A round of strenuous idleness

"Golf is a lot of walking, broken up by disappointment and bad arithmetic."

I must confess that I spilled the beans to my father regarding my entirely inappropriate ‘that’s what she said’ running commentary in my head the other day on the golf course. He actually found it highly amusing and tried to come up with his own examples, some of which I’ll share in a moment.

Now, this is a bit of a journalistic test for me. As I alluded to in that recent review of Plam Poom’s debut album, I used to cover sports for my university’s newspaper, The Tufts Daily. At first I wrote the men’s [American] football notebook (a sidebar to the main article) as well as women’s soccer for the weekly Observer, but then left that rag in a minor protest over the way they edited and butchered my soccer pieces to make them sound more ‘American’. Just two examples that spring to mind: when I wrote something like, ‘a goal was scored from a corner just after the half-hour mark of the match’, it would get changed to ‘a goal was scored from a corner kick with 60 minutes remaining in the game’; and, ‘she terrorised the opponents’ defence with her blistering pace, leaving the central defenders at sixes and sevens’ to ‘she terrorized the opponents’ defense with her speed, leaving the fullbacks very confused’. Forget it, I thought. And took my services to the Tufts Daily.

It was there that I started covering the swimming team, which wasn’t the most thrilling assignment in the world – no offence to swimmers - before being given women’s basketball, which I thoroughly enjoyed. A little while later, I got given one of the plum beats: sailing. I should point out that Tufts, yes, Tufts (!) had one of the top-ranked sailing teams in the country, ahead even of the US Naval Academy. I’m not sure what that says about the state of America’s navy, especially considering all the partying and drinking the Tufts sailing team engaged in.

Anyway, I really got into it, despite not knowing a thing about sailing in the beginning. A few of the sailors took me under their wing, not only patiently explaining all the important lingo, but inviting me to countless sailing parties and somehow ensuring I got home. At least I think they did.

The point of all this is that I’m about to attempt to write about golf, of which I know very little. So bear with me, please. But I’m doing this because I can’t remember the last time I felt this good about my sporting prowess. The last time I was halfway decent at anything, you’ve got to back to my baseball playing days in high school. For those interested, I can even share my stats with you, as pathetic as that sounds. And no, I don’t have to look them up.

“Golf is a good walk spoiled.”
Mark Twain

I’ve never been a huge fan of golf, and that’s putting things mildly. I went through a phase in high school where I played a lot over one summer, but that was really it until I played a round or two with my old man when I was in college. And I hadn’t played since then – except for putt-putt, which I’m addicted to - until this week. And now, suddenly, I’m hooked.

Actually, for purposes of transparency, I ought to come completely clean. My buddy Brad and I used to go up to Lake Winnipesaukee (NH) during the summer and play a lot of putt-putt, hit some balls at the driving range, eat lots of fried clams (that’s what they were calling it in those days), play video games at the arcades, and drink a few beers and then go run little kids off the go-kart course, where we usually got kicked out. Good, clean, innocent fun really.

My father, on the other hand, likes his golf, and though he’s by no means a terrific golfer, he does play from time to time. Definitely a LOT more than me, that’s for certain. When it comes to putt-putt, things are 50-50. With real golf, no comparison. Until the other day, that is.

Our first day out on the course, he beat me by a whopping 17 strokes over 18 holes. The second day featured a slight improvement, where I lost by 14 strokes.

But on the third day? With my uncle along for the fun, and my feisty competitive spirit raging at full speed, I made a dramatic turnaround and won by 3 strokes. Perhaps more impressively, or perhaps not, depending on your perspective, I was ahead by 9 strokes after 15, and luckily staved off a mini-collapse to hang onto the lead. I really felt proud of myself.

But that’s only part of the story. I got par on 5 holes and a birdie on another, where I was a measly 3 inches away from a hole-in-one. And yes, there was a lot of luck involved, but I was consistently landing my first shot on or near the green. In fact, if my putting were better, I could easily have had another birdie and 3 more pars. And yes, I have over-analysed this round to death.

Some elaboration is needed as to why I almost collapsed. On the 15th, I skewed my first shot into some roughage just over the green. Now, it’s hard for me to pinpoint just one weakness in my game, but if I had to choose one, it would be my pitching. I struggle to get any lift on the ball, especially at short distances. Whenever I’m able to get lift, the damn ball goes soaring over 50 yards. At around 20-25 yards from the pin, I needed a perfect chip to land it on the green. I had a small tree blocking my path as well, so I had to also angle my shot to avoid that.

I launched what felt like the perfect shot: just the right amount of lift, perfect direction…it just felt great. For a few seconds, that is. Plonk it went off the tree, ricocheting back past me. Patience is not one of my strong suits, and this is probably why I’ve always struggled with the game of golf. Immediately, I got flustered. Up until this point, it had been my father effing and blinding, accusing me of cheating and employing bad golf etiquette. What a sore loser.

Anyway, this piece of misfortune completely threw me off my game. I bungled the next shot badly, and in a fit of rage, I whacked my next shot over 100 yards away onto another hole’s fairway, nearly decapitating some 250 pound woman in the process. When I shouted my apology, I’m not sure if she gave me a thumbs-up or the bird, it was too far away. Either way I immediately accepted the 6 stroke limit on that hole and gave up.

The final 3 holes weren’t much better. I suddenly lost my confidence, whacking the tee shot on the 16th into the water, and then badly slicing my approach shot on 17, taking the 6 stroke limit on both holes. The 18th was a shade better, but it was a shame that I had lost my groove. Another 2 or 3 holes and in all likelihood I would have lost it.

But no matter, for the important thing is I did win, and boy was my father irate. He’s still fuming, accusing me of every golfing shenanigan in the book. What a sore loser.

I can’t wait to play him again.

Another game I’ve never been much good at - the patience thing again - is chess. I challenged my father to a game earlier, one featuring massive, life-size pieces in the town centre.

And I had checkmate in 4 moves. Has a game of chess every finished more quickly?

Of course, it helped that the poor guy didn’t know the rules, but still, that is impressive.

The ‘that’s what she said’ pantheon

The following comments uttered by yours truly were all followed by my father’s ‘that’s what she said’. You be the judge of whether any of them were appropriate or not. Keep in mind that the poor guy is learning here.

• ‘Damn it, I was 3 inches away from a hole in one!’
• ‘I completely collapsed over the last 4 holes.’
• ‘That’s ridiculous, that shot was heading straight for the hole.’
• ‘Come on, drop, damn it, drop!’

Come to think of it, those aren’t too shabby. I really have to give him a bit more credit.

Reflections on my contributions to education

For all intents and purposes, I’ve at long last finished with my stint at student-teaching. I’m now enjoying a well-deserved holiday in South Carolina – insert your own snide comments here – before another week of ‘observations’ (i.e. I show up at school, watch 1 class, spend 4 hours in Starbucks, then go back to watch another class) and various other tasks. I can hardly believe I’m done – it’s been a long and arduous few months, and I’m amazed I got through it one piece.

I have to admit that I’m torn between wanting to divulge everything I went through or keeping schtum about it: a few ‘lucky’ friends have been recipients of my tirades and travails. Though I’ve had my up and down moments, this could either turn into a utter bore-fest – as opposed to the rest of the always riveting mini magnum opuses on these very pages – or a schmaltzy Mitch Albom-esque piece of drivel that has everyone inspired to become teachers and rescue the youth of America from the clutches of ignorance and indolence.

As a compromise, I’ll leave out the nasty and the cringeworthy, and instead mention only a few things I observed or learnt about public education, as well as myself. Not to delve too much into my teaching philosophies, but I’ve always believed that teaching is a two-way operation. In other words, the learning process never stops: I have just as much to learn from my students as they do from me. You already know that my students know all about my various escapades in the third world, as well as my friend Dr Wasabi Islam’s dumping habits. I wonder if they actually learnt anything of use.

