A Heart Percieved

“And what do you want to do, when you finish your studying?”, she asked. She was an old woman and had been invited as a guest lecturer. She had talked about her life. She had been the first woman in the country to be allowed to study medicine and practice as a doctor. She had been in the resistance, and she had been in the socialist movement. A very interesting story of hardship, struggle and progress had she delivered.

We were standing together the three of us. As soon as the lecture was over, we had left to buy some bottles of beer for the evening. It was on our way back to the students’ hall that we came across her, and she stopped us and addressed us.

“And what do you want to do, when you finish studying”, she asked.

John was the first to answer. “I want to study medicine like you.  When you see the misery and suffering in the Third World, you realise that you could really make a difference by working there.”

Peter went next. He wanted to study biology. The consumer society was devastating the world. Global Warning was not on the agenda yet, but there were of course many other causes for alarm. “We need somebody in this field, who do not just work to amass as much money as possible, but who wants to work in the interest of the environment”, he concluded.

She then turned and looked at me. I couldn’t resist and said: “I don’t know yet, but I really don’t care, as long as there’s some money in it.”

“You’re lying”, she said. “I can see straight through you. You think with your heart, not your brain.”

The Star or the Story

 Some years ago I listened to a talk show on a French radio station. The guest was a well-known film director.

He was asked about his thoughts on film critics and reviewers. He didn’t think highly of them.  Here is what he did, whenever a new film of his was released:

He would go to a cinema. He would not go on one of the first days after a release, but would wait till the critics, columnists and other professionals had been to see the film.  He would wait until the “ordinary” film-goers filled the auditorium.

He would not go in to watch the film, but would wait in the hall outside the auditorium for people to come out after the show. He would stand a bit aside, so as not to be noticed. And then he would listen to people talking together when leaving the cinema.

If they said things like “Oh! X is such a fantastic actor. He has never been better than in this movie.” Or “I really love Y. Her performance was one worthy of an Oscar”, he knew he had not succeeded in making the film, he wanted to make.

If, on the other hand, they said things like: “How could a mother do this to her own daughter?”. Or “A man like that should not be allowed to walk around freely”. Or “I thought she would never have the courage to tell him the truth”. He knew that he had succeeded  in making his film the way he wanted it.

NB! I forgot, which director it was. Does anybody know? Could it have been Claude Chabrol?

Nearaway Latvia

What are the names of the capitals of Estonia, of Lithuania, of Latvia? – I didn’t know either.

I was born in 1952. When I was growing up, I learned about London. Knew the names of the squares, the monuments and the museums. Pictures from there were impressed on my mind. I knew the streetscapes of Paris from French films. I knew the atmosphere of New York from television series. I read books written in Berlin. I saw paintings exhibited in Amsterdam. I drank wine made in Italy. The music I listened to was progressive pop from England and the US. My cultural landscape was the West.

 

And I was so concerned with the world. With the vile ways of the West. With the injustice in the US. With the war in Vietnam. With apartheid in South Africa. I shouted “Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh", I demonstrated against the deployment of US missiles in Europe.

 

The people of Prague must have looked on in wonder.

Eastern Europe was so close, bud we did not see it. It was not on our minds. Existed only in reality. East of imagination.

I didn’t know the first thing about nearly neighbouring Latvia and what lay beyond. I was too busy being ignorant and arrogant, too busy trying to make the world a better place.

And the world became a better place. Not everyone was blind.

Please accept my apology.

NB!

Postscript added April 2013: I have just finished reading The Memory Chalet by Tony Judt. Chapter XIV (Revolutionaries) is very pertinent to this blog entry.

 

Why men snore and women don't

He had been up a few times during the night. Wasn’t sleeping well. He did not switch on the light. Didn’t want to wake up his wife or his two sons, who were sleeping in the room next to their bedroom.

He must, however, have made enough noise to wake up his youngest. Michael peeped out from behind the boys’ room – looking half awake, half asleep.

“Sorry Michael, did I wake you up?” he asked. “The snoring woke me”, he said”. “The snoring woke me”.

“I am sorry”, he said, “I will try my best not to snore again.”

“It sounded like Mummy snoring”, Michael remarked. “Women don’t snore!”, I informed him. He is his mother’s star, and she is his idol. He seemed to accept it, and his head disappeared behind the door again.

The next morning they all slept late. It was a Saturday. His wife had some friends over for lunch, so he took the boys out for some hours. They went down to the marina to look at the boats and have an ice cream.

They were sitting on a pontoon enjoying the son, talking about school and their friends at school.

A man was dosing in the cockpit of one of the yachts. A young woman was videotaping him.

He was snoring.