Shhhh! Just watch. It goes by quickly. Just listen.
The stars are beautiful tonight. Who would have thought? 22nd of August. Surely not a beautiful day? I don't know anyone who was born today, I don't think. Just eight days before, and many days later, but not today.
The sky is full of stars, it is August after all, the gifted month, the gorgeous month. If August were a man, it would be the most beautiful man, the most elegant man.
It's not that late. Every time I look at the clock I'm shocked, and I listen to Debussy once more, one more time, until the day is done. Beauty! Beauty! Isn't that what we all need? What we all feed on?
I don't want to talk to you. Shush. Be quiet. Again! Listen, just listen.
The story is here. The story is every night I've spent with you, every morning I've woken with you, every time I've left. And every time I've told you to leave. That is life. Live. Life. Live. Live life. Life is worth it. Life is beautiful.
Trust. I don't trust anyone yet (no creo en mí todavía), but maybe I will. Maybe it just takes more time.
Music. Yes, I think I need music to survive tonight. Because it's still the 22nd of August, and it's not yet the 23rd.
Thursday, 22 August 2013
Monday, 19 August 2013
Nothing to write about
I can't write. I spent one hour writing this morning, and all I could come up with was shit about how I was feeling, or shit about how the world is going to hell. I couldn't write anything real. I don't like this, it scares me. Maybe it's writer's block? I don't get writer's block. The same way I don't get sick.
No. I refuse. I need to write. Which is why I'm going to write. Something. About something. Anything. It's important.
There's a story waiting to be told everywhere. Especially on the tube.
A girl walks on. She's about 15. Her tips are dyed bright pink and she's dressed all in black, wearing black make up.
Bullshit. No. I can't write. Not even the made-up girl helps. What about a made-up boy? Tall, handsome, blue eyes, light brown hair. He was on the thin side. He got on a couple of stops after made-up girl. He was wearing a backpack and listening to music on his headphones. We could all hear the music when he got on the train.
So what did made-up girl think? She's fifteen, an eighteen year old asshole walks on the tube, listening to too loud music on his headphones. What's he listening to? Dubstep? No. Electronic music. Yes. Electronic music. I quite generally hate electronic music, so that must be what he was listening to.
He didn't bother sitting down, but stood against the glass that separates the seats from the door area. He didn't smile, just banged his head to the beat. Made-up girl is looking at him, disgusted. He seems to feel her gaze and looks up at her. He seems to notice the frown and smiles knowingly and looks back down, without turning down the music.
What happens next? I'm really tempted to say that she gets up, and pulls one of his earphones out and tells him to please turn the music down. But that would never happen on the tube. People are too polite for that. Especially 15 year old girls, who are generally too shy to approach a guy three years older than him.
So maybe someone else comes along and politely asks him to turn down the music? Yeah. That would work... Except, then the story would end. So?
I walk into the carriage. I look at the occupants. An old lady, carrying a Waitrose bag is sitting at the centre of the carriage. A young mother with her baby in her arms looks distracted, she's staring into the window, but doesn't seem to see anything. She looks down at her baby and smiles, putting the world to rights. A dad with three boys is telling them a story from when he was little. On the other side of the carriage, a 15 year old girl, all dressed in black, and with the tips of her black hair dyed bright pink is sitting, staring nastily at a guy a couple of years older than her. He's listening to loud music. Loud electronic music. "Asshole", I think to myself. I can't stand people who listen to music too loudly on the tube. I stand up and go over to him.
-Excuse me, - I say with a smile.
He pulls an earphone off.
-Hi. You like electronic music don't you?
He nods, smiling, not kindly.
-Well, I don't. And I don't think she does either. -I say jabbing my finger at the girl. -Can you please turn it down?
The girl gets up then, and comes up to me.
-Hey, don't bring me into it, if I wanted the music off I would have told him myself.
There. I've interfered, so now it's fine. They have some common ground, someone to side against.
Now they can continue, maybe get to know each other, maybe not.
Not great, but hey, I wrote something. Maybe tomorrow it'll be something a bit better.
No. I refuse. I need to write. Which is why I'm going to write. Something. About something. Anything. It's important.
There's a story waiting to be told everywhere. Especially on the tube.
A girl walks on. She's about 15. Her tips are dyed bright pink and she's dressed all in black, wearing black make up.
