Hey, I'm so content. The artificial Christmas tree is back upstairs in the attic (Oh, catharsis!), Joni's just started up on the computer with Big Yellow Taxi ("They put all the trees in a tree museum. Charged a dollar-and-a-half just to see 'um."), there's one of those Danish series starting at nine on telly, political not murder, with the most lustrous, most voluptuous lady PM ever elected, and I can afford to break off from Blest Redeemer because every word between now and The End is clear in my noggin and Judith will break down in tears - as will I - at a moment I've worked slavishly to create over the last month and a bit. Riding a horse called music.Went to Specsaver this AM, the most efficient human enterprise ever since the boats headed south and D-Day became a reality. People, in a chain, pass me from one link to another, never halting, and my eyes are measured, from left and right, up and down. One device confirms my left eye (the trick one) is focusing on a hot-air balloon taking off from what looks like Arizona.
Frank now sings Luck Be A Lady Tonight.
The cataracts can stay put for another six months and the optician - from Central Europe, surely with that accent - passes a thousand lenses past my eyes. How can he keep track of the sequence? What will be the effect of losing the cataracts? A reduction in opacity, he says. And I savour the slipperiness of that word, visited by a massive attack of smugness that I had the good luck to be forced to learn English as my first language. Who wouldn't be content? Just think of another word: lobelia. Two ls and ls are good for pronouncing.
Just finished with Warren Zevon and An Excitable Boy.
I'm going there on Monday. Not the attic.
ReplyDeleteTwo matters arising: opacity and An Excitable Boy.
ReplyDeleteThe first is perhaps the most useful tool used in Photoshop when computer painting, and I have a great affection for its attributes, and like you pleasure in the melliferous pronunciation.
The second dredged up a painful memory, but after research I found I was mistaken by the book title.
During brief membership of our local Computer Club, where I spent time teaching grey ladies to compute on ancient laptops fobbed off onto them by uncaring sons-in-law, I inadvertently pressed the “buy with one click” button on Amazon. I ended with A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth, a 1500 page novel which I found to be unreadable, and of which The Times said, ambiguously, “Make time for it. It will keep you company for the rest of your life”
Your post may well, even at this early stage, qualify for Cheerful Post of the Year.
Ellena: Always delighted to hear from you; to know that people aren't using sniffer dogs and 5 m prodder poles to locate you under a house-high carpet of snow.
ReplyDeleteSir Hugh: The perfectly inconsequential response to the "tone" of my post as opposed to its much less important facts. Thank you,
Interested in your observation about being forced to learn English as your first language. Forced? Suggests an unusual upbringing.ave
ReplyDeleteI have or once had a paperback of A Suitable Boy. It seemed to follow me round the house. Whenever I opened it, a dark cloud descended. I believe I gave it back to Oxfam whence it came. How about a book club where the only books discussed are books found to be unreadable by its members.
Agree with Sir Hugh regarding "Cheerful post of the year". Perfectly contented and self satisfied (in the nicest possible way)
ReplyDeleteWould also concur about Specsavers - a very efficient set-up.
I never had you down as a Joni Mitchell fan, R.R. - join the club.
"Sussuration" is nice - try it out loud, slowly, moving it around the palate like a good brandy.
Ale. Ale has an 'l' in it ... loquacious ale! Yes, this has my vote for Cheerful Post of the Year!
ReplyDeleteJoe: Forced by circumstanes, I suppose. A beautifully composed anecdote about the malign presence of that book which, needless to say, VR read all the way through albeit under personal protest. That was in the days when she was a true omnivore. It's only in recent years that she's felt entitled to lay certain books aside, incompletely read. Books that given her scoring system (out of 10) rated less than zero.
ReplyDeleteAvus: You realise that acknowledgement (along with Sir Hugh and now Rouchswalwe) of the Cheerful Post is a decision baed on profound pessimism. Only nine days into the New Year and you're all saying things are not going to get any better. That needs a qualifier, I think: "at least on Tone Deaf".
Joni - at least half a dozen references over the years notably of the line which makes VR and me shudder with horror: the one about Rose who's "laying her religion on her friends.
RW (zS): See my re-comment to Avus for the TD paradox.