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A perfect palimpsest

March 12, 2014 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid
“See me, feel me, touch me, heal me”

Pete Townshend

I suppose it is symptomatic of encroaching old-age that I am unable now to recall exactly why I found myself sitting at my computer last week, searching the InterWebNet for recorded versions of The Who’s “See Me, Feel Me“. I know that this was not what I started out looking for (though of course I can’t remember what that was either!) – neither can I now call to mind the supervenient sequence that ultimately led me to Acton’s finest.

It is a sorry business – this aging!

Though I had, naturally, been well aware of The Who throughout the late 60s I did not truly become a fan until 1971 – when I heard for the first time the mighty sound that is “Won’t Get Fooled Again“. The effect that this had on me was not dissimilar to that which I experienced on hearing – for the first time – “A Day in the Life“, “Eleanor Rigby” or “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds“. I had no idea that music could be like this. In the case of “Won’t Get Fooled Again” I was astonished that a ‘pop’ song could not only have something reasonable to say, but that it could do so with such power, such brio, such… passion! “Won’t Get Fooled Again” is one of those rare tracks that sounds exactly as fresh, meaningful and powerful today as it did when heard first.

“See Me, Feel Me” is – of course – a couple of years older, originating as it does in The Who’s ground-breaking rock opera – “Tommy” (the first of a mercifully modest canon!). Through the decades since the album was released in 1969 I have endured a number of different stage productions, as well as gazing slack-jawed at Ken Russell’s flamboyantly eccentric movie version. I have to say that I find the piece as a whole to be somewhat… patchy! There are – of course – familiar highlights such as “Pinball Wizard” and the finale – “Listening to You” – which apparently later found its true niche in The Who’s live set as an act of communion between band and audience.

The opera’s one moment of genius, however, is its penultimate fragment – the aforementioned “See Me, Feel Me” – a fleetingly transcendent distillation of pure longing, which hangs upon the sudden breathless air a still small voice in the eye of the hurricane. This palimpsest crystallises somewhat unexpectedly out of the preceding number – “We’re Not Gonna Take It” – and once it’s brief existence is done bunny-hops through a crunching gear-change into “Listening to You“.

The lyric comprises but one repeated line:

“See me, feel me, touch me, heal me”

There is no more because at this point there is nothing more to be said.

Harmonically, “See Me, Feel Me” is also stripped back as far as is feasible – comprising what is essentially a repeated three chord pattern…

|Ebmaj7 |Fsus4  F|Fsus4   F|G

…which forms (apparently!) an Aeolian progression. The suspensions that initially render the phrase tonally ambiguous resolve at the end of each line in a manner that contrives to be at once final and infinite. This is one of those rare musical phrases that is so complete in and of itself that no development is possible. I imagine that Pete Townshend must have tried pretty hard to come up with a way of so doing before giving up and accepting this gift from the gods for what it was – a perfect representation of imperfection! Trapped within itself like a bug in amber this tiny fragment manages thus to express eternal longing. We might wish that it went on for ever. It cannot do so.

You may not be familiar with this orchestral version – featuring Townshend himself on vocals rather than the familiar tones of Roger Daltrey.

See Me, Feel Me: See Me, Feel Me

There are some pieces of music – just as there are some poems, some prose passages – that are so immaculate that one wonders how the author – having achieved this proximity to perfection – could face writing again, for fear of never being able to top – or even match – what had already been accomplished.

Wouldn’t it be nice to be in that position!

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The music of time

March 7, 2014 in Life as we know it | Permalink

758px-The_dance_to_the_music_of_time_c._1640For reasons not always at the time explicable, there are specific occasions when events begin suddenly to take on a significance previously unsuspected, so that, before we really know where we are, life seems to have begun in earnest at last, and we ourselves, scarcely aware that any change has taken place, are careering uncontrollably down the slippery avenues of eternity.

Anthony Powell – A Dance To The Music Of Time 

The weekend recently past found the Kickass Canada Girl and I (‘me’ for the purists – though that sounds wrong, wrong, wrong!) engaged at two very different events (home and away – one might say) which – between them – gave considerable pause for thought. It does no harm at all on occasion to step back from the hurly-burly to contemplate what this existence might truly mean and how all is ultimately connected.

This post might as easily have been entitled ‘The Circle of Life’ but the chance to reference Poussin’s wonderful painting (“A Dance to the Music of Time” – a particular favourite of mine) was too good to pass up. The statue therein of the double-headed god Janus is particularly pertinent in this instance.

