Every day is just a spoke on the wheel of time. No, really. I've been struck by the similarities of blogging to the plight of Scheherazade, the heroine of 1001 Nights. Haven't read the book in its entirety (there's a sixteen volume version available on Kindle that was translated by Richard Burton. Not that one. Although I do like the thought of him convincing Jeff Wayne to do a musical version for lp release on the proviso that he be allowed to narrate it. Then years later recreate the role after his death in the form of a gigantic floating holographic head. Can't believe I didn't go to the live version of War of the Worlds to see that. They've retired the head now, replacing it with Liam Neeson. Liam Neeson? Why would you want to see the worst ever Jedi instead of a decapitated floating version of two of Elizabeth Taylor's husbands?) but famously it features a framing device where each of the stories within is related by a woman who is under threat of death by this Sultan. She's caught telling a story to a relative by the Sultan and what she cleverly does is stop when it gets interesting promising to finish it the next day. This she does over and over - a thousand times in fact - until eventually she has three children by the Sultan and he falls in love with her. Oh, and decides not to kill her. Ain't love grand.
But the thing about 1001 Nights I find interesting is the way that it is a story about stories. Tales are nested within one another. Some of the most famous, the stories about the voyages of Sinbad the Sailor, are actually told after the fact by Sinbad. To recap: we're reading a story about Scheherazade telling a story telling a story about Sinbad telling a story about himself. Eat your heart out Inception. Anyway, I'm not under threat of death (not for this, at any rate) but this did start me thinking about the linky way of the blog.
For example there is a beautiful orchestral piece, Шехерезада, written by the Russian composer Rimsky-Korsakov based on the tales. Here's the beginning of it - there are four more sections on You Tube.
However, I can't think of the name 'Rimsky Korsakov' without thinking of the adverts for Cresta pop from the 70s. And so, in one fell swoop, we go from high culture to low and end up listening to a polar bear extolling the virtues of additive-rich fizz.
All well and good. But then my brain inevitably starts looping back on itself. Thinking of old adverts and 1001 it vaguely remembers the jingle for 1001 Dry Foam carpet cleaner. Not the famous slogan from the sixties, though. No, it took the great Frank Sidebottom's Frank's Favourite Ads #1 to introduce me to the astonishing claim that '1001 cleans a big, big carpet for less than half a crown'. So I try and find an advert featuring this claim, but all I find is this from a few years ago.
I have never seen this ad before, yet it features someone I went to college with (not the monkey). What does it all mean? Tales within tales...
And so the wheel continues to turn.
More soonliest.
The progressive rock band Renaissance did a fine version of "Scheherazade" in the 1970s. I was just listening to it a couple of weeks ago, in fact. It's pretty good, helped by the fact that the singer is probably the best female vocalist ever.
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