A few strokes are able to transform a blank page into the expression of an emotion, a still moment. The reluctance to disturb perfection--a few dashed lines hurried off, like a few choice words that say what is essential, finding the right key. Sometimes you think these direct, fresh, "open" sketches, are much more interesting than the finished article. Stokowski said something similar when speaking about rehearsals: something completed vied with a startling experience. This blank space, preserved in the Cezanne; Saskia's eyes lovingly caught; the strength of Ruben's Hercules; a brilliant, vivid satyr by Watteau, red in claw; Breugel, with his intermingling of the secular and the religious.

The paper open to the ink; the human hand open to the human heart...

Down to 'the tanks' at Tate..something like Beneath the Planet of the Apes. Got caught in a light strobe-my two minutes of fame producing guffaws of laughter from a few tourists. The books under the bridge tightly packed together, very reassuringly. Brilliant 11 0'clock light and a cool breeze on your face A few notes of Piazzolla striking out urgently, the choppy waves of the Thames as jagged.... Off to see the fantastically inventive Heatherwick. Awestruck before his creativity. Fidelity to natural limits. If one knew how shape responds instantaneously to different pressures, repetition,  materiality would be poetic, unfurl like a snail, reveal a different space, an angle that no-one in the universe had previously seen. Then to the more familiar small oil sketches (Constable) and the wonderful walking into the silence of the room that holds the 15 th century tapestries. No-one ever visits these rooms.

You think to yourself: London, Paris, New York (and Berlin, says the dougal) are still real cities. 

London Olympics: 0

If that wasn't naff I don't know what is! After an hour the family had switched the box off and friends were phoning me up or texting saying how awful the whole thing was (maybe we were just spoiled by the Chinese). Would have been better off doing slum dog east end or how "we" bombed Jerry. But here's the thing: England's always thought it was the centre of the world; a strange kind of inwardness that pushed to the extreme becomes xenophobic-as well one might expect from an island nation. As the kids today might say: anal. 


You've always thought that England is best when it does small-things like afternoon tea and religion; whenever it goes big it looks rather ridiculous (colonialism, for instance). And of course, "only connect" is something that one struggles with..no, just leave me alone with my tea and newspapers...


The papers have played it up as eccentric and irreverent, as being a reflection of the quintessential "English character". Not sure if that's true..I mean, like any other self-perceptions that people have of themselves-like the 'stiff upper lip' (which, incidentally, was apparently an Americanism!)-there's a grain of truth to them. But the ideals we hold up to ourselves and other people say more about us whether they're true reflections or not. Mr. Bean, for example, is not eccentric. Spike, on the other hand... 


Someone once wrote that the scene of English fiction is always the home whereas America, with its wide open spaces, allows for and encourages an engagement with bigger issues. So, the insular, parochial, fake inwardness character...is that really just shyness? In any case, there's something quite claustrophobic about all this domesticity.


The man of action is never the hero of English letters...


But there is a tendency with the English to dislike writes who fail to sustain their stay-at-home virtues, who fail , indeed, to devote themselves to the occasionally poetic business of nothing very much happening all the time.

Nicholson:

And all rivers were one, and they all led back to the Roding...

sweet, ordinary earth

Yes, I know, a bit of an odd way to pass a tough hour before iftar, but J.B.'s programme on parish churches in East Anglia has its moments. Old stone, leaf, dream of star; the green shade of late summer afternoons a kind of slowness, displacement, fierce resistance to serial time; the silent interiors, wood gently ageing; the words spoken, the same sound and inflection century after century; openness that was fated to give way to an indifferent gaze; history in stone and wood and glass, emptying out before our eyes, the God of absences, beyond words and theology.


~~~


there are moments when you've stopped in your tracks, grateful for something you can't name; yes, this is it, the small glimpse of understanding, of contentment: look out and look back; taste and see; no mystical flight, no awe, a very down-to-earth feeling that finitude, somehow, is not a misfortune, a sense that the clothes fit, that there is a type of ease or another life in the shade of the great trees below sweltering sun. Ubo, himself growing old, says to me: the reality of life slips into shadow, as it always has and always will; soon the shadow itself will be but a memory. Then he turns to me, mischievously: "Wah! I've become a poet in my old age." And this line, from the morning's gleaning: whatever remains green is more deeply, richly green than it was before.

