Tintinnabulum

No Country for Old Men

2012-02-10T12:19:00.000-08:00

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 forty 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.

Frozen

2012-02-05T06:33:00.000-08:00

Ca la soare te puteai uita...

2012-02-04T15:30:00.000-08:00

Looking out of the Window

2012-02-04T00:31:00.000-08:00

Tribute

2012-02-02T11:56:00.000-08:00

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)

Jewellery

2012-01-29T12:21:00.000-08:00

My sister's jewellery blog is finally up and running. There seems to be a Barcelona/Gaudi feel to it at this point. Curious how it's going to develop.

Just like Honey

2012-01-29T03:59:00.001-08:00

Doughnuts

2012-01-29T03:52:00.001-08:00

Lazy Sunday morning...

Protests!

2012-01-21T13:11:00.000-08:00

Protests at last! Before they started last weekend I felt I was suffocating under the absurdity and abuse of Romanian public life. Now I go to University Square every evening for my daily dose of normality. The atmosphere is pleasant, the people enthusiastic and 'alive', the slogans surprisingly intelligent. Happily there have been no bouts of violence in the past couple of days, there's always something Kafkaesque about the interventions of the gendarmes...

Here are some slogans (sorry, they will only make sense to Romanians) and recent photos:

"Unul mic si unul chior/ Si-au batut joc de popor/ Unul chior si unul mic/ Nu ne-au mai lasat nimic."
"Hai Basescu fii barbat/ Si coboara din palat." or a variation: "Daca te tine/ Baie de multime."
"Jos Basescu si sinistra sa ciocanitoare Udry!"
"Sarsaila nu uita/ Romania nu-i a ta."
"Jos piratul! Jos corsarul!"
"Suntem golani batrani si viermi tineri."
"Eba, tatal tau nu vrea sa vorbeste cu noi."
"Culmea saraciei: sa nu ai nici pe dracu'!"
"Vlad Tepes: Sus Basescu! Mai am o teapa libera si pentru dregatorul cel mic."
(a Facebook spoof): next to a photo of Traian Basescu "People you may know: Help Traian Basescu, he has 0 friends."
"Pentru cei care protesteaza din fotoliu sau de pe canapea: We love to entertain you!"

... and my favourite Latinate set (see below):

Byron

2012-01-21T02:48:00.000-08:00

Byron - 1000 de chipuri (Kumm)

Show Me the Place

2012-01-19T07:53:00.000-08:00

From Leonard Cohen's upcoming album Old Ideas...

Wind

2012-01-15T13:11:00.001-08:00

Shepherd's Hut

2012-01-15T13:04:00.000-08:00

On the Meadow

2012-01-15T12:47:00.000-08:00

In the Woods

2012-01-15T11:17:00.000-08:00

Starting Off

2012-01-15T10:27:00.000-08:00

Weekend Trip

2012-01-15T10:00:00.000-08:00

Weekend in the Iezer Mountains, with a lot of snow and freezing low temperatures, but also wonderful landscapes. A black dog joined us at the start of our journey and followed us around with touching constancy.

We climbed through the woods and across a meadow covered in knee-deep snow to reach a shepherd's hut where we spent the night. Early Sunday morning we walked back under the falling snow.

A few photo posts coming up... I don't think I have ever worked so hard for any of my previous pictures.

More photos on Diana's blog.

Snowdrops and Horse Baptism

2012-01-11T10:48:00.000-08:00

I bought a small pot of snowdrops today... a frail symbol of this rushed spring forcing its way into the heart of winter.

Meanwhile, the New Year has started with the usual St John's celebration (everyone around here seems to have at least one relative by that name). Apparently, in some areas, especially in the countryside, there is also a "side celebration" called Horse Baptism.

On 6 January, horses are literally baptised by a priest to ensure that they grow (or remain) strong and healthy and their owners have rich crops in the year to come. This is followed by a competition in which the newly baptised horses are shown off or race against each other.

Sometimes the custom is accompanied by a number of superstitions. For example young unmarried women put basil under their pillow on the night before Horse Baptism in order to dream of their future husband, and the stables are smoked to make sure no evil spirits come near the horses.

I have stolen this picture from a website that features various photos from this year's Horse Baptism in Bailesti, a town near Craiova.

Biblioburro

2012-01-04T05:33:00.000-08:00

I spent the morning reading about some of the greatest libraries in the world... luxurious, refined edifices designed by world-renowned architects, steeped in tradition and hosting rare book editions. In a way I felt drawn to all of them, the ones resembling labyrinths, as well as those whose meticulous tidiness left no room for surprises. But what moved me most was the description of the Biblioburro mobile libraries of Colombia.

