Flight to the library!

Having flounced out of the house because of the intolerable noise of the renovations next door I made my way (by bike) to the town library – an imposing modern building with desks (and an electricity supply) for those wanting to work.

     Finding the socket was the first problem when I had found a desk heartbreakingly close to the library’s collection of books on painting.  This is usually the kiss of death for any work that I might do as the lure of the lavishly illustrated books is usually an irresistible temptation for me.  I have however found the fortitude to stay my eyes from the luxury of paint and have stuck to some sort of travail.

     Admittedly, I have not (yet) done any of the work that ostensibly brought me to the library in the first place, but work of a sort has been done.  I have written three stanzas for the memory poem and generally considered that the rest of the writing that I have done for it is woefully inadequate and simply un-poetic.  The ideas might be interesting, but the way in which I have written them is too prosaic for my taste – and it doesn’t sound right when I say the lines!

     I have, therefore decided to rest that particular effort and turn to my languishing blog.  For someone who professes to be a writer, I sometimes evince a totally reprehensible disinclination to practice my art. 

     However, when it comes to displacement activity, I am truly one of the Greats.  Hence, my fingers pattering along the keyboard of my trusty MacBook Air.  This has become the machine that I take to public places where it might be stolen, because my Dell is simply too expensive to be put into a position of possible pilferation and so stays largely unused at home.  That logic is not entirely convincing, but it will have to remain as the explanation for my actions.

     In the way that irony follows me around, no sooner had I sat down and plugged myself into the power supply and typed the first words, than a whole horrendousness of children broke into their atavistic caterwauling outside the library and a group of public street drummers started playing their instruments.  But that sound was muted through plate glass and concrete and, anyway, the sound of rhythmic beats and young humans in full yell is nothing like so debilitating as the bone reverberating sound of workmen mindlessly (to the listener) hammering a party wall that amplifies and encourages sonic augmentation.

   Well, the sounds soon stopped and I only had to contend with the incessant conversation of the librarians at reception whose conversations fill the ample open stairways in the centre of the building.  On the other hand they add a touch of humanity to a space that can sound funereal in the total absence of human talk.  And silence can be distracting too!

Now on to the reason for my being here in the first place: the looming Catalan examination.  I should leave that sentence as a sort of gateway to learning, and stop typing and get on with the hard work of forcing Catalan concepts into my antagonistically resilient brain.  So I will.  After I have been to the loo.

    Back at my machine and, if you are wondering why I have not got down to the real work that I am supposed to be doing, then I will just say that when I went to the loo, I actually left my MacBook Air (open and on) at my desk.  Unattended.  Such is one of the advantages of being in a civilized place like Castelldefels.  I merely followed the example of the gentleman at the end of our row of desks who did the same.  Perhaps I should not be saying this in my blog, it is surely an open invitation to opportunistic thieves who prowl about seeking whom they might devour.  But now, work, Catalan!

And I actually did do some vocabulary work.  I am still confused by the accents which, as I have said before, go in all directions and attach themselves to more letters than I have heretofore encountered.  Still, some letters only have the accents going in one direction, so that should make my work easier.  As long as I can remember which letters they are.  And, of course, the direction!  Well, I have two and a half days left.  Think what can be achieved!  Even by me.

     Now I am going on to the more problematic element in the exam: the writing.  We know that we have a choice of two topics: one connected to our homes and the other an email to a friend.  As you can get away with more lists in the ‘home’ option (thereby mitigating the need for over many verbs, adjectives and adverbs) I think I might give that one a go.  I have recently learned the Catalan word for ‘nightmare’ which is ‘malson’ and I am bloody determined to work that in somewhere to describe the work going on next door.

      I have to admit that I am adept at constructing pieces of writing in translation which are heavy on the use of all and any language reference books that I can get my hands on, and yet make the final piece of writing sound like a convincing attempt by an enthusiastic, if inept, learner!  It’s a sort of skill – but not one much called for.

     The trick I need for next Friday and the exam, is to have a store of key phrases that will lift my ‘listy’ vocab-heavy stodge into something a little more interesting and lively.  All I am looking for is a pass.  Just a pass.  Please.

