Struggle for pleasure, in Humility, with No Testament

That refers to Wim Mertens' songs titles, the ones I liked and recognized from his concert the past week.

It was the first concert I attended in many years, and it is not the first of his, though it was over twenty years ago. I even managed to get others interested enough to come with me, even knowing it would be from the "crybaby", as my brother calls him for his peculiar high-pitched singing. At seventy, a falsetto is no longer easy, but apparently, he still enjoys adding his voice to the whole. This was the first time I have seen or heard him with a brass quartet, though some searching found some recent videos in YouTube. He has used brass instruments, mainly sax and trumpet, but it feels strange without strings or some percussion. That made it hard to recognize some pieces, such as No Testament, where in the original the drums have a key role. It also happened to me with Humility, as the winds take some of the piano melodies and it was hard.

In fact, one of my problems with Mertens is the size of his works. With over sixty official records, and probably over 400 compositions, of which I own maybe 15% and have in my phone 10% (and it is still one of the most represented artists), it all sounds familiar, but it is hard to put name to it. I suspect that also happened to the critic that wrote the news report of the concert, as the only song they named besides the ones I did was Sappho, from a 2021 album that I do not have.

Struggle for Pleasure was the only one that brought a response from the public. Part was that the Theatre was a quite formal environment, so silence and waiting for the music end was the norm. But I also think that if he was playing alone, we would have had more response and more recognition. I have heard Struggle from Pleasure in many forms, both from Mertens and sampled in many ways, so the opening is probably what most people familiar with Mertens know. It was also the last piece, and we all were sure the concert could not end without it, so there was a certain feeling of joy and sadness. "Here it is", and "This is the end".

I will discuss another day about After Virtue and the rest of After Virtue, as it is still my favorite album, but I want to comment on the impact of No Testament, and how I enjoyed hearing it in the concert. 

It is probably his song I react the most. It has a weird reason why it is my favorite. When I was in my postdoc in France, the first weeks before I finally started to make some friends among my coworkers and the Spanish students at Bordeaux, I spent most evenings playing with my brand-new laptop (it was 1995, so a 486) and listening to the few CDs I had brought with me. The main game I played was the original first-person shooter, Doom, but I got tired of the tinny sounds and repetitive music, so I just added my own music. And the one that really put me in the whole demon shooting, corridor running mindset was Mertens' album Motives for Writing and specially No Testament, which after some checking he also must appreciate it, as he plays it in most concerts. It sounded a bit different with a brass quartet, till I realized the percussion was what I was missing. Now it makes the adrenaline flow and makes me feel I am in a labyrinth fighting for my life, and still having a great time.

Just so you can feel, here is a link to it. No Testament

¶ 9:14 AM

 War, revisited

This weekend I have spent almost all the time in Madrid, playing in a wargame tournament.

Thirty years ago, I became quite accomplished in a simulation wargame named Advanced Squad Leader, itself an "improved" version of the 40 years old Squad Leader. It became quite popular because it allowed to recreate almost any small unit action in WWII, The basic units are the squads of the name, groups of 8-15 soldiers, depending on the army, that were the basic fighting unit, and individual leaders that allow them to do extraordinary things.

It was quite well designed and not very complex at the beginning, but then became the Advanced part, and they tried to cover all kind of strange things, whether at night, dropping in parachutes, all kind of vehicles and weapons, all kind of terrain features, and it slowly became a quite unwieldy monster. 

I played quite a lot from 1991 to 2003, including testing new supplements before they were published, and being quite active in the online fora of the time. Lack of time, lack of people to play with (few people have the patience to read several hundred pages of rules just to play for a few hours), and my own disenchantment with war simulations and this specific simulation meant I almost did not play the last twenty years.

However last year I met a couple of former good friends at a local tournament. We played back in the last century, and having lost in this century, First world problems of living quite far away and family cutting off free time. The game acted as a social lubricant to settle smoothly back again into our old roles.

So, when there was an announcement of a big tournament in Madrid, I promised that I would go, as a way to continue our old acquaintance, as it will be hard to go further if we just meet briefly twice a year. 

The last ten years I have grown disenchanted in war simulation as a hobby, as the mechanics of war itself attract me less as a subject. I am still extremely fascinated by history, but I am getting away of history as a list of battles. I focused more on time separate conflicts, such as the ancient Mediterranean or the Middle Ages, though probably my own favorite is the XVI and XVII centuries, as those wars and policies build up the European technological superiority for the following three centuries. The Second World War is too close, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine brough it in sharp release as they were the same locations that were so bloodily fought over in 1941-1943, a geographical imperative that makes it hard for me to replay any of the many battles for Kharkov/Kharkiv, comparing them with their counterparts in 2022.

