Layer 238 . . . Writing, Culture, Byng, Obama, Cooperation, and Doing Something Meaningful.

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After a week of being quarantined with a heavy cold I'm starting to feel as though life could be returning to what might be called normal.

Radio 4's The History of the World in 100 Objects this morning focused on the first writing tablets.

"The development of writing has had more impact on mankind's development than anything else."

Writing is essential for human civilisation.

Writing confers power.

It seems to have been invented more or less simultaneously in Mesopotania, Egypt, China and Central America.

"Writing made a decisive difference to the whole history of the human species."

It's tempting to suggest (in jest) that writing even preceded reading, but clearly they're the yin and yang of literacy.
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Dipped into The Culture Show last night hoping to see this -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/proginfo/tv/2010/wk5/thu.shtml

The Culture Show
Thursday 4 February
7.00-8.00pm BBC TWO

www.bbc.co.uk/cultureshow

Andrew Graham Dixon presents this week's edition of The Culture Show which features an interview with Martin Amis on the release of his eagerly anticipated new novel, The Pregnant Widow.

Set in the summer of 1970, this semi-autobiographical comedy of manners focuses on how a group of young men and women respond to the sexual revolution and the rise of feminism.

Instead I caught this part of the programme -

In a week which sees the release of many of the biggest books of the year, Jamie Byng, head of independent publishing house Canongate, reveals his hot tips on what to publish and when.

Interesting guy, Mr Byng.

Barack Obama's publisher: Wild child Jamie Byng

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/media/4228396/Barack-Obamas-publisher-Wild-child-Jamie-Byng.html

By Rowena Mason
Published: 3:24PM GMT 13 Jan 2009

Can Jamie Byng really have been the wild child entrepreneur of the publishing industry? Slightly disappointingly, he is sipping herbal tea. A few years ago, he was the publisher not afraid to talk about his former penchant for drugs and club nights in the same breath as promoting his Booker Prize-nominated novels. Now what people want to know about is his gamble on the potential of two obscure books written by a little-known Chicago lawyer named Barack Obama.

Remarkable tales emanate from Mr Byng in an effortless way. He is the former work experience boy who staged a buy-out of the company within a few years of walking through the door and the publisher who secured Bob Dylan and the Dalai Lama to introduce new editions of bible books.

His stepfather is Sir Christopher Bland, ex-chairman of BT and the BBC, and properly addressed, he is the Honourable Jamie Byng, son of the Earl of Strafford.

Over Christmas, Canongate had the top two books in the paperback fiction chart – Obama's autobiography, Dreams From My Father and his non-fiction manifesto, The Audacity of Hope – and a top 10 in the hardback chart – The Mighty Book of Boosh by comedy duo Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt. All three books were in Amazon's top 10 bestsellers and Canongate has now printed 1.55m Obama books.

It was 2006 when Mr Byng heard from an Australian colleague about Obama's books, which were out of print for several years before being resurrected by a New York agent. He was captivated and finally secured the UK and Commonwealth rights two years ago, as Obama announced his intention to run for the presidency in February 2007.

"Publishing the books of the President-elect is beyond our wildest dreams," Mr Byng smiles, casually slouched on the sofa of his Notting Hill home. "All of us were amazed by his wisdom, insight and the beautiful prose in the books he wrote in the early 1990s, before he went in to politics. It is an example of publishing led by the heart as much as the head."

[Strange error this - according to my copy of "The Audacity of Hope" it was first published in the USA in 2006.]

So how does he spot, acquire and retain the best talent in the face of competitors with larger chequebooks? For Mr Byng there is only one answer: "passion". You get the impression that the worst possible insult would be to describe him as lacking this quality, a word he uses dozens of times.

"You can be passionate about fiction and poetry, but non-fiction is harder to feel passionate about – Obama's books are an exception, because they are so passionately written," he gushes.

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Listening to Mr Byng talking on the TV reminded me that I'd bought the two Obama books to give as Christmas presents just before Christmas 2009, and whilst I'd eventually decided to keep them for myself I haven't actually got round to reading them.

So now I'm reading "Dreams From My Father" at bedtime and "The Audacity of Hope" on waking up. We'll see how it goes. The 'Prologue' of 'Hope' is certainly a reminder of the wonderful speeches that Obama has made, especially before taking up office in the White House. The quality of his thinking and the effectiveness of his language and communication is really quite amazing.

Since the Martin Amis book has been critically panned I'm pretty sure the Obama books are better reading options.

