I've spent most of this week alone at home, quietly studying. But it hasn't been without its occasional human diversions. One of the most interesting was on Monday, when the door rung unexpectedly.
I wandered downstairs in my shorts and the shirt I had slept in, and opened the door. A man stood there with a leaflet in hand, which was headed with 'The Truth.' Aha, I thought - there is a way to deal with this situation. I said emphatically:
"I'm Jewish, and I'm not interested in Christianity."
He paused for a second, and in a tremendously soft-spoken and reassuring voice (with that depth that comes easier to black men, and which led me to suspect he was probably quite good as a social worker and comforter of people): "OK - but, don't you think, what with the wars and the crime that are taking place, that it would be a better world if we could stop all the violence and hatred?"
Now the obvious answer would be 'Duh - of course'; but I had just been studying criminal law and was in no mood for a ridiculous conversation.
"I think human nature is incredibly complex and that I have no power to resolve these problems.
(pause)
I am, however, interested in the newspaper." I walk past him and grab the Financial Times lying on our doorstep. Of course, the paper would resolve nothing but the stare on his face.
"OK...so you're not interested in Christianity, but do you want me to come back so that we can discuss these issues."
"No."
And that was that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agTeW67f_y0
Friday 29 April 2011
Wednesday 27 April 2011
The Imaginative and The Factual
Wahey...new blog - fanfare, delight...or maybe just a pet project for a week or two.
Basically, I've set up the blog because I want something active to do in the evening, after revising for my law exams. My core theme is going to be the imaginative and the factual.
I've recently noticed that the specificity of legal exams is affecting the way I write to people. Someone sent me a text asking whether I had plans for the wedding day, and I immediately wrote back that I have no plans for Friday, and did they have time off Friday, making absolutely no reference to the big event. Even in a later text, I mentioned Will and Kate, specific people, rather than the royal saga/media event and any of the romance or frankly stupid revery the event is arousing. That's just one example of how it's affecting my writing.
On the other hand, I'm also getting time to let my imagination roam a bit. As recommended, I'm spending no more than 40 minutes at a time absorbing information in revision. In the 5 minute breaks and occasional naps in between, I try to let my mind do exactly what it's not allowed when I'm working - dream up wild and wonderful things.
For instance, I hear an electric saw on a building site that's been vaguely irritating me for a while, and think of the place where the works are taking place. This reminds me of the Shard, the spiky pyramid of a skyscraper shooting up into the London cityscape with extraordinary velocity. Then, of the fox that was reported as having climbed the Shard. Returning to my imaginary construction site, I imagine other animals at work on the building. Chimpanzees are busy scrambling up to their workspaces, bearing electric chainsaws, and screwdrivers in their teeth; giraffes supervise, swinging their long heads into any potentially errant corners; squirrels chuck nuts and bolts to each other; that kind of thing.
Another time, lying on my bed awake but dreamily, I notice the humming in my wall - and immediately the Bhuddist monks of Tibet are there, droning out some immense hymn to the skies and mountains. All sorts of crevices, shifting and evacuating air, are humming in harmony as space is resonated with human rhythm.
This brought my mind onto Byron's Manfred and his journal about the Alps which I decided to look up this evening and from which I shall quote to end my blog:
Ye toppling crags of ice!
Ye avalanches, whom a breath draws down
In mountainous o'erwhelming, come and crush me--
I hear ye momently above, beneath,
Crash with a frequent conflict (Manfred, Act I Scene II)
It is not noon -- the sunbow's rays still arch
The torrent with the many hues of heaven
And roll the sheeted silver's waving column
O'er the crag's headlong perpendicular,
And fling its lines of foaming light along,
And to and fro, like the pale courser's tail,
The Giant steed, to be bestrode by Death,
As told in the Apocalypse...
while the hues of youth, --
Carnation'd like a sleeping infant's cheek
Rock'd by the beating of her mother's heart
Or the rose tints, which summer's twilight leaves
Upon the lofty glacier's virgin snow,
The blush of earth embracing with her heaven,--
Tinge thy celestial aspect, and make tame
The beauties of the sunbow which bends o'er thee,,,, (Manfred, Act II Scene II)
Before ascending the mountain -- went to the torrent (7 in the morning) again -- the Sun upon it forming a rainbow of the lower part of all colours-- but principally purple and gold -- the bow moving as you move--I never saw anything like this--it is only in the Sunshine...
