Ooh, Sometimes,
the truth is harder
than the pain inside,
yeaah,
Ooh, Sometimes,
it's the broken heart
that decides.
The first time I heard this song, and saw the video, I was 16 or around that age (the band released the single in the UK in 1986). I remember Andy Bell, the singer, with his crisp blue-jeans and immaculate white shirt, and gorgeous hair, and toned body, dancing on a building's rooftop. I wanted to dance like him.
At the time, it was not just the rhythm but the lyrics too, that enthralled me. There was something queer about them, something that appealed to me, deep down, as if I could also speak their language, or they could speak mine.
Been thinking about you
I just couldn't wait to see
fling my arms around you
as we fall in ecstasy.
This wasn't the way male singers talked about their girls in pop songs. This was about a boy, I felt (I didn't have enough words at the time to make it a thought, just a feeling).
Erasure, the band, was part of my gayducation. And that's my own word, by the way.
Tuesday 29 December 2009
Erasure - the book
I said some time ago that I would write a post about this book. I said I was hooked. It's difficult to convey now all the emotions the book made me go through at the time of my reading. It suffices to say that it was a fine surprise of a book, which I bought in a tiny English-speaking bookshop in Brussels, Nicola's Bookshop; sadly gone. I guess it was another victim of the economic downturn. But while it lasted, it was one of the best places to find unexpected books, by unexpected authors. The owner made her own selection, as if she was offering her library back home to the public to discover, and that's what was so special about the place.
Now, back to Erasure, the book. It dealt with race issues in the US, and played with our prejudices, misconceptions and expectations. It was amusing and at times difficult to understand. The main character, a writer and a professor of literature, makes a speech in one of the chapters of which I almost didn't understand a word. But somehow it really didn't matter, I just went with the flow.
There's a book inside a book. In order to get published as a "black writer" - a category everybody seems to be interested in pinning him down into - the main character writes a "black book", i.e. what it's "really" like to be black in America. What's disturbing about it is how entertaining his stereotypical description of ghetto life is. I actually enjoyed it, and it was sometimes easy to forget that although it sounded real, it wasn't real, but a construct, a codified literary construct of what "black life" in America is supposed to be.
Anyway, the real story, with real people, in real time, the one that takes place in Washington D.C., for instance, is what kept me turning the pages, the one I wished would keep on going for a little while longer when the book finally ended, because I liked the characters and got to enjoy their company. But yes, I know that they too were literary constructs.
By the way, the author's name is Percival Everett. Beautiful. And as someone in the novel might have asked, the character's literary agent for instance, "is that supposed to be a real black person's name?". Ah, reality...
Now, back to Erasure, the book. It dealt with race issues in the US, and played with our prejudices, misconceptions and expectations. It was amusing and at times difficult to understand. The main character, a writer and a professor of literature, makes a speech in one of the chapters of which I almost didn't understand a word. But somehow it really didn't matter, I just went with the flow.
There's a book inside a book. In order to get published as a "black writer" - a category everybody seems to be interested in pinning him down into - the main character writes a "black book", i.e. what it's "really" like to be black in America. What's disturbing about it is how entertaining his stereotypical description of ghetto life is. I actually enjoyed it, and it was sometimes easy to forget that although it sounded real, it wasn't real, but a construct, a codified literary construct of what "black life" in America is supposed to be.
Anyway, the real story, with real people, in real time, the one that takes place in Washington D.C., for instance, is what kept me turning the pages, the one I wished would keep on going for a little while longer when the book finally ended, because I liked the characters and got to enjoy their company. But yes, I know that they too were literary constructs.
By the way, the author's name is Percival Everett. Beautiful. And as someone in the novel might have asked, the character's literary agent for instance, "is that supposed to be a real black person's name?". Ah, reality...
Monday 28 December 2009
Christmas went by
This Christmas was kind of weird. We were in Lund. There was less snow than I expected, but when we arrived, there was still plenty of it around. Jarl's father was at the rehabilitation clinic, after more than a month in hospital, and everybody was slightly out of synch, I guess. It was strange to visit him there. Sometimes it felt unreal, like a parallel world. Soon, in a couple of minutes, your life will resume its normalcy. I sort of expected a voice saying those words coming out of the blue in the middle of our visits to Bror. It didn't happen.
The bed in our flat was hard as rocks. Even I got a back pain, and I'm not very sensitive when it comes to sleeping arrangements. Was it always that hard? I didn't sleep very well most of the nights and woke up feeling like I needed another eight hours of sleep during the day. Georgie had trouble to fall a sleep. That flat is too small anyway. We need more space. All sorts of space. We spent inordinate amounts of time with food. What for, my sweet goodness? I felt like a fish out of water. Hard to breath. Nowhere to swim. Flapping soundlessly. I feel terrible when I sleep badly. No endurance in the sleep-deprivation department, I'm afraid. Unless it's for a good cause, like writing a blog...
But I enjoyed those tiny moments when Jarl and I could crack a joke together in French. Well, just speaking French sends us both into hoots of laughter, it does. Something only the two of us can really get, or at least that's the way we feel, and we want it to be that way. C'est très tendence! Oh goodness, it was really funny, just between me and him. Private. Intimate. Perfect. Jarl can be real funny in a silly-kiddy-intellectual kind of way. I love that about him. He looks so young and cute, and smart and playful.
And then there was Georgie around, saying things that mesmerize me, amuse me, annoy me, entice me, inspire me, irritate me, elate me, surprise me, embrace me, motivate me, spin me, love me. Georgie has the power to transform trees into castles and mud into gold. Birds can talk. Flowers can cry. You can dream that you flew over the waves. That you made a puzzle of Galo de Barcelos together with papa and papalu. And that's more than magic, it's alchemy.
The bed in our flat was hard as rocks. Even I got a back pain, and I'm not very sensitive when it comes to sleeping arrangements. Was it always that hard? I didn't sleep very well most of the nights and woke up feeling like I needed another eight hours of sleep during the day. Georgie had trouble to fall a sleep. That flat is too small anyway. We need more space. All sorts of space. We spent inordinate amounts of time with food. What for, my sweet goodness? I felt like a fish out of water. Hard to breath. Nowhere to swim. Flapping soundlessly. I feel terrible when I sleep badly. No endurance in the sleep-deprivation department, I'm afraid. Unless it's for a good cause, like writing a blog...
But I enjoyed those tiny moments when Jarl and I could crack a joke together in French. Well, just speaking French sends us both into hoots of laughter, it does. Something only the two of us can really get, or at least that's the way we feel, and we want it to be that way. C'est très tendence! Oh goodness, it was really funny, just between me and him. Private. Intimate. Perfect. Jarl can be real funny in a silly-kiddy-intellectual kind of way. I love that about him. He looks so young and cute, and smart and playful.
And then there was Georgie around, saying things that mesmerize me, amuse me, annoy me, entice me, inspire me, irritate me, elate me, surprise me, embrace me, motivate me, spin me, love me. Georgie has the power to transform trees into castles and mud into gold. Birds can talk. Flowers can cry. You can dream that you flew over the waves. That you made a puzzle of Galo de Barcelos together with papa and papalu. And that's more than magic, it's alchemy.
Saturday 19 December 2009
colours
Sometimes Jarl doesn't understand that I'm not purple, I'm mauve. Sometimes I don't know either what colour he really is. Sometimes we're both colour blind.
Tuesday 15 December 2009
Saga Lusa IV
The night of the 1001 cousins. That's what I call the dinner party on Sunday in Lisbon. Sandra had the idea of bringing together a group of paternal cousins with whom I had grown up. Most of them I hadn't seen since my father's funeral in 1996. I didn't know most of their children, although a couple of them I had met as babies and toddlers. Two of them were now celebrating 18, and one also the fact that she had a driving license!
It felt a bit like childhood revisited, although all of us had a few more wrinkles, the men with a few more kilos, and the women still quite fit and smart! Who said that men age better than women? Only on TV! It reminded me of one of those birthday parties of long-time-no-see ago, the way we scattered all over the place, as if it were an indoors picnic. It felt easy to talk, no awkwardness at all. Mind you, I was a bit nervous before getting there.
Georgie mingled so easily with her cousins. It was special to see our children playing together. David, Sandra's youngest, said to Georgie "just call out cousin and everybody will come to you, don't even bother to learn all the names". It was sweet and to the point.
I thought of my father. What would he say? I genuinely think he would be happy. I wished he could be there to see us. Because these are the things that really matter, the thread and substance of life. Love, friendship, feeling, hands, eyes, mouth, nose, ears.
I hope to keep in touch with my 1001 cousins, on my mother's and on my father's side. They are the closest thing I have to siblings and the truth is that all over these years of sometimes emotional exile I never forgot them for a second. They remain part of me. Tucked away or out of doors, they're truly part of me.
It felt a bit like childhood revisited, although all of us had a few more wrinkles, the men with a few more kilos, and the women still quite fit and smart! Who said that men age better than women? Only on TV! It reminded me of one of those birthday parties of long-time-no-see ago, the way we scattered all over the place, as if it were an indoors picnic. It felt easy to talk, no awkwardness at all. Mind you, I was a bit nervous before getting there.
Georgie mingled so easily with her cousins. It was special to see our children playing together. David, Sandra's youngest, said to Georgie "just call out cousin and everybody will come to you, don't even bother to learn all the names". It was sweet and to the point.
I thought of my father. What would he say? I genuinely think he would be happy. I wished he could be there to see us. Because these are the things that really matter, the thread and substance of life. Love, friendship, feeling, hands, eyes, mouth, nose, ears.
I hope to keep in touch with my 1001 cousins, on my mother's and on my father's side. They are the closest thing I have to siblings and the truth is that all over these years of sometimes emotional exile I never forgot them for a second. They remain part of me. Tucked away or out of doors, they're truly part of me.
Saga Lusa III
I read a book by Adriana Calcanhotto the last night of our stay in Lisbon. Saga Lusa. Does it need translating? I would guess not. A Swedish and a Portuguese word in one sentence. Just like me and Jarl. Trying to make sense. Looking odd side by side, yet so right.
I had been out having dinner with my cousins and drank two glasses of Coke. Enough to keep me awake for the night. I went looking for an antidote in the form of reading and found the book in Manuel's collection. The irony, or coincidence, or fate, or destiny - I never quite knew the difference between all these - was that the story was about pill-induced insomnia. How appropriate!
