Frederic Erk

Posts Tagged ‘Women’

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Pornography and the levelling of my sexual life

In Uncategorized on January 17, 2010 at 6:40 pm

Pornography

The levelling of my sexual life

Why I believe that pornography is intrusive, offensive and damaging my sexual life


It was a rainy Wednesday of October 1996 as I invited my friend, Mr. Christopher Burton, Oxford 1931 and Head of English studies at Catholic University of Angers, to see the film of Milos Forman, “The People versus Larry Flynt”.

Later as we were leaving the movie theatre, Christopher approached me and asked why on Earth, there was use for nudity in that film. And I was at a loss for an explanation. Of course, the movie was about a pornographic magazine editor, but nonetheless I found he had made a good point.

When I think of eroticism I believe there is nothing as erotic as the love scene at the beginning of “Excalibur” by John Boorman. Not only is the girl beautiful, and she is the daughter of John Boorman in real life, but sex is performed with animal strength. And I think it is beautiful when Merlin stops and turns his head as if to listen, while miles away, in that dark castle, there is orgasm. Yes, the heir of the King is there. That is erotic, meaningful and beautiful.

There is nobility in nudity and sexuality. Of course, it is the way lovers have to communicate intimately. And for the time being, this is the way babies are made.

But there is a trend of eroticism and plain pornography, which is sterile and not even entertaining. Think of Sylvester Stallone with Sharon Stone under the shower of that hotel of L.A. If that is erotic, then really we have a different idea of eroticism. It is ridiculous, and what a waste of hot water.

HBO “Rome” series has pornographic content, but it is so innocent and integrated in the story line that I don’t understand how people could have made such a fuss.

To illustrate what I mean with dirty stuff, there is a French movie, I say movie, not film, because it is not worth that name, and there is a scene when the girl explains to Fabrice Luccini that she has another lover, because he is having anal sex with her, and that it is like coffee and milk.

No nudity is shown, but only a pervert could make up such a dialogue. And believe me, the actress is blushing during the scene. The French film directors have a problem with sexuality. Please read my review of “La Discrète” to understand what a good French film director understands with sexuality.

Even worse pornography has become more and more violent, and there are things on the Internet, which should be banned and prosecuted. I am not talking about watching a beautiful girl naked, even if it is so sad, as it is only an image, but say, the beauty of a woman has inspired so many masterpieces. But that pornography is awful. It is hell.

In France television talk shows you have porn actors and actresses talking about their job. I am not prude, but I mean, if you happen to watch a few minutes of their movies, it is really bad, mean and shocking.

Of course I am not saying that people who watch porn are bad, and Milos Forman made his point when he said that we could watch a nuclear bomb fall upon Japan without blinking, but would cry out in anger, if we see two people making love online.

Well.

I personally am sick, I mean really sick, when I watch a movie with people getting blown away. I used to like war movies, I hate them now. Exactly like I used to track some nice girls online, who were definitely not prude about displaying their charms. But now, we have gone too far, and I am sick with pornography. As a lover, I feel ashamed and hurt that women have to do that for money, exactly like I feel ashamed to see young girls having sex on the streets for a few dollars.

There are limits, and I think we have crossed the lines. Now it is really a matter of human rights. Pornography has a destructive effect on how a man perceives a woman, and vice versa.

I am not talking about prostitution, but as I was sitting on my cot in Riga, I leafed through a magazine, which was full of erotic online services. And the girls were really nice. I admire the courage of prostitutes, as they are servicing what is not working in men’s psychology. Perhaps they are avoiding tragedies at home.

But above all, there is nothing manly to come to a girl with money, and pay for a few minutes of what? Illusion, warmth? Romantic people think it is bad, perhaps we should say, that it is practical. Nevertheless, it is not erotic.

I have planted trees because I had the vision of a forest. I think that making love to the woman you love is like planting a seed. Nothing comes close to that.

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Online dating: Troubled waters

In Uncategorized on January 16, 2010 at 7:08 pm

Online dating

Troubled waters

The business of online romance is thriving on the desire to find the ideal partner for life. But the going is tough between dream and reality.


PRELIMINARY NOTE TO THE READER

Reading that post I feel I have been too harsh and authoritative, well, let’s say arrogant. I have used eHarmony and met marvellous people there. I have tried to explain my sadness of seeing so many great persons with so much to offer, sending a bottle into the sea. Why have we come to this that we need to meet online? I will try to answer that question in a later post. Thank you.

ONLINE dating is like Google search engine. It has the advantages of its drawbacks. It is popular, powerful and quick, but also heavily biased and making money out of shameless advertising. One should pay close attention to the search results of Google, as one should be wary of compatible matches on eHarmony.

The problem is not the algorithm itself, but the fact that we trust the algorithm to get compatible results. In real life, destiny and chance are providing for the experimentation variables of meeting your partner for life. eHarmony is providing you with hundreds, if not thousands compatible matches. And eventually you feel like walking a silent theatre of human comedy and tragedy.

Smiling faces, some beautiful, some less so, but all with a story to tell, a secret garden perhaps, are there for your picking, and you feel like entering a cave of whispering souls.

Soon profiles will begin to coalesce in a single female or male entity, exactly like ripples of sand on a dune tell about the same story. This is a sad story women have to tell about men. There is so much expectation and so much hope. How can a man fit in that ideal shape of perfect manhood, never faltering like those statues of fallen warriors?

But if you come closer to a single inscription on this Wall of Laments, then beware because words have edges, and cut deep. You come as a silent witness of a tragedy, and expect the welcome of a guest in the tradition we used to have as nomads. But the house of women is a silent and cold one to the traveller.

Troubled are the waters of romance when you want to play with destiny and love! There are hidden pitfalls and barriers of glass, thresholds you don’t understand. Eventually you feel like the stranger you are, and when you read again those words on the Wall of Laments, they are blurred by tears of sorrow and cold.

It is never easy to walk into dark and cold caves when you expect at least the decency of humanity.

Dark and silent are the corridors of those souls, and as you walk by entrances, you believe you hear the sound of children laughing, or crying. So you turn and follow the sound of joy only to discover that it was the wind playing fool with you. Those corridors are empty like long forgotten armours of dead heroes.

To persevere is to suffer the indignity of walking ever higher in a mountain, and ever farther from the reality of the living world. You are walking to the sound of a glorious trumpet, which is only the sound of your own soul vibrating in agony.

When miracles happen they are cruel, and seldom, as if Gods wanted to tell you that the work you had done was like fighting winds, or planting seeds in the dust. However hard you will try, there is nothing that can grow out of wind and dust. Because you have forsaken the rich valleys of promised lands, Gods are exacting a frightful toll.

Here is the fool who believed he could be king, and marry a princess of lore. Poems he wrote, and glorious deeds he performed, to awaken a flame in that cold house of a woman’s heart. He drew signs in the air and it seemed that magic hold the promise of a fruitful spring. There was the promised land of shared joy.

Grey are the tides of time, and darker the pits of fallen dreams.

To the hardiest of travellers the veil will but slightly shift, and you will contemplate fabulous landscapes with cities of Eldorado perched upon clouds. You will be able to go where no one ventured before, as indeed all those troubled waters will eventually submit to your will.

So that one morning the veil will lift, and silently you will land on the dark sand of that foreign shore, and contemplate the play of wind in leaves. Silent is that country, as you are making destiny. And perhaps, I say perhaps, you will be the one who can fecundate and bring that silent forest to bloom.

So began the adventure in timeless ages as the first man loved the first woman. Eden was still about primordial silence and dragoons. So they walked and softly spoke and gave a name to every thing. And as words came, so came the Song and the Path. But that is another story.

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France: Cherchez la femme

In Uncategorized on January 15, 2010 at 6:47 pm

France

Cherchez la femme

What we can learn from French women



French women think of the ideal man as a male in his mid-thirties, athletic, blond and successful businessman. Learning this, you will wonder why there has been such a hysterical rejection of German blond Hitler youth, some sixty years ago. Even more pathetic is that the majority of French women voted for President Sarkozy against his female competitor, Madame Royal.

This is contradictory because one would have expected that women support a woman running for presidency. French women are so infatuated with their independence and liberty. They have casual sex, drive cars with deliberate death wish and display contempt for male protective behaviour.

And yet amazingly so, they would work to pay the bills of their man, support him, have kids and in every sense endorse the traditional role of a woman as pillar of the family. The more the things change, the less they change. Men of today complain, but they are so spoiled by their concubines and spouses.

I forgot to mention that French women are incredibly jealous, which could be laughable, but is so cute in a girlish way, because who would want to take their husbands away? To have a French husband is comparable to have a dog at home, without genuine love and fidelity.

So that I dare to say that French women are victim of the mediocrity of Frenchmen. Historically speaking, women of France are more remarkable than men. Men keep losing wars, while women keep saving France. Think of Jean of Arc.

This is why I am so interested in the feminine psychology of French women. It is a fascinating field of study. Their dreams, their expectations are those of the heart of France. More and more French women mate with Arabs and Blacks. Think of Zinedine Zidane iconic status.

Most French actors and artists are Jews or Arabs. French Jews have always constituted a state within the state, so that their presence in the media is only illustrating their social influence. But the new trend is increasing numbers of Blacks and Arabs. French National television has its Black TV commentator. Is that a sign of integration, or disintegration of French society in racial corporations?

As a matter of fact when you return to France from afar, there is a new type of French population emerging. President Sarkozy is talking about French identity, but he should watch himself in a mirror. When you land at Paris airport, you will understand that France has developed its Mediterranean identity. Almost all airport staff is black or Arab, as well as police. Look at the travellers, and it is a day in Marrakech, Jerusalem or Abidjan.

Well.

Russian prostitutes don’t have sex with black people as they fear they will have monkeys instead of babies. There is no denying that the face of France is changing, and we should seriously consider changing our Marianne national figure. After all, this is justice because historically speaking we have used those poor black people as slaves and cannon fodder. North Africans we have been happy to get them as we were looking for cheap labour. The bravery and savagery of their soldiers was feared by Germans in both World Wars.

So why should we feel threatened? Why should we debate on French national identity? One is not French because of his blood, one becomes French because of his deeds.

The principles of our Constitution is that French Republic is equal to all its citizens, whatever colour, race, religion or social origin. You are French when you are born on French soil. When you consider the history of Rome, you see that there have been Black senators, gladiators and even a Caesar. And the history of Rome is nothing short of impressive.

The problem is not one of integration, or of immigration, but of our own consciousness of being French. To be French is not about a race, it is about a project of society. And unfortunately that project of society has lost its value, because of incompetent politicians, widespread corruption, lack of innovation, and French intellectual clique. We have not a problem with colours, we have a problem with ideals.

