Lots Of Ideas

Reading Iain McGilchrist's The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World is proving to be an extraordinarily thought-provoking experience for this reader. On almost every page there's some fascinating nugget of information - who knew that carp discriminate between the blues and classical music? - but it's the slightly uncanny fact that the broad outlines of the central thesis expounded within its pages are helping me understand almost every random thought I've had for the last few years about art, music, creativity, human nature, paradox - in fact, pretty much the whole caboodle - that's exhilaratingly unnerving. I keep thinking, this explains everything, though, of course, it doesn't. But it does make me feel as if it's possible to get some genuine coherence into what might previously have been characterised as a hodgepodge of intuitions and half-articulated suspicions.

And I'm less than a third of the way in!

In For Repairs

My good deed for the day was to help take Mak to the Pantai Hospital at Ayer Keroh to see if they could treat her foot, the sore spot on which has been giving her some trouble. It looks like we might have been just in time. They didn't do anything immediately, but she's due for an appointment on Monday when the plan is to clean out the wound which seems to have been the result of the tight socks that were applied to her feet when she was in ICU. Several weeks ago Noi was worrying and complaining about the soreness created as a result of the tightness but the doctors at the main Melaka Hospital said it was of no concern. Just lately Mak has been complaining of pain in the area. Now the talk is of gangrene setting in. Hope we've managed to get it seen to in time.

Taking A Toll

I was moaning about slow-moving traffic on the north-south highway last Sunday and, guess what? I'm moaning about it again today. Not that I've been on the road today since I've been lazily bumming around relaxing in Melaka, but on the road I was last night, and for a lot longer than was necessary. On a very ordinary Thursday night, well after the rush hour, you might reasonably expect the journey from the capital to Sungai Petai to take around an hour and three quarters tops. We added a good (actually a badly irritating) fifty minutes to that due to the very slow-moving traffic after Senawang or thereabouts. The cause? Originally we thought it could only be an accident that had blocked the three lane highway, but we failed to take into account the genius of whatever fulfils the role of a Department of Works over here who'd decided to shut down a full two lanes without thought of a contraflow system of any sort, in order to do something to the road, which was only fully opened less than five years ago.

Now I'm sure you're thinking that in an age when too many cars are on the roads it's just par for the course to expect a measure, possibly an unpalatably big one, of inconvenience. And, yes, I'd agree, but you have to pay a hefty fee each time you use the highway for the privilege of getting stuck in its slow-moving traffic. There's something deeply paradoxical about this that becomes a cause of frustration all of its own.

I need to remind myself of the mantra I so frequently cite to my students: Life isn't fair. True. And in this case the unfairness runs deep, deep, deep.

Dark Days

Quite a bit of coverage in the press locally concerning the plight of the Rohingya refugees fleeing Rakhine. Not sure that anyone comes out of this terrible situation standing on the moral high ground, but the grim reality of what bears all the signs of a 'slow genocide' is now obvious to all but the most obtuse (though there always seems to be a remarkable number of such types when it comes to the persecution of Muslim minorities.)

Wondering what, if anything, is going on within the ASEAN 'family' relating to all this. If a major humanitarian catastrophe takes place, or has taken place, it's not going to speak well for any of the member states.

Dread

Making fitful progress in Roth's The Plot Against America. Why so? After all, amongst Roth's many virtues one would assume his ability to engage the reader in turn-paging fashion would guarantee a novel with such a striking title to be supremely readable. And one would be quite right. I don't doubt I could easily finish the novel in a couple of days - were it not for the disconcerting sense of dread engendered by his all too plausible vision of a fascist America.
 
I've got as far as the Roth family's painful trip to Washington  in the first months of the brilliantly imagined Lindbergh presidency and much as I want to read on to find out what happens next, a large part of me doesn't want to know what happens next because it isn't going to be very pleasant. I'm reminded of old friend Tony's oddly naïve declaration that he didn't see the point in reading novels with unhappy endings. In this case I think I know how he felt.

Quite Certain

Yesterday saw me deliberating as to whether the recently deceased John Ashbury was a fine enough poet (for me, that is - he obviously is for a lot of other people) to make it worth my while making another attempt to read him at length. I'm still deliberating. Another interesting article in the on-line edition of The Guardian certainly pushed me in a direction favourable to a positive decision, but I couldn't help but notice the poet's own seeming uncertainty therein as to the ultimate value of his work. Certainly seemed to be a decent sort of bloke, though, and the sort of teacher poetry deserves.

