August 17, 2010
Slouch Hat
Posted by matt at 10:47 PM | Comments (2)
August 1, 2010
After Life
Posted by matt at 12:40 PM | Comments (0)
July 26, 2010
Eulogy
During both of my Australian trips this year, people have felt it necessary to tell me how much I remind them of my father. My mannerisms are identical, my appearance similar, my thoughts and movements mere echoes. Each tic I foolishly imagine to be my own turns out instead as just an imperfect imitation of something he used to do, only he did it better.
Reading back what I'd written for myself to say at the funeral, I had a bit of a crisis. Dorigen asked me to speak for her too, to read just a few sentences she wrote, and hers were so much more direct, more honest and connected, than the clumsy contrivances I wrought. My words sounded crass and trite and pontifical in comparison. Were it not for the press of time I might not have spoken them at all. But time pressed, and this dismal sermon was all I had to say:
From Harbord to Potts Point isn't all that far, on the map, by the easy route, as the crow flies. But, as anyone who witnessed one of his money-saving intercontinental itineraries will attest -- Sydney to London in 150 hours, with stopovers in Svalbard, Nome and Tristan da Cunha -- Peter wasn't really one for taking the easy route. His journey from one Sydney suburb to another went via every corner of the Earth and took 70 years.
Along the way, he collected, drew to himself, many friends and acquaintances and lovers and associates and families.
I'm here, I suppose, in some notional way, as a representative of the "family" family, and there is no doubt that was immensely important to him. It meant a great deal that Dorigen and Lesley and I could be here these last couple of weeks. He was a devoted and unfailingly loyal father, and I am immensely proud to be his son.
But it is also important that he had a larger family, to whom he was just as devoted and unfailing loyal. A family cemented by love and friendship, community and shared enthusiasm, a non-traditional family of which he was nevertheless, it seems to me, in many ways an old fashioned patriarch. Most of you here were members of that family, as were many others who for one reason or another -- due, in many cases, to the huge compass of Peter's journey and the vastness of the world -- can't be here with us today.
Some of them, some of us, now might seem to have good reason to resent some of the distance he covered, for the miles it put between us. Without question, it has been inconvenient being on the other side of the world in these last few months, with everything Peter was going through. But being angry about that would be, well, out of character, and in the wrong spirit, a failure to the man. Peter was many things -- generous and loving, opinionated and overpowering, conscientious, compassionate, cranky, idealistic, self-assured, erudite -- inexhaustibly, unstoppably verbose -- a raconteur, a bon vivant, full of vim and verve and vigour1 -- but never rancourous.
He threw himself into life and lived it to the full, and continued to do so to the end, despite the privations of the cancer and its treatment. He always found things to enjoy. And so should we. So we mourn him here, but also celebrate his life, the vast, strange, messy, inconvenient journey of it, the trackless distances covered, the families stitched together across it and the whole tapestry of who he was, as we should celebrate the world itself being so vast and full of wonder.
Although.
Just at the moment.
The world does seem a little smaller, and less wonderful, for the lack of him.
1. And other words beginning with V.
Just another thing I got from him, I guess: I blab on like a fucking Jesuit.
But anyway, it went down very well. I had people congratulating me on my speech all afternoon.
Go me.
Posted by matt at 4:02 PM | Comments (0)
July 7, 2010
Changi
It's very early Wednesday morning London time, somewhat later in Singapore. I am briefly transiting on the way back to Sydney, for predictably dire reasons. On Monday I had no idea I'd be going.
This is definitely the shortest notice long haul travel I've ever done, and I can't say I like it...
Posted by matt at 1:38 AM | Comments (0)
June 30, 2010
Something Blue
Gave my final year talk today, on "Scanning Ion Conductance Microscopy for Ion Channel Localisation". It went, of course, very well. Slides, perhaps, to follow. I present like a pro - this is probably not a huge surprise to those who know me. What's lacking is the science; in place of which I invariably fall back on cheap parlour tricks. The audience laps them up, but that doesn't change the fact they're bollocks.
Don't get me wrong: I love cheap parlour tricks. But I'd quite like some real, statistically significant, results as well. NMDA receptors: declare yourselves! You miserable fucking varlets. I know you're in there. Come out with your hands up. Or your transmembrane domains, whatever.
Apart from that, it's posing as summer, which is great. And Davide is departing for the other side of the world, which is not so much. And the old man is recovering from intrathecal pain pump neurosurgery, which ditto.