This & That

 

Just Speak

It’s a simple injunction - though not quite so easy when you have to do it in a language that you do not, to all intents and purposes speak!

Our relief Catalan teacher takes a very different approach to the learning of the language than our previous teacher, who at present is ill and cannot take us.  Our previous teacher has a methodical, textbook-led methodology that works through language via the grammar and selected vocabulary.  As we are all beginners we lack grammar and vocabulary so conversation is not a realistic option.  This does not stop our present teacher urging us to talk, talk, talk!

He does not really care if we substitute English or Spanish for words that we do not know, as long as we are making an effort to use what Catalan we do!  As he is quite keen on making us take turns standing in front of the class to stutter out our illiteracies, this becomes a terrifyingly exhilarating experience!

Our learning is not made any easier by the fact that the composition of our class is something of a moveable feast with hard-core regulars numbering about 7 or 8, out of an initial membership of over twenty.  The classes start at 11.00 am but students drift in until almost 11.30 am.  I realize that this is a class of adults and there may be a whole range of problems and situations that make prompt arrival difficult - but still!  I would be incandescent if it were my class!

The conversational approach will only be for the next couple of lessons as our normal teacher should return next week, but our supply teacher has certainly made an impression and, as will all temporary replacement teachers, he will be used as a measuring stick against whom all future and past teachers will be assessed.

-oOo-

Tomorrow I am going to a meeting of the Barcelona Poetry Group.  This will be a special meeting as the organizer, now resident in the US of A, will be making a ‘guest’ appearance and hosting a meeting where the topic will be ‘Memory’.

I used to go regularly to these meetings, but when the locations changed to more difficult to get to places, I let my attendance slip.  With my present physical circumstances, the number of floors that I would have to ascend (without a lift) in one or two of the locations would make my appearance difficult if not terminal!  But this meeting is in the centre of Barcelona near the Cathedral and I not only know how to get there without fear, but I also know that there is parking (expensive parking to be sure, but parking nevertheless) within easy walking distance of the flat where the meeting will be held.

I will not have seen many of the people there for some time, so there will be a certain amount of catching up to do - as well as a certain amount of writing, as there is a practical aspect to the meeting as well.

I shall wear one of my lurid pressure stockings.  If nothing else it will be a focus of shocked attention and disbelief, giving me the opportunity to recite my well-practised tale of hospitalization and life change!

It will also be an opportunity to find out how changed the others’ lives have been by the passing of the years.  Perhaps I can take some copies of Together Apart to share and distribute!  Though, thinking about it, all the poets represented in that book need to have equal treatment, so perhaps just a few copies to show what the Group has achieved in concrete written form!

-oOo-

The young girls from the family next door have thrown themselves, with much screaming, into the waters of our communal open-air pool.  Indeed it is not cold, but it is certainly not the weather in which I would ever consider immersing myself in any water that has not been artificially heated to something approaching blood temperature!  Well, perhaps a few degrees less.  I admire their determination, though worry about the noise levels: if they are prepared to face the elements in the middle of November, when exactly will the waters of the pool be off limits, so to speak.  Are we condemned to hearing high-pitched enthusiasm for the whole of the year?

I did go into the sea in December, Christmas Eve to be precise, in Sitges.  It was a beautifully warm day with bright sunshine.  That temperature had not transferred itself to the water, which I entered gingerly and exited expeditiously.  Nevertheless, I did ‘swim’ in the sea on Christmas Eve.  And that is an achievement of sorts.

-oOo-

I am at present writing a poem based on observations written in my notebook from this morning.  There is an amazing backlog of ‘notes towards poems’ waiting to be written up and, with my imminent visit to Barcelona and the Poetry Group, now seemed a good time to get back into the swing of things and start drafting.

As is usual for me, I have written the body of the poem and have come up against a blank sheet of paper for the ending.  I sort-of know what it is I want to say, but the ways in which I have phrased it so far are depressingly trite or mawkish.  That is why I am typing this, as displacement activity to rest the part of my brain that isn’t finding the appropriate ending, in the hope that I can trick out a suitable phraseology when I go back down stairs and try again!