I loved the idea of taking books to people who would otherwise have no access to them, and showing that there can be something beautiful and worthwhile even in the midst of violence and poverty. Apparently, the members of one community visited by Biblioburro refused to give back a translation of the Iliad, because they identified Homer's story with their own: a country torn apart by war, and whimsical gods deciding on the fate of people who had no idea what they were fighting for, or when they would be killed.

New Year

2012-01-02T13:15:00.000-08:00

There's always something slightly melancholy to the end of a year. I've left 2011 behind thinking of a sentence by Nichita Stanescu: "I'd be lying if I said I had no regrets, but then again, I'd also be lying if I said I regretted anything."

Winter Apples

2011-12-31T05:06:00.001-08:00

Poetic News

2011-12-27T01:15:00.000-08:00

Thirty swans arrived in Eforie Sud, a Romanian seaside resort, on Christmas Eve, to the surprise of the tourists. They stayed in a little gulf in front of the casino, long enough for people to feed and photograph them.

*

An American from LA taped his children for 25 years as they were coming down the stairs on Christmas morning to see what Santa had brought them.

*

Over twenty tons of oranges fell from a lorry and scattered on the Bucharest-Ploiesti motorway on 22 December.

Jazz Evening

2011-12-26T01:20:00.000-08:00

On Giving

2011-12-26T01:18:00.000-08:00

My father tells me stories of his grandmother as a young woman taking food to the outlaws on the hills around Strehaia, and of an old Romanian custom... villagers leaving food and wine in small wood cottages built along frequently walked-on trails, for travellers to quench their hunger and thirst. It seems there are still traces of this in some areas, where people leave watermelons by the fountains in summer.

Fenceless Church

2011-12-25T08:12:00.000-08:00

On the way to my grandparents' house we often used to drive past a village church that had no fence around it, so hens and turkeys always roamed the area stretching to the street, which should have been the churchyard. My parents kept making disapproving comments, they would have preferred things to be 'proper' and 'respectful'. I kind of liked the idea, though - after all, why should there be no turkeys near the church?

Christmas Morning

2011-12-25T07:29:00.000-08:00

Mist and frosty fields. In the villages, women go from house to house, carrying baskets full of food they give away in the memory of the dead. In some places, people also light candles on the tombs of the family dead, so if there is no wind, the graveyard looks like a sea of light. These rituals completed, everyone returns home -sits by the stove, drinks brandy... And so Christmas Day is off to its proper start.

Da Vinci

2011-12-23T15:52:00.000-08:00

Craiova: Bulevard

2011-12-23T15:42:00.000-08:00

Craiova: Christmas Decorations

2011-12-23T15:30:00.000-08:00

Metamorphoses

2011-12-21T10:39:00.000-08:00

Étienne-Jules Marey (1830 - 1904) was a French scientist and photographer. His 1882 invention, the chronophotographic gun, allowed him to capture and study the movement of birds and animals. The device was shaped like a gun and used a rotating photographic glass plate to shoot twelve consecutive frames a second, all recorded in the same picture. Not surprisingly, the results are quite similar in some ways to Escher's metamorphoses.

Long Exposure

2011-12-21T10:23:00.000-08:00

While going through the English in Use paper of a Cambridge advanced test, I came across these bits of information about ways of dealing with long exposure times in early photography:

"In the early days of photography, a stand or some other firm support for the camera was essential. This was because photographic materials were so insensitive to light that a typical exposure lasted several seconds. The camera would have to be held still for this time in order to obtain a sharp picture. The subjects also had to be still if their images were to register properly on the film. Some early street scenes included blurred, transparent, ghostlike images of people who wandered past while the scene was in the process of being photographed.

Studio portraits from the late 1800s show people posed rigidly, often leaning against furniture, which helped them to remain motionless. Since it was important to keep the head still, a support was often provided for the neck. Bright studio lights, sometimes produced by setting fire to a strip of magnesium or a small pile of magnesium powder, helped by reducing the required exposure time. These burned with an intensely blue flame that gave the necessary amount of light, though the smoke was unpleasant and there was also a risk of fire."

Ursul

2011-12-18T01:11:00.000-08:00

Over a Cup of Coffee

2011-12-17T13:14:00.000-08:00

Long afternoon chat over coffee and cakes...

Dancing Elephants

2011-12-14T23:17:00.000-08:00

Dancing Elephants de explore

"Do the dancing elephants of India dance naturally, are they born with the instinct to dance, or are they trained to dance?"