Here’s what I’ve learnt:

• students are very trusting and way too open with their teachers. The little turds never tired of asking me to use the bathroom or to get a drink of water from the ‘bubbler’ – a New England term that I only just learnt recently. (According to my father, a bubbler is what happens when you lit rip in the bathtub. When I informed my students of this, they immediately committed it to memory.) Anyway, I repeatedly told my students they could only excuse themselves if it was really an emergency. Of course, it always was, and I certainly didn’t want to risk them pissing or soiling themselves. But was it really necessary for ----- to call me over, ask me to lean down so she could whisper that she had to use the bathroom because she was having her period and it was a mess ‘down there’ and she really, really had to go asap? For the love of God, kid, just bloody well go! These are things that I really don’t need to know.

• that you can never trust students when it comes to their opinions on your fashion. Every day, without fail, I got ridiculed and abused for my fashion sense. Bear in mind here that I will never claim to be a fashionista of any sort. However, I must say this: I feel pretty confident about my smart fashion sense, meaning I like and trust what I wear to work. Though I can’t compete with Dr Wasabi Islam’s exceptional collection of ties, I can boast of a decent enough range, and a couple of fairly nice dress shirts, along with a sports coat or two. And then there are my stripy socks, which tend to get far more favourable than negative reviews. And besides – I sometimes got positive comments from my colleagues (i.e. my peers), which I’ll accept more than from the students. Last week, however, was spirit week, which meant, among other things, that each day had a dressing-up theme. For sports accessories day, I wore my Ukraine top and scarf, which befuddled most; I was the only one amongst 2000+ people wearing something other than Red Sox, Celtics, Patriots or Bruins paraphernalia. For fashion disaster day – the students told me that I could just dress normally for this – I went all out and wore an excessively baggy peachy-orange shirt (which actually did fit me when I was a wee bit heavier a few years ago), a shiny pink tie, a pair of mustard yellow, burnt orange and turd brown striped socks, as well as a dark beige trousers that didn’t match with anything I was wearing.

And what did my students say? That I actually matched and looked nice! I can’t win.

• that they are either distrustful of ‘foreign elements’, downright xenophobic or genuinely mortified that I don’t know Manchester inside and out. Three examples:

o Manchester is about 20 minutes away from Massachusetts, and just under an hour to Boston. Not only have well over half of them not been to Massachusetts, but almost all of those who haven’t thought it bizarre that I was even asking them. It’s as if they’re asking themselves, ‘why the hell should anyone want to go to Massachusetts?’

o when I mention that I like ‘football’ and even called it that, there were quite a few murmurs of disapproval. First, anyone who fails to call it soccer is immediately not be trusted. Second, anyone who likes such an effete worldwide ‘sport’ is not to be trusted. And third, anyone who doesn’t like [ice] hockey is not to be trusted. I had one student who was born in Germany: thank goodness for him that I had someone on my side, though even he grew tired of trying to defend me.

o when I told them that I didn’t know a certain coffeeshop on Elm Street – Manchester’s main city centre thoroughfare – I was met with incredulous gasps and looks of utter disdain. I may be mistaken here, but they might have even been talking about Dunkin Donuts.

In the interests of fairness, I ought to point out that, on the whole, my students were all very lovely and I got on well with just about all of them. One class even threw me a surprise ice-cream party and got me a card which they all signed. The best and most inspiring comment had to have been ‘Shit, teacher, you the dope!’ I think that’s a good thing. (The most disturbing might have been the 14 year old asking whether I’d be her facebook friend and then signing off with an ‘x’ – this isn’t Ukraine, sweetheart!)

Most disturbing moment by far: a student, not even one of my own, asking one of my students if HE could have my phone number. When I told my student that that was wrong on so many levels, her response was ‘it’s okay, he’s almost 18’.

Thank goodness I’m done with that place.

My burgeoning career as a soft-porn writer, part II

Part I of this came last summer in Uzbekistan, where I was molested by a young Uzbek woman in the back of a taxi. http://darnellpedzo.blogspot.com/2009_07_01_archive.html Whenever I used to ‘fantasise’ about these types of situations, I never envisaged it would happen in the back of an Uzbek taxi. What happened just the other day was a bit more true-to-life, as far as these types of things go.

I was out for a jog along a not-so-busy road on a muggy Sunday afternoon in South Carolina, a few miles down the road from Myrtle Beach. Being the kind-hearted soul that I am, I stopped on a couple of occasions to assist turtles who had strayed a bit too far onto the road. One of the little guys was being particularly stubborn and I was getting exasperated. Somewhat suddenly, a lithe young blonde number in a short red dress slowed her flashy red sports car to a halt to enquire as to what I was doing. I casually asked whether she knew of any tricks to help shoo turtles to back to the side of the road, when she got out and did the same thing I’d so unsuccessfully been attempting, stomping her feet and making gentle cooing noises. If anything risqué or raunchy was going to happen, here was my chance.

But did I take the bait? Of course not. I merely joined in and actually said things like ‘c’mon, little man, go back to where you came from, there’s nothing to see here’. She actually chuckled at this. Between her gesticulations and my cajoling, the little turtle eventually did make a move in the right direction, unlike me. In my defence, this woman was wearing some ridiculously oversized sunglasses. And yes, that’s the best defence I’ve got.

Isn’t this the kind of cliché thing that happens in cheesy porn films? (not that I’d know or anything). I’m tempted to insert a number of various puns here, but will mercifully refrain.

(I blew it, I bet she told herself as she drove off…)

On the beach

Whilst relaxing on the beach, I noticed, from a distance, what appeared to be a couple caked in mud. One of my guilty pleasures, and here’s where all pretence of my manliness goes down the tube, is beauty products, especially cucumber/apricot exfoliating scrubs and mud masks. Those on facebook will no doubt recall the picture of me caked in Dead Sea mud. I can think of few things more appealing than the idea of covering myself from head to toe in mud. (While I’m at, shall I mention what an emotional, sensitive soul I am?) So naturally I was thrilled to bits when I thought that the picturesque beaches of South Carolina had mud baths to offer. I sauntered over in the direction of the couple to enquire as to the whereabouts of this precious mud. You can see where this one’s going…

Imagine my embarrassment as I got closer to them, only to realise that it wasn’t mud they were covered in, but merely skin.

Yes, they were black. That is all.

And I’m not entirely sure why I’m sharing this.

On the golf course

You know you’re going doolally when this is your inner monologue whilst golfing in the early morning hours with your father. I’ve never been much of a fan of the ‘that’s what she said’ post-comment riposte. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever used this line, I’m proud to say. Except for this morning, when it repeatedly popped into my head. Surely the golf course is the most natural place for this thing to happen? But it just felt wrong in so many ways – this is my old man after all!

• ‘Damn it, I was getting it in the holes early on and I can’t any more.’
• ‘Jesus, why the hell can’t I get it near the hole’ (let alone in!)
• ‘C’mon, get in the damn hole!’
• ‘Christ, these damn holes are all over the place’

I should also point out that my dear old man is a good church-going Catholic. Oh, if only he knew how I were incriminating him now…

Now this is good

In a sign of just how old I am, it was only mid-way through my first year at university (1994-5) that internet was introduced on campus. This was a major revolutionary moment. I now had one more excuse not to get any work done.

But in these innocent halcyon days, there were no browsers, only the university’s email web server. Still, this was exciting in and of itself. Suddenly we all, or at least I, had a means of communicating with all the cute girls around campus who didn’t go to fraternity parties, without humiliating ourselves by saying something stupid in the dining halls. Now we could save all the stupid stuff for email. And be accused of stalking in the process.

