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Genuine Imitation Life

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Well, what a week. A little over a week ago I was having my foot manipulated because three of my metatarsals had become displaced and tender. Couldn’t walk. The manipulation was excruciating but I wasn’t going to let that stop me. Worked as normal. Even managed to take a couple of days away at a concert (I’ll post about that as soon as I’m feeling human again!).
Then the ultimate irony – I’ve come down with a flu and chest bug thingie. Spent most of the last two days in bed and off work sick. I should have just given up when the foot went. Well, maybe not. I would have missed some great times. But I’ve ground to a halt now.

What becomes of the broken………

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I met my baby in a shopping mall.
In a shopping mall.
I asked my baby for her number,
In case I called her up, in case I called her up.
I called my baby on the telephone,
I said, “Hello” on the telephone.
I took my baby to the movies,
Sat in the front row.
Got her some popcorn, bought her some bon bons.
We sat in the front row.
I took my baby out to dinner,
A table just for two, a table just for two.
I took my baby to Las Vegas,
Chartered a private plane.
We took some naps, we shot some crap,
Chartered a private plane.
I took her shopping, next thing I know,
I took my baby to Aspen,
I broke my leg, she fell in love.
I broke my leg,
I got a letter from my ex-baby today, nice.

Well, actually, I damaged 3 metatarsals in my foot but Joe Walsh didn’t have a song about that……

The Mystery We Are

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Modern understanding of human nature tells us of the value of mourning and expressing our grief. Counsellors, pastors and priests encourage us to off load our troubles. The psychologist and the psychotherapist help us to order our sorrows. Or at least that’s the way the modern theory goes……

Understanding human nature though is not just a modern preoccupation. It goes back a long, long time. I don’t know if anybody actually reads this but if you do then you’ll know that this month I’m exploring Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare and Shakespeare had more than a little common ground with modern wisdom. He saw a lot of things very differently but some things the same and I could suggest that we ought to hang onto those things that are time-honoured and doubt the purely modern but I won’t. At least not at this point. But onto the wisdom of the ages……..

In Macbeth, Shakespeare points us to something that I think is central to balanced human living. 

    Methought I heard a voice cry ‘Sleep no more!
    Macbeth does murder sleep’, the innocent sleep,
    Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleeve of care,
    The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,
    Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
    Chief nourisher in life’s feast,– 

(Macbeth Act 2 Scene 2)

The chief notion here is that when our life is disordered, a regular sleep pattern is one of the first things to go. From old Elizabethan times to today, it holds true. When someone comes to me for advice (as they sometimes do, it’s part of what I do), amongst my first questions are “how are you sleeping?”, “how’s your appetite?”. In the play, Macbeth thought that he could handle his deed of murdering Duncan but no matter what he does, his internal nature rebels against his stern exterior. When he killed the King, he killed his own peace of mind. He murdered his own ability to sleep.

This other Shakespearean tragedy has another bolt of wisdom for us. Titus Andronicus might not be as highly rated (or as often performed) as Macbeth but you can’t keep a good writer and wise man down.

“Sorrow concealed, like an oven stopped
Doth burn the heart to cinders where it is.”

(Titus Andronicus Act 2 Scene 3)

The basic notion here is, as I hinted earlier, that with sorrow or grief we have two options either to let it out or to let it eat us up inside. Sorrow is characterised by Marcus Andronicus (for it is he that Will gives these words to) as a great heat that builds up like it would in a oven where there is no outlet or regulator. It turns that which is developing in the oven into ashes and cinders. Score one for our society not losing sight of this with its counsellors et al. The downside I think for modern society is that in the fracturing of community it is robbing us of the most natural way of off-loading our troubles – for free with friends over a drink. We live in a society where it is possible to live in a street without knowing any of our neighbours, never mind understand them. The number of people who live alone is on the increase which is not a problem but when those people do not choose to live in isolation and have no-one to talk to then we have created a huge problem. A huge chasm that we are struggling to bridge.

In Titus Andronicus, the person with the greatest grief is not Titus himself but the woman who he grieves over – his daughter, Lavinia. She has been raped and assaulted. In order to ensure that she cannot identify those who have raped her attackers have cut out her tongue. In Ovid’s “Metamoprheses”, a thousand years earlier, a woman, Philomela is similarly assaulted and also has her tongue cut out. She is able to identify her assaulters by sewing on a sampler and identifying them. Aware of this, Shakespeare makes his villains also cut off Lavinia’s hand. The implication is that she cannot communicate in anyway. This is particularly true in a theatrical work where speech and the hand movements of rhetoric are so central to all communication.

We live in a society where we understand the benefits of talking about  our sorrow but we have created a lack of community which destroys the way that we would best share. It’s an interesting dilemma and we have no Shakespeare to guide us.

