Birthday

In the days when my birthday was celebrated
I was happy and nobody was dead.
In the old house, even my birthday was a tradition of centuries
And everybody’s joy, and mine, was as certain as any religion.

In the days when my birthday was celebrated
I had the great health of not understanding anything
Of being intelligent amongst the family
And of not having the hopes that others had for me
When I came to have hope, I did not know how to have hope any longer
When I came to face life, I had lost the meaning of life.

Yes, what I supposedly was to myself
What I was of heart and relatives
What I was of evenings in the province
What I was of being loved and being a small boy
What I was – my God!, what I only know today that I was
So long ago!...
(I cannot even find it)
In the days when my birthday was celebrated.

What I am today is like humidity in the corridor at the end of the house
Causing mould on the walls…
What I am today (and the house of those who loved me trembles through my tears),
What I am today is selling the house,
Is everybody dead,
Is me surviving myself, like a cold match…

I see everything again with a clarity that blinds me to what is in front of me
The table set with extra seats, with better porcelain, with more glasses,
The sideboard with many things – sweets, fruit, all the rest in the shade, under the porch
The old aunts, the different cousins, and everything because of me,
In the days when my birthday was celebrated.

My heart, stop.
Do not think. Let the head think.
Oh my God, my God, my God
Today is not my birthday any more.
I last.
Days are added to my life.
I will become old when I become old.
Nothing else.
The anger of not having brought the past stolen in my pocket!
In the days when my birthday was celebrated.

Fernando Pessoa, 1888 - 1935

I'm so sorry I cannot provide an extraordinary English rendition of this poem. This is the best I could do. I felt I had to have this poem here. The only thing I can say when I read it is "sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in. " I wonder if Pessoa felt the same every time he finished writing one of his poems. Did he know that what he wrote would one day mean so much to so many? Does any poet know that? I hope they do, at some level.
Happy 120th birthday, Pessoa.

People with issues

My favourite blogger has been brought into a very ridiculous story. To cut a long story short, he wrote a post on an issue (that is not important) and people commented on it in various ways. At some point, some commentators insulted another commentator. The blog administrator reprimanded them on the comments, but the insulted commentator regarded the reprimand as inadequate and requested for the posts to be deleted because they were defaming him. The blog administrator responded in saying that he does not want to delete comments and the insulted commentator requested a comment moderator to be put in place in that blog. He threatened the blog administrator with legal action and he responded giving him his private details. As it turns out, this was just an 'experiment' in order to test the freedom of speech of the greek blog-o-sphere. Discussion ensues at this moment with comments to the original post reaching 106!!!

The situation might look ridiculous and it probably is, but the issue behind it is very important. It is the fundamental issue of freedom of speech, only now it has been transferred to the net. The analogy could be the following: I have a gathering at my place (blog) where people come and we have a chat. At some point one of my guests insults another one: what should my role be? Do I reprimand the guest and consider the matter closed? Do I kick the guest out? Do I hire bouncers to patrol all my parties from that point onwards? Whose is it to say what counts as an insult? One guest might be picky and consider anything an insult, while other people have thicker skin. More importantly though, can my insulted guest DEMAND that I hire a bouncer, otherwise he will sue me?

The answer the blogger in question gave, was that it is his blog and he wants to hold on to his right to deal with these issues the way he chooses to. A moderator is compromising freedom of speech and should in principle be avoided. The default should be that people should be free to say whatever they want, in a public place like a blog. Is the blog a public place though?

Why do I care?

Euro 2008 is on these days and even me, who never cared about football, is suddenly becoming intrigued by this analogy for life. This is the only way I can explain why I bother about who wins and who loses, who is disqualified and who goes through. My latest obsession (after group C and the fate of Italy and France) is the great comeback of Turkey in their match against the Czech Republic. I didn't even see the game but I then saw the replays and I was so touched by the force with which the Turks came back. I mean, they were losing 2-0 15 minutes before the end and they managed to turn it around, even with their goalie disqualified in the last minutes if the game (for a Zidane-style out of the blue push to a Czech player).

It seems to me that it is weird that I care about this. I have no particular feelings for Turkey, although they are the 'enemies' of my country ;-) and I definitely have no feelings whatsoever about the Czech Republic. I guess it is always fascinating to see an underdog story being unfolded in front of your eyes. Maybe that's why the win of Greece in Euro 2004 was so cool, because nobody believed in them. And that is exactly why football could be seen as an analogy to life: you could always have a safe bet on a person or on a situation and most of times you'll get it right, but underdogs do fight back and they do get their win once in a blue moon and make people believe in miracles.

The two faces of German cinema

Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck: the poet

As I have written before in this blog, 'the lives of others' was one one of my favourite movies of 2007. It is only recently however, that I bought the DVD and saw the director's interview that I finally understood how poetic this movie truly was. FHvD's idea for the film came apparently from a quote by Lenin that if he had to listen to Beethoven's Appassionata, he wouldn't be able to finish the revolution. This line features in the film but I had then misunderstood it: I thought then that it meant that if Lenin let himself be consumed by art, he would no longer be able to leave enough time in his life for politics. Apparently, this is not what he meant, apparently he meant that this music would humanize him so, that he wouldn't be able to do all the inhuman things that you are expected to do, if you want to make a revolution succeed. FHvD then said that his initial idea for the film was this image of this man with headphones, listening to the Appassionata and not being able to do his job, merely because art subconsciously turns him into a better person. This has been a criticism towards the movie, as a friend saw it: how does it happen, this change in Wiesler's mind? Does he read Brecht and everything changes inside him? Well, maybe music has a much more subconscious, powerful and lasting way to change you, because it is so abstract. Brecht can change you, sure, but perhaps only after you've listen to the Appassionata.

