely word 'spasm'. It goes some way to conveying just how unpleasant it is when your muscles decide to teach you a lesson, but not quite far enough. You've really got to be there, or rather not be, if you see what I mean.

A Bit Of An Event

For almost all the photographs taken of me in childhood - all lost when Mum moved out of the Gresham Street house - I could and can remember the actual taking of the picture. One of me sitting in a deckchair on Blackpool beach and pulling a face, when I was about six years old: I was in a mood because I'd got sand between my toes and had been crying just a minute or so before the shot. Taking the picture was meant to cheer me up. I can still feel the sense of frustration I felt at the machinations of the grown-ups trying to get me to smile when smiling was obviously out of the question. I think they thought the resultant picture was cute, although nobody said 'cute' back then.

And there was another of me on the same holiday sitting happily, nervously, excitedly on one of those donkeys they used to keep on the beach for rides for youngsters. What larks, eh?

Nowadays we're all photographed as much as the celebrities so none of it really counts somehow. And there's no longer that moment of surprise when you finally get to see the image after the film has been developed. As always we lose when we gain.

A Fine Art

We've just been watching The Great British Menu, another of those cooking competition programmes beloved of the Missus that prove to be entirely mesmerising. This one features top chefs - I'm talking Michelin Star holders - doing the business for various courses for a big banquet. The level of accomplishment is stunning, and this is just from what you get to see on camera. What it must be like to have all the senses engaged can only be left to the imagination. And imagination, by the way, plays a huge role in both the devising and expediting of the dishes.

If you don't regard cooking as a serious art form up there with music and poetry, I don't think you have much grasp of what art is.

By the way, we viewed the programme after munching on Noi's utterly shiok mee goring which considerably eased the frustration of not getting a nibble at what the various chefs were producing.

Changing Tastes

I remember back in 1971 being somewhat disappointed after my purchase of Gentle Giant's Acquiring the Taste. I was hoping for something progressively rocking-out along the lines of Yes or ELP and this just didn't do that. It was so much more mellow somehow. But albums were expensive in those days - well, they were if you had very little money - and so, despite my disappointment I listened intently and grew accustomed to the efforts of the Schulman brothers et al, without ever quite falling in love with them.

Fast forward four decades or so and I discover with some little delight that someone has up-loaded the same sophomore album at youtube and I can listen again having lost the original vinyl more years ago than I care to recall. Of course, by this time I've listened to quite a bit more by the Giant from their later albums with much appreciation. But nothing has quite prepared me for the shock of just how darned good Acquiring the Taste actually is, how extraordinarily assured and inventive. And I now realise that what I was buying back then was something by way of an education for my ears; it's just that I failed the test at the time.

A Civilising Influence

Was playing some Mozart in the car today when it suddenly struck me that you could improve standards of driving anywhere in the world just by making him compulsory listening in all vehicles.

The Journey Not Taken

Our regular Haj & Umrah class was cancelled today. Since the Saudis are not granting visas to our tour group on account of the restrictions on pilgrims due to the outbreak of Mers, the class was obviously somewhat supernumerary at this point in time. So we're now looking at postponement to December. A bit of a blow, but as Noi rightly pointed out it gives us a bit more time to learn all the prayers we'd like to feel we really  know ahead of the experience.

Patience, and gratitude for what we have.