hot

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It is hot. 

The late October heatwave + hail storm seems a regular event now, occurring on or just before Halloween every year for the last few years. In the following weeks, it cooled down a little bit, for a while, and we had quite a few cool mornings when the walk to the train station was actually quite pleasant, and cycling to work didn’t mean arriving drenched in sweat. But now, in the last couple of weeks of November, we’ve had regular “severe storm” warnings — usually with potential for “large hail” — interspersed with heatwave warnings.

Today the “feels like” temperature will hit 38 degrees Celsius. A lot of people are hoping for rain to help ease the heat a bit, but a lot of people are also quite skittish now about potential thunderstorms with every rain, and potential hail with every thunderstorm. Every week there are photos of large hailstones observed in places across the state — some golf ball size, some tennis ball size; lots that are spiky and vicious-looking. 

The storms sweep in swiftly. There’s not much time to seek shelter.

There have been many reports of extensive vehicle damage, broken windscreens, smashed headlights. The wait time for repairs for hail-damaged vehicles is now six months.

But for now, the sky is bright, blue and clear. And searing, burning hot. At least I managed to get the lawn under control the other day. It seems like it’s been raining most week-ends, just to become sunny again on Monday/Tuesday when we’re all inside working. Well, at least it means I don’t have to commute in the rain.

After the October storm, our power was out for almost 24 hours, presumably due to power-line damage in a nearby street. Some suburbs waited 48 hours or more for power to be restored. It was already a tough 24 hours for us. Even the traffic lights at major intersections (near the freeway on-ramp and off-ramp) weren’t working. The streetlights in these areas were also out, and the roads were eerily quiet. Might be dramatising a bit, but it did feel a bit like some kind of post-apocalyptic world (at least until we saw over the hill that the lights were all still working in).

Now all of summer is still ahead of us. I imagine I’ll be spending a lot of time in the confines of an air-conditioned room, or at the very least, lounging in the coolest (least hot?) part of the house, doing some activity that requires very little movement. It might be safe to emerge after dark, as long as you don’t forget the insect repellent.

wind-up bird chronicle

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Most (if not all) novels by Haruki Murakami seem to take a while to digest properly. If anything, that seems to be the author’s goal in creating these really bizarre stories. The Wind-up Bird Chronicle is certainly no exception to this, but it was so masterfully crafted that you could almost believe that it was a true story.

I think he achieves this in a few ways. First is the inclusion of seemingly mundane details of the protagonist’s life. There are scenes scattered throughout the novel in which Toru Okada is simply boiling pasta in a pot of water, or making a simple sandwich, or preparing a cup of coffee. There are also a few mentions of going for a swim in the local pool, doing the ironing, and listening to the radio – unremarkable things that you or I could do, and wouldn’t think to tell anyone, let alone write down for posterity.

I have seen a few online reviews by random people that say these details are boring and why do we need to know about these tiny details of his life? But I actually think these scenes add a certain charm to the novel.

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rising

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In between other books, I’ve spent the last eight or so months reading the Red Rising series. It was originally a trilogy, but then Pierce Brown added three more books, and there’s a seventh (and final?) book in the works, which is due to be released mid next year or something.

(Yes, I know the wait sounds like it will be torturous, but I’ve waited so long (still waiting!) for the final book in the Name of the Wind trilogy, it couldn’t possibly be worse. Although, to be honest, I’ve forgotten most of what happened in that, so I no longer really care if the last book is ever finished and released.)

Usually I write a blog post for every book I read, but I haven’t done that this time because I didn’t feel compelled to write about each of them. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy them (they were very captivating and interesting) but I think I just wasn’t sure how to write about them without including lots of spoilers. (But a friend I lent Red Rising to told me that she always reads the end of a book at the start, and despite the spoilers, she still really liked Red Rising. Something about knowing which characters to pay attention to, which I suppose is not a bad reason to read the ending first.)

Well, from here on in, there will be spoilers, so it’s up to you if you want to read on.

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symphony

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Ok, so it’s been about half a year with no blog post, so maybe it’s time for an update? A lot of catching up to do, but also not really.

What I actually want to write about is the symphony assignment I’ve given myself. At the tail end of December, D read an article about more creative new year resolutions — not “creative” in the sense that you pick up an arts & crafts hobby, but in the sense that they’re not the typical “eat healthier, exercise more” type of resolutions. One of the examples was actually quitting your gym membership (particularly if you don’t go very often). Another was to stop weighing/measuring yourself.

These were all suggestions from different people who implemented these with great success in the past. Another suggestion was to select a different symphony every week, and listen to it over and over again in that week. Since some of the other suggestions weren’t really of any relevance to me (never joined a gym before, don’t measure myself frequently enough for that to be an issue), this was the one that interested me the most.

Anyway, the point of this exercise is to discover things about symphonies that you might know but not really know. The person who suggested it said that when they did it, they noticed something new with each listen. It was really painted as some marvellous process of discovery and appreciation.