The ideal of the French Republic is wonderful, and truly I feel French when I read history books and think of our great men and women. Few countries in the world have been so often invaded than France. Think of the Goths, and how they walked from Danube to Southern France, established themselves there, and thus was born a race of beautiful blond children.

To every invader France has appeared as the promised land. Its rich valleys, wonderful rivers, and variety of marvellous landscapes made every invader want to stay and establish himself. Gaul was the crown of the Roman Empire. France is the Garden of Europe, its Eden.

When you think of the French as invaders you have the choice between Napoleon and colonial France of the 19th century. Napoleon provided the Germans with modern laws and national unity. Without the French there would be no Germany, but a constellation of little petty states. Napoleon shaped Europe.

T.E. Lawrence debates at length on the advantage of being an Englishman. To him the Frenchman is nothing short of an ape. English aristocratic society hates the values of the French Republic. To Lawrence the idea of being compared to native populations was even worse than being raped by Turks. What the French did was to create a native elite in every country they colonised. O, if you think of Africa, yes, it is a shame now, as France does support puppet regimes there.

But think of how many sons and daughters of the immigration have made it to the top of the French Republic. And there are reasons to be proud, I mean, in spite of the revolt of the banlieues France does provide fairly good chances of social integration and success, whatever your race or religion.

The real problem of France is incompetence, corruption and political sclerosis. It is not a problem of national identity. Listen to the message of French women.

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The age of courage

In Uncategorized on January 14, 2010 at 9:55 pm

Sartre wrote about the “Age of Reason”. I would like to write about the age of courage. Courage is what makes someone capable of facing extreme danger and difficulty without retreating. This definition is vague. I mean, without retreating. What happens if there is no possibility of retreat at all? Is it still courage then?

Every time I have accomplished something courageous, I felt there was no choice. I had to do it. Cutting down menacing trees, or fighting illness alone, it was not courage, it was necessity. Strangely I recall the words of Himmler as he said of the German soldier that he was not a hero, but did only what was necessary.

To me courage is humility and persistence, even in defeat, and particularly in defeat. Because victory is spoiling everything. We love war heroes, we admire them, and yet what is courage? There are so many ways to get killed and kill. You can kill out of anger, out of frustration, out of fear. Killing out of courage is rare. Imagine when you are killing your dying dog, or your mother. Because you love, you don’t want them to suffer.

This is why women are so courageous. Because they have not the excuse of violence. They endure. There are wars and natural catastrophes, but they will still bear children. Of course, you might say that they have no choice, but yes, they have. They could collectively suicide, and kill the future of mankind.

Jack Vance told the story of a man, so arrogant he wanted to create a race by himself by fecundating females. Mankind can survive with one man, but not with only one woman. The courage of women is similar to the regenerating power of Nature.

So what is the courage of men?

Is it fortitude? The firmness of mind and spirit in spite of opposition, is that the courage of men? Men are so changing. They will say the love a woman and discard her a few years later. Because men are competitive, they need to prove to themselves they can do it. They are doing crazy things and shit in their pants. That is not courage. This is stupidity.

I will leave fortitude to the fans of President Obama. Those are easy words. Like Nelson Mandela in prison, oh, what choice did he have but to endure? Courage begins with wisdom and out of desperation. Nobody is born courageous, but becomes courageous out of necessity.

Marines like to say that “Once a Marine, always a Marine.” Semper Fidelis. That is a bright shining lie, because no one can remain courageous as what makes someone capable of facing extreme danger and difficulty eventually disappears. Courage is a precious resource, and veterans know that after a while a soldier is burned.

Look at Gunther Prien, the hero of Scapa Flow. He escaped Scapa Flow after the sinking of HMS Royal Oak. The British did everything they could to sink his submarine, but miraculously he survived. But he was emotionally broken. Nazi Germany needed heroes, and sent him back to sea. His submarine was sunk a few days later. Broken, he was.

There is a wonderful book about men at war by James Grey with a preface of Hannah Arendt. Read it and you will discover the story of courage. There is no courage in war, but insanity, brass and coffins.

I hate it when people use the word courage to describe the behaviour of someone. How do they know it is courage? You see a baby drowning, you jump in the water. Because you react without thinking. I positively hate it when people say a man or a woman is courageous because they do their job. I mean, soldier or policeman. If they have not the right stuff, they should consider swapping jobs.

Courage it is, when you do something knowing you have everything to lose, but you don’t care, because you have to do it. Courage it is where there is no glory. And then you find out that there are very simple things of life, which require courage.

Consider the engagement of marriage. No seriously, I mean the true engagement of marriage, I will love and cherish her in good and bad times alike. O that is courage. Love is about courage, really. If you love, you don’t think, because you don’t care, you do it or you don’t.

This is why I hate it when people use the word love without thinking about the courage of loving. There is a man I know whose wife died recently. She asked to die because she suffered. And he went to see her everyday. Everyone said he is courageous. I don’t agree, because if you love your wife, you don’t let her suffer day and night as she is asking to die. You kill her.

Well.

Who am I to give lessons, indeed? I have some experience of death and love. The only thing I can say is that both times I did everything I could without thinking about the consequences. To me only mattered the person who was in pain or dying. Nobody ever said I am courageous. And I couldn’t care less.

So yes, there is an age of courage. It is when you are old enough to think that you don’t care about the consequences, but have lived  enough to measure everything you have to lose. So that courage is a decision.

According to Sartre the age of reason is to know that there are things, which cannot be undone. The age of courage is to know that no matter what happens, you are committed to things which are more important than the most precious thing you have, which is your life.

The age of courage is also the age of love. As there cannot be courage without love, and love without courage.

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Women did it! So can Men!

In Uncategorized on January 10, 2010 at 11:53 am

Woman at work

Why men should consider the risk of feminine resurgence as an opportunity to achieve full potential in their lives

Time for hand in glove

Time for hand in glove

“The Economist” published “We Did It!”, an interesting article about Women at Work. Within a few months women will constitute the majority of American workforce. Women are already toping men in terms of academic achievement in OECD countries. However they are still under represented at the top of companies and remain underpaid. This is because women in their 20s and 30s face the problem of raising their children and remain competitive in terms of career. Both business and governments have tried to address this issue as they need the talent and grey cells of women by bringing more flexibility in the workplace and introducing laws. There are still problems, though, as society is adjusting to this balance of power.

Men feel threatened by women at school and in the workplace because women are highly competitive and motivated. Men fail to understand that the resurgence of feminine power is an opportunity to redefine themselves as protective pillars, instead of just money care-takers. This explains why successful and ambitious men attract women. They don’t focus on the money-sex-family balance, but on a dynamic and competitive evaluation of real manly values, like entrepreneurship, risk and audacity.

Traditional gender roles are misinterpreted, too. Men and women continue to believe  that there is an established balance of responsibilities according to characteristics of strength, endurance and even brain adaptability to perform certain tasks. As I stated to fellow soldiers in the Army, a woman of same weight and body corpulence has 70% of a man strength, meaning that 30% edge is manageable with combat technique. Traditional gender roles are the result of societal evolution, not genetics.

In Ancient Greece competition for power between men and women had tragic consequences. The Queen was the Voice of the City-Goddess and mated with males by force. Honeymoon was brief and ended with the death of the male. The rites of Demeter, Goddess of Earth, fertility and Harvest, were sexually violent and bloody. The tribes which invaded Greece changed that balance of power and established Kings as consorts of Queen-Priestess-Witch. The story of Oedipus illustrates that struggle for power. Oedipus married his mother, but it was the Mother of the City, the High Priestess. The Sphinx had a woman’s head because it challenged the King with dark knowledge of sorcery.

History of sex provides interesting clues regarding the balance of power in society. We know the name of Roman emperors, but we forget to mention the role of women, as mothers, counsellors, and even challengers. Caligula murdered his mother because her influence was too great. Sexually speaking, women had the power to choose and decide. The story of Servilia, mistress of Julius Caesar, and mother of Brutus, is telling us that in spite of all Roman virtues of manhood, women enjoyed great power since the days of the Sabines. Sabines women were abducted by Romans, and yet saved them from the fury of their brothers and fathers.

Christianity affected the balance of power, as women were subjected to obedience within the context of familial harmony. Romans failed to find virgins to become Vestals, but Christian religion made thousands of women choose virginity willingly. Religion emphasised so-called gender rules, which eventually became traditional.

If we consider the 18th century sexual liberation, both in terms of literature and Arts, it is a reaction to the religious wars of the 16th century and first attempts to separate Church from State. Balance of power shifted in favour of women, as they gained access to education and business. Napoleon would never had become Emperor without the influence of Josephine. She was the one who introduced him to the circles of power and influence in the City.

The industrial revolution of the 19th century led to major economic growth and transformation of society. With “Eugenie Grandet” Balzac has painted the portrait of a society where women were pursued for capital. The Bourgeoisie fought a determined battle against any shift of power in favour of women, who were isolated and married by force, hence the need for romantic writing and heroes. Emile Zola’s women are fighting for economic recognition and social status.

The traditional gender roles of today are the result of 19th century romantic ideals and responsibilities, as Man is the Lord Protector and Woman the Caretaker of Home and Children. Two World Wars have made these roles obsolete. Women were needed in armament industries and every department of economic life, as men were fighting and dying on battlefronts. Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s “The Marriage of Maria Braun” is the story of a German woman whose husband is missing in action, and who has sex with a Black American soldier to learn English and have food. When the husband unexpectedly returns, she kills the American, and the husband accepts to plead guilty. She will eventually become a free woman, highly successful, until the final return of the husband, and their suicide.

Men fear the resurgence of power of women, because women tend to adopt men’s strategies and tactics to their advantage. Men are afraid to be dominated in the same way they used to dominate at work and at home. They fail to understand that the role of Lord Protector is restrictive and ill-adapted to the nature of men, which is to fight and conquer, explore and secure new frontiers. Divorces and violence are a result of deep male frustration in that fake role of Protectors. The economic resurgence of women will free men and make workplace and home more secure and balanced. Men will be able to spend more time with their children. Daughters and sons will have a real father who cares. Women will enjoy a more satisfying life, both at work and home, where they will be able to pursue career and life as a loving wife, without feeling prisoner of their gender.

There are questions, though. Will women dominate as men used to? Will they lose their feminine sensitiveness and turn into “males”, as they top the pyramid of business? Will men seize that opportunity for achieving full potential in their lives without losing control and trust in themselves? We may not need the violence of Atia and Servilia of Ancient Rome, but a Julius Caesar would be nice. His evenings were torrid and bloody, and would keep us away from our laptops and televisions!

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Job, a True Lesson of Love

In Uncategorized on January 1, 2010 at 6:11 pm

I am sipping a hot green tea in my home kitchen with a roaring fire nearby. I love sitting there and writing on my Apple PowerBook G4. Night has fallen, and temperature too. January is there and we still have to face February, which is the true month of winter. Already days have gained some length. So 2009 is a goner, and what a year it was!

