Picture Game experience...

A few days ago I asked my friends / relatives to try the following on my lj:

PEOPLE! I'm launching a new feature in here. Remember I said I was going to say a little something about nice pictures everynow and then? Well, actually, no. YOU are going to. Right, I know it's Friday night and everybody (but myself) is busy going out getting drunk etc... But if you participate drunk or hungover (or even in a few days) that's even better.The principle of the thing? I post the reproduction of one painting. And you are asked to react. Say whatever you want; it can be thoughtful, silly, provocative, weird, even injurious ... whatever.The interest is: you'll be doing me two favours a)share your oh so wonderful vision of art; b) unveil yourself a little further in the process. And you may even enjoy it.Come on, I am not being difficult: I ask 5 minutes of your time. So please, POST YOUR COMMENTS.

For info: Rembrandt - Woman bathing in a stream (Hendrickje Stoffels?), oil on oak, 61.8x47 cm, National Gallery, London.

That's what came out of it:

Sam: bien que j adore les couleurs sombres en peinture et aime bien Rembrandt, je ne trouve pas cette peinturte particulierement interessante. Tres sombre, couleur du corps fade. Un bain la nuit peut etre et encore! A la limite morbide (paleur de la peau et reflets rouges dans l eau). Rq: cette peinture rend surment mieux en vrai qu en photo.Next painting ;-)

Greg: "c est nul a chier".

Mnkyclldshlly: Set in a gloomy part of the forest, this painting shows a woman bathing in a stream.

Mnkyclldshlly:What I really meant to say (apart from stating the obvious), was that it is a peaceful picture. She has picked a place where no-one can see her, so she can enjoy the silence and comtemplate life.That's the (sort of) clever answer.Here is the Monkey answer;This woman, thinking she has got away from her husband for a while (one of the horses on his carriage has broken down, so he's waiting for someone to come and fix the horse), goes for a nice refreshing bath. Then suddenly it hits her. What if she has a pee in the stream. No-one will notice as the stream is gently flowing somewhere else, and no-one can see her. She has dreamed about doing this in public for a long time. She would get beaten in school if she did it in the communal baths. Also, her brother died of a rash he developed that was attributed to urine in the water when they shared baths when they were little. Then she thinks that "maybe I shouldn't do it. There's a nice family of ducks a litlle further down, and I would feel bad if they died as well. What if this water was being bottled at the end of the stream and then sold onto the masses in pubs, clubs and bars for ridiculous prices. Serves them right, spending money friftily(?) when they can come to this stream and just drink for free! But... then I wouldn't be able to bathe in nice little streams like this if everyone came out and had a drink. Maybe I SHOULD get rid of them for once a...." Her husband's shouting interrupting her internal arguement. The horse has been fixed, so they can go home now. She leaves, thinking, "when will I be able to pee like that again?"

Mnkyclldshlly: Or maybe she has just stepped in something...

pi_po_lucio:So, it is the first time that I see this painting which I did not know at all. I went on the web site of the National Gallery because there are very increased photographs of the painting. On the photographs, something seemed odd to me: it seems that the painting has been made very quickly: there are great blows of brush for the white shirt of the woman. And even with the enlargings, I did not really arrive to understand what is painted in the second plan. Is the painting completed ? Another thing: in the bath there is very little water (to the tibia not more) but the woman raises her shirt quite high (to the pubis but not more!) but only front side, the shirt is not raised on the back side.Who is that woman really ? In any case, the painter wanted to show us his body… Also, what does she look at? Her feet? This is a little bit curious. She does not seem to be in a river, so there is no risk of stones :-). Does she feel some shame? Another idea which came to me: it is that at the time where this table was painted, one washed oneself only very little. Did the painted scene really take place or is it the fruit of imagination (desire?) of the painter?

