29 February 2008

A pint-sized surprise revisited

I am engrossed in Me Talk Pretty One Day, having finally arrived at the title essay, bracing myself for Jesus shaves, both looking forward and dreading the coming laughter - that stomach churning monster that folds you in two and has you begging for relief. I am engrossed in the essay, entertaining private thoughts of Paris (and Prague and Dublin while I’m at it) when I look to the left - in that rolling bus motion that makes the words dance on the page - and see a familiar profile. Pint-sized profile. Apple cheeks. Almond, hazel eyes. Actually, a darker shade of brown today. Could it be her? What are the odds? The certainty is great enough to warrant the return of the smile with a life of its own but not complete enough to keep me from grappling with the remaining sliver of doubt or digging for evidence in the most passive way available to me. (I feel lazy and ‘loner-like’. I find myself shunning interaction at present.)

‘Look over here, little girl.’ I hear the words in my head. ‘The view from the window is really not that great! The aisle is where it’s at!’ The blatant self-interest thinly veiled by a combo of raised eyebrow and smirk - also limited to the confines of my head.

No effect.

Those platinum flower earrings, though… just like the ones I used to wear as a child… they tip me off further. But is it really her? She seems more outspoken today. Or more ‘outbabbled,’ rather. More confident on daddy’s lap. Choosing a random syllable and repeating it in a decisive voluntary stutter.

Eventually her little head does swing my way. And it is her. Little Iris. A day older. Already brighter. With added poise. Alert.

Still a magnet to my eyes.

28 February 2008

'He nice...'

Dedicated to those who have at one time or another welcomed the challenge of learning a foreign language.

‘He nice, the Jesus.’

(Jesus shaves - David Sedaris)

This post is the creative work of Iris Watts Hirideyo and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

26 February 2008

On the back of photographs

Writing on the back of photographs is a chosen habit for me. Not names or dates or common descriptions - nothing practical, but thoughts, forced reasoning, written expressions of a mood, pieces of unspoken lucidity, the odd private-eye-taken black & white shot of lunacy just passing through, evidence tagged with an expiration date. The words add… the words are that measure of life the still images lack. The words take it up where the images leave off. They work in unison.

A pint-sized surprise

A pint-sized surprise had trouble going through the turnstile this morning. ‘Had’ in a loose sense of the word. It’d be more to the point to say trouble was had for her. She was carried and thus oblivious to any and all surrounding difficulties. Oblivious, almond-eyed, hazel-eyed, covered in shapes, colors and textures, squeezable, drooling and not too bright. It’ll come to her. The brightness, the unenviable sturdiness, the occasional misplaced roughness, the neuroses. For now, she’s something to look at in awe. An atom, a speck of life, quite purposeless but still a magnet to your eyes.

‘What’s her name?’ I ask, finding it hard to dissolve the smile.

‘Iris. Her name is Iris.’

Uh-oh. The smile just developed a life of its own.

23 February 2008

No Film for Blinking Men

My first rant on this blog just had to be movie-related. And this is so tiny a reason to rant, against the indisputable cinematic achievement that is No Country for Old Men, that no one in their right mind would have noticed the detail I’m writing about let alone take time to write about it. But this is me. Someone not quite in her right mind, I guess…

Now, think with me. If you’re an unknown actor in Hollywood, and are given the opportunity to be in a Coen brothers movie and not just any Coen brothers movie, but what may turn out to be their masterpiece, wouldn’t you be willing, even anxious to do your absolute best? To contribute your 2¢ humbly and eagerly? Why then, would you take a simple death scene, and mangle it by diverting attention to yourself (blinking repeatedly after you’re on the ground, covered in blood, supposedly dead) and showing thereby that you’re not even effective as an extra? How hard can it be to keep your eyes wide open and still for… what, twenty @#%&?! seconds? Can someone be dumb enough to think ‘Oh, I’ll be out of focus. No one will notice if I just blink methodically.’ Well, I noticed. And I resent having had my attention taken from Javier Bardem’s chilling performance for the few seconds I felt compelled to gape in utter astonishment at those blinking eyes in the background.