The first of the weekend’s events was the memorial service for a very long-standing acquaintance – my oldest-friend’s wife’s father – whom I have known for more than four decades. He was, of course, of my parents’ generation – of whom in our circle only a very few now remain. He enjoyed a good life and the occasion was very much a celebration thereof rather than being overly solemn. None the less, such acts of remembrance always invite a degree of introspection regarding the transience of our existence – this one being no exception.

The occasion was also – however – a rather lovely gathering of family and friends ordinarily these days spread far and wide. It was a great pleasure to meet again so many good acquaintances with whom we only seem to coincide nowadays on feast days such as this.

The following day we ourselves hosted a long planned gathering of friends, some of whom had also been present the day before. This convocation had a considerably lighter tone and was – as far as could be discerned – greatly enjoyed by all those in attendance (thanks in no small part to Lidgates of Notting Hill and their wonderful pies!). Amongst those present was the lovely friend at whose wedding in Hong Kong the November before last we had been guests. The couple have recently added a brand new member to our extended circle; the devastatingly cute four-month-old inevitably being the centre of attention throughout the evening.

Between them these two events pretty much epitomised the aforesaid circle of life. The passage of old life passing as the tender buds of the new start to unfurl; connections re-kindled in friendships established over the decades; new faces welcomed and – mayhap – new affinities inaugurated; acquaintanceship initiated between companions previously unmet. We rejoice in the sharing of reminiscence. We celebrate the discovery of ‘ontologia exotica‘. We revel in our anecdotage. Life is affirmed. All is as it should be…

Such gatherings have a tendancy to foment the philosophical. I watched as the Kickass Canada Girl headed for the buffet deep in conversation with my ex-wife! Oldest Friend leant over to me:

“You’re in trouble!”, he opined trenchantly…

Well – I probably am now!

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Quickfire

March 5, 2014 in Life in England, Photos | Permalink

To the National Theatre earlier this week to catch the inestimable Simon Russell Beale as Lear (he magnificent – the production something of a curate’s egg!). As I hurried along the embankment to meet the Kickass Canada Girl for for a little pre-show sushi I was struck by the beauty of the half-light of the Capital’s dusk. Barely breaking my stride I whipped the the x10 from my new messenger bag (of which more possibly later) and fired off a handful of shots.

What fun!

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid

 

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The Running Tide

March 1, 2014 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

Image by Andy Dawson ReidI must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

John Masefield

 

My first full length ‘straight’ play (as distinct from the musicals on which I had to that point collaborated) was produced a little more than a decade ago at the school at which I was at that time gainfully employed (though not – it must be said – as a teacher of drama).

The piece was not – in fact – a single play at all, but a pair of linked one-act plays – designed to make up a complete evening’s entertainment.

The setting was Hebridean – the central theme ostensibly concerned the sea – much of the material was drawn from Scottish mythology and folklore. As is the nature of such things – of course – the plays’ true themes were connotative.

When first performed this brace of plays went under the imperceptibly amusing title – “Two Scottish Plays”.  Being a somewhat younger and still relatively callow chap, I thought it amusing thus doubly to tempt the fates! The work was subsequently re-titled – taking its rubric from the second stanza of John Masefield’s “Sea Fever”.

FotoSketcher - DSCF0305Reluctant to abnegate entirely my claims to be considered a composer I wrote a score to accompany the piece – an amalgam of incidental music and songs. Once the production was over I filed everything away as usual and pretty much forgot about it.

I had thus not heard these compositions in a almost decade when I came across the sequence files in a ‘dusty’ digital archive at some point during late autumn last year.

Distance apparently does lend enchantment – which interval can seemingly be chronological as well as spatial. I found myself captivated by a score that I had – in large part – forgotten completely. It is quite startling to come across something from the (relative) mists of time and to wonder how it could possibly have been written in the first place. It may sound egotistical – but I found myself not unimpressed.

I was moved to revisit the score – thinking perhaps to re-arrange it and to re-record it using contemporary technology. My spare(!) time over the ensuing couple of months was thus duly occupied on my Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) of choice – Tracktion – and a great deal of fun was had.

On the extreme off-off-off-chance that the gentle reader might feel inclined to add an auditory experience to the literary – do find herewith a couple of the incidental pieces.

The Littoral – Intertidal: The Littoral – Intertidal

Ciaran’s Jig: Ciaran’s Jig

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Bits and bobs

February 24, 2014 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

Image by Scott ClarkHerewith a couple of items that came to my attention over the weekend – and that I couldn’t resist sharing…

This image – brought to our notice by our dear friends in Saanichton – is part of a strip entitled ‘Grammar Pirates‘. The full strip – which can be found here – is the work of Scott Clark and can be found on his rather wonderful blog – ‘Kind of Sketchy‘.