JB: Pourquoi elle ne monte pas plus haut?Elle n'a rien d'autre à se mettre?C'est du sang derrière elle?Elle marche dans du sang???Bon je n'ai surement rien compris....bisous

Blonde: c'est etonnant mais cette peinture ne m'inspire pas tellement. comment dire, ce n'est pas qu'elle ne me plait pas mais elle me laisse plein d'interrogations et ca me derange un peu. en meme je ne sais pas exactemement ce que tu attends de nos commentaires: juste de la spontaneite peut-etre...ce qui me marque en premier lieu c'est sa carnation, sa peau est d'un gris morbide, mais c en meme temps caracteristique du travail de rembrandt.il est vrai que l'arriere plan est a peine perceptible: elle semble s'etre deshabillee pour se baigner, ses vetements sont ceux d'une femme aisee aux couleurs vives et riches. je crois me souvenir qu'il y a peut etre un lien avec une scene mythologique (bethsabee?) d'ou cette richesse; ce n'est donc pas forcement une femme de l'aristocratie.en tout cas a l'expression de son visage elle semble heureuse, elle esquisse un sourire et son regard semble happe par ce qu'elle voit(ou ne voit pas justement, that is the question mrs nuche?). est-ce son reflet qui l'emerveille?pour resumer elle ferai mieux de se jeter dans cette eau qui semble glacee pour reprendre des couleurs la ptite-la, elle est bien palote, faut qu'elle rosisse!!

T4z4: Ok straight to the point.I am amazed by the colours firstly the fact that the background is much darker than the women puts her forward as is done in photography by properly lighting the subject and not the background or by blurring the background to create that effect.The women’s skin is white and reminiscent of the days when whiteness was a sign of beauty as it still is in many parts of the world. Her size also reminds me of that time, she is plump and not skinny like today’s models.The title is bathing in a stream but she holds up her clothes as if she didn’t want to wet them or was waiting to be sure the stream was safe before removing them, the way she looks at the stream goes in that direction.Her colourful clothes lying behind her imply she is probably from a rich background as peasants didn’t really have access to colours at the time.Why would a rich beatifull woman bathes in a stream????Lastly the description says "oil on oak" so it seams the paint was applied on wood, I am curious to know if that was to create the dark sombre atmosphere or if it was a current technique in those times.Great project M,Keep it up

Me: Thanks so much everybody for your comments!I was not planning on explaining my choice nor giving my thoughts, but then many of you seemed quite puzzled by different aspects (no JB, she is not bathing in blood...), so I thought I'd give you my impressions.Rembrandt was accused of chosing women who in no way reassembled the classical Venus but were ordinary women with flabby breasts, obese bodies, garter marks on the legs. His representation of female body were inspired by life rather than academic rules (as a result many critics accused him of not knowing how to depict the female nude), and by his rejection of the canon of beauty, he expressed his artistic liberty.
The woman in the picture is stepping down in the water, lifting her undergarment and reveals all but her pubis area. Looking down into the water, she is apparently gazing at the reflection of her body and smiling to herself. The painting is reminiscent of representations of Bathseba, Susanna, Callisto, Danae… but there are no clues of identification. Even more, she is self-absorbed, in an act of intimacy, not in the overtly sensuous attitude lent to mythological nudes. By isolating her from a context, Rembrandt intensifies the impact of what she is feeling.The peaceful mood of intimacy of the bathing can be explained by the supposed identity of the female figure. She has been identified as Hendrickje Stoffels, Rembrantd maidservant after the death of his wife Saskia, and with whom he developed an intimate relationship. The year of the painting, Hendrickje, pregnant was banned by the Church's council because she was living in sin with Rembrandt. The painting itself has been interpretated as a deliberate rejection of the Church council’s verdict. And as a love testimonial.But yeah, right, her skin is a bit grey-ish green0ish as if she was an old corpse taken from the morgue. I like her though. I like her normality. I think she does not only smiles to herself. She also smiles at all those vain pretty girlish posh tacky venuses and other goddesses. No to the star-system! No to the dictats of beauty!!!!

Attempt at a Review: My Name is Red -- Orhan Pamuk

A thriller set in 16th century Istanbul, among the miniaturists of the sultan Murat III, My Name is Red tells the difficulties of the declining Ottoman Empire in receiving the influence of the West -- here, it is the influence of the Venitian painters upon miniaturists who sought inspiration from the Old Masters of Persia. To win the heart of his beloved Shekure, Black Effendi is in charge of finding the author of a horrid double murder among the miniaturists. More than a thriller, the story addresses the importance of calligraphy over painting (the paintings stand mainly as illustrations of text) in a world where the power of images is feared by the all-powerful Muslim clergy which denounces figuration as evil. The emergence of the influence of the Western ‘heretic’ interest in reality (perspective, shadows, recognizable portraits) shatters the centuries-old traditions, and threatens to precipitate the decline of Ottoman art – hence civilisation.