I could share many a cringeworthy story here, but I’ll merely regale you with one. Back in these days, one could ‘finger’ someone else. Before jumping to any conclusions – remember, I’m a failure of a soft-core porn writer – this is email speak for seeing who was online at any given moment. You could also see when someone had last been online (and thus wonder why they hadn’t responded to your email). This was the age when instant gratification and the immaturity that went along with it was all the rage.

Long story short: a girl from St Anselm College in New Hampshire fingered me and we got to chatting. In no time at all, I made plans to visit her and visit her I did for a weekend. Nothing significant happened, though I did have a very good time. And that was really that.

Anyway, a little while later, another girl, from another NH college, fingered me because she said she liked the sound of my last name (Pedzo, remember). Fair enough, I supposed. So we got to chatting and in no time at all…no, I didn’t go visit, but we had some epically long chats into the wee hours, and to this day I still regret submitting by poor roommate Brad to my late night shenanigans. He was a perfect gentleman about this, but his then girlfriend frequently got irritated with me. Hell, at least they had a sex life: here was me trying to get one!

Very early on in the game, she revealed a lot of personal, heavy stuff. And when I say early on in the game, I mean within a couple of days. And when I say heavy, I mean heavy. None of it bears repeating, but it was enough to make any normal, sober-minded man run a mile.

But did I run a mile? Did I, f***!

The chatting went on for a while. Mix tapes were exchanged – mine heavy on Britpop and the likes of Suede and Pulp, hers heavy on the girl power stuff like ‘I Will Survive’ and Liz Phair. Photos were exchanged. She wasn’t bad looking, and though she said she thought I was cute, she was far more interested in my pal Dave. Interested to the point where her hints got heavier and heavier and she kept making enquires about him. I took this all in stride, unsure of whether I wanted to actually meet this girl or not. But then we made plans to do so, at a Red Sox game on Mother’s Day. It was a date.

But not quite…she phoned me late the evening before to cancel, on the grounds that it was Mother’s Day. Lame excuse I thought, but I was nonplussed enough to shrug it off and instead went to the game with Brad, who didn’t mind being second-choice. And that was that, or so I thought.

Dave, my planned roommate for 2nd year, transferred to Penn, and so I had a nice double room to myself for the year. Not long after he had arrived at Penn, this girl got in touch with him. I don’t think photos or mix tapes were exchanged – I had of course shown Dave her photos – but they did chat a bit and she did tell him the same hot and heavy stuff in the early days. She really wanted to meet, but he resisted her advances and she eventually stopped making entreaties.

All this ended back in 1995, and that was that. Or so I thought.

So, what happened next?

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago. I can be a bit slow at times – hell, most of the time rather: I’m surprised it took me as long as did to work this out. The most challenging part of my day, and I might be the only teacher who says this, is/was lunch hour, when I had to spend 48 minutes in the faculty lunch room, feigning interest in most unriveting inane, banal small talk. It was downright painful most of time, excruciatingly so every now and then. Part of the problem is me: I’m just an anti-social bastard who can’t be bothered. And I’ve got neither the time nor inclination (nor ability) to engage in mindless banter, especially of the sexual innuendo variety. A lot of the stuff I heard in there was shocking. And this is in a public high school, mind.

Perhaps you can see where this one is going, so I’ll cut right to the chase: the woman in the faculty room, the loud-mouthed, overly obnoxious, full of herself, has to be the centre of attention, always discussing her failure of a love life and why she can’t get dates, not-pleasant to look at, looks 10 years older than she really is…is her. Once I’d found out her full name and put two and two together, I realised who it was. I could then recall the earlier photographs and the resemblance was there. And immediately I wondered whether she knew who I was.

And I’m still stumped.

My question: do I say anything to her in my last week? In a way, if she’s known all along who I am, I kind of want her to know that I’ve only recently discovered her true identity. A part of me is pretty embarrassed though. I was thinking of sharing it with another teacher, but I’m not really on those kinds of terms with other teachers.

And so I’ll let this fester in my head for a while. And wonder to myself what could have been.

And thank my lucky stars that it wasn’t.

Just a couple of literary gems

Two strands of thought these days:

1. Time, Travel & Being

‘The days drag on while the years fly by.’
(Chinese proverb)

They did not ask me, when they planned my life;
Why then blame me for what is good or bad?
Yesterday and today go on without us;
Tomorrow what’s the charge against me, pray?
In youth I studied for a little while;
Later I boasted of my mastery.
Yet this was all the lesson that I learned:
We come from dust, and with the wind are gone.
Of all the travellers on this endless road
No one returns to tell us where it leads,
There’s little in this world but greed and need;
Leave nothing here, for you will not return.
(Omar Khayyám)


2. News from Kyrgyzstan: the power of propaganda?

One year ago today I was there. I miss the place, even if I whinged about it endlessly on these very pages. I've been paying close attention to the news as of late, hoping all of my former colleagues, students, friends and acquaintances are doing fine, wondering what the future has in store for the country.

For those of you on Facebook, I implore you to take a look at Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s profile. In the meantime, amidst everything that’s been written, here’s a lovely piece of craftsmanship from a former student in Bishkek:

Hello
i am ok but i do not know whether your other students are ok but i think they are also ok
Yes the revolution has happened it was very awful
The president Bakiev killed 81 people he gave an order to kill the people when they were making miting and about one thosand 1000 people are in hospitals
Bakiev the ex president is a killer it is a fact all people know about it
And that is why i think that british media does not exaggerate it is all true
it is very difficult to live in such country where all is managed by very bad president and his family members
So 7 april became a new revolution day in history of Kyrgyzstan because president killed the people of his own country he killed his citizenships and it is all true
And how are you i hope everything is ok
Also i would like to know what do you think about this situation in Kyrgyzstan The British government
Does the government and people know that Bakiev ex president is a killer
Bye i also hope i will hear from you soon

Taxes and hoaxes: that's all I got

Because I’m not entirely sure of where to take TLGIR this week I reckoned I’d delve back into memory lane with an old treat from the past. I also must confess that I was a bit of a sad case this weekend and stayed in on Saturday night to do my taxes. Hell, when you’re stuck in the American suburbs, what the hell else am I supposed to do with myself? Apologies for the arcane financial terminology here, but the last few years of taxes have been easy: the pecuniary state of my existence as a Tefl teacher meant that I wasn’t even making enough money to warrant filing a tax return at all. But 2008, and especially 2009, is a bit of a nightmare thanks to my fetish and addiction to day-trading. All those niggly little short-term gains (and a handful of losses, naturally) have to be recorded in minute detail, and seeing as I’m unofficially my sister’s financial ‘adviser’, I’ve got to do the same for her. Hence the thrilling weekend I planned for myself.

And despite not even making enough money to reach the poverty line, I still owed the swines some money!

(But hey, good news: just 3 weeks left of teaching till I’m free! And I’m outta here on a one-way ticket far, far away.)

But onto the fun stuff. Not long ago I was reading a bit about Jean Shepherd, who is probably most famous for being the narrator and co-writer of ‘A Christmas Story’, arguably the greatest Christmas film ever made (strangely, this is where my more American side would appear to surface: I’ve found this film to be somewhat unpopular – or unheard of – amongst non-American audiences. Anyone care to prove me wrong?).

In perusing his biography, I discovered that Shepherd, a regular on-air prankster, perpetrated one of the funnier artistic hoaxes of the 20th century. In 1956, as a New York radio DJ, Shepherd told his listeners about a brilliant new book entitled I, Libertine by Frederick R Ewing. He encouraged his listeners to go to every bookshop and ask for this title, which they duly did in droves. Suddenly the book became an imaginary literary sensation, made all the more so due to the extreme difficulty in acquiring the book. Everywhere people were claiming to have read it, attempting to impress dates or acquaintances at dinner parties. One college student even managed to pull off a B+ on a term paper about I, Libertine.

