Really Big News

Sometimes you get a news story that's so big it makes you feel very, very small indeed. The one this morning on the astonishing picture of the black hole was something close to as big as it gets. Never thought I'd live to see such a picture. Puts it all in perspective, eh?

Impeccable

I was telling a class the other day about my impeccable taste in music and explaining that this went back to my teenage years. Then just today I confirmed the truth of my claim, to myself at least, when I chanced upon a surpassingly excellent version of The Musical Box from the brilliant Steve Hackett and his Genesis Revisited project. (Would love to see these guys live, by the by.) I was reminded of what a timelessly great piece of music this is, and then realised the first time I heard it, and instantly recognised its greatness, was when I was just a lad, a mere 16-year-old.

Yes, I saw the classic Genesis line-up, their guitar maestro included, as the support act on the 6 bob Chrysalis tour (featuring VdGG and Lindisfarne) and knew instantly that I was witnessing genius at work. I rushed out a few days later to purchase Nursery Cryme and never looked back. Except I'm now looking back in some appreciation at my younger self doing something right for once.

Back To Back

Went to the gym this evening, having visited yesterday also. Somewhat foolhardy, given the fact I wasn't at all sure my body had completed recovering from its exertions of Monday, but a way of trying to ensure some continuity of exercise at a busy time. If I remember rightly, the last time I went running on consecutive days was when preparing for the Singapore Marathon, some time in the last century. I'm not sure I've still got the powers of recovery of my younger self - in fact, I'm certain I haven't - but with luck I'll still be mobile tomorrow. At my age you take what you can get.

Chiming

It's the anniversary of Mum's death today, so, as is my wont, I've been thinking of her & Dad & my dead in general - thoughts of one lead to thoughts of all inevitably, naturally. Realised with some surprise that it's now a whole 7 years since she left us to be gathered into eternity. She'd have been 100 if she'd have lived until today.

Also realised, again with real surprise, that when I considered the extensive list of my dead that I couldn't think of anyone on it that I disliked in any obvious way. Another example of the luck I've enjoyed in the course of my life. If we see ourselves as being surrounded by ghosts as we grow old then mine are all of the beneficent variety. Not a monster in sight.

In relation to all this, I thought a bit today about some shtick I listened to from a recording of Springsteen's Broadway shows - think I heard it on the flight from Bangkok. It's towards the end of the show and The Boss is ruminating on meeting with his dead - Danny, Clarence & other New Jersey luminaries - and communing with them. I liked the idea, I must say. A lovely metaphor and literal enough to be a little bit crazy, as we all need to be.

I know what I'd be saying to Mum - the routine update on my life, carefully framed to make sure all sounded well. And then strangely I got to thinking about a photograph from my university days I was recently sent. It features 3 scruffy sods, of which I am one, and the others are long gone (too soon, too soon.) I wondered what I'd say to David (Hay) and Tony if they were to visit and knew that I'd comment on how often we'd been privileged to hear the chimes at midnight. Judging from the expressions in the picture in question I'd guess that was taken on an occasion when the chimes weren't too far off.

In The Busy-ness

It was just the right time for me to enjoy an entirely free, relaxed weekend, but that didn't happen. Saturday was a day of drama, following on from a Friday afternoon spent monitoring the work of our drama guys as they prepared for performance. And Sunday will conclude with another event, in which I am, thankfully, not unduly involved, but do need to be in attendance. Adding to these demands, the need to mark a set of essays on quite a challenging poem has knitted the days together and last night was marked by a heavy meal and the company of Yati, Nahar, Boon, Mei & Steve at an eatery at Arab Street.

As I said, I'd rather have been relaxing doing nothing (though I'll make an exception for the meal which was hardly a heavy-duty occasion) yet I can't honestly complain about how I've had to spend my time. Indeed, I've sort of enjoyed the whole thing in a tired-out manner. Any drama of an Independent nature is good drama in my experience, and watching young performers negotiate the hazards of going alfresco was particularly engaging, aside from the typical energy and commitment brought to bear on these occasions.

Even the marking had its moments. It's fascinating to witness intelligent students dealing intelligently with material that doesn't easily yield its secrets, yet remaining reluctant (at least from the scripts I've dealt with so far) to state the obvious: some poems are designed to be ambiguous and attempting to remove the ambiguities, the possibilities of many-sidedness of interpretation, reduces their power. From a pedagogical perspective, recognising the falling short is salutary; figuring out how to help readers move to the next level is where the action lies.