Those who know me well will be all too aware of why I find the notion of ‘Grammar Pirates’ totally irresistable… grammar – word-play – paronomasia (look it up!)… and pirates!! What’s not to like?!

 

I found this in the magazine of The Observer – my Sunday read of choice. Their regular brief interview column – ‘This much I know‘ (which is subtitled ‘Famous faces share their life lessons‘) features a selection of edifying – and frequently humorous – ‘sound-bites’ from the well known.

This week’s contributor was the Scottish actor Brian Cox – now in his late sixties. He recalled working with Olivier:

‘Sir Laurence Olivier was quite elderly and frail when I worked with him. But he was a fox – he would wrong-foot people. I remember him forgetting his lines on set and saying, “Did anybody see Michael Hordern as King Lear? He knew all his lines. But I’m still a better fucking actor than he is.”‘

Priceless!

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Ooops!

February 20, 2014 in Flotsam and Jetsam | 2 comments

Image from http://openclipart.orgThose who follow these unreliably random postings might just recall an item that appeared back in October last relating to my hitherto unconsidered decision to indulge in the cultivation of a facial inflorescence… To be precise – a beard!

The growth of which was something that I had not previously attempted and at the time of writing I wasn’t sure exactly how I felt about being adorned with such an accoutrement. I quite liked the look of the thing – thinking perhaps that it made me look a little distinguished – but I wasn’t at all sure that I felt like a man who should have a beard.

I have clearly had nothing further to convey on the subject since October – a reliable indicator that there has been no change either in my appearance or in my feelings regarding the matter.

Until now…

The growth seemed to suit best when kept reasonably short and tidy and I thus found it necessary to trim it at least once a week. Compared to shaving daily this was like being on holiday and I really rather enjoyed seeing what could be done with it. All went well until last night, when I was the sorry victim of a rare shaving accident – or more properly – a ‘trimming’ accident.

The beard trimmer that I had purchased to control the beast is a reasonably fancy job which has an electronic control by which the closeness of the cut is adjusted.

Yes – you can already see where this is headed!

Somehow – I know not how and – inevitably – without noticing until it was too late – I contrived to alter the cut setting so that the length was reduced from 5mm to 0.5mm! Within seconds I had cut a swathe like a firebreak across one cheek! Even the most cursory inspection revealed the situation to be hopeless. All I could do was to whip the whole thing off and then figure out if I wanted to start over again from scratch.

Doh!

It came as a considerable shock to see my naked face staring back at me from the mirror and I’m not at all sure that I like how I now look without the facial embellishment. Even worse – I am going to have to shave again every day!

Part of me is annoyed that I didn’t get to choose if and when I shaved the thing off; part of me shrugs philosophically and considers that this is what the universe has provided.

Either way it takes some getting used to…

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Getting biblical

February 17, 2014 in Flotsam and Jetsam, Life in England | 4 comments

Image from http://www.freefoto.comLord, here comes the flood
We’ll say goodbye to flesh and blood
If again the seas are silent in any still alive
It’ll be those who gave their island to survive
Drink up, dreamers, you’re running dry

Peter Gabriel

It is broadly held that were it not for the weather we Brits would not have two words to say to each other. This is – of course – a vicious calumny, though it cannot be denied that the subject has – of late – provided much on which to confabulate.

Those resident in this green and pleasant land (what can yet be discerned of it through the murky drab by which great swathes of it are currently concealed) will be only too aware that the weather here throughout the past two months has been truly terrible. Ceaseless rainfall – giving parts of the UK their wettest January on record – and a constant conveyor of storm fronts from the Atlantic has resulted in catastrophic flooding, downed trees, damaged property and severed railway lines. Though the recent run of storms has abated somewhat this week there is no sign of an end to the apparently perpetual precipitation, which deluge has nowhere to go – landing as it is on already sodden ground.

Concurrent with this local cataclysm eastern Canada and the US have been experiencing freezing rain, wind and snow, whilst California – conversely – basks in record warm temperatures and suffers an ever-worsening drought.

Clearly – something is up. Equally clearly – to many of us at least – that something is ‘climate change’.

It would appear that the pattern of the jet stream that controls the weather in the northern hemisphere has started to alter – slowing down and beginning to meander in a previously unheralded manner. As a result weather patterns that would once have passed by expeditiously are now becoming bogged down for extended – and dangerous – periods…

…not that you would know any of this should you rely for your information on the say of  the ‘climate change deniers’!