-oOo-

I have been doing my musical homework and my knowledge of Katya by Janacek has now reached the level when I am identifying tunes and indeed am humming along in certain parts.  Admittedly those are the parts most closely related to Janacek’s use of folk tunes, but it is progress.

I don’t know what language Katya is going to be sung in at the Liceu, though I doubt that it is in the original language, especially given the nationality of the soloists, still that will be something to weigh up when I get to the theatre and start enjoying the performance, there are always sur-titles to keep me on track and I have read the libretto in English and see productions of the opera as well.

Now back to the poem and the hope that the ending has sorted itself out in the depths of my mind.  Time to go fishing!

To tan is to be!

Summer?

The weather continues to confuse.  One moment it is sunny, then cloudy, then hazy, a sudden downpour, humid, cool. 

No, I’m lying. 

We have had some changeable weather that Toni has described as ‘awful’, but all I have to do is translate it into British terms of weather and I find that I am more than satisfied with what we are getting.  Yes, to be fair, it is not entirely cloudless skies and unmitigated sunshine, but I have to realize that I have been driven indoors because I am glistening with sweat and it is perhaps a little too hot.  The third floor study is relatively cooler and, even if the fan doesn’t create cool air, it at least moves it around a little.

Art passes

The ‘unsettled’ weather has also destroyed The Stain.  I had great hopes that the slash of fading red from the broken bottle of cheap wine would be something that could have lasted through the rest of the summer, but two sharp torrential downpours seem to have consigned my gestural piece of land art to evaporation and the gutter. 

The next time I pass on my newly charged electric bike, I must pause and see if there is anything left.  I do feel somewhat self conscious taking photographs of nondescript parts of a pavement, but it would be somehow ‘satisfying’ to find some tinted remnant lurking.  Given the amount of time that I have spent being confounded by various manifestos of the artistically self obsessed, it is the least I can do to drag out the last pieces of aesthetic significance from a chance event deemed art-worthy!  And I have to say that it was more interesting than some of the stuff that I have been studying over the last couple of years via the course in the Open University.  Though, there again, I defend maligned Modern Art with a vengeance when provoked by those who cannot find an upturned and signed urinal to be provocatively original!  Though with Duchamp I sometimes wonder, as with Warhol, how much of his ‘art’ was clever and how much taking the piss - and if the difference between the two is real, or indeed matters!

Anyway, I am sad that The Stain has gone, but also recognize that one particular part of the pavement in Castelldefels will be forever different (at least to me) because of what it once contained.  And with Modern Art, who can ask for more?

The ghost of past hurt

I follow my father in the way that I take the sun.  My mother was fair skinned, blond haired and blue eyed - and so was I when I was a pre-toddler.  But after a few years my father’s genes asserted themselves and my eyes went hazel and my hair (O tempora! O mores!) a very dark, almost black-brown, and in the summer I went a more than acceptable shade of not white.  When the summers were kind enough to have a reasonable quantity of sun.  Of course in my childish memories, all summers were sunny, as were all visits (and there were many) to Barry Island.  In Barry my excavations were frenzied and extensive, all my efforts devoted to building a castle mound surrounded by a wall that would resist the sea, so that eventually I would be sitting surrounded by the incoming tide.

The real joy of course, was the even more frenzied activity to repair breaches in the wall to obtain the “island” objective.  Sand was plundered from the castle mound to rebuild sea-washed defences and eventual, and usually quick and complete failure was guaranteed.  But once, and once only, did I achieve sufficient repulsion of the sea to be surrounded.  It was only momentary, but it remains an achievement that I treasure!

Here in Castelldefels we have no tides.  Technically, I am told, we do, but they are not aquatic events that you would recognize sitting by the side of the sea.  Certainly, if you are more used to the tidal range of the Bristol Chanel then Med. tides can be ignored!

