Losing Touch

I’ve been on Social Media for a long time and, along the way, I've come into contact with a lot of very fine people. That was mostly on Twitter. I would go so far as to say that I made good friends there. For a considerable number of years, it was really great and, sad and all as it may sound, it was an important facet of my life. But these days, I find that I’ve largely lost touch with most everyone I used to interact with back then.

That’s the blog post for this week. There’s no real need to read any more. I may expand on the above couple of sentences a little bit. I may waffle. But I don’t expect to reach any meaningful insights or conclusions beyond that which has been set down in the lines above. It just is what it is.

I could make it easy and say that my giving up on Twitter (or X, as at became) was the primary reason for losing touch as I have. I had to leave. A critical point was arrived at, where I could no longer countenance sharing my words on such a spoiled and demeaned landscape. I went over to Bluesky and found some lovely people to chat to, some old Twitter renegades, some new delightful folk. But the loose interactive cohort of old Twitter days was gone from me.

I could certainly pin all this on my departure from Twitter and wrap everything up nicely that way. But that wouldn’t really be the truth of it. The truth is that the cohort had disbanded long before Twitter descended into X and it all fell apart, for me at least.

So I ponder sometimes what happened. I am well capable of dreaming up scenarios and reinventing history to suit some creative narrative of my own making. So, I have to keep all that in mind if I ever embark on a flight of fancy as to why so much contact was lost. In truth, I’ve only ever come up with a total of two part-meaningful theories, both of them probably incorrect.

My first fanciful theory is that the death of my friend Simon Ricketts marked the end of something substantial. That he was a glue that held it all together, a beacon towards which many people sailed. I think there’s some truth in this but I don’t think it’s a final reason in itself as to why the fellowship broke. If Simon could, I think he would be aming the first to pour a trickle of cold water on the idea. He might remind me that he was just a fella and that was all there was too it. As a bonus, he would reassure me about the niggle I have about using the word ‘friend’ about him in the first line of this paragraph. We only met a few times and Simon was famously friends with most everyone who came into contact with him. So how sad am I to still apply the word friend to the rather passing acquaintance I had with him? But, like I said, Simon would soon straighten me out on that, if he were here. He would assure me that we were indeed mates and that that will never change. He’s not here to do it, so I do it for myself, in honour of him. Simon was my good friend. Deal with it, Ken.

Was his passing an end of something? I have no doubt in my mind that it was. But was it the end of everything? That, I’m less sure of.

My second fanciful theory is best summed up by a line from a Neil Diamond song, “… as though I’d done someone wrong somewhere, but I don’t know where…”. My over-active mind could easily conjure a scenario where I did or said something wrong and, even though I have no idea what that might have been, my involvement in the loose cohort ended as a result. Somewhere, on some remote electronic interface, all of the old friends and confidants are still there, chatting away to each other as they always did. Once every couple of years referring briefly to the terrible faux pas that Armstrong made, shuddering briefly, then moving on.

I don’t believe this. Not at all. But I feel it’s worth mentioning because I bet I’m not the only one who could think like this, if I permitted myself to do so. Sometimes it’s a long trek across Social Media without a drink of water and one can get to wondering where the hell everyone has got to. So I set this notion down, not to make myself look foolish, which I fully realise I am doing, but to show other like-minded people that they are not alone if they ever think like this.

And finally, to quote another song, Tom Waits this time, “Charlie, for Chrissakes, if you wanna know the truth of it…”

The simple truth of the entire affair is that time passes (“listen… time passes"). We move on and we move away. We slip apart. No one, two, or three things made it happen. No horrible incident made it happen. It just… happened.

I run into members of that Old School all the time, on the electronic highways. Someone likes something I typed or sends me a warm little message or I do the same for them. There was never any dissolution or break up of fall out or loss. There is only time and moving on.

And the final truth, if one could face it?

There never really was a cohort.

