Ebbing And Flowing

Regarding the great ebb and flow of it all, I've reached an age when I'm a lot more keen on the ebb than the flow. Unfortunately today was a day when it was all flow, to the point of being swept away. Hoping the current turns tomorrow.

Questions Of Taste

Came across a brief clip the other day of music critic Alex Ross talking about acquiring a taste for The Beatles and Dylan. As always Mr Ross is the man to go to for good sense and massive insights about musics of all varieties. It seems to me he is saying something of huge importance here, that could mightily enhance the quality of life for many. I'm not so sure I have the best ears in the world, but I do strive to keep them open, and have been repaid many times over for doing so.

The Plan

Looking back to June, and what I managed to read after the ferocity of my working life had calmed somewhat, I suppose I feel a bit disappointed by my general lack of endeavour. Other than the stuff mentioned in earlier posts around that period I read precious little else: the three earliest Rebus novels by Ian Rankin, Ricks's TS Eliot and Prejudice (this after completing Milton's Grand Style), and, on the poetry front, Alice Oswald's Falling Awake. In addition I sort of started Andrew Motion's biography of Keats (aptly entitled Keats, for all you connoisseurs of pithy titles out there), Iain McGilchrist's book about the divided brain The Master and his Emissary, (the full title of which is, not so pithily, The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World) and Ian Bostridge's Schubert's Winter Journey: Anatomy of an Obsession, (which whilst lacking something in terms of pith makes up for it in terms of descriptive vigour.)

Now you may think that I found something lacking in these three to make me temporarily give up on them. The truth is, though, that I was gripped enough by each to decide I wasn't doing them any justice reading them alongside other matter, and that's why they were put aside. Today I resumed Motion's fine biography from where I left off, with the great Romantic about to pen Endymion, and it felt like I'd never put it down. In contrast, I decided to restart McGilchrist's densely argued tome, of which I'd read the Introduction and the first couple of chapters, and was glad I did as I achieved a greater degree of clarity regarding his thesis on a second reading.

And it's these two books that as of now officially constitute my current reading. (Of course I'm dying to get going again on the Schubert book and there's a fair bit of other reading matter clamouring for my attention but I'm holding firm to just these for the time being.)

Something Finished?

I suppose I feel a sense of relief at completing Nikolaus Wachsmann's KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps today. I haven't enjoyed reading it, but it has made for utterly compelling reading. I thought I knew a reasonable amount about the horrors of the camps, and the Holocaust generally. I didn't. Almost every page of Wachsmann's work has been revelatory in some degree.

Initially I'd hesitated over buying the book, and embarking on my reading, wondering whether my interest in its grim subject matter involved some kind of prurience. But finally I'd felt morally obliged to read it, and I think that's an appropriate perspective to adopt. Collectively we need to remember what took place: the work of Wachsmann and that of the researchers he draws upon, and the first hand accounts are precious indeed in enabling us to do so; but all this needs to be read and understood and communicated somehow.

There's a particularly resonant sentence towards the end of the book: In the same way our search for deeper meaning in the KL will go on, even though efforts to extract a single essence are destined to come up short. The our here refers to the work of the historians involved in grappling with the phenomenon of the camps, but I think the suffering of all the victims - so many! - means the word must have a wider application. The business of the camps should not be seen as finished.

The Rewards

Went on a bit of an iTunes rampage this evening, downloading stuff by Messiaen, Vaughan Williams, Peter Hammill (2 of the solo albums) and Yes (the extended version of Fragile, an album which, astonishingly, I don't think I've ever actually possessed, despite knowing every note.)

Not entirely sure why I went a bit crazy, but I think the newfound pleasure of listening over the earphones to music from my phone played some little part in all this. (Today I completely lost myself in Toru Takemitsu's brilliant score for Ran over a cup of tea and felt very jolly indeed doing so.) I suppose also that in some deeply infantile way I was rewarding myself for surviving recent travails, but I'm not sure I want to admit this to myself, even though I just did so.

Something I Forgot

Have enjoyed some outstanding discussions of items in the news in Pastoral Care lessons this year - and learnt a lot myself. Today's was no exception, a remarkably thoughtful, thought-provoking forty minutes or so on the way we respond to news of human tragedies and the aptness, or otherwise, of those responses.

In closing the lesson I felt it incumbent on me to remind us all, myself included, of the sad reality that the world is so often a terrible place and the human condition is one of pain and suffering and sadness. But I forgot to express the corresponding truth that the world is also a place of astonishing, magical beauty and that happiness is as inevitable as pain.

Blake: Without contraries is no progression.

Highs And Lows

I've never bought into the idea that work is ennobling, especially my own. But, to strike a balance, neither have I ever considered any kind of work demeaning. I've cleaned my fair share of toilets (including the Ladies at Ciba-Geigy, Trafford Park) and I didn't think the less of myself, or anyone else, for doing so.

So I was a bit taken aback talking to Noi today when she referred to someone of our acquaintance who, as far as I understand it, regards the notion of working as a security guard as indicating a lack of something - class, status, whatever. Baffling. A perfectly good and very useful way of making a living, it seems to me, assuming you can get paid a reasonable wage. I wouldn't want to be a security guard here simply because, as far as I understand it, most are grossly underpaid. But it seems to me that the people to look down on in this situation are those doing the underpaying, not those on the receiving (or 'not-receiving') end.

And here's an odd thing that just occurred to me: in my experience talking to folks who for some reason are seen as being at the bottom of various imaginary ladders is usually a lot easier than conversing with those on the presumed higher rungs.

Well, Well, Well

Noi has just back from Melaka. It seems Mak is making what sounds like a good recovery, but she'll go back again after a week to further lend a hand. So for the moment all is well, and we have the promise that all manner of things shall be well.

(Actually, I've felt oddly under the weather all day, but in the great scheme of things that really doesn't count.)

No Time To Lose

Somewhat to my chagrin I realised that I've still not finished the February/March issue of Philosophy Now, the one with a special focus on human rights. This is isn't because the articles aren't interesting, it's a tasty enough confection, with a couple of quietly illuminating pieces on the late, great David Bowie. No, the fault is entirely that of this reader; or, rather, of this reader's work and its intrusiveness upon the finer things in his life.

Now having reached that time of year when things might lighten up a little (and I mean only a little) I'm intending to really get going on the five items on my current list of books and sundry items that simply must be read soon, meaning right away. So pressing is this list that I haven't time to say what's on it but must simply start immediately. Bye!

Showtime

Part of the fascination and fear of live performance is the way things change once an audience is involved. The first time I directed a show, a long, long, long time ago, I could hardly bear the tension. Now I can, but only just.

I used to ask myself, about twenty minutes before Showtime, why on earth I was doing this. And after every performance I would have the answer.

Postscript: Got the answer yesterday evening as usual - and all the richer because I don't take the 'as usual' for granted.