I read the book in about two hours. The book reads like a long, addictive, gigantic personal e-mail, or a long diatribe against the flu virus and anti-inflammatory pills. Sounds what, lame? But it was really entertaining, although far from high-art. Would it have been published if the author had been someone like you and me? Hell, no! But this is the era of celebrity culture and even a special musician-poet-composer-singer like Calcanhotto falls into the category these days.
I read it all and fell asleep. And there's nothing more to say.
I had been out having dinner with my cousins and drank two glasses of Coke. Enough to keep me awake for the night. I went looking for an antidote in the form of reading and found the book in Manuel's collection. The irony, or coincidence, or fate, or destiny - I never quite knew the difference between all these - was that the story was about pill-induced insomnia. How appropriate!
I read the book in about two hours. The book reads like a long, addictive, gigantic personal e-mail, or a long diatribe against the flu virus and anti-inflammatory pills. Sounds what, lame? But it was really entertaining, although far from high-art. Would it have been published if the author had been someone like you and me? Hell, no! But this is the era of celebrity culture and even a special musician-poet-composer-singer like Calcanhotto falls into the category these days.
I read it all and fell asleep. And there's nothing more to say.
Saga Lusa II
We stayed with Manuel, Gonçalo and their son Guilherme. They gave us their usual bread of tenderness to eat and made us feel at home. Gonçalo told me that their street used to be called Caracol da Penha de França. For those unfortunate enough not to speak portuguese, I agree to translate: the Curl of the Peak of France. It sounds royal, yet it's so simple and straight to the point. The street raises and falls like a mighty curl, and the penha is like a peak indeed, bursting out of the soil, full of buildings like teeth inside a giant's mouth. From now on, that's how I'll refer to Rua Marques da Silva. A curl is a curl, and it can move imaginations, like a spring. Pling!
Carla and Zé came for dinner on Saturday. Carla came with her two children. Zé came with his lovers, in absentia. We talked and laughed. We talked about our kids and our lovers, past, present and future, who knows... Then we laughed about our kids and ourselves, and our lovers, all tenses confounded. Zé said he doesn't want to fall in love. Ever again. It reminded me of that song by the Fine Young Cannibals, "never fallen in love with someone, never fallen in love, in love with someone, never fallen in love, in love with someone who's never fallen in love with. Did you ever fall in love? Did you ever? Did you ever? Did you ever?". And then my heart went on to sing, but so, so very low and softly, that I could barely hear it myself above the fray of his speech and the cars outside in the streets:
"Some day he'll come along, The man I love, And he'll be big and strong, The man I love, And when he comes my way I'll do my best to make him stay! He'll look at me and smile; I'll understand, And in a little while, He'll take my hand; And though it seems absurd, I know we both won't say a word! Maybe I shall meet him Sunday, Maybe Monday, maybe not, Still I'm sure to meet him one day; Maybe Tuesday will be my good news day! We'll build a little home Just meant for two, From which I'll never roam; Who would? Would you? And so, all else above, I'm waiting for the man I love!"
That's by George and Ira Gershwin, and I'm sure you knew. I didn't say a word. I just sang it softly with every breath I took. Can you imagine me not saying anything? I almost can't. Pourtant...
Carla and Zé came for dinner on Saturday. Carla came with her two children. Zé came with his lovers, in absentia. We talked and laughed. We talked about our kids and our lovers, past, present and future, who knows... Then we laughed about our kids and ourselves, and our lovers, all tenses confounded. Zé said he doesn't want to fall in love. Ever again. It reminded me of that song by the Fine Young Cannibals, "never fallen in love with someone, never fallen in love, in love with someone, never fallen in love, in love with someone who's never fallen in love with. Did you ever fall in love? Did you ever? Did you ever? Did you ever?". And then my heart went on to sing, but so, so very low and softly, that I could barely hear it myself above the fray of his speech and the cars outside in the streets:
"Some day he'll come along, The man I love, And he'll be big and strong, The man I love, And when he comes my way I'll do my best to make him stay! He'll look at me and smile; I'll understand, And in a little while, He'll take my hand; And though it seems absurd, I know we both won't say a word! Maybe I shall meet him Sunday, Maybe Monday, maybe not, Still I'm sure to meet him one day; Maybe Tuesday will be my good news day! We'll build a little home Just meant for two, From which I'll never roam; Who would? Would you? And so, all else above, I'm waiting for the man I love!"
That's by George and Ira Gershwin, and I'm sure you knew. I didn't say a word. I just sang it softly with every breath I took. Can you imagine me not saying anything? I almost can't. Pourtant...
Saga Lusa I
I was in Lisbon last weekend. I took Georgie with me. She is great to travel with. We had fun together. I love holding her hand walking down the street watching people go by. I know, I wrote this here before, but I really do. And it sounds like a song. I loved showing her the light of Lisbon, the way the sky bends at the horizon. We went to the Oceanário and saw the sharks, the manta-rays, the sun-fish, the penguins, the puffins, the oters, the fish, the fish, the fish. We also saw the ghost-fish, who shone in the dark. A bit spoky those fish.
We rode the telepheric at Parque das Nações and laughed like crazy all the way up in the air. Like hot air balloons. And then we went to the book fair inside Gare do Oriente, where I bought Caím by Saramago. Ah, the pleasure of buying a book on the Index of the Catholic Church... diabolic pleasure without the smell of sulphur. A book can still move mountains. It's good to be reminded of that.
We saw little children, and big children too, play violin at Reitoria da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, nearby Lisbon's Great Mosque (which looks so much prettier than last time, with a proper minaret shining bright in the evening sky of Praça de Espanha; and go tell that to the Suiss who voted down a month ago the sight of minarets among their ozone-layer-depleting cows!). It felt good to be sitting there next to Guida listening to Christmas music, from Bach to Little Star. Our friendship is like a heart-shaped red box of chocolate pralines. Georgie loved the stripped gloves she gave her. It made her look like Emília, the super-smart, silly-naughty doll in Sítio do Picapau Amarelo. This was centuries ago, when Brazil arrived at our doorstep in the shape of a magic place on TV.
We heard Berstein's West Side Story on the stero in our bedroom. I fell to my knees, tears about to cry, when the shooting gun was heard and the last song was sung. I sang with all my strength "there's a place for us, a time and a place for us, hold my hand and we're half way there, hold my hand and I'll take you there, somehow, somewhere, someday". Something like that. Emotion is never accurate, only it knows what it feels is real. I shared this moment with Georgie. She became a fan. She is a bit of a drama queen too, like her papalu. I'll always be sorry for those who don't fall on their knees with tears in their eyes, with Lisbon in the background, and the sun like a shield of gold, and the sky with clouds the colour and the shape of cotton, when on a stereo plays a record by Berstein with West Side Story. Where do they get their tears from?
We rode the telepheric at Parque das Nações and laughed like crazy all the way up in the air. Like hot air balloons. And then we went to the book fair inside Gare do Oriente, where I bought Caím by Saramago. Ah, the pleasure of buying a book on the Index of the Catholic Church... diabolic pleasure without the smell of sulphur. A book can still move mountains. It's good to be reminded of that.
We saw little children, and big children too, play violin at Reitoria da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, nearby Lisbon's Great Mosque (which looks so much prettier than last time, with a proper minaret shining bright in the evening sky of Praça de Espanha; and go tell that to the Suiss who voted down a month ago the sight of minarets among their ozone-layer-depleting cows!). It felt good to be sitting there next to Guida listening to Christmas music, from Bach to Little Star. Our friendship is like a heart-shaped red box of chocolate pralines. Georgie loved the stripped gloves she gave her. It made her look like Emília, the super-smart, silly-naughty doll in Sítio do Picapau Amarelo. This was centuries ago, when Brazil arrived at our doorstep in the shape of a magic place on TV.
We heard Berstein's West Side Story on the stero in our bedroom. I fell to my knees, tears about to cry, when the shooting gun was heard and the last song was sung. I sang with all my strength "there's a place for us, a time and a place for us, hold my hand and we're half way there, hold my hand and I'll take you there, somehow, somewhere, someday". Something like that. Emotion is never accurate, only it knows what it feels is real. I shared this moment with Georgie. She became a fan. She is a bit of a drama queen too, like her papalu. I'll always be sorry for those who don't fall on their knees with tears in their eyes, with Lisbon in the background, and the sun like a shield of gold, and the sky with clouds the colour and the shape of cotton, when on a stereo plays a record by Berstein with West Side Story. Where do they get their tears from?
Thursday 26 November 2009
small blue thing
Today I am a small blue thing, like a marble or an eye. Suzanne Vega used to sing this, when was it, in the 1980's? I like to sing it to myself in sotto voce when there's rain outside, flowing like tears down the Chicago windows of our living-room.
There was a hail storm today when I left the office. I bought flowers under the storm. A hazel storm. Flowers to give to Susanne who picked Georgie from school. I'm all on my own this week while Jarl is in Sweden visiting his ill father. Still ill.
I hope you make it out of the hospital real soon Bror! Tell me again about the Romans and the British hunting for javelins, and the Christmas drawing that you made of the little flat in Lund where you and Ulla first moved in. Tell me about the window-pane of your first car and about your typewriter. And the photos of the children, and your times in Geneva after the War (the second, the biggest, the ugliest, the hopeless, the ruthless).
Like a marble or an eye. A small blue thing. I think there is a galaxy named Vega, or a star, or a planet in my imagination. Or maybe it is real. The planetology of the mind trickling down like a tear of rain under the grey skies of Brussels.
Just picture me in the dark of Winter, burnt by hail and wind, running fast with a bouquet of orange flowers in my hand to catch a taxi in Rond Point Schuman. Then add some strings and listen. A singer in the NYC underground. Blue. Marble. Star. Today I am. Blue. Marble. Star. Burn. Small. Thing. Rain. Hail. Hazel. Eye. Marble or a star.
There was a hail storm today when I left the office. I bought flowers under the storm. A hazel storm. Flowers to give to Susanne who picked Georgie from school. I'm all on my own this week while Jarl is in Sweden visiting his ill father. Still ill.
I hope you make it out of the hospital real soon Bror! Tell me again about the Romans and the British hunting for javelins, and the Christmas drawing that you made of the little flat in Lund where you and Ulla first moved in. Tell me about the window-pane of your first car and about your typewriter. And the photos of the children, and your times in Geneva after the War (the second, the biggest, the ugliest, the hopeless, the ruthless).
Like a marble or an eye. A small blue thing. I think there is a galaxy named Vega, or a star, or a planet in my imagination. Or maybe it is real. The planetology of the mind trickling down like a tear of rain under the grey skies of Brussels.
