Exam Survival Kit

Music

1. Narrow Stairs, Death Cab For Cutie
2. Good Evening New York City, Paul McCartney
3. 桑田さんのお仕事 07/08 ～魅惑のAVマリアージュ～ The Works Of Mr. K. Kuwata 07/08, 桑田佳祐 Keisuke Kuwata
4. The Velvet Underground And Nico, The Velvet Underground and Nico
5. All The Plans, Starsailor

Most of the time, music just keeps me awake so I don’t fall asleep halfway through my revision, but let me just say that I know the songs of 2 and 3 so well that it is often tempting to sing along.

Games

Well, I have to entertain myself every now and then. I was in the process of completing a Mass Effect 2 game, but I think I’ll suspend that. I started a new Metal Gear Solid 4 game yesterday under the influence of my friend who just got a PS3. (Congrats!)

I just have to play. Even for an hour a day or so. I would feel very unbalanced if I didn’t, and that definitely isn’t what I want going into the exams.

Idle Thinking

Any moment I can spare on “hobbies” is spent on thinking about how to implement my forthcoming book club experiment. I’m supposed to get that running in the holidays, and if it succeeds, that will bode well for the prospects of an actual book club in the future. Here’s hoping.

Rewards

To have something to look forward to after my exams, I’m going to buy a few books at the end of this. I might buy a couple of other things too. Call it retail therapy.

Specific to books, however, I’ve been going through my list, adding and subtracting, trying to work out a nice list to go all guns a-blazing on by the time I’m done with these pesky exams.

Miscellany

I’ve been trying to sleep earlier because it’s an early paper tomorrow and I need to get used to sleeping early. I hope it works. Most of my papers are in the afternoon, so it probably won’t be too bad, but let’s just hope tomorrow works out fine.

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Love Songs

Nothing quite like a good love song, and my recent playlist has basically been dominated by love songs.

1. “Friends To Go,” Paul McCartney
2. “I Want You,” Bob Dylan
3. “The Bakery,” Arctic Monkeys
4. “Something’s Gotta’ Give,” Robin McKelle
5. “Anyway,” Paul McCartney
6. “Summersong,” The Decemberists
7. “It’s Too Late,” Derek & The Dominos
8. “I Need You,” The Beatles
9. “Just Like A Woman,” Bob Dylan
10. “Bold As Love,” Jimi Hendrix
11. “限りなき永遠(とわ)の愛,” サザンオールスターズ
12. “Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea,” George Harrison
13. “No Face, No Name, No Number,” Steve Winwood and Eric Clapton [live]
14. “Something,” The Beatles
15. “True Love Waits,” Radiohead

Here are fourteen fragments that you can try to match to their original songs. The Japanese song of course is excluded because that would be too easy.

1. My girl, linen and curls, lips parting like a flag all unfurled
2. With her fog, her amphetamine, and her pearls
3. But when you come knocking at my door, fate seems to give my heart a twist
4. I’ll try hard, ignoring those lips I adore, but how long can anyone try?
5. Don’t want to leave her now, you know I believe and how
6. In haunted attics… On lollipops and crisps
7. You don’t realise how much I need you
8. I’ve been sliding down a slippy slope; I’ve been climbing up a slowly burning rope
9. But it’s not that way, I wasn’t born to lose you
10. And so I search within his lonely place, knowing I won’t find her
11. In my soul is constant yearning, always singing, singing this song
12. It’s a woman that cries, so I guess I’ve got to hide my eyes
13. Keep me from giving my life to a rainbow like you
14. Love, we’re in stalemate

Enjoy!

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Oaksongs

Oaksongs by Humpback Oak. Support your local musicians!

More pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cactusbeetroot/sets/72157623663054876/

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Sine Wave

Metre

No, I’m not out of the woods yet. I thought I would be soon enough, but yesterday proved otherwise.