For those of you who have seen the movie: ‘room 138′ scene, second man down.

Good morning

The last couple of virtually wordless posts, Sunrise on February 18th, 2008 and Sunrise on February 21st, 2008 (pictures of stunning sunrises taken with my brand new blue Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3, the current inanimate love of my life) brought back to mind Dr. Maya Angelou’s Inaugural Poem (the one read at the first Clinton Inauguration.)

It’s one of those you should come back to from time to time.

Right at ‘Women, children, men…’ I’ll be reaching for the tissue. Nothing to be scared or ashamed of. Just a sign that it’s all being taken in - the words and their meaning. Just a natural result of allowing oneself to be affected - of granting the words leave to work their magic and carry out the noble intent of adding hope where hope is needed.

A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Marked the mastodon.

The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.

But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.

I will give you no more hiding place down here.

You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness,
Have lain too long
Face down in ignorance.

Your mouths spilling words
Armed for slaughter.

The Rock cries out today, you may stand on me,
But do not hide your face.

Across the wall of the world,
A River sings a beautiful song,
Come rest here by my side.

Each of you a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.

Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.

Yet, today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more. Come,

Clad in peace and I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I and the
Tree and the stone were one.

Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your
Brow and when you yet knew you still
Knew nothing.

The River sings and sings on.

There is a true yearning to respond to
The singing River and the wise Rock.

So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew
The African and Native American, the Sioux,
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the Teacher.
They hear. They all hear
The speaking of the Tree.

Today, the first and last of every Tree
Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the River.

Plant yourself beside me, here beside the River.

Each of you, descendant of some passed
On traveller, has been paid for.

You, who gave me my first name, you
Pawnee, Apache and Seneca, you
Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, then
Forced on bloody feet, left me to the employment of
Other seekers–desperate for gain,
Starving for gold.

You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot …
You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, bought
Sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare
Praying for a dream.

Here, root yourselves beside me.

I am the Tree planted by the River,
Which will not be moved.

I, the Rock, I the River, I the Tree
I am yours–your Passages have been paid.

Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.

History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, and if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.

Lift up your eyes upon
The day breaking for you.

Give birth again
To the dream.

Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands.

Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts
Each new hour holds new chances
For new beginnings.

Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.

The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out upon me, the
Rock, the River, the Tree, your country.

No less to Midas than the mendicant.

No less to you now than the mastodon then.

Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister’s eyes, into
Your brother’s face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.

For J.F.A. ;)

21 February 2008

Sunrise on February 21st, 2008

A little early and uncalled for to be watching TV, imo…

Sunrise on February 18th, 2008

20 February 2008

This just in...

You never know when a spontaneous smile will take hold of your face. Just as you never know where such a smile might come from. Just as you never know what awaits you in the next block as you make your way home…

All lovely surprises…

:D

16 February 2008

Guest Blogger (Rom)

The following is the Portuguese-written version of a real life ‘lost in translation’ experience first recounted to me last year that quickly became one of the most memorable and funniest stories I’ve ever been told and which went on to inspire A Rom-inspired Blog.

A importância do domínio da língua inglesa na atualidade

by Romulo (Rom) Araújo

Que o inglês deixou de ser requisito diferenciador entre as pessoas, como era até a um tempinho atrás, todos já estão cansados de saber. Hoje em dia a língua inglesa não é considerada como um idioma a mais na sua formação, mas sim uma língua obrigatória. A história que vou contar tem um pouco a ver com o não domínio da língua e como isso pode te deixar em situações bastante embaraçosas (ou engraçadas, como preferirem).

Read more! »

14 February 2008

February Fourteenth Two-Thousand and Eight

Happy Valentine’s Day sweetie! I miss you with saudades…

‘Love is a promise, love is a souvenir, once given never forgotten, never let it disappear’
~John Lennon

‘The little unremembered acts of kindness and love are the best parts of a person’s life.’
~William Wordsworth

Spot

Happy Valentine’s Day, baby! (sighdades)

12 February 2008

The Gift of Observation

If you’re quiet enough to look around, you’ll find there’s a lot to be discovered in any one place, about any one person. Standing on a crowded subway car, bus or elevator - in fact, standing or sitting just about anywhere, provided you’re imbued with the requisite inner quiet brought on by restraint of movement - you will often have no choice but to let your eyes sit and your mind wonder.