Just picture me in the dark of Winter, burnt by hail and wind, running fast with a bouquet of orange flowers in my hand to catch a taxi in Rond Point Schuman. Then add some strings and listen. A singer in the NYC underground. Blue. Marble. Star. Today I am. Blue. Marble. Star. Burn. Small. Thing. Rain. Hail. Hazel. Eye. Marble or a star.
Monday 23 November 2009
Luanda
My mother is leaving to Luanda this evening. She will stay there until the end of January. I thought I might be able to see her down there. There had been a work-related mission in the planning, but the Presidency canceled it today. I was disappointed.
I wanted to see my mother's childhood house in Bairro Operário now that it has been redone. Some other time. It would be fun, and a bit strange, to stay there together. "We'll find you a mattress in a corner somewhere", my mother said on the phone. Her little childhood home in that place of dirt roads and no gardens.
I thought of the earth the colour of ocre, and the bay, and the sky expanse above it like a pulsating heart filled with light. Good to fly, just ask the cranes. Maybe next year I'll go to Luanda, the town of my birth.
I wanted to see my mother's childhood house in Bairro Operário now that it has been redone. Some other time. It would be fun, and a bit strange, to stay there together. "We'll find you a mattress in a corner somewhere", my mother said on the phone. Her little childhood home in that place of dirt roads and no gardens.
I thought of the earth the colour of ocre, and the bay, and the sky expanse above it like a pulsating heart filled with light. Good to fly, just ask the cranes. Maybe next year I'll go to Luanda, the town of my birth.
Saturday 21 November 2009
Agneta's saying
This evening, Agneta came by for a late dinner. After eating, we sipped tisane with Swedish honey and lit the candles in the leaving room for that extra winter cozy feel. We had a long conversation about many topics. We talked about her pending retirement. Next week is her last week at work. So much to think about. So many challenges. So much excitement. So much time ahead of you and no office to go to. Maybe a long trip on the horizon to Latin America.
We ended the night talking, as usual, about Belgium. Just before leaving, Agneta said the evening's sentence: "finalement, ce pays est facile à vivre parce qu'il est tellement compliqué! ". It is, in a nutshell, just how I feel about Belgium.
We ended the night talking, as usual, about Belgium. Just before leaving, Agneta said the evening's sentence: "finalement, ce pays est facile à vivre parce qu'il est tellement compliqué! ". It is, in a nutshell, just how I feel about Belgium.
Thursday 19 November 2009
fatherhood
I woke up with this intense emotion about being a father. I felt it too while taking the stairs down the metro on my way to the office, after taking Georgie to school. It's a feeling of warmth. It put a perennial smile on my face as I walked. I didn't even notice the dirty tunnels of the Brussels metro, the dullness of its attempts at art, the screeching sound of the wheels on the tracks as the train pulled in.
Being a father is trully growing into being a person. My daughter and I grow in tandem. I love holding Georgie's little warm hand and telling her stories. I love seeing the world through her discovery-eyes. I feel my love for her in my gut. Takes my breath away. She is part of my soul and was born from my heart.
Being a father is trully growing into being a person. My daughter and I grow in tandem. I love holding Georgie's little warm hand and telling her stories. I love seeing the world through her discovery-eyes. I feel my love for her in my gut. Takes my breath away. She is part of my soul and was born from my heart.
Sunday 15 November 2009
I miss Jarl
Jarl is in Sweden this weekend. I miss him. He went to see his father who's ill. He had an operation on Friday last week. Bror is a funny man. He is intelligent too. And eccentric. It figures! I love him dearly. He loves me too. He just said so this evening on the phone from the hospital. Jarl brings a lot of love into my life. Not just his love, but that of his relatives. All of them.
I miss him. His bumpy head. His gusigness. I miss his frowns in the morning before breakfast and his childish smiles after a good meal, in fact, any meal. He'll come home tomorrow and we'll be complete.
I miss him. His bumpy head. His gusigness. I miss his frowns in the morning before breakfast and his childish smiles after a good meal, in fact, any meal. He'll come home tomorrow and we'll be complete.
Saturday 14 November 2009
two guys in the tram home
When I left Viernes de Cine I took the tram at Montgomery. I was reading a new book, Erasure (more about it in a future post, because I'm getting hooked and I'll have to share). Some time during the trip these two young guys came in. They looked like construction workers. The lean type. They were speaking Portuguese, but their code was something I thought had died out in the 1960's, or would only be spoken by people who were now close to their 60's. I mean, their accent was so thick and their words so out of synch with my Lisbon-suburbs upbringing - and no, I don't come from a middle-class suburb, more one of factory and supermarket workers, and low-grade public servants, with a few doctors and lawyers thrown in, but very few, mind you! - that I had troube to understand them at first.
At a certain point they started talking about girls. One of them said that Patricia made his balls acke every time they kissed. Sometimes they would spend three hours kissing and his balls would hurt so much he felt like bursting. Patricia didn't let him do it, it was killing him; the pain. He had spoken to her about it, but she shrugged it off saying that it was normal he would feel that way. His friend showed sympathy. How awful that they couldn't just do it. They should be able to manifest the body, he said as we all got out of the tram. Gare Terminus. Not bad, I thought, much deeper than I had expected.
It was a scene truly from another world. I sometimes forget that there are still Patricias and young construction workers like these two guys out there. Kissing for three hours with their balls acking. I wonder how Patricia felt. Was she in pain too? I'm sure she wouldn't tell her lover about it. Patricia wouldn't be that honest with her man. Her man was trying to get her to compassionate, give him some release. Poor boy. But Patricia was tough, she knew how to guard herself. I hope they get married. It would stop the pain. Introduce others. But they'll cope, I think.
My first reaction was to think that those two guys were being sexist, and rude (I never say balls), but then I thought again and realised that they were just being honest and expressing it the way their code allowed them to. I felt relieved I wasn't them. Yeah, a bit smug. So what? That's how I felt. Then I tucked my new book inside my Ermenegildo Zegna bag and strolled down the street feeling the cool breeze in my ears and thinking of home, and Jarl's arms, and my daughter's baby eyes. Love pulsating like dawn inside my heart.
At a certain point they started talking about girls. One of them said that Patricia made his balls acke every time they kissed. Sometimes they would spend three hours kissing and his balls would hurt so much he felt like bursting. Patricia didn't let him do it, it was killing him; the pain. He had spoken to her about it, but she shrugged it off saying that it was normal he would feel that way. His friend showed sympathy. How awful that they couldn't just do it. They should be able to manifest the body, he said as we all got out of the tram. Gare Terminus. Not bad, I thought, much deeper than I had expected.
It was a scene truly from another world. I sometimes forget that there are still Patricias and young construction workers like these two guys out there. Kissing for three hours with their balls acking. I wonder how Patricia felt. Was she in pain too? I'm sure she wouldn't tell her lover about it. Patricia wouldn't be that honest with her man. Her man was trying to get her to compassionate, give him some release. Poor boy. But Patricia was tough, she knew how to guard herself. I hope they get married. It would stop the pain. Introduce others. But they'll cope, I think.
My first reaction was to think that those two guys were being sexist, and rude (I never say balls), but then I thought again and realised that they were just being honest and expressing it the way their code allowed them to. I felt relieved I wasn't them. Yeah, a bit smug. So what? That's how I felt. Then I tucked my new book inside my Ermenegildo Zegna bag and strolled down the street feeling the cool breeze in my ears and thinking of home, and Jarl's arms, and my daughter's baby eyes. Love pulsating like dawn inside my heart.
Viernes de Cine
I started yesterday the Spanish Film Course at the Instituto Cervantes in Brussels, Viernes de Cine. Just what I needed. I wanted something that could provide me with another opportunity to communicate and express myself. I'm interested in discovering Spanish Film through the eyes of the two Spanish teachers and learning about a reality that is close yet so unknown to me, coming from their next door neighbour to the West.
We started with a film by Albaladejo, of whom I had seen Cachorro at the LGBT Brussels Film Festival some years ago (when I still had the time to go there!). This one was called El Cielo Abierto, a cinderella kind of story with a twist (the end is actually the most engaging moment in the film because it leaves so much open to speculation). I'm looking forward to the other five sessions. It will also be a way to polish my Castellano ahead of the EU Spanish Presidency (ever the pragmatist, am I not?).
I hope the people in the room (we are some 30 or so) will be passionate about film and the emotions it conveys, and that as we go along we can deepen our sharing. There are at least four Portuguese in the course. I'm sure Saramago would be happy. Olé. Olé.
We started with a film by Albaladejo, of whom I had seen Cachorro at the LGBT Brussels Film Festival some years ago (when I still had the time to go there!). This one was called El Cielo Abierto, a cinderella kind of story with a twist (the end is actually the most engaging moment in the film because it leaves so much open to speculation). I'm looking forward to the other five sessions. It will also be a way to polish my Castellano ahead of the EU Spanish Presidency (ever the pragmatist, am I not?).
I hope the people in the room (we are some 30 or so) will be passionate about film and the emotions it conveys, and that as we go along we can deepen our sharing. There are at least four Portuguese in the course. I'm sure Saramago would be happy. Olé. Olé.
Wednesday 11 November 2009
the warm cold of winter
This evening I went to the Hilton Hotel in Brussels to celebrate Angola's national day (they became independent from Portugal on 11 November 1975). It was the usual stuff. Mingling, talking, gathering information, pretending to be amused, interested; sometimes I was. It was funny to see the Israeli ambassador walking around with her two body-guards.
The music was far too loud, everybody had to shout in each others' ears to get any point across. There was a moment when the singer came out of the stage and started walking around with his mic and singing "My Way", the Frank Sinatra "My Way". He stopped by the Angolan ambassador, like a troubadour in the Middle Ages must have done before his Lordship. It was amusing. So loud. Goodness, can anybody shut him up for a minute? We're trying to do some diplomacy around here.
Anyway, it was on the way home that the evening's beauty had time to wash over my senses. It was cold today. Almost freezing cold. I walked down the boulevard to catch the tram at place Stéphanie. It was Armistice Day today, and shops had been closed all day. There were so few cars, Brussels felt like a village. The air was dry and walking kept me cozy. I was wrapped inside my big Italian anorak. It felt like the cold was warm.
I was walking silently listening to my ipod, and the lights in the shops, the Gucci, the Versace, the Louis Vuitton, the Ferragamo, the Chanel, were shining like underwater ghosts. Soft, very softly. Like whispers of light. Then I caught the tram. The driver was cute and friendly. He said bonsoir. When was the last time a tram driver said bonsoir to me? It was that kind of night with stars. I felt so good.