Work

Thankfully, it doesn’t affect my work. It seems premature to suggest that there is light at the end of the tunnel for school work, but that really appears to be the case. I’m sure I’ll be changing tune soon enough, though.

My Sociology test came and went. I’m now wondering if I didn’t do what was expected of me. Well, only one way to find out.

Today we’re starting on King Lear.

As far as writing goes, everything is also going pretty well. I thought of it in three stages, and I’m probably going to finish the first phase within the month, optimistically. When Phase One is done, it will then simply be a matter of… well, figuring out Phase Two.

I’m making up a lot of things. Then again, in a sense, that’s what this job is, isn’t it?

In any case, I guess you could say that in some respect, everything is falling into place. That would be spot-on, and yet it also couldn’t be further from the truth.

Reading

Finished Slow Learner. Liked a couple of stories; didn’t like the others. Not sure what I’ll read next, though by the time you read this I should already have picked something.

Comedy

The Road: A Comedic Translation (Part 4). [via The Millions]

Fibre

They fixed up some new fibre optic network thing yesterday. I’m sure everyone tells you the same damn thing, but darn, when technology moves, it moves. The surreptitiousness with which hard disk sizes double and prices half still surprises me even now. And it wasn’t so long ago when I was proud to have my 56K line.

Sure, I sound like less of a nerd and more of an uncle at a kopitiam in saying that, but still, it’s magnificent to watch. With luck, maybe I’ll get to be Tron in my lifetime.

It also implies that I probably need to get to upgrading my desktop. Well, I don’t need to, but I sure would like to.

Erased

I never listened very much to Thom Yorke’s solo album The Eraser. I’ve been rectifying that over the past few days, though. It’s a wonderful album, and is a snug fit with the sort of mood I’m in right now. Great music.

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Old Is New Again

Room Transfer

I’ve been busy changing rooms. My dad has orchestrated this event and we began shifting some of the things around (desk, computers, and bed from my old room; cupboards, desk and more cupboards from the current one) during the weekend. It took a little bit of clever thinking too because it’s easy to overlook things when you’re planning these complicated manoeuvres.

The process is far from complete, but I can basically survive in this new room just fine right now, because all the important things are over. I’m still short of my wardrobe, where I hide so many things, my bookshelf, and a rack that I think I might not keep. There’s also my whiteboard, but I’m not too concerned about that. I also want to start hanging up a couple of decorations.

To say this is a new room for me is I suppose just a figure of speech, since it had been my bedroom for many, many years. Since I can remember, in fact. I only shifted out to the other room somewhere when I was maybe 16? I can’t remember.

In the meantime, I’ve still to grow used to my new room. It’s not just the feeling of being in somewhere slightly unfamiliar. There are small little practicalities too, like how I realise there’s no desk now at my bedside (it’s moved to the tail end of my bed) so I can’t check my clock in the middle of the night and have no convenient place to leave my glasses. But yes, there is the slight sense of alienation that isn’t tied to any practical explanation. I can’t help noticing, for example, that even the wall’s a different colour. I’m sure that will happen in a week or so, especially if I get more of my things over. For now, I think I’ll just continue feeling like I’m in a hotel room.

Jukebox

I’m currently listening to:

• Embryonic by The Flaming Lips
• The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars by David Bowie
• Roseland NYC Live by Portishead
• On Tour With Eric Clapton by Delaney & Bonnie
• Mingus Ah Um by Charles Mingus

A mix of the old and new and the not-so-old-not-so-new-and-just-something-I-didn’t-get-to-at-first. I can see Delaney & Bonnie getting replaced in the next couple of weeks. Though I might be wrong. I usually am.

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On Rubber Soul and Revolver.

Well, in theory, I could tell you the same things you’ve heard multiple times already, that the remasters are great, that the mono sounds warmer than the stereo, and that the stereo sounds a lot closer to the original stereo mix found on with the mono edition. For the record, I’m a little sad I don’t actually have the mono version because these are two albums where I liked the mono version of Rubber Soul better. On the other hand, as far as I’m concerned, stereo is the way to go for Revolver.

