Before Midnight, or romance for real

Finally got to see "before midnight" last night. For the uninitiated this is the third movie of the Linklater - Delpy - Hawke love triangle that started 18 years ago in Vienna, continued 9 years ago in Paris and now finds generation X's favourite couple in Greece, married with twins, exploring for the first time a different kind of love: not the "once in a lifetime" love of the first movie, not the "lucky second strike" love of the second movie, but the "love for real" that normal people, with normal love stories have to face, day in - day out.

This is the kind of love that people warn you about, the kind of love that gets you every day, with the good things and the bad things, the kind of love that makes you "wipe the pee off the toilet seat" and see your loved one naked, imperfect, boring, part of reality. They said that this movie was about the "melancholy of commitment" and I guess one couldn't have hit the nail in the head better.

What happens after the fairy tale ends, people ask, after Snow white gets the Prince and so on... With the danger of sounding terribly cliché, the answer is, life happens... Life takes over and fairy tales are put to the test. And I guess for the not-20-somethings-anymore among us, that's the question, at least this has been the one for me: how will we fare differently, us, the clever educated free self-conscious generation that does not have the constraints of our parents. How will we do? Will we all divorce? Will we manage? How will it be?

Jesse and Celine's answer is that we will manage, of course we will, but not without a small sad look in our eyes. Not without a pain in the heart, not without bruises. You manage to go through life but you really must "love [the other person] unconditionally" to put up with the pretentiousness of human existence, with the fact that people are boring, with the fact that sex can be boring, with the fact that the every day reality of family life can be boring, and really break through and keep romance alive. Not for one night in Vienna, not for one afternoon in Paris but for ever and ever, keep romance alive.

Bring it on!

The diary

Reading old diaries can be so depressing: the inadequacies of your older self, presented before you in magnificent glory; the terribly banal old "loves"; the intensity of the drama, even in cases where you now know how stupid it all was...

But most of all this fantastically clear understanding of the past in the comfort of the present: "in retrospect..." what a great phrase. What a great concept. We are all so wise, so cool "in retrospect". We are all insightful historians, we are all profound thinkers, in hindsight. We all analyse the past in such a clear way. What am I saying, it is clear!

And therein lies the drama: why are we all so so clever after all the drama has passed, but never during?

And why do 16(or even 17, 20, 25)-year old girls go through everything as if it is such a drama?

My 35-year old self cannot find a respectable answer to that.

And now back to my old diaries, perhaps they will give me another clue. 

No need to be blue...

And Pharell does it again! He brings us an upbeat song, catchy enough to rival the-one-that-shall-not-be-named (are you listening Daft Punk?),  and now nominated for an Oscar!

Most of all I love this song because it is a rare breed: it's beautiful, and poignant but not sad, desperate or desperately about love.

Clap along if you feel that happiness is the truth, he sings, and'd you know what? I am sure clapping along... 

Happy new year

Commonplace (and extremely belated) as it sounds, let us toast to the new year.

The year of the horse, my sign, the sign of success, prosperity and happiness.

Looking forward to another year of changes, (aren't they all?) a year of getting better, learning new things, and facing new challenges.

I'll be back soon with something interesting, but until then, Καλή Χρονιά σε όλους!

Things people say

People are funny. I mean, everyone says rhetorical things, commonplace expressions that carry no real meaning whatsoever, but some things are simply wrong. Take my longtime favourite (often uttered in despair by a Greek aunt or uncle, or even worse my mum):

"Have you put on weight recently?"

What do you respond to that? "No, this is just an illusion" or "Yes, I've been sort of eating like a pig lately"? Nothing just seems right…

There is no right answer, possibly because this question should not exist. Rude, intrusive, a truism, and just unacceptable, questions like this make my blood boil.

Other gems include:

"Don't you think this is not the way to do this?"

WTF? If I did, don't you think I would be doing it differently? I mean, seriously people, get a grip.

In general, I guess my point is that sometimes people really, really don't speak to offer any new information to the conversation, or the world. Sometimes people are just self indulgent idiots who speak only to make themselves sound clever or simply be a bit judgemental, for the fun of it.

One day, I will find a good way to respond to all of that, a way that summarises today's post in a way, but I guess until then a "fuck you" would just have to do.

Short

With Alice Munro winning the Nobel Prize for literature this year, I thought I should go back to her, and try to read more of her formidable short stories. I was first introduced to her work by my Canadian friend who recommended her wholeheartedly when I asked him for a compatriot of his to read, apart from my steady longtime favourite, Margaret Atwood.

I bought Munro's "Selected stories" and started reading it. I enjoyed it, some of the stories I even found to be really brilliant, but I never finished the book. Now that I came back to it, with determination and gusto, I read one more story and stopped again. (It didn't help that Donna Tartt's "The Goldfinch" just came out at that particular time but that's another story). But the problem, of course does not lie with Munro, she is brilliant. The problem lies with me, or more accurately with my inability to connect to short stories. I never understood why, and of course Munro is not the only victim of my constraint: Tolstoy, Chechov (both of them so often compared to Munro herself), I have never managed to read and enjoy. In short, short is not sweet for me and today, I really forced to ask myself why, and I think I discovered where the problem lies.

Short stories (and poems to a certain extent, another guilty non-pleasure of mine) are extremely minimalist and apospasmatic: they offer really just a glimpse of their subject matter, like a beautiful photo of a fantastic small detail of a giant artefact. All works of art do require work on the part of the beholder: films and books often have open endings, details of the past of the characters are left out and are only implied for, but in short stories there is simply too many blanks to fill. In order to be gripped by a story, I need to get into it, deeply into it, stay there for a while and get properly involved. The fleeting character of the short story really doesn't allow me to do that, and that's why I simply can't get into them.

I guess this means that I am just too lazy for it all. 

An ex-pat's life

Never thought I'd be defining myself as such, but this is what I am, innit? A Greek living abroad, for 12 years no less. Sounds freaky, if you ask me. In my head I'm still 19 years-old for God's sake. I can't be living so many years away from Greece...

Anyway, it gets to you though, doesn't it? I often wonder, do I even still count as Greek? I mean, I'm Greek and all, but not really. For once I can't vote: I am not allowed to vote at an embassy, and I can't afford to travel back to Greece whenever there are elections. The nasty thing about this is: should I even have the right to? I vote for a Greek government from the comfort of my Belfast home and other people pay the taxes... Anyway, I digress and that's a separate issue.

Then, I often forget my language: I think in English, I write in English, I dream in English often. I read books in English, and I always litter my Greek with English words. I also don't feel too close to my Greek roots: I don't understand Greek people sometimes, they feel alien to me. I definitely don't like hanging out with them abroad: most of them seem to me to be moany, annoying brats that complain about the weather and the lack of frapé in coffee shops. Boring. Then there's the food: how can you cook proper Greek food without the fresh ingredients. I think I am making a good imam baildi but when I make it for my dad he complains it's too light, too this, too that, definitely not like how my grandmother made it.

So, the question of identity remains. I sure as hell am not English or Northern Irish, even if I've lived in England for 5 years and here for the rest. Even if I adore the Great British bake off (how very British, no?) and I think the Guardian is a national institution. But more and more I feel I'm this weird hybrid, this different person, this in-between character.

Now is this good or bad, I don't know...