Finishing The Outsider

I have finished "The Outsider" and while , for me, it's hardly an "essential" novel, despite being so short it leaves to with a lot of questions. This is mainly because of the barebones format of describing the experiences of the main protagonist. While part one leads up to the murder, and part two deals with the aftermath , it seems he is actually condemned for not crying when his mother died rather than the actual murder, and although he is condemned you don't know whether there is an appeal. There is an afterword by the author explaining why the protagonist does what he does, but you end up with a lot of questions.

That is no bad thing because you then use your mind to try and figure out why things went the way they did. Too often we expect everything to be laid out on a plate, and that's what we get from most books, but this is different. I suppose "Steppenwolf" also left a lot of unanswered questions but that is a positive aspect for this sort of book.

Next up I am going to revisit "The Adversary" series starting with "The Keep" by F Paul Wilson , which was turned into a film by Michael Mann , but just fell into the basic horror box when the actual series is a lot more than that, although it's purely descriptive unlike the recent volumes I've read.

So moving from the worthy almost philosophical volumes to  what academics may see as unworthy horror, but enjoyable. As I write this I am listening to the excellent "Lazaretto" by Jack White and there seems to be a perfect song on there, "I Think I Found The Culprit". 

The vinyl copy of the album is unfeasibly so clever it makes it almost impossible to listen to, so I go for the CD, 

The vinyl copy also contains the first 3D hologram of an angel in the runout groove which yo can see above. I still can't believe that someone actually thought of that , and then actually did it , and it worked.

Reading The Outsider

 I haven't quite finished "The Outsider" and to me it is like something  that would be a set school text. Although the second part of it has taken a very unexpected turn, so I am still turning the pages and not sure exactly where it's going. I am glad I kept with it although I can't agree with JG Ballard's verdict on it though I would not dissuade anyone from picking it up and reading it.

I have finished the excellent "Apparitions" on Amazon Prime and am just surprised it didn't continue, but it then took me into "Harry Price: Ghost Hunter"  which also look excellent and in a vaguely similar vein, so that will be something else for me to watch.

April has not been a good start on the steps front as after two days  I am 5K steps down , that's about two miles, though having said that I did do 20K steps on the last day of March which was about 8.5 miles.

Given the things I've gone over in this post "The Words That Maketh Murder" by Polly Jean Harvey seems a pretty appropriate song.

April Fooled

It's the first of  April , the day before the Bank Holiday and the start of a new Financial Year, and it's been a busy day but maybe time for a lie in tomorrow.

I'm two thirds of the way through "The Outsider" by Albert Camus and am yet to see why JG Ballard thought it was such a great novel, it has forty pages to prove me wrong. It is readable and while it's not exactly predictable there is very little mystery , things happen in a linear narrative Part One dealing with the lead up to the murder and Part Two with the aftermath.

I've been sifting through my CDs today and rediscovered Tonto's Expanding Headband who consisted of  Malcolm Cecil  and Robert Margouleff . TONTO was an acronym for "The Original New Timbral Orchestra" and their work was similar to what Wendy Carlos was doing with classical music on the Moog.

I was recently playing "3+3" by The Isley Brothers and Cecil and Margouleff were producers on that album too.

From The Perspective of an Outsider

 "Always on the outside,

Of Whatever side there was"

Is a line from Bob Dylan's "Joey" from "Desire" which has always applied to me, and I have just finished the 116 page "taraNtula" and starter "The Outsider" by Albert Camus described by JG Ballard , my favourite author , as one of the most important novels of the twentieth century "A beach murder....blood and sand" so I obviously cant resist that, and this clocks in at 118 pages and I will finish it before Goof Friday is out even though I am a slow reader. 

"The Outsider" is a far easier read that "taraNtula" because it follows a normal narrative rather than teh stream of consciousness outpouring of the Dylan novel, which although short has still taken me the best part of a week to finish. I enjoyed it, as it is anything but a normal reading experience.

"The Outsider" is moving along nicely and is a convenient point on the way to my next book, but is going along nicely and will see it it makes me want to read anything more by Mr Camus.

Today I went for a walk with my daughter Kirsty and granddaughter Alexis and on the way to the town moor I noticed the perspective of buildings that seemed to move from left to right as I walked forward in an apparently straight line. These included the Civic Centre , the RVI, St James' Park and the Freeman Hospital. It's all perfectly natural but still a little disconcerting.

While it's only a small thing it does give me an excuse to share "Perspective" by Peter Gabriel from the "Scratch" album , his second solo outing

The Loquacious Calvinist

I haven't a clue why that phrase was in my mind on this last day of March , the last day of the financial year , on this sunny morning. It is probably that the last two things that I have picked up to watch have religious overtones.

"Apostle" on Netflix featured Dan Stevens and Michael Sheen and is a very claustrophobic kidnap tale based at an isolated Highland Island community  reminiscent of "The Wicker Man". It also disturbing and in parts gory and in my opinion spoilt by the vague mystical / science fiction unexplanations of what is going on. Reminding me of the finale of "Night of the Demon" a great , worrying horror film , spoilt by the studio insisting on the appearance of a rubbish monster at the end. I can't find any way of watching it except on Netflix but here is the IMDB link.