Yes, I could do that. But I guess there isn’t much a point to it. Instead, I want to talk about these albums.You see, Rubber Soul ranks among my favourite albums of all (Beatles or otherwise), and to hear the remaster gives me joy beyond the simple admiration of the technology and work that went into cleaning up these albums. From the delightfully distorted album cover and the unambiguously cool name, to the cracking opener, the gorgeous ballads and the vicious final track, it’s a hell of an album.

It’s also commonly lumped together with Revolver. Like now.

Except I don’t like Revolver so much. It just seems to lose its way a bit, and I’ve always thought that a couple of the tracks there were really boring. Though I should say that for no particular reason, And Your Bird Can Sing is one of the most played songs in my library. It’s just so much fun. (I think that really sums it up. I like a number of the songs on Revolver a lot, but I just couldn’t ever bring myself to like the album as a whole.)

I’ve always explained this lumping-together by saying that it’s because this is where the Beatles started to experiment, to mess around, to mix things up. Which isn’t really true, because that happened at least beginning from Help!. But whatever it is, they form a wonderful bridge between the early Beatles catalogue and the Beatles at their height, the more gigantic and ambitious stuff that followed. They’re competent albums without submitting to some oppressive need to reach, to extend beyond conventional expectations. In other words, they’re tidy and compact. And the result isn’t immediately impressive, but it is true, and honest, and it sticks with you for the rest of your life.

I mean, really, listen to these songs carefully. I know I did when I got my stereo remasters.

Michelle is one of my favourite songs of all. And the funny thing is, I can’t for the life of me tell you why. It’s just important to me. I keep going back to it time and time again, trying to identify that one thing that makes it so precious, so unforgettable, and I can’t find it, and then I think, that’s all the better, as if to say that it’s magic spell would be undone if I’d uncovered that little truth.

And then there’s Eleanor Rigby, so visceral and strange, so elegant in its lyricism and arrangements, and so unlike anything I’d ever heard before. And listening to it again now, I think it always seemed to say so much more to me than it was actually intended to. All the lonely people, Paul sang, where do they all come from? Far from being about the destitute and poor, it seemed to hint at a greater mystery, a larger tragedy at work, and one we wouldn’t ever understand.

So my point, as I’ve tried to bring forth to you in my most disorganised and roundabout manner, is that these songs meant something to me once, and they still mean something to me now. I’ve never quite been able to identify those things, but it’s wonderful to recognise it now that these albums have come back to me in that giant black box. It goes beyond the innovations found in their music, beyond the precise performances, and beyond the ingenious writing. It’s something vital and true, something wonderful, something to believe in.

I remember listening to In My Life for the first time. I got goosebumps. I had heard a version by another singer before. I can’t remember who it was, except that it was a female singer. That was just poppish and sweet to me, but the one on Rubber Soul just got to me somehow. Just yesterday, before I wrote this, I put it on again. It’s funny to listen to it again now.

What’s changed is how it defines my perception of the Beatles history. Here are the boys, and they’re getting all grown up, and you know, the times ahead aren’t going to be easy at all, but they’re stepping on the gas with their big hearts and open minds, or so you would like to believe. There is a fragility captured in their earnest voices, and it clearly belongs to youth. One way of looking at these albums is that they’re a transition that reflects the same transition we all experience in growing up. It’s just the most precious thing, at once frightening and fantastic. And at the heart of it, the four lads whom we want to venerate as heroes, as gods, reminding us that the thing that’ll see them through the coming years is the fact that they had each other.

And what didn’t change? you ask. It’s simple. I still got goosebumps.

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More Beatles

Here are some more impressions. We’re going to do Beatles For Sale and Help! today. I know I’m very late, but better than never, as they say.

