'Either this wallpaper goes, or I do'

Apparently, these were Oscar Wilde's last words, or so the Observer's 'little book of genius', tells me. The reason I like this so much is because they depict a man with humour even when he dies. Even at the time when people are supposed to be either pensive or cynical, Oscar Wilde was fun. It is a tremendus achievement to leave this world with a smile or with a wink, instead of what so many people regard as best, with dignity.

Because maybe humour is the ultimate illustration of dignity.

The accident

It took me 29 and a half years to go to a proper demonstration, and that was by accident, two days ago. I'm back in Greece for a few days and I was asked to go to the general march that was happening the other day. The issue is simple: pension plans. The government wants to change things and the workers disagree. (There is a reason why I don't write political/social posts, it's because I suck when I try to explain such things. But whatever.)

So government says: you need to work more years and the trade unions say fuck you. Kind of.

My friends were on strike and were going to the demonstration, and I went as well. When I come back to Greece I don't have anything to do really, so I follow my friends around. The demonstration was big, like a party, or as d/a said, like the carnival of Patras: every trade union had its own banner and guy in front who was yelling slogans. People were repeating them, sometimes. The atmosphere was nice. Not exceptionally revolutionary, but nice.

What made an impression on me was the heterogeneity of the crowd: young goths, young kids from the suburbs, young trendy guys with nice glasses, older men with Palestinian scarfs and long hair and 50-year old women with big dyed red hair (Greece's trademark) and big glasses. I liked that, I liked that a lot. I want to be one of them when I grow up. I want to get my friends and go to a demonstration, instead of just going to the hairdressers'. I am not sure if I care enough about what the demonstration is about. As long as it is against the mainstream, it's cool. I'd obviously like to demonstrate for aesthetic reasons, like against dyed red hair for example, but that is not so important. The most important thing is to demonstrate. Until you're 50, 60 or 70.

The disillusionment

People make choices and they have to live with them, most of the times. I've made choices too. Usually I like them, and I stick to them. One of my choices is hard and I thought that I would stick to it. And then I changed my mind and started moving to the opposite direction. And I made myself believe that my new choice is the right one. And I hoped for things to happen so that my second choice would be fulfilled. But now I am not so sure anymore.

Because life is as confusing as this post (and then some).

Because choices are made for a reason.

Hasta Siempre Comandante Che Guevara

Seguiremos adelante como junto a ti seguimos y con Cuba te decimos: hasta siempre Comandante.
Aquí se queda la clara, la entrañable transparencia, de tu querida presencia Comandante Che Guevara.

I like El Che because he is my Don Quixote. This is not my line, by the way – I saw it once in an exhibition I’ve seen at the Victoria&Albert about Che as an icon. It was a very enlightening exhibition – I learnt that there was an edition of Magnum ice-cream based on Che Guevara that claimed that the cherries of the ice-cream were being oppressed by the layers of chocolate surrounding them and therefore we had to set them free by eating the said icre-cream. Cherry Guevara, I believe it was called.
This does of course border the ridicule – I’m sure that Che would turn in its noble grave if he had had the opportunity of seeing his name so crudely associated with the selling of candy and the fight for freedom so ridiculed by the comparison with the oppressed cherries. But the ice-cream story does exemplify the commercial icon he has become.
However, his figure and his strong eyes remain as the image of resistance and struggle for what it is right. The Korda photograph (Korda himself bears having his name repeated – he never tried to make money out of his extraordinary photograph because he wanted to honour El Che and only claimed copyright when big corporations like Coca-Cola and Absolut tried to use Guevara’s image to make money) is the image of what happens to you when you have realistic dreams you pursue no matter what. Che Guevara was afflicted by severe asthma and when involved in guerrillas in the middle of nowhere it is extremely hard to find medication to alleviate the cloud that invades your chest and does not let you breathe; still, he persisted. He had children, to whom he wrote letters with the beautiful piece of advice of “do not forget to be good revolutionaries and be kind to your mother”. These are the words of a good man. A man that, when a gun was being pointed at him and death was nigh, said “get on with it, you’re only killing a man”. Ouch.
It is well known that Guevara was not a saint. He was at war. He killed and got killed. But to me that does not change the fact that he was a good man on the right side of history. And I personally get comfort out of knowing there was and are people like that around because when everything else falls apart or fades away (and so many, many things in our life sadly do), this remains - la querida presencia d’el Comandante Che Guevara (and others like him).

Blast from the past

D/a wrote a lovely post, entitled 'letting go' that deserves to be read. It was an early draft abd can be now found under January.

Hallo Kitty's best of 2007, included Fatih Akin's ;edge of heaven'. I just saw it and I have to agree, the movie is fantastic, reminded me of 'habla con ella' somehow. I will write something more about it soon. Until then, look for it in a cinema near you.

Madame Bovary is in us all

When I first started this blog, Youkali proposed that I write something about her. But I hadn't met her yet. My friend CK had also told me to read this book, too. So after stealing it from a Topshop with Youkali (long story) or as another friend said "I rescued the book from being a stupid decor in a stupid shop", I finally read it.

I am usually crap with classic books, I find them too boring and outdated, and eventually I never finish them. But Madame Bovary was great. It would not be advisable for me to enumerate the benefits of the book. It suffices to say that it is a book about boredom where everything is slow and unimportant but it manages to be... erm... a page turner?

My biggest disagreement about MB is that, contrary to what CK thinks, I think that she is not hysterical. I find it thoroughly unimpressive if this is a book about a person with a personality disorder. I don't care about this book, if the story of this woman cannot be generalized. Even if she is hysterical, this is not the point. The point is how people can become hysterical in such situations. Emma Bovary is a woman who leads an unimportant existence, she is married with a man she does not love and has a child she never manages to love. She has no job and no interests in life either. She reads some books and cares about decorating and being fashionable, but not with intensity. She only does that to kill her time.

She takes up one lover after the other and debts accumulate but without any change in her. She is not affected by the love she (never manages to) share with these men or by the beauty that surrounds her. She is an empty woman and stays like that. She dies empty, having committed suicide like the ultimate drama queen.

And the circle of emptiness goes on.

The delay

So many movies, so little time...
So many books, so little time...

I have read Madame Bovary and loved it and still I cannot find time to write a post to do justice to it.
I have seen la vie en rose and loved it and still I cannot find time to write a post to do justice to it.

Ah, modern life, it leaves us no time to enjoy art and contemplate about it...