Jazzy D's Soul Notes

Winifred Watson "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day" (Persephone Classics)



Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day is a book with two settings. It's either a charming, frothy Cinderella-esque fantasy where the eponymous character, teetering on the verge of destitution in 1930s London, sees her life transformed over the course of a single day following an accidental encounter with glamorous nightclub singer Delysia; or a brick-to-the-face of antisemitism, xenophobia, and that weird interwar insistence that what a woman really loves is a man who'll shake her, tell her they're an idiot, and insist that "obviously she needs a little physical correction."

Oof. The ratio of froth delight to yuck was such that I was just able to get through the book without throwing it away entire;y. While I've heard so many people recommend this as a much-loved comfort read, I don't think I'll be coming back to it. In fact, dear reader, avoid it.

Umberto Eco "Interpretation & Overinterpretation" (Cambridge Universoty Press)





In 1990, Umberto Eco was invited by Cambridge University to give the annual Tanner Lecture. He chose for his topic the somewhat academically contentious area of literary interpretation or rather the question of whether one can set limits to the range of what a text can be said to mean. Over the course of three lectures Eco tries to establish that, whilst it may not be possible to prove which of any competing interpretations is correct, one may be able to point out those interpretations which are perhaps unfounded. Following the three lectures are responses by Richard Rorty, Jonathan Culler and Christine Brooke-Rose with a final reply to his critics by Eco although in this review I shall focus upon Eco's lectures..

In his first lecture on 'interpretation and history' Eco traces the history of Hermetic tradition in interpretation dating back from the dialogues of Hermes Trismegistus (one of my favourite names from philosophy, Trismegistus meaning thrice wise). He shows how, if we accept Hermetic thought, interpretation is essentially endless. "A plant is not defined in terms of its morphological and functional characteristics but on the basis of its resemblance, albeit only partial, to another element in the cosmos. If it is vaguely like part of the human body, then it has meaning because it refers to the body. But that part of the body has meaning because it refers to a star, and the latter has meaning because it refers to a musical scale, and this in turn because it refers to a hierarchy of angels, and so on ad infinitum'. Essentially a text would never have meaning because each interpretation could lead to another leaving the text as a meaningless shell. If we reject this theory, he argues, we arrive at the conclusion that a text has meaning. We are "not entitled to say that the message can mean everything. It can mean many things, but there are senses which it would be preposterous to suggest". This is the theme he takes up in his second lecture.

Overinterpreting texts is the subject of the second lecture and Eco starts by listing the ways in which images or words can be connected, the very basis of semiosis, by similitude, by homonymy, by irony, by sign and so on. Similarity is important for interpretation because 'the interpreter has the right and the duty to suspect that what one believed to be the meaning of a sign is in fact the sign for a further meaning'. However, as Eco puts it, 'the passage from similarity to semiosis is not automatic'. In other words if a text suggests something to you by means of similarity does not mean to say that it is a valid or useful interpretation of the text. Eco shows how Gabriele Rossetti's attempt to interpret Dante in the light of Masonic-Rosicrucian symbolism is ill-fated as he goes in search of a pelican and a rose. "Rossetti, in his desperate and rather pathetic fowling, could find in the divine poem seven fowls and eleven birds and ascribe them all to the pelican family: but he would find them all far from the rose". Rossetti's interpretation had another pitfall to overcome, that he was looking for symbolism that was not conceived until after Dante had written his Divine Comedy.

In the third lecture Eco poses the question of whether 'we should still be concerned with the empirical author of a text', his rather surprising answer is not really. Taking an example from his own work The Name of the Rose, in the trial scene William is asked 'What terrifies you most in purity?' and he responds 'haste'. On the same page 'Bernard Gui, threatening the cellarer with torture, says 'Justice is not inspired by haste, as the Pseudo Apostles believe, and the justice of God has centuries at its disposal'. A reader asked Umberto Eco what connection he had meant to establish 'between the haste feared by William and the absence of haste extolled by Bernard. The answer was that the author had intended no connection but that the text had created its effects whether he wanted them or not.

The responses are interesting. Richard Rorty, ever the pragmatist argues that interpretations are essentially pointless and what is more important is how we use and enjoy literature. Jonathan Culler attacks Eco's notion of overinterpretation and takes up his example of Rossetti's Dante interpretation arguing that it is in fact underinterpretation as Rossetti had been following false leads rather than positing valid interpretations of the material that was actually there. Finally Christine Brooke-Rose rather side-steps the debate with a lecture on Palimpsest history.

It is certainly an interesting debate and Eco makes his arguments with his usual charm and good humour (I would love to see him talk). Sadly it appears that Eco's respondents were not supplied with his lectures in advance which meant that Rorty's response was to an earlier piece by Eco in which he put forward a different argument and Brooke-Rose was off-topic nearly altogether but the most interesting aspect of the book is Eco himself. His general principle is spot on, there definitely has to be scope for determining the degree to which any given interpretation is valid. He is also right in suggesting that once a text has been created that it takes upon a life independent of its empirical author therefore any appeal to the author for a 'correct interpretation' is not strictly valid.