I have strangely opposite reactions to the remasters with respect to these two albums. I prefer the stereo remaster of Beatles For Sale. It sounds more in line with what we’re used to hearing in modern music. Certainly, both can be easily distinguished from the original records and the ’87 remasters. Just listen to the resonant guitar opening in I’ll Follow The Sun. It’s gorgeous.

To my mind, the stereo version has a nicer balance. The mono version also seems more distant to me, like on Rock And Roll Music, where John’s voice seems a little far away from the rest of the band. The separations are irritating as usual on the stereo edition, but not enough to frustrate me. I also find, as with most of the other remasters, that I can hear the individual voices more distinctly in the stereo version, and I think that’s a matter of taste.

To me, the songs here seem more alive. As expected, there’s a little bit more depth, more clarity and better balance with these songs, but as a whole, Beatles For Sale seems to glow. It’s like hearing an album proper for the first time after listening to it from behind a wall your entire life.

On the other hand, I like Help!‘s mono version better. The stereo version sounds noticeably harsh in areas. This was especially clear to me in You Like Me Too Much. That said, it also has more punch, so it may be a matter of preference. I find that it takes a little acclimitisation before I actually start enjoying the mono version (it’s like it takes place in a different kind of space altogether), though, all things considered, it has a warmer, fuller, and less disjointed sound that I prefer.

Help! is far from my favourite Beatles album, but it has some songs that I’ve lived with and will continue to live with for a long, long time. It’s nice to rediscover them in this new package, with just that little bit more definition and detail, and know that they’re songs that I’ll be able to count on for a long, long time to come.

I think the same can be said about the rest of the Beatles remasters, and I promise I’ll get to them with some sense of urgency.

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The Year Ahead

While busily locked in the throes of misery and attempting to extricate myself from complete depression, it was somewhat interesting to note that we are in fact at the end of a very unusual year, and that there are a few nice things to look forward to in the coming year.

There are, for instance, books that I’m meant to read next year, and with the likes of Banville’s The Infinities and Morrison’s A Mercy on my list, I think it’s fairly safe to say that I’m in for a good year.

But there are a bunch of new books that I’m waiting to get a hold of as well. While I don’t keep up with the industry as much as I would like to, it’s easy to see a few translations at least popping up in the next year. Off the top of my head, I can think of one or two new Bolaño books and the Saramago book about the elephant. (I was going to say Murakami’s 1Q84 but I think that’s in 2011.) And there are still some books that have only just been released that I’ll be looking to get my hands on as well, including Saramago’s Small Memories and Vonnegut’s Look At The Birdie.

Then… games! Plenty of games to be looking forward to. It scares me a little that many of them are coming in the first quarter of the year, but we’ll see how it goes and… improvise.

I believe there’s a new Radiohead album coming. I remember reading it somewhere. It doesn’t feel like it’s been so long since In Rainbows was released, but that’s only because the queality of that album left me more than a little spoiled. Let’s hope that this turns out to be one of the highlights of the year.

I suppose there’s going to be a new Beatles release, but after the monumental Remasters releases, I don’t think there’s very much that’s going to top that, so it’s likely to be more low-key. I’m also curious to see what the Last Shadow Puppets come up with next.

There’s also new TV. Ashes To Ashes is on its final series, in particular, and I’m curious to find out how it ends. (I haven’t actually watched the first two series, just Life On Mars, because I think it hasn’t shown over here yet, but it’s still good to know that it’s coming in 2010.)

And finally, I’ve been trying to plan my camera upgrades for a long, long time. Word has it that a new D700-type FX model will be coming soon, which makes a lot of sense, and maybe then I can start to properly plan the large-scale changes in my kit.

So, it’s going to be a promising year, even if it isn’t going to be particularly happy. While still leaning closely on the edge of total despair, it’s nice to think that there are things to look forward to.

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Stuffing Stockers

2009 is practically over, but before it’s done with, we’ve got Christmas to take care of! I thought to list down some books and music that I’ve enjoyed in the past year just as a quick sort of summary, but also as a source of last-minute gift suggestions. Five each (plus bonuses), and I tried to keep them to recent releases, which is much easier for music than it is for books, considering my reading patterns.

