Miles with Meg

Sunday afternoon, down to the lake with my son, his family and friends, then a ten mile run with Meg. It was cold but very beautiful. One oncoming car stopped short and the passenger got out and and came up to me, very concerned, saying "you have bare feet and it is very cold..." I tried to explain that I was fine, my feet were fine, but I do not think she was convinced. I didn't get as far as pointing out that the dog was bare foot too. Actually my feet were not at all cold but my hands (also bare) were. Holding a camera doesn't help.

My latest grandchild (and mother)

Cameras are contagious

Two more grandchildren

My son

A study in Cow and Dog

Kings River forked rock

Just to prove it was cold

Solaris

I have finished reading the 1961 novel Solaris that I mentioned in my last post. I rank it as one of the better sci-fi books I have read because of its disturbing realism. None of these humanoid extra-terrestrials that are now so common - here all attempts to make satisfactory contact with the alien fail and yet it wreaks havoc. The characters, with all their inhibitions, distrust and confusion, are not straightforward. Many questions in their and the reader's minds are purposely left unanswered. Which all resonate with common experience.

The protagonist Kris Kelvin falls in love with an alien-created avatar of his long-deceased love Rheya and doggedly will not accept that she will probably cease to exist on leaving Solaris for Earth. Even after his colleagues force the issue by destroying the avatar, and some semblance of normality has returned, he ends up abandoning his original plan to return to Earth and the book ends "Must I go on living here the, among the objects we both had touched, in the air she had breathed... In the hope of her return? And yet I lived in expectation. Since she had gone, that was all that remained... I persisted in the faith that the time of cruel miracles was not past".

Earlier in the book Kris observes: "We all know that we are material creatures, subject to the laws of physiology and physics, and not even the power of all our feelings combined can defeat those laws. All we can do is detest them. The age-old faith of lovers and poets in the power of love, stronger than death, that finis vitae sed non amoris (the end of life but not of love), is a lie, useless and not even funny... Are we to grow used to the idea that every man relives ancient torments, which are all the more profound because they grow comic with repetition? That human existence should repeat itself, well and good, but that it should repeat itself like a hackneyed tune, or a record a drunkard keeps playing as he feeds coins into the jukebox..."

I found all this disturbingly reminiscent of emotions that rattle around in my ego. I hold onto relationships and principles without fully understanding why I do so. I find it difficult enough to even quantise such feelings myself, let alone explain them in writing. Had I been born, for example, to Hindu parents in India I wonder how different my inner thought processes, expectations and beliefs would be? The comparison is of course void because, if I had, I would not be "me". So maybe I am destined to remain an unknown quantity to myself - I know, O LORD, that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps. 

Several films have been based on the book and there are numerous web sites on the subject. For example, if you want an in depth description of the manifestations of the alien "intelligence", try here.

Dreams

I'm reading Solaris, a 1961 science fiction novel. It is set in the distant future and has a good attempt to predict computer technology except they have to wait for the valves to warm up - and yet they still use tape recorders!

So, maybe because I went to sleep after reading about these weird humanoid manifestations, I dreamt that the door to my bedroom was opening (I was sleeping alone, Ali having been visiting her mum - which may be why my blog-posting has been above par recently). I instantly woke up, quite alert, and thankfully was able to verify that in fact the door was firmly closed.

Which says something about dream vs. reality time-lines. Experience confirms that long dreams can sometimes occupy very little real time space. And yet this one was synchronised to the second.

I can also verify that dreams can definitely be in vivid colour and that I can both hear and be heard and be understood. A recurrent dream-theme I have mentioned before is my ability to "fly". Odd perhaps but not unique although you get some pretty weird stuff if you Google it. In these dreams I sort of push inside (a little bit like the pushing one does to defecate only located much higher up) and if I push hard enough sometimes, but only sometimes, is it enough to raise me off terra-firma. Once levitated then I can soar more freely, though usually I am limited in height and duration. Whilst flying I remain approximately upright - never zooming horizontally like Superman. In that other realm, reality, I have often tried this pushing but sadly with no effect (yet).

The experience sometimes includes the ability to jump unusual distances. Typically I can be at the top of a high stairwell and jump down ridiculous numbers of steps and yet land gracefully. And in my dreams I try to be surreptitious as I get embarrassed about what other people must think of my antics.