~~~


Now, it has been suggested by one of my more cynical (and fairer) readers-though the scallywag shall go unnamed-that this mild epiphany of mine must have come to me whilst scoffing down one of my beloved cinnamon rolls. Well, that would be telling, wouldn't it? I shall remain silent on the matter. A love that speaketh not its name!

Recently discovered a spiced teacake (in California that might be mistaken for a drug-filled after-tea indulgence, but no). A bit squidgy and chewy, but given a medieval twist, you think, with its currants and spices (cinnamon, clove,...). But hang on, those spices weren't around then, were they? Allspice, one of the great treasures of the world-even if it did lead, eventually, to colonialism. 


So, what's the difference between a Chelsea bun, a hot-cross bun, and a teacake? Forget the Ph.D...this is a real research question, one that merits some empirical testing...

debts of honour

 At Valentine's park, Il. Stop to stare at the strange assemblage of people around you at the playground. Wonder what old Enoch would have made of it all. One hundred years ago, when he was born, the ethnic and religious composition of people would have been quite different. Here there were Sri Lankans, Gujratis, other Indians that you couldn't place, Paks, some Africans, a few Chinese people and a number of mixed race people as well. Horrified, perhaps? Or maybe not...

You see a six year old podgy kid, desi, walks by stuffing down his flake 99 with great relish, wearing an Eng-er-land t-shirt. Most of the parents speak in English with their kids and, just like everyone else, make sure their own children wait their turn. The hijabis are out in full force and most  people are cool with that. It's just the way it is.

You have to think, though, if anywhere else there'd been as rapid a change in society as there's been here..well, maybe the problems would have been of a different magnitude. And of course, putting your red hat on, you have to say that race is really a red herring in that the fundamental changes in society have come about with the decline of manufacturing, Thatcher, globalisation, the decline of the public (Sennett) and a host of other factors. The best thing that can be said about ol' Enoch is that he knew Welsh. Apart from that he was, to be quite frank, a bit of a wanker.

~~~

Now, really must put in some effort to find Michael Foot's book, 'Debts of Honour'. Since you are reminded of him every time you walk past the Gay Hussar, you ought to try and scoop it up soon, to repay a debt to an honourable soul.

~~~

In one of your more pessimistic moods you get the terrible feeling that not only is socialism on its last legs but that the very notion of the social is on the decline. Of course, it might be countered that there's always been a  certain roughness to the 'north'  and if we extend our historical horizons a bit we might be inclined to say there's been an improvement in manners, civility ( N. Elias) 

Ramzan...

There's something not quite right writing about fasting-to be self-conscious of your actions..isn't the elimination of that precisely what is aimed for? Or is it? You don't think Islam works by negation but, rather, that the supreme virtue is 'balance' or moderation. But then how does one explain such extremism, such a pedantic fascination for details? This, too, seems a bit of a generalization, an ahistorical summary. A balanced view would surely say that different virtues and vices come to the fore under particular circumstances.


Not sure if I have the strength or conviction for this one. You wonder how important 'niyat' (intentions) are in the observance of any act (religious or otherwise, but especially religious). Or do you just go with it, follow a ritual and see if something comes along the way? To suppose there's some sublime moment, some perfect  clearing of one's mind and heart before..is that not another form of extremism?  


Khair...you see the elements of doubt on the dougal's brow. Confess, dougal! (And never forget the Inquisition!). Is humour allowed? Probably not. Not moored to any tradition you find such questions themselves slightly ridiculous. Ah, the Moor's/Mir's last sigh!


Ubo says I'm exempt from keeping them since technically speaking I'm still travelling (No, not "traveling" in your sort of 1960's, hippy way, but literally speaking. Well, it's been two months, but you love the sentiment behind his thoughts. 


The strength of the community? Have you actually seen the community bro'? If you did, all questions of belonging would soon be resolved! The unity of the ummah..oh, please, give me a break dude.

