Fate

Fate is a gruesome beast that we cannot begin to understand. It feeds on our tears, on our despair and spite-out innomable horrors, that we then have to face. Sometimes we are led to believe that Fate is kind to us and indulges us with treasures and happiness. Beware. It is only a mask for more torments to come. Nobody escapes the icy grip of Fate. And I feel it creeping closer. We do not grasp any of its workings and mechanism. How could we ? The flea on the elephant's back will never know the whole story. Neither will we. Hence the need of so many for 'religion' 'religiere', etre relie a quelque chose, being bound to something in fear of otherwise falling into a bottomless void. religion is the easy rope of reassurance. Interesting up to a point but definitely not an explanation for the non-religiously inclined. So. What else than a terrible sense of helplessness and bewilderment in face of Fate when it comes raging into your quiet existence ?
If you still have time before it happens, sharpen the diamond of your mind, brighten its multi-faceted awareness, thank life for being here, with no other demand and desire than to exist and to breathe and to smile. The stars are constantly raining on us. Yet we remain impermeable to them. The Universe calls on us and we are not hearing.
Not God, not religion. But gratitude. A duty to happiness. And kindness. And a thirst for beauty. Always and everywhere.

Berlin

Mmm. Another city -after Venice- so very much talked about...But for me Berlin always was special. I guess it all started many many years ago, when still a teenager, I listened, stunned to the Lou Reed eponymous LP 'Berlin'. At first I did not hear anything. Literally. Then...an epiphanic moment. I totally 'lived' in this odd, eerie music. After that , there was only one logical move : to go to the place itself. As everything in my life, it took some years to realise. But I got there. Crazily as an 'au-pair' the worst sort of activity possible. I stayed from November to April, in a city gripped by a fierce winter, covered by snow and ice. I was quite unprepared, in trainers only, and had driven my car all accross France and Germany, through the Eastern part too of course, to get there. I had slept one night in Darmstadt and then got frantically anxious about having to stop along the long motorway across East Germany, as the Military all along were watching the traffic. It was Strictly Verbotten to even stop. The Eastern side made me paranoid. During the 6 months I stayed, I refused to go and visit East Berlin, because of all the Polizei and Military watching constantly from above the Wall, far too threatening and venimous. I thought if I went in I would never come back. And very posibly I would not have... Berlin was then a completely eerie city of new buildings, very few old ones still standing but mostly everywhere, wastelands...It was sad and magic and I fell under an odd influence that was to last a lifetime. Nollendorf Platz Palace was then in full regalia of extravagant characters and costumes at night. It was a grand period for Berlin and caught in the difficulties of my situation, I did not appreciate it enough. I was overwhelmed, as am still, by the language, faintly understanding it but never able to utter a word. No change there. I remember one day walking in a derelict street of Kreutzberg that came to an abrupt end on the Wall. I remember the white crosses spread all along that damned wall, commemorating the lost lives of the people trying to escape. How could I have wished to visit that work-of-evil-regime seeing its results well enough ? I was too young to play tourist, and if I vaguely regret not having witnessed first-hand the communist side of Berlin, I still can understand why I did not. My brief life in Berlin was intense, fascinating and beyond me. Maybe the invisible 'angst' of the past was still very much in the air and affected me unknowingly. After a car crash and quasi-breakdown, putting a sudden end to my torturous situation as an 'au-pair', I fled the poor woman and her two hellish boys. Not very nice but it was a fight or fly case and I could only escape to survive. End of my first time in Berlin, but only the beginning of what is really an odd long love affair with a city. Unrequited love of course as usual.
Now Berlin, as a glorious phoenix, is rising again from its nearly-forgotten ashes. Its hideous history, as the one of all Germany, is, mercifully, starting to really fade away with waves of tremendously lovely new generations. I always feel they have made a pact of all being so extra-lovely to atone for their grand-parents sins...But more likely, they are all genuinely lovely.
Now, I really wish I'd never escaped that time long ago, but braved the odds and had the guts to start a new life, that today I could still enjoy.
Now, I can only go again and again, as a tourist, humiliating, instead of simply being : Ein Berliner.

Fury

We are all but grains of sand on the shore awaiting for the fury of the ocean to take us. We are all so minuscule, fragile and helpless in the face of the Earth and its magnitude, its power on us. Who, amidst such devastation can still hold a gun and shoot ? What maniac stlll think of harming and killing when our Only thought and care always, should be of helping each other across such terrifying journey ?
Today was again, and too often nowadays, a terrible reminder of the fragility, of the brievity of our lives on the planet, a planet that we often forget, has the last word on our destiny.
RIP Japan and every places affected.