I have lived 16 years in my home, working on trees, rebuilding things, reading and talking to my mother. 16 years! And those years have been rich. Because I have loved what I was doing. And I did it very well. But it was time for a big change in my life. Everything started with a decision to follow those principles:

  • Face my own fears! And never stop moving forward until fear is gone, or integrated and understood. Where knowledge is, fear is not. Most people share the same fears, so be kind and understanding.
  • Love! There is so much power in love. When you love, roadblocks will fall because nothing can withstand that white light. Love is Life, and Life is Love.
  • Follow my instinct! Don’t think too much ahead, or I will bog down in doubts. Trust myself to do it. Whatever happens. The higher the risk, the better the opportunities.
  • Never do something I would regret later! How would you know? Oh, you know it, deep inside. I have missed many things in my life, because I thought how crazy it would be to do it. But all these things, good or bad, I live with them, and I wish I had tried, instead of doing nothing.

And my life changed. I faced fears in cutting down trees and mastering techniques of logging. I tried to think and use my wits to lower the risk. And it worked, with some luck, but it worked. I downed very difficult and menacing trees, and I did it with love and respect.

Eventually I learned that most of our decisions, especially the reasonable ones, are built upon projection of our fears.

I will give you an example. I have an old, but nice Mercedes-Benz car. I love it because I learned to drive with it. Bless Mother! But the accelerator pedal did not work, and I was sure the cable had to be replaced. I read the Mercedes manual, and came out with an impression of reading Hebrew. So instead of actually checking out the engine compartment with my own eyes, I did preliminary research, financial estimate and postponed everything because I felt I could not do it.

One morning, because I had time and tools in hand, I opened up the engine compartment, took out the air filter. And checked out the sparrow linkage. And it was not the accelerator cable, but a piece of rubber, which held the sparrow linkage in position. The very same afternoon, I took my motorcycle to visit a Mercedes-Benz dealer, and purchased the rubber thing for 1 Euro. Done!

So that I delayed repairing my car for 10 weeks, because I thought it was a difficult operation and expensive repair. I believed so. And in fact it was a matter of 10 minutes work and 1 Euro in cash. Believe me or not, I have worked on cars before, and I have good maintenance practice. This proves how distorted my view of reality was, because instead of trying, I thought about it, and began to take reasonable steps to avoid doing it.

This is a very good lesson, and I am thankful for it. Because I did not trust myself, I did not even try. And because I did not try, I could not solve the problem.

This lesson is not limited to mechanical maintenance. It has universal application. It can be two lovers deciding to break off, just because they think it is not going to work, but they are so fearful that they have not even tried. I would say, it is wise to break off after x attempts, but what a shame when there has been no attempt at all. I will give you another example. My father left my mother, because he believed he could not face the maintenance costs of a domain in France. So instead of trying, or finding alternatives, he fled familial home and engaged divorce procedure, which did cost more than any maintenance costs.

Trust yourself at least to honestly try before making a decision! How many military leaders lost their heads in battle, and thought they had lost, while they had won. Give time to time.

2009 has been incredible because I wished to meet women, and I did. Oh it is not that I am a monster, but after 16 years of sexual abstinence working on trees, you begin to seriously consider joining a monastery, or becoming gay. So I joined eHarmony, I trusted myself to do it, in spite of the bad press of those online dating websites, because I knew I needed to talk and meet with a woman.

And it worked. One of the very first ladies I was introduced to I fell in love with. Like a dream come true, her beautiful face with marvelous eyes and lovely smile was the one I had been desperately looking for. And her letters were marvelous. When I talked to her for the first time, her soft voice filled my heart with so much love I fell on my knees. Oh it has not been easy, because in spite of our mutual attraction, we are adults and know too much to trust our instincts. But she saved my life and sanity as my mother was dying in hospital, and she came, yes, she came like an angel to help me as I was down, down where the moon is small.

I will always remember how she walked out of the airport lobby in Paris Charles de Gaulle. It was past midnight at a time travelers have exhausted looks. And she stopped in front of me, and kissed me on my cheek. She had flown across a continent to meet someone she has known only with phone calls. And there we were driving to my home in the middle of a dark forest, from the lights of Paris at night, to the valley of the Loire.

And while I was driving, she fell asleep, so confident that everything was right. And I gave her the room of my mother, which was still bare. And there she slept, folding her angel wings. And I closed the door, walking softly so as not to wake her up.

So 2009 was a year of terrible sorrow, and immense joy. I have seen taken away and medically destroyed the person I loved more than my life, and God has given me in his Love, a person to love and care for.

I feel like walking in a book of marvels. I am smiling, and crying altogether. It has been a wonderful year 2009. So what would I want for 2010?

I would want people to learn from my experience, and begin to challenge their own fears. I personally will walk that difficult rocky road, because once you know how blessed you feel walking there, there is no turning back without waking demons. I would like to find a Path where I could be Me, truly, and bring happiness to the people around me. Writing this blog is one step forward on that Path. If only one reader does attempt to take the High Road too, I will feel well rewarded for my time.

To all of you who have read, back and forth, diagonally, my blog I wish a wonderful year 2010. Together we can do it. Step after step.

God Bless You All.

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True Romance

In Uncategorized on December 31, 2009 at 8:54 pm

I hate romance. For instance, there are hotels with honeymoon packages. Why don’t they deliver the baby, too? I mean, all of this is fake. As fake as those tractor love stories, where the man is displaying a hairy chest and oily hands, while the girl is experiencing erection of her nipples. Who can believe that?

Romance is not about hairy chests glistening in the sun, at least for straight people. Romance is unexpected and cruel. It is destroying lives, and opening new perspectives. Turning a father into a boy. Turning a boy into a father. No honestly, romance is the matter of Scary Movie.

And yet the myth endures. Against all logic and scientific data. Romance is there.

My cell phone antenna is larger than yours!

Okay, in the Stone Age, it was swiftly concluded. The romantic rival is quickly dispatched with a split skull, and the girl is pulled to the nuptial place with her hair. In the Middle Age, it was about the same, but duels between pretenders could take days, leaving plenty of opportunities for the Belle to lose her maidenhead.

In the Digital Age, duels for the Belle are done with SMS and flexible cell phone antennas. Opportunities for sexual escape are limited, considering that about all guys of today display a tendency to being gay. All in all, we have come to a sorry conclusion of the romantic evolution, and perhaps we should seriously consider Stone Age advantages.

So I said I hate romance, because people talking and writing about it have absolutely no idea. They think it is like a kind of game, pleasant and soft, where both lovers are exchanging words and kisses. But no, romance is tough business. We should have been born with hermaphrodite sexuality, and all humanity would already be pioneering the Universe.

But no, we are born Man or Woman, or both, but that is not my subject. We are born to research our completing half. Of course we dream of a beautiful maiden, intelligent enough to have a job, but not too intelligent, so we can enjoy our male superiority with computing and driving. But that is bullshit. It is so wrong.

I don’t believe that Gods are playing with Men. They have their own marital issues. But we are not immortals, so we have limited time. And it is with frantic obsession that men and women drive too fast with sports convertibles, and abuse their breasts with layers of silicon. Again, it is not working that way.

Look at advertisement campaigns. You have the guy running after a girl with flowers. So what does that mean? He is in love, or she needs to change her after shave? You have women running like squirrels, while the man is stalking them. Unshaved, shirt open on hairy belly, with the look of total stupidity. While she is resting, as running is tiring, he comes from behind, and Bam! Hmmm, in general, how many of these guys get a job as soprano, once their balls have been ripped off?

No, seriously. Romance is not a game. But it is true that as a lover I have ran more than Zatopek. Romance is tiring, get ready with vitamins. You must be answering calls day and night. Write long letters until your arms are trembling. Learn to cook and brush teeth. Lose weight and find a honorable work. Board planes at any time. Make love like a U.S. basket team.

There should be Olympics of Romance. Nature is showing us the way. But we have grown soft. As soft as our cell phone antennas. And our love songs have grown into sirups of cries and laments. Hail the Stone Age lover! So quick, not very smart, and smelling like old socks.

Dear Reader, it is a terrible thing to believe in fairy tales. Generations of girls and guys have failed their procreating seasons, walking around and sending cries of seduction, expecting for the desired one to appear. What they have forgot to tell you about fairy tales, it is that there is always an ogre. Oh, nothing fancy like Big Joe with Axe in hand, walking the woods, singing merry tunes. No, Ogres have different faces. They are Time, Work, Career, Money.

Oh, but it is all right, those ogres we know how to deal with. Are you so sure? Because romance is about walking the woods and ignoring the fear of the Ogre. You begin to see my point, romance in packages, honeymoons, all of this is inspired by ogres. It is nice package, but it is still a package.

Next time I will tell you nice stories about romance, and you will see that we are far, very far from the fairy tale portrait. It is a cruel miracle. Cruel, indeed.

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A Woman Of Quality

In Uncategorized on December 30, 2009 at 8:15 pm

There are murders of quality in English Gardens, but what is a Woman of Quality? Is it education, morality, social status, innocence or vice? Is it possible to consider a Woman of Quality outside the perspective of men? And yet, to everyone it is clear when we see a Lady that she is a Woman of Quality.

A woman of quality has the distinction of being rare, and yet not uncommon. She is not registered, and yet you can find her quite easily if you stop looking, but watch. A woman of quality has the antique virtues of womanliness without trespassing the fine line of prostitution and the elitist status of a bourgeoisie.

A woman of quality is inspiring, and yet deceptively honest and simple. You think you know her, but she will surprise you. She has hidden depths, and pits. She can lead a man to reaching levels unknown to him, or make him hate her because he cannot follow her teaching.

Distinguished, and yet not sophisticated, a woman of quality is at ease in every situation, and does not shame herself with the fallacious outlook, but will reveal herself in her choices, both good and bad. Because a woman of quality is not a saint, but a person, she will often err and yet never lose herself.

A woman of quality is forgiving, but not forgetting. She is not revengeful, and yet her heart can be filled with the passion of hatred. She is the Nemesis of Men, as her anger can lift oceans and drain rivers. She is a woman, and her anger has the devastating effect of a tornado. And yet in all her fury, she never loses herself. And can distinguish good from bad. Her forgiveness is act of love, not of feebleness.

Educated, and yet not pedant, she has the taste of a dilettante, and will inflame a writer or a poet, but leave the academician cold in his masturbating solitude. She is energy of life, white flame, aurora borealis. She consumes, but is not consumed. She reads, but words are less important than ideas. Romantic, she is waiting, and yet not expecting.