There was a lively, warm, engaging, occasionally messy, juxtaposition of messages from a time when a lot of good people were all in the same place at the same time. It never really existed and paradoxically, it could never really last.

So, as you can tell from all of the above, I don’t really know what it was, let alone where it went.

And, if I miss it now and again, from time to time, well that’s okay too.

Castlebar to Ballina – A Setlist

I sing in the car. So shoot me.

In actuality, it’s been quite a while since I’ve been singing in my car. The way I figure it, there are two basic reasons. Firstly I haven’t been in the humour for singing too much and, secondly, I haven’t been in the car too much. Two fine reasons, I think you’ll agree.

And when I was making the short, thirty minute, drive over to Ballina the other morning, I had no predetermined intention of doing any of my patented car singing. But these things just tend to happen. What happened was, a song came on the radio and it just fitted into my head very well at that moment so I sang along with it. With considerable gusto, I might add. After all, it was just me and the curious faces of the drivers going in the opposite direction. So why not?

The song, in case you’re wondering, was, “I’ll Have to Say I Love You in a Song’ by Jim Croce.’ It’s one of those songs that seems to fit with my ramshackle old bass voice. It’s also one of those songs I forget about when I think about songs that I might be able to manage. So, catching it on the radio was a good moment. I sang along, all the way through. Then, when it was over, I fancied singing it again so I turned the radio off and did just that. I discovered I‘d forgotten a few of the words in the middle eight but never mind. On we ploughed. Incidentally, here’s something else I just discovered. Until today, I would have sworn to you that the song was called ‘I Had to say I Love You in a Song’ and, as you can see from the text about, it clearly isn’t. I’ll probably keep singing it the wrong way now because it’s embedded that way. That is, if I ever remember to sing it again.

Anyway, I digress. After finishing that little number, to copious internal applause, I moved on to ‘King of the Road’ by Roger Miller, which works well but I wish I had a better way of ending it. Then I did a bit of ‘La Mer’ by Charles Trenet, bluffing the French lyrics as best I can and morphing the entire hot mess into ‘Beyond the Sea,’ as I tend to do. After that, there was a bit of ‘I Hope That I Don’t Fall in Love with You’ by Tom Waits, from his very first album ‘Closing Time, back when he wasn’t gravelly. It’s an album beloved of a large number of Irish people of a certain age. Quite right, it’s a lovely record, but it’s a shame they don’t know more of his wonderful catalogue. As if to punch home this point, I did a bit of ‘Chocolate Jesus’ for the passing motorists. I wound the random little recital up with a brief refrain from the Broadway show ‘The Fantasticks’ with ‘Try to Remember.’ I think I can sing this one but, deep down, I know I really can’t. I was in Ballina by then and it’s not cool to sing in towns. It’s strictly an open road pursuit.

I figured I was done then but there was another bit of a remote road out the far side of Ballina and I was self-encouraged to attempt an assault on ‘Cracklin’ Rosie’ by Neil Diamond. It always amuses me to pretend in my head to be introducing the song and explaining how it is actually an ode to a sparkling rose wine. It’s a song that seems to be designed to catch the unwary car singer out. But if I start it off in a low enough register, I can sometimes get by just bawling out the higher stuff that unleashes in the middle.

Then I was at my destination, a little hoarse but ready to work.

I think my unprovoked resurrection of my truly awful car singing may be something of a good sign. Maybe I’m getting back to a little clear water after a short period of rocking and rolling on the high seas of life. I’ll try to keep at it if I can, even if it clearly benefits nobody but me.

It reminds me of an age-old Limerick I saw in some book once:

There once were three owls in a wood

Who always sang hymns when they could

What the words were about

One could never make out,

But one felt it was doing them good.

Til next time…

Books Etc.

I thought I might take a moment and mention a couple of books I read this year that I enjoyed a lot.

