Back To Brahms

I put Jan Swafford's biography of Brahms to one side, two-thirds completed, when we went to New Zealand, sensing I wouldn't be able to do it justice on a real holiday. It was a wise decision. The final third proved very easy to move on with on my return. The biographer writes with such clarity and purpose that it was easy even for a forgetful old soul like myself to maintain the necessary continuity. In fact I'd suggest the final part of the biography dealing with the composer in the years of melancholy decline and assessing his place in musical history takes the work to another level - from the excellent to the superlative. Swafford is simply the best writer about music and musicians I've ever read. I mean, I'm no great fan of Brahms yet his biographer had made me ultra-keen to listen and appreciate the full range of his work. Isn't this what any kind of writing about any art should do?

He's also made me feel very guilty. This bit from the final segment really hurt: Yet in today's concert hall relatively few concertgoers can follow the course of any traditional musical form. The mode of listening that Brahms condemned Bruckner for fostering - wallowing without thought in a bath of sonority and emotion - is how audiences today largely listen to Bruckner symphonies, Bach fugues, Wagnerian opera and Brahms. Yes, that's me, and I'm now acutely aware it's really not good enough.

Wardrobe Malfunction

If you're going to have a complete disaster at work then the first day of a new year is a good time to choose. It prepares you for the worst that can happen. Fate duly selected today as a good time for me to encounter a major problem with the zip on my trousers and to remind me of the great truth that they don't make zips like they used to.

Fortunately the great breakdown took place after I had completed all my lessons. Unfortunately this still left me with an hour of Chapel to negotiate plus a TOK briefing. The zip having given way irreparably at the top still held uneasily together for some of this time and only completely dissolved, as it were, just after the briefing. With the aid of a brilliantly positioned file and diary I managed to evade notice throughout this period thus pulling off an unlikely victory in the jaws of defeat and humiliation. Sadly the offending trousers were deemed beyond salvation by the Missus who knows of these things and brutally threw them out. (Although I've got to say she treated the whole incident with an inappropriate degree of levity.)

Possibly the best single piece of advice I've ever heard in my career came forcibly to mind today. It was Phil Chappell at Rawmarsh many years ago who told me: Always check the zipper on your trousers before you do an assembly. Wise words. I can only give deep thanks that there was no reason for me to be on that stage this afternoon.

A Sense Of Order

I didn't quite finish Perec's Life A User's Manual on the way back from New Zealand, though I did get through quite a few pages in a rather protracted stop-over at Brisbane. Completion was achieved only yesterday in the quiet spaces between the joyous noises of Family Day, Part 2 here in Melaka, and fittingly so: the high spirits and sheer abundance of the text blending in with the abundance of life and energy generated by our little gathering.

I never really grasped the notion of the constraints that Perec created for himself in putting the pieces of his puzzle together, but that was no obstacle to enjoying his novel. There's plenty on the surface that's easy to grasp and straightforwardly rewarding. I suppose most of all I was struck by his extraordinary lists. It's as if he's trying to inventory every single item that has a place in his fictive Parisian apartment block, in every location therein, in painstaking detail. The effect is strangely illuminating. The possessions of the inhabitants of the various rooms seem to shed light upon their owners, but it's a subtle, indirect kind of light. And the various things also have much to say about the world that at some point created them but, again, it's not said directly.

The fact that the reading of the novel coincided with our moving of apartment added to the resonance of the lists for me. I almost feel inclined to try and list the many, many items, and their provenance, that Noi and I are gallantly attempting to shoe-horn into our new place of residence. The things we possess, mysteriously so at times, say much about us. But I'm no writer so I'll stick to trying to make sure that everything's been cleaned up. That's one of my tasks for the weeks ahead.

Fun & Games

There's nothing quite like getting the year off to a start with a bang, and Family Day has provided a good supply of loud ones.

A Sense Of Movement

My resolution for the year ahead: keep moving, keep thinking. The two go together well.