I ought to go out to Oz again, but it's difficult. I think you can imagine, though I'm sure you'd prefer not to.
In other news, never can so many people have been called upon to think so much and yet so shallowly about how to pluralise the word "fez". Hint: it doesn't involve apostrophes. But I love you for trying, fuckwits. A few shonky scripts notwithstanding, implausible youngster Matt Smith turns out to be the best, and most adorably alien, Doctor ever. Moffat/Smith/Gillan FTW, and roll on Christmas.
Posted by matt at 10:43 PM | Comments (0)
June 13, 2010
Elsewhere
Is Stack Overflow the new blogging?
Well, perhaps not. Anyway, the absentee landlording continues.
Posted by matt at 9:30 AM | Comments (0)
May 31, 2010
Gizmo
Anyone would think I had some kind of reluctance to post, these days. Not true, exactly, but at the same time also not exactly false. There seems to be so much bound up in the act of blogging that the sort of casual throwaway silliness that might once have sufficed now won't. That stuff goes on Facebook instead, or very occasionally Twitter. Not that anyone has any expectations of this place -- not, frankly, that anyone is even still reading it -- but somehow it carries some awful sense of obligation for me, something I should be doing but just don't get around to, like phoning my father. Although under the circumstances I'm not skimping on the latter.
Anyway, this is my last chance to scrape a birthdayish entry in the right month, so here we are. I am typing this on my major birthday present, Aglaia, who arrived somewhat after the fact due to Apple's schedule juggling, but is very delightful for all that. I have BlogPress set up, but on this occasion I'm just using Safari and MT's ordinary web interface, which is a lot more plausible here than on the iPhone. Various other things are either not yet sorted out or, perhaps, may never be, so this will be a relatively no-frills entry. Photo uploads, for example, are off the cards right now. In any case, what a very pleasing gizmo this is.
Going back to the day itself, a very nice time was had generally, and in particular at Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui & co's wonderful Babel, third part of the trilogy that started with Foi. Coming so soon after primero, and likewise a return to form, this was another reminder of just how great the C de la B family can be. Unlike primero, Babel was largely shorn of the old rawness and pain and anguish, operating at a mostly more intellectual level -- including a serious but also very funny lecture on neuroscience. There was a lot of shifting around of Antony Gormley's big metal frame boxes, which occasionally seemed a bit faffy but unreasonably often became something astonishing and transcendental. The performers, many of them familiar from the previous episodes, were powerful and assured, and really the whole event was one of the best things I've seen in ages, vastly superior to the weak middle segment Myth. I wanted to go straight back the next night and see it again, but alas could not. I really hope this show is going to make return visits.
Other stuff: I liked a lot Chris Morris's suicide bomber comedy Four Lions, though it mostly made me want to cry much more than laugh -- really quite heartbreaking. I skated with Matthew in Hyde Park on what may turn out to be the one proper day of summer. Later we went dancing at Ku Bar (Saturday options are extremely limited, it turns out, at least if you don't fancy meth-fuelled Vauxhall barns that don't even get going until 4), which would be the first time I've done such a thing for a geological age were it not for a drunken visit to the same venue a couple of weeks before to round off an evening toasting the departure of CoMPLEXer Alex, off to postdoc at UPenn. I enjoyed it a lot more the second time around, though I'm not sure I'll be making a habit.
And finally: work, schmirk. Obviously a major contributor to my ongoing blogging failure, it's the usual rollercoaster ride from bright hopes to pits of despair and back; let us say no more about it.
Posted by matt at 9:58 PM | Comments (0)
May 9, 2010
Terror of the Autons
Long posting gaps continue. Big news. Hold the front page!
It's birthday season. In particular, Thursday was the old man's 70th. Back in February I was pretty convinced he wouldn't make it, but happily he has. Still hanging in there, on apparently quite ineffective chemo but somewhat improved pain control. There are secondary tumours. The picture is grim, but we knew that. In the meantime, they had a birthday dinner attended by many friends which sounds like it was a very special occasion. I am, of course, feeling somewhat guilty for not being there, but it's one fuck of a commute.
Last Sunday was Devan's, celebrated on Monday with a pleasant afternoon tea slash cocktails at the Waldorf; Friday was Davide's, celebrated with a weekend trip to chilly Cambridge, which I joined for Saturday lunch. And my own is coming up next week, but of course you hardly needed reminding of that, having been planning your festivities for months...