This, to me, is the essence of FHvD's lyricism: music can change the world, and perhaps it has to. And relating this to the previous post, and Youkali's comment, realism does have a place in our lives, but lyricism, abstract expressionism can lead us more directly to where we have to go.

Fatih Akin: the immigrant

Hallow Kitty adored this movie, compared Fatih Akin to Marcel Proust when writing about it here so I went to see it. I loved the movie so much myself, because it was so unpretentious and poignant. One thing I absolutely hate is pretension: movies that pretend to be important, intellectual and artistic and in the end they end up just slow and annoying. Fatih Akin's masterpiece, that is added to the long line of multi-character films that accentuate the role of fate in life, spanning from 'short-cuts' and 'amores perros' to 'talk to her' and 'crash', is beautiful and important yet it looks so normal, so simple.

But most of all Fatih Akin succeeds in being a director that depicts so well the loneliness of the immigrant with the nomadic soul. This is an idea that I hold too dearly, perhaps due to my narcissistic desire to be dramatic and deep. But there is some truth in the idea that these people, immigrants are in between two worlds, strangers in both. It is so difficult for these people to feel at home and when they do (like in the end of the film) they truly reach the edge of heaven.

Ο ρεαλισμός, όμως στην τέχνη σήμερα περιττεύει*

The writer of my favourite Greek book informs me that art does not need realism anymore. I never understood the intensity of intellectual disagreement between realists and surrealists or magic realists (whatever Matesis is). Are they simply two different artistic movements or are they truly two different ways of perceiving the world? I guess the question boils down to the role of art, and whether art is really a lens through which we have to see our world, whether it ultimately reflects our deepest convictions.

Realism for me is like an understated, clean suit. If you want to make an entrance to a party, you wouldn't necessarily choose it, but it is good when the statement you want to make is all about subtlety. Magic realism on the other hand, can be compared to an extravagant hat: your whole ensemble is grey and understated and your hat makes a statement by itself. It is good but somewhat predictable and forced. I think well-educated and intellectually competent people can see the point in a work of art, even when it is not exaggerated. Perhaps this is too harsh of a criticism to a movement I once adored, and perhaps the analogy is unsuccessful. Perhaps art cannot be compared to a fashion statement. Perhaps magic realism just gives the artist the freedom to express him/herself more clearly, without the boundaries of realism. Perhaps realism and by extension reality itself is extremely constraining and the only way to break free is to write about millions of ants that eat up a poor soul.


*Today though, realism in art, is superfluous. (Pavlos Matesis)

Insane in the brain

'The true story of a 17th century Hungarian Countess who bathed in the blood of girls... Descended from one of the most ancient aristocratic families of Europe, Erzsébet Báthory bore the psychotic aberrations of centuries of intermarriage. From adolescence she indulged in sadistic lesbian fantasies, where only the spilling of a woman's blood could satisfy her urges. By middle age, she had regressed to a mirror-fixated state of pathalogical necro-sadism involving witchcraft, torture, blood-drinking, cannibalism and, inevitably wholescale slaughter. (...) The Bloody Countess is Valentine Penrose's disturbing case history of a female psychopath which has an unequalled power to evoke the decadent melancholy of doomed, delinquent aristocracy in a dark age of superstition.' - from Amazon.co.uk

My reading for the next weeks is this book, nicely purchased in Lisbon's annual Book Fair, under an annual scorching sun. The most awful crimes of humanity happen in the brain, Oscar Wilde wrote, and if you're a healthy person, that's where they'll stay. If you're mentally ill, as this countess probably was, you practice what you preach and go around being a criminal. It'll be interesting to know how one is a female criminal in 17th century Hungary. There are so many interesting things to learn in this world indeed!

Anyway, I'm reading this book and I'm wondering why normal, balanced human beings have the tendency to stop and look every time there's an accident on the road. We hate evil but it attracts us as well.

As for me, I just take an interest in mental illness and crime. If I can learn about it while reading a well written, well researched book about something that is not very discussed as it is, which is female crime, then it's even better. This so-called bloody Countess is also described as having been a female Dracula, which is a character that has provided excuses for all sorts of psychiatric or psychological theories and diseases anyway (homossexuality, sifilis, incest, repressed sexual desire, you name it, Dracula embodies it). I don't know why these things interest me, but they just do. I guess it's because of the Oscar Wilde sentence, and also because, in reality and in all probability, mental health doesn't actually exist.

The past and the reiteration

As Youkali wrote in a previous post, April is the cruelest month. Spring in general, "sometimes, the renovation of life is an awful spectacle to watch. "

For me the most difficult thing is reiteration: remembering what I did this time last year, which clothes I liked to wear, which roads I took when coming back home, which TV shows I watched. It seems that my life, is in an endless loop: I still laugh when watching Friends, I am still trying to diet, I am still applying for jobs, I still don't know where I will be in a couple of months.

It is scary, and it is liberating, uncertainty. Reiteration though is plain scary. You feel still, you feel that you have not moved one inch from last year, you feel trapped in this awful circle of life, of season-changing, of sameness. It looks like a vicious circle, although common belief maintains that it is rejuvenating. After winter comes spring, they say, and is this supposed to make me feel better, that it is like that all the time? Maybe that's why autumn is better, because autumn is death, plain and simple, leaves are falling from the trees, leaves that will never be reborn, at least not the same ones. Maybe that's the way to think about it, that this is fake reiteration. Nothing comes back to life really, it just looks like it does. It is just things that look awfully like the previous ones, so you get confused.