The music was far too loud, everybody had to shout in each others' ears to get any point across. There was a moment when the singer came out of the stage and started walking around with his mic and singing "My Way", the Frank Sinatra "My Way". He stopped by the Angolan ambassador, like a troubadour in the Middle Ages must have done before his Lordship. It was amusing. So loud. Goodness, can anybody shut him up for a minute? We're trying to do some diplomacy around here.
Anyway, it was on the way home that the evening's beauty had time to wash over my senses. It was cold today. Almost freezing cold. I walked down the boulevard to catch the tram at place Stéphanie. It was Armistice Day today, and shops had been closed all day. There were so few cars, Brussels felt like a village. The air was dry and walking kept me cozy. I was wrapped inside my big Italian anorak. It felt like the cold was warm.
I was walking silently listening to my ipod, and the lights in the shops, the Gucci, the Versace, the Louis Vuitton, the Ferragamo, the Chanel, were shining like underwater ghosts. Soft, very softly. Like whispers of light. Then I caught the tram. The driver was cute and friendly. He said bonsoir. When was the last time a tram driver said bonsoir to me? It was that kind of night with stars. I felt so good.
Sunday 8 November 2009
the unexpected power of the body
I heard the phrase this morning on the BBC's Worldservice radio. I liked it and it stuck with me throughout the day wanting to be written down on my blog.
Friday 6 November 2009
the geography of love
We were in Stockholm a couple of days ago visiting uncle Dag and aunt Memi (but she only wants to be called Memi). Then Susan and her daughter Sarah were here from Chicago/New York (via Heidelberg and Amsterdam). Susan and her companion, Beth, are going to rent their flat to us in Chicago when we go there next year in the summer for three whole months (Wow, just think of that!). Next summer it will be wonderful to spend time with aunt Becky and uncle Ed, and Ben, Karen and their son Jacob, as well as Debbie and her family, in Chicago.
Tomorrow Fidelma is coming to visit us from Ireland. I wonder when we will next see aunt Denise, who lives in Strasbourg. It would also be fun to go again to London and see our cousins, all of them. I wonder when we'll be able to meet again aunt Kat and our cousins Emil and Viktor in Copenhagen. This Christmas we'll spend it with Farmor and Farfar in Lund. I hope it will snow. The Botanical Garden will look like a fairytale. Maybe the Danes will join us too.
I'm also planning to go to Lisbon with Georgie and see Mami and Vóvó before the end of the year, before Mami goes to Luanda to spend time with the Angolan side of the family. In Lisbon, it would be great if we could meet all of our cousins and uncles and aunts, and our friends too, like Zé, Manuel and Gonçalo and their son Guilherme, and aunt Guida of course.
Thank goodness for our few friends in Brussels, like Pascal, Antonio, Charlotta and Agneta, otherwise it seems our heart is always somewhere else. The (many) acquaintances fill in some gaps, but they don't taste real; like fake sugar.
We are like gypsies of the heart, travelling all the time to meet the ones we love. Elis Regina, the late Brazilian singer, has a song where she says that her dream is to have a house in the country, where she could keep her books, her friends, and her records, and nothing more. Well, I wished I had them all in one place too. Close to the heart, forever, and ever, and ever. Around the corner, literally. It sounds possessive, I know.
When I look at a map of the world, I see these dozens of hearts throbing in all the corners of the globe and their glow keeps me company, but it also reminds me of how lonely it feels sometimes here in Brussels.
And the vessels of my heart are the runaways of airports, and its blood is made of air and clouds, and the cells are airplanes fueled by love and solitude; sweet pain of combustion. Anti-gravity laws. Up, up, and away. Like superman.
Tomorrow Fidelma is coming to visit us from Ireland. I wonder when we will next see aunt Denise, who lives in Strasbourg. It would also be fun to go again to London and see our cousins, all of them. I wonder when we'll be able to meet again aunt Kat and our cousins Emil and Viktor in Copenhagen. This Christmas we'll spend it with Farmor and Farfar in Lund. I hope it will snow. The Botanical Garden will look like a fairytale. Maybe the Danes will join us too.
I'm also planning to go to Lisbon with Georgie and see Mami and Vóvó before the end of the year, before Mami goes to Luanda to spend time with the Angolan side of the family. In Lisbon, it would be great if we could meet all of our cousins and uncles and aunts, and our friends too, like Zé, Manuel and Gonçalo and their son Guilherme, and aunt Guida of course.
Thank goodness for our few friends in Brussels, like Pascal, Antonio, Charlotta and Agneta, otherwise it seems our heart is always somewhere else. The (many) acquaintances fill in some gaps, but they don't taste real; like fake sugar.
We are like gypsies of the heart, travelling all the time to meet the ones we love. Elis Regina, the late Brazilian singer, has a song where she says that her dream is to have a house in the country, where she could keep her books, her friends, and her records, and nothing more. Well, I wished I had them all in one place too. Close to the heart, forever, and ever, and ever. Around the corner, literally. It sounds possessive, I know.
When I look at a map of the world, I see these dozens of hearts throbing in all the corners of the globe and their glow keeps me company, but it also reminds me of how lonely it feels sometimes here in Brussels.
And the vessels of my heart are the runaways of airports, and its blood is made of air and clouds, and the cells are airplanes fueled by love and solitude; sweet pain of combustion. Anti-gravity laws. Up, up, and away. Like superman.
Monday 26 October 2009
Morrer como um homem
To die like a man. It's the title of João Pedro Rodrigues' new film. I saw it last Sunday at the Nova cinema in Brussels during this year's edition of Pinkscreens. It is a very beautiful film. It's not just the fact that I know so many of the people and the characters in it - the film is a slice of Lisbon at night as I knew it in the late 1980's and throughout the 1990's. As I told the director during the Q&A session that followed the screening, his film has lucidité sentimentale. People tend to think that those at the margins, like transvestites, live lives detached from reality, but I actually think that they live lives that are intensely real and that is why they dream so much, and hurt so much in the process.
There was someone behind me who said to someone beside him that all Portuguese are crazy, that we are cut off from the rest of Europe, that we have nothing in common. But the themes explored in this film, apart from being universal, are very European. It deals with the quest for identity in general and gender identity in particular, with tragic love in the best classical Greek tradition, with the role of women as the initiators of mankind into the world of dreams and mysteries. Le féminin sacré; sacré féminin!
I loved seeing Maria Bakker (alwyas double K!) in the film. MB became a character à part entière, bravo! I wonder where the German quotations came from. Was it Schiele? Gonçalo Ferreira de Almeida, the actor playing MB, was for many years the flatmate of my former lover, Zé Manuel. I met him many times in their flat surrounded by a haze of creative cannabis. MB is his creation and a powerful one. In the film, it made an interesting contrast to the character of Tonia, who, although apparently free to be what she wants to be, is in reality constrained by many mental strings. MB is free in her essence, not bothering to question herself about whether she is a real woman. No one is a real woman, not even biological women, in the sense that femininity is construed, invented, and is as much the product of its creator as it is in the eye of the beholder. MB does not need a sex-change, because she incarnates her imagined woman.
There are many poetic moments in the film, but there were two high such moments for me. The gambuzinos' hunt in the forest and the tableau vivant of Tonia, her boyfriend, MB, Paulinha and the doctor, resting on a tree trunk surrounded by the red of the night and listening to that song that came from everywhere and nowhere. Was it Antony, from Antony and the Johnsons? Maybe not, but it was close. I think there should be a film about MB, she is ripe for it. I hope she'll invite me to come and sing a song. Ah, me and MB, it would be a riot!
Then there is the last scene, with Tonia singing at her funeral, with Lisbon in the back, the buildings, the cars, and the red-dusk bridge over the river Tejo, with its two arches like the breasts Tonia had to give away.
The film was so sad it felt like singing all the time. And indeed it reads also as a musical, with the songs of António Variações and Marco Paulo providing most of the soundtrack; songs that the characters sing themselves on the road to their destiny. I also go through life singing. There is nothing more natural than that.
MB's relation with Paulinha, her maid, her assistant, her pianist, her lover?, made me think of Fassbinder's Petra Von Kant. It had the same qualities of dominance and submission, dependence and betrayal. After all, where would MB be without Paulinha? And what would Paulinha do if MB started to treat her right? The director said he studied Fassbinder and that there where elements of the German director's cinematography in his own films, but the Petra Von Kant thing had not been intentional, it was just me adding another layer of interpretation to the film. Yep, that's what viewers do too!
There was someone behind me who said to someone beside him that all Portuguese are crazy, that we are cut off from the rest of Europe, that we have nothing in common. But the themes explored in this film, apart from being universal, are very European. It deals with the quest for identity in general and gender identity in particular, with tragic love in the best classical Greek tradition, with the role of women as the initiators of mankind into the world of dreams and mysteries. Le féminin sacré; sacré féminin!
I loved seeing Maria Bakker (alwyas double K!) in the film. MB became a character à part entière, bravo! I wonder where the German quotations came from. Was it Schiele? Gonçalo Ferreira de Almeida, the actor playing MB, was for many years the flatmate of my former lover, Zé Manuel. I met him many times in their flat surrounded by a haze of creative cannabis. MB is his creation and a powerful one. In the film, it made an interesting contrast to the character of Tonia, who, although apparently free to be what she wants to be, is in reality constrained by many mental strings. MB is free in her essence, not bothering to question herself about whether she is a real woman. No one is a real woman, not even biological women, in the sense that femininity is construed, invented, and is as much the product of its creator as it is in the eye of the beholder. MB does not need a sex-change, because she incarnates her imagined woman.
There are many poetic moments in the film, but there were two high such moments for me. The gambuzinos' hunt in the forest and the tableau vivant of Tonia, her boyfriend, MB, Paulinha and the doctor, resting on a tree trunk surrounded by the red of the night and listening to that song that came from everywhere and nowhere. Was it Antony, from Antony and the Johnsons? Maybe not, but it was close. I think there should be a film about MB, she is ripe for it. I hope she'll invite me to come and sing a song. Ah, me and MB, it would be a riot!
Then there is the last scene, with Tonia singing at her funeral, with Lisbon in the back, the buildings, the cars, and the red-dusk bridge over the river Tejo, with its two arches like the breasts Tonia had to give away.