"Apparitions" is a six episode BBC series from 2008 that I found on Amazon Prime, from an idea by Martin Shaw and features him as an exorcist , so comparisons with the film there, but it's extremely good and certainly blurs the lines between good and evil including potential possession of a serial rapist by a saint and a lot of police involvement. Again there is a high gore content and don't get too attached to anyone but I am finding it gripping and Martin Shaw is always watchable and the appearance of Neil Pearson and a Prison governor is also a plus, but I always think he's not totally serious because of the "Drop The Dead Donkey" connection.  You can always find fault with anything, byt this is a fr=great series.

This morning I link I have lost a contact lens in my left eye, I can feel it there as I write, so I have to just wait until it works it's way round to the front and then I can see properly. It is annoying typing with one eye blurred but this is only the second time in twenty years of soft contact lens wearing that this has happened , so nothing major.

When I started this I pulled out a random cd "Triologie" a best of Trio. I believe that "Da Da Da" was made as a bet with their students and became a worldwide hit, so I am going to share this minimalist anthem with you. The Wiki page is here.

"Trio was part of the Neue Deutsche Welle (or NDW); however, the band preferred the name "Neue Deutsche Fröhlichkeit", which means "New German Cheerfulness", to describe their music."

The Weight

I was quite surprised when I converted my weight from kilograms to stones and pounds,  My weight is not really going down although I am hardly ballooning, but I remember being close to twenty stone and always feel that's roughly where I am. Sometime it the last two years I dropped below a hundred Kg which was a big landmark for me and have been trying (not very hard) to get below 95Kg.

Although I am diabetic , I love chocolate and sweet stuff although as I get older certain things I used to find irresistible now don't hold as much attraction for me , such as fried breakfasts and most meat although I am still OK with fish.

Anyway this morning I weighed 94.6 Kg and when I converted it to stones and lbs it came out as 14 stone 13 lb which is a lot less that the twenty stone that I think of myself as. The 209lb still seems a lot to me and I have to get under 200lb / 90Kg , just to do it which meats losing another five Kg or ten lb. When I got hit by 'flu' or COVID about fifteen months ago I dropped to 92Kg but then put it on when I got better.

Given what I've already lost I don't see the 90Kg as impossible , and it's not all that far away. 

So I know this is a short post on a sunny Tuesday morning, and the obvious song is "The Weight" by The Band. Incidentally it was included in the film of "Easy Rider" but due to contractual wrangles the version on the soundtrack album was replaced by a version by the band Smith, who I have never heard of before or since. The scene from "Easy Rider" is on Youtube, and beautiful thee minutes of roadtrp thru The NAVAJO NATION (US 89 North to US 160 East to KAYENTA,then US 163 to MONUMENT VALLEY,AZ/UT) feturing Peter Fonda , Dennis hopper and I think Hack Nicholson riding pillion

Did Anything Happen To Music .. or Did I Miss It?

There are usually times in history when musical scenes reboot themselves, probably starting in the nineteen twenties when recorded music became a thing and we had early jazz , blues and crooners making the way into the public consciousness via vinyl and radio. Gramophones and radios were commercially available and spread to sound through the populace especially in the USA and UK.

Six years ago I published a personal history of musical media from the wax cylinder to today's digital streaming here.

After the war we had crooners , Jazz , Western Swing and the beginnings of Country and Western. Rock and Roll was the first big flash propelled by Bill Haley & The Comets "Rock Around The Clock" the film "The Blackboard Jungle" and the genesis of the teenager as someone who could buy things including music, plus the tribalism of Teddy Boys and the like.

In the sixties there were Mods and Rockers, Skinheads psychedelia , ska and reggae , garage rock but this was just a quite smooth progression , resulting in some major rock bands and an unfeasioble amount of money and pretension. In the seventies we also go glam and all along the mainstream kept morst of the public satisfied as it still does today.

Then punk hit , hating the establishment , and prog rock (but ironically loving Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk") but still referring and eulogising krautock , reggae , sixties garage rock and more, while pursuing a minimalist shoestring sound epitomised by The Buzzcocks "Spiral Scratch" , which is why I was so disappointed by The Sex Pistols "Never Mind The Bollocks" as to me it was a heavy metal album, so sounded good but more metal than punk.

This resulted in lots of small independent music which was eventually absorbed by the big labels. 

And since the during the eighties we saw Goth , and Grunge and Baggy at the start of the nineties, and while there is always good music coming through there's been no big band since the mid seventies and no small bang since the early nineties.

So did I miss something or did I just get old? Franks Zappa said that when the old guys were in charge of record labels they would always give anything a shot. Could you imagine a major label releasing "Trout Mask Replica" or even "The Texas Jerusalem Crossroads" today?  Sing the young guys moved in it's all about product and markets , not art and music.

So what should I share, I'll go with the Bill Haley song.