Not sure that the recently deceased composer, guitarist and partner in crime with Donald Fagen as half of Steely Dan, the brilliant Walter Becker, might fairly be described as a decent sort of chap. I don't think he would have thought so himself, or aspired to such a reputation. But who cares? The music speaks for itself and himself: a certified genius.

The albums from Can't Buy A Thrill though to Gaucho constituted a sound track of sorts to my years at university, and added immeasurably to that experience. Singing an off-key Bad Sneakers with old chum Stevie Cannon, prancing down the main road to the arts tower, is the sort of memory you either seek earnestly to repress or find a strange and doubtful joy in. It says little for me that the latter applies, but much for the compositional talents of WB & DF.

Another Opportunity

Reading about the death of poet John Ashbery in the on-line version of The Guardian was an awkward reminder of the fact that I have never been able to understand why he is so highly rated. Awkward because lots of accomplished and sensible readers of poetry tell the world he is good - so I don't have much doubt he is, otherwise why the enthusiasm? - but I'm just not up to grasping why this is so. At the simplest level I'm so far short of understanding his stuff that it's embarrassing. Normally my not entirely 'getting' something doesn't put me off a writer too much, but in this case I just feel clueless.

Now I can easily let this go, and for years have done so. After all there's so much wonderful stuff out there by writers I do 'get' that it's odd to be so bothered by this deficit. But I don't think the botheration comes from a sense of missing out on something. Rather it relates to a feeling that I'm somehow being less than fair to a major talent in not making an effort. And also a sense that there could be great rewards in making some kind of breakthrough.

I'm reminded of my initial encounters with certain kinds of music, or composers, that once seemed impenetrable. Even in the case of my beloved Messiaen I remember struggling, but somehow trusting that if the experts said this was the real thing it would eventually reveal itself as being so. It helps that there's always been an element of the pretentious about me: you need that to soldier on with stuff that fails to reward even the fourth time round.

Fortunately a bit of help is at hand with regards to the work of Mr Ashbery. The Guardian runs a neat feature called Poem of the Week in which writer Carol Rumens gives an analysis of the chosen poem and there's a pretty good one of the late poet's Breezeway which has led me some little way if not to an understanding of the piece in question at least to being able to grasp why someone might choose it as their poem of the week. It's a start, I suppose.

Getting It Together

15.10
Now packing for our journey north. The usual minor crisis as to which books & CDs to load is almost at an end, but I know I'll end up hankering for something I have decided not to take by the second day. Must say, am looking forward to getting stuck into my Collected Keats, sorely missed during my recent reading of Motion's biography. Endymion here I come.

22.45
I thought we might be blessed with an easy journey up to Melaka (where we've stopped off at for the evening in order to spend a bit more time with Mak & family.) And it looked that way initially as we sailed through Tuas admiring the jam coming into Singapore, probably resulting from folks returning after spending the long Hari Raya Haji weekend in Malaysia. Then it all went pear-shaped, as they say, or used to say the last time I was resident in the UK. How is it possible to have such slow-moving traffic between Pagoh and Melaka on an ordinary Sunday? Why do we need to pay a hefty toll for roads that can't handle the volume of traffic they were (presumably) designed for? Why do I bother getting irritated by all this?

Never mind - a fine bowl of soup and accompanying roti at Aziz's place put all to rights.

Adapting To Circumstances

Spent a most fruitful morning at Jurong Regional Library helping our drama guys prepare for and deliver a couple of performances in a room they've got there set aside for this kind of small public performance. It's not a perfect space for doing something theatrical in nature, but that's the point. Any space you can fit an audience into can be made to work assuming you've got enough imagination and determination, and the necessary skills.

Peter Brooks's The Empty Space remains the best book on acting I've ever read (and one of the shortest - just one of its many virtues.) Wish I knew what happened to my old copy.

Taking Nothing For Granted

Eid al Adha 1438

Found myself using a chair for prayers for both visits to the masjid today, just as I needed to do for prayers for Hari Raya Puasa back in June. It's possible I could have managed without, but I didn't want to take a chance and find myself unable to stand up at the crucial point. I've reached an age when it's necessary to live life defensively.

Now sort of wondering how I managed to cope with the physical strain of last year's Hajj, and marvelling that none of it seemed like a strain at the time. Sometimes just getting through is as good as it gets.