A woman of quality will make her man happy, and yet he will sometimes wonder if she is there for him, or for the image she has of him. Her sorrow will devastate him, and her laughter will make him travel leagues of desert, but with the memory of her white neck. Her pleasure has the quality of a setting sun, as the air is filled with the scent of harvested wheat.

Delight she will not in having right, but only in giving good. Delight is not her purpose, but a just reward to her quality as a woman. Having prepared the feast of kings, she will with the same gaze judge, and yet remain human in drinking that cup of wine. She will bear life, and yet love in that suffering, more. A mother of goodness, and justice, she will always go for love, but not forsake her values.

A woman of quality is exacting, but never dictating. She is asking, but not demanding. She will lift hearts, but never betray truth. Both matrix and vector, she is the fruit of love, and earth where it will grow.

She has the white hand of those directing justice and making the power of kings more humane. Her neck has the fragility of the Lys. Hair has life of its own, as her blood is fuming with the power of a Greek goddess. Her legs will inspire painters and architects, while her chest has the promise of blossom and harvest. Eyes have the patience and fire of a Pieta. Oval face of a Botticelli Aphrodite, smile both knowing and generous, but never touched with the sarcasm and easy sorrow. Her shape is exquisite, and will leave a Paris wondering for the Apple of Discord.

She is both eternal, and yet never the same, both Model and Evolution, she is the source from which are born kings and just citizens. Source and flowing river, she is both path and ultimate destination.

Conquering her will leave man wondering about the power of fists and swords. Submitting to her would be like drinking from a pure calyx of legends, leaving heart and soul refreshed. And yet it is not act of submission she is asking, but of understanding and completion.

Possessing her will make men conquer vast oceans, and venture over endless deserts. And yet the fruit of that possession will have life on its own, beyond the grasp of stern alarums and mighty warriors. The child she will bear has the sanctity of blood after the exertion of passion and reason, both Fruit and Promise.

This is a Woman of Quality.

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Happy Islands of Romance

In Uncategorized on December 29, 2009 at 6:07 pm

I feel romantic tonight. Hush, I would tell the reader, who is barely suppressing a yawn. Perhaps you have the right to wonder when I do not feel so. But tonight winter has warmed up to a slight rain with a promise of spring to come. There are nights of promise, and nights of hope. And I would like to share that warm glow with you.

As a bachelor of 39, my life has been romantic with icons of women, filling me both with longing and despair. There have been times when I would cry, others when I would sing or dance. Embrace the world, or tell him to go to hell. Tonight I feel like dancing, and having a glass of wine to wish good luck to all lovers embracing right now.

In love, men are not equal. Some are more beautiful, some more favoured by the Gods. Love is like a country of lore beyond mountains and deserts. Who could understand love, but for those who have walked through endless paths? There is paid love, which some argue is more practical. There is free love, but I have never met anyone who could explain what it actually means. To me love is the glass of fresh water one gives to the guest after a long journey. It is generosity and tenderness. It cannot be exchanged, measured or traded.

There have been times when the sight of happy lovers filled me with jealousy, even anger. I would keep telling myself why I am not given the same kind of affection and attention. Asking my mother, she would flash a soft knowing smile, and say that it is all in the smile and eye contact, something which is coming when the time is ripe. Love is harvest, not conquest. Read the rest of this entry »

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A Romantic Affair

In Uncategorized on December 26, 2009 at 11:42 am

A romantic affair is a bridge thrown over an abyss. There is no turning back without betraying who you are. A romantic affair is a journey from which you will either return transformed, or not return at all. Avalon it is, for true lovers. They sail away, and their story is matter of legends.

It all begins with a smile. A special acknowledgment of your presence. Touching words in a letter. Joy of life. A friendly hug. At heart, it is a shared need to be together. Imagination is instrumental.

It all began for me at night in front of a computer display. Welcome to a networked world. Am I ready? Yes, I am, Cisco Systems.

I saw her online in a dating agency. I could not believe it. This is a jewel, a diamond. Out of thousands of tagged portraits, she was the only one I noticed. It was Her. With beating heart, I launched the contact process. She will never answer, she is too beautiful, too young, too much above everything I could have expected.

By Russian standards, age difference is not important. A man is a man in his forties. A young girl is 16. 25 is not so young, told me Irina. So strange, because in France, a relationship between a man of 40 and a girl of 25 is already stretching some unwritten code of conduct.

In France a man of 40 with a girl of 16 is normal if she is Black. Positive discrimination, it is called there. If she is white, it is the matter of another Nabokov drama. Read the rest of this entry »

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Irina, Icon of Riga

In Uncategorized on December 25, 2009 at 9:55 pm

Today I had a lovely adventurous day with Irina, a Russian woman, former teacher of linguistics at Riga university, occasionally cook in Dublin, and now ruined by 70% cut of pension in Latvia. She is living with 150 Euros a month. So she is walking from hotel to hotel with a plastic bag, bread and cigarettes. She is a great lover of Pushkin, Dostoievski and we talked for hours about literature, Soviet history and France. She has a devotion for the Russian tongue, so liquid and full of variations.

Tell me about a language with so many ways to spell a name like Irina, she asked. There is no one in the world!

I have to agree that Russian is a very sophisticated language combining French richness of vocabulary with more flexibility, or customization. For instance, in Russian, one word can explain a whole lot of different things, either pleasing or not.

She is occasional city guide, and it was indeed a dramatic walk under sheets of rain, cutting wind, as we were plowing in melting snow. She introduced me to true Riga on the Russian side, and it was great to be welcome as a guest in special parts of town, totally outside of classic tourist circus.

True to Russian icons, she was chain smoking and appeared oblivious to the blizzard, while I was thinking what a true Russian wintertime must be. We ate like pigs, soup from Georgia, red wine, liquor and roasted meat as part of traditional Latvian diet.

We went to Doma concert hall to listen to Bach, and I fell asleep to my great shame. And as we were having another swing of red wine in the Black Cat, a trendy bar in city centre, she jumped and disappeared with a ten Lats bill in hand, leaving all her little belongings to me. I waited, but the waitress kept shrugging. With Irina you never know, did she say. Read the rest of this entry »

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Christmas Eve in Riga

In Uncategorized on December 25, 2009 at 9:17 am

In perhaps the most magnificent introduction ever, Herman Melville began his monumental work of “Moby Dick” with those words: ” Call me Ismael.” And went on to explain that Ismael is going to hunt whales as he feels drawn to funerary carts and cemeteries. There is traveling, and there is journeying. It is my journey I will tell you about.

I will not write about the location itself, but about the things, which I learned about myself. “Oh how interesting”, will you think! Another suicidal writer on rampage, as if Russia was not exporting enough of them. First, I am not a writer, and then I have not the talent of Slavic people for suicide. So I will try to keep the story short, which is quite a challenge to me.

I have discovered that I can delay important decisions, and even miss opportunities I thought were unique, but that there is something as a deep instinct buried in myself, which is a both a reserve of calm and serenity, and a source of inspiration to my life. I must learn to trust that instinct.

I am drawn to a woman I love like a moth to a flame. I feel awfully bad when I think that the love I have is part of my imagination, perhaps hallucination. As a lover I have an incredible capability to imagine dramatic lies and illusions. I will read words several times, until I am quite sure of their meaning. And then I will imagine another meaning, and read again those words. Until the meaning is changed again.

I have to trust my instinct again, and my instinct is telling me that the person I love is loving me, and perhaps more than I do. She is seeing me. I mean, no level of introspection can approach that. This is why Marcel Proust said that spending an afternoon with a young girl was more gratifying than any literary masterpiece.

I am the one responsible for my happiness. I am the one who can take the decisions. Say “Yes!” or “No!” I am not saying I have full control, because it is ridiculous. I need friends, and I need love to reveal myself as I truly am. No one can decide what I have to do. There are things I am doing, because I have to. For example, I had to care for my mother out of love. I have to hold on to my beloved, and care for her, because I know she is the one person I need in my life, and I love her deeply. And also because I know that no one else will help her as much as I will.

So that as a human being I cannot decide if I am walking north or south, if the wind is right for sailing, because there is a single course, which I have to take. I can miss the right time for sailing away, but I cannot miss the journey. I have to trust myself.

There are things I am ready to do, and others I will not do even out of obligation. I will never work for something I don’t believe in. But I would do it if I have to, out of love, or perhaps because there is no one else around to do it. I have cared for my mother during fifteen years. And I did it, because there was no one else to do that. And I could not forsake her. Period.

I was free to say “No!” because I could not save her. But I said “Yes!” because I saved myself doing it. She made me become the man I was born to be. And if today my thoughts are confused, and that I am walking to visit cemeteries, and following funerals, it is because I am not trusting the instinct of the man I am. Reason is not helpful here.

I had every reason to stay at home for Christmas. To save the money. Even to save the planet by reducing greenhouse effects. But my instinct made me book tickets, and call my beloved to ask her for advice. So I knew I had to ask, and trust the reaction of her words within myself. And we had the most beautiful discussion ever, exchanging shots like a married couple, totally trusting, totally in love.

As the plane lost altitude and the pilot explained he had to land in emergency because there was no fuel left, I had sweaty palms, and my heart was racing, but there was no word I said of regret. I knew deeply that my beloved told me to go to accomplish what I have to do. There are many ways of dying, and you cannot control that. What you can control is the attitude you have, and her beautiful face was smiling to me, all the time, as we skidded to a stop.

There is a danger, and this danger is the “Me Thing”. Me wants this. Me wants it now. Me is unhappy. Me is happy again. A life like this is no good. Since Mother died, I have known terrible moments of despair and doubt. There is something, which does help. Sleep. Or walking. Or smiling, even if you feel like crying. No literature is of help. No kind advice. You are alone to walk the Path, but Love can be your Light.

I know that only my beloved can save me. I can walk the Path and give my muscles food and exercise. I can train my mind. I can write as much as I want. But only love is going to make me do it. I mean, surviving. I am here because I loved, I will be following that light to the end.

There is not a single way, but there is a single Path. You can walk it in reverse, on your knees, or like the Tibetans on your belly. But you are going to take that Path, because the Path is you.

There is something, which is helpful. It is patience. Much harm has been done in the world out of impatience. Everything is so immediate. We are surrounded with injunctions to speed. And the Arabs have an admirable saying:” Speed is the Sheitan”. Which means that Speed is the Devil. Again on your Path, it is not speed which matters, but if you are advancing or not.

For example, there is an admirable love story in a French movie. It is about a man who is always angry and bitter. He is alone. Criticizing everything. And everyone. He has to travel. He hates it. Then at the end of the movie, you will learn he is dying out of cancer, and hating it. And the door of the train station opens to an older lady, and she says: “Is that you?” And it is his beloved of thirty years ago. And he tells her, and she says, then we still have time to do it. And be happy for the time we have been allocated to have.

