posts

“The Ocean At The End Of The Lane” is the new novel by Neil Gaiman. I was so intrigued by it that I bought the hardcover, which is unusual for me because I prefer paperbacks. I’d been excited by reading the first chapter online at the Guardian website and from reading a blog post about the novel written by the author’s wife Amanda Palmer. I’d not read any of his novels before but they had long been on that “to read” list that is typically as long as your arm. I also enjoyed the movie adaptation of “Stardust” though I have no way (yet!) of knowing whether the film is as good as the original book.

I want to see a TV show about great mathematicians of the past on a channel like BBC Four. Programmes about mathematics tend to be rather condescending, at least to anyone who has a bit of mathematical knowledge. Perhaps a way around this is to delve into the social and historical circumstances of the great mathematicians and how that along with their personality produced the mathematical results for which they are famous.

Ibrahim El-Salahi is a modernist artist from Sudan. I believe this exhibition is a first for an African artist at the Tate Modern. Much like the Choucair show (which is still on everyone!), it’s an engaging but too short introduction to an interesting artist that you have probably never heard of.

There were no mornings or afternoons. It was one seamless day, every day, until the sun began to arc and fade, mountains emerging from their silhouettes. This is when we sat and watched in silence.

This week I read “Skios” by Michael Frayn (who was born in Mill Hill). It’s another book from now customary pile of books that tends to develop around this time of year. “Hawksmoor” and “The Marriage Plot” were on the same ever-increasing pile. “Skios” is something of a change from what I normally read: it’s a comedic farce about stolen identities set on the (fictional) titular Greek island. Amusingly, the wikipedia page for the novel currently reads “Praise for Skios was entirely misplaced”, probably thanks to some curmudgeon who doesn’t like the novel. Cue a ‘misplaced’ blog post about it, something that most people would consider to be business as usual for my blog.

Just two albums this month as I am still enjoying last month’s albums so much (and I spent loads of time getting reacquainted with Boards Of Canada at the start of the month). I listened to a few more albums but not often enough to write loads about them so there is an “honourable mention” section at the end of the post that briefly discusses a few more albums.

Peter Ackroyd’s “Hawksmoor” was first published in 1985. I bought a recent reissue that forms part of Penguin’s decades collection whilst on a spree in Waterstone’s. It appealed to me as I recently realised that despite growing up in the eighties and nineties, I had read very novels that were either written or set in the eighties. Happily “Hawksmoor” is both of these, sort of. It also appealed to me because it is (again, sort of) a detective story and I’ve found myself getting into those lately. John Squire’s excellent artwork for the cover and the nice binding also helped to seal the deal: you don’t get that with an iPad or a Kindle.

I have written a lot in these posts about how music gets indelibly tied up with places, events and feelings. For me this album by Fanfarlo is tied up with all three of these. It makes me happy and sad at the same time in memory of great times that are now gone but are fondly remembered. I am aware that this is the youngest album on the list so far and so it might be a bit early to endow classic status upon it, but “Reservoir” is a fine album and to my ears it stands up really well. Listening to it again in the course of writing this post I found that I remembered every note and musical phrase, and yet somehow I also managed to delight in hearing new features in the production that I’d not noticed before.

Today I went to see the new Superman reboot Man of Steel with friends. I really enjoyed it, particularly the more reflective take on the superhero myth. Starting out with the fate of the planet Krypton, Man of Steel approximately fuses the events of both the first two original Superman movies. We get to see Superman’s arrival and childhood on earth and then the arrival of Zod, a maniac bent on replacing the earth and everyone on it with a new race of Kryptonians.

Today I went to see “George Bellows 1882-1925 Modern American Life” at the Royal Academy of Arts. It’s the first time I’ve been to the RA but I was emboldened by my art pass and the fact that Bellows was a contemporary of Edward Hopper, a painter whom I admire greatly. This is the first major retrospective of Bellows’ work in the UK and taking in his wonderful paintings this afternoon, I felt a little embarrassed that I hadn’t seen anything of his before.

Yesterday I went to see the Saloua Raouda Choucair show at the Tate Modern. As it was quite small, I went to see the Lichtenstein show again as well.