William Shakespeare and T.S. Eliot fighting in the Captain’s tower……..

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So as I mentioned before I’ve committed a good chunk of my month’s reading time to Titus Andronicus, one of the more controversial of William Shakespeare’s dramatic tragedies. It must be the time of year for his controversial work because before this I was crossing swords with the current RSC production of “The Merchant of Venice” (see my review elsewhere on this journal) which has more than its share of attached baggage.

So I’m reading Titus Andronicus and any essays about the play that I can lay my hands on. I came across this scathingly, brilliant quote from T.S. Eliot in his essay “Seneca in Elizabethan Translation”. He describes Titus Andronicus as:

“one of the stupidest and most uninspired plays ever written”

Don’t beat around the bush, Thomas. Tell us the way you feel.

It’s commentary of this kind that I’ll be trying to avoid. I’ve already shared my thoughts on what I think Titus Andronicus is saying about Empire and I’m gathering my thoughts about its thoughts on sorrow and mourning so it seems to me that there is plenty here but where it falls short I hope to know why I think it falls short. So much modern criticism amounts to – this is not to my taste so it is rubbish. Won’t do. Try harder next time, Mr Eliot

Take me out to the Ball Game

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So another Baseball update…… which of the New York Yankees are doing well, badly or surprising you, Darren?

Pluses

Mariano Rivera.  We expect Mo to be good but this year so far he’s shaking off his advancing years. 9 games, 10 innings pitched, 4 hits, NO RUNS. 7 saves out of 7 opportunities.

Joba Chamberlain. It should be noted that Mariano Rivera started life as a starter and was so-so before being transformed into first setup man and then closer. Whatever Hank Steinbrenner thinks, Chamberlain is a fine setup man at the moment and there seems no reason to rock the boat. 9 games also, 10.1 innings and a 1.74 ERA. He’s endured one wobble and was back to normal yesterday afternoon.

Brian Bruney. Our third excellent relief pitcher. 1.59 ERA, 9 games, 11.1 innings. Also endured a wobble but there was worse to follow which makes Mr Bruney both a plus and a minus….. (see below)………

Chien-Ming Wang. 5-0, 3.23 ERA, 39 innings. We need to see more strong starters but at the moment Wang is Mr Dependable. He out-duelled Sabathia to give us an opportunity to tie the series against the Indians.

Melky Cabrera. .291 BA, .506 SLG, 5 HRs. While two many bats are quiet, Melky is carrying his share of the weight. Yesterday, his home run was the only thing separating us from Cleveland in the batting column.

Alberto Gonzalez. .316 BA. I expected to see Gonzalez back in the Bronx in September as New York hoped that someone might want to offer him a roster spot in 2009 and to see what he was worth. Instead, the early injury to Jeter put him into the spotlight much earlier than that and at the moment he looks a good utility man who can fill most of the spots in the infield with ease. He’s younger than Betemit and whilst its difficult to see how he would fit for New York in the long term, he is surpassing my expectations and I hope he stays around.

Minuses

Ian Kennedy. 8.53 ERA, 2 losses and less than 5 innings per start. Less was expected of Kennedy than Phil Hughes (see below) which is handy because he is worse. Last year, he looked to have potential but at the moment that has dissipated. Can’t see how much longer he will last in the starting rotation on this form but who will they bring in to fill his spot whilst he sorts himself out.

Phil Hughes. 7.85 ERA, 3 losses and less than 4 innings per start. The burden of being the guy that the Yankees refused to give up must be weighing heavily on Hughes at the moment. He inspires slightly more confidence than Kennedy but not much.

LaTroy Hawkins. 8.56 ERA. His ERA exists to stop Hughes or Kennedy being bottom of that list. In Spring Training, he chose no.22 and drew ribbing for trying to follow Clemens. The Bleacher creatures got on him when that proved too much for him and he swapped to 21 which they have reserved to be retired in honour of Paul O’Neill. Shirt number issues aside, or perhaps partially because of them, he seems to have lost his way and seems to be handy for nothing than filling innings in games we have already lost.

Robinson Cano. .158 BA. .216 OBP. Don’t really want to put him here on this part of my list but at the moment he has got me scratching my head. Girardi has observed that he always a slow starter but the problem with that is he had such a strong spring training. Perhaps a few days off might fix it and at least we have Gonzalez to fill in if it comes to that.

Jason Giambi. .177 BA. He’s beginning to hit for power (5 HRs now) but he’ll need to boost his batting average by at least 50 points and be much more consistent at first base before I’ll be pleased to see him still in a Yankees shirt.

Brian Bruney (as above). Every other year, he has begun solidly and then struggled as the season went on. This year, he starts solidly and then falls covering a ball at firstbase and damages his foot. He might be gone for the season and I’m not sure who replaces him.