The weekend was quite good in the sense of the feeling of belonging in a secret society, with secret knowledge, rituals, and slang. In the third game (from 20:00 to 00:30) we laughed terribly hard, that considering it was about the massacre of 50 cardboard Germans by a cardboard Canadian hero, was probably not in the best taste. It was Hollywood WWII, and normal rules do not follow, including the action film convention of enemy's lives having no value. Comradeship without the risk of a real war, and of course purely masculine and with more people over sixty than below thirty.

I expected to return, having fulfilled my promise, vowing to never join such a tournament again. Instead, the feeling of belonging makes me hesitate, and I have almost committed to arrange something in November for a big event in my hometown. 

War is hell, but you can make friends there.

¶ 9:02 AM

 Travel

Last week saw the first non-holidays three nights out business trip since February 2020. I suppose that means certain things are returning, even if at a certain moment it looked likely they would not continue, displaced by savings policies and virtual meetings. 

Still, most meetings and travels have been shorter in the recovery period from the pandemic, and it also shows I have made no long-distance trip, as those tend to require longer stays to make the trip itself worthwhile. No trips also to Muslim countries, where we often went Monday (sometimes Sunday) to Thursday to get the most out of a visa and the differing festive days.

So, the tendency was for shorter visits, less people joining the meetings in person, as less involved people are not included. That has the strange effect that meetings are even more effective and productive than in the past, which reinforces a difference with those Teams meeting that have too many attendants and where it is difficult just to decide on an agenda and a course of action. 

That means a growing number of customers and suppliers are asking for physical meetings, and even additional contact, such as business meals, excursions, and other interactions. It is somewhat strange, as there is still less physical contact, a remnant of the distancing during the pandemic, which I personally enjoy as I am not so cool with personal contact except with close people, but also all that spending time together.

Exhibitions and fairs are also getting a revival, as people are anxious to meet, and a fair is a way to meet a lot of people in one or two days. Lots of fairs the last year, and more willingness to discuss things. Also, more people prefer to prepare the fair better, make appointments, to minimize the instant crowd effect in the stands, a good development, as people prefer to reserve 45 minutes and make sure there is the opportunity for a good discussion, than the hit or miss wandering that was typical in previous years. Less food and drink and the almost disappearance of advertisement goodies shows a change in the expense plans. Much better to pay for one good meal than twenty poor ones and a hundred cheap ballpens. Less waste, probably the real new paradigm, still slowly taking hold. And in that case a trip may not be wasteful, but other areas (paper brochures) certainly were.

¶ 3:10 PM

 Regularity

This new restart I am aiming at a post per week. This is mostly an internal objective. I have only told one person that I restarted the blog and I suspect she is extremely busy, and some of the posts are based on our discussions.

The regularity helps. Some times I get a buffer, because something inspires me and I write a couple posts or there are some news I would like to share. Others I let the buffer go and I find myself on Monday in front of the empty space, and wondering what should I write about. But so far I keep writing and I also notice the quality is better than it was at the start, or at least I do less revisions of the text before I consider it can be published. 

It is still apparent I had a much wider text exposure fifteen years ago, reading the work of many more people, so having a more diverse toolbox, both for ideas and words to express them. Now I am mostly limited to what I read and watch in English, though that may be helping me read more, as I am recovering my interest in English as a communication tool, trying to improve the message by improving the medium.

This was started a few weeks ago, but I waited to see if I really could pass the eight week barrier, as most of my obsessions are actually fad, burnt through in three or four weeks, whether it is weapon systems used in Ukraine or planning a pilgrimage around Mount Fuji following Hokusai's 36 views of Mount Fuji. The last one will have to wait probably till I am retired, but it is relaxing to spend some time tracing the images and locations, and how different they are now, or how little changed some are.

So, this time it seems to be more than a fad, and as I said I am seeing some positive effects, both in writing quality and speed, but also other effects. We will see what happens when I start traveling a lot, but usually that also gives me a lot of material for writing, and planes are periods of time that suit themselves to reflection and introspection.

We will see how long this revision goes. For the time being I will keep spacing the publishing to one per week, and probably will do so unless I get a huge buffer of entries. The longer period was at start, which was when I had readers I actually interacted with, and it lasted 20 months. Two other restarts are longer than this, but most attempts fit my model and peter out in one month or a little longer. This time I feel it is different as google confirms I have no readers but myself. So this is just like those cotebooks with internal reflections that I accumulated in a drawer. This is easier to reread, to trace in time, and to search, so although I will still take notes to fix things in my memory, these are mostly letters to a future self, like those notebooks are.

¶ 11:13 PM