Non commitally, Pamuk sets out these rock-hard orthodoxies. Clearly he has no use for fatwas or fundamentalist rage. Elsewhere, though -- his own civil war is fought on both sides with exquisite weapons -- he sympathetically refines the implications. These, in fact, brush up against our own tradition's questioning of the place of art. Does it create its own order (or disorder) or does it discover, serve and bring out a larger, timeless order (or disorder)?(Richard Eder, NY Times, September 2, 2001)

Orhan Pamuk lovingly describes the masterpieces of ancient Persian miniatures; intertwines the story of Black and Shekure with that of myhtical lovers Shirin and Husrev; mixes history with religion; sacrifice with conspiracy.

Part of Pamuk’s dazzling mastery is in the narrative devices. The story is told by no less than nineteen ‘characters’, who successively become narrators, in a succession of fifty-nine chapters. I say ‘characters’ but Pamuk even gives voice to images (a dog, a gold coin, Death, Satan, even the colour Red who gives her name to the book…), via the performances of an itinerant story-teller. It also tells to what extremes the love of art can lead, from murder, to heresy, even to self-mutilation. It seems that art can lead to the same fanatical excesses as fundamentalists

This use of multiple main-characters does make the reading difficult for the reader though, and I think this book probably needs, to be fully appreciated, to be read more than once. Although Pamuk manages to subtly individualise the characters through changes of tone, pace, style and mood, the reader has to set his mind in a different pattern for each chapter to be able to follow the plot. This is emphasised by the fact that the three main suspects, three miniaturists, are not adequately distinguished throughout the book. By the end of the novel, I barely cared anymore about who was the murderer, as I was gradually mixing up the different personalities and had to keep flipping the pages back to understand what was going on. In my particular case, the difficulty was probably raised by the fact that English is not my mother tongue, and the extreme richness of his writing made it harder. Richness which at times turns to heaviness (I think about Master Osman’s experience in the Treasury for instance, recalled in exhausting details). I had difficulties also to understand in what extent the rendering of Shekure’s character was relying on a 16th century vision of women, and on the author’s own vision. Shekure is for me a barely likeable character, whose only obsession if finding a father for her sons – using criteria that a 21st century woman would, I hope, found extremely inappropriate – makes completely obnoxious. But women in this novel are mainly double-faced, animal (enjoying ‘copious lovemaking), hollow, deeply dependent, devious, single-minded.
Mind you, everybody in the novel is obsessed with something: tradition, religion, art, glory, love, ‘copious lovemaking’… It seems also that the final aim of each character is to liberate oneself by achieving one’s most desired goals, whether it be immortality, love, or the subliminal bliss of the vision of God, as achieved through blindness. As Richard Eder writes, it is the story of the ‘stubborn humanity in the characters' maneuvers to survive. It is a humanity whose lies and silences emerge as endearing and oddly bracing individual truths.’
It is finally, despite its magnificent descriptions of the Ottoman civilisation, a deeply dark book, as it seems that nothing can be achieved without correlative loss, and that decline is unavoidable.

On Paper and Memory

Today I was working in a box-office where I had never worked before, located by the Tower of London.
Believe it or not, this place suddenly raised childhood memories involving my grandparents – my British grandparents, on my Mum’s side – which had nothing to do with seeing the crown jewels, stalking the Queen’s funny-looking guards to get to be pictured with them, or crying to get to walk on Tower Bridge. Nah. I got my flashback in the toilets.
There is, by the Tower of London, one of those modern high-tech infrastructures – like the Louvre’s Grande-Pyramide complex, the new British Museum circulation hall, the London Eye’s County Hall… -- aimed at swallowing and spitting tourists in a more efficient, industrial, or to put it in a single word, capitalist way. And so, accordingly to the premises, modern toilets, or two large corridors leading to two opposite bathrooms: the little girls’ and the little boys’ rooms – for obvious reasons I have not visited the latter. The Ladies is an absolutely gigantic square room, with loos on the four sides, and four rows of sinks and dryers in the middle. Flush, tap and dryer are, obviously, automated. The place is strikingly bare of any mirror – have you ever seen Ladies worthy of the name without mirrors?! I believe this is to emphasise the productivity in chain-weeing and pooing, as no time is wasted checking hairdos, make up, or popping zits. ‘Ladies, let’s get straight to the point: WEE!’.
All very high tech you would say.
Except for…
… the crucial moment between wee and flush:
the toilet paper
is
literally
toilet
PAPER.
Gasp. Ewww. Argh. Yep, like in the ‘good ol’ times’!