This reminded of my school journalism days. When I arrived back in England for the start of 11th grade, I decided to join the school newspaper, The Lancer Ledger. I was assigned to work with my good buddy Drew on the music page. For the most part, our only real weekly task was to call Andy’s Records in Bury St Edmunds to get the weekly top 10 music charts. Amazing that back in those days – this was 1992 mind – we had to phone up a local record shop in order to get chart information. This was also a time when the chart really mattered, when Top of the Pops was must-see television and the top 40 countdown was a must-listen every Sunday afternoon. That was also a time when I was a massive music geek, something which has only subsided slightly over the past few years.

After some time we got a bit lazy and started making up our own charts, inserting our favourite bands and current songs. Hardly anyone noticed. We also started branching off a bit and discovered our creative juices, writing album and gig reviews. Though I had a minimal hand in this at first, I always appreciated what Drew and other staff writers (Ray C--------- comes to mind) had to contribute.

Now, I was aware that we were fabricating the charts. I was unaware, however, that they were making up most of the reviews as well. I always thought Cro-Magnon Man was an odd name for a band, but I was immediately taken in by phenoms Plam Poom. If memory serves me correctly they were described thus:

‘Plam Poom have totally affected the art of tonality…for a band who plays only isolated monorhythms on the minor ninth, these guys are awfully damn good…’

I was sold! And they were due to play in Brandon, just down the road from the school in Lakenheath. I had no idea that Brandon had any live music venues, but I was definitely excited about this upcoming gig. And so was Drew, Ray and a couple of others, who kept me going for as long as they possibly could until they broke down and couldn’t keep the secret any longer. I naturally felt pretty foolish: what a blow to my musical credibility.

Anyway, I got over that episode pretty quickly and moved on. Soon we were pulling off all sorts of literary shenanigans, not only inventing music charts, but adding in subtle drug references, like putting Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds at number 1. Some time later, during my final year of school as editor-in-chief of the paper, I was soon in the soup for changing the by-line on one of my articles, after it had failed to be bowdlerised by our journalism advisor, to Hugh G Reckshin. This created a minor uproar, especially as it had been noticed first by the father of one of the school’s students, who just so happened to be a colonel on the air base. Word immediately got to the principal and I was suspended from my editorial duties, though I continued operating as editor clandestinely, later changing the credits after official copies had gone to the presses.

Though we had to tone it down after this incident, we got ridiculous and juvenile. We did silly things like change the name of Charles and Eddie – famous for ‘Would I Lie to You?’ - to Chuck and Ed and Meatloaf’s ‘Bat Out of Hell Two: Back Into Hell’ to ‘Bat Out of Heck Two: Back Into Heck’. If we were going to be censored, then we were going to be puerile and immature about it, taking it to the extreme.

(At university, after I had explained this story to my first-year constitutional law professor, she tried to encourage me to sue the school board, the military officials and whomever else I could go after. She kept pestering me to find out the statute of limitations on overseas military bases, even offering to act as counsel. I politely, and repeatedly, declined.)

Fast forward some 4+ years later, to the waning days of my college career. After 4 years of writing for the Tufts Observer (only 1 semester) and then music and sport for the Tufts Daily, I wanted to go out with a flourish. I had to cap my college journalism ‘career’ with a special piece, one that would not only mean a lot to me, but would have special meaning to my legions of loyal fans. Believe it or not, I did have a fair few fans, and would often receive emails – not all of them pleasant – after my album and gig reviews. I even got skewered a bit in print on the letters page when I wrote a scathing article about American music – talk about generalizations! – where I lambasted the likes of Bush and Dave Matthews. You could say I ruffled a few feathers from time to time.

I reckoned what better way to cap it all off than to go back to where it all began: Plam Poom. These guys definitely deserved to be hyped to the extreme. They really were that brilliant.

Needless to say, after the article went to press, I had friends approaching me to tell me what a great band Plam Poom were and how they couldn’t wait to see them live. That’s when I realised that many of my readers were nothing but a bunch of frauds, and that they’d probably barely bothered to read anything I’d written. Then again, I can hardly complain about them being frauds after the stunt I pulled.

The review appears below, entirely in its original form. The headline was lame, I know, but headlines were always my weakness.


Plam Poom: probably the world’s greatest band

For a band that plays only in monosynthesized isorhythms on the minor ninth, these guys are awfully damn good. They’ve managed to perfect the total essence of dance, the energy of rock, the emotions that come with old school soul, and the excitability of rap into one beautiful product. They’ve been hailed by one music magazine as, “One of this year’s most exciting new talents chock full of wicked pissa” and NME even ventured to say of them, “Clearly one of the most innovative talents in years, they give Happy Mondays a run for their money.” Who else but Brandon, England phenom Plam Poom, another in the fine, long-standing tradition of British bands set to take the world by storm.

Although they formed in early 1994, Plam Poom have been delayed considerably by lack of press and genuinely bad reviews. Most of that stems from their bad reputation, especially that of lead vocalist Andrew Uram, formerly of London based Cro-Magnon Man. Numerous financial and creative instability led Uram to quit the band, forming the brand-new lineup consisting today of guitarist Joanna Yorke, bassist Yasi Leclair, keyboardist Toshi Briem, and drummer Simone Sebags. Their new sound has been compared to that of quirky pop moguls Lightning Seeds, as well as psychedelic stylesters Jesus and Mary Chain. Until now, with their brilliant first album This is Plam Poom, their biggest claim to fame was guitarist Yorke’s early childhood relationship with Thom Yorke of Radiohead. The romance ended so tragically that she decided to adopt his last name as her own, despite threats of a lawsuit from his management. But thankfully now we can concentrate on their gorgeous pop treats.

Soap operas aside, however, and into the introspective gargantuan beauty that is Plam Poom. Their sound is nothing short of mystical, eerie, and sensual. Combined with vocals of heartbreaking anguish, they have a sound reminiscent of early Cure style stuff. In “Forlorn Frog Tales of Sorrow,” Uram sings, “Life, gone so quickly/I never had the chance to say good-bye/Slowly, slowly sliding/Oblivion forever and ever.” And in perhaps the greatest display of raw affection in his long-lost search for love, “Dagger Strikes,” Uram chants, “Over for you, perhaps/Not over for me/Leaving me leaves me lost in leaves/Jumping in the leaves leaves me sad now.” Much of the inspiration for their music comes in Uram’s true-to-life experiences of relationship rejection. His most painful tale, the album’s final track and one which Melody Maker has called, “the most despair-driven track since Joy Division’s Atmosphere,” is “Margie:” “Babe, we had it so good once/But opium dens and dreary hens since then/Hanging, grasping for sweet, stagnant air/Gasping without breath, with no metaphors in sight.” Ironically enough, plenty of metaphors abound in Plam Poom’s music. Ranging from the absurd to the senseless, Plam Poom have perfected the art of combining story with melody in ways that artists such as Savage Garden, the Wallflowers, and Puff Daddy can only dream of. Unfortunately for us, however, and bewildering to this author is the fact that bands as lousy as these ones remain at the forefront of the music world in terms of popularity, while bands like Plam Poom, Lo-Fidelity All-Stars and Rialto toil away in the depths of murky solitude, despite their superior musical talents.

From the early depths of oblivion into a current realm of absolute psychedelia, Plam Poom have overcome severe obstacles to get where they are today. Problems from the outset of their inception may have plagued them and slowed them down, but they are ready to overwhelm us with their delicious array of catchy pop potpourri, a sound Select has called “the cutest thing since Super Furry Animals,” and Vox has called “only what we’ve been waiting for for an oblivion, reminiscent of early Bowie and Pulp.”

