often seen in the street without a hat

Some years ago I advised a composer who was composing an opera about A Historical Figure about whom I am something of a Nexpert, and I am now on their mailing list and get info on their current activities and broadcasts and so on -

And I was invited to the Private View of this, taking place at a venue which is only a reasonable bus-ride and short walk away.

Also giving me the chance to see a small part of the nearish locality with which I am relatively unfamiliar, and which has its charms.

I am not sure I was entirely enthused by the artworks - there was one installation of ceramics where I wished I had someone there to whom I could murmur that they had an urgent phallic look -

My main problem with the venue, however, was the acoustics - I think it was the kind of space where once you got a certain mass of people conversing it would always have been a bit trying for me and my hearing aids, but combined with the ambient music coming out of the various speakers, not optimal at all. (Though maybe its own soundscape....)

I don't think there was anyone there I knew besides The Composer - mostly of a younger generation and art/music people rather than groves of academe - and I didn't really get into much chat, but I did get 2 admiring comments on the green hair streaks and 1 compliment to my pendant (which I think I got at Wiscon, unless it was 4th St?).

However, I have had a sweet email from The Composer thanking me for coming.

And surely that would include realising that things were not always the exact same way they are today?

For decades, publishers have swapped out cultural references in new editions of books to appeal to younger readers. Fans aren’t always thrilled.

This seems so weird to me. I grew up on reading books that had lingered for however long on the shelves of the children's dept of the local public library - which were all bound in that standard hard-wearing public library binding so one did not have any sense of shiny newness or otherwise - along with my mother's old books, some of which were works of a yet more previous generation which she had loved in her youth.

And that's before we get into the oddness of the Alice books and the talking animals and so forth.

Do they have no imaginations? Are they only supposed to identify with recognisable experiences?

Read somewhere about (in this case I think actually adult readers) who could not deal with subtext, foreshadowing, and other Litry Devices.

I was a bit beswozzled by this chap, too, though perhaps from a rather different direction. I devoured classic novels as a teenager. In a world of distractions, can I relearn how to read them?.

Sometimes books have their time and it is past. And sometimes they are just not the right thing at that moment.

And I also think of times in my past when I had fairly long commutes and other stretches of otherwise dead time that I could fill up with doing perhaps rather dutiful reading of those things One Ought To Read, and whether this is not only my experience. And then one's life shifts and these spaces go away.

Took my wonky knee to the GP this afternoon - the GP, as they are these days, appeared to be about 12 years old from my advanced perspective, but v competent, did a thorough interrogation and examination, and came to the conclusion that it looks very like a damaged meniscus -

- and guess what?

We treat that with PHYSIO! like what I am doing for other assorted bits of anatomy. They are sending letter to appropriate quarters and no doubt it will take 6 months at least to get an appointment.

***

In entirely other news:

An investigation into acts of self-pleasure among parrots and other birds has reached a climax, with the results providing welcome relief for vets and researchers, not to mention the birds themselves.
Bird keepers are often advised to discourage and even punish birds for masturbating, but the study found the activity was more common in the wild than in captivity, with researchers concluding it is part of a bird’s natural behaviour.

'Don't forget to feed pleasure the parrot!!!' (so that nature will not turn sour in its veins.)

Last week's bread held out pretty well, up until the point it became a dried out solid brick.

Friday night supper: sorta-nasi goreng with yellow bell pepper and Calabrian salami.

Saturday breakfast rolls: grated apple, with Marriage's Golden Wholegrain Bread Flour and maple syrup.

Today's lunch: baby carrots roasted in sunflower + toasted sesame oil, right at end sprinkled with sugar and mirin; baby courgettes white-braised with ginger rather than star anise, no sesame oil; green beans steamed with fennel seeds then tossed in olive oil + tarragon vinegar with a little chopped red onion; large flat mushrooms marinated for approx 30 mins in 50/50% tamari and mirin boiled with with a dash of sesame oil and star anise, then healthy-grilled for 5 minutes or so.