mercredi 28 avril 2004

Streams of altered consciousness Fed up with my gripes? So am I. Especially when small miracles happen. Terje Rypdal. The Roof. And expecially Lady E. It's a very long time since I discovered the music Terje Rypdal makes with his friends -- I was still living in England -- that I feel I've known him almost forever, beginning with an LP from Manfred Eicher's early and legendary stable at ECM. Then a concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London where the guitarist Rypdal, drummer Jon Christensen and trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg were the main men modestly to take the stage, with a few electronic tweaking machines, and work and weave a magic which blew every mind under that roof, including those of the genteel elderly couples who frequented the QEH and hadn't the slightest idea what to expect. It must have been 'Waves', with Sveinung Hovensjo on the electric basses ('77/'78, re-released in 1992). I particularly remember Christensen's genius with a drumkit and Mikkelborg doing things I'd not imagined possible with a trumpet and a fluegelhorn. When they'd done, there was a very long silence before an explosion of applause the like of which I've rarely heard before or since. Was it modern jazz, was it brilliantly scored very "contemporary music", was it an eclectic fusion of wonders? It didn't matter. Like a lot of sounds Eicher was recording then, it evaded etiquettes... I don't recall any encores or even requests for them; we were all too stunned, I think, perhaps sated with pleasure, simply grateful for a glimpse of heaven during what then felt like an aural revolution, or revelation, which had you at once wanting to keep your eyes closed for the colour and the transport of delight and wrench them open to watch how it was done. Rypdal's more recent achievements include ' Skywards' (1997), where the "simple" ballad 'It's Not Over Until the Fat Lady Sings!' and the 'Out of this World (Sinfonietta)' were so beautiful I played them several times over, and the live 'Lux Aeterna' (2000, released in 2002) which a guy in Scotland describes on Amazon as "a near religious experience". I'm digesting it slowly. 'The Turning Point' in my life this week is not quite of the kind Fritzjof Capra explained in his controversial 1983 introduction to theoretical physics and some almost mystical concepts. It's closer to what he appears to have achieved in 'The Hidden Connections' published last year (that's what we need: "a science for sustainable living"). I could scarcely credit it until they turned up in flesh and blood on Monday, after a guiding 'phone call or three on my part to get them to the right damned building: the guys who arrived to repair the leaking roof. This was but three years after I first informed the apartment manager of the rain coming into my bedroom. The two fellows gasped with admiration at the crack that has now extended from a corner of the living room to halfway across the ceiling. Later the one called Stephane informed me that the damage to the roof was far more extensive (and expensive to deal with) than the last of three surveyors who had all been called in for estimates told me about a year ago. This wasn't surprising. There are times I'm more grateful than ever to be a humble tenant who doesn't have to help pay for the repair. Much later, something even better happened. Lady E., the woman who made a first appearance here the day after April 1 (I may be superstitious, but that doesn't make me completely stupid and reckless), yawned her way back into my life. Ever since, every electro-chemical alarm bell in my cranium has been ringing and all the lights are flashing Code Orange. How much more dare I disclose? In the last encounter at close quarters, the time to exchange words was brief. And she looked as tired as somebody who had just had an arduous day or completed a long journey, but her sense of humour was intact. She lives at close quarters, far too close for her own safety with a waxing crescent moon in the sky and my senses and sensibility so dangerously aroused. She has a firmly set jaw and a mouth somewhere between full-lipped and that ever so slight downturn at the edges that speaks of untold experience lived and learned ... with a sudden smile that interrupts heartbeats. She's slender, graceful, elegant. Her eyes ... well, you know me and what an exceptional woman's eyes can do to my system. And she's one of those very rare people with whom I feel instantly, inexplicably at ease... She informs me that I am "clearly missing some naked men". Well, I think I've explained already that I found during my first go at being a teenager that I honestly don't miss naked men after a period of British public school indecision. But if it's here she's talking about, wasn't governor Arnie good enough for her? If she tells me who she wants, I'll do my best to oblige. I know exactly what Sylvie would say, so I'm not going to tell her about Lady E. Sylvie would say that "nothing in life is coincidence, Nicholas, and you met Lady E. during your previous existence as an Untouchable when she was of the Brahmin caste. She didn't even look at the sweepers then. Not before you. But —" "Stop it, Sylvie," I'd interrupt. "We've already agreed that all these lives happen simultaneously and time simply doesn't exist —" "Precisely," she would answer. "Yet another case of unfinished business. Don't say I didn't warn you." Well, all that's far too complicated for me tonight. It's April. It's spring. It's Paris. And I think I liked 'Disintegration' more than the Sex Pistols. My own munitions firmly tucked away, I'll put a word in for Vivienne Westwood (Flash site ... or not). It's all something to do with style. Real style... The remaking and reshaping of things. N'est-ce pas, Lady E.? 10:47:29 PM  link   your views? [] New sounds on the quiet (OS X) If you're interested and haven't spotted it, Apple have just slipped out updates to iTunes (version 4.5), iPod software and QuickTime (v. 6.5.1). They're not on offer via the Software Update pane; I stumbled across these releases when doing what had been intended to be a quick update check via