This is also by no means a best-of list, especially considering how my tastes can sometimes be rather esoteric. It’s more of a review of things that I’ve enjoyed in the past year. I hope that you and yours can too.

So, if you’re running short of ideas and running short on time, consider giving these a shot. Alternatively, give yourself a little Christmas treat after a long year.

Books

2666
Roberto Bolaño

For a period of time after reading 2666, I couldn’t read anything else without feeling underwhelmed. Bolaño’s opus is a towering achievement, at turns absurdly funny and hopelessly dark, at once irreverent, unabashed, sprawling and intense. While it is true that one’s mileage may vary with regards to certain portions of the text, the quality of Bolaño’s prose never slips, which ought to be a remarkable achievement except for how it is overshadowed by the book’s immense ambition and spectacular beauty. It is works like these that inspire the very sort of hope that we should have in art, where imagination is vested with powers incomparable and the written word has the ability to intone, inspire, crush and create. It is works like these that remind you the importance of art, as well as its limitless nature.

[You can get this in a couple of humongous hardcover editions, a new one-volume paperback, or the box set that split it up into three books. I liked the one I have the best, which is the three-book edition.]

All-Star Superman
Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely with Jamie Grant

Grant Morrison is my favourite comic book writer, and sometimes one of my favourite living writers. I say sometimes because in the multitude of his ambitions, he quite frequently (if I dare say) falls somewhat short. But on the good days, when it all comes together, Morrison is able to take the comic book medium to quite incredible heights. All-Star Superman sees Morrison in some of his best form, reimagining the Superman story in a manner both bold and brilliant. It all comes together (with Quitely’s art and Grant’s inks) in a package that makes you realise the things that all things are possible in the comic medium.

[You can get the collected edition in two volumes, which are available in hardcover and (I think) paperback. I'm not sure if you'll have too much luck hunting down the individual issues.]

Death At Intervals
José Saramago

Of Saramago’s many otherworldly talents, one of them appears to be the ability to make the most absurd plots function. In Death At Intervals, he tells the fable of a country in which everyone, one day, just stops dying. At the hands of a lesser writer, this would probably have drowned in some unspectacular, but Saramago somehow manages to pull it off. What emerges is (as one would expect from a Saramago novel) a bleak exploration of human nature. Every celebration is simply a secret waiting to reveal its cost.

What I didn’t expect, however, was just how humorous the whole thing was. In these pages, Saramago finds the perfect balance between the more piercing perspectives into human beahaviour and the somewhat irreverent and unexpected jokes. It’s a brilliant thing to see. (He wryly lampoons everything from the government, the mob, and even the editors.)

The second half of the novel takes an even more unexpected turn and I am well aware that this will probably not succeed as well as the first half of it. Within it, Saramago decides to personify death, and his characterisation of her is arguably less likely to be as convincing as the remarkable first half of the novel. Nevertheless, I liked it, because it surprised me how it had a certain type of sweetness that I wouldn’t have expected to see outside of the very best children’s fiction.

[This is available in paperback in a variety of covers. There was a black hardcover a while back, but if you ask me, the purple Vintage edition with the cute comic art cover is probably the best representation of its contents.]

Pandora In The Congo
Albert Sánchez Piñol

At the heart of Pandora In The Congo is a writer who writes the tale of a certain Marcus Garvey. It begins by caricaturising the adventure novel, and then bursts into one of its own in the tradition of Conrad and Rider Haggard.

Piñol seizes you from the get-go with his startling imagination and boundless energy, and leads you through a novel like the architect of a good rollercoaster ride. It has thrills, spills, blood, wit, candour, altruism, hearts of darkness, romance and discourses on human nature. It asks difficult questions! It enthralls and excites! It has murder! It has villains! It has ugly humans doing ugly things! It has frightening underground humanoids! It has romance in the trees! What’s not to like?