Surprises

Jorge Posada. .302 BA. Looked like he’d shaken off the injury but is now headed for the disabled list for the first time.

Jose Molina. .267 BA. Managed to stay off the disabled list and will now be every day until Posada is able to comeback.

Billy Traber. 4.50 ERA. Only left-handed reliever on the roster and was holding his own but now he’s headed for Scranton. Strange decision.

Shelley Duncan. .091 BA, no home runs. I was surprised how short his first stay in the Bronx was but I’m even more surprised to see him back. Ensberg continues to hold his own at 1b and 3b and offensively and Duncan’s power seems to have disappeared.
He’s been gifted another chance but he needs to do something quickly.

Chad Moeller. .350 BA. Designated for assignment on Friday. It looks like, with the injury to Posada, the Yankees may have moved too quickly. We’ll see how the next few days workout – whether we see him again or whether he is headed elsewhere.

Mike Mussina. 2-3, 4.54 ERA. Despite Steinbrenner’s diatribe, close inspection shows that Mussina is contributing and perhaps doing a little better than I expected. I really saw him as the fifth starter this season so if he can continue as he is, he’d been on target for 12 wins and I could stand that. The younger pitchers are the bigger issue.

So the season so far. 26 games, 13 wins, 13 losses and only 1 1/2 games out. 

Team W L PCT GB
Baltimore 14 11 .560 –
Tampa Bay 14 11 .560 –
Boston 15 12 .556 –
NY Yankees 13 13 .500 1.5
Toronto 11 15 .423 3.5

The Goths are at the door……….

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No, not the guys who dress in black. Guys who dress in black can actually be quite approachable.

I’m thinking about Titus Andronicus at the moment. I’m sure it has something to say about Empire and its nature but I’m still trying to work all this out.

Titus Andronicus, for those who don’t know, is a neglected play by that little known writer William Shakespeare. I’m only joking about Shakespeare being little known. Titus Andronicus is a neglected play. Principally, I think, because, it is probably Shakespeare’s most violent play. It includes someone having her tongue cut out, being raped, having her hand cut off. You get the idea. You can do that in the cinema and say nothing but if it’s Shakespearean drama and it has something to say you’d better look forward to it seldom being performed.

But what does it have to say? Now there’s the question. The Romans and the Goths are at war. The General Titus Andronicus returns victorious but with 21 of his 25 sons sacrificed in the battles. He decides to humiliate the Goth prisoners who return to Rome in his train. The Goths in their midst become more cultured during their stay in Rome. The Romans display the barbarism they had until now associated with the Goths. By the end of the play, Titus Andronicus’ son has ascended to the throne and he is enabled to achieve this goal by the Goths that his father had sought to humiliate.

Empire is a very current idea. The Americans and assorted allies invade Iraq to remove a corrupt leader but also to export democracy. The kind of rights that are traditionally associated with democracy are meanwhile denied those who are prisoners-of-war at Guantanamo Bay. 

Heather James in her important essay, “Cultural disintegration in Titus Andronicus” has this to say:

“the founding acts of Empire turn out to contain the seeds of its destruction”

Something like this is afoot in the world at the moment. The Chinese seem to be exporting their Empire to Africa by stealth and by financial interest. Examine what’s happening in Congo and Ethiopia. Sell us your resources and we will build you roads and train lines. Ships of Chinese weapons are stopped at South Africa en route to Robert Mugabe. Meanwhile, China stifles Tibet back home. Beware of Empire-makers bearing gifts. Africa needs to wake up before it gives away the little it has left……..

GK Chesterton said , in “The Flying Inn”, that the great destiny of Empire was in 4 acts. “Victory Over Barbarians. Employment of Barbarians. Alliance with Barbarians. Conquest by Barbarians.”

There is a theme here somewhere. Something about the fact that on order to create your Empire you must defeat your enemy, and in order to defeat your enemy, you must stoop to the level of those you came to enrich, to exploit and make wiser. In order to build your Empire you must become worse than those you came to improve. This is certainly true of the Romans in Titus Andronicus and perhaps of all attempts at Empire.

There are, of course, those who rise above and survive. Speaking of the people of God, Bob Dylan reminded us “every empire that enslaved him is gone – Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon” (Neighbourhood Bully, 1983).

Even the Eagles remind us on their new record that the “road to Empire is a bloody stupid waste” (Long Road out of Eden, 2007). Despite all these great voices ranged around to remind us, the wise ones still try to build empires to export their ways. It cost Titus Andronicus his sanity and the Romans the world they had re-created. It might cost us more, if we don’t learn the lessons of this play and our history.

Leeds lead the way?

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I can’t believe the mess that the Football League are making in League One.

