Goose Brood

Yesterday was the twentieth anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. No one wants another Chernobyl. Human beings make mistakes but these mistakes fall out of the accident category and become disasters under a utilitarian government like in 1986 in Chernobyl. Excuses are not acceptable when lives are in danger, when freedom is taking away, when force playfully sits instead of choice, when one knows the unforgettable past and pretends to be above all mistakes like today in Iran. I am afraid; where in the world will it be the next one? Iran is not far from my thoughts and worries.

Two nights ago I saw Ice Age The Meltdown (2006). I was surprised when the offer for seeing it came from my lovely husband. To tell the truth there was not much room for surprise since I was expecting it and it was kind of my award for being less annoying in the last two weeks, while he was working on some kind of an unfinished paper with his friend. Ice Age (2002) was much better than The Meltdown; not much surprise here either since the first one in these cases are always better; there is only one famous contour example and that is Godfather part II (1974).

After getting some works done on Monday I felt more comfortable about my presentation. But the most overwhelming things in the last week were these cute Goose Brood coming out of their nest perhaps for the first time to walk around with their parents.

If you could only imaging how annoying is the sound of a single goose at 6 o’clock in the morning! You might kill yourself after a month or so especially if you live with the geese and me in the same place. Nonetheless you will forgive them when you see their little brood but you won’t forgive me; I am unforgivable.

Amusing !

New York is warm and sunny today. My annual allergy which is usually showing itself up in the form of my running nose in May has started today, two weeks earlier. I am still wrestling with my paper on the Impact of Klee and van Doesburg on the Bauhaus Weaving Workshop. My presentation is in two weeks.

Today is Joan Miro’s 113th birthday. He is one of my favorite painters: actually he is the only surrealist painter that his paintings never scare me and I can keep looking at them for ever. However I am not fan of his sculptures and that is mostly because they don’t pass to me the powerful emotions that his paintings do through their colorful spirit.

Like other painters, in his early works, Miro experienced and worked in different styles and isms before surrealism. But since his surrealist works were more familiar to me than his other works I got surprised the first time that I saw The Farm (La Masia): I was studying for an exam, almost three years ago, it was after midnight and I was the only moving-being in our apartment. I was just surprised at first and I didn’t like the painting that much. But the more I looked at it the more I liked it. The interesting point is that The Farm doesn't have any passionate color. Just look at it; it grows at you little by little.

Other than the running nose and the daily struggle with my paper, my thumb still hurts from a week ago that I cut it by a knife. Because the result wasn’t satisfying for one of our friends, she/he bought a sharpening stone for us and sharpend our knife set. Perhaps a knife should be sharp enough to cut my thumb off my hand. Thanks to her/him, next time I won’t have any pain since there will be no thumb attached to my hand to cause me any.

After all who feels pain when Joan is so colorful and amusing !

The Farm, Joan Miro,1922.

Dog Barking at Moon, Joan Miro, 1952.

Death

Death is strangely strong. It was on Saturday around 8:30 in the morning that we got to the funeral home. We both were tired. We had a long drive and it was rainy all the way from Princeton to Fairfield. It wasn’t fair. How could it be fair? I asked myself over and over; no satisfying answer!

Death is strongly strange. It was hard to go in and face the family. It was hard to hear the trembling voice of a father reading from Quran for his son. It was hard to hear the memories that never can change the reality and hopelessly try to fill the space between the death and the life. It was hard to see the pain and sorrow in their eyes, in the eyes that never looked at anyone unkindly, the horrible pain that shrunk a man to a moving shadow, the pain of losing a child.

How can it be fair? How can death of a 19 year old be fair? In my life I have seen more parents wore black in their child’s funeral than the children in their parents funeral. Yet it was another sudden death and the best thing I could do was to cry, pray and wish them patience.

Then I got worried for my little brother. I called him after the funeral and told him if he dies when he shouldn’t I won’t forgive him for not being there. I told him that I never forgive him if he denies me the memories that we still can build together. I told him that I never forgive him because then mom and dad will love him more than me; he knows how jealous of him I am and he has to consider that before doing anything stupid. After this and some more threats he asked me what has happened. I told him and he assured me that if I don’t kill him he has no plan to die yet. Then he added: when you got married I though I can live my life, but once again I was wrong. And then he sent his sympathy for my husband and wished him patience in his life with me.

Death is strangely strong and at the same time strongly strange.

Reflection: An Independent Filmmaker

John Cassavetes’s biography is less boring than his films. I saw two of them: Gloria (1980) and The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976). Both films were strangely independent. And by that I mean that these films are not only independent from Hollywood, which is a good and important quality for a movie, but also they are independent of the audience, which is not so good.

Although it is true that being interesting is not a goal for an independent filmmaker, nor is losing spectator’s attention, which happened to me while watching these films. Besides being bored I felt a Pain; I am not certain where this pain came from, maybe from the story or maybe from my high expectation of an independent filmmaker.

Of course I watch these films today and not in 70s or 80s; one can think that these films might have been less boring at their own time; if so we should not forget that there are a lot of old films which are still among the most interesting films of all times.

Now about films of Our Time:

Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006) directed by Carlos Saldanha is out and it sounds promising with Queen Latifah joining the crew for Ellie’s voice. It is what I like to see.

Inside Man (2006) directed by Spike Lee is a tempting Crime/Drama by an exciting cast and crow. It is more probable for me to see Inside Man first since my husband is not an animation fan and it often happens that I have to either find an excuse to make him come with me to see an animation in theater or I have to wait for him to go to a conference somewhere far away to allow me borrow an animation from the library or the video store. This was the case with Shark Tale (2004) – it was not a good animation anyways -, Robots (2005) - I was with my lovely friends and he was at a banquet with his genius friends - and Corps Bride (2005) – he was in Michigan.

Nonfiction
Baltimore, MD, Feb. 2006

Fiction
Baltimore, MD, Feb.2006

Reflection

Baltimore, MD, Feb. 2006

* I took these photos in a suny and windy day which in my experience, is the best time to take pictures of clouds.