"They're not born that way, they are trained to dance. However, oddly enough, there have been many reports of the elephants, after years, after they've been trained - people will come across them in clearings in the jungle at night, with nobody around, dancing in the moonlight."

(From a Jack Gilbert interview)

Once Upon a Time

2011-12-11T09:02:00.000-08:00

Simply Beautiful

2011-11-24T14:32:00.000-08:00

Despite my general lack of sensitivity to painting and graphics, Marcel Chirnoaga's work really touches me. So introspective...

First Meetings

2011-11-23T14:20:00.000-08:00

Every time we met, every moment we celebrated
As if it were Epiphany: us alone in the whole universe
Before me, amidst curtains of dewfresh lilac
from your realm in the reflection of the mirror
bolder and lighter than the beat of a wing
You ran up the stairs faster than the turn of a head.
When night fell you gave me your gift
The altar doors flew open
To gently reveal your nudity
On waking I blessed you though knowing
that my blessing was an insult.
You slept, whilst the violet of lilac stretched out
From the table to caress your eyelids
And your eyelids thus caressed remained peaceful
And your hand was warm
And in the crystal the rivers flowed, the mountains were misty,
And the sea was shining. And you held the crystal
And slept on your throne and... God! you were mine
Then you awoke and transfiguring everyday vocabulary
You loudly proclaimed "You"
And the word revealed its true meaning and I became King
Everything in the world was transformed
Even the simplest things, the basin, the jug, the water,
Which stood between us like a guard, hard and motionless
Who knows where we were pushed
As in a mirage, cities born of miracle lay before us
The mint was the only thing under our feet
And the birds were our travelling companions and the fish
Jumped from the river and before our eyes the sky
Opened wide, while destiny followed in our footsteps
Like a madman with a razor in his hand.

(Arseny Tarkovsky - First Meetings,
transl. from the English version of Andrej Tarkovsky's The Mirror)

Frosty Morning

2011-11-19T05:45:00.000-08:00

November Mood

2011-11-18T07:00:00.000-08:00

Sunday Treat

2011-11-06T06:34:00.000-08:00

Early This Morning

2011-11-05T02:02:00.000-07:00

Jogging Track

2011-11-01T12:50:00.000-07:00

Quince Jelly

2011-10-31T13:14:00.001-07:00

Autumn Trees

2011-10-31T12:58:00.000-07:00

Mist

2011-10-31T12:56:00.000-07:00

Rosy Sunrise

2011-10-31T12:53:00.000-07:00

On the Bus

2011-10-23T12:28:00.000-07:00

The journey home at the end of a long working day (and most working days are long at the moment) is always a welcome retreat from social interaction and the hassle of the city. The noise of cars driving past seems muted, as lights mildly punctuate the darkness... Sometimes it feels like being in a city of ghosts. The shadows of people and cars move past, quiet and see-through. Buses arrive and stop with padded sighs - we get on, validate our cards, look out of the large windows. The other night, in the seat across the aisle, a teenager with dark curly hair was writing his diary.

Trecea o moara pe Siret...

2011-10-22T15:12:00.000-07:00

Brown

2011-10-21T10:41:00.000-07:00

During a rushed afternoon walk

Zwiebelmarkt

2011-10-12T13:21:00.001-07:00

Toy Story 4

2011-10-10T13:57:00.001-07:00

Kites

2011-10-10T00:25:00.000-07:00

In Jena for a few days

The Autumn Moved Across Your Skin...

2011-09-21T03:02:00.000-07:00

Leonard Cohen's 77th birthday, and perhaps this year's first genuine autumn day. Sitting on a garden terrace, like almost every afternoon this week, working. The wind blows small yellow leaves onto the armchairs, and makes the dusty grapes sway as they catch the light that sometimes steals across the garden.

Below is a bit of poetry to celebrate this beautiful autumn afternoon.

And... Action

2011-09-18T04:45:00.000-07:00

Waiting for the Sunrise

2011-09-18T04:39:00.001-07:00

On the Beach

2011-09-17T12:22:00.000-07:00

On the beach today, lots of algae, shells, dead crabs, jellyfish, even a dead seagull. I don't think I've ever seen the seashore so cluttered with dead animals before...

At one point, a man and a little girl walked by. As she saw the dead seagull, the girl asked what it was doing there. 'Oh, seagulls sometimes come here to sleep,' was the charitable answer.

Not far away, a group of children had dug a large hole in the sand, filled it with jellyfish, and decorated it with dead crabs.

And since all good things are three, in the afternoon I came across this skull-shaped jellyfish.