These deniers come in two varieties. The first – and perhaps worst – breed are those who deny that there have been any climate changes at all. These disbelievers hold that there have always been extreme weather patterns – and point out that the recent disturbances are merely ‘once in a hundred year’ events. This view would hold more credence were it not for the fact that the same was said last year – and quite probably a year or so before that. In actual fact, the frequency of these ‘unprecedented’ events appears to be increasing.

The second brood of deniers are those that accept that the climate has changed, but deny that this is in any way a result of man’s activities. This would – by itself – mean little, were it not that these cynics further decree that since we did nothing to cause the change we need do nothing about it. More – that we should do nothing about it. This marvelously perverse view has its roots in the Weltanschauung that is common to all deniers… they are all at heart free-marketeers! As such their blinkered world-view extends no further than the short-term cost of anything and everything, and is informed by the belief that – given its head – the market will resolve all issues. This tenet is adhered to blindly in the face of all recent evidence to the contrary and might – quite literally – one day be the death of us all!

I need to lie down in a darkened room!

Stay dry – stay warm…

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Residency revisited – revisited!

February 13, 2014 in Moving to Canada | Permalink

Image by Merlin2525 on OpenClipArtAt the culmination of my last post – imaginatively titled ‘Residency revisited‘ – I wound up my deliberation on the requirement for the Kickass Canada Girl and I to ‘prove’ that we do indeed intend to reside in Canada should permanent residency be granted with the observation that further research was needed – and said that I would ‘get back to you’ with the results thereof.

I’m back!

It is a testament to the power of the InterWebNet that simply ‘Googling’ – “Proof that you intend to live in Canada with your spouse” – turns up the answer almost immediately, in the form of a reference to a document entitled “IP 2 Processing Applications to Sponsor Members of the Family Class“. This tract – previously unknown to me and hidden well away on an obscure branch of the CIC website – contains the following section:

13.3.      Sponsorship by Canadian citizens living abroad

The following applies to Canadian citizens living abroad:

  • Canadian citizens who reside abroad may sponsor only their spouse, common-law partner, conjugal partner or a dependent child who does not have dependent children of their own;
  • they must submit their sponsorship application package and fees to the CPC-M in Canada and not to the visa office;
  • Canadian citizens who are tourists in a foreign country, even for extended periods, are still residents of Canada;
  • Canadian citizens who are long-term workers or students in another country are generally considered residents of that country;
  • Canadians who have spent little or no time in Canada may also seek to sponsor. If they have never worked in Canada and do not have the educational or language skills to find employment in Canada, refusal under A39 may be appropriate if arrangements for the care and support of the sponsored person are not satisfactory;
  • sponsors must provide evidence that they will reside in Canada after the sponsored persons and their family members become permanent residents.

Evidence that sponsors will reside in Canada may include one or more of the following:

  • letter from an employer;
  • letter of acceptance to a Canadian educational institution;
  • proof of having rented/bought a dwelling in Canada;
  • reasonable plans for re-establishing in Canada or severing ties to the other country.

Of this suggested evidence the first three bullet-points are pretty much covered by the surmisings in my last post and would – for us – be no simple matter with which to comply. That leaves the ‘reasonable plan‘ of the final point. I guess that we must make a case thereon which would incorporate the following mitigating factors:

  • the Girl has a dependent in Victoria
  • we have a number of bank accounts in Canada, which contain pretty much all of our savings
  • the Girl has Canadian pensions
  • by the time we submit our PR application our property in the UK should be on the market
  • we can call on the testimony of Canadian family and friends

Failing all else I might simply refer CIC to this blog! That should do the trick…

 

In the course of my researches I discovered a most useful forum that goes by the appellation ‘Road to Canada’. Amongst other topics upon which the site offers valuable discourse was one concerning the process to be followed once permanent residency has been approved. I had – somewhat naively – assumed that it was simply a matter of being furnished with the relevant documentation and then being able to rock up at the Canadian border at some point during the succeeding years to be greeted with open arms.

Not so…

What actually happens is that once residency is approved a temporary visa is granted and one must then cross the Canadian border at some point before that visa expires. On so doing permanent residency commences and the immigrant is then subject to the requirement of being resident in Canada for two out of any five years. In practice this means that – whereas one needn’t actually move to Canada until up to three years after permanent residency has been taken up – one must visit before the temporary visa expires. This expiration date is apparently the anniversary of the required medical certificate, which – given the length of time that it takes to process PR applications nowadays – is normally somewhere between a fortnight and sixty days.

All of which means that the timing of the application is critical and must be considered most carefully.

More anon…

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Residency revisited

February 11, 2014 in Moving to Canada | Permalink

cicThe Citizenship and Immigration Canada website has been re-designed… and jolly nice it looks too. Whether it will be any easier to navigate than the old version remains to be seen. It is early days yet and – mindful of the morass of information that doubtless still lies behind the impressive new facade – I wouldn’t want to count any chickens.

