Come On Up To The House

I have finally become a man. I have just last evening completed my first ever wet shave. That’s right: six and twenty years old, and I’ve never used a proper razor on my own face.

But, you see, I’ve just exited the world of facial hair. For four years (minus a couple of moustache-related ventures), I’ve been clad in a downy coat of human hair around my jowels, hiding a multitude of tiny moles, occasional post-adolescent acne, pale, sunstarved skin, etc. Combined with my chunky glasses, you’d have been well within your rights to suspect that I was hiding something. That wasn’t the case (or was it…?), particularly, but there is a kind of security in facial hair that fends off the outside world, just a little bit.

There is, however, lots of reasons why clean-shaven is the way to go right now:

• the classic British unpredictable summer
• the propensity for the likes of milk to get stuck in the beard
• the multitude of dirty indie types that consider the unkempt, Guevara-esque chinbeard to be the height of musical respectability
• the opportunity to look like a young Simon Pegg
• and so forth

So the experiment begins. The last times I’ve done this, I’ve panicked and grown the beard straight back, but this time I’ll be strong and hold out, to see if it grows on me. Also to be considered: whether I can be bothered with this new-fangled shaving pollaver. What’s that all about? Seems like a lot of work to me, although I am officially baby’s butt smooth now.

Further updates as events warrant.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, I don’t understand fashion. Why is it that people have to have different clothes each year? Why does something from last year look funny now? I get affected by it even, although I’ve no idea how - jeans tucked into boots does look a little funny, although it was accepted practice not that long ago.

I mention this because summer has hit London, and out come the party frocks, and they’re all this kind of 50’s styled, flouncy Kate Nash-looking business. Here’s the dilemma: is this fashionable? I’ve seen these around for ages, so is this still hip or are all the people I’m seeing behind the times? I wonder if there’s a specific age when one turns into a dad, even without children. I don’t know. Having assessed my own appearance, I’m a leather jacket and an unseasonal hat away from Indiana Jones, so I’m approximately 70 years behind the times. Nice.

More of what I mean at Annie Mole’s excellent LU Fashion Victims set, from whence came today’s fashion icon.

I’ve just finished rereading The Trial (Douglas Scott’s translation, pretty good), and was struck more than when I read it first (to be fair, a 14 year old won’t get a lot from Kafka). I recognise so much more these days, the endless bureaucracy where deeper and deeper levels of red-tape are included seemingly just for the sake of it. Kafka was pretty prescient - having been inducted, without any desire in that direction, briefly into the world of management and budgets, I sympathise with Josef K - I wonder just how many people in my (or any) workplace have very little idea of what they’re doing most of the time.

I know that’s true for me, stupid finances. My replacement for this temporary bit starts Monday, thank goodness. I can’t take much more of this, my head might explode. Or, I might find myself led off by two kindly, acquiescent ushers… but I spoil.

Next up, Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, which seems to me like an Umberto Eco for the xkcd generation. Sweet.

If I ever need cheering up, then I go to Stanfords‘. This is the place where my dreams are formed, which might sound a little melodramatic, but it’s not far from the truth. There’s nowhere else that I know where you can go into the shop and stand on your street. Or your friend’s. Or another part of London, or the world, the Mariana, or so on, for the maps are not only at your fingertips but under your feet. The world is truly your lobster. And in perusing the incredibly well-stocked shelves one can be whisked to another world, or at least another country.

Having received the news that my government funding for the degree is likely to be the less exciting side of nothing, I’m bracing myself for the idea of another year doing something dull. But! This does mean that I can go on holiday in the autumn (at least one!), so the fun now is narrowing down the list.

1) St Petersburg - maybe in the future: visas look like a lot of work.

2) Berlin - a definite contender. I want to see the Stasi Museum, Potsdamerplatz etc., although I think this might be better for a longer trip than I have money for this year…

3) Tallinn - this has been on my list for a while. I like the idea of the soviet and the medieval next to each other, like in Prague, but I’ve heard great things about this place so I’m definitely up for a visit.

4) Budapest - the current frontrunner? Another I’ve heard great things about and it has lots of things going for it: flea markets, castles, a ‘House of Terror’, Turkish baths. It looks pretty great.

5) Krakow - another strong contender, a chance to use the Polish language I never learnt.

6) Bratislava - this one looks beautiful, just like Prague. Castles, cobbles, etc., I would be happy with this one.

7) Dubrovnik - the final choice (for now). Yet another UNESCO world heritage site, this one has the advantage of also being next to the sea.

This is not easy. Wikitravel is helping: go Web 2.0 up some Web 2.0 and improve it.

I’m a lot less of a troubled young man than yesterday. As usual, one’s home life provides much-needed perspective on one’s wider affairs, and today I find myself considerably more affable, diligent and amenable. This is partly to do with the fact that the Kazakh project I took on a little while ago - the really annoying one - is departing my troubled breast come Monday, it’s partly to do with some sort of financial clarifications that have come my way today, and it’s partly to do with the fact that some days I’m just moody.

But I digress: no-one wants, or needs, another whinging blogger.

Today I’m working through my lunch. Now, I well understand that this is not new or exciting to most people, but for this HE-career-coddled employee, that’s pretty rare. But I’m currently working overtime and everything, trying to not be poor anymore. It’s not a great deal of fun, but I’ve been spoilt this far, I guess.