Bullshit. No. I can't write. Not even the made-up girl helps. What about a made-up boy? Tall, handsome, blue eyes, light brown hair. He was on the thin side. He got on a couple of stops after made-up girl. He was wearing a backpack and listening to music on his headphones. We could all hear the music when he got on the train.
So what did made-up girl think? She's fifteen, an eighteen year old asshole walks on the tube, listening to too loud music on his headphones. What's he listening to? Dubstep? No. Electronic music. Yes. Electronic music. I quite generally hate electronic music, so that must be what he was listening to.
He didn't bother sitting down, but stood against the glass that separates the seats from the door area. He didn't smile, just banged his head to the beat. Made-up girl is looking at him, disgusted. He seems to feel her gaze and looks up at her. He seems to notice the frown and smiles knowingly and looks back down, without turning down the music.
What happens next? I'm really tempted to say that she gets up, and pulls one of his earphones out and tells him to please turn the music down. But that would never happen on the tube. People are too polite for that. Especially 15 year old girls, who are generally too shy to approach a guy three years older than him.
So maybe someone else comes along and politely asks him to turn down the music? Yeah. That would work... Except, then the story would end. So?
I walk into the carriage. I look at the occupants. An old lady, carrying a Waitrose bag is sitting at the centre of the carriage. A young mother with her baby in her arms looks distracted, she's staring into the window, but doesn't seem to see anything. She looks down at her baby and smiles, putting the world to rights. A dad with three boys is telling them a story from when he was little. On the other side of the carriage, a 15 year old girl, all dressed in black, and with the tips of her black hair dyed bright pink is sitting, staring nastily at a guy a couple of years older than her. He's listening to loud music. Loud electronic music. "Asshole", I think to myself. I can't stand people who listen to music too loudly on the tube. I stand up and go over to him.
-Excuse me, - I say with a smile.
He pulls an earphone off.
-Hi. You like electronic music don't you?
He nods, smiling, not kindly.
-Well, I don't. And I don't think she does either. -I say jabbing my finger at the girl. -Can you please turn it down?
The girl gets up then, and comes up to me.
-Hey, don't bring me into it, if I wanted the music off I would have told him myself.
There. I've interfered, so now it's fine. They have some common ground, someone to side against.
Now they can continue, maybe get to know each other, maybe not.
Not great, but hey, I wrote something. Maybe tomorrow it'll be something a bit better.
Monday, 12 August 2013
A Pleasure
(Note: at the time of writing I am only halfway through the book, so whatever I write here is purely provisional).
Spanish is a beautiful language. It is a language meant to be written in, and spoken, and sung and read aloud. It is the language of over 400 million people, and it is as rich and varied as those people. It is rare, and wonderful, to find an author who writes in English and who can bring the joy and feel of Spanish to a page. By this I don't mean the language, of course, the two are too different, but in his "The Jaguar Smile" Salman Rushdie is able to communicate the feel of Nicaragua in the 80s, or so it seems to me.
The book is a travel book, a book about a journey. This is important: in journey books, the author is a spectator, they visit a place and they recount what they see and who they meet. The author is not the centre of the action, they just describe what is happening around them. Although they will give a personal perspective on everything, most journey books are about places and people, and less about events. Salman Rushdie visited Nicaragua for three weeks in 1986. Of course, by 1986 he had already written Midnight's Children and he was (to say the least) well known. He probably didn't have much trouble arranging to meet whoever he wanted. This possibly gives a rather eschewed perspective: he seems to travel around the country with government officials, something that surely wasn't as common as the book seems to intimate. He also keeps meeting poets and writers (although, as one of them puts it, everyone in Nicaragua is a poet until they prove the opposite), and generally always seems to be surrounded by important people. But somehow he manages, through his prose, to reflect what Nicaragua must have been like in 1986, a country at war, a country violent, a country hopeful.
From what I can glean, Salman Rushdie spoke little (if any) Spanish when he visited Nicaragua. He needed to be surrounded by people who spoke English, or otherwise he wouldn't have managed. This is another way the view of the country might have been eschewed, but it doesn't feel like it was. He seems to willingly join in with the natives, going to church services in Spanish and dancing salsa after a few drinks. I suspect that he was happy to be in Nicaragua, in a way that only people who travel can understand, he was free.