In conversation with Uram last summer, where I had the great fortune of meeting the band at the V97 music festival in Chelmsford, England, where they were support for Primal Scream, I learnt a great many things about the band’s philosophy. “Having philosophy, direction, and meaning behind our songs is what we’re all about,” says Uram. “Passion, intensity, and fire drives us, makes us who we are. That’s what sets us apart from shite like Dave Matthews and Phish, whose music, to me, is just a load of meaningless bollocks.” Understandably, there is a sentiment of anger in their voices, as all the band member’s expressed their desire for greater popularity. The video for their debut single, “Fetishes of Love and Leather,” is set to take American MTV by storm, as it has already hit top ten playlists in Asia and South America. Before we know it, Plam Poom just may have the fortune to be as successfully commercially as other bands. Wouldn’t that be just grand? You can bet your life on that.



One-half of the keyboardist, on tour in Yerevan


Happier times for guitarist Yorke

On tour at 3am in Berlin: from left to right: lead singer Drew, loyal groupie Jenn, author

Progress, of sorts

I’m not sure what to make of that last post of mine: it was terribly self-indulgent I realise, and it’s not one of my prouder efforts. But hell, it was on my mind and I felt like spouting off. I probably need to employ an editor, though I do try and listen to my dear pal Grant’s advice, most of which I seem to ignore. Apologies for this one old boy, but I have to quote you here:

“Reading the latest entry in TLGTIR it's good to see you've taken my advice about brevity, clarity and eschewal of self-indulgence, and completely discarded it.”

Whoops. I’ll try harder the next time.

Though I do want to say this, on the topic of the ‘unexamined life’:

Lately I’ve spent some time in my history classes looking at Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon and Plato and discussing the purpose of history. When you ask students what they consider the purpose of history, you get the same response across the board, something along the lines of ‘to learn from our past mistakes’.

I don’t like this at all as a rationale for studying the past. Mainly because we keep making the same damn mistakes over and over and never seem to learn from them. Isn’t the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results?

I tend to get a bit more philosophical on this one: we study history in order to know what makes us human. To get a sense of where we come from. To get a sense of where national pride came from, and why the citizen of his nation feels his nation to be so superior to all others. This then allows us an idea of how prejudice originate, and why people hold the beliefs they do about other races and ethnicities. Where did all these ideas about who we are and who others are come about?

‘This is the most obvious thing in the world: man is separated from his the past by two forces that go instantly to work and cooperate: the force of forgetting (which erases) and the force of memory (which transforms).
‘It is the most obvious thing, but it is hard to accept, for when one thinks it all the way through, what becomes of all the testimonies that historiography relies on? What becomes of our certainties about the past, and what becomes of History itself, to which we refer every day in good faith, naively, spontaneously? Beyond the slender margin of the incontestable stretches an infinite realm: the realm of the approximate, the invented, the de-formed, the simplistic, the exaggerated, the misconstrued, an infinite realm of nontruths that copulate, multiply like rats, and become immortal.’
Milan Kundera, The Curtain

There are many things that separate humans from animals, some of them debatable. We use tools, we wear jewellery, we keep records of our past, we can reason, we can make and keep promises but perhaps most important, we have a strong sense of self-awareness. We’re aware of the fact that we exist and we consider and ponder the reasons for our existence. This, essentially, is what makes us human. And the more we examine who we are, the more aware we become of what we are.

When it comes to talking about the [unbearable?] lightness of being, no one describes it better than Kundera. I’ve been overly reliant on The Curtain (a series of seven essays on the art of the novel) for inspiration lately, quoting it ad nauseam on these very pages. Though it’s only 168 pages long, I’ve been taking ages to get through it, reading and re-reading and pondering the material. This is very apt:

‘They are just beginning the journey into the unknown; no question, they are drifting, but theirs is a singular sort of drifting: they drift without knowing that’s what they are doing; for they are doubly inexperienced: they do not know the world and they do not know themselves; only when they look back on it from the distance of adulthood will they see their drifting; and besides: only with that distance will they be capable of understanding the very notion of drifting. For the moment, with no understanding of the view the future will one day take of their long-gone youth, they defend their convictions far more aggressively than an adult man would defend his, a man who has had experience with the fragility of human certainties.’

In terms of my own story and existential angst, Jeff came pretty damn close to equally Kundera for his analysis on drifting. Although I can’t articulate it as eloquently as Jeff, what he had to say went something like this: when it comes to travelling there are 3 types of people out there. There’s the light, drifting type – think a feather, or pollen – who floats around from place to place, barely touching down, merely gliding effortlessly through the air. There’s the hard type – a rounded, polished stone – who bounces around from place to place, absorbing nothing and always moving on to something new. And then there’s the 3rd type, the double sticky-sided tape, who picks up little bits and pieces everywhere he goes, adding on and burdening himself with more pressure and experiences, absorbing everything, shedding very little to nothing, all the while risking being torn asunder.

(Something else to consider, which I’ll thankfully refrain from doing here. Why do I feel the need to travel so much? Is it for the sense of adventure? Or for the need to escape? If it is merely escape, and I often fear so, it’s time to re-evaluate matters. I’ll do that on my own and spare my faithful readers any more of my agonising.)

Now for a bit of jumping around

Back to that topic of reading from two posts ago. A few more quotations to share:

‘How well he is read/To reason against reading.’
Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost

(again, thanks to Grant for this one; by now I ought to fess up and put him down as a co-writer on this thing)

‘When a man writes from his own mind, he writes very rapidly. The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading, in order to write: a man will turn over half a library to make one book.’
Boswell’s Life of Johnson

Revisiting why I bother reading, when I can’t seem to keep much of it in:

‘The novel is a very poorly fortified castle. If I take an hour to read twenty pages, a novel of four hundred pages will take me twenty hours, thus about a week. Rarely do we have a whole week free. It is more likely that, between sessions of reading, intervals of several days will occur, during which forgetting will immediately set up its worksite. But it is not only in the intervals that forgetting does its work; it participates in the reading continuously, with never a moment’s lapse; turning the page, I already forget what I just (sic) read; I retain only a kind summary indispensable for understanding what is to follow, but all the details, the small observations, the admirable phrasings are already gone. Erased. Someday, years later, I will start to talk about this novel to a friend, and we will find that our memories have retained only a few shreds of the text and have reconstructed very different books for each of us.'
The Curtain

Onto more anecdotal matters

I’m about to break one of my promises by sharing a schmaltzy teaching tale. In all honesty, there have been a couple I’ve been tempted to share lately, including one featuring some potentially scandalous comments from one of my female teenage students. For legal reasons, I’ll refrain from discussing that further; email me if you really want to hear further details and I’ll consider sharing.

At the conclusion of my civics class, I often ask the students to write a reflection on the day’s lesson. It’s meant to be on the content of what I’ve attempted to teach them. Sometimes I ask them to write down three things: 1 thing they’ve learnt, 1 thing they’ve found interesting and 1 thing they don’t understand or have a question about.

Now, I’m awfully open with my students, telling them various stories of my shenanigans and tomfoolery – trying to leave out the bits that include alcohol – with the aim of somehow tying it into the theme of the point of the lesson. This isn’t always successful. I’ve already divulged some of my more shameful episodes, including tales from various public baths, my rib-cracking experience in Riga and getting kidnapped by rebels in the Nigerian Delta. They at least laugh at me.

For whatever reason – probably because I just love incriminating my friends – I recently shared with the class a few probably inappropriate anecdotes. One involved me and Jeff’s excursion in Petra – discussed in more detail in a previous post – which keep in mind occurred during our accidental celebration of Ramadan. Because we’d failed to adequately prepare for a day of gamboling amongst the rocks, we had no food, little water, and resorted to Coke and Fanta to keep us afloat. By mid-afternoon we were delirious and making no sense to each other.