Under the Fig Trees

2011-09-16T13:52:00.000-07:00

Almost Autumn

2011-09-14T04:41:00.000-07:00

Coveting

2011-09-04T02:27:00.000-07:00

Came across this passage in a Hugh Laurie interview. It's about a Galaxie he had coveted for many years and was only able to purchase recently:

“In a funny way, the biggest difference now is not that I have the car, but that I lack the coveting. I genuinely love the car — it puts a spring in my step — but the coveting was almost more beautiful.” Then, referring back to his original remark: “How dare I complain of such a predicament, which isn’t a predicament at all? I could regain the coveting in an instant simply by getting rid of the car.”

There is some truth in that, and yes, the streak of nostalgia coming through in the first comment does sound a little self-complacent. On the other hand, coveting something you know you can't afford is quite different from wanting to have a thing you could buy if you chose to.

Something is always lost when a wish is fulfilled (perhaps a wealth of imagination, or the hyperbolic quality derived from it), but that is also the start of a more down-to-earth, and in the end more challenging interaction with the object of your wish.

Choosing Life

2011-08-27T01:13:00.000-07:00

Love the irony and rhythm of the final lines of Trainspotting:

"The truth is that I'm a bad person. But, that's gonna change - I'm going to change. This is the last of that sort of thing. Now I'm cleaning up and I'm moving on, going straight and choosing life. I'm looking forward to it already. I'm gonna be just like you. The job, the family, the fucking big television. The washing machine, the car, the compact disc and electric tin opener, good health, low cholesterol, dental insurance, mortgage, starter home, leisure wear, luggage, three piece suite, DIY, game shows, junk food, children, walks in the park, nine to five, good at golf, washing the car, choice of sweaters, family Christmas, indexed pension, tax exemption, clearing gutters, getting by, looking ahead, the day you die."

Optical Illusion

2011-08-17T23:29:00.000-07:00

The other day, in my quest for a flat to rent, I ended up in the historical centre of Bucharest. I looked at two places, both on very popular streets, and found myself all of a sudden in the middle of a completely alien world.

I had always thought there was a certain quaint charm to historical streets, with their wealth of cafés, restaurants and old houses. As it turns out, the picturesque façades conceal a maze of dingy, squalid corridors, broken doors, badly lit and badly aired rooms... And, surprisingly, there are people who live there and for whom this is normality.

The whole experience felt like falling through a hole into a parallel reality. No wonder it was so comforting to return to sunlight, and to the world as I knew it. Of course I'll still go for walks in the old-town area, or have a drink in some of the cafés once in a while, but I guess I'll never be able to look at those streets again without the memory of the underground world trailing along.

Morning Coffee and Shadows

2011-08-15T07:56:00.000-07:00

Shortly After...

2011-08-15T07:44:00.000-07:00

Sunrise

2011-08-15T07:34:00.000-07:00

Brief Collage Phase

2011-08-12T10:55:00.000-07:00

Sighisoara-3

2011-08-01T14:07:00.001-07:00

Sighisoara - 2

2011-08-01T13:52:00.001-07:00

Sighisoara - 1

2011-08-01T13:44:00.000-07:00

Moscow - Well, Why Not?

2011-07-31T07:53:00.000-07:00

Moscow - Arbat

2011-07-31T07:49:00.002-07:00

Moscow - Dystopia

2011-07-31T07:46:00.001-07:00

Moscow - Subway

2011-07-31T07:44:00.001-07:00

Moscow - Peoples' Friendship Fountain

2011-07-31T07:39:00.000-07:00

Moscow - Gold

2011-07-31T07:31:00.001-07:00

Moscow - Red Square

2011-07-31T07:25:00.000-07:00

Tattoos

2011-07-20T11:50:00.000-07:00

I've noticed a couple of interesting leg tattoos recently (on the subway, where else?). One showed the head of a clown, but was very close to an optical illusion, as it seemed to become part of a more abstract ensemble if looked at from a slightly different angle.

The other was a pretty good representation of a masked figure and a mediaeval knight in armour. The combination reminded me of Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven, which was intriguing enough in itself. The more striking detail, however, was the same optical-illusion quality I had noticed in the other tattoo. The mediaeval knight was wearing a helm - a slight change of angle, though, and he took on the profile of an Iroquois warrior.

Misapprehension

2011-07-19T14:13:00.000-07:00

"When the master carefully teaches them the calligraphy lesson, they think he doesn't know how to write."

(Adrian Paunescu - Slowness)

Sea Glass

2011-07-14T12:01:00.000-07:00

Reading about a Hawaiian beach where excess glass from a former industrial area used to be dumped. The glass debris comes from used bottles, windows, windshields, and has various colours: white, grey, brown, green, blue, yellow.

