Aldeburgh

I’m glad I didn’t die without visiting Aldeburgh (pronounced “Aldboro”). Now I know why K-Punk considers Suffolk to be his spiritual homeland. It’s a beautiful part of England, with captivating seaside and rolling rural fields of understated beauty.

Benjamin Britten wrote plenty of music in Aldeburgh.

The ghost story writer M.R. James also spent a great deal of time in this place, and his story “A Warning to the Curious” was set in “Seaburgh,” which is known to be Aldeburgh under a pseudonym.

I spent part of the morning reading James ghost stories down on the beach with seagulls squawking overhead. Later, I was walking with two guests near the beach and one of them found, of all things, a bone flute on the ground! That’s a bit creepy because in the James story “Oh Whistle, My Lad, and I’ll Come to You,” “Oh Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad,” the pompous academic blows a bone flute he found near the beach and it summons a horrifying ghost into his room at night. (ADDENDUM: Just read the actual story this morning, which I knew only from the excellent filmed version before. In the written story it is a brone whislte, not a bone-flute.)

All right, it’s a bit lame to be live-blogging a party rather than attending it. Over and out till later, perhaps much later.

here’s where the podcast will be

The Intinerant Laboratory for Perceptual Inquiry, directed by the entertaining Katherine Bash, has re-posted (a bit late, admittedly) the flyer for the talk I gave earlier this week. [ADDENDUM: the “a bit late” remark was meant only as good-natured jesting. The page to which I linked here is meant for historical archiving purposes, not for advance announcements. Katherine is quite reliably organized whenever I deal with her, and would not put up a late flyer for this event– which was wonderfully prepared and wonderfully energizing for me as the speaker.]

I link to the page because this is where the podcast of the lecture will be when it eventually goes up.

brief break

Brief break from the very lovely ceremonies in Suffolk. Perfect seaside location. Cruelly located more than 1,000 miles from the sea as a child, I am now guaranteed a lifelong state of hypnosis whenever near the seaside.