The most striking scene in the book is probably when a fellow writer, a poet, approaches him (approaches el (¿al?) escritor hindú) and tells him that he admires Tagoré. Rushdie is surprised that Rabindranath Tagore is mentioned in Central America, wonders why this man knows Tagore at all. The poet explains: Victoria Ocampo. And Argentina, of course, comes into play. Many people ignore the power of Argentina, and to ignore it is to ignore the power of the Spanish language. Victoria Ocampo was an Argentine intellectual, and foremost, an editor. She read Tagore and loved him, so she had him translated to her language. And so it was that Salman Rushdie found that Tagore (or Tagoré as the Nicaraguan poet called him) was more read in Central America than he was in his native India. Possibly the most human moment in this conversation, the one that drives it home, that makes it feel truly Central American, that reflects why Spanish is such a beautiful language, is when Salman Rushdie says to the poet: "Then Tagore is better read in Latin America than in India", and the poet responds (but you have to hear the response, gentle, chiding, in Nicaraguan Spanish): "Tagoré".
I am hugely enjoying "The Jaguar Smile". It's a lesson on history, politics and Central America. But first and foremost, it is a lesson in writing.
Spanish is a beautiful language. It is a language meant to be written in, and spoken, and sung and read aloud. It is the language of over 400 million people, and it is as rich and varied as those people. It is rare, and wonderful, to find an author who writes in English and who can bring the joy and feel of Spanish to a page. By this I don't mean the language, of course, the two are too different, but in his "The Jaguar Smile" Salman Rushdie is able to communicate the feel of Nicaragua in the 80s, or so it seems to me.
The book is a travel book, a book about a journey. This is important: in journey books, the author is a spectator, they visit a place and they recount what they see and who they meet. The author is not the centre of the action, they just describe what is happening around them. Although they will give a personal perspective on everything, most journey books are about places and people, and less about events. Salman Rushdie visited Nicaragua for three weeks in 1986. Of course, by 1986 he had already written Midnight's Children and he was (to say the least) well known. He probably didn't have much trouble arranging to meet whoever he wanted. This possibly gives a rather eschewed perspective: he seems to travel around the country with government officials, something that surely wasn't as common as the book seems to intimate. He also keeps meeting poets and writers (although, as one of them puts it, everyone in Nicaragua is a poet until they prove the opposite), and generally always seems to be surrounded by important people. But somehow he manages, through his prose, to reflect what Nicaragua must have been like in 1986, a country at war, a country violent, a country hopeful.
From what I can glean, Salman Rushdie spoke little (if any) Spanish when he visited Nicaragua. He needed to be surrounded by people who spoke English, or otherwise he wouldn't have managed. This is another way the view of the country might have been eschewed, but it doesn't feel like it was. He seems to willingly join in with the natives, going to church services in Spanish and dancing salsa after a few drinks. I suspect that he was happy to be in Nicaragua, in a way that only people who travel can understand, he was free.
The most striking scene in the book is probably when a fellow writer, a poet, approaches him (approaches el (¿al?) escritor hindú) and tells him that he admires Tagoré. Rushdie is surprised that Rabindranath Tagore is mentioned in Central America, wonders why this man knows Tagore at all. The poet explains: Victoria Ocampo. And Argentina, of course, comes into play. Many people ignore the power of Argentina, and to ignore it is to ignore the power of the Spanish language. Victoria Ocampo was an Argentine intellectual, and foremost, an editor. She read Tagore and loved him, so she had him translated to her language. And so it was that Salman Rushdie found that Tagore (or Tagoré as the Nicaraguan poet called him) was more read in Central America than he was in his native India. Possibly the most human moment in this conversation, the one that drives it home, that makes it feel truly Central American, that reflects why Spanish is such a beautiful language, is when Salman Rushdie says to the poet: "Then Tagore is better read in Latin America than in India", and the poet responds (but you have to hear the response, gentle, chiding, in Nicaraguan Spanish): "Tagoré".
I am hugely enjoying "The Jaguar Smile". It's a lesson on history, politics and Central America. But first and foremost, it is a lesson in writing.
Sunday, 4 August 2013
The Book
There's a Guardian Witness assignment called "A book that changed me". I started reading through it out of curiosity, and then I wondered about books that have had any effect on me whatsoever.
I really love reading, but I tend to downplay the effect books have on me. I often insist that I don't really have a favourite book (if I had to choose one it would have to be the Harry Potter series, I was completely obsessed for the span of about seven or eight years, not a day would go by that I wouldn't talk about it, but it feels like a weak answer to the question), to me it's kind of a ridiculous question, there's too many books to pick just one (but then, I have a favourite movie, so what am I saying really?). Reading is a escape from reality, a way to see the world (or a world) through someone else's eyes, and as such, I often view it as pure entertainment, but not really affecting me. So when I started reading people's accounts of books that changed them my attitude was dismissive.