The film was so sad it felt like singing all the time. And indeed it reads also as a musical, with the songs of António Variações and Marco Paulo providing most of the soundtrack; songs that the characters sing themselves on the road to their destiny. I also go through life singing. There is nothing more natural than that.
MB's relation with Paulinha, her maid, her assistant, her pianist, her lover?, made me think of Fassbinder's Petra Von Kant. It had the same qualities of dominance and submission, dependence and betrayal. After all, where would MB be without Paulinha? And what would Paulinha do if MB started to treat her right? The director said he studied Fassbinder and that there where elements of the German director's cinematography in his own films, but the Petra Von Kant thing had not been intentional, it was just me adding another layer of interpretation to the film. Yep, that's what viewers do too!
Friday 23 October 2009
sometimes it snows in April
Today was just that kind of day. I hope you know the song. It's by Prince. If not, listen to it. It's beautiful and kind of sad. Why today? It has to do with the Treaty of Lisbon. Oh, my, now this is becoming a bit of a joke.
But seriously, there will be changes next year that will affect my work, and although I don't risk loosing my job it's hard to tell what I will be doing in say, 6 months time. Since I just started this new job in April this year, and am enjoying it!, I feel a bit cheated by the whole thing, although it was more or less to be expected. But I think the Lisbon Treaty is a good thing for Europe.
Anyway, who said feelings were neat and rational? Nobody. In fact, a bit of snow right now would cheer me up.
But seriously, there will be changes next year that will affect my work, and although I don't risk loosing my job it's hard to tell what I will be doing in say, 6 months time. Since I just started this new job in April this year, and am enjoying it!, I feel a bit cheated by the whole thing, although it was more or less to be expected. But I think the Lisbon Treaty is a good thing for Europe.
Anyway, who said feelings were neat and rational? Nobody. In fact, a bit of snow right now would cheer me up.
Saturday 17 October 2009
I miss the summer
I was standing by the kitchen window and sighed. Georgina asked, Papalu, why did you sigh? and I replied that I was feeling melancholic. What's melancholic? It's a happy kind of saudade. When you miss something with the taste of honey in your mouth. And what do you miss? I miss the summer. You miss the summer, Papalu.
And then I watched the neighbour in the garden across take a yellow bucket with water to rain on her plants. She was wearing a grey dress the colour of her hair. I saw the orange surf board against the garden window of another neighbour in the distance. Our car was still outside the garage in the patio. Black like the cat who comes to stretch on the roof of the garages.
Today he came to get a bit of sunshine on his shimmering coat. We call to him many times and he looks at us with those eyes-of-seeing-through. The leaves are barely autumnal and there's still a slight swing of warmth from the sun in their fading green. Then the cat was gone. Miao.
And then I watched the neighbour in the garden across take a yellow bucket with water to rain on her plants. She was wearing a grey dress the colour of her hair. I saw the orange surf board against the garden window of another neighbour in the distance. Our car was still outside the garage in the patio. Black like the cat who comes to stretch on the roof of the garages.
Today he came to get a bit of sunshine on his shimmering coat. We call to him many times and he looks at us with those eyes-of-seeing-through. The leaves are barely autumnal and there's still a slight swing of warmth from the sun in their fading green. Then the cat was gone. Miao.
Thursday 15 October 2009
Ourania
Ouranos is "le ciel étoilé". Le Clézio's book, which I'm currently reading, is wet like a river. The sentences are like water and they leave you wet. They taste of water. They are so fresh you feel taken by the current of the river.
There is actually a funny story behind this book. I got it for my birthday in 2008 and forgot about it. It was the time Le Clézio had won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Then I took it with me this summer on the plane on my way to Moroni, Comoros. I was going there on a mission to check the political situation. But the book is what matters. I lost it on the plane. I noticed it coming out of the plane in Nairobi. I was enjoying it so much I decided to stay in line for I don't know how long just to make sure that they would find it. They had found no book in French inside my plane. Maybe on the way back from Moroni? The cleaning staff would make sure to keep it safe.
On my way back I again waited for an even longer time to see if the book had been found. No, not really. They had found a Bible, a book in English about fishing, but no book in French, I'm afraid. I guess I felt the way smokers must feel inside a non-smoking flight, anguished, sad. How will I survive all the way from Nairobi to London and then Brussels without my sky with stars, without my river? I survived, but how I missed Ourania on that flight.
And here I am now, savouring again its pages, the language so crystal clear it really feels like water. A cascade of water pouring down inside my head. Ah, it feels good when a book rains all over you!
There is actually a funny story behind this book. I got it for my birthday in 2008 and forgot about it. It was the time Le Clézio had won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Then I took it with me this summer on the plane on my way to Moroni, Comoros. I was going there on a mission to check the political situation. But the book is what matters. I lost it on the plane. I noticed it coming out of the plane in Nairobi. I was enjoying it so much I decided to stay in line for I don't know how long just to make sure that they would find it. They had found no book in French inside my plane. Maybe on the way back from Moroni? The cleaning staff would make sure to keep it safe.
On my way back I again waited for an even longer time to see if the book had been found. No, not really. They had found a Bible, a book in English about fishing, but no book in French, I'm afraid. I guess I felt the way smokers must feel inside a non-smoking flight, anguished, sad. How will I survive all the way from Nairobi to London and then Brussels without my sky with stars, without my river? I survived, but how I missed Ourania on that flight.
And here I am now, savouring again its pages, the language so crystal clear it really feels like water. A cascade of water pouring down inside my head. Ah, it feels good when a book rains all over you!
Saturday 5 September 2009
Keith Haring
We went to Mons today to see the Keith Haring retrospective - a first in Belgium - at the baM (Beaux Arts Mons). I rediscovered Haring after years of oblivion. What I like about him is the obsession with the black line surrounding the drawings, which both confines and liberates meaning, the pure colour, the paint drops reminding you of the movement of the hand and brush across the paper.
The first time I read about him was in 1988. I had just finished my AFS year of studies in Belgium and there was an article about him in a magazine I got as a farewell present. There was a picture of Haring, naked, with his body painted in what I now know is a signature pattern, but at the time it basically reminded me of African and Aboriginal drawings (actually, these are also influences behind Haring's work, so I wasn't too far from the truth). The reason I also liked the picture so much was because I found it sexy.
Haring interests me too, because he was socially engaged and his art his about issues that have also touched my consciousness as I was growing up in the 1980's and the 1990's, the devastation of the AIDS epidemic in particular. He himself would die of AIDS in 1990. Haring also dealt through his painting and artistic interventions with issues such as racism and the scourge of crack cocaine.
I read in the baM catalogue that he dealt with very serious issues in a light and fun way. I agree. But what I also find about his artwork is that he managed to communicate widely, directly and with force to people all over the world. And he was able to create a language all of his own that didn't need to borrow any meaning from the outside world, because his creations were iconic per se. Haring did signature painting, i.e. a style that could be easily identified anywhere it showed.
I learned about Haring's close collaboration and contact with Grace Jones and Madonna, and their shared involvement in New York's underground culture of the early 1980's (I was faraway in Lisbon at the time just being a kid, but also becoming slowly aware of this other world out there). Grace Jones and Madonna, in particular some of their early work, have also left a mark in me.
It's not just the "gay dance floor thing" and the "alternative club scene" that I like (and somehow identify with), which Haring, Jones and Madonna shared, but also the fact that they brought the "New York City street" into that expression, transformed it and made it universally appealing and culturally relevant, despite the negative pop connotation and the criticised mass consumption label. The street reclaimed a voice in the art world through and because of their work. They were counter-culture and the fact that they appealed to so many people did not necessarily make their art less worthy.
This brings me back to Haring. His mass production art, its mass appeal, instead of reducing the value of his artwork, are just constitutive elements of his artistic production. They actually enhance the relevance of what he did, because so much of his paintings is about communicating through symbols, the most ancient and important art form of all, to the widest audience possible. And all artists want to see their emotions and thoughts reach as many people as they can, because art - particularly how we understand it today - is so much about individual expression and its projection in the world. So many of the roots of my own intellectual upbringing lie in there too.
I guess you can tell that all this made the trip to baM and to Mons well worth it!
The first time I read about him was in 1988. I had just finished my AFS year of studies in Belgium and there was an article about him in a magazine I got as a farewell present. There was a picture of Haring, naked, with his body painted in what I now know is a signature pattern, but at the time it basically reminded me of African and Aboriginal drawings (actually, these are also influences behind Haring's work, so I wasn't too far from the truth). The reason I also liked the picture so much was because I found it sexy.
Haring interests me too, because he was socially engaged and his art his about issues that have also touched my consciousness as I was growing up in the 1980's and the 1990's, the devastation of the AIDS epidemic in particular. He himself would die of AIDS in 1990. Haring also dealt through his painting and artistic interventions with issues such as racism and the scourge of crack cocaine.
I read in the baM catalogue that he dealt with very serious issues in a light and fun way. I agree. But what I also find about his artwork is that he managed to communicate widely, directly and with force to people all over the world. And he was able to create a language all of his own that didn't need to borrow any meaning from the outside world, because his creations were iconic per se. Haring did signature painting, i.e. a style that could be easily identified anywhere it showed.
I learned about Haring's close collaboration and contact with Grace Jones and Madonna, and their shared involvement in New York's underground culture of the early 1980's (I was faraway in Lisbon at the time just being a kid, but also becoming slowly aware of this other world out there). Grace Jones and Madonna, in particular some of their early work, have also left a mark in me.
It's not just the "gay dance floor thing" and the "alternative club scene" that I like (and somehow identify with), which Haring, Jones and Madonna shared, but also the fact that they brought the "New York City street" into that expression, transformed it and made it universally appealing and culturally relevant, despite the negative pop connotation and the criticised mass consumption label. The street reclaimed a voice in the art world through and because of their work. They were counter-culture and the fact that they appealed to so many people did not necessarily make their art less worthy.
This brings me back to Haring. His mass production art, its mass appeal, instead of reducing the value of his artwork, are just constitutive elements of his artistic production. They actually enhance the relevance of what he did, because so much of his paintings is about communicating through symbols, the most ancient and important art form of all, to the widest audience possible. And all artists want to see their emotions and thoughts reach as many people as they can, because art - particularly how we understand it today - is so much about individual expression and its projection in the world. So many of the roots of my own intellectual upbringing lie in there too.
I guess you can tell that all this made the trip to baM and to Mons well worth it!
Sunday 30 August 2009
that's not purple, that's mauve!