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Meanwhile, the website that Byng has put on the 'net for Canongate is very interesting.

http://www.meetatthegate.com/component/option,com_home/Itemid,37/


The first thing you see is a kind of Thought for the Day at the top of the page. It looks like there's a number of quotations that appear in turn, each time you click on the site. The first one I saw was, "Anarchy is not being out of control. It is being out of their control." (Jim Dodge) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Dodge]

Welcome to Meet at the Gate, a site that seeks to provide a dynamic and interactive forum for great writing, intelligent and lively debate, and recommendations you can trust.

Although launched and hosted by the independent publishing house Canongate, Meet at the Gate is not a typical publisher's website. Yes you can search the Canongate catalogue and find out more about the excellent and diverse array of books and writers we publish, but Meet at the Gate has much broader and bigger ambitions. It's about the creation of a cultural hub, one that is totally independent in its spirit and content, a place with a particular focus on books, film, music and websites that will help guide you to the most interesting stuff around.

We hope that you find this site inspiring, informative and illuminating and that it encourages you to contribute your own personal recommendations, passions and opinions.

Happy reading.

The MATG team

Other "thoughts" from the site -

"What are you painting [writing]? Whatever emerges!" - Cervantes

"The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation." - Bertrand Russell.

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This is what Obama says about cooperation, on pages 1 and 2 of his Prologue,

"Everywhere I went I'd get some version of the same two questions.

"Where'd you get that funny name?"
And then, "You seem like a nice enough guy. Why do you want to go into something dirty and nasty like politics?"

It signalled a cynicism not simply with politics but with the very notion of public life, a cynicism that . . . had been nourished by a generation of broken promises.

I understood the skepticism but there is - and always has been - another tradition to politics, a tradition that stretched  from the days of the country's founding to the glory of the civil rights movement, a tradition based on the simple idea that we have a stake in one another, and that what binds us together is greater than what drives us apart, and that if enough people believe in the truth of that proposition and act on it, then we might not solve every problem, but we can get something meaningful done."

I seem to remember saying something about our interconnectedness in the previous Layer. (237 - The Meaning of Life)

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DID

Kirsty Young's castaway was the classicist Mary Beard.

A professor at Cambridge, she's that rare thing: a university academic who writes for the masses. Her popular books, blog, articles and reviews have led to her being called 'Britain's best-known classicist'.

But while her research is steeped in the ancient world, her commentary is all about the here and now. The classical world speaks to us, she says, and makes us see our own world differently.

Record: It's All Over Now, Baby Blue - Bob Dylan
Book: Treasures of the British Museum - Marjorie Caygill
Luxury: The Elgin Marbles.
Tracklist

   1.
      Bob Dylan Bob Dylan — It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue

      Composer: Bob Dylan
      Bringing It All Back Home, CBS, CD32344
   2.
      Janet Baker (with the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Anthony Lewis) — Dido’s Lament

      Composer: Purcell
      Dido and Aeneas, Decca, 4257202
   3.
      Elizabeth Kenny — Lachrimae

      Composer: John Dowland
      Love Bade Me Welcome, Bis, 1446
   4.
      Aretha Franklin & Annie Lennox — Sisters are Doin’ It for Themselves

      Composer: Lennox/Stewart
      The Best Girl Power Album…Ever, Virgin, VTDCD 123A
   5.
      Roy Harris (with the Pump and Pluck Band) — The Man that Waters the Worker’s Beer

      Composer: Paddy Ryan
      Tale of Ale, Free Reed, FRCD23
   6.
      Janis Joplin Janis Joplin — Me and Bobby McGee

      Composer: K. Kristofferson – F. Foster
      Pearl, CBS, CD64188
   7.
      Ralph Kirkpatrick — The Aria from Bach’s Goldberg’s Variations

      Composer: Bach
      Goldberg Variations, Deutsche Grammophon, 4394652
   8.
      Kathleen Battle — Endless Pleasure, Endless Love
      Composer: Handel

Ms Beard seems something of a leftie, the offspring of leftie parents - a teacher and an architect.

She was daring enough, or foolish enough, to be one of those people who said in print after 9/11 that the USA was bound to experience such blowback after so many years of being the world's bully. [A strange thought that in the era of Obama. Hard to imagine BO wanting to bully anyone. Remember Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld though? They, and their ilk, haven't gone away.]

She's a fan of Dylan, Aretha and Janis, but chose some of their least appealing tracks - to me at least. These people are 3 of the true greats of music, who produced many more brilliant tracks than the ones chosen here. And how come she chose so much dross for her other tracks? Though I enjoyed The Man that Waters the Worker’s Beer.
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Layer 237 . . . The Meaning of Life

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By tomorrow evening several more funerals will have moved through Torquay crematorium, and to the rest of the world nothing much will have changed. Life will go on much as before.

People will still be out walking in the winter sun on Torbay beaches; dogs will still go bounding after balls; children will still splash through pools on the undulating red sands.