Upon scaling the heights and reaching the top of one precarious path, Jeff had the bright idea of pulling his trousers down (but thankfully keeping his boxers on) to let the breeze course through his…whatever. I duly did the same, and man did it feel great. We stood up there feeling like real men, free as can be in the blowing wind.

I shared that tale. What relevance did it have to the topic? I’ve got no idea.

Another one I shared involved my dear friend ‘Dr Wasabi Islam’, who thinks there are fewer things more refreshing in life than removing all of your clothes before taking a dump. Trust me on this one: he’s right. Especially on a sticky, hot summer’s day, it takes a real load off.

I shared that tale. What relevance did it have to the topic? I’ve got no idea.

So at the end of class, I asked the class to reflect on the lesson, using that three things format. Roughly a 1/3 of the class took it seriously and commented on the actual ‘content’ of the lesson. Some of the remaining samples were as follows:

What they learnt/found interesting:

1. Mr Pedzo and his friend took off their pants and let the wind blow on their balls.
2. Mr Pedzo’s friend decided to take off his pants and then so did he and it felt really good.
3. It feels really good to take off your pants at the top of mountains and feel the wind.
4. Mr Pedzo’s friend Dr Wasabi Islam likes to take off his clothes before he takes a dump and this feels really refreshing.
5. Dr Wasabi Islam likes to relax before taking a dump by taking off all his clothes.
6. Mr Pedzo has some weird friends.

What they didn’t understand/had questions about:

1. How it can feel good to have the wind blowing on you on a mountain after taking off your pants because I’m a girl, I don’t think it would be the same.
2. Mr Pedzo’s friend takes off his clothes before taking a dump, but he didn’t say if he did, I wonder if he does.
3. Why Mr Pedzo and his friend just didn’t wear shorts when they were hiking on top of the mountain.
4. What if I really have to go and I don’t have time to take my clothes off and make a mess on accident.
5. Does Dr Wasabi Islam take off all his clothes every time he takes a dump? What if he’s in public?
6. Why does Mr Pedzo have such weird friends?

I have to wonder just how effective a teacher I really am.

Various snippets of various things

Elizabeth so kindly/cruelly pointed out this article in the comments section of my last post:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/02/ryszard-kapuscinski-accused-fiction-biography

I’m glad she did, though it pains me to learn that my literary hero is a potential fraud. Still, it does nothing to detract from his magnificent oeuvre, and I consistently recommend his works to everyone I come into contact with. My favourites vary, but The Shadow of the Sun has to come top of the list. The Soccer War and Imperium are also classics, but you can’t really go wrong with any of his material.

In the interests of transparency, I also recommend this one:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/mar/06/ian-jack-ryszard-kapuscinski

While I’m a roll with the links, here’s an amusing little ditty about those wacky Central and Eastern Europeans and their petty feuds over names and nationalities:

‘You say Lwów, I say Lviv: a guide to Eastern Europe’s most tedious arguments’
‘Ukraine/Poland: Anyone who spells the capital of Galicia as Lwów is a Polish nationalist who bayonets Ukrainian babies for fun. Anyone who says it is spelled Lviv is a Ukrainian fascist who bayonets Polish babies for fun. Anyone who spells it Lvov is a Soviet mass murderer. And anyone who calls it Lemberg is a Nazi. See you in Leopolis for further discussion.’

The rest of it can be found here:

http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15810902

In honour of Easter, a brief anecdote from my high school days. This might be the farthest I’ve delved into the past on these pages.

Charlie Buchanan – some fellow readers may remember him – was quite a religious young man, who was persistent in his attempts to get me to attend church. I never gave in, but the kid was relentless in his crusade. This was one particularly memorable exchange:

CB: So, what about coming to church this Sunday?
DP: Sorry, I can’t, I have a baseball game (our league in England played on Sundays)
CB: You know, Jesus died for you.
DP: Yes, he died on a Friday and then rose on a Sunday to watch me play baseball.

I was never invited to church again.

I end with a trivia question I posed two posts ago:

According to Uefa, in which city can be found the only stadium in Europe that ‘conforms to every single safety and security measure that [Uefa] stipulates’? The complex comes replete with two full-size stadia, an arena licensed for international meetings of any indoor sport, a five-pitch training ground, a sports academy, a hotel, bar and restaurant.

I wish I could say I was deluged by answers, but got only 1 response. Mike’s guess was Ibrox, which is incorrect.

The answer? Tiraspol, capital of Transnistria (a part of Moldova, depending on your politics), and home of FC Sheriff Tiraspol. Surely they deserve to be awarded a Champions League final, with such splendid facilities.

For football geeks like myself, this is absolutely fascinating.

I probably ought to get out more.

There are few better feelings in the world

Another Day of Life

‘The unexamined life is not worth living’.
Socrates

I've never been so lost or confused in my life.

Okay, so maybe that’s a tad melodramatic, but I’m feeling a bit out of sorts at the moment, in a bit of an existentialist funk (if existentialism isn’t your cup of tea, then cease reading now) or something.

Indecision, impatience and anxiety stemming from uncertainty are my biggest vices (coffee has been banished from the list since I’m down to no more than 2 cups a day now).

My friends think I live quite the charmed life; Andrew calls me a ‘rambling soul’. Others tell me how lucky I am. Luck’s got nothing to do with it.

‘Luck is the residue of design’.
Milton

‘Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity’.
Seneca

Don’t get me wrong here: I suppose I have been awfully fortunate in that I’ve had the opportunity to travel the globe as a means of assuaging my wanderlust over the past few years. It took me a while to get my act together, though I certainly haven’t got regrets. I still lament my lack of language ability and the apathetic attitude I had to them as a kid, even whilst living in Spain and Germany, though I’m suddenly starting to feel the world of possibilities is constricting my ability to think rationally. It was the Greeks who were the first to see that there was a rational order to the universe – have we progressed at all since then?

This has been an ongoing issue, but I can’t shake these feelings of emptiness that continually linger; I wonder if I’m impossible to satisfy. I’m not sure what I want, what I’m after, where I want to be, what I’m doing with myself. A nine month stint here, a three month stint there – is this a healthy way to live?

It is, perhaps, depending on one’s emotional constitution. Mine is weak: I become emotionally attached easily. And I hate goodbyes and the subsequent heartache.

I hate to use such crude financial terminology but time becomes an investment. Moving to a new place takes an investment of time, energy, and yes, emotions, with no guarantee of any type of future returns. It becomes a high risk/low reward strategy, and at some point, one does have to ask oneself, are the risks worth the potentially low rewards?

Meeting new people is a massive investment of emotions. Especially when it comes to those special people in your life, whether dear, dear friends or fledgling romances that offer so much promise only to crumble when you least expect it.

And then there’s that emptiness and longing that yet again surface when, during the goodbye process, the harsh reality that you may never see this person again hits, and your emotions play havoc on your soul. The anguish that inevitably follows is draining.

You start to ask yourself whether it’s worth it, and what the point of it all is. Why do we put ourselves through such strife and torment, especially when it doesn’t seem to get any easier.

‘To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all’.
Oscar Wilde

I can see how this sounds self-defeating. Surely the point is merely to ‘live’. These experiences in and of themselves shape us, make us who we are. Much like learning about history gives meaning to what makes us human, learning about ourselves sheds light on what makes us us.

But at some point we have to stop and ask: what is it that fulfills me?

What does fulfill people – is it work? Love? Happiness? How many people truly love their jobs? Honestly, truly, candidly, etc, etc?

According to Kierkegaard, the fundamental theme of our existence is the idea that we can achieve meaning for our lives only through a decisive, life-defining commitment.

