Tough call

Sometimes I like to wander the streets of the small town where I live with no specific purpose (and it can be fascinating to watch how people live the same life every day), same way as I like to write with no guiding idea.

I wanted to write about Batman and cakes because I like both of these entities, although the latter stimulate me more than the former (I think... given the choice between the perfect cake and the perfect Bale, I'm not so sure, but anyway). I like Batman because (surprise,surprise) he has no particular superpower. He's a man who perfected himself. The latest Batman, which I saw a couple of days ago, is great because of Heath Ledger, because of Christian Bale taking his shirt off and ... aaah.... I guess that's it. However, if we think of books such as 'Becoming Batman', by a guy called E. Paul Zehr, who apparently is an American professor, and which explore the extent to which an ordinary man could actually develop the skills of the Batman, then you kind of wonder if the character is not a little bit more interesting than it seems. For some people, it definitely seems to be, like this Zehr professor. According to Zehr (or to an article I read about his book), the only thing that is not very realistic is that Batman can fight 10 or more men in the movies. In real life, we could only take on about 2 or 3. But if a man with the resources of Bruce Wayne actually existed and if he had the predisposition of training for seven years and if he were to fight only 2 or 3 men at a time, then there you go, the world would be blessed with a Batman.

Ah, and cakes, of course. Buying a perfectly rounded, creamy Berlim Ball when you're lying in the sun listening to the sea where you've just swam is a great memory from childhood that I try to reenact as much as I can.

Now I'm left wondering. Same way as Kundera, that wonderful philosophical writer who indeed is the guardian of the ultimate truth (or so his books would have us believe, since they are so appropriate for that kind of coffee-shop philosophy that not even Paulo Coelho would dare), wondered whether we have to choose between the lighteness and the weight, I need to choose between the Berlim Ball and the Bale. Which will it be, which will it be...