Individual lives (and deaths) have very little significance unless they’re linked to other lives. The whole is much greater than the sum of its parts.

It’s like the individual atoms or even the cells within the human body, which on their own have no real meaning or significance. It’s only when they’re linked together harmoniously, communicating productively and positively, and working to some common purpose, that they take on any real importance or meaning.

A life well lived and a life that contributes in some way to other lives - that’s a life that’s worthy of remembrance and celebration. We remember those who not only create life but also help to sustain and enrich other lives, whether or not they’ve been involved in creation.

We might admire some of those who relentlessly pursue their own self-interests, and by so doing achieve material prosperity and possibly even celebrity. But do we celebrate their lives, or even remember them with any real affection? Not really. Not if they don’t simultaneously have a positive effect on the wellbeing of others.

Whereas the loss of those who shine light and warmth on others reduces the wellbeing of those others. A light goes out, a sun ceases to shine, and to some degree someone’s world becomes a darker and colder place.

We can live in the dark and the cold. We can survive. We can even prosper. But we remember the way it was when there was light, and warmth, and colour, and comfort.

And it reminds us of our responsibilities to be a source of light and warmth and comfort for others. And so we go on.

And as we continue to enjoy the light that shines from significant others in whose orbit we find ourselves, we provide light and warmth to those who orbit around us. Just as the Earth orbiting around the sun has its darkness illuminated by the light reflecting from the moon that orbits around the Earth.

We cannot thrive in isolation. We cannot exist in a vacuum; and there’s no point in existing in a vacuum.

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Enough with the metaphors already.

At times like these it’s good that we have Ian Dury to listen to. Reasons to be Cheerful. I’m very glad the new film based on his life and work - Sex and Drugs and Rock N Roll - has had good reviews. The man was a genius. An explosion of light and warmth and energy, followed by a long slow burn from his throbbing nuclear heart. A true artist, if ever there was one. His life may be over, but his warmth, wit, energy and light live on in all his works. There ain’t half been some clever bastards - and he certainly was one.

I’m now considering “Fucking Ada” as the final piece of music at my own funeral. (I wonder what Ian had?) I’d like everyone to listen respectfully to the verses, and join in heartily with the choruses. The mad blasts of trumpet and saxophone in the instrumental break are perfect for reflecting on the real meaning of life.
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Layer 236 . . . Goodbyes

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If we're fortunate to have parents who live to an old age then we probably start saying our goodbyes to them over a long period of time. We say good bye to the people we used to know each time they pass from one stage of life to another.

Late Old Age is when someone can no longer take care of themselves properly, and they need help with a growing number of mundane and everyday chores and responsibilities. This final stage of life is when people can no longer deal with responsibility, either for themselves or for anyone else. I remember my mother entering late old age around the age of 78, when she suddenly realised she'd become one of the “old people” she always felt so sorry for.

She couldn't accept becoming one of those frail figures who shuffle around with the aid of a stick, sit in the same chair for hours on end, for day after day, have little to say to anyone, have no-one or virtually no-one who cares to listen to them, and often can't remember what they wanted to say anyway. How she loved it when grandchildren and great grandchildren would pop in and chat and play. She also smiled at the eager friendliness and playfulness of their dogs, and willingly gave them the pats and strokes they demanded.

Old Age, or the penultimate stage of life, is what precedes Late Old Age. Old age, as far as mum was concerned, lasted from about 72 to 78. During that time she would still go out, still catch buses, still do her own shopping, still pay her own bills, still do her own cooking, still take a bath without help, still catch trains to distant places, still remember to transfer money between her pension account, her savings account and her current account.

The mum that I said goodbye to at the end of that stage was still in control of her life and still able to enjoy life. She still had much of her old confidence and determination, her self-reliance and her physical strength. It was a sad thing to say goodbye to that person.

Late Middle Age probably ran from around 60 to roughly 72. This was the first phase of retirement and of  living on a pension, when every day held promise and opportunity, and was for enjoyment and fulfillment. The grandchildren were still quite young and could be taken out and indulged. It was an age of still feeling needed, an age of still being of some use and some importance to other people. An age before weight loss and serious wrinkles and loss of vitality set in. It was a good age, and one that was hard to say goodbye to.

It was hard to say goodbye at the very end, as well. She was still my lovely old mum, a very dear and very lovable old woman. With a little help from others she still lived in her own home, still made herself (and me) cups of tea and slices of cake, still smoked her cigarettes and still watched her favourite TV programmes. She still came to the door to wave goodbye as I backed the car out of the drive when it was time for me to travel home, and still stood there waving when I drove off, thinking to myself that this could be the very last time I see her alive.
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