So who is saying you can delay, and miss? I waited forty years to meet my beloved. And the day I understood it was truly her I want to spend my life with, my chest was about to burst, and I felt wings. Truly wings. And the words of wisdom of my mother occurred to me. “One minute of pure happiness is worth a life of bitterness and unhappy things.”

So be patient, but trust your instinct. You can be patient in the waiting, without expecting, but patience is not about not doing, it is like snow resting on a mountain, it will eventually melt, and join the torrent. Patience is about ripening. Patience is trust.

Am I patient? No. I used to believe I was. But it was only lack of interest, or lack of wish. Life was not stirring me, jolting me. With the death of my mother, it seems I have lost patience and trust in myself. I have hurt my beloved, because I want answers to questions. But there are no questions. And because of this, there are no answers.

I have been impatient with her, and now I have lost her confidence, and she is staying clear. I wanted immediate bliss, and to live together, without understanding that the time had not yet come. So the forester has to learn again that planting a tree is about wishing for a forest, giving the opportunity to be a forest by planting and caring, but that the tree has a life on its own.

I have seen a touching thing in Riga. There is a pond with ducks. And a little bridge is crossing it. And there are hundreds of locks around the metallic structure of the bridge. And every lock has an inscription. Two names, with a loving sign. Yes, love is about hope, as life is flowing under the bridge.

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The High Road

In Uncategorized on December 22, 2009 at 5:13 pm

A friend wisely wrote that one should be careful with one’s wishes. As a kid I used to talk to trees and shrubs and I had wishes, which were granted or not, depending on the way leaves rustled with the wind. But I was so careful with wishes. As a man reaching his forties, I still have wishes, but the list has grown dramatically short.

There was a time when wishes came with a priority, meaning I had wishes ordered. The top priority was to be successful with my computing project, to build a realistic tank combat simulator. This wish I had awarded priority over love, or romantic relationship. Even personal happiness.

Later I had the wish my mother would be well again, and enjoy happy years as I was building my own life. This wish was granted, but of course I could not think that it meant her dying. So one must really be careful with one’s wishes.

There is a school of thought, which is professing that wishes are granted, because one does construct day after day the required conditions for being granted with the wish one had chosen. For instance, I wished a dramatic love relationship, with lots of adventure and sex. Well, I have been granted that wish, and now I understand why heroes feel tired of adventure and seek the bonhomie of a quiet evening in front of a fireplace.

Why is it that we are showing to children stories of adventure with happy romantic ends? And they lived happily and had many children. Oh, it does happen. The father would eventually become alcoholic, or reveal he is gay. The woman will begin to doubt her husband has guts. And think that the bad character of the story, you know the loser, who got shot, burnt, killed, and killed again, well, that this guy was a lot more fun. But we don’t want children to know that. So they can learn it the hard way.

I have found out that happiness has nothing to do with adventure, happiness is not a reward. Happiness is a state of mind, a personal life philosophy. You can feel happy, without a job, without a woman, or even without a glass of wine. You can feel happy without legs, or eyes. Happiness is about that interior peace of mind, that hidden reservoir of wisdom, of gratefulness and patience for life. Happiness is the moment you accept yourself in harmony with the world.

So it it that my wishes are granted one by one, and that I am like a famished traveler in the night, dreaming of a cozy bed and entwined limbs, and being granted all those wishes, I am still feeling the urge of hitting the road, as if happiness was as simple as bread when you are hungry, sunshine when your bones are aching. Happiness is absolute waiting without expecting.

Now that I am packing for a few days to spend on the warm shores of Baltic sea, by minus 20, I feel so close to my dear home, as if every wall, every window was gently telling me that I will be missed for those days. But that it will be wonderful to be home again with my cat on my lap.

So why am I going, why does one feel the need for packing? Claude Levy Strauss wrote that all journeys are about one thing, the discovery of oneself. I will meet a woman in a foreign country, and I feel good about talking and sharing some time with that person. But I know that true to this gaelic love song, there cannot be two Moons or Suns, just only one. And that my heart is lying somewhere in a tower of glass and granite in Moscow Business Center.

Christmas is about peace, for children a few days without teachers. And for grown-ups to enjoy some time together. The spirit of Christmas is about Happiness. Simple.

What I would need now is some Jack Vance wit, and hit the road with a broad smile, smiling at my own candid foolishness, and crush the feel for crying, because the road to discovering myself will be long and difficult, as I have built so many walls and borders, to avoid that consciousness of being a simple human being, not a hero.

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The Return of a Cruel Miracle

In Uncategorized on December 19, 2009 at 3:22 pm

A short and partial approach to the phenomena of love as the author is himself a lover living on the edge.

Love is observed in children, in animals, and yet the older we grow, the wiser we should be, and the meaning of love is escaping us as the refreshing glass of water brought to the lips of the King Fisher. Because the more you look for it, the more elusive it will be.

It seems that love is more palpable in young beings, or very old ones about to die, or animals, that is in beings with a common denominator, which is approach to the surrounding universe, and not rational distinction brought by education and social life.

Love is expression of the soul, even if some distinguish the physical love, as described in the expression “making love”, as if it was bread to be baked, which is not altogether wrong considering the spirituality of baking bread, from the ethereal expression of bliss, only found in young mothers or people with mental disabilities.

Elisabeth Kuebler Ross observed that love is a kind of natural state, or more precisely a state of being natural with the surrounding world. It is expression of the soul in harmony and communion with the universe. It is Love as an Ideal, explained by Plato in the Banquet.

I am discussing the matter and spirituality of love, as I am trying to understand the nature of my own feeling for my beloved. In the _Bar Fly_ there is a famous reply by the main female character, “I don’t want to be in love again.” And it is touching, as truly her face is betraying the exhaustion and despair of the whole experience.

Perhaps this is why Canova’s “Venus Victrix” is displaying her arousing beauty while turning her gaze on the side. Is it to escape the reproachful eyes of lovers? Is it to hide her contempt for her believers? Or is it an invitation to observe her beauty while she would try to explain that, yes, you can see and love my beauty, but never look into my eyes, or you will be condemned for eternity?

Perhaps Venus is in torments for her beauty, unchanging, terrible and admirable, locking hearts under the most impregnable armor of steel, and making out of a patriot a betrayer, out of a son a lover, out of a father a young boy?

Lovemaking is usually ‘performed’ in variations of the Cross, as if indeed there was something like a sacrifice, and sacrifice it is on the altar of Destiny. Science does explain that a human being is nothing but a few dollars worth of basic elements, and yet the fabrication of a human being continues to consume billions of dollars in high technologies, while there is only need of a few minutes of embrace to launch the procreative process.

Love is more than spirituality or physics, it is a combination of everything with a catharsis. Love is explanation without words. Love is poetry without verses. It is free and yet immensely expensive. It can be bartered, but not sold. You cannot buy it unless you are a fool. And you cannot expect it as a reward, or it is prostitution again.

Love is pure, and yet its constituting elements are not so. Sex is part of love, and yet it is certainly not so ‘pure’. Why would poets and writers always portray sex as romantic as a blissful walk in a forest? Sex is tiring, mostly dominating, and a last refuge to lovers on the verge of breaking off. Now if we consider the human beings as lovers, and parts of the process, there is little ‘purity’ in all that dramatic display of limbs, which could be funny to the onlooker, where it not for the absorbed look of its participants.

And yet when you observe lovers, there is a flame, a shared light. Old people can be lovers, and it is not shocking, but endearing. Children are lovers, and it is the matter of Romeo and Juliet. The fat man with the lithe young girl. The old woman with that boy still wearing shorts. Love is about sublimation. Federico Fellini would say, that love is about abomination made beautiful.

Love is a creative process. And this brings me to the marvelous love story, which is _Solaris_ by Stanislaw Lem. I have never read such a heart breaking conclusion than the one comparing love to ‘waiting without expectation the return of a cruel miracle’. Everything about love is there. The waiting without which there is no love. Waiting is almost love in itself. Because completion is never at hand, at least in this world.

Love is about the unexpected. A Roman Emperor madly in love with a girl of Arles. And she would fall for the water carrier. A mother who could not expect another child. And that child is the centre of her universe. A face, a smile, a voice, some hesitation, and two destinies are changing course. For the better or for the worse. Because the unexpected is also the definition of catastrophe.

Love is Life, and Death. Now we know that poets and writers were right to say, that love is beyond life and death. Love is the uniting element, the missing stance in the prose. Love is unity of alpha and omega, Yin and Yang.

Love is a creative force, exactly like Solaris is. It is attempting billions of combinations, without any regard to the material at hand. It is consuming lives and making death sublime with the same liberal generosity. Love is beyond Good and Bad, it is beyond guilt. Can you make a river responsible for its course?

So why is it that we feel love is cruel to us? When we feel we are swept with it, but the beloved one is not. And this happens more than often. First explanation, is it truly love, or only a projection of your inner self, of your ego? Lem has a beautiful image of it, when he is explaining that humanity conquering space is only about expanding human control and domination, absolutely not an understanding for the universe itself. So that unshared love is about appropriation, not communion.

Can love be taught? Because one of the most impossible issue of the lover is to know when he should stop, and leave the beloved one in peace. There is a wonderful description of that Russian Colonel describing his passionate love for a Jewish girl, and how after hours of exertion, her blood and body would at last commune, but for her eyes. So that love is more like a tree, it grows, but can be destroyed by storms or brutal pruning. Love is not metal, iron or steel. It cannot be melted without losing its unique character.

So that when a lover does explain that he conquered the loved one, it is absurd, or it should be understood as Salvador de Madariaga famously put it, first you conquer, and then you administer, but ultimately it is you who are conquered. No, love as result of a rational process is more about revealing what was already there. It is like studying a foreign language and already understanding a few words, because you know them by recognition.

If anyone would care to ask me what love is, I would answer that I don’t know, but I know when I see it.

Frederic W. Erk

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The Hermit Secret, or how to be successful with girls with minimal impact on global warming

In Uncategorized on December 7, 2009 at 9:27 am

I was in a dark library room when I first heard about the Black Pamphlet. It was closing time, and people were in the process of getting up and leaving. It is a nice moment to sit back and observe. Like in the movies. Or in an airplane. When everybody is getting close, I mean that close, and wait thirty minutes in the main alley of the aircraft, while you are finishing your book, or having a nap. Read the rest of this entry »

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Raison d’Etre

In Uncategorized on December 2, 2009 at 11:36 am

Feeling depressed? Now French people consume 80 million anxiety pills a year. And you wonder where the smiles have gone. Anxiety is a natural corollary to intellectual capabilities, as we tend to anticipate more than animals.