‘Once I make up my mind I’m filled with indecision’.
Oscar Levant

So where does that leave those of us who struggle to make decisions? Those of us who are scared to miss out on something because of the limitless array of possibilities out there? I’m not just talking about jobs – I’m talking about life in general, new experiences, new friends, romance, feelings, getting to know yourself, opening your eyes to the world…

What about letting others make that decision for us? As in, when the timing and circumstances are right, things just fall into place. You may not be sure of where you want to go, but suddenly someone appears on the scene who seems to make the decision making process that much easier. Only it isn’t easier because there’s confusion coursing through the two of you, and the decision-making process gets murky and convoluted. It comes back to knowing yourself, in the end. How can you trust others to make the right choices if you can’t trust yourself? Or am I contradicting myself here?

And there’s a catch anyway: getting the timing right. Timing is everything. Which means it’s awfully frustrating.

As for that age-old question of whether to follow the heart or the head? These days I trust neither.

Kierkegaard also says that only by accepting our own life story as it is can we be liberated from the craving for some sort of large-scale teleological legitimation for our existence.

Thus, must we first accept who we are before we can find fulfillment?

How can we accept who we are – or, our life story – if we’ve got no idea who we are or what we want?

How sure can one be of anything? Is it relative? We may think we’re sure of something, but that’s probably only because we’re so unsure of everything else, making the seemingly sure bet that much surer only because we’re so unsure about the unsure bits. Thus, we’re sure about something because in comparison, it’s at the very least a safer bet than the alternatives.

(There’s a bit of Donald Rumsfeld in all of us.)

Is life one giant process of elimination? Let me try this – nope, no good, next. Oh, that’s no good either. Next. Let’s give this a shot. And so on and so forth.

'Complacency is a state of mind that exists only in retrospect; it has to be shattered before being ascertained'.
Nabokov

Lately in my emails the buzzphrase has been something to the effect of ‘uncertainty is a cool thing in retrospect’. At the time, especially with someone like me who suffers from impatience as a vice, it’s a day-to-day killer. The anxiety can be overwhelming, rendering the simplest of everyday thinking tasks a challenge. Keeping my thoughts straight, thinking one day at a time, becomes downright impossible when the future is so cloudy and undefined. Don’t get me wrong: there’s a frisson of excitement to this kind of existence, but it’s hard to appreciate at the time, in a way like nostalgia. We might not be altogether thrilled with a place, but we often know, even while we are there, that we’ll look back on the experience in a fond light. And yet we remain powerless to accept and appreciate the situation for what it is. We become immune, and thus complacent.

'The world is what it is; men who have nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it'.
VS Naipaul

Here I am, with a few weeks left in my student-teaching placement, suddenly doubting whether this is well and truly what I want to do. On top of that, I’m terrified of committing to a couple of years somewhere when I’m not even sure of where I’m going with all of this. Sometimes I see my steps in life as a means to an end, but an end to what? What’s my ultimate destination? I ought to relish this uncertainty, the excitement and challenge of what lies ahead. But when your head isn’t clear, and making the simplest of choices becomes the most arduous of tasks, you come to a brick wall and are so tempted to bang your head against it.

Work: I’m not even aware of half of what’s out there, but I take comfort in the fact that most of us don’t. Then again, many of us are established in some sort of line of work, and a part of me admires those who have a firm plan and know exactly what they want to do. My students are mesmerised by the places I’ve been: when I ask them who would like to travel, around 5 or 6 amongst a sample size of over 60 answer yes. And the preferred destinations are usually England, France or Australia. When I ask whether they want to own their own homes, they look at me perplexed. When I ask about whether they want children, they’re incredulous when I tell them I don’t.

At times I wish I were like the rest of us. It would be so much easier.

But then life isn’t meant to be easy.

I’m delving pretty deep into my philosophical bag of tricks here, but I’m now turning to Marxism for help; surely the natural place to turn when one is confused about the world of work. What I lack - bearing in mind here that I’m not a Marxist, so maybe this isn’t even the problem – is that sense of being where the skill set required for success is a relentless instrumentalism. Alongside that is what I see as a pathological level of self-mastery of the emotions, only bought at the price of the corrosion of the capacity for intimacy and a stable, balanced sense of self. Somehow or another, that makes sense to me.

Ultimately, the ultimate harbinger of doom is time; more specifically, the lack of it.

Time is the most ephemeral of concepts. There just isn’t enough of it to satisfy all of my cravings. Time is finite, and thus an eternity is needed in order to accomplish only a smidgeon of what it is we want to. And perhaps even an eternity isn’t enough.

In the summer of 2002, whilst preparing for my Master’s at Edinburgh, I discovered the great, late Polish writer, Ryszard Kapuscinski. I fell in love with his work, and I fell hard and fast for Africa at the same time. Reading The Shadow of the Sun, probably my favourite book, whetted my appetite and curiosity for a place that was only satiated once I’d been to Nigeria. But the Africa bug never leaves us, and though I’m only mildly tempted to return at the moment, every now and then I do entertain the notion of a return.

Because the idea of time flusters me more than anything else, it must have been something like this that I could identify and find solace in. I quote at length because it’s so eloquent and stirring:

“The European and the African have an entirely different concept of time. In the European worldview, time exists outside man, exists objectively, and has measurable and linear characteristics. According to Newton, time is absolute: “Absolute, true, mathematical time of itself and from its own nature, it flows equably and without relation to anything external.” The European feels himself to be time's slave, dependent on it, subject to it. To exist and function, he must observe its ironclad, inviolate laws, its inflexible principles and rules. He must heed deadlines, dates, days, and hours. He moves within the rigors of time and cannot exist outside them. They impose upon him their requirements and quotas. An unresolvable conflict exists between man and time, one that always ends with man's defeat – time annihilates him.

Africans apprehend time differently. For them, it is a much looser concept, more open, elastic, subjective. It is man who influences time, its shape, course, and rhythm (man acting, of course, with the consent of gods and ancestors). Time is even something that man can create outright, for time is made manifest through events, and whether an event takes place or not depends, after all, on man alone. If two armies do not engage in a battle, then that battle will not occur (in other words, time will not have revealed its presence, will not have come into being).

Time appears as a result of our actions, and vanishes when we neglect or ignore it. It is something that springs to life under our influence, but falls into a state of hibernation, even nonexistence, if we do not direct our energy toward it. It is a subservient, passive essence, and, most importantly, one dependent on man.”

I’m ready to concede defeat to time. It gets the better of me. I can hardly believe I’m about to quote my mother here, but she likes to say on a daily basis, to the point of annoyance, ‘take your time, or time takes you.’

Let it, I say.

Here’s a challenge I’m now posing to my dear and loyal readers: why don’t you decide on the next step for me? I’ll entertain all [relatively serious] suggestions, weigh them with great consideration, and choose the best option, if the opportunity permits. Keep in mind my skill set, or lack thereof, and interests. This is also a test as to how well you know me. Consider this some kind of grand experiment. I'm open to a lot of things.

There’s an infinite world of possibilities out there: that is exciting.

But there’s also the tragic possibility that the one thing we finally discover we think we want the most, more than anything else in the world, which for a while is there for the taking, fleetingly slips from our grasp, while we’re powerless to stop it.

It’s that kind of heartbreak which terrifies me the most.

Working out the right angle

“Some have been afflicted by bibliomania through idleness, and for them there is small hope of cure; others, I count myself among them, from excess of affairs. Many, like asses that wear out their time for provender, are so buried in the minor and immediate tasks of earning a living as to get confounded promptly and permanently with the victims of commercial ambition, whence it comes to pass that, slyly and insensibly perverted, nerves frayed and brains dulled, they take to books as sick souls take to drugs. They hoard at first against a time of leisure when they may perchance read, and end by hoarding for the sake of hoarding, thus allying themselves with those dizzards who wallow among possessions which they cannot use, and who die before they have lived.”