I got off the tube this morning feeling tenderised like some sort of abused steak. I have absolutely no clue why some mornings the Underground is offensively crowded, and other mornings, there’s nobody around. I imagine it’s some sort of function of:

• the time I get to the station
• the gaps in the service
• the weather
• predicted events in London
• unpredicted hold-ups

I’m also considering the possibility that the level of overcrowding on the tube is directly related, and possibly caused by my eagerness to get to work. Hence, this morning, pounding the avenues in the rain I really would rather be home in bed, not shuffling deathward via the medium of tedium. And there you go, the platform’s not crowded but the tube is comfortably full even at Turnpike Lane - by the time I get to Finsbury Park, my face is squashed onto the plexiglass and someone’s sliding something into the roughly spaniel-sized space between my feet and the carriage.

Even at Holborn, where the traditional sullen, ashen-faced commuters disembark to the unseen chaos of Kingsway, an escalator was out and I found my faced knocked from all angles. I’m tall! I don’t understand.

I’m potentially being over-dramatic here. I read this morning about controlling one’s anger, so I’m controlling it and just scowling at the computer.

I’m currently loving me some Wedding Present. I feel like there’s a column coming on here, the purchase of Seamonsters edging out this slightly more esoteric, almost outsider art of Half Japanese’s noodly twangings. But more on that later, no doubt. In the meantime, blogging - unusually from home, I present the excellent opening track from Seamonsters.

The Wedding Present - Dalliance

At risk of being a standard blogger, my life is all about the yucky business end at the moment. Too much work, too much shoulderly tension, too little time or energy to spend with the people with whom I wish to spend time.

What’s keeping me going is the forward look at a hoped-for future (at least, foreseeable future: in the grander scope, the world is not my home, I’m just a-passing through, but that’s a bit lofty for a Wedding Present post). I’m currently working out a feasibility study on a career change. That is to say, to start a career, as I don’t really consider an accidental slip into HE administration a career. I want to do a second degree, most likely this one, and I need to work out whether I can clear my hefty overdraft in a year, whether I can get any sort of government funding/grants/moneys, whether I can work from home during the course or something (maybe i could answer questions for 118 118), etc. I’d love love love to get on with this, and although it doesn’t look likely until September 2009, I think I have a goal now. Weird.

So maybe COUTTH will become a documented experiment in living frugally. Steps taken so far:

• Shopping at Aldi
• Cutting out takeaways
• Packed lunch
• Not eating snacks (not going well)

I’m looking at downgrading my beloved motor, but don’t want to face up to the fact that I might have to ditch it altogether.

DO NOT WANT.

The more I consider it, the more I’m sure that the working life is not for me. Too much pressure, a man once said, too much pressure. I’m only a lonely serf, I don’t want to have to rush around, manage other people, snap at them, hunch my shoulders. Do not want.

It’s not this bad yet, but it’s approaching.

I want to do my degree now. kthx.

It has forgotten art’s lofty mission: instead of raising the crowd to its level, it has lowered itself to the crowd’s.

So says Honoré de Balzac, referring to the populist nature of the Italian music contemporary to the looming titular character in his Gambara. It’s an interesting sentiment, and one which I can well see defining the age-old question: what is art?

I like that it’s referring to music, for a start. This is something I can get my teeth into. And it segues nicely from the preceding Unknown Masterpiece in my edition, apparently Balzac’s desire. Both deal with the private madness and obsession of art, with perspective and opinion as central themes. I love the way that the mission of art is described here, not to dumb itself down to meet the simple tastes of the great unwashed proletariat, but to raise their level of expectation higher, to improve them. Art should make people better, should make them more aware and give them more desire to grow and become better.

Such was Balzac’s opinion, or at least that of Count Andrea Marcosini. And I’m inclined to agree. Art, in all it’s forms, should not be lowest common denominator. Though those in the book conducting this conversation were derided, sometimes I think it’s acceptable to take a subjective, hardline approach to this sort of thing. Music that is made to appeal to as large a demographic as possible is barely music any longer - that’s why X-Factor, American Idol et al, while entertaining, are essentially pointless. Music doesn’t have to be elite: witness deep southern soul, the music of the people (as Joey ‘The Lips’ Fagan would probably have it), but it’s still wracked with emotion, with no edges shorn off to prevent certain subgroups getting upset.

Music shouldn’t be made for an elite, either, that’s just as bad as trying to appeal to any market area. Music should be made for its own sake, never dumbed-down or diluted, it is what it is and you have to make yourself better to appreciate it. I guess in essence that’s why hardcore music fans inevitably narrow their outlook so far that they can dismiss great things because they are more interested in searching out the better and the best, the Platonic ideal in their own chosen sphere. And that’s fine. It’s great. Art was never meant for the morons, the morons were meant to attain to the art, and that’s where the best work succeeds, and why I remain happily committed to slating sell-outs and frauds and Simon Cowell and faceless suits who churn out vacuous sounds for vacuous minds. I’m happy to remain pretentious, aloof and proud of the music I listen to, just like Marcosini, just like Gambara, just like Balzac.

Today, I lack motivation. For anything at all. I don’t want to work, to move around, to sit around, nothing. And yet, here I am blogging away like a buffoon. I don’t understand me.

Nothing on my mind today, either, in particular. Well, that’s not true. But nothing for a public blog to be discussing, that’s for sure. I’m not in this to bear all in some kind of ultra-confessional anonymous, Gossip Girl-esque fashion.