So why is it that anxiety has become so vile that we want to eradicate it? Is it another resurgence of Cassandra’s dramatic fate? Because the so-called “negativists” are perhaps right, or at least because they strike a chord within ourselves.

Let there be light, please

I feel anxious, very much so. After the death of Mom, I was in shock, not thinking. Just living the material life of getting up, eating, moving, eating and sleeping. Now anxiety is like a dark shadow, a ghost, which I can detect in everything, and everywhere. Read the rest of this entry »

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Recapitulation

In Uncategorized on November 30, 2009 at 5:22 pm

Benedictine monks hailed “sublime recapitulation” as the perfect harmony of Faith in unity with God. Ever since has this word kept the spiritual pregnancy in my imagination. No other word can explain the depth of feelings I have and continue to have with my departed mother.

Because the music of Mozart retains its value in the most abject slum, I have found my mother to incarnate both receptacle and truth in a sacred unity between the womb, which carried me along the bodily fluids of procreative process, and the spirit, which brought understanding to the children I used to be.

Call her Susan.

4 August. Summer peak. Slow life of vacations. Kids playing in the river. August has been chosen for that caricature of Caesar, heir and beholder of the Julii bloodline. It is the fitting month for dying, as hospital beds are coffins of blankets, and night are short. Only hope is carried by the shooting stars in heaven, which remind us of the vanity of our existence and greatness of summer skies.

Silence played its usual tune of familiar sounds. Lights are surrounded with insects. Silence was thus inhabited with tension as I opened that door to the salon, and found my mother lying near the bed.

Silent she had been for hours as I worked upstairs, as she did not want to betray her despair. And it froze my heart because I knew, too the ways of death, when its bony hand is slightly resting on your shoulder.

Call her Susan. Please. She would like it.

 

 

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Re-Birth

In Uncategorized on November 29, 2009 at 6:14 pm

Words have been failing me. Perhaps it is because there is power and life in words, and that this power deserted me. Perhaps. I think that words are failing when we truly understand the deep meaning of words like “love”, “death”, “happiness” and “faith”.

I envy those who believe in scriptures, not because these are scriptures, but because they believe in the basic meaning of the words themselves. Religious faith should always be considered from the perspective of the child.

Down, down where Moon is small

So am I supposed to be an adult, grown up and responsible, dependable and strong, understanding and complete. Both direction provider and sheltering power. It is a beautiful thing to have walls to break through as manual effort is bringing peace to the mind and body alike. Read the rest of this entry »

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Sweetest Poison of All

In Uncategorized on July 29, 2009 at 8:44 am

In past stories I have talked about the natural drive of mankind to discover new frontiers. According to Bruce Chatwin, mankind was born out of a sea shell with a cry. ‘I am’ shouted the first nomad as he began his journey out of Africa. As light cannot exist without darkness, there is another powerful drive to mankind, and it is guilt.

Guilt in open ranges

Guilt is truly proteiform and multidimensional. To the wandering nomad guilt would be akin to asking why instead of where. Perhaps it is guilt, which decided so many nomads to establish themselves and enjoy productive life in a city of men. Read the rest of this entry »

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Ellipse

In Uncategorized on July 25, 2009 at 8:38 am
The world according to Kepler

The world according to Kepler

‘Strange days’ was the title of an album by the ‘Doors’. And some days are strange and bring back unwanted recollections or interrogations. I was swimming in that black river whose waters were cold and full of leaves after days of rain and storm. Clouds were like ancient citadels in heaven. The setting sun was sending glorious lances of molten gold.

And my thoughts kept focusing on what a woman once told me about my life. She said that I was in a circle. And I thought how strange a circle it was, because life as a circle could be both circular trajectory, but also equidistance from the centre.

Circular trajectory is a common interpretation of the life circle. Like a man lost in a forest with an injured leg, you would walk and believe you have advanced in the right direction, only to discover that you have only walked in a circle. Read the rest of this entry »

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Smile at life

In Uncategorized on July 21, 2009 at 10:39 am
Brueghel, Summer.

Brueghel, Summer.

I was waiting in a queue behind an old woman at the local supermarket cashier. The morning was hot and heavy with the brooding promise of thunderstorm in the evening. I was struggling with bottles and various stuff, as I dislike those awful plastic purchase panniers. You look so queer with that dangling pannier. Anyway, what’s the use since you cannot use it for carrying stuff to your car? Read the rest of this entry »

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King of the Hill

In Uncategorized on July 18, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Sam Shepard, American writer is King of the Hill.

Sam Shepard, American writer is King of the Hill.

There are words so commonly used that they become commonplace to the point of losing their original meaning. Perhaps it would require some enlightened research by an academician. One of these words is Romance and its corollary, romantic.

What does it mean to be romantic? I am asking this question because most women I have approached in my life have told me how romantic I am. I say, women. Not men as I have no sexual or emotional inclination for the virile gender.

As a young man, I was flattered even though the suitability for lovemaking remained imaginary. As a middle-aged man I am beginning to understand that women have perhaps a different understanding of romance. Something combining in my case platonic expectations with long-distance relationships. Read the rest of this entry »

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From Here to Eternity

In Uncategorized on July 16, 2009 at 8:53 am
Life and love, from here to eternity

Life and love, from here to eternity

Some people believe that life has a different value depending on age, social condition or faith. There is a little story. The German Navy investigated the case of a naval catastrophe during the Second World War because the only surviving crew member was the Captain, in spite of heavy injury due to fighter-bomber bullets. Other younger and more physically fit crew members had not made it. They had drowned. So the investigation concluded: what is it that is making life so dear to middle-aged or older people, in comparison to younger ones? Why is it that younger people despair and drown?

And so why on earth are professional armies of today full of younger people? I am not talking about late twenties, but British Guards are barely 19! And more aggravating factor yet, why on earth are officers so young, too? A French paratrooper lieutenant in charge of an infantry position in Afghanistan is only 22. There is no doubt he is a capable fellow, but what about that survivability capability of older ones? Would you trust someone so young with the lives of so many? Read the rest of this entry »

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The Right One Is Living Truth

In Uncategorized on July 5, 2009 at 10:31 pm
The greatest journey begins with a smile

The greatest journey begins with a smile (Artwork by Y. Gilbert)

— Watson! Wake up! The hunt is on. I have seen her.

With these words, Sherlock Holmes, my dear friend, left my sleeping room. Her? Lady Frances Carfax? No, another woman, certainly, or Holmes would not have been so upset, as he has outmost care not to entertain romantic illusions with women.

Who indeed is the Right One? The woman who could transform the day of Sherlock Holmes, push the heir of Caesar to building waterways for the city of Arles, or climb the most dangerous summit in the world, not to claim her, but just for the sake of her.

Like the White Wale, Moby Dick, the Right One is pursuing Man from the origins of times. Perhaps it was for Her that men began to walk, to conquer and went to war. There are some men who are spared the deep anguish of those two eyes peering into your heart, so kind they are, and yet like Heaven you would need to build how many towers of Babel to conquer? Read the rest of this entry »

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The Crusade of Peter the Weaver (Part I)

In Uncategorized on July 4, 2009 at 9:43 am

That evening, Peter the Weaver came directly to his desolate home. And his wife was surprised and happy to see him coming home earlier than usual. But she found him so brooding and dark that she dared not ask why, lest she received a reprimand.

The youngest child of Peter ran to him, and put his arms around his legs. The father put him on his lap, and let out a long painful cry, and said:

— My poor dear wife, we must decide, we are too sorry with all this story. I feel I am getting mad. I cannot help, but the more I try, the more I feel sorry.

So the fearful wife answered:

— I believe you must go to see the priest. He will tell you how to get free of that burden.

Peter gravely put the child down, and went out somberly.

As he walked past the home of John the Logger, he saw the beautiful Gillette, his wife, at the window, laughing to the stupid things a dumb archer was telling her, so full he was of himself.

Peter just kept on walking, but his fists were like hammers, and his hat was low on his brow.

It was time to take on this situation, as it jeopardised not only his peace on earth, but also his salvation in Heaven.

In the silence of the confessional, he acknowledged his sin and told how the Devil had put him in his sorry state of desolation. So the Priest told him as penitence to employ the hours of temptation to pray the Lord.

But Peter the Weaver left his head hang.

— The Devil is pursuing me at all the hours of the day. And if I pray the whole day, my wife and children will die out of hunger.

So the Priest saw the danger of this predicament, and decided to appeal to a higher authority. He told Peter that about an eremite who was rumored to be inspired by God, and had the power to heal both illness of body and soul.

So Peter began his journey to meet the eremite. He walked for a long time under heavenly sky; over the lower plains, he went by mills, chapels and towers. In a little hamlet, a man told him about the pilgrim who had come back from Jerusalem. The man showed his where he could listen to the holy traveler. Peter went there.

Hence he learned that the holy man had preached in the church of the village, and that three women and five men had abandoned everything to follow him. Because they had understood that nothing was left for them in their homes, now that only the words of God mattered. Peter asked for the direction and soon he was walking briskly.

As he was crossing a field, he saw peasants gazing upwards, and lo! near the sun, indeed there were huge white clouds. And the peasants crossed themselves, as Peter knelt, crying:

— A cross in the sky! A cross!

As he lowered his gaze, he believed he could see the splendid face of Giselle laughing openly to his folly. He spat for her, and then contrite, crossed himself.

He reached a big village where the holy man had been staying for three days. So he learned that he could expect to listen to his preaching in the town’s church.

The holy man appeared on a donkey. He was holding a crucifix in his hand. His feet and his head were covered with dust, but he did not seem to care. His clothes were all scratched leaving his shoulder and knees for all to see.

As he lowered himself from his donkey, men flocked around him. A woman pulled some hair from his hair to make a relic out of them. The eremite didn’t care and entered the church.

He spoke. And his words were like purifying fire and incandescent gold to the crowd, and instead of burning, it elevated their souls to the wings of heavenly archangels, so they were carried across rivers and mountains to the Land of Eternal Glory where the Son of Man, in Jerusalem, Gate to Heaven.

From this very country the eremite was back to tell his brothers about what he had seen. How the Holy Sepulcher was subjected to all the miseries only profanatory mishandling and beastly destruction could provide. So, he said, are we going to let the Saviour suffer a second time? No, not until his voice and life would be gone. And as he talked he was lacerating his chest.

And Peter in the shadow of that church replied to himself:

— Yes… Leave everything… And go to Him and for Him, the One for whom it is right to leave everything.

The eremite with his outstretched arms called upon himself the help of the Saints and Angels, while the Mountain of Sion, the Calvary and the Olive Mount were crying out their misery. Peter the Weaver closed his eyes. And there they were, the Angels who commanded him to go. And Providence would care for them, open rivers and seas, while food would come from Heaven.