Thursday was also, locals will have noticed, the general election -- #ge2010 -- which was kind of entertaining in a rather glum sort of way. The electorate have, in something of a landslide, voted for confusion -- as I did myself. They ought therefore to be happy with result. Bet they won't be, though.
As a vague distraction from all that, we spent the evening at C de la B's primero, directed and choreographed by Lisi Estaras, which was typically uneven but also brilliant. A collage of the experiences of growing up Jewish, to a soundtrack of klezmer music mostly performed live by a staggeringly good clarinettist, this was easily the best thing the company has brought to London in years.
Whilst in the foyer of that show, the video clips from Compagnie Marie Chouinard's bODY_rEMIX/gOLDBERG_vARIATIONS looked thrilling, so I persuaded Ian we should go the following night, despite being somewhat bleary from a late night of watching the floundering election coverage. This turned out to be a horrible mistake. I genuinely can't remember the last time I hated a dance piece as much as this. I was yearning for it to end within the first five minutes, and managed to persuade Ian to leave at the interval. It was odious: vapid, poncey, soulless athleticism coupled to a soundtrack -- Bach remixed into gruelling noise, Glenn Gould's tedious monologuing slowed down and run through a vocoder -- apparently crafted by years of clandestine CIA experimentation to induce migraines in the audience.
I was particularly struck by the diametrical contrast with the night before. Like all C de la B's work, primero was fundamentally concerned with the mess of human experience. Chouinard's frightful ballet was much bigger, glossier, somewhat more technical, and utterly lacking in joy, substance, any connection to human reality. Awful awful rubbish.
Just to catch up, Laurie's Delusion was pretty good, though exceptionally downbeat, focussing significantly on the death of her mother; L'Allegro was once again a beautiful, life-affirming treat. Avoid Iron Man 2, see Kick-Ass. The new Doctor is very likeable, the new Daleks are unscary plastic tat, Amy's fun and River Song rocks.
Hello, sweetie!
Knowledge of Doctor Who monsters is, of course, increasingly important given the likely new prime minister...
Posted by matt at 7:31 PM | Comments (0)
April 16, 2010
Sydney Jitters
Posted by matt at 10:49 PM | Comments (0)
April 13, 2010
Tumbleweeds
Quiet around here, innit?
March 2010 constitutes something of a milestone, being the first calendar month without a single post since WT began nearly 7 years ago. Is this the shape of things to come? Perhaps.
There are, of course, any number of reasons for the lapse into silence, including the ongoing situation with the Old Man, about which I find myself uncharacteristically unwilling to write anything of substance at all. The usual breast-beating and wailing tendencies do not apply. I can't properly explain, but in this case it seems like it's not for me to wallow; that would be trespassing.
Work proceeds with the usual glacial headbanging circularity, but there are a few hints of progress. I gave another talk on it all at Cumberland Lodge last week, and managed to dredge up a kind of happy ending, even if only on the matter of approach curves. Here's one such to whet your appetite:
I most likely won't get around to posting the actual presentation, Knitting helicopters1 for electrophysiology and other adventures in the inexplicable, so you'll just have to imagine all the fun you missed by not being there. The bottom line, anyway, is that there are still far more problems than solutions, but it's not completely beyond the bounds of possibility that I may one day get some useful data. Not completely.
Elsewhere, there've been assorted cultural experiences, including the oldie version of the late2 Pina Bausch's Kontakthof, which I enjoyed quite a lot although it was a touch over-extended and nearly all of the short second act seemed superfluous. I went with old boyf Matthew and, as if by magic, even older friends Ros and Larry materialised in the audience, which added significantly to the enjoyment. (Matt's stalker Graham, on the other hand, was a dreadful bore.)
This week is especially blessed on the theatrical front, with both Laurie Anderson tomorrow night and (joy of joys!) the return of Mark Morris's masterpiece L'Allegro, il penseroso ed il moderato on Thursday. Yippee!
And, to ice the cake, spring seems to be with us at last.
Here's where the sun comes in, glowing gas and heat, a caldera, a universal volcano.
Don't be a stranger.
1 Readers with implausibly long and detailed memories might possibly dimly recollect the helicopter reference. Everyone else can find a hint here.
2 To pancreatic cancer. A lot of it about lately, it seems :(
Posted by matt at 10:19 AM | Comments (1)