[I've only ever seen a paperback edition of this.]

The Way Through Doors
Jesse Ball

Jesse Ball’s book is in essence a variation of The Arabian Nights. It is a scheme of things that appeals to us, I think, because of our inherent desire to believe in the power of stories. In order to prevent Mora Klein from slipping into slumber (and thus causing her dreadful harm), Selah Morse, our wonderfully unreliable narrator, has to tell her stories. It is a celebration of the artform in a manner both earnest and sweet, albeit slightly challenging because of its charming oddness and unusual form.

This was a happy accident for me. I picked it up not knowing what I was getting into. I ended up delighted and rather mesmerised. There is a purity and beauty to this that reminds us that perhaps the best parts of our lives are reserved for those unafraid to dream.

[I got this on paperback. I don't know if it comes in any other form, but that Vintage edition was put together in the most lovely fashion.]

Bonus Mention

Your Inner Fish
Neil Shubin

Here’s one additional book I thought I ought to mention. Unlike the rest of the books here, it’s a non-fiction book that essentially deals with the theory that we’ve all evolved from fish. It’s written with great clarity and much enthusiasm, and I’m sure this will win Natural History more than a few new students.

Music

Abbey Road [2009 Remaster]
The Beatles

The Beatles return with their entire catalogue remastered, and I am of the opinion that they are quite remarkable. Nowhere is this more welcome (well, to me, anyway) than with Abbey Road. The differences between the remaster and the original will probably not be as pronounced on Abbey Road as compared to some of the other albums, but it’s these differences that reinvigorate the album and give it a new dimension. The percussion pulsates in She Came In Through The Bathroom Window. The bass drives The End forwards in a way I could never have dreamed. Like I said, it’s not that the differences are night and day, but what differences they are.

Funny feeling, this. It’s 2009, and the Beatles rock again.

[This is available as a single album release and, if it's a special someone who happens to be a Beatles nut, as part of The Beatles Stereo Box.]

The Hazards Of Love
The Decemberists

The Decemberists returned this year with a gigantic rock suite telling the story of a pair of star-crossed lovers, an evil child-killing fellow, a jealous mother, a forest and a river. I suppose if there was anything characteristically Decemberist, it would be something like this.

The band has probably not sounded better (so far), with top-notch production (just listen to the opener) and some of the best musicianship they’ve yet exhibited (all around, though Chris Funk’s electric guitar and Jenny Conlee’s organ will be the most immediately impressive). And really, who wouldn’t want to see the grand, operatic ambition of telling a story like that with excellent music? The album’s massive ambition is a thing to admire, although it sometimes does end up being the album’s greatest fault. It feels every now and then as if they haven’t got enough material to sustain the suite; and sometimes slips into a sort of Disney phase (the romantic sides of the album, in particular). Nevertheless, there’s plenty of good music here, and it’s a spectacle that you really shouldn’t miss.

[The album is available at the Decemberists store, among other places, but I wanted to note that if you get it there now, you will also get a DVD of the animated feature that they put together to accompany the album.]

Humbug
Arctic Monkeys

Humbug is a carnival with a dark twist, a biting poison and the occasional moment of sweetness. Unlike the first two endeavours of the Arctic Monkeys, it is a quite successful attempt at making an album as a cohesive whole. It definitely feels as if they don’t feel the need to impress so immediately anymore (most notably in the very controlled and cheekily vulgar opener, My Propeller), and that shows in the care that has been taken in crafting some of this music. There are fewer hooks, fewer catchy singles, fewer overt displays of showmanship, but definitely a marked maturity to their musicianship. It’s an excellent album by an excellent band that’s showing signs of moving in the right direction.

[All major record stores, and probably most minor ones too.]