I mention my flying ability here (how I wish I could do it for real) because of the amazing scenery in these dreams - I am awed by the rapid changes of perspective and panorama as I navigate. On a recent occasion I was impressed by the richness and complexity of the tapestry of landscapes - it seemed as if I was aware that I was in a dream and yet everything looked so real and the thought occurred to me - how could my paltry imagination come up with such splendour?

Sci-fi writers, and more recently Physicists, have played with the idea that what we think of as reality may be little more than a dream. One wonders who is doing the sleeping? The cornflakes I ate just now seemed pretty real and I can still feel them rummaging around inside me but soon, come a few hours, they will be little more than a memory. All our reality is but an instant in time that evaporates rapidly into ephemeral memory. And neither is our future secure: at best it is only hope: hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.

Which is, I suppose, why man builds edifices, like the many standing stones here in the British Isles, many with ogham inscriptions. Whilst distance may lends enchantment and memories may dull with time, a stone pillar with obviously man-made markings is visible proof that folk really existed and lived their lives all those years ago. I wonder if, in my life, I have made any permanent marks...

A letter to Santa

Gay Byrne

Gay Byrne, veteran and much loved Irish TV and radio presenter, hosted a show on Lyric fm this afternoon in which he read A letter to Santa by Irish novelist John Sheridan. It presents a different take, and one I liked, on Santa than the more common commercial-push-over or the religious-I-don't-want-anything-to-do-with-it approaches. I couldn't find all the text but here is a sample from the above link:

Once-- and not so long ago-- Europe, at this blessed time of year, was a blaze of lighted church-windows, carols meant more than carousals, and red, symbolic candles shone out from a million sills to guide your landings. But the lights grow fewer every year, and a great darkness is spreading over the face of Christendom.

You were always a legend, Santa, but now they are trying to make you a lie; and you were never a lie. You were, rather, a logical necessity. You just had to be invented. You stand, not just for a parable, but for a whole medley of parables.

You represent, for instance, the belief that prayers are heard-- and answered; the belief that time and space do not exist in the spiritual dimension; the belief that there is a Bounty that is not embarrassed or diminished by the number of clients or the immensity of their needs.

...

That is why I am still prepared, in spite of the cost of living, to act as your local representative and depot superintendent until my Illustrious Virtues [his children] find both of us out; why I am prepared to perpetuate a legend that looks like a lie but is merely a cloak for the truth; why I can say, literally and with all reverence, that the tiny things I have wrapped in brown paper and hidden away against the Vigil of the Feast are part of the Deposit of Faith.

But sure, who am I telling it to?

How much is enough?

How much is enough? How far should I try to impose my will on someone: on my pupil, my employee, my spouse, my under-age son or daughter, my friend, or even my friend's dog?

I watch parents insisting that their offspring do this or that, things that sometimes seem unreasonable to me, and then either recapitulating or metering harsh punishment when the child does not or cannot comply and has got into such a tizzy. Not that I didn't make plenty of mistakes when I had young children.

I grant that, to maintain any semblance of order, there do need to be accepted lines of authority but none of us like to be forced to do something that is unreasonable.  In the Le Petit Prince the king's "rule was not only absolute: it was also universal."

"For what the king fundamentally insisted upon was that his authority should be respected. He tolerated no disobedience. He was an absolute monarch. But, because he was a very good man, he made his orders reasonable.

" 'If I ordered a general,' he would say, by way of example, 'if I ordered a general to change himself into a sea bird, and if the general did not obey me, that would not be the fault of the general. It would be my fault.' "

I find this hyperbole to be a useful premise in my dealings with other folk, although it does rather tend towards the lowest denominator. In contrast was our new music teacher at secondary school who galvanised me (and others) from musical indifference to singing in the school choir (once I even sang a solo in a school concert, can you imagine?) and playing flute in the school orchestra. For this I honour him, and others like him who can believe and instil the unbelievable in others. For the general to be able to fly like Jonathan Livingston Seagull would have been a wonderful thing.

The point I am trying to make (maybe not very well) is summed up in the term "human dignity". Martin Luther King declares it in his "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.' ". That I should aim to honour and respect equally every person regardless of their age, station, nationality, health, cleanliness or creed.

I know that I should be impartial, that I should love those that hurt me. I would love to be the sort of teacher who imparts life and not just knowledge. One who lives by and upholds Godly standards. I have these things as my aim, but I am sorry to say that I have yet a ways to go.