Walked to the masjid down the road for Friday Prayers as a beginning. I've walked there before, of course, many times, so there's nothing new about this. But no New Year is entirely new as we know we will repeat ourselves. The important thing is to repeat what we get right, when we can, if we can.

Finishing Things Off

We've just moved the last small items from our previous place across to the new hall. Noi plans a final clean-up on Monday and then we're done. Except, that is, for the need to unpack quite a few more boxes and get our quarters shipshape. We're not intending to rush this process though, having learnt from experience that it's all too easy to burn yourself out when moving house and slow, steady and remorseless is the way forward. Hope we don't have to go through all this again too soon.

We're taking another welcome break from the process over the New Year weekend in order to participate in a Family Day in Melaka, whence we'll be wending our way later today. It seems I have to function as a judge in some of the games for the kiddies. I've tried to make it clear to all and sundry that I'm open to corruption and my favour can be bought. Anyway, they'll be prizes for all, though I'm sure we're in for some tears. With luck they won't be mine.

Mixed Feelings

Talked to Maureen earlier. She sounded well, but the news about John is not good at all. He's back in hospital and may lose his other leg. The same problem of poor blood circulation is involved, something to do with blood clots forming. It seems he's tumbled out of his wheel chair twice now, which in itself must be a traumatic experience for the poor guy. Just hoping things don't get worse.

After feeling pretty miserable about all this, I then find out that my niece Cheryl has given birth to a healthy baby girl. Her name is Imogen, and I suppose I'm a Grand Uncle. Whatever my title may be I'm simply delighted. All this in a five minute phone call.

Perfect Weather

The sky was grey as we came out of Changi Airport this morning and it's been raining today, though things look brighter now. This is in stark contrast to the gloriously perfect summer weather we had in NZ for the second week of our stay there. It's rare I have to remember to put on the sun block every day, but it became part of the holiday routine. At points memories of hot summers from childhood and my university years were cheerfully and gratefully evoked.

Sad, though, to come back to news of the flooding in York and other parts of the UK. It makes the bit of a mess we still face in our moving of quarters look insignificant.

All Good Things...

08.30
Yesterday Noi asked our two youngest travelling companions whether they were happy or sad to be going home. Both, they sagely replied.

20.05
Now in between flights at Brisbane. Watched The End of the Tour on the flight out of Auckland. Only got to hear about this one from a review I read on arriving in New Zealand. I was intrigued then, but thought it highly unlikely I'd ever get to see the movie in Singapore. It's about the American novelist David Foster Wallace and a sort of road trip he took with a writer from Rolling Stone a decade or so before his suicide. It's brilliant: intelligent and quietly moving. I've been meaning to read Infinite Jest for the longest time and now it's moved towards the tip of my list of stuff to read in 2016. 

A Final Day Out

07.00
Now back in Auckland and preparing for our final day trip of the jaunt. We've booked a little tour of one of the islands in the bay for the morning and then it'll be a final chance to shop for souvenirs in the city. I went back to Real Groovy yesterday afternoon after we arrived here to grab a few more CDs, so my shopping is completed, but the ladies look like they've got some serious commerce in mind.

20.50
A splendid time was had by all this morning and early afternoon on Rangitoto, an extraordinary little volcanic island just off the coast. It was formed only around 600 years ago and its landscape is a mixture of lava crops and the lush vegetation that has managed to get a foothold on this unpromising foundation. Lots to see and wonder at. When we get back to faster connection speeds I'll really have to post some photos of the place, and lots of other spots we've been privileged to have wandered around.

For the rest of the afternoon I excused myself from the on-going shopping and took refuge in the wholly delightful Albert Park in the centre of town. The fact we've been blessed with utterly wonderful summery weather added not a little to the pleasure of my sojourn, as did the company of Georges Perec via his estimable Life A User's Manual, of which I'm now moving into the final stages.