I am a reader and, although I have been called both, I am neither a ‘voracious reader’ nor a ‘widely read' person. I think it’s safe to say I have have read some part of some book every day of my teenage and adult life. But my reading is confined to one serious session before sleep, twenty minutes over lunch, and the odd ‘sit on the couch and just read’ sessions. With this occasional, erratic, but constant routine, I get through quite a few books and I’ve been doing it for so long it’s added up to quite a list of books read. But ‘voracious’? Alas, no.

As always, I am indebted to the Castlebar Library Book Club, where I’ve been going monthly for the best part of two decades. Every month, the good people there put their heads together and suggest a book that I probably would never have found all by myself. Because of this, my reading horizons have been broadened from the murky corners I would have previously habituated. Every month doesn’t hit 100% home but that’s kind of the point. It’s like a taster menu in a better class of restaurant than the ones you normally frequent.

So the two books I want to mention specifically were both choices at this years Book Club sessions.

Here’s the first:

West by Carys Davies:  A slender, but wonderful, novel set in Pennsylvania an 1819 in which a bereaved father sets out on a misguided and very lengthy expedition to find prehistoric animals which he believes could still exist. He leaves behind his 10 year old daughter, in the care of his sister, and off he trots. Along the way, he enlist the help of a Native American boy and, together, they face the immense hardships of the American Frontier while, back at home, his daughter has her own severe challenges to meet.

My Grandfather, Sammy, used to love ‘Cowboy Books’ and, as a lad, I used to delight in rounding up and driving home volumes of Louis Lamour and Zane Grey from the local library. I have since found much to admire in various books set in the so-called ‘Old West’. A friend pointed me towards ‘Lonesome Dove’ which carried me along with it like a tide. More recently, there was the wonderful ‘The Heart in Winter’ by Kevin Barry, 'Butcher’s Crossing' by John Edward Williams, and the unshakable horrors contained in ‘Blood Meridian’ by Cormac McCarthy. There is something rooted and without guile in so many of the stories set in this era. The older I get, the more I seem to appreciate them.

‘West’ is one of those books I would be happy to recommend to anyone. It is moving and insightful. It is unexpected and human and it rattles onward to a thundering (if slightly unlikely) conclusion.

And here's the second:

The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden: I would never have read this, if it weren’t for Castlebar Library Book Club. I mean, never. This is one of those books where anything I tell you about it would tend to lessen its effectiveness. I had read one review before I read the book and, although the reviewer was ultra-careful in what they revealed, I still found myself primed for the arrival of certain moments in the story and subconsciously expectant of where it was going and where it ultimately went. Have I said too much already? I hope not. We give our reads star ratings out of five and I gave this a very rare five. The writing and the insight into the characters wrapped me up and engrossed me and the story, which is outside of that which would normally engage me, did exactly that. This one won’t be for everyone, I reckon. But, damn, it worked for me.

Other non-Book Club books that hit some this year included ‘On the Calculation of Volume – Book 1’ by Solvej Balle. I came to this with a lot of expectation. It sounded right up my street. And, in fairness, it turned out to be a little slower and more reflective than I expected it to be. But I am still looking forward to getting to the second (and, hopefully) subsequent volumes, so it must have done something right.

In retrospective reading, I became immersed in ‘A Fringe of Leaves’ by Patrick White. This book has been pointed out as including negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures and that should be taken into account. Respecting this, I found the heightened language and slowly unfolding misfortune of the story engrossing.

Finally, at the moment, I am reading, and having a good time with, ‘The Lincoln Highway’ by Amor Towles. Amor hit big with the Book Club some years ago with ‘A Gentleman in Moscow.’ And, whereas this book did not meet the same critical and general success, I am enjoying the ride, nonetheless. Towles writes in an accessible, straightforward style of a kind I always admire. He takes you along with him with a deceptive ease. If you enjoyed ‘Gentleman in Moscow’ and fancy an American road trip which doesn’t go quite where you expect it to go, then you might like this one.

Books are great. Whenever I crack the spine of my current one, at the end of any given day, I feel like I am home.