Quote

Let me quote Marguerite Duras today: One does not find solitude, one creates it. Solitude creates itself. Alone, I created it here because I decided that I should be alone, that I would be in this house. I closed myself within it - I was afraid of course. And then I liked it, and the house became the place where I wrote...

Weirdness

It seems impossible that one of the stranger people in my life would take umbrage to being labeled weird by me. They would all wear the word as a title of nobility, knowing they are not run of the mill, not sheep. One used to call me everyday to tell his nightly conversations with god or the devil or his latest hallucination or fantasy. To me, he just tells me his life and what he told me was true to him. That is OK with me. The ones not certified crazy, certainly are no sheep believing what the president says, believing what the media print. Some are activists for change, impeachment of Cheney and the president, for peace, are quirky poets. A few have a very small carbon footprint and could be an example to all. They are all special and unique to me, because of their creativity, their open and questioning mind, their interest in culture and civilizations. I assume that none of them would think Bush made the right choice in his Middle East policy, being friends with strange regimes like in Pakistan and thinking they could be persuaded easily to become a democracy. The tragic events of the killing of the one opponent to the regime who could have won in a free and fair elections. sadly proves them right. I don't think my weird friends would ever trade their freedom for so called security guaranteed by a state, taking away our rights. That makes us all weird in the eyes of some. In the French revolution the word used was 'Canaille'. Yes, we are Canaille...

Comings and goings

Christmas is a family affair. It entails good food, thoughtful presents, time together. My mother breaks my heart. She still knows who were are, is more loving, gives more hugs, but she can't understand why she is living in this house where she cannot find things... The house we all build together almost 30 years ago. My father, a stern man is redeeming himself by taking care of her and making it seem normal. She looks up to him now, because he knows were things are and how the world functions. He has become her anchor and her guide. The strange thing is that she can keep up a conversation, sometimes almost totally normal. Thanks to many weird friends who passed and pass through my life I have learned to enjoy the weird jumps of strange minds... Yet with my mother I fear her fate, and eventually mine. Quiet Rose lost her mother at 98 on Christmas day. She was deeply demented and is mourned as the lost and found mother and lost again mother... The person Rose has known all her life.

Merry Cristmas

May the return of the light bring warmth and joy, an end to stupidity, an end to the occupation of Iraq. May it bring peace, the end of greed and consumerism, let's find real caring and justice. Think warm good thoughts: a merry Christmas to you all: Dr Scarpone, Vicky, J. , Branka, Chameleon, Spookie and Rockcastle, Mud, Dr Faust...

Smogsnow

Nature has a way of turning something bad into something pretty. For days now we have had heavy mist, fog and frost. The dirt, the fine dust particles can't rise and the air is pretty bad to breathe. 90 Km is the maximum speed on the freeways in order not to aggravate the problem. Nature is cleaning the air for the weather gods who caused this inversion by putting a bit of moisture around each small dust particle and encapsulating it. By it's heaviness it falls as a fine powder snow, a dry drizzle snow, freezes on trees and on everything it can get to. The result is stunning. How pollution is turned into beauty and lightens the problem at the same time. Great job. If industry could come up with this kind of solutions to clean up their messes, the earth and the seas would be happier places. The last picture is what I saw this morning opening the curtains.

Olympic games

Before on this blog I have written about the human rights situation in China and how the Olympic games could be used to put some pressure on China to do better. Well, now I know that if I were Chinese I would be in real trouble. Let's use Guangxi-based dissident writer Wang Dejia who was arrested from his home in Guilin, in China’s southern Guangxi Province, on 13 December 2007 as an example. He was taken to the Quanzhou Chengbei police Station, where he was detained on suspicion of ‘inciting subversion of state power’. His family believes his detention is directly related to his articles published on-line on the Minzhu Luntan website, the link is for whom reads Chinese. He was also charged for ‘Illegal Possession of State Secrets' – an important Chinese Communist Party Invention that Persecutes Prisoners of Conscience. He wrote: ‘Handcuffed Olympics Will Bring Only Disasters to the People’, and ‘Yi Yuanlong Jailed for Two Years for Four articles; How Many Will I be Jailed For?’ His wife also reports that in October 2007 he met with U.S. Embassy officials to discuss human rights in China. I am concerned about the detention of writer Wang Dejia, and call for his immediate and unconditional release. China became a signatory in 1998 to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Imprisoning writers for their opinions is in breach with article 19 of this Covenant. Furthermore the Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN is alarmed about reports that the health of prominent writer Zhang Jianhong (aka Li Hong) who's health is failing and not receiving appropriate treatment. International PEN is calling for the immediate and unconditional release of writer Zhang Jianhong. We must speak out, because they can't. Take action, contact the Chinese embassy wherever you are. By the way the air quality is still so bad that running a maraton might not be possible. May China be green and free one day.

View

Casually looking out, left of my small desk, I recognize the art museum, with its bronze chariots on the roof. I recognize it because I know the building and start thinking about some of of the things I saw there. Besides Rubens and Flemish Primitive masters I saw a beautiful collection, well displayed of Japanese art and probably what touched me most was a few paintings in Klein's typical blue among a whole bunch of modern painters. That blue still resounds in me, it was my first contact with a truly monochrome canvas. I still can't explain the depth of that blue, the immateriality of it, the challenge of it having no function at all. I also saw later one of his blue sponges. By then he had used everything turning it into his trademarked blue... This are my blue thoughts tonight. Sweat multicolored dream to all of you.