Jack London

At school my English teacher would occasionally hand out a list of a zillion book titles that literate boys were meant to have read. Generally I could find two, maybe three, titles that I recognised. But two books that immediately appealed to me back then were Jack London's Call of the Wild and White Fang.  (Another was Laurie Lee's Cider with Rosie). It is the power of description in the books that I loved.

And so it was with expectation that I recently picked up Martin Eden. In a lone battle struggling to become a writer whilst standing against convention Martin eventually finds financial success but the novel ends with him loosing purpose and committing suicide. I found the ending unexpected and utterly bleak.

As an atheist Jack London is quoted as saying:

"I believe that when I am dead, I am dead. I believe that with my death I am just as much obliterated as the last mosquito you and I squashed".

Like Thomas, I have plenty of doubts and loose ends. But I find this statement untenable, just as I found the novel bleak. As I have mentioned in my page on faith I go along with Puddleglum's sentiments:

"We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a playworld which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it."

It has been said that man was made with a God shaped hole which only He can fill. It would seem that most people do not agree with this, but then most people believe that a diamond is a girl's best friend.

Polar Express

The Polar Express

Talking about wonder, a film I greatly enjoyed watching a few Christmas's back was The Polar Express. Why did I enjoy it so? Maybe because it was the first digital film I saw that was anywhere near lifelike. Or because it used the digital medium to such advantage in portraying the children - obviously synthesised and yet embodying real, lovable, hesitantly inquisitive humanity. Or because of the scene in which the train runs off track, a theme I have often dreamt about even before I saw this film. In such dreams I am riding a train careering along roads or even rough tracks across county, whilst I am pondering how the wheel flanges are making out... But then I am a siderodromomaniac.

And of course I liked the hit song I'm wishing on a star...

Towards the end Santa gives the boy a magic bell and the film ends with a twist: the boy, now grown up, says:

"At one time, most of my friends could hear the bell, but as years passed, it felt silent for all of them. Even Sarah found one Christmas that she could no longer hear its sweet sound. Though I've grown old, the bell still rings for me, as it does for all who truly believe."

Which moral could be taken in more ways than one. A number of internet sites suggest that the film might have an overtly Christian message, for example see here or here or here or here or here - and there is even the suggestion that the producers intended it.

I am left wondering... how insignificant can that which our faith hangs on be before we conclude that the object of our faith was but a dream? Blessed are they who have not seen and have believed.

For me, this film is entertainment at its best. Mind you, not all the critics agreed, but then they wouldn't.

Fish pie, Rachmaninoff and Hamlet

Boys School, Smock Alley Theatre

Last evening I accompanied my wife and friend to a performance of Hamlet at the Smock Alley theatre, Dublin. The venue was interesting and the acting was good, I am sure, but Shakespeare isn't my scene even if it is his 450'th birthday. I find it too wordy, stilted, abrasive and foreign. Like - a morass of words (no doubt clever but the cleverness passes me by) hung on a thin skeleton of props and acting. I had done my homework so roughly knew the plot, but I couldn't follow all the speech partly because the actors spoke so quickly, or quietly, and partly because my hearing is not the best. Our friend said he had the same problem and he is only a teenager. And then the plot is not exactly uplifting. Most of the characters end up being murdered. About the only element of wonder I found was to consider whether Hamlet's motives were at all honourable. Whilst revenge is understandable it is hard to see why one should be entertained by it. So, all in all, I found it rather hard and unrewarding work. Sorry, for those of my readers who may think Shakespeare plays are the bee's knees: I will not stand in your way!

Anyway, to continue my argument - at one point in the play there was Ophelia, who was probably expressing her love for Hamlet at the time, when the first movement of Rachmaninoff 2nd piano concerto started playing in the background. My attention was immediately absorbed by the music and I wished it could have continued, that we could have dispensed with the rest of the play.

So why do I find music so much more engaging that talking? It is a bit like my vast preference of fish pie over a complicated dish such as an avant garde restaurant might serve. Fish pie is good all the way through. No surprises, just plain old reliable good. Especially with cheese on top and ketchup and peas. I can become immersed in the experience: it is sensual, pleasing, I am carried by and can identify with it. Granted, sheer pleasure is not the only reason for doing stuff - just possibly I have become educated and more erudite by attending Hamlet - but surely entertainment should be entertaining? Just occasionally a poem might light my fire but, generally, I don't do words well - words are functional and I can get frustrated with people who use more of them than I think necessary. Whereas - if music be the food of love, play on...