The fact that I urgently needed to blow my nose – remember, I’m recovering from a sticky cold which makes me snore glamorously at night- did markedly heighten my feeling of unease. I needed to blow my nose in this bleedin’ toilet paper and so did I. Eww. Icky.
Later, while drying my hands under the ‘woooshing’ modern jet-powered dryers, I wondered incredulously why English Heritage spends so much money on high-tech-super-efficient-wow!-loos … to spoil everything by using cheap toilet paper.

But as soon as my fingers recognised the unforgivable feeling of toilet paper, memories of my late yet beloved Nana and Grandad – bless them – whose generosity only matched their financial modesty, popped into my mind.
My childhood holidays in Crawley, Sussex, were synonym of countless visits of various castles and churches, feeding swans in gorgeous English gardens, going on rides on Brighton Pier, mimicking the adults playing Canasta by playing ‘Uno’ with my brother, watching Neighbours (or rather hiding between the wall and the couch during Neighbours. I can’t find any rational explanation for why I loved spending time there), taking the piss out of the ‘crazy neighbour’ who was mowing his lawn at least twice a day (even more in rainy weather), collecting Garfield memorabilia, playing with my mum’s, uncles’ and aunt’s old wood toys, sneaking downstairs early every morning to scare the milkman, going on old steam trains, visiting Legoland, eating my Nana’s delicious muffins and scones every evening and rice krispies every morning and …. toilet paper. I guess that was something common at the time in England; or maybe common in families who really could not afford any extras (although my brother and I never lacked anything and were rather spoilt by my grandparents).I spent the rest of the day in a kind of Twilight-Zone, in between 1988-Crawley and 2006-Tower, staring blankly at customers with a stupid smile.

Chronicles of the Box Office # 3

One of the box offices I work in is at 'Bankside Pier', which is by the Shakespeare Globe and... the Tate Modern! Among other companies using the pier, is the 'Tate to Tate' service (which, you may guess, goes from one Tate -- Modern -- to the other -- Britain), service for which there is NO box-office, as customers pay on board. Understandably, it's the most popular service of this pier. And it makes my days a nightmare. Example.
C.: 'One ticket to the Tate'
[note: never 'Hi', never 'Please')
T.A: 'For the Tate to Tate, you pay on board'
C.: 'Ah. When is the next one?'
T.A:'I don't know, I don't work for the Tate to Tate, but you have an information board behind you'
C.:'And how much is it?'
T.A.: 'I-DO-NOT-WORK-FOR-THE-TATE-TO-TATE (Grrr)'
Customer sighs heavily, puts lots of drama in looking annoyed (to which I want to say 'the Shakespeare Globe is behind you, not here'), pretends to be looking around, sighs again, and says: 'Where behind me?!'
T.A. (playing the idiot and pointing with a finger): 'There. BE-HIND-YOU'
Customer goes to the board. Pretends to read two seconds. Comes back and says, sounding offended and scandalised: ' There is not 'Tate to Tate' timetable there!!!'
I groan, heavily get out of my box, heavily shut the door, heavily walk to the Information Board, heavily put a finger on the appropriate part of the board, and triumphantly say:'HERE!'
Customer looks stupidly at the board, studies the timetable for a long while. Comes back to me and says with a satisfied grin: 'One return to the Tate Britain please!'

Things that I miss – In order and disorder.

Fields of poppies.
The reassuring smell of my cat’s fur.
Having time for myself – and for my Monkey
Painting
My brother (give me a call if you read this) .. and his lovely family
Dipping Bjorg biscuits in my yoghurt for breakfast
Going for long walks in the forest / mountains
Horse-riding
A whiff of the seaside, at dawn (la rosée du matin sur le sable)
Obsessively reading the complete works of an author, as if my life depended on it.
Long nights with my friends at Sussex Uni
Picnics on the borders of the Seine
Having classes in the Louvre
Snorkelling
Kenay
Girl’s nights with Sweetie (camembert-cheese, red wine and a movie)
Believing that when you see a falling star, your wish will come true
Seeing the Sainte-Victoire every morning when I get up
Karaoke nights in the silly Polish pub in Acton
Being a five-year-old-brat and thinking that the worst injustice is when my parents don’t listen to my crap at dinnertime
Tracking down rabbit footprints in the snow… and leaving carrot pieces in the hollows.
When my family was happy and united
Reading all night long … and never feeling sleepy in the morning
Having my dog sleeping with me when I am sick
Nice dinners in Paris
Museum-days with Lulu
Sleeping under the stars on my parents’ patio
Believing that one day I will finish my PhD
Making a snowman with my nephew
Holidays in Mauritius
Holidays
My Monkey (he is late tonight)

Chronicles of the Box Office # 2

C.: 'What is the name of this river?'
T.A. (me): 'What is the name of this city sir?'
C.: 'London?'
T.A. - encouragingly : 'Sooooo?'
C.: '.... ?'