I have a confession to make now. I do have a "book that changed me". Possibly more than one, but this one has had a huge effect on who I am now. I read it when I was relatively young, nine or ten, so I don't know if it "changed me" as much as it just affected me, it put me in touch with the first thing that taught me what humanity means.
"When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit", by Judith Kerr is a children's novel, but (like any good children's novel) it can be read by anyone. Put simply, it's about Anna, a girl whose family escapes Germany in 1933 when the Nazi party is elected. It is about her journey from Berlin to Switzerland, then to Paris, and finally to London. The story is continued in "The Other Way Around" and "A Small Person Far Away", but it's "When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit" that feels the most real and the most necessary.
The book is about a lot of things: it is about the holocaust, of course, but it is about family, and growing up, and learning new languages. It is also about freedom. The book is a perfect introduction to the Holocaust for children because it's written from a child's perspective, but also because the people in it leave Germany very early on. I am not one to say that children should be spared violence (I liked the original versions of the Grimm fairy tales) but I do think that there are things children can't understand. The power in "When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit" is that it shows the brutality of Nazism, the horror of being a refugee, without being grisly. The main character is a child, and as a child she adapts to the new situations. She is not always happy, but she makes friends, she plays, she grows up.
This was the book that introduced me to the Holocaust. I hesitate to say why the subject is so important to me, but it is. I am not Jewish. I come from a traditionally antisemitic country. Learning about the Holocaust has made me a better human being. It has taught me a lot about human nature, and it has helped me question and understand (and therefore strengthen) certain aspects of my own morality.
Firstly, "hope is the last thing we lose". The first time I had a conversation about the Holocaust with my parents, I asked why Jewish people didn't leave. Why a lot of them didn't escape. The simple answer is that by the time things started getting difficult for the Jews in Germany, it wasn't easy for them to leave the country anymore. The more complicated answer, the answer my parents gave me, and one of the truths that have stuck with me, has to do with human nature. No one wants to leave their home, especially knowing they may never return. No one wants to give up their job, their friends, their family, their neighbourhood, their house, their things. But more than anything, few people believe that things are really that bad. People keep hoping. Hoping that it's all a mistake. Hoping that it won't happen to them. Hoping that if they are "good" they will be spared any horrors. It's human nature to think that if something bad happened, you would be one of the survivors. This truth is an important one. It taught me that there's nowhere to hide, that if someone is treating a person unfairly, at some point they will treat everyone unfairly.
Secondly, humans can be monsters, and humans can be monsters without realizing they are. During the Nazi regime, neighbours gave each other up, friends gave each other up, people betrayed each other. But more than that: they did it not for personal gain, or out of anger or spite, they did it because they thought it was the right thing to do. One of the most horrifically successful aspects of Nazism is that for a long time it brainwashed people into actually believing at first that Jewish people were dangerous and a threat to society, and then that they were inferior. This is scary. A bad economic situation was used to convince people that a certain group of society was inferior. And people fell for it, ate it up. Part of it was fear, I'm sure, but part of it was simply that it was the easy thing to do. It's a lot easier to think "they must have done something wrong", when your neighbours start being persecuted, than it is to accept that authority, the people who control the police and the army, the people who make the laws, could be crazy and could be doing something scarily, horrifically wrong.
Three, I have a core of beliefs. In general, I am an extremely morally flexible person. I don't care what anyone else does as long as it doesn't involve any other person (unless the other person agrees to be involved of course). I've changed my mind on many topics many times, and there's very few things I think are wrong (compared to a lot of people). But there are certain things that I think are right, and people who I feel truly disregard these things scare me. One of them is that all people are equally "valid". All people. Everyone has the right to live, and to live with dignity, no one should be "under" anyone else. That's it. That is my core. Most of the rest of my opinions can probably be derived from a combination of this with what I know, and with the belief that we are equally "valid", but we are not equal. Take all of those together and you have what I won't change.
"When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit" put me in touch with everything I've just written. But it also taught me something else: it's possible to write a book about a horrific situation and make it a wonderful book.
