happytune

Festive greetings to everyone out there! I think the weather is very exciting and suitable for the festivities. Red, green, gold and other Victorian colours go very well with...white. 

I've shamelessly stolen communicator 's idea over the past couple of years, and bought a 'gift that gives' in lieu of Christmas/yule/solstice cards to LJ friends. I've chosen an emergency food basket because I've just finished reading Telling Tales, a short story collection, edited by Nadine Gordimer. Among a number of really superb short stories in this book, there is an excellent one by Gordimer herself, that follows a refugee family of 3 children and two grandparents fleeing Mozambique during the war, travelling starving through the Kruger Park to a refugee camp. The story is told from the perspective of the middle child - a girl. This is a quote from the part of the story where they arrive in camp for the first time:

I can hardly remember. The people who live in the village near the tent took us to the clinic, it's where you have to sign that you've come - away, through the Kruger Park. We sat on the grass and everything was muddled. One Sister was pretty with her hair straightened and beautiful high-heeled shoes and she brought us the special powder. She said we must mix it with water and drink it slowly. We tore the packets open with our teeth and licked it all up, it stuck round my mouth and I sucked it from my lips and fingers. Some other children who had walked with us vomited. But I only felt everything in my belly moving, the stuff going down and around like a snake, and hiccups hurt me. Another Sister called us to stand in line on the verandah of the clinic but we couldn't. We sat all over the place there, falling against each other; the Sisters helped each of us up by the arm and then stuck a needle in it. Other needles drew our blood into tiny bottles. This was against sickness, but I didn't understand, every time my eyes dropped closed I though I was walking, the grass was long, I saw the elephants, I didn't know we were away.

Indeed. Food basket. Definitely.

In less exciting news, my soon-to-be-in-laws are here. Generally we're having a nice time. But this morning I had to intervene in a VERY heated argument between SC and his folks over Israeli/Palestinian politics. I just can't cope with it on days like today. I miss my dad. I miss a carefree, wonderful childhood, with Christmases and Chanukahs in happy, equal measure. In the end I marched into the kitchen and (I hope nicely) said that I couldn't quite cope with any arguments today, and needed them to stop. They were all very nice about it, and ended up sitting quietly in the lounge like a class of children who had had a bollocking. Feel a little bit guilty, but I really am not robust enough to cope with tsuris today!

So it has been a bit of an up-and-down time for my aunt. Her late husband was a survivor of WW2, and she's recently been doing a bit of digging around about his background. Yesterday, she discovered that his father had survived Dachau - we had thought he'd died there. And today, she's received this email from the Wiener Library' Dear [My Aunt] I found a family [Aunt's surname], with the first names as mentioned by you, from Ludwigshafen: [Uncle's father name], born 2 October 1897 [Uncle's mother name], born 23 February 1902. I checked a book on the history of the Jews in Ludwigshafen which provides some more details about the fate of family members and also lists your husband. According to this book (Juden in Ludwigshafen by Ulrike Minor und Peter Ruf, 1992) the Jews of Ludwigshafen were deported to Gurs on the 22/23 October 1940. Further its states: Many children were rescued by Catholic nuns, relief organizations or the French resistance. They were smuggled out of the camp, hidden in Catholic children’s homes or taken across the border to Switzerland. That is how five-year old [my uncle's name], whose parents were deported to Auschwitz, survived. He was taken from the camp by French people, first hidden in a nunnery and then taken across the border to Switzerland during the night, with 40 other children. We did know some of this (and a little more) through my uncle's participation in the Shoah programme, but to have further evidence with more solid numbers is very...unsettling.

I bloody love the BBC. Just saw the latest episode of Life. This episode focused on Plants. And if I thought I was enchanted by Sea Dragons, the butterflies awakening from hibernation, slow-moving starfish under thick ice, and Darwin's beetles chucking their mates off tree branches, the scene of a growing English woodland just put the hugest grin on my face. Magical. Totally magical.

communicator has written a really lovely summary of Speaking in Tongues here, so I won't witter on too much. Except to say that I thought Kerry Fox was really quite weak, particularly in the first half where she over-egged it. I can imagine her being a really fantastic presence on a big screen, but it all felt a bit OTT for me in a small theatre. I preferred Cohu's performance, which seemed a bit more understated. It made me work harder, and I liked that.