Chronicles Of the Box-Office # 1

Let me set the scene:

To pay for my rent / PhD / food / whatever you like, I work (far too many hours) for a River Cruises company on the river Thames. Which means that I encounter daily a category of humanity which bears the worse as much as the best features: the TOURIST. Aaaargh you shudder struck by a feeling of horror.... Get hooked up if you want some snippets from the Box Office.

-- One of our products is called the 'Circular Cruise'. I guess you are all too clever to need an explanation. Really? --

Customer: Can I do a return trip?

Ticket Agent (me!): yes, this is a circular cruise....

C: yeah, but I mean, can I return here?

T.A: Yes, the cruise is circular.

C: Whaddayamean?!

T.A. -- starting to be clearly exasperated-- : it does a CIRCLE, so, BY DEFINITION, it returns.

C.: and it returns here???

T.A.: yes.... [maybe I should have said 'no, it returns to Windsor'....?]

C: aaaaah. ok. Can I have a single, please?

La Minute Philosophique

Ever felt like sometimes, whatever you do is like doing a Monet's Haysatcks 5.000 pieces puzzle, when one piece is missing: laborious and absurdly pointless?

Maybe it's time to take a deep breath, and go for a break.

Typical 'Studious' Day at the British Library

7.00 am: Bloody evil alarm clock rings.

7.25: "Daaaarling? [my Man] Get up."

7.35: "Darling. GET UP!"

7.40 > 8.15: quick shower + fixing sandwich for lunch (= student and broke; this is an euphemism). Breakfast [1/2 bagel + peanut butter; 1 slice sunflower granary bread + mmmNUTELLAAAA; 1 bowl maple'n'pecan cereals + soja milk + greek yogurt; tea ; apple juice.

8.15 > 8.20: teeth brushed; shoes jumped in; scarf'n'coat wrapped in.

+ I grab: laptop + batteries (regularly forgotten), earphones, big massive writing pad, pencils and pencil-sharpener, and usual useless stuff. Check 3 times that I have my British Library pass.

8.21: outdoor, at last! Mmmm should be careful not to be too enthusiastic. something seems utterly wrong (like: 'I have forgotten something critical'); and days like this my mood tends to be just like British weather: Schizophrenic.

8.21.38'': SHIT! "Daaaarling? Would you mind being sweet enough to run back home, I forgot my Oyster Card?" [= Londoner's indecently expensive Travelcard, with ultra silly name. Probably due to some kind of advertiser's delirium after consumption of illicit substances while creating the new Transport Fro London marketing strategy].

8.23: "Thaaaanks darling you are SO sweet" (darling sweating and desperate to recover his breath)

8.35: SHIT! Just missed the 8.34 to Charing Cross (this is the story of my life. Missing THE crucial train every morning)

8.45: In the _PACKED_ train to Cannon Street. Stopping every bleedin' stop on that bleedin' line. Every time the train slows down I get propelled to some guy's smelly armpit. Grrrr, starting to be in a bad mood.

9.02: Change at London Bridge to catch the Northern Line to Kings Cross. SHIT! Service Suspended! Technical failure I guess? Whatever.

9.32: after zillions of changes, lots of cursing, and mood getting worse and worse, finally arrive at the British Library. The Saint of Saints. Aaaaah, I can smell the whiff of knowledge getting past my nostrils. Yeeeah, mood getting better. Sun's shining. Birds singing. Temperature exponentially raising in my happy to happier mind.

9.35: after leaving my stuff in the over-heated lockers, I'm now getting to the door of the section 'Rare Books and Music ' (perfume of knowledge getting even more bewitching). SHIT! My library pass is in the locker.

9.37: Let's replay it: at the door. I'm cool. Not annoyed. Not bothered. It was just a passing wispy cirrus.