This framework should not be used to discourage the search for meaning in texts. "At the beginning of his second lecture Umberto Eco linked overinterpretation to what he called an 'excess of wonder'...this deformation professionelle, which inclines critics to puzzle over element is a text, seems to me, on the contrary, the best source of insights into language and literature that we seek, a quality to be cultivated rather than shunned'. Basically I'm saying feel free to interpret texts any way you like but I reserve the right to say that you've overinterpretted.

In sumation, the book would have been better if all speakers were singing from the same hymn sheet although what does get said is very interesting.

Kevin Powers "A Shout in the Ruins" (Sceptre)





George Seldom is an old man who decides to take some time to revisit his personal history on a road trip. He travels through the Deep South and as he does so the reader is given some of the events that have led to a country on the brink of race equality. The plantation of Beauvais is owned by a cruel master Levallois who, even before the Civil War, has recognised that industry is the way forward, not agriculture. His neighbour goes to fight in the war and Levallois usurps his land, his daughter and his life. Rawls has been in love with Nurse but both are purchased by Levallois and are subject to his mind games. Reid goes off to war a proud Confederate but returns to find that he has lost everything. Minor characters fight for what they believe is right.

This is a complex and very moving book which looks at aspects of the Civil War and the changes in society from numerous perspectives. The characters are not easy to pin down - Emily seems powerless to stop her fate but does she fight back in the worst way. Even the minor characters, the gang leader, the apprentice and the boatman are given a sympathetic perspective and the descriptions of violence are visceral in the extreme. I hadn't read Powers' first novel but know it was well received, I can see why

E. Lockhart "We Were Liars" (Hot Key Books)




In We Were Liars, E. Lockhart carefully crafts Cadence’s character, focusing on her battle with a form of amnesia and the aftermath of an accident that is deeply tragic. The theme of facing truth, guilt, and accepting responsibility is the essence of Cadence’s character. Cadence’s development becomes critical as she unearths haunting truths about her childhood that took place during her fifteenth summer. She finally begins to surface from the fog of grief and confusion, volatility, and harsh realities she has long evaded.

Particularly, the use of fairy tales alongside Cadence’s physical pain serve as immense points of character development in the novel. Relatively to her fractured family dynamics, the fairy tales she tells throughout her life embodies her attempt at coping with the overwhelming reality. The island, striking yet isolated captures the destructive nature of Sinclair family; they are beautiful, escaping the realities occurring beneath them. The overarching message within these symbols highlight the antagonizing duality people face with maturing and the fact that to truly heal from anything, you must embrace every shard of reality, not just the appealing fragments.

Personally, I resonate with Cadence’s journey when reflecting on times in my life when I struggled to face painful memories. Reading We Were Liars reminded me that pretending things are fine doesn’t make the hurt disappear, true healing comes from honesty, even when it’s painful.

dash; 22 July 2021), also known as Pita, was a British-Austrian composer of electronic audio works. He was the head of Editions Mego, which he founded in 2006 as a successor to Mego.

In an interview conducted in 2016, Rehberg stated that he did not want to peddle music "in its own little box",which he felt was the norm at present. Describing his impression regarding timbre, he believed that "dissonance and resonance have to co-exist for the other to work". François Bonnet, who collaborated with Rehberg on Recollection GRM, felt that his music came to be more dense as his career progressed. He described how it retained its "radical and bold" character, while becoming "deeper, more ambivalent, more moving".



Peter Rehberg – at GRM



File under Experimental, Abstract, Noise, Glitch, Electroacoustic.

ENJOY

The Wire magazine tribute to Peter Rehberg.

https://www.thewire.co.uk/in-writing/essays/walking-on-the-ground-you-broke-rob-young-remembers-peter-rehberg

GRM is Groupe de Recherches Musicales. The Groupe de Recherches Musicales ( GRM ) is a music research center specializing in sound and electroacoustic music . Pierre Schaeffer founded the GRM in 1958 , and two years later it joined the research department of French Radio and Television (RTF) . In 1975 , following the breakup of the ORTF , the GRM was integrated into the INA (National Audiovisual Institute ).

Rita Indiana "Made in Saturn" (And Other Stories)






We meet Argenis in the Havana airport--his father has sent him from the DR to detox. That doesn't go as planned, but we learn a lot about Argenis. When he makes it back to his aunt in the DR, we learn as he does.

Argenis struggles with his family history--and that is what this book is about. He is the younger and un-favored son of a former revolutionary. His parents were revolutionaries in the 60s. His father then flipped and took a position in Balaguer's government, and is now fairly high up. Argenis has little to no respect for his father, or his older brother who was a show-off as a child and is now a businessman who uses their father's connections. Argenis, meanwhile, is an artist and has attended art school. He started with cocaine before becoming hooked on heroin. Does he want to stop? It's unclear, but he DOES want to be able to function, to do his art, to not constantly be on the hunt for his next high.