It’s true, observation can only take you so far. It can lead you down a stretch that might turn out to be drab and lifeless like an L.A. sidewalk or life-infusing and exuberant like the tour of a Montmartre block given to a blind man by Amélie Poulain (One of my all-time favorite movie sequences, by the way.)

People are open books. Sometimes made illegible by distance or inconvenient viewing angles. But most of the information is there for anyone who favors quietness to see. A voice emitted for the benefit of an undisclosed ear on the other side of a cell phone, a particular modulation that hints at professionalism, a pack of cigarettes semi-hidden in a pocket, a tattoo that at once displays and conceals a story. That’s what the senses are there for. For picking up on information and creating stories… taking what is and piling up further ‘whats’ and ‘whatnots’ on top of it. Adding cacti or flowers to a desert, filling in the blanks predictably or outrageously but filling in the blanks… embellishing for better or worse and occasionally hitting the mark of truth, which, though not the target frequency, is often enough.

11 February 2008

The Angle of Recognition

The world is awfully small. Wonderfully small. Cozy, really. Small enough for men to have made it to the moon and back so why not for one to accidentally find in a new friend’s soon to be former residence the setting to a party of one’s youth?

That, to me, reinforces the feeling that places keep us. That the relationship between people and places is very much symbiotic. People lend their stories to a particular place while places in their greater permanence add a measure of longevity to stories and their people. That symbiosis is clearly illustrated in the final shots of Before Sunrise where we revisit the deserted places that served as background to the story of Jesse and Celine as it unfolded. As you look at those shots, it’s undeniable that a cemetery is no longer just a cemetery, a Ferris Wheel no longer just a Ferris Wheel, a boat no longer just a boat, a park no longer just a park. A cemetery, a Ferris Wheel, a boat and a park, among other locations managed to keep those characters, however transient their stay.

In my case, a building kept an entire party. Now reduced to scattered images of teenagers, conversations against a background of greenery, music, flashing lights, glass doors. And haze… a lot of haze added by the present, by the years from there to here.

It’s an underrated experience, to find right on the eve of a friend’s moving, the angle of recognition - that one angle amid 360, which leaves you feeling that this is the closest to time travel you’ll ever come.

Time travel does exist but it is limited to the confines of memory. Memory, of course, being the narrow-minded, biased sort of faculty that takes you on a strictly private ride. It all happens within the confines of your mind. Like Jodie Foster’s experience in Contact. Something that’s not there to ever be fully shared or understood.

The angle of recognition snaps something into place and you begin to make your way through the haze. Not really understanding why the details that stand out, in fact do. Like what you were wearing… why would you remember the black skirt and pink blouse, of all things? Or the black hooded dress (there may have been two separate parties in that same place. How to be sure? The certainty is right there. You can sense it. Right behind that thicker patch of haze.)

How old was that girl? Thirteen? Fourteen? Whose party was it? Who used to live in the same neighborhood you now work? Those more relevant pieces of information elude you. They hide behind the haziness holding a cigarette, adding smoke to the air, keeping secrets, making you think long and hard, and take pictures (any excuse to take pictures being at once welcome and unnecessary) and reach out to the people who were there and are here to contribute with their own memories. Those who are most likely to finish your thoughts and sentences… and make that ride ever so slightly less solitary.

- Do you remember if any of the kids I went to school with lived in B——- on S———– street?

- Uh… I don’t remember. Maybe. (pause) Maybe those twins… What were their names?

- I was in R——-’s building today and I was walking around the playground when it hit me. I think I’ve been to a party in that building. When I was 13 or so… Do you think that’s possible?

- It’s possible.

- I’m not sure but I think I might remember what I wore to it. It may have been…

- … a black skirt and a pink blouse?

Matching smiles.

The Original Photos

Waitress

I was addicted to saying things and having them matter to someone.

(Waitress)

Click here if you haven’t heard of the movie Waitress and the name Adrienne Shelly fails to ring a bell.