Book 65: The Meaning of Everything by Simon Winchester
I'm reading sort of slowly at the moment. I blame the dissertation. Anyway, this book is a history of the Oxford English Dictionary - a grand and convoluted tale if ever there was one. If I had a complaint it would be that Winchester if anything doesn't make it sound AS grand as it clearly was. Or he puts the emphasis on slightly the wrong aspects, maybe. He keeps mentioning the hordes of people who were involved in the mighty project and who received but little recognition, but then the snippets HE provides about them prove to be fairly meagre and unsatisfying as well. And I would have liked to hear more about the heated debates that sometimes took place over the correct definition/etymology of words - and since these were almost all carried out through correspondence, I'm sure juicy verbatim extracts must be available. A good, and quite humbling, read though. Those Victorians really DID things.

Tags: 50 Book Challenge

11:24

. . .

I woke up this morning with the urge to kill Paul Morley, or possibly myself. Not a particularly common state of affairs; I have (well, HAD) nothing against Paul Morley, and to the limited extent that he troubles my radar I think he's a good critic and broadcaster.

But I happened to see his 'band' Infantjoy last night and it was purgatorial. Here's why:
1) well obviously the name is disastrous, even if it is nicked from Blake.
2) the musicians (including James Banbury out of The Auteurs) are inexplicably forced to dress in white tracksuits, while Morley himself strolls on and off stage in a suit and tie like some kind of smug pimp.
3) he spends a lot of time reading bits out of his book. I could have just bought the book. I didn't want to.
4) Erik Satie is supposedly the presiding spirit of the project, which is fine. We get that the Gymnopédies are beautiful. But could I not just go and see a performance of Satie's music, rather than sit through a garbled and soulless 'version' with Morley droning over the top? Having thought a lot about Satie doesn't make you Satie, sadly.
5) I just don't really care about when people were born or key dates in musical history, certainly not enough to be lectured to about them to the accompaniment of noodly electronic noise.
6) I don't think John Cage or Andy Warhol are THAT interesting.
7) Ok, Infantjoy aren't really FOR people like me, I realise now. I don't find that my enjoyment of Satie or anyone else is added to by intellectualising it. I don't want to be told who is important, and why. I don't think you can prove something is beautiful by talking about it.

I was really only there to see our friend Annie who was singing with Sarah Nixey. They both have lovely voices which were sadly all but lost in the rubbish acoustics and aggressive laptop-twiddling. THAT is beauty to me: the human voice doing original and untheoretical things, existing in the moment without the weight of icons past to drag it down.

I went and hid in the toilets in the end.

Tags: music

10:00

. . .

The Second Law of the Dissertation: downloading/photocopying an article is not the same as having read an article (even though by the time you have located it and saved it in the right format and/or managed to get the photocopier to work it will feel like you've done QUITE enough.)

The Third Law of the Dissertation: having read an article is not the same as having understood it, let alone written critically about it.

I did eventually get some real work done last week, before abandoning it all and going to get drunk, eat risotto, play Scrabble, buy books and watch telly in Cambridge. I'm quite glad that I was still sober when I went to see the exhibition of illuminated manuscripts at the Fitzwilliam Museum, though. Those crazy medievals could (actually, did) teach Terry Gilliam a thing or two about surrealism. Look, it's a MAN, but with the BUM of a DUCK. BACKWARDS. And his NOSE is really a HORSE'S TAIL. Woo.

Oh there has also been Bonfire Night. I was thinking of being a giant wuss and not going to Lewes, but S. persuaded me otherwise with promises of food and a bed for the night. So we went, and it was great, and Matt took some brilliant photos:





Tags: dissertation Cambridge Bonfire Night

16:21

. . .

Before I go back to normal blogging service, I want to pause and write something about Amy Longcore. She was one of the best and brightest souls on Sinister and she died suddenly on November 2nd. I never met her, but we emailed each other sometimes and she joined Wordshare as well as being an honorary Rachel and liking Scrabble. She always seemed to be a bundle of creative energy, insight and generosity. No death is ever just I suppose, but why do the ones that have touched Sinister this year - and broken the hearts of Rob and Danny and the families and friends of Liz and Amy - have to seem SO undeserved, untimely, unfair?

When I heard the news I looked back at some of Amy's emails, and they all made me smile. But this sign-off from December 2001 made me want to cry too:

if i've ever met you, planned to meet you, talked to you, played literati with you, had a crush come from you, if you've ever read one of my posts or i've ever read one of yours, if you've ever heard belle and sebastian and fell in love with the music, know that i wish you well and only dream of happiness for you.

14:21

. . .