Anyway, let's see how it goes. Reading Rebecca West at 4 a.m. is probably not a good idea. The names of Croat kings are swirling through my mind. 


~~~


Yesterday, off New Oxford Street, past a theatre whose name you forget, you heard what sounded like seagulls...did they stray so far? This notion of an inland bird, off the radar, without a sense of verticality, out of touch with the open blue skies..was this a metaphor?

names

anton, I have to borrow-if I may-your beautiful quote. By a strange co-incidence (or maybe one just seeks them in a certain state of mind, a kind of temporal order?) I was looking for a quote-also from something I haven't read-and it turned out to have your name on it. "your name on it". That can be a terrible thing, but when said in the Pakistani context it's always-I think-in a positive sense: you're starving, have no money in your pockets, shops are closed and you see your friends at a table. They offer you the last bit of food and, judging you to be hungry, will say something like: "it's yours, it had your name on it". Okay, okay, the quotes... 


 (Xenophon): 
 [8:18]How good it is to keep one's stock of utensils in order, and how easy to find a suitable place in a house to put each set in, I have already said. 


 [8.19] And what a beautiful sight is afforded by boots of all sorts and conditions ranged in rows! How beautiful it is to see cloaks of all sorts and conditions kept separate, or blankets, or brazen vessels, or table furniture! Yes, no serious man will smile when I claim that there is beauty in the order even of pots and pans set out in neat array, however much it may move the laughter of a wit. 


 [8.20] There is nothing, in short, that does not gain in beauty when set out in order. For each set looks like a troop of utensils, and the space between the sets is beautiful to see, when each set is kept clear of it...


and, &...


'And so too, without leaving the confines of the weaving, he feels himself to be at the very centre of creation, while still in touch with its borders and frontiers. Art like this beckons man to live within its world, freed from the sins of the other one. 
When it was first woven in the eleventh or twelfth century, the tapestry must have measured six metres in length, but only three metres sixty-five survive. The passage of time -- whole epochs in revolt -- has destroyed almost half of it. But the overall structure of the work, the strands of coloured thread and the remaining mutilated fragments allow us to reconstruct the composition and imagine the themes depicted in the missing parts. What one admires in the work, beside the fine execution, handsome texture and harmony of colours, is this structure -- a structure so symmetrical, so dependable that even when incomplete, it is possible to recreate the whole, if not on the cathedral wall, then within the framework of our imagination.
There the missing parts unfurl, fragments intimating the larger harmony of the universe. What we love in any structure is a vision of the world that gives order to chaos, an hypothesis which is comprehensible and restores our faith, atoning for our having fled and scattered before life's brutal disorder. We value in art the exercise of mind and emotion that can make sense of the universe without reducing its complexity. Immersed in such art one could live one's life, engaged in a perfectly rational discourse whose meaning cannot be questioned because it resides in an image containing the whole universe.

What surprises and will always surprise is the notion that a single mind could conceive of such a convincing and pleasing structure, moreover a happy one, a structure which as well being a metaphor is also a reality.'

Cristina Peri Rossi -- The Ship of Fools


~~~


I guess in an age which revels in the fragmentary, the sideways glance, any mention of 'unity' automatically suggests 'totality'. To be of a single mind can only point to a kind of fanaticism, or rigidity at best. And yet, the simple things, the deep familiarity of a voice, the right combination of spices, the old tree outside your house, the smell of fresh grass, the same fading, slanting light flaring briefly on a cool summer's day, the light glancing off bushes, the inky Roding, full of calm mystery..all this seems eternal right now. Tomorrow your head will ache and you will stumble through the day again, not sure if you're dreaming this since, like a mirror facing a painting, you seem to have been taking this one image in for such a long time that it's something you inhabit.

take it home:

As time goes by the question of belonging, of where home really is, becomes more vexing and less important in equal measure. It sounds ridiculous to say that the music one first learns to love has anything to do with politics or the place where one lives. In any case, there's a whiff of old-time craziness hanging around any association of music with 'the land'. It would be quite interesting to know what the second-generationers (West Indians and Paks and Injuns) started listening to and how far it branched off from their parents' tastes. Classical, for example. How many working class, non-white people got hooked to it? Of course, the dougal was listening to Rimsky-K even then. But most of the music that floated our way wasn't Rafi or Bach; it was more like Marley and Otis and... of course, as time goes by, baggins becomes baggier, has fewer assumptions or convictions, thinks less of course. ry cooder: music the last bridge between people. Possibly. Probably, as little r says. the old times: nothing can be brought back and we are old now. all we have is this thin raft that is love and memory, and a few books, and a track here or there.

the world of lost chances...the gold thread loosened from your garment, straying, touching earth. your heart turned to a heart bluer than mine. 50 shades of.