Find nice seat, end of row, no-one at my left, still no-one at my right (although April is super-busy-crowded-stinky at the BL). Not too close to help desk (they are such noisy buggers there). Mmmm light's working. Switch on laptop. GODDAMMITT forgot my earphones (I thought I took them though.... ?). The happy opening music of Windows announces my computer's awakening to the world. People stare at me nastily. Why do I have to alienate myself from the room after five minutes? Stratocumulus rushing in my direction.

9.47: Get to help desk. TRIPLE SHIT! Getting to bad cumulonimbus on the scale of my mood scaringly going down. and down. and down: forgot to pre-order my books on the internet before coming. It's going to take 70 bleeding minutes before I get even the shadow of a book now.

9.51: Well.... what shall I do now? Obviously, I brought no books, no notes, nothing with me. Mmmm try to get my mood - and motivation - better. Ok, I'm gonna reorganize my computer's desktop.

9.52: Gosh, I should have slept more. Keep yawning. Misty surroundings.

9.56: Shall I re-organise my favorites on i-tunes now? Sunny intervals.

10.26: I'm bored.

10.27: Yopla! on the internet looking at stuff on ebay. Global Warming.

10.42: Jeeez. So much useless, pointless, ugly, OBNOXIOUS stuff on ebay. Sigh.

10.53: "NO, We still don't have your books. It says '70 minutes' Can't you read?!".... "But?.." Whatever. Weather degrading. Stormy and occasional lightning. Bollocking Shit.

11.11: HOOOORAY!!!! I have my books.

11.28: Jeeez.... does this have to be SO boring?

11.46: Yawn number 17. /if I count only the post- 'help-desk-visit-number-three' ones. I stare blankly at people. Hoping that someone's clever culture might strike me via winking communication? Obviously the ONE who stares back - angrily - is the one looking like some kind of dirty avatar of Rasputin after a bath in cow's poo (Monkey tells me that one says 'cow's pat', not 'cow's poo') . Ok, ok, I'm reading.

12.12: "scrooouitch" says my stomach. "shut up, stomach!" I reply.

12.28: Goddammit. I NEED to eat.

13.44: Back in the Reading Room. Mmmmm a bit sleepy after lunch. Hazy intervals.

14.36: Guy seating in front of me keeps snorting REVOLTINGLY. It's SO rude. Am I stormchasing or what? First diplomatic cough. Snorts again. I raise an eyebrow. Snorts longingly. Launch eye-signals at people around. Snorts yet AGAIN. I loudly cough back...

14. 44: I just CAN'T concentrate. This is properly DIS-GUS-TING. Severe thunderstorm.

14.53: Attack. Grroar! "'Scuse me? - eyebrow super-raised. Cruel pout. Slight ironic smile - Could you please snort a little bit more discretely?" -- Bollock would be proud of his favourite asocial Nunuche. The guy shruggs. And leave after a few minutes. YAY, Victory, I feel like doing a Sioux Dance.

15.22: Yawn 173-bis. ZZzzz?Tropical moist vs knocking heat. I need a coffee break.

15.59: End coffee break.

17.00: YIPPEE! It's time to jump on the tube to join my darling at the train station. Glorious sunshine. (I will NOT miss the 17.36).

Trying to explain my point

In 1850, Gustave Courbet provoked scandal with his Burial at Ornans, when he depicted the inhabitants of his village in life-size, in a huge scale, and made every-day life people enter the realm of History. In his monumental Comédie Humaine, the saga of 2000 characters in ninety books, Honoré de Balzac wanted to represent the society of his time, and thereby celebrate modern times. In 1964, Andy Warhol changed a Soup Campbell can into an icon of modern culture and the society of consumerism. In the 1990s, the aesthetic principles of Dogma pushed the Realism in cinema to its highest degree.
I could carry on listing innumerable examples of the never ending interest of artists for the realities of their times. I am no genius, and even less artist.I have no pretensions of ever reaching the level of their message. But in their enterprises, I recognize the impetus of considering reality, the perfect exception of an instant. Every minute, a new miracle happens in the world, a new birth announced by the screaming noise of a newborn. Every minute, someone dies, very often making no more noise than a quiet sigh…Every time a mother looks at her smiling child, she can experience the exaltation of perfect bliss… A stranger smiling in the train can highlight your day, just as a grumpy comment from someone you quickly pass in the street can shadow your mood.
These are the little rituals of life, the little ‘nothings’ of the everyday, the insignificant reaching the significance of the essential, the heroism in the ordinary and the futility of the exceptional, the unique character of each instant, the volatile of experiences, the exception in the routine, the happiness of that one can encounter in the banality. These are what I want to consider in my modest way, all with the imperfection of my awkward turns of phrase, clumsy expressions and childlike words… And endeavour to perfect little by little the simple fact of living, and maybe, eventually, find a meaning – my meaning - to the big mystery of life. Peut-être enfin reconnaître la perfection de chaque instant, dans ses imperfections même, puisqu’il n’y a rien d’extraordinaire, si ce n’est le quotidien.

