| Immortal? |
[May. 10th, 2008|12:02 pm] |
Google tells me that a quote from one of my Guardian articles (this one dated 1990) turns up in a popular handbook about (of all things) the Johannine literature. Wow, I'm a serious theologian, who'd have known?
I was writing about the Holy Spirit. I said the Holy Spirit is flames and a rushing mighty wind- and you might want to stand well clear. Yes, I wouldn't quarrel with that.
The Guardian has archived all its back issues online- which means the articles I wrote for it are there for anyone to read. There are quite a lot of them- documenting my progress from liberal Christianity to born-again Paganism. Not only am I a serious theologian, I'm immortal.
Only I'm not really. The self who wrote those pieces isn't me. He took himself more seriously and had a more extravagant, more laboured prose style (which he'd cribbed off G.K. Chesterton). I'm not sure I'd have much patience with him if we did that Tardis thing and I were to cross my own timeline. He'd probably find me frivolous.
Of course the current me isn't me either. He and I and a million others are moments in a continuum of 57 years and counting.
"In my end is my beginning"? Maybe, maybe not- though I do find myself looping back to where I was when the journey charted in the Guardian began. For a while I could hardly write the word "God" without a sneer. Now I think it's as good a word as any for the unnameable and incomprehensible.
It's fun to think and have opinions but we shouldn't kid ourselves that our thoughts and opinions are in any way important. |
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| Bad Dreams And "Rescued" Images |
[May. 10th, 2008|10:14 am] |
The night before last it was torture porn and last night it was an angry ghost. I thought maybe I'd had a stroke because in the dream I was sort of lisping out of the side of my mouth, but I woke up and I hadn't. Phew!
I was sorting through my Scrapbook yesterday afternoon- dropping some images, uploading others, shuffling the pack. Here, apropos of nothing in particular, is a "rescued" image of Tossa de Mar from 2005
And another of Ashton under Lyne
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| Bricklaying Again |
[May. 9th, 2008|10:39 am] |
Remember the garden gate I fixed a couple of days ago? Well, it fell off again the first time I tried to open it.
So, yesterday afternoon I had a second go. I will admit the first attempt was a bit happy go lucky. This time I was careful. I proceeded by stages- A, B and C.- and I left the mortar to harden overnight. Today I'll re-hang the gate and we'll see what happens.
I had a rotten night. I was too hot, I was too achey and every time I fell asleep I dropped right into a torture-porn movie and people were menacing me. I suspect the work I did on the wall engaged muscles I don't usually use.
But that's good, right? Because I need to be taking a lot more exercise. |
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| Seraphita |
[May. 8th, 2008|11:32 am] |
Most of the time you'd think Balzac was your usual, godless, cynical, 19th century worldling- but then there's Seraphita.
Seraphita has Swedenborg at the root of it- and teaches reincarnation, the vanity of human wishes and that the soul's true end is to be reunited with God. A typically Balzacian, pushy young man (unfortunately called Wilfred) is confronted and counfounded by the eponymous Seraphita- an angel in androgynous human form. Words and words and yet more words are poured out in an attempt to say the unsayable.
This work exists in the same universe as Splendeurs et Miseres des Courtisanes?
Yes it does. And this is why Balzac has to be read in depth. There is no single book that contains the whole of him. Every text needs to be read in the light of every other text. His masterpiece isn't any one book but the entirety of la Comedie Humaine. |
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| Quarry Bank Mill- The Garden |
[May. 7th, 2008|10:10 am] |
The garden at Quarry Bank was created by the Gregs in the 19th century and has recently been restored.
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| Quarry Bank Mill |
[May. 7th, 2008|09:53 am] |
Quarry Bank Mill at Styal was opened in the 1780s and is now a working museum. We went there with Ruth, my sister-in-law. I now know about carding and spinning and weaving and have some idea of the hellishness of factory work in the early years of the industrial revolution. Samuel Greg, the owner of Quarry Bank, was a model employer by the standards of the age, but still expected his child "apprentices"- boys and girls- to work 13 hours a day, six days a week.
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| Bricklaying |
[May. 6th, 2008|07:51 pm] |
The garden wall is falling to pieces. Someone I spoke to about it- someone who claimed to be in the know- said, "Well you can't blame the builders; they got issued with a bad batch of bricks."
He went on to say that there's no way of telling in advance whether a brick is good or bad- you just have to build it into a wall and see how it lasts. I find this hard to believe: surely any decent craftsman has a feel for the raw materials of his trade?
Anyway, I don't mind the way the wall looks- crumbly brick is picturesque- but having the wrought iron gate fall out of the gatepost was inconvenient. So I had a long think (lasting about half a year), mixed up some mortar ("same consistency as cake mix." said Ailz) and glued everything back together. I didn't have a lot of confidence in the outcome- because I'd never laid a brick before- but I tested the work this morning and it was solid. |
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| Project Gutenberg |
[May. 5th, 2008|10:28 am] |
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I want to read Balzac's Seraphita. Unfortunately it's not in print. Once upon a time I'd have had to hunt through secondhand bookshops- possibly for years. These days all I have to do is go to Project Gutenburg, tap in Balzac and there it is- along with lots of other unobtainable titles. Then I go plink, plink, plink and the printer goes whazoom, whazoom, whazoom and- look- I'm holding a hard copy in my hands.
Having been born in a decade that was- technologically and morally- closer to the 19th century than the 21st, I shall never cease to marvel at these things.
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| Three More Fragments Of La Comedie Humaine |
[May. 4th, 2008|03:10 pm] |
La Fille aux Yeux d'Or: Henri de Marsay- ruthless statesman, great lover and Mary Sue- has an affair with a girl who turns out to be his sister's sex-slave. Preposterous, melodramatic, pornographic- with Oscar Wilde and Ian Fleming standing down-wind.
