2010 — 28 February: Sunday
So much for February, heh? (Well, jolly nearly. Only 23 hours or so left.)
Yawn. G'night.
A nice spot of...
... Vivaldi's violin magic to accompany the half grapefruit and the initial cuppa. It's 09:50 and a bit drizzly (and windy) out there. Not so in other parts of our green and peasant gland, it seems. But, I wonder, is the average UK citizen subject really so dim as to need to be told this?
Crumbs of consolation
Remember I mentioned my long-term admiration for Robert Crumb? Not to mention his most recent "cat amongst the pigeons" project, illustrating that unliterary masterpiece1 overflowing with the milk of human kindness that some have called the book of Genesis? Well, what better way to review it than assign the task (graphically) to the almost equally interesting Harvey Pekar? I agree with Pekar's conclusion, too. "The sweeter side of R Crumb" is indeed a much more satisfying experience than slogging through the frankly tediously respectful retelling of the myths and fairy tales that so many people claim to believe in, and live their lives guided by, in the face of massive amounts of daily evidence to the contrary. (Mind you, I thought the talking lizard was pretty cool.)
Compare and contrast Crumb's take on the serpent with Ron Cobb's from — how can it possibly be? — 1968:
I mentioned (quite a while back, in the context of my soiled trousers!) the difficulty I would face if forced to choose between Posy Simmonds and Shary Flenniken. Exactly the same trouble arises with Ron Cobb and Robert Crumb.
Better grab some breakfast before it turns into brunch, I guess. The time is 11:17 and the weather is improving somewhat.
I found the Crumb review, by the way, adjacent to this excellent essay "Why there is no Jewish Narnia". Source and two snippets:
When the publishing firm of Ruetten & Loening was negotiating with J.R.R. Tolkien over a German translation of The Hobbit in 1938, they demanded that Tolkien provide written assurance that he was an Aryan. Tolkien chastised the publishers for "impertinent and irrelevant inquiries," and — ever the professor of philology — lectured them on the proper meaning of the term: "As far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects." As to being Jewish, Tolkien regretted that "I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people."
To answer the question of why Jews do not write fantasy, we should begin by acknowledging that the conventional trappings of fantasy, with their feudal atmosphere and rootedness in rural Europe, are not especially welcoming to Jews, who were too often at the wrong end of the medieval sword. Ever since the Crusades, Jews have had good reasons to cast doubt upon the romance of knighthood, and this is an obstacle in a genre that takes medieval chivalry as its imaginative ideal.
Sylvia Plath's daughter...
... Frieda is (among much else) a biker, and likes the music of AC/DC, which she's just described as an auditory painkiller. Cool. I carried a brilliant verse by her mother around in my wallet for many years. Just the first lines from "Insomniac", which is from 1961. Of course, it helps if you've been a typist at some point, and know what carbon paper was used for:
And one of her current musical choices (Laura Sullivan's "Hawaian Islands") reminded me of some of Edward's theme for Bella in the film version of "Twilight".
The slight trembling...
... as I put away the latest batch of groceries suggests (at 14:14) that perhaps I should have eaten lunch before I nipped out. Too late, now. But they do say hunger is the best appetiser and I am certainly (in the phrase often deployed in Patrick O'Brian's marvellous Aubrey / Maturin novels) "sharp set". Coffee, ham salad with a few extras, and I'll soon be as right as the recently stopped rain.
Jarvis Cocker was on good form, as is Stuart Maconie. How could anyone contemplate closing BBC 6Music? Philistines! I'm also a fan of the "Big Bang Theory" comedy show, not least for the vanity cards flashed up momentarily at the end of each episode. The commercial channel currently showing the series here in the UK misguidedly scrunches up the end credits so that it can irritate me by telling me what's on next. (Nothing I ever want to see, needless to say.) But you can also find the BBT cards here.
Hah! One of my uncles — a reasonably devout Methodist — was also my godparent, so this made me smile:
My godson wouldn't recognise me on a bus. Last Christmas, I sent him 10 Nintendo games in a box, to make up for missing the previous 10 Christmases. Marvellous. I promised the priest I would train him in the ways of Jesus; instead, I've ignored him for a decade and then sent him a crate of electronic killing sprees. I'm not entirely sure which gospel that's from.
It's 19:49 and the evening is my oyster (as it were). [Pause] The attractions of an early night are already making themselves felt, and it's only 22:20! But I shall finish my John Williams CD first. Some of the music on it will soon be 40 years old. How can that be?!