Let me first put my cards on the table. I am a life long Leeds United supporter. Leeds at the moment have finally had their hour of appeal on the 15 point penalty they received for the way in which they came out of administration. I do, however, think that the way that the sale of the club which brought it out of its financial plight was strange and duplicitous and, consequently, I think they should have been penalised. I don’t know about the degree of the penalty (15 points) but it seems to me that there should have been some penalty.

I don’t understand, if the club were entitled to an appeal, why it took so long to hear. I don’t understand, beyond that. why now the appeal tribunal has seemingly come to a close that there seems no prospect of an announcement.

The outworking of this is that the Football League has announced today that Swansea who would be champions if Leeds do not win their appeal, will not be able to receive the trophy at their final home fixture. This is not because the FL are announcing that Leeds have won their appeal but rather because their solicitors have advised against the trophy being awarded to anyone.

Teams have played through the bulk of what will have been a 46 game season. At the moment because of this mess, teams do not know what they have to do to gain promotion, they do not know what they have to do to qualify for the playoffs.

This is meant to be a sport. It is meant to be a good experience for the supporters. It is meant to be something that is decided on the field and not in the courts. Leeds have created, by the mismanagement of their club, a situation which needs to be referred to the courts but that the Football League has allowed it to go to this point in the season and that they are then taking so much time to announce an outcome is ridiculous.

All of this provides another nail to be driven into the coffin of the credibility of this sport in the United Kingdom. We have an English Premiership in which only 4 teams can compete. We have a Scottish Premiership in which the only two teams that can compete seem to want to get out and join the great chase to see who finishes fifth in the English Premiership. Now, the old third division, where my team sadly have found themselves (a team who went 29 games undefeated in the old first division at their peak) have managed to concoct such a mess that no one can tell who will win, who will progress and who has what number of points.

I feel sorry for the likes of Swansea, Carlisle, Doncaster and the rest who are through no fault of their own being messed around by all of this.

How did it all come to this?

The way we were

A New Kind of Album

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The new John Foxx album arrived today. It’s a live album recorded on his “Metamatic” tour last Autumn. Entitled “A New Kind of Man”, it can only be obtained direct from Townsend Records ( www.townsend-records.co.uk ) under an exclusive deal that Foxx has with this outlet. As I understand it the release is limited to 1000 copies at the present time so will probably prove difficult to find in the long term.

The album carries 17 tracks which were recorded across the tour and selected by John and his musical partner Louis Gordon. Consequently, it has performances of the 10 tracks which originally made up the “Metamatic” album in 1980 and 7 recordings of additional tracks which were from the same era. These are the instrumentals: “Film One” (B-side of Underpass); “Glimmer” (which was covered by cult electronic band, Sonic Dude for a single release in 1982); “Mr. No” (also covered by Sonic Dude and then the Foxx version was remixed for a DJ single a couple of years ago); and the vocal tracks: “This City” (part of the No-One Driving single package originally); “Burning Car” (a hit, of sorts, in its own right); “21st Century” (b-side of that hit then called “Twentieth Century”) and, finally, “My Face” which those of us of a certain age will remember was originally released on a yellow flexi-disc attached to the cover of Smash Hits.

Anyway, the tour was essential viewing and listening for those who like the in-vogue tours which revive a classic album in its entirety and the album is a great reminder of that and should be picked up by those who were there and those who were not.

Skin-on-Skin

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I try not to watch too much televsion. When I do watch it tends to be to chill out after a long day at work and most of what I see isn’t worth the time I’ve wasted.
This makes DVDs and the new download services very valuable.
Last night I watched the last episode in the second (and seemingly the last) series of Skins on Channel 4’s download service.
This quirky series about the lives of a group of 17 and 18 year olds growing up in Bristol has really hit a golden vein through the last few episodes of this second run.
The first series was patchy. The episode dealing with Cassie’s (Hannah Murray) anorexia and bulimia and attendant mental problems was well crafted but the remainder was inconsistent.

Image:Cass 2.jpg

The second series has also had its unconvincing and confusing moments but the last three episodes dealing with Jal’s (Larissa Wilson) pregnancy, Chris’ (Joe Dempsie) illness and sudden death and Cassie’s flight to New York were consistently moving and funny in turns. Sid Jenkins (Mike Bailey) has been excellent throughout these episodes as indeed he has been throughout the two series.

Image:Sid 4.jpg

The characters have now reached the end of their A-levels and are moving towards the future with lots of built in ambiguities about where this may take them. Let’s hope the writers / directors and Channel 4 have the good sense to leave it this way and not move it towards a rumoured third series featuring the next generation. This road leads to the inevitable catch-up “see what happened to them in three years” time series featuring the original cast or those who are willing to return and should be avoided at all costs.

“Skins” was a programme that I thought was going to be nothing more than a light-hearted series about teenage drug-taking (hardly what we need at the moment). That it has turned into a series with mostly credible characters and thoughtful and poignant moments is to Channel 4’s credit.