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…)

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…

The Little Redhood

I was a lot of things in my life. Photographer was one of them. Here is a photo I took one or two years before immigrating with my whole family to Canada. Of course, the litlle redhood is my daughter and the place is an orchard near my native town of Sibiu, Transylvania. A place called Cisnadioara where there is, not far away, on a high hill, a very old castle, well preserved. A place where somebody smart (and rich) could shoot a movie with Dracula, for instance… A small village where it should be good to live (eventually to paint) if the rich people from Sibiu wouldn’t have already bought most of the houses and lands…

Personal mithology * Mythologie personnelle * Eroi personali

We all have somobody in our life whom we consider a hero…

For me, it’s my granfather, Ion Lup, my mother’s father. Not counting my parents, my wife and my children, he is the person I’ve loved most.

Oh, the hours I’ve listened to my granfather’s stories! (he was a great story teller, especially with a glass of wine on the side)… All my childhood is filled with the stories of “Moshu” (the Romanian for “the old one”, “grandpa”…)

Stories about the time he was a rural police chief fighting with gangs of inteligents and cruel gipsies… stories about the time he was a choir singer – he had a superb bariton voice – at the Sibiu Ortodox Cathedral, and, at the same time an entrepreneur (the first to import a mechanical saw, first to bring a model A Ford truck in Sibiu) until the bishop made him choose ONE “career” (he chose to be an entrepreneur, having already a bunch of children, my mother being one of his youngest and most loved one)…

Last but not least, the stories about his immigration to Germany and from there to the United States…when he was only 16 years old! For me, Jules Verne was nothing compared to him…

I know, now, almost an old man myself, that a lot of my decisions were made thinking of him.

When I’ve decided to immigrate with my family to Canada I was thinking of him, no doubt. When I took some risky business decisons I thought also what he would have said…

Not all my decisions, though… He didn’t thought much of “artists”… his thinking was, naturally, biased by his farmer upbringing… a farmer who became a little entrepreneur and in whose conception “artists” were not very serious people… Interesting, maybe, but not serious…

But I’ve loved him completely, with his prejudices and all. I was enjoying (and he too, it seemed) even bickering and contradicting him… and it was not possible to get mad on him (or him on me)…

This is not to say that his life was always easy… He lost some of his 13 children, some at birth, some – painfully – when they were 5-6 or 7… The communists took everything he had (his trucks, his land, etc.) and he was a prisoner of war to the Russians, in Siberia, for about 5 years (1943-1948).

But he survived and came back and after a while he even began to enjoy life, again.
When I knew him he was a typical Granpa, a nice old man, who liked to tell stories and didn’t refuse to drink some wine or some “tzuica” (home made plum brandy)…

Ma photo préférée…

Ma photo préférée… faite quand j’avais 5-6 ans, par mon oncle Dumitru Visan (celui qui, plus tard, va m’introduire dans les techniques de la photographie)…

Maintenant, sachant ce que je sais, elle me semble prémonitoire… aucune idée si j’écrivais (quoi? je n’était pas encore à l’école) ou si je dessinais (plus probable)… Mais j’ai l’air mélancolique du poète, l’air rêveur de l’artiste… Et je vous assure, à ce que je me souviens, je ne savais pas très bien ce que mon oncle faisait avec la chose qu’il portait à son oeil… quelque chose de mystérieux…

Enfin, pour moi, personnellement, c’est un photo parlante…

———————————-

Asta e fotografia mea preferata…facuta cand aveam 5-6 ani de unchiu-meu Dumitru Visan (cel care, mai tarziu, ma va introduce in tainele tehnicii fotografice)…

Acum, stiind ce stiu, fotografia asta mi se pare ca o presimtzire a ceea ce urma sa devin… Habar n-am daca scriam (ce? inca nu mergeam la scoala…) sau desenam (mai probabil)…Oricum, am in ea aerul nostalgic al poetului, aspectul visator al artistului…Si, zau daca va mint, dupa cât îmi aduc aminte, habar n-aveam ce mishcula unchiu-meu cu aparatul lui…ceva misterios, fara îndoiala…

Pentru mine însa, poza asta vorbeste…

————————————-

This is my favorite photo…I had 5-6 years when my uncle Dumitru V. took it (he will be the one to introduce me to photography, later)…

Now, this photo seems to me premonitory…and no, I don’t know if I was writing (what? I wasn’t yet going to school)… or drawing (seems more probable)…But I had the melancholic face of the poet, the dreaming face of the painter…and, I can assure you, as far as I remember, I didn’t had the slightest idea of what my uncle was doing, over there, with his apparatus…something, no doubt, mysterious…

For me, however, this is a talkative picture…