VersionTracker. iTunes is in the news at Smart Playlists (via the MacDev Center). Particularly interesting features: "WAM - Convert WMA to AAC" and the new "Apple Lossless Codec", claiming to offer CD quality sound at "half the size". Be warned: the updated version of QuickTime is a long job to install and fixing permissions once you've done it is not just recommended, but imperative. By the time I'd gone down that road, I thought it best to run the gamut of maintenance routines. Three hours worth! At 'TS', Kelly's as quick off the mark as ever. MacCentral has it too. 10:11:45 PM  link   your views? [] Factory file: health on a thin red line First the bad news. Some very nice things have happened to me of late, but before that it's time to tell Factory hands remote from HQ a few things I've learned. A third party, outsider's perspective does no harm here. It came from a recent visitor to the place who was kind enough to tell me that I was "fun" but the ambience was "glum". So it is, with no signs of improvement since that "facts on the line" announcement from Big Boss to workers in the engine room I briefed you about on April 9. What I didn't say then, pending confirmation, was that the question I put to the BB concerned "a wicked rumour doing the rounds" that come the summer, many of us who have holidays to take will not, this year, be replaced by temporary hires on the Desks and services concerned. The wicked rumour turns out to be true. I learned this because, after getting through the past three or four weeks and keeping any sense of humour and perspective mainly on a surfeit of coffee, half-smoked cigarettes and a more than occasional Valium tab, it was time for some decisions. The "verdict" in yesterday's meeting with the gut specialist who's operated on me, Dr de P -- the first such lengthy analysis of the Condition I've had with him since my return to work about six months ago -- confirmed my feelings and led to more serious talking at AFP. Where my own health goes, after an initial shock at the badness of the test results, the outlook is as good as the past month has sometimes been hellish. The relapse has been only too real, but the huge difference between today and this time last year is that I know why. The bowel expert also supplied me with the means to prevent that daily abdominal ballooning which had come to remind me of a Monty Python sketch about a Zeppelin. Somehow I got through the afternoon in the Factory by the simple expedient of avoiding lunch (part of what has turned into a 48-hour purge to end very shortly). Then around 9:45 last night, Dr G, the psychosomatic shrink who did me so much good, 'phoned to tell me that I won't have to wait until May 7 to pursue the next steps with her, since she has a slot for me in a couple of days. I was as grateful as I was once again amazed at the length of her working days. I've turned down the offer of another arrêt de travail (sick note) because it's become a matter of principle that any time off needed now must be the holiday the Factory owes me and not another rest at the expense of France's social security system. It's also a matter of the health of the Factory itself. Whether or not I've become a union back-bencher, I remain a determined member of the resistance to staff cuts and non-replacement of absent journalists imposed on us all by a Board of Governors consisting partly of national media barons who at one and the same time hold the purse strings and are among our key clients. Along with the government, these people both decide how much investment AFP gets and how much they're prepared to pay for our "products", which is obviously the least they can get away with. It's scarcely surprising that visitors sometimes find the climate of the place gloomy. The better news is that there are many others in mid-level management and some at the top who acknowledge that the non-replacement policy is insanity. The same goes for the indecent treatment of some of the locally hired staff scattered all over the world. Despite the short-sighted, selfish and greedy policies of paymasters who could wreak as much havoc at the Factory as they have elsewhere, alongside the technical revolution currently shaping the media of the 21st century, I'm still optimistic that enough good journalists, technicians and administrators remain determined to fight for high standards as well as tolerable working conditions. I well remember an interregnum, a few years back, widely reported in the French press, when AFP didn't even have a senior management for some weeks, such was the turmoil at the top. But the Factory survived. It survived because responsible journalists and fine technicians kept the place going until a new team was appointed at the top. There are others, senior staff, who tell me that the current financial crisis is the worst ever. "Plus ça change,...": the pessimists have been telling me the same thing for two decades! My "medical team" suggests that if I worried less, managed not to empathise so much with people getting the rawest end of the deal and shed all guilt regarding my own absences, some symptoms of the Condition would disappear almost overnight. I'm obviously not sufficiently stupid to ignore such excellent advice. Coming sessions with Dr G will focus on "stress management" after all the groundwork described here since the turn of the year. I've begun to learn lessons from how others at the Factory handle their own stress; the main one is that reconciling high professional standards with an ability to stay "detached" comes in many ways for many people, but it's the detachment that matters most. Once I've blogged this, I'll make the very most of the next three or four days and not even think about the job until I'm back on Sunday. May will be manageable. And yesterday, I got a promise of some proper holiday time in June which has boosted both my courage and my morale! In the next log entry, drafted on Monday night but postponed for lack of sleep, it's high time for a bit more fun. 1:28:37 PM  link   your views? []

nick b. 2007 do share, don't steal, please credit under artistic licence terms; contributing friends (pix, other work) retain their rights.