Anatomy of Bibliomania (Holbrook Jackson)


Not that I’ve ever been a big believer in New Year’s Resolutions – I seem to be stuck in a school/university mindset where, if I make resolutions, I make them in September - but I may be one of those rare breeds of people who keeps telling myself that I need to read less. Aren’t people always saying that they ought to read more? I’m quite the opposite: reading rules my life and it’s proving to be more and more of a hindrance as the years pass me by.

I realise I’m a bit late in talking about a New Year’s resolution; after all, we are fast approaching the Ides of March. But this is my first posting of 2010. The original trickle of concerns/complaints from my legions of loyal readers has gone from a piddling stream to a raging torrent (though thankfully no vile insults directed my way just yet) and before I get deluged by the floods, I reckoned it was about time that I inundated my followers with a scatter-shot diatribe of my not-so-coherent thoughts. (how’s that for water and flood metaphors?)

I’ve got a feeling that I may be quoting a fair few friends today, and I’ll start with Yonni, who sometime ago offered me some generous and kind flattering words of praise and as well as some very valuable advice, the gist of which was this: just write. Just put words down [on paper], they don’t have to always make sense, just write, write, write. I’d long been putting such simple advice off for lack of the ‘right angle’. I should elaborate.

I’m currently in the midst of student-teaching (civics and world history) at a local high school. It has certainly been a challenge and it’s not my intention to discuss that at any length here, for a variety of reasons. First, it would probably be deadly boring – think about, if you’re aware of them, those cringeworthy memoirs in the form of a daily diary written by first year teachers at inner-city schools (I actually only know of one book, but there are a few blogs out there). Second, it would strike me as rather unprofessional. Third, I need a break from even thinking about it. And fourth, it would inevitably turn into me whingeing and ranting and raving and I really don’t want to do that – let’s keep things cheerful and positive.

That said, I may every now and then share a tale or two if it’s of wider interest to a theme I’m crapping on about.

I’m certainly awfully busy these days, which is one excuse for not writing more, but there’s also tiredness, motivational issues, brain-mushiness after a day of being used and abused at school and, most of all, a lack of inspiration. There are one or two things that, in a vague sense, I’d like to share, but the thoughts aren’t really well-formed enough to constitute thoughts that would make much sense in their current, inchoate states. Nor is the angle there just yet, if that makes sense.

Back to the reading thing. I hope to avoid sounding, uh, pretentious here.

Why do people read? Sounds a silly, obvious question, but I’ve lately been asking myself this question. In a recent, way-too-short-for-my-liking conversation with Grant, this topic came up. I wonder about this because it seems like these days much of what I read fails to sink in. I feel terribly guilty for reading fiction, unless it’s of the stimulating, existential (bah!), thought-provoking kind. Plus, as an aspiring social studies teacher, I should be reading plenty of non-fiction, which I do anyway. And which I love.

Or do I?

I quote Elizabeth here, who once accused me of liking the idea of reading more than the reading itself (apologies if I’m misquoting here). I reacted in an overly flabbergasted manner at the time, but oftentimes my mind wanders back to that conversation and I think that perhaps she might have been onto something. This is potentially tragic. It could also be explored in greater depth, but I shan’t just now.

I get irritable and cranky if I can’t find the time to read in a day. That’s why the past few years of teaching English have been great: it affords me ample time to read (it’s either that, or going out to bars and clubs and getting stocious and then my ribs cracked or - horror of all horrors! - actually spending the time to learn the local language).

Reading rules my life. Whether it’s news or sport or whatever else, I put reading before so much else, sacrificing the things that really need to get done. Like now, for example. I really need to work on my CV and send out some covering letters for teaching positions, which can be lengthy affairs, plus of course, some lesson planning.

And don’t get me started on technology. Things like the Kindle and various other computer-type readers scare the bejesus out of me. What’s the future coming to? Should we celebrate or lament the decline in print journalism? What if newspapers start charging for content – many already do – and linking them via a subscription service to one of these wretched e-reader devices? What will happen to the fun of spotting the cover of a book someone’s reading on public transport and then saying ‘Hey, I read that recently, so what do you think thus far?’ (such a geek am I that I can’t even use this as a thinly-veiled excuse to hit on women, as I seem to ask more men about what they’re reading, though you may recall the time at Keene where I asked a girl what she thought of Cod, only to be met with a caustic ‘Uh, I have a boyfriend’).

But here’s the deal. I spend ages and ages reading whatever intrigues me (which is a lot) and I make calculated plans on when and how I’m going to get them read. I take notes in the margins. I take notes in various notebooks and journals, which have rapidly piled up over the years (where else do you think I get all these endless quotations and tidbits from?). But for what? I do seem to get some pleasure in reading, but a few hours later I’m hard pressed to remember much of what I’ve read. And then I think to myself, what was the point of that if I’ve just forgotten it all? Shouldn’t I have spent my time doing something more substantial and productive?

No doubt after wrapping this up, I’ll probably pick up another book: I tend to have 4-5 on the go at a time, and quite a few others with a bookmark languishing 1/3 of the way through from who knows how long ago. I’ll never learn.

Anyway, while I’m on the topic, a couple of words on a couple of books. I recently finished Freakanomics (on audiobook, no less, which means there might be hope for a Luddite like me with e-readers in the future; this coming from the same guy who swore never to cave in and get an Ipod) which has been somewhat of a sensation in the economics world (the Guardian named it one of the books of the decade, in fact). This is just one of a glut of books out there trying to bring the esoteric world of numbers and finance to a mass audience – I like this kind of stuff, because I find economics fascinating yet struggle with things like equilibrium curves and the Black-Sholes Model or Theory or whatever the hell it’s called. These books tend to be engaging, accessible and revelatory.

Freakanomics, however, was a massive disappointment. It’s one of those typical books that has about 15-20 pages of truly original material, padded out with pages upon pages of dross and fluff. It could have – and should have – been part of a series of essay collections. After the initial, sometimes bewildering insight, the chapters veer off into a morass of dull statistics and over-elaboration. For my money, better books out there include The Undercover Economist (Tim Harford) and especially Naked Economics (Charles Wheelan).

[Another book which left me similarly underwhelmed despite the heaps of critical praise piled upon it: Black Swan (Nassim Taleb); I found it full of holes and flimsy arguments, though I do agree with the general premise: looking at the impact of improbable events which are near impossible to forecast. In other words, why bother with risk models when some potentially catastrophic event can come and wipe everything out? That’s the book in a nutshell, no read to bother reading it now.]

Trivia question for fellow football geeks: according to Uefa, in which city can be found the only stadium in Europe that ‘conforms to every single safety and security measure that [Uefa] stipulates’? The complex comes replete with two full-size stadia, an arena licensed for international meetings of any indoor sport, a five-pitch training ground, a sports academy, a hotel, bar and restaurant. The answer is awfully surprising, and to give you a clue, I read about this in McMafia: A Journey Through the Criminal Underworld (Misha Glenny). Which means the answer probably isn’t London or Madrid. I’ll answer this in my next post. (by the way, terrific book thus far)

Okay, so maybe this is why I read – I didn’t know that before and now I do. It all makes perfect sense now – I really needed to know this in order to enrich my life!

I feel some sort of apology is due for the banal nature of this post. If it was somewhat insipid and torpid at times, it’s mainly because I’m rusty, but also because my brain isn’t fully functioning and I simply felt like spouting off a load of piffle. I blame it on the deleterious effects of student-teaching – either that, or I can blame Yonni. Although I can’t promise to do better the next time, I do aim to try and churn one of these things out every weekend for the foreseeable future. I’ll work on providing a little more ballast to future endeavours.

Thanks for reading anyway. Happy New Year.