I really love reading, but I tend to downplay the effect books have on me. I often insist that I don't really have a favourite book (if I had to choose one it would have to be the Harry Potter series, I was completely obsessed for the span of about seven or eight years, not a day would go by that I wouldn't talk about it, but it feels like a weak answer to the question), to me it's kind of a ridiculous question, there's too many books to pick just one (but then, I have a favourite movie, so what am I saying really?). Reading is a escape from reality, a way to see the world (or a world) through someone else's eyes, and as such, I often view it as pure entertainment, but not really affecting me. So when I started reading people's accounts of books that changed them my attitude was dismissive.
I have a confession to make now. I do have a "book that changed me". Possibly more than one, but this one has had a huge effect on who I am now. I read it when I was relatively young, nine or ten, so I don't know if it "changed me" as much as it just affected me, it put me in touch with the first thing that taught me what humanity means.
"When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit", by Judith Kerr is a children's novel, but (like any good children's novel) it can be read by anyone. Put simply, it's about Anna, a girl whose family escapes Germany in 1933 when the Nazi party is elected. It is about her journey from Berlin to Switzerland, then to Paris, and finally to London. The story is continued in "The Other Way Around" and "A Small Person Far Away", but it's "When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit" that feels the most real and the most necessary.
The book is about a lot of things: it is about the holocaust, of course, but it is about family, and growing up, and learning new languages. It is also about freedom. The book is a perfect introduction to the Holocaust for children because it's written from a child's perspective, but also because the people in it leave Germany very early on. I am not one to say that children should be spared violence (I liked the original versions of the Grimm fairy tales) but I do think that there are things children can't understand. The power in "When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit" is that it shows the brutality of Nazism, the horror of being a refugee, without being grisly. The main character is a child, and as a child she adapts to the new situations. She is not always happy, but she makes friends, she plays, she grows up.
This was the book that introduced me to the Holocaust. I hesitate to say why the subject is so important to me, but it is. I am not Jewish. I come from a traditionally antisemitic country. Learning about the Holocaust has made me a better human being. It has taught me a lot about human nature, and it has helped me question and understand (and therefore strengthen) certain aspects of my own morality.
Firstly, "hope is the last thing we lose". The first time I had a conversation about the Holocaust with my parents, I asked why Jewish people didn't leave. Why a lot of them didn't escape. The simple answer is that by the time things started getting difficult for the Jews in Germany, it wasn't easy for them to leave the country anymore. The more complicated answer, the answer my parents gave me, and one of the truths that have stuck with me, has to do with human nature. No one wants to leave their home, especially knowing they may never return. No one wants to give up their job, their friends, their family, their neighbourhood, their house, their things. But more than anything, few people believe that things are really that bad. People keep hoping. Hoping that it's all a mistake. Hoping that it won't happen to them. Hoping that if they are "good" they will be spared any horrors. It's human nature to think that if something bad happened, you would be one of the survivors. This truth is an important one. It taught me that there's nowhere to hide, that if someone is treating a person unfairly, at some point they will treat everyone unfairly.
Secondly, humans can be monsters, and humans can be monsters without realizing they are. During the Nazi regime, neighbours gave each other up, friends gave each other up, people betrayed each other. But more than that: they did it not for personal gain, or out of anger or spite, they did it because they thought it was the right thing to do. One of the most horrifically successful aspects of Nazism is that for a long time it brainwashed people into actually believing at first that Jewish people were dangerous and a threat to society, and then that they were inferior. This is scary. A bad economic situation was used to convince people that a certain group of society was inferior. And people fell for it, ate it up. Part of it was fear, I'm sure, but part of it was simply that it was the easy thing to do. It's a lot easier to think "they must have done something wrong", when your neighbours start being persecuted, than it is to accept that authority, the people who control the police and the army, the people who make the laws, could be crazy and could be doing something scarily, horrifically wrong.
Three, I have a core of beliefs. In general, I am an extremely morally flexible person. I don't care what anyone else does as long as it doesn't involve any other person (unless the other person agrees to be involved of course). I've changed my mind on many topics many times, and there's very few things I think are wrong (compared to a lot of people). But there are certain things that I think are right, and people who I feel truly disregard these things scare me. One of them is that all people are equally "valid". All people. Everyone has the right to live, and to live with dignity, no one should be "under" anyone else. That's it. That is my core. Most of the rest of my opinions can probably be derived from a combination of this with what I know, and with the belief that we are equally "valid", but we are not equal. Take all of those together and you have what I won't change.
"When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit" put me in touch with everything I've just written. But it also taught me something else: it's possible to write a book about a horrific situation and make it a wonderful book.
Thursday, 1 August 2013
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