Both the men were excellent - compelling performances that drew you in so that you didn't want to miss a word of what they were saying; the best kind of storytelling.

Lastly, it was really lovely to meet emmzzi and valderys and a huge 'thanks' to matildabj for sorting it all out, and hope that her sinuses are better!

So I have several guilty pleasures. In a way I quite like the sense of having things that I know are a bit ridiculous in my life. By guilty pleasures I mean enjoying things that I know aren't 'good for me', or 'life changing', or illuminating or growth-encouraging. Just rather average things. I think my therapist would have a thing or two to say about that, my general addiction to guilt, and the sense that I should be serving some kind of permanent sentence for errors great and small.

But I have them nonetheless. The list is relatively small:

Stargate SG1
Jasper Fforde Thursday Next books
Soppy concertos from the Romantic period - any one will do
Masterchef: The Professionals (what would I do without iPlayer?)

I don't think enjoying these things stops me from appreciating and obsessing over Good Things too.

Saw Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter...and Spring on DVD yesterday, while trying to distract myself from a yucky migraine. Very beautifully shot, with clear themes running through, the film follows the life of a monk from age through to mate maturity. Although the film is Korean, it reminded me a lot of a Japanese haiku or a kimono. Everything carries layers of meaning, from the types of flora and fauna that appear throughout, to the seasons themselves. I especially loved the scenes where the child monk got up to various typical sorts of mischief that a young boy might get up to. The monk teaches him to be in the world in wonderful - and wonder-full - ways. Although there were some very sad moments, and some very redemptive ones too, I really loved this film.

I read Andre Brink's Looking on Darkness while I was away. The book, set in the apartheid era, opens during the trial of a young coloured actor for the murder of his white girlfriend. The book was published in 1974, two years before I was born, and two years before the Soweto riots. I can't imagine how much the Afrikaans version must have caused a storm. The big theme is 'love across the colour bar', but of course that doesn't begin to describe the depth of a human relationship and the implications of that relationship within turbulence and oppression and torture and horror across 6 generations.

Harrowing, is definitely the way I would describe it. Very few books leave me as breathless as this one - I felt like I'd be holding my breath from the moment Jessica dies (that isn't a spoiler - you know it from the first page) to the end, as Joseph, very much the tragic hero, moves inexorably towards his death. Like is forebears. Horribly. Strongly recommend it, but not if you like your punches pulled, your politics diluted, or your relationships fairytale...

Caves2
Originally uploaded by Happytune

TheArch1
Originally uploaded by Happytune

OldCity1
Originally uploaded by Happytune

TopFloor
Originally uploaded by Happytune

ViewFromArnona
Originally uploaded by Happytune

TheWall
Originally uploaded by Happytune

Tayalet3
Originally uploaded by Happytune

Britain's most successful Jewish school told the supreme court today it had discriminated against a 12-year-old boy on religious rather than racial grounds.

Oh! I'm sorry! Religious, rather than racial grounds? That's OK then! 

What a hypocrite. The Chief Rabbi touts the importance of schools like King David in Birmingham - which does a fantastic job of offering a Jewish education in a mult-religious setting - but for London defines a Jew of the faith in an incredibly narrow way. What a crock.

Jonathan Romain explains some of the complexity here.

 

EDIT: Interesting editorial here, which (rightly, in my view) says that 'But once public money is attached to private belief, so too is the public interest.'  Also interesting that this issue is prominent in its absence on the JC website...

Well I'd vote for Bonnie Greer.

I always find that when I'm very stressed or edging towards burnout, one thing that really helps me is re-visiting old book-friends. Do you re-visit books? I have a set crowd that I tend to invite into my head, one after the other, when I feel the edginess creeping in.