It's said by of one of the characters in Tony Kushner's play "Angels in America". I saw it first in Lisbon, in Teatro Dona Maria II (When was that? Before 1996, the year I came to live in Brussels). A revelation. Like a miracle. Then I watched it on DVD, directed by Mike Nichols for HBO.
I bought in New York, in a shop in Trump Tower (Was it 5th Avenue? I think so, but I can't remember the year). I couldn't wait to come home and watch it, which I did, the whole 6 hours of it, in one single go, totally enthralled by it and on the verge of tears. The tears did come at some stage.
Later, I will explain why this particular line touched a chord or more. Why I made it the title of my blog. Later. But now at least the origin has been revealed. Wings. Flutter. Trumpet. Wings.
I bought in New York, in a shop in Trump Tower (Was it 5th Avenue? I think so, but I can't remember the year). I couldn't wait to come home and watch it, which I did, the whole 6 hours of it, in one single go, totally enthralled by it and on the verge of tears. The tears did come at some stage.
Later, I will explain why this particular line touched a chord or more. Why I made it the title of my blog. Later. But now at least the origin has been revealed. Wings. Flutter. Trumpet. Wings.
Tuesday 25 August 2009
missing Chicago
I'm here in the office looking at the photo of Chicago. How I miss the joggers along the lake, and the tornado-breeze around the top of the John Hancock Center. And the horse-driven carriages by the Water Tower and me and my daughter going for a ride (with that unfriendly woman-driver who didn't even smile for the photos). I even miss the cars and the cacophony of sounds and fuels.
I miss the vibrancy of summer. Heck, I know winter can be gloomy and frozen on those shores, but I'm talking about the summer here. The summer. Eating glowing red apples and trotting with my ipod down Michigan Avenue. Hushed voices at the Art Institute and a fright in front of those Asian masks that Georgie says look like monsters. And the Fantastic Fountains. Hello Crowne Fountain! Hello Buckingham Fountain! How are you doing today? Let's go and see the clouds travel through the space-age surface of The Bean.
I miss the vertiginous speed and the twang of the mid-western accent. Chicagoans can be real cute. I miss the buzz of the asphalt and that lake. Oh, that lake of golden pure and artificial sandy beaches. I want to be there, just there and nowhere else. It's my kind of town.
I miss the vibrancy of summer. Heck, I know winter can be gloomy and frozen on those shores, but I'm talking about the summer here. The summer. Eating glowing red apples and trotting with my ipod down Michigan Avenue. Hushed voices at the Art Institute and a fright in front of those Asian masks that Georgie says look like monsters. And the Fantastic Fountains. Hello Crowne Fountain! Hello Buckingham Fountain! How are you doing today? Let's go and see the clouds travel through the space-age surface of The Bean.
I miss the vertiginous speed and the twang of the mid-western accent. Chicagoans can be real cute. I miss the buzz of the asphalt and that lake. Oh, that lake of golden pure and artificial sandy beaches. I want to be there, just there and nowhere else. It's my kind of town.
Sunday 23 August 2009
flawless
I came by the library this evening before bed. I looked at the books, rejoicing in their existence. Then came upon that photo of Zé and Guida taken by a friend, Maria João I think, in Rua Augusta, some hundred years ago. They are embracing, and their smiles contain a ton of early sunshine and boundless hope.
It's a black & white photo, eaten at the edges and a bit faded here and there. But it captures the rapture of youth so well that it aches to look at. Zé is posing, but fooling no one about his eagerness to soar, and Guida sports that shy giggle of hers, half-way between regret, mockery and willfulness. They both look flawless. And I love them so much. Both stuck in that photo, like a feeling stuck inside my mind in time. They both look so damn flawless. Like pure emotion. Flawless.
It's a black & white photo, eaten at the edges and a bit faded here and there. But it captures the rapture of youth so well that it aches to look at. Zé is posing, but fooling no one about his eagerness to soar, and Guida sports that shy giggle of hers, half-way between regret, mockery and willfulness. They both look flawless. And I love them so much. Both stuck in that photo, like a feeling stuck inside my mind in time. They both look so damn flawless. Like pure emotion. Flawless.
Wednesday 19 August 2009
KiosK
Lemonade and queijadinhas in Principe Real. Lisbon through a window on the second floor of a building with green doors, blue tiles and stairs smelling of cat's piss.
Buying vegetables at a small mini-market in Rua da Escola Politécnica and chatting with the cashier about how fresh they are and that they came from a friend's horta just outside Lisbon. And seeing the shiny blue of the river in every end of street, and through the veil of our imagined waters; our pregnant eyes. The river is everywhere inside you.
Butterflies fluttering their wings in the Botanical Garden, stepping carefully on flowers of raspberry and thyme and some other flowers that looked blue sometimes and purple other times. More lemonade and queijadinhas at the pink kiosk. People who look like people going nowhere, others going somewhere, others just there. Then rushing to the swings for Georgie and happy chatting with the neighbourhood kids. Like swallows.
It all came easy, like pearls on an elegant neck, like water flowing from a jug in one of those days of green summer breezes blowing leaves on a tall tree. Waking up to the benevolence of the sun-god. Bathing in the warmth, just melting with pleasure. Then strolling down to Chiado, crazy with dust and wind under our wings. At the museum there was a giant beanstalk and we climbed to the clouds. And stayed there, stayed there, stayed there, watching the city below like glass beads around a castle, like droplets of honey skidding on water. Who would ever want to climb down?
Buying vegetables at a small mini-market in Rua da Escola Politécnica and chatting with the cashier about how fresh they are and that they came from a friend's horta just outside Lisbon. And seeing the shiny blue of the river in every end of street, and through the veil of our imagined waters; our pregnant eyes. The river is everywhere inside you.
Butterflies fluttering their wings in the Botanical Garden, stepping carefully on flowers of raspberry and thyme and some other flowers that looked blue sometimes and purple other times. More lemonade and queijadinhas at the pink kiosk. People who look like people going nowhere, others going somewhere, others just there. Then rushing to the swings for Georgie and happy chatting with the neighbourhood kids. Like swallows.
It all came easy, like pearls on an elegant neck, like water flowing from a jug in one of those days of green summer breezes blowing leaves on a tall tree. Waking up to the benevolence of the sun-god. Bathing in the warmth, just melting with pleasure. Then strolling down to Chiado, crazy with dust and wind under our wings. At the museum there was a giant beanstalk and we climbed to the clouds. And stayed there, stayed there, stayed there, watching the city below like glass beads around a castle, like droplets of honey skidding on water. Who would ever want to climb down?
Monday 3 August 2009
hair
My mother used to straighten my hair when I was a child. She used the hair-dryer and a roll-brush to make it all smooth and white. Like white. Roll. Pull. Roll. Pull. Pat a cake. I later learned how to do it myself. I learned how to be afraid of rain because it curled it all up again. I learned how to be afraid of damp and humid weather because the blackness came back into my hair.
One day, I was in Luanda on holidays and, I must have been around 16 or something, I tried on some hair gel at my aunt's place. My hair went frizzy in the space of a second. My long, smooth, white hair, went black. I got into a panic. I begged my mother to take me home to the safety of my hair-dryer and my roll-brush. Otherwise, I refused to face the world. When I was 17, I used my mother's "chemical bomb" to straighten my hair. It left in its wake a smell of rotten eggs, but my hair looked so white I couldn't hide the smile. My hair was so white, my mother would be proud. One of my friends said I looked like George Michael, I almost swooned.
I have hair no more, and I feel cheated. I don't care that I'm bald, but I'm finally proud of my curls and would like to show them off, to parade them in bold strokes of orange and blue. My blackness multicoloured, just like I am. Roll. Pull. Roll. Pull. So much work of hands. Such waste of beauty. My curls!
Today, as I braided my daughter's hair, I felt the joy of her hair invade me. It's long and coarse. It's rough and tender. It's full of attitude. I'm becoming a pro! I braid and I braid and I braid. And in each of her braids there is one of my curls. Hidden inside, there it is, curling up pretty, like the hair of an angel. In each of her braids there is orange and blue. There is blackness. Blackness proud and shimmering. Like a scintillating, brilliant, shining precious gem, my daughter's hair is teaching me proud. And I want her proud too.
One day, I was in Luanda on holidays and, I must have been around 16 or something, I tried on some hair gel at my aunt's place. My hair went frizzy in the space of a second. My long, smooth, white hair, went black. I got into a panic. I begged my mother to take me home to the safety of my hair-dryer and my roll-brush. Otherwise, I refused to face the world. When I was 17, I used my mother's "chemical bomb" to straighten my hair. It left in its wake a smell of rotten eggs, but my hair looked so white I couldn't hide the smile. My hair was so white, my mother would be proud. One of my friends said I looked like George Michael, I almost swooned.
I have hair no more, and I feel cheated. I don't care that I'm bald, but I'm finally proud of my curls and would like to show them off, to parade them in bold strokes of orange and blue. My blackness multicoloured, just like I am. Roll. Pull. Roll. Pull. So much work of hands. Such waste of beauty. My curls!
Today, as I braided my daughter's hair, I felt the joy of her hair invade me. It's long and coarse. It's rough and tender. It's full of attitude. I'm becoming a pro! I braid and I braid and I braid. And in each of her braids there is one of my curls. Hidden inside, there it is, curling up pretty, like the hair of an angel. In each of her braids there is orange and blue. There is blackness. Blackness proud and shimmering. Like a scintillating, brilliant, shining precious gem, my daughter's hair is teaching me proud. And I want her proud too.
Tuesday 2 June 2009
dislocated
I have a foot inside my mouth and a tree growing beside my ear. My eyes are petals, my trunk a chest. I feel dislocated. Went to Lisbon this weekend and saw my cousins and saw my friends. I wonder what to say, how to sound rooted, how to connect. Sometimes I know. Sometimes I feel like I'm floating, roots uprooted, a plant outside a vase, hungry for soil, happy to be in mid-air. I don't know how to talk to people I don't know. Is this new or was I always this way?
Do I care what they think? Do I still? I guess I do. I feel embarrassed, I search the words, I want to be nice, just right, not too nice, not too eager to please. I don't care so much what they think, I don't, I really don't. But I always wonder. Why is it that I don't know where I fit? I have a leg inside my ear. My tongue is licking my elbow.
I wish I knew how to speak without saying anything. Language leaves me in silence. I swim for words, like life. The sort of wisdom I only see glimpses of when I wake up happy in the morning, or when I make love without constraints. New people make me shy. They intimidate me. They think many things about me. Some are right, many are wrong. I feel unsure of where I am, where I want to be, where I wish I'll be.