A long ago story

A tale of wonder... from the same little blue book (another one) that I mentioned in my post In a far country:

A long ago story

...The years fled away. And still the Great Tree stood among the mists, unharmed by time and the lightnings that felled so many of its proud neighbours. But still the years followed one another endlessly; and at last, old and withered, the Great Tree crashed and fell into the muddy waters of the swamp. Down to the bottom of the swamp it sank, crushed underfoot by the mighty reptiles that fought one another, bellowing and screaming and coughing through the short night hours ; or pushed and jostled, and rolled in the steamy ooze of the daytime, as they sought their prey. Deeper and deeper into the mud, at the bottom of the swamp, the tree was pressed, until at last it rotted and fell to pieces. But the ball of gum with the fly at its core was unharmed by the mud and the water. It was too small for the giant feet of the great reptiles to crush it, and so it lay there safely in the darkness of the thick slime. The years fled away in tens and in hundreds and in thousands. The sea broke over the land, and where the swamp had been, the little waves of a blue deep sea rippled from shore to distant shore.

Unnumbered and countless years flew by. Man appeared upon the earth, a little, helpless, naked creature, whose brain was to make him lord of all. And so, slowly, slowly, ever so slowly, man conquered the earth ; built upon it fair and wonderful cities ; and launched upon its seas his painted ships. And the great oozy swamps, the vast trees, and the crawling reptiles, were forgotten as if they had never been.

And then, but yesterday, a little boy walked along the beach, after a high spring tide had thrown the shells and seaweed a score of feet beyond the wonted tide mark. The sun shone, and the sand was warm and pleasant to his bare feet. Suddenly his bare toe touched something hard and round, and as large as a sparrow's egg. He picked it up, and gave a little cry of delight. It was amber. But it was rough and dull, and he did not dream of the treasure at its heart.

He took it up to the tiny shop upon the windy cliffs. And there the little old man, who spent his days polishing and cutting stones, set to work upon it. The little boy's fair hair and the old man's scanty gray were very close as the polishing proceeded rapidly. And then the little boy screamed out, and pointed to the piece of amber now as yellow as gold and as clear as glass. The little old gray man gasped. There in the very heart of the amber lay the body of a beautiful blue fly, with one glittering gauzy wing outstretched ; it was the fly that had died so suddenly in the young, young days of the old world.

Fly in amber

And now, set in gold, the fly-in-the-amber, that is older than the hills, rests in a case in a great building for all the world to see. And day by day folks passing by stop to stare at its wonderful beauty.

But the proud tree that boasted, in those far off ages, of its long, long life, was lost and forgotten before ever man came upon the earth ; little, naked, defenceless man, who was one day to be lord of all.

Stephen Southwold

My birthday?

Fish Pie à ma mater

Mine!

All for me!

Me having a real birthday? My birthday still?

Many thanks to all you who thought about me. And thanks for the Facebook wishes. And for the gifts. It's kind of nice to have a birthday even if one doesn't believe in them!

I had a magnificent dinner - fish pie as my mother made it - although I had to make it myself as Ali took the grandchildren out out to see Swan Lake.

I do not have an official recipe so the following is roughly what I did tonight and is based on what I can remember of how my mother's fish pie tasted. It worked - everyone who partook said they enjoyed it.

Take some fresh white fish (e.g. cod - in this instant it was hake), NOT smoked. Poach it for about 10 minutes in one pint of milk (one pint is good for 4 people). Drain and put to one side to cool. Retain the milk.

Peel and boil some potatoes. Drain and mash with butter, milk salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Using the same saucepan as you poached the fish it, melt 2 oz of butter, take off the heat and mix with 2 oz of plain flour to make a roux. Slowly add the hot milk mixing well all the time. Return to a gentle heat and bring to the boil stirring all the time thus making a thick white sauce. Do not use cornflour!

Grate about 4 oz of cheese, and add a little less than half to the white sauce.

Remove any skin from the fish and give to the cat. Flake the flesh and extract any bones.

Take a deep oven dish, grease with butter, and use about 1/3 of the mashed potato as a base layer. Pour half the white sauce over this layer. Now arrange the fish over the potato and cover with the remaining white sauce. Carefully spoon the remaining potato on top, level and fork, then cover with the remaining cheese.

