lost in translation

January 27, 2007 at 2:27 pm · tag/s : people

when i arrive at the kuala lumpur international airport terminal with my luggage i am adopted by an old lady from phnom penh. using gestures she is somehow able to communicate to me that she’s lost and doesn’t speak any english … she has a boarding pass, so she has checked in, but she’s about as far away as she can be from where she needs to go, which is the departure level, gate c33.

she is pointing at me and then at herself, and then at me again.
i say : you want to go with me?
ok.
we get the lift upstairs together, and the sky train to departures. she is hanging on to my trolley. i think about pol pot. occasionally we look at each other. she keeps smiling at me. but when we get close to c33, a huge beatific smile appears on her face as she recognizes the friends she must be travelling with and has obviously become seperated from. they are as pleased to see her as she them. she indicates that she is ok now, and thanks me with gestures and much smiling. we shake hands and i wish her happy travels.

i head to starbucks for a caffeine fix. when i walk past her again later, she has already forgotten about me and is deep in conversation with her friends.

about what needs to be said

January 20, 2007 at 2:05 am · tag/s : death

fuck
fuck
fuck

i am speechless … mute … and i wish i could speak … i wish i could comfort those who are left behind … i wish i could comfort myself

but this is not about me …

maybe i can write about my speechlessness … maybe i can think about what needs to be said …

i could write about my own feelings : sadness, failure, powerlessness, disappointment - i could do that if i needed to - but perhaps i am resolved enough in my own life … grounded enough, old enough, not to have to do that anymore, and i have already done it elsewhere … the same with how this reminds us … puts us in touch with … our own fear of death … as well as our own, more or less frequent, or infrequent, urges for oblivion and self annihilation …

but this is not about me …

i could say something, which would sound patronising and ageist, about young people, particularly adolescents, needing good role models - but which wouldn’t be meant as patronising and ageist, because i would mean : as a person coming into adulthood you need to see adults, people, who can work with their doubt … people who can turn their depression around … people who are doing something meaningful, in spite of the fact that the world seems increasingly meaningless and more and more people are becoming increasingly cynical and selfish

i could say : it is perfectly reasonable for you to be disappointed with the world … if you are a sensitive intelligent person, it is a very difficult fact to swallow that the world is so fucked up and apparently getting rapidly worse (not to mention the fact that most of the people in it are either ruthless, or idiots - and the ones that aren’t, don’t seem to care)

especially as you are emerging from the haze of childish ease, when you are coming into adulthood, this is a hard fact to swallow, perhaps the hardest of all - and then it might be very tempting to for you to say : you know what ? i don’t like your fucked up world, and no one has shown me any reasons why it might be a good idea to stay alive, and neither have i accidentally stumbled across any reasons for staying alive myself, and i just don’t want any part of it

but i would say : it is not your life to end … it is the ultimate selfish act - look at the devastation and the sadness that is now all around - i can sense it 13,000 kilometres away … its weight is heavy on me, and i am especially worried for those closest to you, who are left behind - and i am mute … with sadness … with disappointment … with powerlessness … with anger …

but this is not about me

i could say : i wanted to know the man you would have been … could have been

but this is not about me

i could say : fuck you guthrie …
you dumb little cunt - but anyway :
rest in peace

utrecht 1942

January 13, 2007 at 8:54 pm · tag/s : death, image, people, reading, thinking

i found a book of photographs of utrecht in 1942, my home town two years into the nazi occupation - the city has changed a lot more in the last thirty years or so than it did in the thirty year period immediately after the war (i left in 1972) and so it looks eerily familiar - but the most moving and disturbing thing is to see images of people wearing a yellow star, and signs saying “forbidden for jews” in the otherwise so familiar landscape - i feel a sense of outrage : these are utrechtenaren, “our” people, my fellow citizens … the mayor refused to co-operate with the transports and there was a stand off for several months - then the mayor was replaced and the transports began from maliebaan station - in her diary ina boudier bakker says hundreds of people protested there, to no avail … i wish my grandmother was still alive so i could ask her about it … but she wouldn’t have been there to protest … and i think about why - one : she was a poor woman who lived in the slums, she would have been fully engaged in the struggle to survive - two : it would have been, if not actually dangerous, then very frightening, for a half jewish woman who, even though she looked like any other jew, did not have to wear the star, thanks to her dutch mother, who had died giving birth to her sister when she was three years old - three : she wasn’t the sort of person who would think that it would have made any difference to protest

there is a photograph of three young girls wearing the star - we know the names of two of the girls : hadassa and sophia wijzenbeek, and the date on which they were murdered at auschwitz : 28.1.1944 (the day my father turned 12) - the name of the third girl is unknown

my mother, who could have been one of the little girls (she was seven when these photographs were taken), looks at the book for a long time and i watch her face looking at it - the tiredness is gone … she is turning the pages, looking keenly at the faces of the people in the photographs, to see if she recognizes anyone … she is there .. she looks up at me and says : i can taste the atmosphere…

there is a picture of the house where, 16 years later, i would be born

uncontrolled cinema

January 6, 2007 at 7:49 pm · tag/s : blog, doubt, film, people

when in new york* i.j.oog reads … the brooklyn rail - and you can even read it in wagga wagga : the current issue of this not-for-profit free monthly magazine features a great interview with albert maysles, who made the controversial documentary gimme shelter, talking about his work :

A true documentary is shot with no control. You might even call it the uncontrolled cinema.

yeah but no but yeah - as jean-luc godard told maysles in 1963 :

the eye behind the camera should be the eye of the poet. Because if the poet wasn’t there, it would be just a camera.

The Brooklyn Rail - Uncontrolled Cinema: Albert Maysles

* even if he never leaves manhattan :)

think about flying

January 2, 2007 at 7:27 pm · tag/s : reading

de volkskrant‘s iranian born columnist kader abdolah, in his piece condemning the execution of saddam hussein today, (2.1.07) quotes from a poem by the iranian poet forough farrokzhad (from her collection my lover) :

i am just going out onto the verandah
to stroke the tight

birds are mortal
think about flying

translated from persian into dutch by amir afrassiabi
translated from dutch into english by i.j.oog (with apologies)

the hours

January 1, 2007 at 1:33 am · tag/s : film, television

so i saw the hours for the first time - my memory of the reviews i read when it came out were less than complimentary, fractured fragmented disjointed are some of the words that come to mind when i think of that film’s reviews

since i am not convinced by the acting talents of nicole kidman (yes terence dogville is one of my favourite films of recent years, but lars von trier could get a good performance out of tom hanks) and not being much of a fan of either virginia woolf or meryl streep, i never made an effort to see it - and/but : this is a wonderful film! i couldn’t take my eyes off the screen - it moves fluidly between three time periods and three different but connected stories

i was very impressed with meryl streep who plays the role of a contemporary woman who is just holding it together with gusto, and this converges with the parallel story featuring an equally powerful performance by julianne moore, set in fifties amerika - meanwhile nicole is quite servicable as virginia woolf writing the story of mrs.dalloway and battling with her sanity and her well-meaning husband

of course as it turns out, my memory proves to be less than reliable : according to wikipedia was one of the most acclaimed films of 2002 and was nominated for a slew of oscars, although ironically, in view of the fact that streep and moore’s performances were far more convincing, nicole kidman was the only winner, receiving an oscar for best actress