To that end, I've just finished re-reading The Chymical Wedding, by Lindsay Clarke. I try hard to walk in the rational side of life, but this book allows me to free up my impossible-to-resist feeling for mysticism. It kind of allows me to hold all the tension and exhaustion I feel in a kind of balance. This book feels like grown-up Alan Garner to me (Alan Garner also features in the Old Book-Friends invitation list). No, this is not a subtle book, despite the alchemical subject matter. Yes, it lacks editing, especially towards the end where there are distinct moments of self-indulgence. Yes, it aspires to what Henry James managed so, so beautifully in Turn of the Screw. No, it doesn't succeed. But it weaves a blanket around me when I read it that both comforts me, and helps me to feel able to work with my demons, instead of having to 'face' them all the time...

GabbaiQuilt
Originally uploaded by Happytune

There are still loads of inaccuracies, but it is slightly better than the previous one, and I know the next one will be better still. Actually, looking at the photo; it needs an iron!

I feel able to begin to be a bit more adventurous with colour and design...perhaps a little mathematical exploration to come.

I really needed to do this this evening. Rubbish, very long day for lots of work-related reasons that are too dull to go into, but at least I've made one Real Thing for the world today.

Now if I could just get over the guilt that I made this instead of doing more work, all would be well with the world!

So the choir SC and I have joined the local university choir. Directed by the extremely talented, warm, and blissfully clear Sarah Tenant-Flowers. I do like being conducted by obviously talented women; it doesn't happen as often as one might wish (the being conducted by a woman, not the talent!)

This term we're 'doing' Dvorak Te Deum, and Szymanowski's Stabat Mater. I doubt I'll spend much time here on the Te Deum, which is a jolly romp, and that's about as much as I would say about it.

The Szymanowski is another matter. It is a combination of beautiful melodies, very romantic and dense in texture, interwoven between the parts. There are some bits that are very figurative - they remind me of Poulenc's Dialogue de Carmelites - and some bit have a strange mix of the folk, almost modal, with the paganistic-religious. And the cadences are just The Best.

And I don't care that he was a misogynist. I should, but I just don't. The music is still fabulously rewarding to sing.

For the first time in what seems like forever SC and I have had a weekend where there were no fixed plans, no commitments, no urgent-urgent-urgent activities. Wonderful. We got up late BOTH DAYS (unheard of). Read, chilled out, eat nice things. Of course, we both missed going to shul for Sukkot. We missed seeing our friends and engaging in Sukkotian rituals. But I don't think either of us could have coped with it this weekend...

Yesterday saw us visiting Leicester for the first time for various reasons, including the need to buy me a car. We have tried to be a 'one car family', but with the two of us living such a distance from work, it just hasn't been working. In fact, we've been exhausted. So now we have two cars, but we've gone for something as environmentally friendly as we could afford.

Actually, Leicester had some really high spots. We lunched at Bobby's Restaurant, which served the best vegetarian south Indian food either of us has had in this country. Fantastic. And a great sweet display. And they gave us some of their fabulous lime pickle for nothing to take away. Yum. And so many choices of other vegetarian restaurants on Belgrave Road! We'll definitely be going there again. I felt 'at home' for the first time for months after leaving the Old Place; SC reckoned that was because we were surrounded by immigrants, and therefore felt comfortable and relaxed. The area we're living in the moment is really lovely, and very smart, but very monocultural. I've missed a bit of diversity! We had a bit of a drive around Stoneygate...made us think a little about what the future might hold.

And then today - hurrah! - we went out to Chatsworth (via Bakewell and The Wee Dram whisky shop) for their brilliant Beyond Limits outdoor sculpture exhibition. What a great range of beautiful, beautiful sculpture in some of the best that the English countryside has to offer. THe only slight downside was that each of the sculptures had a 'do not touch' sign and rope barrier around it, probably because they will all be sold by Sotheby's later in the year. But you get the sense, going round, that many of these pieces were MADE to be touched, and were MADE to be placed in a free way in the environment. Separating them from that state was a littlelike denying them - and us as audience - a space to be explored properly. But that was only one smallish gripe amongst a really fabulous day out. Pics to follow.