A little bit of poetry....

Q.: Do you love me?
A.: Does a goose shit in the water?

Sans commentaires.....

I wish I knew him better - A Sad Day at the Soup Kitchen -

One morning in every month, I volunteer at the Soup Kitchen. I go there for a range of different reasons, one of them being (quite selfishly) that there I feel like what I am doing is worth something. But let’s pass the motivation and self-analysis, this is not the subject.
I went there for the first time because of my dearest friend Heather. Let’s call her Sweetie from now on.
Sweetie and I were flatmates last year, and in my busy and tedious life, she soon appeared as a sort of sunshine, giving my brain / mood / state of mind the break it needed. She was in London for a year, an American student doing her Masters, but she was doing much more than that, and held a happily busy life. One of her occupations was to go to the soup Kitchen a number of times a month. I never went with her, but she entertained me quite often with little stories from there, and would keep me posted on who had done what, how and with whom. Finally, we had ‘our day together’ during her last week in London, and she introduced me to the Soup Kitchen. I liked it. And decided to go back, and continue what she was leaving behind.
Quite funnily, this Soup Kitchen is run by the American Church of London, although I am neither American nor a believer (I don’t think Sweetie is a believer either) - and I wouldn’t advise any of the volunteers there to give me any speech about religion. It is open 4 mornings a week. J. the Chef is Peruvian, studying art therapy, and is assisted every day by three to four volunteers, all of whom come at different intervals. They all come from different backgrounds, from American housewives who came in London thanks to their husbands’ jobs, and get lonely or bored, to American students, but you also have the random outsider like me, or this funny British guy T., who works at home and plays the drums. There are also some real unusual people, like S., Californian teacher, who heroically comes to London three months every winter and gives most of his time to the Soup Kitchen.
The work there is pretty straightforward: preparing the food and drinks from 9.15 to 10.00, and then opening for our ‘clients’ from 10.00 to 12.00. Plus fifteen minutes to half an our to tidy up and leave the kitchen all clean for the following day. We actually serve pretty nice food, J. preparing gorgeous-smelling soups, and everyday different hot meals (donated by posh chains of supermarkets), plus toast and sweets. Toast is important, because our ‘clients’ take six at a time, and put them in piles in their bags for later.
What makes the soup Kitchen though, is really them, our ‘customers’, the homeless, the destitute, the poor, the drug addicts, the drunkards, the depraved, the rejected, alienated, discarded, unwanted, abandoned by society, or refusing society.
It seems pretty hopeless doesn’t it? It actually is in some ways, but the atmosphere is much less tragico-pathetic than you would expect after this listing.
There reigns some kind of strange harmonious ‘entente’, rarely breached, and incidents or dramas are _ extremely _ rare - although this is today the subject of my blog.
Every day, most of them are already waiting by the gate when we open to greet us and peacefully queue up for hot drinks and soup, which they will ask for politely and gratify us with a warm ‘thanks darling’ or ‘thanks mate’, a smile or a wink.
It is a rather small Soup Kitchen (between 20 and 40 people come here I guess), and there is a certain kind of community feeling, in the sense that you always see the same faces – which is why I chose the word customer, instead of any reductive adjective such as homeless or poor. They have their little habits, favourite seats and table-mates. They have their little ‘gangs’ and can be very protective of each other.
Very different people come here, and one can be struck by the variety of people rejected by society, who fell into the extremity of having to rely on charity. There are obviously the few young junkies, destroying a life which could have been bearable maybe, and for whom you wonder what pushed them there.
One person, so thin that I still haven’t managed to find out which gender she/he belonged too, always refuses food, but asks for spoons of honey in her / his tea. One of the most obvious ways to recognise the drug addicts, apart from the unbearable sight of their incredibly thin features, is their obsession for sweets and refusal to eat anything solid.
Some of them are so young, you wonder if they ran way from home. Others are well-dressed clean and healthy looking, and you wonder if they should actually be coming to the Soup Kitchen. There are also the few gentlemanly looking guys, with excellent manners, language and sometimes education, so obviously fallen from middle/upper-class and you wonder with a chill which misfortune made them lose everything. There are the foreigners, who managed to immigrate to England, but never found a job. Among them, a strange looking guy from Ivory-Coast, whom you cannot stop once he starts talking, came as a student to do a PhD in Philosophy and finally got here. When I start imagining how his hopes have been deceived, how is life is different from what he expected, maybe how he wishes to go back home but cannot afford it… my head starts spinning and leaves me with a sensation of dizziness.
There is the funny looking punk (no Mohican haircut though!), always wearing red-tartan skinny legged trousers, army boots and old ragged leather jacket, drinking his cup of tea with the little finger in the air. Always very precious.
And you have the women. As tough as you can imagine, but as fragile as strong in their dignity, in their will to keep their identity as women. They are incredibly proud too, and I witnessed once the scary fury of one of them who nearly threw a chair at a guy twice her size (I am barely exaggerating) and half her age, because he insulted her.
And you have, as well, the Sweet Guy. Capital S and Capital G. Please, mentally underline, in bold, red and with sparkles these two words. Without exception the favourite of all the volunteers and customers alike. John, whom I nicknamed ‘single-tooth John’ because of his last remaining incisor. I already ‘knew’ him before I started, as Sweetie would always mention his kind manners and joyfulness. How to describe him? He is below average height (maybe shrunk by old-age), always carefully dressed (never goes out without a tie) of indeterminate elderly age (wrinkly and white haired, he could be any age, in between 55 and 75), and has a very peculiar laugh: like a kind of rattling sound, but also suckling air. Among other particularities, he greets indiscriminatingly every woman (young, old, ugly, beautiful, fat or masculine looking) with a tender kiss on the hand. Quite the gentleman, isn’t he? He is also among the ones who help to tidy up before we close, help the ladies to carry their bags, packages, rucksacks, handfuls of plastic bags filled with the usual bric-a-brac that homeless collect to keep themselves warm and sheltered. He always sits with a middle-aged lady in black with curly hair and a strange hat. Oh Sweetest John.