In time, the waves have eroded the glass pieces, causing them to lose their sharp edges and become, as it were, part of the sand, like the pebbles and shells around them.

I thought there was a symbolic quality to this image, though I still can't quite pin it down - maybe it's about the sense one gets at times that the familiar is subtly infused with a touch of magic.

The Strange Case of Benjamin Button

2011-07-12T11:25:00.000-07:00

“The soul is born old but grows young. That is the comedy of life. And the body is born young and grows old. That is life's tragedy.”

So happy to have come across this Oscar Wilde quote. I'd always had a sense that my soul was growing younger with age, but thought it was just my skewed perspective.

Umbrellas

2011-07-07T07:59:00.000-07:00

I took this photo a couple of weeks ago, while on a visit. The image reminded me of the small shapeless dolls with long hair we used to play with as children. We made dresses for them from pieces of cloth, fed them cakes baked out of sand and water and decorated with rose petals and toothpaste. And, on hot summer days, we picked up yellow sun umbrellas from behind the fountain in my grandparents' garden.

Train Station, at Dawn

2011-07-06T09:00:00.000-07:00

Brushes

2011-07-05T14:28:00.000-07:00

Barbeque

2011-06-26T13:42:00.000-07:00

Saturday Idleness

2011-06-25T03:04:00.000-07:00

Enjoying the rare luxury of being home without anything urgent to do, listening to the rain, getting the ingredients ready for home-made chocolate...

Stone

2011-06-19T11:25:00.000-07:00

Street Delivery (7) - Graffiti Update

2011-06-17T06:10:00.001-07:00

Street Delivery (6)

2011-06-12T09:17:00.000-07:00

Street Delivery (5)

2011-06-12T09:09:00.000-07:00

Street Delivery (4)

2011-06-12T09:00:00.000-07:00

Street Delivery (3)

2011-06-12T08:45:00.000-07:00

Street Delivery (2)

2011-06-12T08:30:00.000-07:00

Street Delivery (1)

2011-06-12T07:13:00.000-07:00

On the Road

2011-06-10T14:56:00.000-07:00

"By the toe of my boot,
a pebble of quartz,
one drop of the earth's milk,
dirty and cold.
I held it to the light
and could almost see through it
into the grand explanation.
Put it back, something told me,
put it back and keep walking."

(Ted Kooser - On the Road)

Wednesday, 8.40 a.m.

2011-06-10T12:55:00.000-07:00

In the park.

Two magpies have hopped out of a patch of light, and are pecking at the bark of trees in search of insects.

*

The morning sun has set some leaves ablaze, while others are still heavy with shadow. An old couple borrow the light-and-shade pattern of the trees and the alley as they walk past.

*

A torn blue cover reveals odd bits of a carousel: the bottom of a plastic bear covered in miniature hearts, the wheel of a red car, a purple muzzle... Watching over this dozing ensemble is a blue-and-white elephant with cracks around its trunk - the map of a merry face grown old too soon.

*

Hosts of small spindle-like fish are busy mimicking the brown and yellow leaves that have fallen on the dusty surface of the lake.

Friday, 8.30 a.m.

2011-06-10T11:31:00.000-07:00

Whenever I have a free morning, I enjoy buying things from the makeshift market near my block of flats: a handful of peasants and gypsies who sell flowers, eggs, milk, fruit and vegetables in the middle of the street, on newspapers and upturned crates. Some welcome you with humility, others with cunning, pleas, or stories... Others are just there, like the man I noticed this morning - he was standing a little further away from the rest, awkward and lonely in the cold wind, trying to sell a few carrots and eggs.

The street is lined with shops, banks, chemist's, bakeries... Among them, two communist shop-windows: a hairdresser's called "Igiena" and a busy tailor's with old-style sewing machines and a few employees who seem torn out of the pages of communist almanacs. A few metres away, propped by wooden crutches and guarded by sleepy dogs, the dimly coloured church is quietly dissolving into the morning sky. And the door of a lottery outlet announces optimistically: "Your luck awaits you here."

Crumpled

2011-06-09T12:41:00.001-07:00

Expressions

2011-05-29T02:35:00.000-07:00

The First Cherries

2011-05-27T09:32:00.000-07:00

Night Flowers

2011-05-27T09:27:00.000-07:00

Last night, on the way back from work, I bought a large bunch of pinks. I hadn't planned to, but there was an old toothless woman selling them in the middle of a junction at 10 p.m., and I just couldn't resist.

Later On...

2011-05-21T10:42:00.000-07:00