Friedrich Gulda: Beethoven - Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major Op. 73 Stuart told me to. Lovely, but it left me cold. I really don't respond to Beethoven, or most 19th century music. Stuart was particularly impressed that the conductor was dressed like a hippy. I was less impressed, since the whole orchestra were wearing white tie - Gulda seemed to be on an ego trip. But then I've always liked uniforms and dress codes.
On the other hand a much nicer way to start the day than the Today programme. And Radio 3 is frustrating - don't always / often play the music I want to listen to, and they talk too much. And Classic FM has to have the horribly saccharine Titchmarsh or someone presenting.
Feel utterly crap, like I haven't slept, or stayed up drinking all night. A lovely dawn - the first sun in days.
"Believing there is a better world elsewhere now looks like a way of not seeing the sufficiencies of this one." Epilog, Darwin's Worms, Adam Phillips. Does that also hold true for believing we can make this world better? Should we just be standing back in astonishment at the way it improves itself, and not getting in the way by trying to hurry things along?
Time in most books and stories moves much more quickly on the page than it does in reality. So in a few pages or hours, I can move through days, months, years. But reading Belle's novel is the exact opposite, and rather odd. I have been reading Rayna's story for three months - for her 4 or 5 days have passed - she still hasn't got to cooking for Don's dinner party. There's a lesson here about patience - don't hurry things along - and attention. Stay here, now today, deal with this little precious slice of time, there'll be plenty more along later.
And my table, and Felicity's table are a bit the same. I had an idea for the table months ago, but I am still working on it (what colours to paint it, if any) - so in an instant, in my imagination, the table is there, and then there is this long dance between thinking about it, what to do next, how to solve this or that problem, and actually doing stuff with wood and screws and glue and saws, and then going back to thinking about it again. And if there is one thing I am dissatisfied with, it is that the top is not anything like a perfect hexagon, and the only reason it isn't is because I rushed at it (it was right at the beginning). Actually I quite like its irregularity, that the glass top will only fit in one way, and very precisely, so I have to have a mark on the glass to line it up with one side of the top or the other.
My things to do list has got very short (because I feel so rubbish). Hang up the pheasant skins and wings in Andrew's woodshed. Tidy up the caravan, a bit. Maybe pack, or leave it until tomorrow morning.
Felicity's table has gone a bit Egyptian, a la Casa Cuseni in Taormina. I'm not so sure about the cut out sides, or even the top. It now looks a bit like the Tabernacle, the Ark of the Covenant.
I watched a very silly talk on youtube yesterday about how the Gospels aren't true and they're all made up. Doh. Don't you think we don't know that already? The point is, which the speaker never addressed, was why? Why make it up? What did / does it mean? How does it speak to us? And why do so many billions believe it, in some way or other? As literal truth, or myth, or parable, or paradox, or the key to a secret. Frank Kermode was much cleverer about this (The Sense of an Ending).
I thought I'd written something about Jesus' remark about 'many mansions' (although he meant rooms, apparently, as in a family 'insula' or riad) - his only(I think) reference to an after life (the kingdom is here now, within you and among you - let those who have eyes see, those who have ears hear), and in John, therefore dubious (as in, it wasn't Jesus that said it, but John, 50 years later). I must have just thought it. In the light of Freud's and Darwin's thoughts about reality, mortality, the importance of death - i.e. real actual end of me death, no heaven, no hereafter, no coming back as an ant. Since Jesus is generally very real, here and now, in the moment, if he did say 'many mansions/rooms' what did he mean?
On the other hand a much nicer way to start the day than the Today programme. And Radio 3 is frustrating - don't always / often play the music I want to listen to, and they talk too much. And Classic FM has to have the horribly saccharine Titchmarsh or someone presenting.
Feel utterly crap, like I haven't slept, or stayed up drinking all night. A lovely dawn - the first sun in days.
"Believing there is a better world elsewhere now looks like a way of not seeing the sufficiencies of this one." Epilog, Darwin's Worms, Adam Phillips. Does that also hold true for believing we can make this world better? Should we just be standing back in astonishment at the way it improves itself, and not getting in the way by trying to hurry things along?
Time in most books and stories moves much more quickly on the page than it does in reality. So in a few pages or hours, I can move through days, months, years. But reading Belle's novel is the exact opposite, and rather odd. I have been reading Rayna's story for three months - for her 4 or 5 days have passed - she still hasn't got to cooking for Don's dinner party. There's a lesson here about patience - don't hurry things along - and attention. Stay here, now today, deal with this little precious slice of time, there'll be plenty more along later.
And my table, and Felicity's table are a bit the same. I had an idea for the table months ago, but I am still working on it (what colours to paint it, if any) - so in an instant, in my imagination, the table is there, and then there is this long dance between thinking about it, what to do next, how to solve this or that problem, and actually doing stuff with wood and screws and glue and saws, and then going back to thinking about it again. And if there is one thing I am dissatisfied with, it is that the top is not anything like a perfect hexagon, and the only reason it isn't is because I rushed at it (it was right at the beginning). Actually I quite like its irregularity, that the glass top will only fit in one way, and very precisely, so I have to have a mark on the glass to line it up with one side of the top or the other.
My things to do list has got very short (because I feel so rubbish). Hang up the pheasant skins and wings in Andrew's woodshed. Tidy up the caravan, a bit. Maybe pack, or leave it until tomorrow morning.
Felicity's table has gone a bit Egyptian, a la Casa Cuseni in Taormina. I'm not so sure about the cut out sides, or even the top. It now looks a bit like the Tabernacle, the Ark of the Covenant.
I watched a very silly talk on youtube yesterday about how the Gospels aren't true and they're all made up. Doh. Don't you think we don't know that already? The point is, which the speaker never addressed, was why? Why make it up? What did / does it mean? How does it speak to us? And why do so many billions believe it, in some way or other? As literal truth, or myth, or parable, or paradox, or the key to a secret. Frank Kermode was much cleverer about this (The Sense of an Ending).
I thought I'd written something about Jesus' remark about 'many mansions' (although he meant rooms, apparently, as in a family 'insula' or riad) - his only(I think) reference to an after life (the kingdom is here now, within you and among you - let those who have eyes see, those who have ears hear), and in John, therefore dubious (as in, it wasn't Jesus that said it, but John, 50 years later). I must have just thought it. In the light of Freud's and Darwin's thoughts about reality, mortality, the importance of death - i.e. real actual end of me death, no heaven, no hereafter, no coming back as an ant. Since Jesus is generally very real, here and now, in the moment, if he did say 'many mansions/rooms' what did he mean?
- stop worrying about heaven, there's plenty of room for everyone
- heaven is a multiverse
- it does have many mansions - looked up at the night sky lately?
- a lot of the parables / references talk in terms of individuals persisting after death - the rich man in hell begging for water - is that Jesus, or John again? or the Judaic idea of Sheol.
- Jesus says unless you lose it all (including losing your self?), you cannot gain the kingdom. give everything, forgive everything. the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike - no karma. the sins of the father are not visited on the son. So why did Jesus come to such a sticky end?
- much more like Darwin's and Freud's view of reality; contingency, chance, stuff happens. Get over it. And don't think it's all about you.
Bon voyage!
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