So, castle building does not have the same allure - and it is some sixty years too late to hold the same attraction.  Admittedly, there was a spate of civil engineering in the sand when I was in university in Swansea when streams on the beach (ask not of what the water was composed!) lured me back to the sort of hand digging where you paid the price through the sand impacted under the fingernails.  Extensive systems of canals and dams were built with Robert perfecting his technique of dripped sand buildings with fantastic towers that rivalled the architecture of Gaudi.

I find that I am not drawn to constructions and I also find that my ability to lie in the sun has also lessened.  Time was when a Christmas holiday trip to Gran Canaria would seem me outstretched for hours.  On one particular day lying on my hamaca in Maspalmoas it started to rain!  I and the other northern Europeans who had paid and arm and a leg to stay on the island in high season simply ignored the adverse weather conditions and waited for the weather to get better.  And it did.  Or at least it got good enough to lie there with out shuddering and we could continue to rely on the penetration of the UV rays through the cloud cover to do what we had expensively paid for.  And anyway, it was always worth it, greeting colleagues in cold Cardiff in January, and watching their eyes take in my bronzed skin!

Nowadays, I use factor 20 cream - rather than the perfumed cooking oil that I used to buy to get that “deep down tan”.  It never worked and I always dreaded the day when I would finally start to peel and then I would worry about the fact that I could be going home even whiter than when I arrived!

Nowadays I do not have to rely on two sunny weeks in foreign parts to get my tan done.  I live in foreign parts and they do have a disproportionate number of sunny days - even in December and January - when our nearest star can be enjoyed.

But I also notice now that, as I brown, elements of my history show up on my skin.  For example, just above the second knuckle of my middle finger of my right hand, there is now a faint outline of a small, three-sided rectangle.  It must related to what must have been a fairly serious cut or graze, where a flap of skin was ripped out of my flesh.  It must have hurt, there must have been quantities of blood and, given where it is positioned, the flexing of my hand and finger must have pulled and broken the scab.  On the right hand, as well, it must have constantly been rubbed and knocked.  It must have been an extended and thorough nuisance.  And what with the natural propensity to pick and worry at healing scars it must have been a feature of my life for ages.

And I have absolutely no memory of the injury at all.  The ghostly outline is almost like a accusation form my body.  Look, it seems to be saying, this happened, it was an event and you care so little that you have consigned it to forgetfulness!

Other scars have a back-story that I remember well.  The ball of the right-hand thumb and the slicing of an open salmon tin; my right elbow and the tip over the tennis net during my victory leap; my inner thigh where the rotten tree stump entered and broke off; my chin and the collapse of friends on top of me in junior school; my lip and something on the building site that bit back; my foot and a piece of rubble on the Asia side of Istanbul - and all those scabs of childhood on knees and legs and arms that would have to be layered in three-dimensional ghostliness to show the succession of minor cuts and abrasions that is part of growing up.

I have always found the expression “like the back of my hand” as a picture of familiarity to be woefully inappropriate - I challenge you to describe yours without looking at it!  And, in my opinion, apart from our faces (and let’s face it, we mostly recognize ourselves from reflections in mirrors and that is absolutely NOT how we appear to other people!) what parts of our bodies do we actually know?

It is usually only when something is going wrong that we start to explore the substances of which we are made.  Which is why I am grateful for my ghosts of past hurts.  They make me think and they encourage me to remember and with the absolute pleasure that comes with confused recollection, although specifics might be inaccurate the experience can be retextured to my own individual attitudes and prejudices.  I can remember about the cut on my finger, even if the unique circumstances are lost.  I know how I am and what I’m like, so I can place the cut and call it mine.

The past is music to my ears!

For the truly sad, there is always YouTube. 

Not that I’m knocking YouTube.  I wouldn’t dare with Toni so close.  His answer to virtually any question is, “Look on YouTube,” and to be fair, he has a point.  You can ask virtually anything and numerous videos will suddenly appear (usually made by teenagers from Minnesota) addressing, if not answering your query.  I am sure that if I typed in “What is the square root of minus one” or “Why chameleons?” there would be answers – or something approaching them in all the dazzling frightfulness of human possibility unchained!