I think that one of the most important aspects of the Soup Kitchen for all of them, is not only the food – and, in the winter, the vital warmth of the soup, the coffee and tea – but also the fact that they get to ‘exist’ in the eyes of ‘normal’ people. I remember how shocked I was on my first day, when, giving a portion of pasta and pie to one of them, I was greeted by a ‘I would not give that to my dog’, which I’ve now been getting used to, along with the ‘they would not serve you this in prison’ or ‘do you really believe you’re going to feed me with such a small portion’. Even better are the similarly regular ‘Do you have skimmed milk instead?’, ‘I do only eat low-fat’, ‘Do you have any rye-bread?’, or ‘Don’t tell me there is salt in this soup? I cannot eat salt, I bloody told you!’… But this is not ungratefulness, or spoilt-childish reactions. Volunteers are the only people who care for them. Talk to them. Look at them. In the eyes. Answer, or even smile. They are being ‘served’ and can, for a few minutes, feel like they are ‘normal’ people, that they do ‘exist’, have a ‘place’. They have someone to listen to their groans – moans – whinges , and can have the luxury to complain about the quality of the food, rather than the harshness of the cold, the difficulty of sleeping in the street, the presence of rats… all those things that would be unthinkable for us privileged people who have a roof, home, bed, full fridge, job, social life, family, etc.
Spending a morning at the Soup Kitchen is, finally, quite an enjoyable moment, and each month I look forward to see the other volunteers, and our ‘customers’. Until today.

Yeah, incidents happen. Two days ago, J. banned a guy from the Soup Kitchen because he was drinking alcohol. There are no particular rules at the Soup Kitchen apart from: no alcohol, dugs, arms, and, lastly, rude behaviour to the volunteers.
As a result, J. received a death threat. So we were going to open today under the condition that the police would come to protect J.. The police did not come (for a series of circumstances too dull to recall here), and as a consequence we had to remove the food from the stalls. All of this, within plain sight of the starving-looking homeless, clutched to the gates.
Sadder was to come: J. told me that John passed away last week. Silently and quietly at the hospital.
I do not believe in god. But if he DOES exist, I have a message to transmit through the ethereal waves of the World Wide Web: please, look after John. I did not really know him. I did not know his name. I did not know his story. But he was a great guy.