O vreme in care totul era posibil…decembrie 1989

I’ll write this post in Romanian. It’s a Romanian problem and there are my Romanian memories. Everything it’s Romanian in it… So…

Au trecut 18 ani de atunci. O viatza de om…

In decembrie acela fara zapada, cu temperaturi de primavara, cand Nicu si Elena au sfarsit (cum poate o meritau) intr-un santz, ciuruitzi de gloantze, chestie pe care n-as fi crezut aproape niciodata c-o s-o apuc, totul era posibil. Totul incepea sa fie posibil…in bine dar si in rau. Au fost vreo 2-3 saptamani in acel decembrie cand aproape oricine ar fi putut sa faca aproape orice. Cineva inclinat sa faca rau (si care nu era in mod prea evident securist sau militzian sau in nomenclatura comunista vizibila) ar fi putut sa-si omoare totzi dusmanii, comod, nepedepsit… sunt care s-au imbogatzit peste noapte, atunci. Sunt destui si cei care, cateva luni sau chiar ani, au stat cu frica in san pentru ca au fost legatzi de regimul comunist.

N-am facut parte nici dintre primii, nici dintre ultimii…Eram, pe atunci, un amarat de profesor de tara, intr-un sat nu departe de Sibiu, om relativ serios, cu copii mici si nevoi mari. Fotograf amator. Jurnalist amator. Pictor amator. “Revolutzionar” amator… daca as fi vrut (ca oricine altcineva cu un buletin de identitate sau bun de gura) as fi putut sa pun mana pe un AK 47 sau pe un pistolet, pe care, la un moment dat, armata le impartea din camioane, la Sibiu. Sibiu, oras martir. 92 de mortzi si peste 300 de ranitzi, se spunea, imediat dupa revolutzie. Acum, dupa 18 ani, numai Dumnezeu din ceruri ar putea spune – daca-si da interesul sa aibe o contabilitate exacta – catzi au murit si catzi au fost ranitzi, atunci, la Sibiu. Eu am avut noroc. Nimeni nu m-a impuscat si, cu toate ca ceva gloantze mi-au fluierat pe la ureche, nici un glontz ratacit (din cele care, zic eu, au facut cele mai multe victime) nu si-a sfarsit traiectoria prin carnurile mele… Nici o multzime nu m-a luat la bataie ca ii fotografiam (cum a patzit un amic, fotograf si el) ba, dimpotriva, au pozat pentru mine. N-am facut rost de nici un AK 47 si nici de alte arme si munitzii – desi, dupa ce luptele s-au terminat (as zice o ora – doua dupa) am vizitat si eu, cu un prieten, subsolurile (reputate ca sinistre) ale Securitatzii si Militziei. M-am ales cu o Mein Kampf legata in piele cu coltzuri de sidef din 1923 (cred) pe care am sparlit-o fara mustrari de constiintz, salvand-o din amestecul de hartii, cenusa si apa care forma podeaua de atunci a securitatzii (dupa ce ambele cladiri, vecine, fusesera ciuruite de gloantze de toate calibrele si arse de lovituri de bazooka. In plin centrul orasului! Iata cateva din pozele pe care le-am facut atunci – intre 21 si 27-28 decembrie. Cei care sunt slabi de inger sa se abtzina sa priveasca (desi, cu toate ororile aratate zilnic la tv, cine mai e slab de inger, astazi? suntem cu totzii veteranii a nu stiu cate masacre si genocide…)

Two bitches

Usually, I love animals, especially if they don’t bite me… But reading this story, about a bitch (a real bitch, a DOG bitch) who inherited 12.000.000 usd really made me mad. It seems that her master, another bitch (condemned to prison for fiscal evasionism; she said “only poor people pay taxes”… and their financial empire was 4 billiards worth!) left her the 12 millions so that “Trouble” (that’s the first bitch’s name) could bite everybody without being kicked… It seems, La Presse Canadienne writes, that her annual expenses are about 300.000 $… don’t ask me how can “she” spend 300.000 USD a year! I could live quite well for 15 years with what the bitch spends in a year! See, when communist propaganda in my former communist country, Romania, wrote about this kind of eccentricities, we didn’t believe it. “Propaganda!” But La Presse Canadienne is not a communist agency and the fact are there – you can check them. No wonder the little bitch receive death menaces and had to be moved somewhere in Florida… It all comes to slogans but can you avoid thinking that the “overture” song of Malcolm in the Middle is untrue? That life is unfair? Just imagine the number of PEOPLE whom could be helped to work and live decently with 12.ooo.ooo USD! Even if usually, as I said, I love animals (if they don’t bite, like Trouble) some high end, snobbish, immensely rich REAL bitches could make you REALLY mad! (or puke!)

Here is the story (in French):

http://tinyurl.com/325nso

Metropolis

 

I’m not absolutely sure that Bucharest, with his 4 million people, qualifies for a “metropolis”… for me it was that… A big city, hysterically agitated, cruel, tense, inhuman, full of sound and fury… I never had a chance to know it better, to see also its “good” sides… I had some relatives and some friends, over the years, in Bucharest, Romania’s capital, but never yet had the time, the patience, the chance to know it otherwise. I was a stranger there. Afraid to be robbed. Prone to be a victim of all those big city slicks, of all the gypsies and notoriously (for the provincial sucker I felt I was) dishonest taxi drivers and stuff…

Since I’ve bragged I was a photographer (well, still am, not dead yet…) I will show you this time a photo I took when I was no more than a young adult (he-he-he, many years ago…) . It was taken with a very primitive camera, well know at the time in a URSS allied country like Romania, a “Smena’. Almost the equivalent of a disposable camera in US, not very complicated but with a good, sharp objective. The films weren’t much better, in those days of communist Romania: if you got an east-German made Orwo film you had top quality…

The place: before the “Patria” cinema, somewhere on one of the main boulevards of Bucharest. People were circulating upstream and downstream without even looking. For me, young provincial, it was shocking this big city indifference of the people. I was naive, of course. What could have you done? Call the Ambulance? The lying man was a victim of some robbery or simply a drunkard? Was he dead or still breathing? What should I do? Eventually, I took a picture. I’m not proud of the way I solved the dilemma… But them, it wasn’t my town. I had no friends there. I was myself, almost as the man laying there, a stranger in a strange land…

“A deadly genius”

I will tell you a story about the quirks of memory…

Years ago I was visiting Tate National Gallery in London( 1993? 1994?). A lot to see, especially if you are an artist and you like impressionists and post-impressionists, for instance. Cézanne, Pissaro, Renoir, Van Gogh…, as I said, A LOT to see…

Years later, I found out my memory wasn’t as good as I thought. I did remember, like in a dream, a turmoil of colors and maybe a landscape or two… Pissaro? Renoir? Van Gogh?… Vaguely, very vaguely…

And yet, a small, very small painting, haunted me. I was dreaming it and the details were quite precise… Bizarre little people, painted with precision but in a marvelous textured way, with saturated colors but not excessively bright… Something like Bosh or Pieter Brueguel the Old... I could NOT remember, even tortured, the name of the painter… I knew just that he wasn’t a very famous one…

A few years ago, I was flipping a pile of junk magazines in a garage sale and BAM! there it was!! my little painting from the Tate National Gallery… it was only a small, bad, reproduction, in B & W, but I could have recognise it in millions! And the story behind that, the story of the mad painter Richard Dadd was even more hauting and interesting… But about his story – connected with the subject of madness and art – next time…(canned laughter)

A taste, although… the portrait of Richard Dadd, painting in a English asylum…