The height of the Yung frau is 13000 feet above the sea--and 11000 above the valley--she is the highest of this range,-- heard the Avalanches falling every five minutes nearly--as if God was pelting the Devil down from Heaven with snowballs-- from where we stood on the Wengren [sic] Alp-- we had all these in view on one side and on the other the clouds rose from the opposite valley curling up perpendicular precipices--like the foam of the Ocean of Hell during a Springtide-- it was white & sulphery -- and immeasurably deep in appearance --- the side we ascended was (of course) not of so precipitous a nature -- but on arriving at the summit we looked down the other side upon a boiling sea of cloud -- dashing against the crags on which we stood...
(Alpine Journal, Sept. 23rd).
Basically, I've set up the blog because I want something active to do in the evening, after revising for my law exams. My core theme is going to be the imaginative and the factual.
I've recently noticed that the specificity of legal exams is affecting the way I write to people. Someone sent me a text asking whether I had plans for the wedding day, and I immediately wrote back that I have no plans for Friday, and did they have time off Friday, making absolutely no reference to the big event. Even in a later text, I mentioned Will and Kate, specific people, rather than the royal saga/media event and any of the romance or frankly stupid revery the event is arousing. That's just one example of how it's affecting my writing.
On the other hand, I'm also getting time to let my imagination roam a bit. As recommended, I'm spending no more than 40 minutes at a time absorbing information in revision. In the 5 minute breaks and occasional naps in between, I try to let my mind do exactly what it's not allowed when I'm working - dream up wild and wonderful things.
For instance, I hear an electric saw on a building site that's been vaguely irritating me for a while, and think of the place where the works are taking place. This reminds me of the Shard, the spiky pyramid of a skyscraper shooting up into the London cityscape with extraordinary velocity. Then, of the fox that was reported as having climbed the Shard. Returning to my imaginary construction site, I imagine other animals at work on the building. Chimpanzees are busy scrambling up to their workspaces, bearing electric chainsaws, and screwdrivers in their teeth; giraffes supervise, swinging their long heads into any potentially errant corners; squirrels chuck nuts and bolts to each other; that kind of thing.
Another time, lying on my bed awake but dreamily, I notice the humming in my wall - and immediately the Bhuddist monks of Tibet are there, droning out some immense hymn to the skies and mountains. All sorts of crevices, shifting and evacuating air, are humming in harmony as space is resonated with human rhythm.
This brought my mind onto Byron's Manfred and his journal about the Alps which I decided to look up this evening and from which I shall quote to end my blog:
Ye toppling crags of ice!
Ye avalanches, whom a breath draws down
In mountainous o'erwhelming, come and crush me--
I hear ye momently above, beneath,
Crash with a frequent conflict (Manfred, Act I Scene II)
It is not noon -- the sunbow's rays still arch
The torrent with the many hues of heaven
And roll the sheeted silver's waving column
O'er the crag's headlong perpendicular,
And fling its lines of foaming light along,
And to and fro, like the pale courser's tail,
The Giant steed, to be bestrode by Death,
As told in the Apocalypse...
while the hues of youth, --
Carnation'd like a sleeping infant's cheek
Rock'd by the beating of her mother's heart
Or the rose tints, which summer's twilight leaves
Upon the lofty glacier's virgin snow,
The blush of earth embracing with her heaven,--
Tinge thy celestial aspect, and make tame
The beauties of the sunbow which bends o'er thee,,,, (Manfred, Act II Scene II)
Before ascending the mountain -- went to the torrent (7 in the morning) again -- the Sun upon it forming a rainbow of the lower part of all colours-- but principally purple and gold -- the bow moving as you move--I never saw anything like this--it is only in the Sunshine...
The height of the Yung frau is 13000 feet above the sea--and 11000 above the valley--she is the highest of this range,-- heard the Avalanches falling every five minutes nearly--as if God was pelting the Devil down from Heaven with snowballs-- from where we stood on the Wengren [sic] Alp-- we had all these in view on one side and on the other the clouds rose from the opposite valley curling up perpendicular precipices--like the foam of the Ocean of Hell during a Springtide-- it was white & sulphery -- and immeasurably deep in appearance --- the side we ascended was (of course) not of so precipitous a nature -- but on arriving at the summit we looked down the other side upon a boiling sea of cloud -- dashing against the crags on which we stood...
(Alpine Journal, Sept. 23rd).
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