Reading - The Pregnant Widow by Martin Amis
Watching - Everything on the box that I've recorded for the last 6 months - god bless the summer holidays xxx
Listening - Exile on Main Street by The Rolling Stones
Excitement levels were worrying me recently. I was worried that I was not getting excited enough about upcoming events in my life. For example I'm going to Australia with Sophia and I was not feeling excitement of traveling to the other side of the world and meeting my new family. I was looking forward to it but I wasn't as excited as I thought I would be. I wonder if this a modern condition that afflicts us all? We have so many great things in our lives on a regular basis that perhaps we never have time to get excited about things anymore.
Maybe a solution to this is to actually think about upcoming things so as to actually look forward to them? Anyway I'm excited now as I'm off tmrw. The airplane is one of the most exciting things for me. I love the process of traveling and flying. 24 hours of flight strikes fear into some people but to me it is heaven. 24 hours of time to read, watch movies and basically be pampered. Then the wonders of exploring a new country and meeting my new family - so exciting!
Reading Martin Amis' 'The Pregnant Widow' which is quite phenomenal. I'm flying through it and the ideas in it are very complex. It deals with the sexual revolution and the emergence of feminism. The style is confrontational, brash and concise. There are moments when I'm flying through it and others when I'm turning back through pages, figuring things out.
It is one of those books which really does highlight to me that I am quite thick. I know that I could never write something of this magnitude. I'm capable of understanding it and seeing its place within history but I could never achieve anything like it. I love the idea of writing and have written a number of plays over the years but the scale, ability and technique demonstrated everyday by novelists, film-makers, journalists and poets really grounds you in reality and shows you how thick you basically are. Maybe thick is the wrong word? Maybe unspectacular?
Amis makes a hilarious yet moving point about poo in the novel where the main character Keith discusses the sadness of defecation where we leave the 'dead concerns of yesterday behind us' and are 'humiliated by the emanation of decay'. Brilliant and funny yet sad.
Tuesday, 10 August 2010
Saturday, 7 August 2010
Rambles
Reading - A tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Watched - Wild Swimming on BBC2
Listening - Angel by Massive Attack
Why when trying to save money is one faced with this option? Do you fancy some duck from Chinatown? Um, yes and I will sell a body part to have some. It might have something to do with beer consumption.
What hasn't happened since my last blog. I went to go and see the John Sergent and the Sea exhibition at the Royal Academy which was fabulous and did contain the great phrase that the Impressionists were radical and dangerous. I know that at the time they were and rebelled against the traditional standards and expectations but it was amusing to read.
One of his paintings was of Oyster fisherwomen on a beach in Brittany and it showed how his style was quite wild with free hand brushstrokes and some absence of detail in his prep paintings. However for his final paintings he had to paint to the traditional standards with clarity, composition and absolute detail. It was great that the exhibition showcased this.
Almost finished reading 'A Tale of Two Cities' which is both brilliant yet complex. Sometimes you want Dickens to just get to the point but he has left me with some haunting images, like the knitting women who are already the judge, jury and executioner for the French Aristocrats they will revolt against. I am going to have to read some more Dickens methinks.
Things are changing in life, Mike is moving away from Bristol which is a shocker but I wish him well and Elisabeth is moving to Oz in October. Just spent the day with her, drinking tea and eating cake and making strong statements that we will keep in touch with each other. I'm so hopeless at this but will do it-even if I send her a few lines about eating Scampi.
I'm off to Oz in less that 5 days. It is beginning to get exciting now. I have my books for the plane and my suit for my second wedding where I hopefully will not cry the whole time. Maybe Sophia will cry the whole time in some kind of reversal?
The glory of Saturday awaits with marking for school and being beaten at Tennis by Ramit. I'm planning on returning his serve 2/3 of the time this week. Maybe a 6-3 game might be on the cards-I can only hope.
Last mention but never least - I love my wife x
Watched - Wild Swimming on BBC2
Listening - Angel by Massive Attack
Why when trying to save money is one faced with this option? Do you fancy some duck from Chinatown? Um, yes and I will sell a body part to have some. It might have something to do with beer consumption.
What hasn't happened since my last blog. I went to go and see the John Sergent and the Sea exhibition at the Royal Academy which was fabulous and did contain the great phrase that the Impressionists were radical and dangerous. I know that at the time they were and rebelled against the traditional standards and expectations but it was amusing to read.
One of his paintings was of Oyster fisherwomen on a beach in Brittany and it showed how his style was quite wild with free hand brushstrokes and some absence of detail in his prep paintings. However for his final paintings he had to paint to the traditional standards with clarity, composition and absolute detail. It was great that the exhibition showcased this.
Almost finished reading 'A Tale of Two Cities' which is both brilliant yet complex. Sometimes you want Dickens to just get to the point but he has left me with some haunting images, like the knitting women who are already the judge, jury and executioner for the French Aristocrats they will revolt against. I am going to have to read some more Dickens methinks.
Things are changing in life, Mike is moving away from Bristol which is a shocker but I wish him well and Elisabeth is moving to Oz in October. Just spent the day with her, drinking tea and eating cake and making strong statements that we will keep in touch with each other. I'm so hopeless at this but will do it-even if I send her a few lines about eating Scampi.
I'm off to Oz in less that 5 days. It is beginning to get exciting now. I have my books for the plane and my suit for my second wedding where I hopefully will not cry the whole time. Maybe Sophia will cry the whole time in some kind of reversal?
The glory of Saturday awaits with marking for school and being beaten at Tennis by Ramit. I'm planning on returning his serve 2/3 of the time this week. Maybe a 6-3 game might be on the cards-I can only hope.
Last mention but never least - I love my wife x
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