Lisbon confuses me. It rains emotions into my roots, it dries my cheeks, it turns me upside down. Lisbon leaves me breathless, feeling awkward. Alone. It makes me want to be loved. I care about hugs and kisses. I care about bosoms and shoulders. The sky in Lisbon is very raw so it is difficult not to look, like a wound. I'm dislocated. Dislocated. Dislocated. With an arm pressing my crotch. Afraid of being unloved. And missing it so terribly, like blood, or a piece of my soul.
Do I care what they think? Do I still? I guess I do. I feel embarrassed, I search the words, I want to be nice, just right, not too nice, not too eager to please. I don't care so much what they think, I don't, I really don't. But I always wonder. Why is it that I don't know where I fit? I have a leg inside my ear. My tongue is licking my elbow.
I wish I knew how to speak without saying anything. Language leaves me in silence. I swim for words, like life. The sort of wisdom I only see glimpses of when I wake up happy in the morning, or when I make love without constraints. New people make me shy. They intimidate me. They think many things about me. Some are right, many are wrong. I feel unsure of where I am, where I want to be, where I wish I'll be.
Lisbon confuses me. It rains emotions into my roots, it dries my cheeks, it turns me upside down. Lisbon leaves me breathless, feeling awkward. Alone. It makes me want to be loved. I care about hugs and kisses. I care about bosoms and shoulders. The sky in Lisbon is very raw so it is difficult not to look, like a wound. I'm dislocated. Dislocated. Dislocated. With an arm pressing my crotch. Afraid of being unloved. And missing it so terribly, like blood, or a piece of my soul.
Friday 22 May 2009
a mercy
I just finished reading "A Mercy", by Toni Morrison. I loved the book, the poetry of Florens, the hope in Sorrow's wanderings, the hard love of Lina. In a society of slaves, everybody is a slave because enslaved by owning and being owned. True freedom comes from within and it is what makes us human.
Of course, I could not resist the a minha mãe of the first pages. My language there, so ripe to be harvested, at the cusp of my fingers. Irresistable! Toni Morrison is a Nobel-prize winner of course. Nothing strange about that. She writes like pulsating rivers, her words are alive inside your heart before you know it. You don't breeth, you just follow.
I still remember her powerful, luminous photo that I saw at the American portrait gallery in Washington D.C. in October 2007. The small room, the emptiness of people. Just me and my words. She rised beautiful like an ox made of light, and love, and wisdom. Her braids were coated in white sugar, you could almost smell her hair. I could have looked at her photo forever. Am still carrying that photo around with me. Can you hear me? O teu leitor.
Of course, I could not resist the a minha mãe of the first pages. My language there, so ripe to be harvested, at the cusp of my fingers. Irresistable! Toni Morrison is a Nobel-prize winner of course. Nothing strange about that. She writes like pulsating rivers, her words are alive inside your heart before you know it. You don't breeth, you just follow.
I still remember her powerful, luminous photo that I saw at the American portrait gallery in Washington D.C. in October 2007. The small room, the emptiness of people. Just me and my words. She rised beautiful like an ox made of light, and love, and wisdom. Her braids were coated in white sugar, you could almost smell her hair. I could have looked at her photo forever. Am still carrying that photo around with me. Can you hear me? O teu leitor.
Thursday 16 April 2009
my cousins
My cousins are blue and pink. My cousins are red and yellow. My cousins are colours, a thousand different flags flying in the wind. My cousins are fat and slim. They have fat arms to embrace you, and long fingers to caress you. They have lips that sing with kisses. My cousins burst out laughing while eating cake with their mouths. Their eyes are brown and purple.
My cousins live in London. They bake cakes all day long. I love their cakes. My cousins have wings instead of arms. I met them this Easter after many years with no seeing. My daughter wanted to stay over in London. Brussels looks so empty without my cousins. Where are my cousins? They should be here around the corner, down the road, up the stream. Their bosoms are like feathers. My cousins. Where are my cousins? They keep a furnace inside their hearts.
My cousins. They are chocolate and honey. They are vanilla and cinnamon. My cousins are made of sugar and milk. They were born in Angola. Just like me. One of my cousins was a caterpillar and is now becoming a butterfly, transitioning into a woman after being born male. My cousins have love on their fingertips. They give love and laugh while eating cake with their mouths, drinking coffee with their lips. They dance with their hips. Just like me. My London cousins.
My cousins live in London. They bake cakes all day long. I love their cakes. My cousins have wings instead of arms. I met them this Easter after many years with no seeing. My daughter wanted to stay over in London. Brussels looks so empty without my cousins. Where are my cousins? They should be here around the corner, down the road, up the stream. Their bosoms are like feathers. My cousins. Where are my cousins? They keep a furnace inside their hearts.
My cousins. They are chocolate and honey. They are vanilla and cinnamon. My cousins are made of sugar and milk. They were born in Angola. Just like me. One of my cousins was a caterpillar and is now becoming a butterfly, transitioning into a woman after being born male. My cousins have love on their fingertips. They give love and laugh while eating cake with their mouths, drinking coffee with their lips. They dance with their hips. Just like me. My London cousins.
the letter
I got a present today. Three presents really. Two records and one letter. What touched me the most was the letter. It takes time to write a letter. It takes even more time to write a beautiful letter. That is the present I cherish the most. The time spent writing those words on paper. The lines of words like blue waves on a sea of white.
A letter is a precious gift today. The music is good for the soul, but a beautiful letter helps to save the soul. Thank you Gonçalo and Manuel. I will keep your letter inside the box of my heart, where it heaves and soothes.
A letter is a precious gift today. The music is good for the soul, but a beautiful letter helps to save the soul. Thank you Gonçalo and Manuel. I will keep your letter inside the box of my heart, where it heaves and soothes.
Sunday 22 March 2009
the hawk in the morning
Suburban Sundays in Ixelles, our neighbourhood in Brussels, wake up to the sound of little birds hopping in the trees and cars leaving with daddies and mommies to the golf course somewhere in Flanders. I guess, because I have never been there and I hate golf anyway. But today there were white feathers flying in circles by the garage doors. It looked like snow, but in April? I know that Prince sings that song I love, and makes me cry, "sometimes it snows in April", but still.
The dead pigeon was lying with bowed head and stiff legs in the middle of the pavement. And then, and then, the hawk came just out of the blue. It landed like a bomb. It took some more feathers away with its beak. Sunday was transformed. "Sunday, bloody Sunday", by the Irish band U2. That's how a suburban Sunday in Brussels can turn into a feast of raw nature.
I will never look again at the trimmed gardens of my neighbours with the same feeling of beatific awe. The hawk was beautiful, so was the pigeon by the way. No distinction of class, mind you, I tend towards equality, at least in terms of worth. The hawk had yellow eyes and strong feathery legs. The pigeon was all in tones of white, and gray, and blue, and beige. And its feathers twirled like snow in the morning cold of Sunday.
The dead pigeon was lying with bowed head and stiff legs in the middle of the pavement. And then, and then, the hawk came just out of the blue. It landed like a bomb. It took some more feathers away with its beak. Sunday was transformed. "Sunday, bloody Sunday", by the Irish band U2. That's how a suburban Sunday in Brussels can turn into a feast of raw nature.
I will never look again at the trimmed gardens of my neighbours with the same feeling of beatific awe. The hawk was beautiful, so was the pigeon by the way. No distinction of class, mind you, I tend towards equality, at least in terms of worth. The hawk had yellow eyes and strong feathery legs. The pigeon was all in tones of white, and gray, and blue, and beige. And its feathers twirled like snow in the morning cold of Sunday.
Tuesday 17 March 2009
34 hours of sunlight
I read in La Libre Belgique that we had 34 hours of sunlight in February this year. The average is 89 hours. This was the lowest amount of sunlight since the creation of Belgium in 1830, the year they started mesuring these things. No wonder I felt under a spell in sunny Rome.
Friday 13 March 2009
the seagull and the ice-cream
I was all week in Rome for a course on European Defense Policy. I had been to Rome before, but a beautiful town allows itself to be discovered all over again. I went to the Pantheon, and this time I was able to get inside. I could forget the crowds if I just focused on that blue circle of sky floating up there in the dome. Then I saw a seagull fly by. Tomas, one of my colleagues from the course, took me to Giolliti for an ice-cream late in the evening. It's his favourite place in Rome. There is one franchise in Seoul, South-Korea too. The place was almost empty, apart from a few tables with kids, and a young couple, silently, devoutly, eating big ice-cream cones. I had mora (blueberry) for the first time in my life and can still feel the taste. It was tender and cold, dark purple and spicy. It had stars somewhere in the middle and they tickled my throat. I would wrap my tongue around it and dream of the seagull crossing the blue-eye of the Pantheon's dome. My week in Rome condensed to a magic flavour and a circle of light.
Sunday 8 March 2009
it's your day
I'm the father of a daughter. Today is Woman's Day. Georgie is now three and a half; one day she will be a woman. It is my day too. My single wish is for my daughter to grow into a person, in a world of persons. As Antony, that wonderful composer and singer, says in one of his songs, "one day I'll grow old; I'll be a beautiful woman". Happy Woman's Day to all of us.
Wednesday 4 March 2009
you taste of honey
I took Georgie, my daughter, to school this morning. We rode the usual tram, number 24. Georgie likes this tram because the seats are high. She licked my hand and said I tasted good, like honey. Georgie sometimes likes to pretend she is a little kitten. I kissed her forehead and said she tasted pretty. And then we just held our hands and watched the world go by. And it felt so peaceful, so natural, so true, like the world should be in the morning, before the rain hits the ground, before the wind bends the trees.
It was raining when we got to school. It smelled of moist earth, of traffic jams, of dust and water. And honey, and pretty too, of course. Our fragrant skins.
It was raining when we got to school. It smelled of moist earth, of traffic jams, of dust and water. And honey, and pretty too, of course. Our fragrant skins.
Tuesday 3 March 2009
ten years without touching the ground
Young albatrosses can stay up to ten years without touching solid ground, just flying up there in the air. They can spend some six hours without flapping their wings, riding the currents. I guess I will always envy birds for being able to fly, at least most of them.
When I was a teenager I used to have these recurring dreams about flying. They felt so real. Apparently, many people have the same kind of dreams during adolescence. It has to do with wanting to be independent, literally wishing to fly away from your parents' nest. It may well be so. But I just wanted the exhilarating feeling of spreading my arms and going up in the sky. Maybe all teenagers are albatrosses in disguise.