As he manages to stay off the heroin, he learns more about what his parents, their friends, and his aunt went through--and about his grandmother's life as a maid--he gains some perspective. He has only ever wanted to do art. Not to perform recitations on his father's command as his brother did. Nor to use his father's connections to succeed in business--as his brother does. Yet he also finds it very sad how his grandmother--who now owns her former employers' house--still wears her maid's uniform and sleeps in her maid's room. Though she only serves herself. It seems he is ready to grow up and find a happy medium, if he can stay away from heroin.

Curiosity is one of my most defining attributes in the musicological diaspora of curating and the immersive enjoyment that it provides.

Connecting with likeminded people via a forum or website adds to the enhancementt of one's musical journey.

Such a website is Now Spinning Magazine, which is an online forum and site dedicated to the physical product. No streaming or downloading is include, since these aren't tangable. You don't own the music there, you rent it.

This morning, whilst doing the chores of hoovering and son on, I blasted oot some deep slow heavy doom metal by Sunn 0))) - a perfect antidote to the tedium of chores.

I had an Angus beef and caramalised onion sarnie for lunch with a Scotch egg on the side. I listened to the dulcit tones of Sarah Vaughan from one of the Brazilian albums she made late in her career.

I followed this with three Cds from the recent Ian Dury box set and then towards the evening I dug out four albums from my Bill Fay collection. Bill Fay (9 September 1943 – 22 February 2025) was an English singer-songwriter. His early recordings were released by Deram, but following the release of his second album in 1971, Fay was dropped by the label. His work enjoyed a growing cult status in the 1990s, and his older works were re-issued in 1998 and 2004–2005. Fay's 2012 album Life Is People was his first album of all-new material since 1971.
Bill said, learning of his cult status, "Up until 1998, when some people reissued my albums, as far as I was concerned, I was gone, deleted. No one was listening. But then I got the shock that people remembered my music. I was doing some gardening, and listening to some of my songs on cassette, and a part of me thought they were quite good. I thought, "Maybe somebody will hear them someday." That same evening, 14 years ago, I got a call from a music writer telling me that my two albums were being reissued. A shock is not gonna get much bigger than that. It was astonishing to me. I won't ever really be able to believe that it happened. That's how I feel about it. I had come to terms with the fact that I was deleted, but that I had always kept writing songs anyway and that was good enough".
"Who Is the Sender?" was a new album by Bill Fay and released in April 2015. The second album track, "War Machine", came out as a single in February 2015. It nudged the charts but the album did well.
I just need to obtain two more of his albums to complete the section, his second album and the one before Who Is The Sender. Both should be able to find without difficulty, and like the others I have by Bill will be on CD.

Rupi Kaur "Milk And Honey" (Andrews McMeel Publishing)




Rupi Kaur was just 21 when she wrote and illustrated this collection of poetry, somehow managing to do the impossible and selling millions of copies of a genre that typically doesn't often top the bestseller charts.

Milk and Honey is a raw, honest and gutsy collection of poems about abuse, falling in love, having your heart broken and healing. I enjoyed the sections on falling in love and breaking up the most - for those of us who passed out of our teens and twenties quite some time ago, it was an enjoyable reminder of the passion that burns so fiercely at that point in life, when sexual relationships are all consuming and break ups so terribly hurtful and destructive (I'm not suggesting break ups aren't upsetting at any stage in life, but there's a particular rawness to those early breakups when you're just discovering life and trying to figure out who you are).

your name is
the strongest
positive and negative
connotation in any language
it either lights me up or
leaves me aching for days

Bam! I'm rocketed straight back to the late eighties and thoughts of an ex who sent me head and heart spinning in all sorts of great and awful directions.

I don't know why
I split myself open
for others knowing
sewing myself up
hurts this much
afterward

I loved this collection. It's so raw, so open, so painfully, brutally recognisable to anyone who remembers the immense joy and pain of falling in and out of love for the first time or even second time.

My favourite new artist in minimalism.

Organist Kali Malone: 'It was a point of departure for me to work with language' • FRANCE 24



I have ordered two more albums by her after selling quite a lot of stuff from eBay, Vinted and Discogs recently.

Joe Comarroe "Six American Poets: An Anthology" (Vintage)





Editor Conarroe distills the works of six unique American Poets in this 281 page volume. For each he provides a concise but enlightening introduction, but it is the poets themselves whose words speak loudest. Whether it is the rapture of Whitman, the surface simplicity of Emily Dickinson, the puzzles of Wallace Stevens, the plain truth of the observations of William Carlos Williams, the sober musings of Robert Frost, or the unforgettable impact of the lyrical prose of Langston Hughes (who seems incapable of even a single boring line), this book is a treasure you should give to somebody who has bnever read a poem or literature. Or you can kep it for yourself and, as far as I am concerned, it is a highly recommended introduction to these famous poets. .