For me, with minimal music background (by which I’m referring to music theory and training), I expected it to be a bit more difficult, so I’m allowing myself several weeks with each symphony. I’m also not expecting that I’ll notice that much about each one, but hoping to at least glean something from the experience. 

And since I was quite excited to get started, I didn’t wait until January to begin. 

But I also had to figure out how I was going to access all the symphonies I was going to listen to. In the last several years, I’ve only listened to the radio (ABC Classic) and not used any streaming services or bought albums (except maybe one from The Script). I couldn’t possibly rely on the radio for this assignment, and I was unsure about buying each album, so that left streaming. After a bit of research, D found a site called Presto that has an extensive range of classical music that you can stream and purchase. You get a free one-month trial, so I thought I’d give it a go.

The really good thing about using Presto is that they really emphasise “paying rights holders per second of listening”, so that your money actually goes to the creators of the music you’re listening to, and it’s calculated fairly. More info here.

So, anyway, the next thing to do was choose which symphony to listen to first. I figured I should start with something I know I will enjoy, because that would probably increase my chances of continuing this through 2025 and beyond. In the end, the decision was actually reasonably easy: Camille Saint-Saëns’ Symphony No. 3 (also known as the Organ Symphony)

I have no doubt this was the best choice. From listening to the radio, I was already quite familiar with the last movement, but they never seem to play any other part of the symphony. Now, after about four weeks of repeated listening (although admittedly not very frequent listening — maybe once or twice a day, but not necessarily every day) of different renditions by various orchestras, I finally know the symphony in its entirety.

To me, the Organ Symphony is joyously triumphant and triumphantly joyous. In the accompanying booklet from one of the albums I listened to, it was said that Saint-Saëns believed this was his greatest work, and he could not possibly compose a better symphony. The booklet also pointed out that the symphony uses all parts of the orchestra quite extensively, which is something I really enjoyed about listening to it. It will be interesting to see how other symphonies compare in this regard.

turning

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I think part of the reason why I’ve been blogging a lot less than previous years is that the internet feels too crowded. There is already so much content out there, so I don’t want to add anything unless there is something new and valuable in it.

Conversely, there is the notion of blogging as a very personal thing — a medium for self-expression in which there is little to no consideration of whether it reaches an audience. The blog exists for the blogger because there is a need or desire to write one’s thoughts and opinions. Then why not a private journal? Well, in my opinion, if a post reaches just one person who finds value in it, then it’s justified. There’s just no way of knowing if that will happen in the days after publishing, or several years later. My future self might be that person.

But with the ever-growing stuff all over the internet, and the belief that none of it is truly unique (or that if it is original, it will very soon be replicated by others anyway, and proliferate across the web like a disease), I feel like, by withholding a post, I’m not necessarily depriving anyone of such thoughts/ponderings/ideas because they are likely to find it elsewhere.

So why am I back here today? I don’t really know. Maybe the compulsion to write and to blog is greater than this vague overwhelm at the immensity of existing content.

Recently, I also thought about this thing of “used to”. I think I had told someone at work, sometime ago, that I don’t run as much as I used to. Cycling is my main cardio now, since I can cycle to work, and that’s a commute and workout done at the same time. It’s been like this for a couple of years at least. I still run occasionally, but not regularly because I don’t feel that same compulsion to run (probably because of all the cycling).

Anyway, it came up again for some reason, and he sort of said it like “oh, you don’t run as much as you used to”. For some reason I felt the need to be defensive about it. I thought of something I read one time (probably in a novel) that the saddest words are “used to” because it implies something regrettably lost. But it doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing to say “I used to do this, but I don’t do it anymore”.

A lot of our identity is associated with what we do. But our identity is changeable. There’s no real reason to hold onto an old identity that doesn’t fit anymore. There’s no reason you have to continue with a hobby you started many years ago if you just don’t feel like doing it anymore, or if you’ve discovered other hobbies.

So why am I really here? Why am I back on the blog today? Maybe to mark a turning point, although this isn’t really the actual point of turning. It’s been more like an arc. Let’s see if it circles around.

midnight

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Well, well, well… if it isn’t my neglected blog. I did mean to write something sometime ago (I think) but I guess that time passed and the words got lost somewhere.

But I just finished reading Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, so that means it’s time to blog again. It seems unavoidable: if a book is finished, a blog post must emerge. If nothing else, this space will still have its scattering of book reviews (but not really reviews — more just a record of various thoughts on various books).

On the back cover of my copy of Midnight’s Children there are a number of excerpts from real reviews in real publications. One critic likens the magic of the novel to the wonders of One Hundred Years of Solitude. Another praises the story as being a Bombay version of The World According to Garp. Being a big fan of both of these works, it would have been hugely surprising and disappointing if I wasn’t also captivated by Midnight’s Children. 

And it definitely didn’t disappoint. 

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