2:41 PM
1:34 PM
1:20 PM
The Incredible Shrinking Man
Surprisingly thought-provoking 50s black-and-white movie about Scott Carey, a man who starts shrinking without any apparent reason, and eventually becomes smaller than trivial household objects like matchboxes, scissors and paint cans.
Trapped in his own cellar, he struggles to survive among once harmless everyday paraphernalia, now suddenly magnified into a 'world of giants'. A Robinson-Crusoe-type adventure confined to the space of a cellar, with the most banal, familiar things turning into an exotic and challenging backdrop as Scott's dimensions change.
In the end, it becomes clear that 'getting back to normal' is no longer possible. Yet loss of hope also comes with a sense of acceptance: "And I felt my body dwindling, melting, becoming nothing. My fears melted away and in their place came acceptance. All this vast majesty of creation, it had to mean something. And then I meant something, too. Yes, smaller than the smallest, I meant something, too. To God there is no zero. I still exist!"
Lots of thanks to Uli for the tip.
Trapped in his own cellar, he struggles to survive among once harmless everyday paraphernalia, now suddenly magnified into a 'world of giants'. A Robinson-Crusoe-type adventure confined to the space of a cellar, with the most banal, familiar things turning into an exotic and challenging backdrop as Scott's dimensions change.
In the end, it becomes clear that 'getting back to normal' is no longer possible. Yet loss of hope also comes with a sense of acceptance: "And I felt my body dwindling, melting, becoming nothing. My fears melted away and in their place came acceptance. All this vast majesty of creation, it had to mean something. And then I meant something, too. Yes, smaller than the smallest, I meant something, too. To God there is no zero. I still exist!"
Lots of thanks to Uli for the tip.
7:58 AM
1:55 PM
12:19 PM
No Country for Old Men
A sense of fear and suffocation creeping back in as winter progresses. Entire villages literally trapped under five-metre snow, houses covered up to the roof, without food and electricity; people stuck on trains for two or three days, surviving on melted snow; over seventy dead in the whole country... Compared to all that, the fact that days after the last blizzard no one has yet removed the snow and ice from the streets of Bucharest seems a minor detail, and in many ways it is.
What scares me about all these situations is the passivity and carelessness of the authorities, the gruesome survival-of-the-fittest approach to crisis management, which means that, unless you are lucky or able to fend for yourself, no one will bother to help you. I've had this feeling for over two years now, but it has never crystallised with such brutality.
I am deeply aware that in a place like this relatively uncomplicated everyday phenomena may very easily become life-threatening: a stray dog, a spell of rain or snow, a banal medical problem... I just pretend I haven't noticed that it's all down to luck.
What scares me about all these situations is the passivity and carelessness of the authorities, the gruesome survival-of-the-fittest approach to crisis management, which means that, unless you are lucky or able to fend for yourself, no one will bother to help you. I've had this feeling for over two years now, but it has never crystallised with such brutality.
I am deeply aware that in a place like this relatively uncomplicated everyday phenomena may very easily become life-threatening: a stray dog, a spell of rain or snow, a banal medical problem... I just pretend I haven't noticed that it's all down to luck.
6:33 AM
3:30 PM
11:56 AM
Tribute
Just read the news of Wislawa Szymborska's death... Thought I'd post a little tribute.
"What needs to be done? Fill out the application and enclose the resume.
Regardless of the length of life, a resume is best kept short.
Concise, well-chosen facts are de rigueur. Landscapes are replaced by addresses, shaky memories give way to unshakable dates.
Of all your loves, mention only the marriage; of all your children, only those who were born.
Who knows you matters more than whom you know. Trips only if taken abroad. Memberships in what but without why. Honors, but not how they were earned.
Write as if you'd never talked to yourself and always kept yourself at arm's length.
Pass over in silence your dogs, cats, birds, dusty keepsakes, friends, and dreams.
Price, not worth, and title, not what's inside. His shoe size, not where he's off to, that one you pass off as yourself. In addition, a photograph with one ear showing, What matters is its shape, not what it hears. What is there to hear, anyway? The clatter of paper shredders."
(Wisława Szymborska - Writing a Resume, transl. By Stanisław Barańczak and Clare Cavanagh)
"What needs to be done? Fill out the application and enclose the resume.
Regardless of the length of life, a resume is best kept short.
Concise, well-chosen facts are de rigueur. Landscapes are replaced by addresses, shaky memories give way to unshakable dates.
Of all your loves, mention only the marriage; of all your children, only those who were born.
Who knows you matters more than whom you know. Trips only if taken abroad. Memberships in what but without why. Honors, but not how they were earned.
Write as if you'd never talked to yourself and always kept yourself at arm's length.
Pass over in silence your dogs, cats, birds, dusty keepsakes, friends, and dreams.
Price, not worth, and title, not what's inside. His shoe size, not where he's off to, that one you pass off as yourself. In addition, a photograph with one ear showing, What matters is its shape, not what it hears. What is there to hear, anyway? The clatter of paper shredders."
(Wisława Szymborska - Writing a Resume, transl. By Stanisław Barańczak and Clare Cavanagh)
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