Anyway, I'm off soon for my Sunday evening entertainment. Not exactly how I'd have chosen to spend the evening, as I said earlier, but not a bad way to earn a living either.

Just Floating

Listening to Oh Mercy in the car I was struck by what a staggeringly great album it is (as I always am when I give it a spin) and how many solid Dylan classics there are on it, as well as zero filler besides. One such classic is The Man in the Long Black Coat, and in the 4 lines that constitute its sort of middle-eight section Dylan goes into the territory of genius that it seems to me only he inhabits in the world of song:

     'There are no mistakes in life some people say
     It is true sometimes you can see it that way
      But people don't live or die people just float
     She went with the man in the long black coat'

The first two lines may look unexceptionable, but in the context of the song they're extraordinary. It's as if the voice established in the verses, that of the dark, knowing narrator of a darkly Biblical fable, is replaced by someone more immediately addressing the listener; a sort of friendly, worldly-wise version of Dylan. In fact, in the second line he's amiably taking you into his confidence - except that he sounds less than confident regarding his conjecture. As is so often the case you need to hear the words, the way they are sung, to begin to grasp their full power.

Then comes the stunning third line, with the eerie perfection of float - and what a perfect rhyme it makes. When Dylan comes back to the final line, the key line of the song, repeated as the conclusion (a conclusion in the most real sense, you realise) the puzzle lies in the connection of the last two lines, but you know there is a connection, and one observation somehow leads to the other.

I was trying, and failing, to remember the third line in a lesson today, but I did remember, of course, the word float. It suddenly came to me as the perfect word to describe what Meursault does with his life in Camus's classic L'Etranger.

Much The Same, But Different

Happened to look back just now at a post from this date, 10 years ago. It served as enough of a reminder of the brilliance of Procol Harum for me to bang on Broken Barricades, the CD which I was thinking of purchasing back then, according to my final paragraph. Glad I did buy it. It's lost none of the magic it possessed for me as a (very) callow teenager.

The somewhat older version of me from a decade ago says some reasonably wise things about the Procol Harum - Live At The Union Chapel, DVD that happened to be on my mind and in my ears in April 2009. But I was taken aback at my glib put-down (I think that's what it is) regarding the esteemed Robin Trower towards the end. I appear to have developed better ears since then to now recognise the surpassing excellence of one of the great rock guitarists.

Listening to the first track from Broken Barricades, the rocking Simple Sister (a seemingly distinctive Trower tune if ever there was one, that's actually from Gary Booker) I'm reminded of listening to this blasted out live whilst standing in the foyer of the Free Trade Hall Manchester, as an encore, I think. This must have been the time I first saw Procol live and I assume I'd been told I had to catch the last bus home or get into trouble, so I'd needed to leave early and missed the end. I must have been all of 15.

Wonder if I'll be listening to this another decade or so on? Hope so.

Something Difficult

I find thinking, genuine hard thinking, extremely taxing. How I envy those to whom new ideas come easily, though I'm not at all sure I actually know too many for whom this is true. There's a heady kind of freedom in working through a new idea and making it cohere. But it comes at a cost.

Somewhere Else

Read two extraordinarily powerful poems by Sylvia Plath earlier this evening. Written in just two days, at the end of September 1962 and the beginning of October, they clearly come from a place of despair and anger. Of the two I think I found The Detective the more disturbing - I literally shivered at the end - but A Birthday Present runs it close in terms of making the reader feel guilty at seeming to intrude on such private yet universal pain.
 
I was sitting in the Ya Kun outlet at Clementi Mall whilst reading, enjoying a cuppa and kaya toast with the Missus. A happy place for us, always. So strange. Being in two such different places at the same time.

Follies

Hope you enjoyed an appropriately Great Day of Folly. I certainly did. There's really no escaping it, is there? Stupidity, I mean. Although I've just been watching a documentary on BBC Earth about a trek through the desert that struck me as deeply sane and not really in keeping with the day at all. But now there's another on about sleep deprivation which began by pointing out how we've created a world in which people are generally not getting enough sleep. The folly of it!