Listen
 It's a question of listening with the heart, rather than the ear
You'll find bridges inside yourself, and roads that lead right to me
I'm awake all night, looking out for you

 The Secret Sea

 When nobody's looking at her
She's no longer the sea she's just as we are when no-one's looking at us
 She has other fish, other waves,
and exists for herself alone,
and for those who dream of her, as I do here.
 ---Jules Supervielle.

the destruction continues...

Hard to know what to say. I think Gellner alluded to this years ago in his 'Muslim Society'. With so much destruction and violence around, one's instincts are to fall back on your reading. Yesterday saw (but did not buy): The Death of Virgil; Death of the Heart (yeah, I know, 'death' does seem to be looming large!); Under the Volcano; Names (DeLillo); some John Burnside poetry; a new book by Chris Hedges. Did purchase Bob's highly recommended Time of Gifts (4 quid on the South Bank, under the bridge) and Anne Carson's beautifully produced Nox (about the death of her brother).

bbroken lives

you want to cut through the crap, all the false words, the fake sensibilities, the sheer scale of the artificiality of it all. Geoff dyer (I think) wrote about how some of the most clear-sighted work coming out is war material, directly out of the fog of war. A basic fact remains: higgs-Boson is a fucking joke. After all these years, the streak of violence doesn't wash away.

and there's this simple, honest piece that makes you think about the down and outs, on whom "austerity" is forced:


'We condition the poor and the working class to go to war. We promise them honor, status, glory, and adventure. We promise boys they will become men. We hold these promises up against the dead-end jobs of small-town life, the financial dislocations, credit card debt, bad marriages, lack of health insurance, and dread of unemployment. The military is the call of the Sirens, the enticement that has for generations seduced young Americans working in fast food restaurants or behind the counters of Walmarts to fight and die for war profiteers and elites.

The poor embrace the military because every other cul-de-sac in their lives breaks their spirit and their dignity. Pick up Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front or James Jones’s From Here to Eternity. Read Henry IV. Turn to the Iliad. The allure of combat is a trap, a ploy, an old, dirty game of deception in which the powerful, who do not go to war, promise a mirage to those who do.'


--Chris Hedges.

the end of the south

The end of the south, or so it seems. The train journey through small places, the land locked in its ancient ways; the desperate teenagers with escape looming large in their minds, all decked up (or is that down?). Basildon man in front of you, red-necked and a brown balding skull. A sort of bigot-or at least you imagine. Is Basildon, after all.

Fairlop Fair was a flop. 250 years of tradition reduced to a few women in beards prancing about and some awful songs.

~~~

At southend: the blustering wind, our teacups flying off in all directions; we hold on to our paper plates for dear life and gulp down our lukewarm tea with a great sense of urgency. Nothing's quite right. England's gone, and the last fish shop is closed for the summer. Even anton's author sounds a bit fake-and her recommendations are never wrong.

K

"I would have thought", said the prime minister, "that Your Majesty was above literature."

"Above literature?" said the Queen. "Who is above literature? You may as well say one was above humanity.”

Bennett,A. continues to charm: direct, irreverent, funny. Only time for snatches, but still...

"'Police killing was lawful' says inquest. What police killing isn't?'"

'The joy of being a mob, particularly these days, is that it's probably the first time the people on this estate have found common cause in anything'

'In England age wipes the slate clean. If you live to be ninety and can stille at a boiled egg they think you deserve the Nobel Prize.'

'I'm brushing my teeth...then a little school or class passes...Ethnically mized with Muslim women in headscarves in attendance, a couple of tired-looking teachers and young fathers too...A poor school by the look of it...But the simplicity of this little column , the tired goodness of it, reaffirms...what? A belief in common decency.'

I think that last line sums England up really. A European (or an academic) would have written: the project of inter-subjective mutual responsibility to 'the other'.

'Jesus loves everyone, except you, you cunt.'

There's nothing more boring than meeting someone who thinks books and Literature are the cheez...of course, except for meeting someone who thinks the opposite. 

Mir's syndrome...

The History of Silence [   ]

There's a book on everything nowadays; everything's tainted. The private lioves of nobodys, dissected with great care and attention to useless detail after detail. 

"Is there a history of silence in your family?" asks the copper/shrink/wife. 

Royalty: the ability to forget who one is? The giveaway line that reveals, finally, who you are?