When I was a teenager I used to have these recurring dreams about flying. They felt so real. Apparently, many people have the same kind of dreams during adolescence. It has to do with wanting to be independent, literally wishing to fly away from your parents' nest. It may well be so. But I just wanted the exhilarating feeling of spreading my arms and going up in the sky. Maybe all teenagers are albatrosses in disguise.
Wednesday 25 February 2009
the view from Tel Aviv
Yonatan came to Brussels today. The usual round of meetings, but we managed to find some time to see each other (what, was it two years since last time?). Georgie, my daughter, must have been 10 months or so at the time. We still have a couple of pictures of the two of them posing in the kitchen; Yonatan has that wide smile of his. The funny thing is that Georgie found the photos just last week while browsing iPhoto in the computer and asked me about "him". And then, a few days later we got a phone call from Yonatan, still in Tel Aviv, saying that he would be in Brussels this Wednesday.
My, was he surprised with how much Georgie had grown since then, and how much she is able to talk! Georgie couldn't stop kissing his leg, which was cute to watch. Yonatan must have made a big impression. In fact, anybody with a connection to her "baby days" makes a big impression on Georgie, I have noticed.
We asked him about what it was like to be in Tel Aviv when the madness in Gaza was going on. He told us about the fear of the rockets fired by Hamas, even though they never hit Tel Aviv. "Everybody knows someone in the south, and although the chances of the rockets hitting someone are minimal, you worry for the people you know". His partner went down south for a few days and Yonatan was worried for him. He also told us how people in Israel seem to have hardened their views on armed conflict with the Palestinians and how there seems to be an impenetrable consensus on the need to be tough, and that "they deserve it".
War is chilling. It made me think how hard it is to reconcile humanity with the ugliness of war, when you are in the middle of it, when you can't really distance yourself from it, when it isn't some faraway conflict that you read about in the news. How hard it must be to keep your sense of nuance and balance when you are part of it. Yonatan sounded disillusioned.
I admire him for keeping on trying to find that nuance, for questioning the "truths" from all sides, for being able to talk about it without shrugging it off. I don't feel very optimistic myself about peace in the region. Stubborn as we humans are, it will take a few more generations of suffering for people to realise that they have more in common than what sets them apart. Look at us in Europe and all the wars it took us to come to this simple conclusion; and all the effort it still takes to make sure we don't go back to our old ways.
When Yonatan left, he asked us when we are planning to visit. We told him that Israel was definitely in our travel plans; maybe when Georgie is a bit older. I wonder if he believed us, but we meant it. One day we will be coming around to see Tel Aviv, the bauhaus city, "the bubble". What happens there is so much more real because we know Yonatan; geography is really made of people and emotions, no matter what.
My, was he surprised with how much Georgie had grown since then, and how much she is able to talk! Georgie couldn't stop kissing his leg, which was cute to watch. Yonatan must have made a big impression. In fact, anybody with a connection to her "baby days" makes a big impression on Georgie, I have noticed.
We asked him about what it was like to be in Tel Aviv when the madness in Gaza was going on. He told us about the fear of the rockets fired by Hamas, even though they never hit Tel Aviv. "Everybody knows someone in the south, and although the chances of the rockets hitting someone are minimal, you worry for the people you know". His partner went down south for a few days and Yonatan was worried for him. He also told us how people in Israel seem to have hardened their views on armed conflict with the Palestinians and how there seems to be an impenetrable consensus on the need to be tough, and that "they deserve it".
War is chilling. It made me think how hard it is to reconcile humanity with the ugliness of war, when you are in the middle of it, when you can't really distance yourself from it, when it isn't some faraway conflict that you read about in the news. How hard it must be to keep your sense of nuance and balance when you are part of it. Yonatan sounded disillusioned.
I admire him for keeping on trying to find that nuance, for questioning the "truths" from all sides, for being able to talk about it without shrugging it off. I don't feel very optimistic myself about peace in the region. Stubborn as we humans are, it will take a few more generations of suffering for people to realise that they have more in common than what sets them apart. Look at us in Europe and all the wars it took us to come to this simple conclusion; and all the effort it still takes to make sure we don't go back to our old ways.
When Yonatan left, he asked us when we are planning to visit. We told him that Israel was definitely in our travel plans; maybe when Georgie is a bit older. I wonder if he believed us, but we meant it. One day we will be coming around to see Tel Aviv, the bauhaus city, "the bubble". What happens there is so much more real because we know Yonatan; geography is really made of people and emotions, no matter what.
Monday 23 February 2009
Butterfly
This morning my daughter, who is three and a half, told me that when she grows up she wants to be a butterfly. Why? I asked. So that I can fly, was her answer. It all sounds beautiful to me.
Gypsie like me
Tonight I watched one of Todd Stephens' early films, "Gypsy 83". I was already a fan of his more famous Edge of Seventeen. What I liked about Gypsy was the predictable "road-movie" story-line, the missing mother, the gothic makeup, the make-belief so simple, yet so true, in those big American trashy side-of-the-road places where it is both beautiful and incongruous to watch a couple of kids dancing to The Cure in velvety outfits.
I was a Gypsy myself, growing up in Rinchoa, near Lisbon, Portugal, which could be another god-forsaken place somewhere in Ohio, just like in the film. I too stood in front of the mirror dabbing colours onto my face, tracing my lips with red and working my eyes into storms of purple and blue. I too danced away in the middle of the night and hoped to be rescued. I too was a runway. Still am in so many ways. Still running away from Rinchoa, its working-class smugness, its middle-class pretentions, its end-of-the-day boredom. But it is all part of me, and I cherish it too, in a twisted kind of way. Without my memories of Rinchoa there is nothing to run away from and that is what keeps me going.
Gypsy awoke the teenage in me. I could feel him stirring. I will go in front of the mirror tonight and put some makeup on and jive. So good to know this is all still here. Ah, I almost forgot how nice it was to hear Stevie Nicks singing again "Talk to Me". I had forgotten all about it, those afternoons listening to the radio at home after school in the 1980's. "Talk to me, When you are down now, Talk to me".
I was a Gypsy myself, growing up in Rinchoa, near Lisbon, Portugal, which could be another god-forsaken place somewhere in Ohio, just like in the film. I too stood in front of the mirror dabbing colours onto my face, tracing my lips with red and working my eyes into storms of purple and blue. I too danced away in the middle of the night and hoped to be rescued. I too was a runway. Still am in so many ways. Still running away from Rinchoa, its working-class smugness, its middle-class pretentions, its end-of-the-day boredom. But it is all part of me, and I cherish it too, in a twisted kind of way. Without my memories of Rinchoa there is nothing to run away from and that is what keeps me going.
Gypsy awoke the teenage in me. I could feel him stirring. I will go in front of the mirror tonight and put some makeup on and jive. So good to know this is all still here. Ah, I almost forgot how nice it was to hear Stevie Nicks singing again "Talk to Me". I had forgotten all about it, those afternoons listening to the radio at home after school in the 1980's. "Talk to me, When you are down now, Talk to me".
Saturday 21 February 2009
one cinema and two films a day
This evening Julia came for dinner all the way from Pristina in Kosovo. She told us that there is one cinema in town, that it shows two films per day. She saw a good Albanian film the other day. I wondered if she was learning the language. Not really, she said, the film had subtitles, in English. I use my free time, Julia continued, to go to the gym, to keep fit, physically and mentally.
I told her I had been to the English Cinema in Vienna when I was there in January. I didn't tell her the film I watched. She didn't ask. It was "Seven Pounds" with Will Smith. I sort of liked it. I sort of felt it was too corny to be good. I couldn't stop crying when it ended. I felt so sad, alone in Vienna, going to my hotel in the cold, with my new leather gloves and my new leather boots from a top-fashion store.
I wonder if Julia feels lonely in Pristina? She says there are no parks for walking. How do you live in a town without parks? I guess she has more friends now. The internationals, it figures. I'm happy for her. It is hard to be an expatriate. I know it myself after 12 odd years of Brussels. I don't have a lot of time to go to the cinema here, mais bon, there is always so much to do at home anyway. I go to the cinema when I'm on mission.
I told her I had been to the English Cinema in Vienna when I was there in January. I didn't tell her the film I watched. She didn't ask. It was "Seven Pounds" with Will Smith. I sort of liked it. I sort of felt it was too corny to be good. I couldn't stop crying when it ended. I felt so sad, alone in Vienna, going to my hotel in the cold, with my new leather gloves and my new leather boots from a top-fashion store.
I wonder if Julia feels lonely in Pristina? She says there are no parks for walking. How do you live in a town without parks? I guess she has more friends now. The internationals, it figures. I'm happy for her. It is hard to be an expatriate. I know it myself after 12 odd years of Brussels. I don't have a lot of time to go to the cinema here, mais bon, there is always so much to do at home anyway. I go to the cinema when I'm on mission.
my house with a porch
Today I dreamed again of my house with a porch, in Chicago. It has to be the right porch, all around the house, with creaking woods and a lovely shade. I should be able to see Lake Michigan while sitting on a rocking chair sipping a cup of green tea. I should be able to hear the laughter mixed with the waves, smell the water, and even feel a couple of sand grains beneath my teeth. I dream of a house with a porch in Chicago, that place I miss so much and which my daughter reminds me of every day.
I have never had a house with a porch, though I know I must have, because the memory is so intense. I suppose that is true saudade. One day I will grow old and I will have a house with a porch, by the lake, in Chicago. I will sail flags from its corners, and hail neighbours from the door, my daughter will play on the steps and I will watch her go to school. I don't feel sorry because I don't have a house with a porch in Chicago. The dream keeps me company. A dream can be fancied like clouds moving in the sky with the wind. It comes and goes with the tide. My house full of dreams, surrounded by a porch, by the lake, around the corner, in Chicago. The town where my daughter was born.
I have never had a house with a porch, though I know I must have, because the memory is so intense. I suppose that is true saudade. One day I will grow old and I will have a house with a porch, by the lake, in Chicago. I will sail flags from its corners, and hail neighbours from the door, my daughter will play on the steps and I will watch her go to school. I don't feel sorry because I don't have a house with a porch in Chicago. The dream keeps me company. A dream can be fancied like clouds moving in the sky with the wind. It comes and goes with the tide. My house full of dreams, surrounded by a porch, by the lake, around the corner, in Chicago. The town where my daughter was born.
Sunday 15 February 2009
Finally!
My first post. Nothing special you will say, pourtant, it has been a long time in the making and it's here, finally!
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