Autre Etude de Femme: Stories are told after dinner in a Parisian salon. The best of them- La Grande Breteche- is sometimes published as a stand-alone.
Adieu: A melodramatic love story frames an extraordinarily graphic account of the crossing of the Beresina during Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. |
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| Half A Stone |
[May. 4th, 2008|01:34 pm] |
I've put on half a stone over the last year. I know why: it's because I used to walk everywhere and now I don't. I used to say I liked walking everywhere, but if that had been really true I would still be doing it, wouldn't I- car or no car?
The question is, should I fight to regain my previously trim figure or accept the plumping up as an unavoidable symptom of the ageing process?
And, no, before someone suggests it- wild horses wouldn't succeed in dragging me to the gym. |
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| Signs Of Spring, Hamlet And Yet More Balzac |
[May. 3rd, 2008|10:28 am] |
1. Blackbirds (probably the same pair as last year) are nesting in the honeysuckle. I keep spotting dad, with a worm in his beak, perched on the back gate, checking to see that all's clear for his final hop home. Also- and this too is a sign of spring- we have a fat little mouse scampering around the kitchen.
2. Ailz is collecting Hamlets. Today Mel Gibson's popped through the letter-box. Yesterday she watched Branagh's; she thinks it's marvellous. Me, I'm still in love with John Gielgud's quiveringly sensitive 1948 performance (audio only). People who saw him on stage say he was the Hamlet of the century and I'm not going to argue.
3. I didn't watch Branagh because I needed to finish Balzac's La Rabouilleuse- due back at the library today. If it's less famous than Le Pere Goriot or Eugenie Grandet, it's because it's a bit rambly- starting off in Paris with one group of characters, then jumping to another set in Issoudun- though everything comes togaether in the end. I like Balzac when he's rambly because you never know what he's going to serve up next. La Rabouilleuse is about an obsessed mother with two sons- a bad boy whom she favours and a saintly artist- but it's also a proto-western about two amoral ex-soldiers (this town ain't big enough for the both of them) matching wits over an inheritance, then settling things with a duel to the death. It's a lovely book. |
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| Result! |
[May. 2nd, 2008|09:30 am] |
I have to confess I went straight to the front page of an English newspaper this morning to get the results of the local elections. The verdict- as foreseen- is that Labour did really, really badly. But then I withdrew. In the past I'd have read all the commentary I could find. Not this time. I have the information I need, thank you very much. And to show my disdain for the political commentariat I then flicked to a New Yorker article about David Lean.
Ailz checked the Oldham results. Our man, the Lib Dem Martin Dinoff- who campaigned really hard, slipping leaflets through the door every few days- won a deserved victory. You know what? I think this is the first time my vote has effected change. In the past I've either voted for dead certs (Labour candidates in safe Labour seats) or no-hopers (Labour candidates in safe Tory seats); this is the first time I've ever voted for the guy who came from behind to win. |
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| Self Portrait |
[May. 1st, 2008|09:18 pm] |
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| Eric and Dorothy- Ailz's Parents |
[May. 1st, 2008|02:15 pm] |
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| The First Day Of The Rest Of My Life |
[May. 1st, 2008|09:50 am] |
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I made a resolution yesterday: I'm going to stop taking a day to day, close-up interest in politics. What good has it ever done me or anybody else? It's a bad habit and merely stirs up negativity.
As it happens I dreamed about Gordon Brown last night. He was presiding over a school dance. I guess my subconscious had clocked a resemblance between him and "Ted" Maidment- popular history teacher of my youth- and was using it to seal the pact. Discipline at school dances was pretty strict- no snogging, no hanky-panky- but Ted was permissive and looked the other way when I sloped off to the curtained cubicle with my partner. Good bloke. In the dream I felt about Gordon the way I felt about Ted.
And now I'm off to vote against him in the local elections. |
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| Morning Ritual |
[Apr. 30th, 2008|09:39 am] |
I get up, creak downstairs, pour myself an orange juice, light a scented candle and check out the Guardian online- first the headlines, next the political comment, sometimes the arts news; then I do the same for the Times. Only when I've assured myself that all's wrong with the world and our leaders are being as boneheaded and venal as ever, do I move onto the next phase- which consists of breakfast, email and LJ.
I don't enjoy the papers any more. I know what the commentators are going to say before I turn to their columns. It's just habit. This is what middle-aged men do, right? They read the newspapers.
Ailz gets up a lot later than me. She also goes straight online- but instead of reading the news she clocks onto the Rabbits United forum. I hear her chuckling to herself. Sometimes she calls me over to look at something particularly cute. "Oh look, this rabbit has mal-aligned incisors."
I believe she's got the right idea; her early morning reading certainly seems a lot more entertaining than mine. To hell with the gossip of the Westminster village! But what should I read instead? You guys know what my interests are: can any of you suggest a non-newsy but everchanging website I could use as my home page? |
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| Candlemaking |
[Apr. 29th, 2008|01:46 pm] |
It was my ex-virtual-daughter-in-law who got us into scented candles. It helped that Ikea was selling them off at ridiculous prices. But then Ikea ran out of sale stock and feeding the habit became expensive. So Ailz bought us a kit and we're making our own. Thus far we've been recycling scrap wax and candle ends.
The latest batch is pink.
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| Ashton Rd V |
[Apr. 28th, 2008|04:11 pm] |
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| Ashton Rd IV |
[Apr. 28th, 2008|04:09 pm] |
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| Ashton Rd III |
[Apr. 28th, 2008|04:07 pm] |
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poliphilo's journal