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Wait a minute. Pavarotti is dead? Why did no one tell me?
I guess he recorded all those Go Compare ads in advance. Nice he lives on, but still very sad.
Listening to
Steven Wright’s (comedian not DJ) Harold on audiobook ahead of him appearing on RHLSTP Book Club (very excited about that). It’s a beautiful window into his extraordinary wandering mind and thus into the mind of an exceptional comedian. The way thoughts overlap and connect, the way they look at the world differently sometimes, but also sometimes put into words the things that you’ve been thinking yourself. It reminds me a lot of Vonnegut, whilst still being very much it’s own thing, which is perhaps the greatest compliment I can give and is both laugh out loud and profound. I loved the pricking of the “You learn something new every day” with a simple “No you don’t,” which is very true sadly and also the idea of your mind meaning you’re having a conversation with yourself. Wright sees Harold’s thoughts as birds flying into a square in his mind (lucky Harold being able to see squares and birds in his head) which is reminiscent of an Anglo-Saxon idea that I thought came from Beowulf, but is actually from the Venerable Bede (should know that as I studied him, not Beowulf at college - though studied is doing a lot of work in that sentence)
"The present life of man upon earth, O king, seems to me, in comparison with that time which is unknown to us, like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the house wherein you sit at supper in winter, with your ealdormen and thegns, while the fire blazes in the midst, and the hall is warmed, but the wintry storms of rain or snow are raging abroad. The sparrow, flying in at one door and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry tempest; but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, passng from winter into winter again. So this life of man appears for a little while, but of what is to follow or what went before we know nothing at all. If, therefore, this new doctrine tells us something more certain, it seems justly to deserve to be followed.”
I think this was intended as some kind of proof of Christian faith, but it rather sums up the wonder and bleakness of our life - nothing before and after and warm, incredible wonder while we’re briefly here (though I tend to agree with Billy Connolly that life is not short, but long, at least from our own perspective).
Anyway, it’s a wonderful book - Harold, rather than the stuff by the Venerable Bede which was a bit of a slog from what I remember (ie I didn’t read it).
I am watching the Simpsons from the beginning with the kids and am right in the heart of the best of the best of it, where every episode is packed with wonderful jokes and ideas and quotable lines. Today we got to Homer’s Barbershop Quartet - an extremely funny episode. But for the first time I noticed a continuity error. They are billed under that name at the church gig before the scene where they come up with it. Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.
