Repeated Repetition

Soundtrack - Six Pianos - Steve Reich

This is just sublime (I just checked the full meaning of that word to ensure that I am correct). 24 minutes of exactly what it says; six pianos locked in patterns of immense beauty, and yet even at the start I know I will play it again from the start. To sum it up, the music consists of Six Pianos (or in a later version - Marimbas) playing pretty much the same eight note sequence in various combinations and interlocking patterns. The variation in the piece derives from the gradual introduction of each new pattern a single note or chord at a time. It is life condensed to simple mathematics. I made an effort to get to my boxes of CDs yesterday as I am being ribbed over the selection of my wife's CDs which I have been listening to. I will not embarrass her by listing them here though she would probably not be that worried if I did; after all, she bought them in the first place. On an early date, I said loftily that it was not good to criticise someone's choice in music as all music brings happiness to someone. Of course this was before I found out what she liked to listen to. My compilation tapes for her (before I had read High-Fidelity) consisted of - so I thought - reasonably cool stuff like Stereolab and though I think she liked them, I was unprepared for her actual musical heroes ( and I apply the term "heroes" very lightly). I will leave you to make up your own mind by giving you a few clues - Irish, Tea Drinker, Jumper wearer (but no rocking chair - well not from my limited viewing of his videos).

I have to link to this BBC article if only because Joseph Merrick is now known to have suffered from Proteus syndrome. I don't remember seeing the film though of course I know the voice which John Hurt used. All the voices John Hurt uses.

My daughter went to a Wacky Warehouse party yesterday. If you are not familiar with the concept of three story padded cages only slightly different in appearance from the cells at Camp X-Ray, then you have to made aware. These institutions are usually attached to those Beefeater, Carvery type pubs you find on bypasses and at various other strategic locations. The big draw is that you can drop off kids who will then spend two hours running around, over, under, through and up the various objects and pathways within this giant set of cages which are usually filled with thousands of 10 cm plastic coloured balls. The focal point of the entire setup is an enclosed spiral slide. The slide at this particular Wacky Warehouse was a full three (cage) stories high. After a few slides, my daughter decided that prone descent was boring and started running down the entire length. It is parents' duty to either go to the pub and have a meal/few drinks, or as in my case, to sit nervously outside the complex trying to find out which piece of apparatus their child is on. After a while I realised that I had no need to try and locate her as every few minutes there was a loud thump-thump-thump as she perambulated down the slide. Not for her, the plot amongst some of the other children to stuff their shirts with the plastic balls and shuttle them to a pile outside for later collection. (They were rumbled and the balls retrieved). Also not for her, the transportation of as many of the balls as possible up to the top of the slide in preparation for a rerun of a great lost Irwin Allen disaster movie (probably called Avalanche! - and the exclamation mark is very necessary there). I think that plan was foiled by the tendency of the balls to seek their own level well before the ring-leader of what, in another time would have been an escape committee, could give the order - "Now!" No. My daughter simply beat a well-trodden path from the bottom of the slide to the top and down again, at least forty times over the two hours she was there as far as I could tell. It was a general murmur amongst the fathers there, that it was simply not fair that parents are not allowed in. If only someone would set up a chain of adult Wacky Warehouses. Forget all that poncy Gym Equipment and Lycra stuff. Just let the unfit and overweight loose, in baggy shorts and T-Shirts, in one of those for two hours and the Health Service would be relieved of a great deal of the burdens upon it.