Bissextcurious?

Fill yer boots, this (and almost every) February 29th.

The not-so-good old days

With the increasing informality of ritual under the reforms of Edward VI came scope for new sources of texts, especially psalms either entire or in part - though not yet the personal selection of verses which later became common (and caused the unfortunate sixteenth-century Flemish composer Laurent de Voz to be hanged for a motet containing a suggestive choice of psalm texts).

- Nicolas Robertson, sleeve notes to Sacred Choral Music by William Mundy (The Sixteen, dir. Harry Christophers

The good old days

Josquin was able to set the psalm 'Memor esti verbi servo tuo' as a reminder to the French king that his salary was due.

- Nicolas Robertson, sleeve notes to Sacred Choral Music by William Mundy (The Sixteen, dir. Harry Christophers

(Audio)Books I've actually finished lately: 114

Consider myself examined.

Literary coincidences: 3

I've been tinkering with the idea of launching a small, low-admin South-East London literary festival, so this morning I was making notes as to whom I might be able to involve. Aspiring-writer mates, literary Facebook acquaintances, authors I've interviewed. Anyone from whom I might beg an under-remunerated favour, really, if they happened to be in the area. The last name I put down - on a might-as-well-ask basis - was Wendy Cope.

Out walking the dog just now, I was listening to The Examined Life by Stephen Grosz (psychoanalyst) when, in a chapter about love, a particular bit caught my ear:

As the poet Wendy Cope once told...

InDefinition - 83

unimpresario, n. one who puts on shit events

I have a new (old) laptop

given to me by my parents - or is it an old (new) laptop? - to replace the one given to me several years ago by my wife's parents.

Either way, my new old laptop is much quicker than my old new one, and doesn't insist on shutting down at random intervals.

At the moment, of course, it's sitting on the floor, just playing Spotify. But still: this is progress.

'This interview was conducted... sitting on the ground in the hotel car park...'

Q. What is the contemporary literary scene like...? 

A. Well, the books are not getting sold. There is no excitement. People are quite despondent, and they don’t know where the work is going. They want to write—actually, a lot of people want to write. But where is this work going to go? Our young writers have trouble getting published by the publishing houses that we have... and so they resort to self-publishing.... But it’s too expensive for the market. There is also the fact that 50 percent of the population is illiterate. They can speak... but they cannot read or write.... And there is a big issue with egos. The old writers are not just the gatekeepers; they have entered and they have shut the gate firmly behind them so no one else can enter.... Another big problem is that when books are launched, it's in a gentrified area, so nobody else knows what is happening.

- Aaron Bady interviews Edwige-Renée DRO, in The New Inquiry

(Wait - what? They were talking about the Ivory Coast...?! So sorry. Unexpurgated version here.)

Books I've actually finished lately:113

The description [in Minima Moralia] of a short-order cook in a place like Teddy’s Cafe, as ‘a juggler with fried-eggs’ is Nabokovian, though in addition to seeing the cook as a juggler Nabokov would probably have put a spin on the eggs too. I thought of this as I made a note in my notebook...

- Geoff Dyer

(Audio)Books I've actually finished lately: 112

Particularly enjoyed: the chapters about the literary festival and the Irish post-apocalypse.

Particularly did not enjoy: the sub-melodious sub-verbiaging of our (sub-ostensible) sub-future.

Distant Eco

In the light of the sad passing of Umberto Eco, I am tickled to discover - turning, for the first time, to the opening pages of The Name of the Rose - that the 'missing' manuscript on which Eco's first and still most famous novel is entirely predicated is only missing because a woman 'he' was sleeping with ran off with it.

The Night Manager

A nice touch in last night's adaptation of Le Carré's The Night Manager.

Following a misadventure in Cairo (involving, somewhat predictably, a woman, an arms dealer, and Her Majesty's Government) British-Army-officer-turned-hotelier Jonathan Pine is now four years into a seemingly self-imposed exile in Switzerland, living quietly in a sparsely-furnished bunker building near his new employment, in Zermatt.

Motivated by unfolding events, he decides to renew his contact with a government agency in 'Victoria, London', and hurries home from work to dig out their phone number. He finds it tucked inside a copy of The Letters of TE Lawrence (ed. David Garnett), at the page headed

THE YEARS OF HIDE AND SEEK: 1922 - 1929

thereby nicely tying together themes of personal mortification, (unsuccessful) reclusiveness, and - Le Carré's go-to narrative device - damn-fool heroics by not-quite-upper-middle 'English' military types interfering in things they don't understand and which they cannot possibly hope to control.

I wasn't able to make out a lot of Pine's remaining bookshelf; but it did also contain The Dynasts and, of course, Seven Pillars of Wisdom.

Against my ruins

Two extracts from the Lonely Planet's Sri Lanka: a travel survival kit (3rd ed. 1987; security updates c.1990):

If you like ruins you'll find your fill in the ancient cities of Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa.

- 'Introduction' [first full page of text]

There are no places of interest unless you are interested in photographing ruins.

- STOP PRESS [last full page of text]

The (Sports)Writer's Life

Dolled-up women prefer to have their bottoms pinched by international cricketers and not by those who write about them.

- Shehan Karunatilaka, Chinaman

Allow myself to introduce...

An introduction is a temptation: it can turn so easily into a self-justifying exercise...

- Shiva Naipaul, North of South ('Introduction')

Theory of knowledge

FRENCH TEACHER*: Seven across: 'revered philosopher'.
PE TEACHER: Clarkson.

- Big School

--
* Don't bother...

Coldplay lyrics...

can make me wish I didn't understand English.

- Jon Pareles, in The New York Times

(cf. almost every opera libretto ever.)

Books I've actually finished lately: 111

I am trying to convey that Saint-Exupéry, by the very nature of his conception of literature, is not essentially a man of letters. He is a man of action for whom action is not enough, because he has realized that action in itself means nothing; a technician who thinks as much of the dangers as of the uses of technology; a warrior who is not convinced of the value of courage or obedience. Still less is he a littérateur. His profession demands great care, rigor and vigilance; it entails a commitment that goes beyond mere words and involves the whole person.

- Charles-Henri Favrod

(Necrophiliac) Californication

John Niven writes for Esquire about life in screenwriting and Hollywood.

Books I've actually finished lately: 110

Inattendance

TOBY ZIEGLER: Was there any press there tonight?
ACADEMIC: For a poetry lecture...?

- The West Wing, 3;17

Books I've actually finished lately: 109

(Audio)Books I've actually finished lately: 108