Venice

What could one say about Venice that has not been said a thousand times over already ? Well note to self only : I have been to Venice, been there, done it. There is always this obligatory feeling that you Have to go to Venice at least once in your life. And you do have to indeed, it is overwhelmingly beautiful. Unique and fragile. It is an experience. aesthetic and intellectually so very stimulating (overflow of architecture, art and history...) Yet, yet...I 'experienced' Venice in all its beauty and glory but loved it ?? In retrospect curiously yes I do. But when there, I felt I was seeing a very dainty, beautiful aristocratic timeless Lady who had sold her soul to the most vulgar passer-by...To please the crowds and only the crowds what has Venice not done... It is a waste of time to lament the ugliness of tourism when one is precisely part of it (though in january to avoid the worst effects) but still...like seeing grotesque scars on a pale and delicate face...
And then the claustrophobia ! Curiously nothing had prepared me for the labyrinthical maze of tiny lanes that really is Venice away from the canals ! To reach the open space of a small place was like breathing again ! I hated the opression of the walls closing on you from all sides, high walls baring the light...It spoke to me of narrowness, of opression, of fear, of alienation, of rejection. A city afloat closed onto itself, rejecting the world, the foreigners, the light as far as it could.
But the Grand Canal of course...a beauty to behold...The opposite of the narrow lanes...I went to Venice in my mind so often, as in the vision of 'Palace of dreams' that somehow seeing Venice is never totally new. Everyone carries an 'inner' Venice. And the real place strangely corroborates the vision...
I saw 'Death in Venice' perhaps six, seven times all through my life. To me that film really IS Venice. I recognise the litle place with the well where Aschenbach collapses towards the end. It was odd and striking, encountering in reality this place so well-known in my mind...
'Death in Venice' totally captures the essence of this doomed city. Beauty from afar, impossible adoration and the pestilence, Death...To me it will always be the soul of Venice more than any other films shot there.
Then from the plane, ascending in the sky I got a glimpse of the city far below, lost, tiny, floating on the vast sea, the Lido a miniature stretch of earth. It was a poignant feeling, thinking of all the millions of treasures of art and architecture delicately poised there, utterly at the mercy of time and waters...

Helene Grimaud at the RFH

Yesterday night I went to see HG again. A solo concert as five or six years ago, same auditorium. Then the earth moved. And the skies opened and a new life started. Yesterday, it was also a recital and a good one. But nothing moved much apart from Helene's swift hands on the keyboard. I found that Mozart was not for her at all. She gave him
a military ardour and brilliance way too OTT for the nuanced Amadeus, here travestied as a thunderous god. Then during the deconstructed second bit ( Berg ?) I fell asleep. Oh dear. Was very tired. Then more rushing of hands on keyboard, and it was over. The 'encore' was the best. An hungarian dance with colour, rythm and flavour. All three missing rather from the previous two pieces. It was odd that Helene, so intense, lyrical and melodic chose to play bits that felt rather dull and dry. And why Mozart ? But why no Bach
at all when she recorded a whole beautiful CD of his music ? On the whole a lovely evening but nowhere near as tremendous as the one, a few years back, when her walking on stage changed my life.

Let me in, the film.

'Let me in' is a film that leaves a deep impression on you. Long after you have seen it, you will still carry its haunting effect. This might be the one time in film history, when the remake is way better than the initial film, because 'Let the right one in' was good but left one totally cold and indifferent. It was quaint, arty, very 'small film' and very likeable in its unpretentiousness. But with 'Let me in' now we are talking total cinema. Everything is better : the acting of the two superb young actors ( especially Chloe Moretz, utterly charismatic ) the direction, the music, everything. Right from the great opening scene, you are gripped by a masterly hand that you know wont let you go till the very end and after. The result is even more incredible given that most of us know the 'story' and that the surprise effect could have been therefore spoiled. Yet the movie managed supremely to top it all effortlessly. You gap, you stare, you wince at it all, as if for the very first time because really, it is the First time you see such a great, powerful story being told. This version also is not only powerful but subtle and very moving. It breaks the boundary of the one story, and become an all meaningful allergory. The fascination for Evil. The beauty and seduction of the Devil. The flame that humanity will always carry for evil-doing in spite of being destroyed in the process. There had been a very long time since a film made such a deep impression on me. And from talking to everyone around, we all agree : Superb.

Iceland

Josephine got lost on own island so we'll leave her there and carry on just like that. Just me talking. Recently I have been to Iceland and experienced the best trip ever. This is The Place. The feel of the nearby North Pole is incredible. The mountains loom large and mysterious. The whole land is a Mystery. I long to go back, deeper into the wild and lose myself into total space and emptiness. The landscape is like a perfect meditation. From the minute you land, it's like landing on the moon. Iceland is another planet. Then you drive into the landscape and the deep, spooky quiet get to you. You go into that odd, peaceful, silent state that here would be called 'meditation' but there just happens naturally to your mind.
I think I fell in love with the North Pole. Cold ,silent, ultimate, perfect. And long to be back.