No, not Catholic ones. (Always amusing to note: although my father was brought up Catholic, and my mother Orthodox, they got married and became Presbyterian – which here, close to Scotland, is a tale that brings in a lot of incredulous looks. I suspect they want to know: why on earth would one become Presbyterian if one didn't have to? And didn't care about predestination?...)
[LATER ADDENDUM: My eldest sister checked some of the stories I told below, when she was at a cousin's wedding – seems that there are some inaccuracies in what I was told about who changed religions and when – more details later.]
I'm finally recovering from feeling overwhelmed over the past few weeks, although I know there's a mass of research and administration waiting for me; today I was reading an e-book (Emma Bull's Bone Dance, which was pretty good from the beginning, and is getting markedly more interesting in the middle); then went out for a relaxed antipasto with Tess, while discussing plans for a writing workshop (which didn't require that much discussion, but she wanted reassurance that we were on the same page; and we had fun, flirting with Italian waiters). Then went to a movie with P– (Pirates 2, of course – fun if rather gloopy – there's an amazing amount of slime in it, I hope I don't dream of squids and such). Then we went for a pint (really three drinks, but knowing me the middle one was mango juice) to the Head of Steam, which is always a nice compromise among bars/pubs – not really gay but with gay guys casually dotted here and there, and many surprisingly cute straight ones; sort of alternative but not aggressively so; and they have Belgian Frambozenbier, which is a big plus. Although I still get fairly bored by the bars of northern England, P– could convince me (with my admitted collusion) to stay for two hours – just the prospect of looking at cheerful lads, and talking to My Buddy, seemed enough. Lots of indulgences....
P– was talking about Angela Carter's short stories, which he's been reading; some he doesn't like at all. I was defending them, generically and without specifics, which is of course a pretty weak position to take; but I suspect P–'s scientific background is causing him to miss the interesting bits of some of her more experimental stories, or at least not to enjoy them as they're meant to be enjoyed. They may be a bit edgy and formalist, but that makes sense – it's of a piece with British experimentation of the 1960s and 1970s; from my angle they would compare to, say, early Maxwell Davies, when he did all those short pieces with aggressively traditional roots and equally aggressively experimental surface textures. I'm not thinking so much of Eight Songs for a Mad King, or Vesalii icones, although those are exactly in this style/genre; but instead of the short choral works that are so utterly startling – that ruthless Ave Maria that is made up of unadulterated medieval monody, served straight up, but then set in an almost unbelievably intense a capella texture of major sevenths and minor seconds. The piece is made even more beautifully, artistically edgy by being notated almost entirely in sharps, in a way that is both hard to sightread and very clear in intention – there's no way it can soften into something casual or unproblematic; it always feels like a knife dance, and one that needs to be carefully negotiated if the singers are to reach the end without wounds.
And that reminds me of Mr Punch: my post on Gaiman's comic reminded me of what is still my favorite piece by Birtwistle, also written when he was young (and, I think, a close friend and colleague of Maxwell Davies – a Brit composer was gossiping to me last week on the train about when they split up, and how they refused to talk to each other after a certain point, but I'm pretty sure it was after this). It's the opera Punch and Judy (1967), which, like those Maxwell Davies pieces, is constructed in short, easily (structurally) graspable pieces, which are nevertheless so, well, sharp-edged, that in grasping them you cut yourself (and how's that for a bizarrely extended metaphor). Amazingly shrill and savage, but all in short, easy-to-hear pseudo-traditional quatrains and such; it's a remarkably powerful work. Unlike the Gaiman comic, which refers atmospherically to children's memories of Mr Punch, it actually creates those emotions, and in adults – the length (hmm, according to my CDs it's about... uh, I'm adding in my head here... an hour and three quarters) with the rapid repetitions of short phrases, plus the shrill, familiar-but-twisted instrumentation, make it a powerful, almost a psychotic experience. And in an unexpected way, too: one doesn't get any impression that the composer is psychotic, but that in a strange way the music itself is psychotic – as, of course, is Mr Punch.
(Afterthought: does this compare to that cynicism that I so dislike in a lot of British postwar novels? – Martin Amis, or even those Byatt novels with miserable endings... no, this seems different to me: it's more formal, more self-consciously artistic – which saves it, as far as I'm concerned: so much elegant artifice implies that something is worth doing, unlike the trashier approach of Amis and such.)
Hmm, maybe, despite its second paragraph, this post isn't about indulgences: it's about indulgences and flagellations – since that is sort of what these works are like.... How very Catholic.
Or maybe I'm just dithering – not a surprise, after two beers (and a juice). Hey, don't sneer! – one of them was a Belgian beer – higher alcohol content... it's a relief to get rid of this shirt, though, which smells of bar smoke....
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