Middle Cyclone
Neko Case

Nature and the need for love frame Neko Case’s latest album, and in this balance we find something pleasant, bittersweet, and ultimately sweeping. There is a cinematic quality to this album as it moves from country to noir to rock and even to the spiritual. The range of it alone is impressive, and is made even more impressive by her incredible voice. And while it is one of the very best voices in the business, demanding your attention at every turn, credit should go too to the band for managing to produce a Walden-esque aesthetic within the confines of the album.

Resembling a midsummer night’s dream of forests and fireflies, of rain on the fields and creaking cicadas in the dark nights, tinged with more than a hint of heartbreak, the album turns out to be a thoughtful endeavour that I found thoroughly enjoyable.

[It's really not anything like the cover.]

Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Phoenix

Early Phoenix stuff has always somehow struck me as promising and yet lacking in some way. That wasn’t at all the case with this cleverly titled album. It’s an album that tries to deal with the grandiose themes of love and angst and disappointments and living in frame of their now-mature sense for pop-rock. In doing so, Phoenix abandons their sophisticated and excessive arrangements for something more urgent, something that breathes. It understands loneliness. It understands hurt. It asks that you pull your socks up. It asks that you step on the gas and ride into the sunset. By somehow drawing upon Mozart, Liszt, Brain Eno and Daft Punk, Phoenix has produced a work of youth and hope that burns as brighter than anything I’ve heard this year (and many others).

Bonus Mentions

It’s Blitz!
Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Together Through Life
Bob Dylan

Two more albums that I didn’t have space for. I wanted to say that even not being the biggest fan of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, I really enjoyed It’s Blitz!. Together Through Life, on the other hand, sees Dylan put out music that’s perhaps more… ‘grounded’? I don’t know if that’s the word for it. I have a terrible vocabulary. It certainly has a far less epic feel than the preceding albums in his discography, and doesn’t carry the same sense of importance about it, but it features Dylan in a somewhat more relaxed mood, delivering some very clever lyrics and supported by impeccable performances. Excellent stuff.

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Revision x Jukebox

It’s Not Working

Revision is going great. In fact, this is probably my best revision period ever. I’m studying more and further ahead of time than ever. And yet, paradoxically, it is also not working! I’m quite unable to explain this unusual phenomenon, but I will just chalk it down as something I’ll have to deal with quickly. I’m sure if I keep at it, it’ll sort itself out eventually.

My papers are on the 21st, 25th, then the 2nd and the 4th. Almost in increasing order of difficulty. Well, maybe you could swap the one on the 2nd and the one on the 4th around, but it’s pretty close.

Jukebox

I’ve been listening to:

• Kid A. Over the years, I’ve grown to like this more than OK Computer. I suppose it’s a change in sensibilities and aesthetic values. Kid A just feels more refined and immediate to me, though both are exceptional pieces of work.
• In Rainbows.
• Some Duane Allman. Random stuff from all around. Gone too soon, as they said, but every time I listen to his work I find myself quite astounded at the level to which he takes things. He has no brakes. He just jams the gas and creates things quite extraordinary. There are many reasons he’s my favourite guitarist, and sometimes it’s nice to be reminded of them.
• Selected bits of The White Album. I find myself liking songs that I didn’t used to like. Rocky Raccoon, for example. Also, yesterday, the visceral impact of Yer Blues punched me in the face. And here is where I throw in a superlative in the lame hope of impressing it upon you.
• Some Dylan and some Springsteen. The notable tracks are the extremely vicious Hurricane and the very cinematic Thunder Road.
• Cream. Lots of Cream. It had been a while since I last dived into the Cream catalogue, and this recent endeavour has left me quite surprised at the tremendous breadth and range of material covered by the band. I think when I was younger it was always easier to be impressed by the White Rooms and Sunshine Of Your Loves, to the point that I’d missed everything else.

Not being very good at staying awake, this playlist has been working so far for me in this revision period, though I imagine I’ll have to swap things around very soon and remove the stuff I’m more acquainted with so I can replace them with less comfortably familiar material.

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