But that is not what I am on about.  What I am concerned with is packing.  An activity that I, and every right thinking person, surely hates.  I was once beguiled by a ‘Top 10 packing tips’ electronic siren-picture in a side bar when I was supposed to be doing something else on the computer and I lost a couple of hours wandering through video mazes where human ingenuity had been concentrated on how to pack an entire wardrobe plus electronic equipment into a small case you could take on board a plane and still have space for souvenirs to bring home with you!

I cannot say, truthfully, that I retain much, except to realise that the principle of the Russian matrioshka doll (i.e. one doll inside another inside another and so on) had been taken to another level where electric leads inside socks inside shoes inside bags inside god knows what, was something that every thinking traveller had to do.  I also remember that shirts had to be rolled and not folded and that one of those perfumed tumble dryer tissues should be placed in the case to make the clothes smell sweet and not musty when you finally got to your destination.

I still hate packing.  And I have hated packing ever since I can remember.  I lack that let’s-treat-this-as-a-3D-jigsaw-puzzle approach that separates the anal from whatever the opposite of that is.  This hatred rose anew in me while listening to the CD player in the car.

As they are now so cheap I have become addicted to buying box sets of classical music that record companies are issuing to suckers like myself who still do not realise that all this music is available from somewhere else for nothing.  I must be the only person in the western world whose electronic music library can be directly sourced to CDs that I own.  Leaving that sad fact to one side for the moment, return with me to just before the motorway turnoff towards Terrassa and the first chords of an instantly recognisable tune.

It was the sort of music that comes with baggage.  It was jolly and upbeat, but there was also a sense of melancholy connected with it as well.  It took me a few minutes to realise that it was music from my college days, and music that was played at a specific time.

My first years in college were spent in Hall in Neuadd Lewis Jones (now demolished), one of three Halls of Residence on the campus of Swansea University: bed, desk and chair, rug, armchair and views over Singleton Park; breakfast and evening meal and a sort of full board at the weekends.  During the holidays the halls were needed for conferences and the like so, while we could store some stuff in a lockable part of the wardrobe, we had to clear out.  And that is where the packing came into play and my consequent misery. 

I found that the only way in which I could counteract my fatalistic torpor when it came to packing was to play music of a sort of compulsively jolly sort.  The very music was found on a sale price disk that I probably bought from one of the sales in Duck, Son and Pinker that I haunted.  This record was of ballet music by Gluck and Grétry.  Wonderful.  That disk saved my sanity on more than one occasion when the utter misery of how to pack so much in to so little seemed more than any arts students should be asked to contemplate.

It was a moment of horror when a speaker from my (first) Boot’s “stereo” record player gave the sacred disk a glancing blow during one of my epic packing stints.  This did not stop my playing the record, it just meant that at a certain point I had to brace myself for the needle to start skipping through a positively Stockhausian racket until the needle found the grove again and the happiness continued.

I had not looked at the contents of the boxed set that I was playing my way through in the car to Terrassa, it was merely the next disk, number 21 that went into the slot and the Straussian waltzes that came out of the speakers were more than acceptable, and the music matched the way Spanish drivers regard a three lane motorway as a sort of open dance floor to sashay their way around, sometimes with flickering lights to mark where they have been.

It was well into the CD when the music suddenly changed and the unmistakable tunes of Christoph Willibald Gluck came through the speakers and I started humming.  The orchestration was hopelessly wrong for the eighteenth century, but by god, it was music and orchestration I knew!  And then tune after tune in a sequence that I knew unfolded until the real gem of this collection started, the ballet suite arranged by Constant Lambert from various ballets of André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry.  Let me not for a minute pretend that I knew the full first names of these two musicians; I am copying from the notes!  But the music was second nature to me.

I have been looking for this recording for years.  My original record was ‘sold to Cardiff market’ by Paul when the floor of the attic in which my record collection was stored started to give way under the weight!  I never found a copy and now, unlooked for, I have it again!

I wonder if this is a sign that I will be moving again soon?

I sincerely hope not.  I prefer to listen and enjoy the jollity and remember the misery in the tranquillity of memory!