Time – however – to get started…

My original post on the subject of Family Sponsorship for Permanent Residency outlines the basic application procedure that we must needs follow and the first thing to do now is to identify how this might differ as a result of both of the applications (the Kickass Canada Girl’s as sponsor and mine as the sponsored) originating from outside Canada.

Revisiting the online guides to glean further information I see that this new condition has been added since I last studied the detail:

Effective October 25, 2012, sponsored spouses or partners must now live together in a legitimate relationship with their sponsor for two years from the day they receive permanent residence status in Canada.

If you are a spouse or partner being sponsored to come to Canada, this applies to you if:

  • You are being sponsored by a permanent resident or Canadian citizen
  • You have been in a relationship for two years or less with your sponsor
  • You have no children in common
  • Your application was received on or after October 25, 2012

Fortunately, since the Girl and I have been married for more than three years already this condition will not affect us. Moving on…

Hunting further through the the CIC website (no mean feat, for it is a complex beast!) I (re)discover:

“Guide 3900 – Sponsorship of a spouse, common-law partner, conjugal partner or dependent child living outside Canada“.

In the depths of this document I find that which I seek:

If I live outside Canada, may I sponsor?

If you are a Canadian citizen, you may sponsor a spouse, a common-law partner or conjugal partner, or a dependent child who has no children of his or her own. However, you must demonstrate that you will live in Canada when the sponsored person becomes a permanent resident.

Note: Permanent residents residing abroad may not sponsor from outside of Canada. Canadian citizens travelling (sic) as tourists are not considered to be residing abroad.

At this point a small alarm bell sounds… I take a look at the sponsor’s document checklist:

doc

…and see that it includes this item:

proof

“Proof that you intend to live in Canada with your spouse…?” How on earth is one supposed to prove that?

It is difficult – off the top of my head – to imagine what sort of documentary evidence we could possibly provide that would satisfy this requirement. If the Girl had a job offer from Canada – mayhap – I guess that would count, but what if we are both intending to retire? Perhaps if we had already purchased a property in BC – but again – would we be likely so to do if there were still doubt concerning our right to reside in Canada?

Hmmm!

Further research is clearly required. I will report back with my findings.

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Now we are six(ty)

February 5, 2014 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidIt is not far short of a month since I passed the significant (for me, anyway!) milestone that was my sixtieth birthday. I am now officially ‘getting on a bit’!

The gentle reader may have noticed – however – that apart from describing in a frankly unnecessary degree of detail the celebrations that accompanied the event I have made very little reference to what it is actually like to have crossed the great divide into a seventh decade. Though I have now achieved an age that would once have been considered ‘pretty good going’ – in this day and age to have done so is merely commonplace.

Truth be told I have written nothing because being 60 has felt little different to being 59 – which in turn felt no different to 58 – and so forth…

That this may be self-evident is clearly no help at all to anyone who has arrived here as a result of Googling the InterWebNet nervously for signs of an after-life in the detritus of the boomer generation. I will therefore make what observations I can – however prosaic they may be.

The first thing to say is that once one has passed one’s sixtieth anniversary – in the UK at least – one is suddenly eligible for free stuff!

I take regular medication for inherited hypertension. It will be very nice no longer to have to pay for my prescriptions (three off – every two months)… at least until we move to Canada, where – the Kickass Canada Girl assures me – I will be charged even more than I had once to pay here.

I am also a long-time contact lens wearer and – as a result of one of my habitually curmudgeonly fallings-out with my erstwhile optician – I had recently to sign a new contract with a different chain. For this purpose I was required to take a fresh eye test and I was delighted to find that this also was free of charge.

Until fairly recently I would have been able to get a free bus pass as well – but I learn that the powers-that-be have decided that this was far too straightforward a service to be gifted to mere mortals and have thus of late complicated it to the nth degree. To qualify now one has to live in a certain part of the country, to have been born under a particular phase of the moon and to arrive at the answer ‘5’ when asked to subtract the number one first thought of…

Well – something like that! I will not – apparently – qualify for mine until I am sixty five years, two months and twelve days old – and I certainly don’t intend still to be around here by then. Those who know me will doubtless snort derisively at this juncture and point out that the issue is moot since I wouldn’t be caught dead on a bus in any case!

One change – however – is significant. I am now a pensioner! At my previous school my retirement age was 60 and my pension thence – though relatively humble – has now come into effect. I thus received my first pension paycheck at the end of last week. Now that was a momentous event.

The real changes – though – will not take place until I finally retire…

Roll on the day!

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