Bake in an oven for about 30 minutes, if necessary grill to brown the cheese.

Serve with peas, tomato ketchup and white wine, and share with your best friend.

Vivian de Sola Pinto

I mentioned in a recent post the book of poems by Vivian de Sola Pinto some kind benefactor sent me. It came at a busy time so it has taken me a while to peruse the book and write this post. Some of these poems I enjoyed as a boy, and I still like them. You have to understand that this is extraordinary because, generally, poetry doesn't light my fire. I am rather illiterate in this respect.

There is a common theme in many of the poems - the juxtaposition of the mundane of humanity versus the glory of nature - to the point where it becomes somewhat predictable. But that is OK: this theme is worthy of repetition: for example, so often Spring, and the daffodils it brings, passes me by almost unnoticed, meanwhile I slave away in my office trying to earn money.

I like these poems because they resonate with emotions I feel. Emotions that I have sometimes thought no one else in the world shares, and which as a result I have sometimes tried to tamp down. Now, if I were a poet, and if I didn't have to earn my bread, I could...

Another recurrent theme is his love for his two boys Vivian and Oliver, and for this I respect him. Here are two of his poems taken from his book This is my England and other poems:

FOR OLIVER, AGED SIX 

Now you are like a squirrel 

  or a shy woodland bird : 

your brown eyes full of surprise 

  as though you'd never heard 

a human voice before 

  or seen a human face, 

so delicate-swift your motions 

  strange your wayward grace. 

You come from a country 

  where skies are brighter than ours : 

fierce blue summer laughs at you 

  burn yellow and scarlet flowers : 

louder shouts the wind there 

  clearer sing the birds : 

the country undimmed by grey talk, 

  the land of no words. 

We came from that country, 

  long ago we came. 

Scarcely we now can see 

  an image of its flame 

of colours, remember its fountain 

  of clear shining sound, 

here where the air is empty, 

  bare and cold the ground. 

You must bring them back,

  magic, colour, song, 

touch the bare black branches there 

  make leaves and blossoms throng 

a sky flooded with new glory, 

  bid the dead world live again, 

tell sun to shine and wind to shout 

  bring lightning, swords of rain. 

Beat down our silly houses, 

  silence our vain chatter : 

you are wise, and do not need our lies, 

  our learning's but a tatter 

of an old splendid banner 

  that moulder'd long ago : 

scorn painted rags and flaunting flags, 

  you've flowers, fire and snow. 

THE PHOENIX 

TO MY SON STANDING IN AN OPEN DOORWAY 

The phoenix shall be born 

out of a blazing nest :

 leaping flames are his outspread pinions, 

soft fire burns in his breast. 

The door stands open and I see 

a world ablaze : 

the lintel glows, but it is from the skies 

that the soft fire of heavenly love 

comes to amaze my eyes. 

Pink peachblossom laughs victorious and the grass 

is pure emerald flame, 

but glory is in those dazzling clouds, 

where angels in triumphant crowds 

praise an ineffable name. 

But there is burning here a stronger fire 

than bright grass, flower or shining cloud, 

a flame more clear, a strength more proud, a power 

of untamed spirit in the boy's grey eyes, 

white brow, wild gleaming hair : 

This is the heart of flame, 

where there is neither shame nor lies nor fear : 

the true burning world of which our drear

pale cinder's a mockery, a dull unmeaning game. 

Out of the flames, dear phoenix rise, 

let your proud wings be spread : 

that fire shall fail, those flames grow pale, 

but in far skies a fire burns clear, 

  that is your home not here, 

  not here among the dead. 

Vivian's father, who was of Portuguese-Jewish ancestry, was a cigar importer, and my research suggests that his sons may have taken up the same profession. Vivian himself was an academic at Oxford and later a professor of English at Nottingham university. During the first World War he fought alongside fellow poet Siegfried Sassoon who, naturally, I had never heard of - but here is a fitting sample of Siegfried's poetry which I like because it sums up the horror of that war so economically :

Suicide in the Trenches

I knew a simple soldier boy

Who grinned at life in empty joy,

Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,

And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,

With crumps and lice and lack of rum,

He put a bullet through his brain.

No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye

Who cheer when soldier lads march by,

Sneak home and pray you'll never know

The hell where youth and laughter go.