He came back to his village; his pale wife waited for him. His children were pale too from hunger, and as they ran to him, they believed he came back with a treasury. But so he announced:

— I have seen the priest and the eremite, and in Heaven I have seen the Cross. I know what I have to do. Perhaps Christ himself will lead me. But I have to abandon you. Because he is the One for whom it is right to abandon everything.

His wife cried out in anguish, and tried to close the door to him. He walked to the window and left his gaze wander to the house of Gillette, so inviting, so damned and so well known to him. And his wife then said:

— We will go together with the two older children. The newborn will remain here with grandmother.

The priest agreed upon the project. And soon the whole village was filled with the news of his departure. Many gifts were given and soon Peter could build a solid charriot. Food was stuffed into it. And the day of departure was eventually announced.

Jehanne took her new born and carried him to her mother. Peter was considering his home as Gillette walked by, and laughed:

— With all the devils you have

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Pornography: Lolita Reloaded

In Uncategorized on June 30, 2009 at 8:35 am

Durex is exploring the six known dimensions, including the black holes of universe, where dreams falter and even hope fails. I said, six as I included the dimension of Manhood between the coiled sexual power of a jungle cat behind black rimmed glasses and the brow of a blue whale pointing the finger of God at you. That much traveled dimension has been rumored to host incredible species of indigenous oddities, like black snakes of Alabama, or white escargots de Bourgogne. Durex has sent the Enterprise investigating that dimension, with Captain Kirk on the verge of apoplectic implosion, and the black radio girl, already crying out:

— Captain Kirk, Captain Kirk!!!
— Yes?
— Captain! It is horrible! Nothing is going on!

Yes, how terrible, so much science, courage, money invested in a journey beyond space and time in a dimension where navigators are known to disappear for thousands of years. Some vessels are crushed between giant mammary glands. Other reports have stated giant pillars.

With horror stories of the like, Durex has sent the best scientists Earth could muster. There is the moronic American with a video camera at hand, ready to shoot. The French is wondering if the food will be good while the German has already packed for a sex tour in Thailand. The Italian is joking, but nervously fingering his crucifix. The Russian is the one singing Partisan songs, ready to take on those Fascists of the Sixth Dimension.

And as the vessel is going ever deeper and exploring ever further, there is that nexus of all things, called with dread the Nabokov pubic triangle, with two suns giving light to a strange cosmic anomaly, explorers have called the gravity well of two Slavic eyes.

The Nabokov Complex

The Nabokov Complex

And here is displayed the final drama of all erotic psyche. A Lolita considering that Mound Builders were like those who painfully built the Babel tower.  Always higher, and yet always farther from reaching Heaven, a proof of the futility of Man when it comes to imagining the true Mystery of what is going on in the mind of a Lolita.

To the whole crew of the Enterprise only remains the AntiMatter charge as last weapon. The Durex Condom. Name it, use it, and you are back from sixth dimension, with shaking hands, racing heart, and a big problem at hand. How to use it.

Written after crawling out of bed, before taking on another day in the happy shade of my trees.

Frederic W. Erk

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The Indian Runner

In Uncategorized on June 28, 2009 at 4:09 pm

It is middle afternoon of a hot Sunday. A normal person would be asleep under the cool shade of a tree. Or sipping ice-cold lemon drink with his wife and children. Talking with the gentle voice of a man at peace with the world and himself.

Un Dimanche à la Campagne by Bertrand Tavernier is an introduction to slow life and erotic dreams. For Mikhalkov in Utomlyonnye solntsem it is the last lovemaking with his beloved wife, an exercise of silence in the hot intimacy of a dressing room. It could be two lovers entwined in bed, while a window shutter is leaving in the scent of a hot afternoon when even birds are asleep in the trees.

For Sacha Guitry, Sunday was the day for lovemaking, and it was essential to recall that if you made love on Saturday, what would you do on a rainy Sunday, play cards? So that with lovemaking in spite of all British erotic literature about the sturdiness of country lads, and the French élan for les choses de la chair, lovemaking is an Art in anticipation and contentment.

When Anger is Boiling

When Anger is Boiling Up

This is why pornography is so wrong, because it is so sterile and fastidious. Watching pornography movies is like watching the French national team play football, or a German criminal investigation. Desperate Housewives is comic and lively compared to a porn movie.

It is sterile because the body of man and woman are displayed with a clinical approach to sexuality. It is sterile because the sexual act is performed without affection or even pleasure.

Fastidiousness of pornography originates from a mechanical repetition, something like a Charlie Chaplin version of Modern Times. We used to have factories with chain workers, now we have chain fuckers. It is fastidious because sexuality becomes a ritual of erections and grunts in sacrifice to a deity of Boredom and Vacuity.

As a young boy my first impression of pornography was explosive. Later as a soldier porn movies were part of guard duty, so that alternatively you checked out your gun, and then your zipper. I cannot see a French Colonel without thinking about that incredible scene which happened in Berlin back in 1994.

As we returned from shooting range in the middle of a winter night, we found out that one assault rifle was missing. Not that it was dangerous, since the French Republic is so sparse with bullets. Little ammunition made for short wars, or lengthy peace talks. But we had to endure the wrath of a French Colonel, while in the adjoining room a porn movie was playing out silently. I will always remember his gesticulating body with the woman displaying openly her charms to us. The combination of both would have brought a smile to the face of Mozart.

The fastidiousness and sterility of pornography are a consequence of a total misunderstanding of true sexual desire. Much has been said about the scandalous aspect of pornography, which is only partly true. Because pornography is not only about pneumatic sexual performance in acrobatic positions, the amiable consumption of billions of sperm, but dramatically so commonplace to about every activity of today.

Supermarkets stuffed with food. Poultry on show. Exotic fruits lasciviously awaiting you. Chocolate and pastries to make your cholesterol jump in anticipation. Wine and liquors to make even the most seasoned barfly fibrillate with joy. Women introducing you to rebates and new products. This is 19th century pornography and it takes the zeal of a monk, or the discipline of a poor man to remain stoic in spite of the temptation to seize those fruits of passion.

The true sin of pornography is about revealing so much that you feel satiated for weeks. Indirectly though relentlessly pornography is destroying sexual drive and genuine desire, and soon the sex junkie will walk the virtual alleys of licentious content with the sardonic smile of the veteran, or the blank indifference of the decadent.

Perhaps the worst kind of pornography is the licensed one, totally legal, and yet totally decadent. You name it, advertisement. It is full of German Audi cars with a message of “If you have the car, you will have the woman.” Grunts of pleasure are expected as if lettuce, tomatoes, dish washer and toilet paper had aphrodisiac properties. Every morning your letterbox will explode with giant images of fruits, cars, ham. This is one reason why older men check out the box in the morning.

There is the pornography of a popular television journalist reaching out for his audience. The intentional poor grammar and intonation of a Patrick Poivre d’Arvor. The knowing smile of a politician for his public. All this is about anticipated and auto-congratulatory content. Festival de Cannes. Pornography it truly is.

There is institutional pornography. Is it not pornography to show Saddam Hussein hanging, or U.S. President Bill Clinton explain that fellatio is not sexual intercourse within the context of American Law? What about the bombing of Bagdad or Palestine with white phosphorus artillery shells?

Since pornography is omnipotent, which is amusing, is there a way out of it? Not really. But perhaps in spite of it. There is a weapon of choice, which is humor. I mean, the real humor, not the grossly vulgar one of today, which is leading to despair. True humor is a way of survival and sanity, a sign of wits taking over.

Mankind has survived historical catastrophes with humor. And this is the reason why laughter is forbidden in totalitarian states. Pornography has a collateral damage, which is ridicule. Bankers display obscene profitability, while the economy is in deep crisis. Smile! Porn professionals are always so serious at work. Smile! Have you noticed how tennis players are serious, too? Smile! Sarkozy is promising economic growth, Smile again!

Of course there is another darker pornography. Like the deep shade of an ancient forest this pornography is displaying hellish content to an audience of social outcasts and parasites. Even laughter cannot prevail then, but the righteous anger of the father and mother. The terrible thing is that commercial advertisement is playing with the thin red line of Darkness. Gradually news and society evolve toward normalization of human criminal behaviour, which would have been unthinkable a few years ago. Is that the New Frontier of tomorrow? Maddoff negotiating centuries in jail, but where are the billions he stole? How come death penalty is not applied for economic crimes?

So that you would object to my comparing Heart of Darkness to that seemingly innocuous lascivious game of showing a woman trading sexual service for a ride in an expensive sedan, but is it not already spawning the decadence of our daily lives? Perhaps I should consider that obscene spilling of flesh, food, and motorised fleets as a sign of a lively society. And walk on in spite of it.

As long as I can genuinely laugh about it, yes.

A little boy is telling us a story of his parents going to their bedroom once in a month. Then it is an eruption of grunts and heaves. While in fact parents are checking their respective bills.

A wise American once said that he did not know what pornography was, but he recognised it when he saw it. I completely agree with that statement.

Frederic W. Erk

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Dancing with Women

In Uncategorized on June 23, 2009 at 11:23 am

There have been rumors about a White Man Dancing With Wolves, but the last time I heard of him, Indians were having his balls for dinner. There is also the story of a Man Murmuring to Horses, but the last time I heard of him, he was asleep and drunk.

Electricity in Hair

Electricity in Hair

Dancing with Women is an Art, or let’s put it that way, an equation with several unknowns. If you continue reading, then please keep in mind that I have little to no experience with dancing. I have so far avoided the Saturday Night beating up. I have never been invited to waltzing on board of a Russian freighter in the middle of the Bering sea. I am drawing my analysis from genetics and experience with dogs, cats, fellow soldiers and CRT monitors weighing a ton.

The first unknown is distance. A feminist recently wrote that in terms of distance, women have been spoilt for thousands of years. “How could we object to women driving bad, when for 10,000 years, men have said that 3 inches are 10 inches?” Heinlein wrote in The Number of the Beast that the right distance is the one providing first rate view to the twin cupolas of the Cathedral of Milan. Anything closer than Vittoria Gassman in Il Sorpasso would be considered stretching the limits of Pizza Hut’s regulations in terms of adhesive surface.

So that distance is really a matter of concern for safety. Just keep safe from twin projectiles zeroed on you, or bad breath. As a French humorist said, silicon for breast surgery has secondary lasting effects on male erectile parts.

Was for dancing, so they said!

Was for dancing, so they said!

The second unknown is rhythm. It is a subtle combination of decrypting music, avoiding heart attack, and communicating about sexual wave length. There are three typical cases of study, something like the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

The Ugly is a youth still sipping cereals in the morning, while reading erotic magazines. His rhythm has the irregularity of a Russian diesel engine with its typical endurance built on guzzling vodka. With jerking arms and wild stance this youth is clearly challenging the urge of kicking his groin.

The Bad is reaching mid-thirties, if not 40s. He has the enthusiasm of a Priest in a brothel on fire. His rhythm is out of sync, as he is devoting much brains to calculating the price of this dancing night, reevaluating monthly loan, and taking care to keep some fire left for the brief episode in car or bed. As we say in France, between running and working, this typical male has a sobering life expectancy, and will probably die in perfectly good health.

The Good is the Wise who has built his personal space on money and bodyguards. With nothing to prove, his rhythm has a sync of its own. Only arthritic knees and slight belly waist, artfully camouflaged by fashionable clothes, expensive jewelry, and the stale scent of leather may betray that age is pushing the limits of surgery.

Other unknowns include Lebensraum, or living’s space, and scent. Let us consider scent first.

The scent of a woman is a delicate combination sending electric shocks to a male nervous system. The mating of animals is but a generous introduction to olfactory reactions. Any horse rider will tell you to avoid riding behind a mare in ovulation. Men now avoid sniffing, but there is no denying that women have an arsenal to make any dancer feel weak in the knees.

Well worth the wait, dear!

Well worth the wait, dear!

Unfortunately this communication is marred by the surge of Male’s perfumes, surfing on the belief that natural scent of car re-freshener and spice will drive a woman nuts. So that the blushing and tears in the eyes of your partner are telltales of passion growing up, while in fact heroic efforts to avoid throwing up.

The Lebensraum that Hitler emphasised so stubbornly finds unexpected application in dancing places. Only country clubs provide the necessary amenities to dance while seeking the exit and roll in the leaves. Dancing in a city club has all the delicacy of African ritual dancing with men rubbing their behinds, while women are slapping faces. This inspired gays to wear leather pants with buttocks “on air”.

I said, Keep hands off me, mate!

I said, Keep hands off me, mate!

With so many unknowns it is a miracle that dancers accomplish on Saturday Night. And how interesting is the evolution of dance, from the dizzying waltz of Strauss, which inspired that French comment about the Congress of Vienna in 1815, “One should not say, it goes, but it dances!”, to the tectonic rhythm of a riot after football game. While partners used to flash smiles, now they have the contented faces of boxers after twelve rings.

As James Garner happily said in Victor, Victoria, “At least, a man!” as he was punched senseless. There are faints and faints. Dancers faint today with a blissful expression, as if the beating up had been a stroll in the woods.

- Frederic W. Erk :)

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Lili Marleen (film)

In Uncategorized on June 21, 2009 at 9:45 pm

Rainer Werner Fassbinder directed Hanna Schygulla after The Marriage of Maria Braun (die Ehe von Maria Braun) in this ambitious fiction about a song, a woman and a man. Lili of the Lamplight (Lili vom Lampschein) is a sentimental song of 1916 as Germany was well into the inferno of Verdun. It celebrates the love of a woman for a man, and is profoundly moving as it explores the theme of love and death in time of war.

Willie (Hanna Schygulla) is about to return to Switzerland with her lover when she learns that she must stay in Germany on the eve of war. Back to München, she finds a job as singer in a cabaret and reintroduces Lili of the Lamplight, without success. Soon Germany is at war and hard pressed, and a soldier is asking Belgrade radio to play that tune for his comrades. It is an instant success as about every soldier, German, Russian, American or British will listen to that tune every day.

German Evita Peron?

German Evita Peron?

Willie soon becomes immensely popular in war-torn Germany when she receives news from her lover, the Jewish pianist who had left her to return to Switzerland. He is involved in some Jewish underground activities, returns to Germany to see her and is eventually captured by the Gestapo.

Meanwhile Willie is willing to find the proof of concentration camps and provides the Jewish resistance with a film roll. The Gestapo is hot on her heels and she is about to get killed when the Resistance is playing its trump card by asking her to sing Lili Marlene in spite of the recent decision by Nazi authorities to forbid that ‘defeatist’ song.

The homosexuality of Fassbinder is obvious in this opus, as everything from acting to casting is so biased with the idea of sentimentality and a touch of Visconti. While Marriage of Maria Braun was a wonderful exploration of woman’s love and weak fundaments for German reconstruction, Lili Marlene is only a colorful book of splendid images and a mélange of grotesque situations.

Hanna Schygulla is not convincing in her role, as nobody could expect a woman to fall in love with a man like Mendelsohn. He is the perfect jerk asking her to smile while leaving her in Nazi Germany, so that abandoning her is perhaps less tough for him. His has the sexual power of Woody Allen in erection at 85. No really, the casting is mediocre. Mel Ferrer is again playing his role of upper class total prick.

Much emphasis is put on battle scenes while the song is broadcasted on all the battlefields. And the idea is working at first, because men do listen to women in such circumstances. Nevertheless the process is a bit overdone and dripping with sentimentalism.

Visually impressive with a flurry of reds and blue light effects, the future trademark of the Das Boot masterpiece of Bavaria studios, the movie is failing to convince, perhaps because we are used to that subject. The recent Black Book by Paul Verhoeven explores a similar story, and yet is more convincing as the main character is behaving like a real woman, and not like a decerebrated doll.

With a subject comparable to Visconti’s The Damned Fassbinder wanted to illustrate the monstrosity of Nazi Germany within the scope of a popular singer career. The integration of a thriller story with Jewish background is largely contributing to disrupt the narrative flow. Perhaps the flaw of the movie is its very subject, because a song is only a song, that is a moment of forgiveness and peace in a world at war. Nothing more, nothing less.

Frederic W. Erk

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Under the Tuscan Sun (film)

In Uncategorized on June 17, 2009 at 10:19 am

Under the Tuscan Sun is the kind of American movie Hercule Poirot would have commented with a flat: “It is nice to talk about Australia, but was it worth looking at 1,200 photographs? Damn the inventor of camera!” Like a mixture of cheap flagrance found in body perfumes sold in supermarkets, the overall result is to scare away people from waiting lines, and depressing flies. Read the rest of this entry »

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Lost in Translation or Just Lost?

In Uncategorized on June 4, 2009 at 11:28 am

It is often said that the good reader makes the good book. And it is true if the book is written with your guts, not within the context of “expected readership”. So again the book becomes a Journey through time and space, and the good reader is the one exploring and discovering, as no one is ever on the Path, without wanting to explore himself, too. Adieu Sauvage, Adieu Voyage wrote Claude Levy-Strauss. We are hunting our Dragoons of Eden. Read the rest of this entry »

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Woman: A Man’s Odyssey

In Uncategorized on May 31, 2009 at 6:30 pm

As I was milking my red wine gallon-sized reserve, a smile was brought to my face with the delicate attention required to extract to the last drop of that rather common, not to say, very basic wine. What a fight! And as always in those occasions when my attention is focused on manual work, my mind would wander those green valleys of imagination and recollection of past events and figures. So the smile became more subdued as I was thinking about all those images I have associated with women since I was a boy. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Song of Halewyn

In Uncategorized on April 12, 2009 at 4:02 pm

So beautiful was the voice of Halewyn!

Whatever the hour might have been, to whom the ear it would caress would interrupt his task or wake up from his rest. Transported from the world of men to the one of the Gods, unmoving, he would let himself go like in a dream to the ravishment of the marvelous song which came from the forest.

So sweet was the song of Halewyn!

She who would if only for the time of a sigh abandon herself to listen to it would soon let fall the rush, the needle or the net. All straight she would get up and like in a dream would she go, with closed eyes, and hands braced to a mysterious destiny. Never would anyone see her again.

Little children, dancing in a ring, would soon enough stop playing. With a deep frown, and gaping mouth they would point a little finger up. And then, in a queue, they would walk to the swaying trees. Under the foliage, they would get lost. Nobody knew where they went. But never did they return. Read the rest of this entry »

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Kiss Me Stupid!

In Uncategorized on February 6, 2009 at 3:25 pm

Les réseaux de rencontres amoureuses par le biais d’Internet connaissent un succès grandissant. Après Second Life ces réseaux de socialisation à distance ont toutefois le défaut de leurs qualités, à savoir que rechercher la personne idéale par le biais d’une démarche ciblée sur des critères aussi divers que l’origine ethnique ou la musique favorite peut justement conduire à une expérience plus traumatisante que le jeu de l’amour et du hasard de la réalité.

No pistol here

Les jeux en réseau sont très intéressants en dehors de toute polémique stérile sur l’engouement actuel de la jeunesse pour ce phénomène de société. Certains se retrouvent dans ces jeux où ils ont le sentiment de s’exprimer dans leur intégralité, ce qui leur est précisément interdit dans leur vie courante à l’école, au lycée, etc. Cette communication, en fait pourrait-on plutôt

Listen to Uncle Oswald, sweetie

Listen to Uncle Oswald, sweetie

parler de communion, horizontale par opposition à la communication verticale avec les membres plus agés de sa famille ou ses professeurs est évidemment le signe d’un malaise et d’une incommunicabilité au quotidien, mais je ne pense pas qu’il faille s’en préoccuper anxieusement. Par contre, le parallèle avec les sites de rencontres amoureuses comme Meetic est instructif.

Dear Uncle Oswald

A la différence de l’idée reçue qui consiste à croire que l’internaute recherche un refuge par le biais de ces démarches, on est enclin à penser que tout comme pour le phénomène des jeux en réseau, il s’agisse en fait d’un monde sans pitié où le moindre défaut est traqué et où la véritable personnalité ne peut s’exprimer que par une affirmation sans faiblesse. Tout comme le joueur sans expérience est sujet aux quolibets et aux brimades de joueurs plus expérimentés, l’amoureux potentiel est jeté dans la fosse aux lions des fantasmes féminins de l’homme d’affaires hyper-actif et sûr de lui, tandis que l’iconographie masculine est résumée par des clichés navrants sur la poitrine d’une femme et l’objet sexuel qu’elle représente.

Barbie on Heels

Robert Heinlein avait pressenti pour nos siècles futurs l’introduction des techniques publicitaires dans le dialogue politique et social, ce qui est effectivement en train de se produire aujourd’hui. La psychologie entre ainsi par la petite porte pour diriger nos regards vers la compagne ou le compagnon idéal qui est censé correspondre le mieux à notre profil. Mais cela ne tient-il pas d’un narcissisme réducteur que de vouloir projeter son moi intérieur sur l’autre? La magie du couple repose sur une complémentarité complexe, et il n’est pas du tout évident qu’un intellectuel soit heureux avec une intellectuelle, même si leurs goûts correspondent. Tout au contraire, je pense que le grand tourbillon de la vie nous porte vers des associations plus aventureuses, et c’est très bien ainsi.

Cicero on Sex

Ce petit pamphlet sans prétention n’a pas pour objet de remettre en cause la valeur de l’expérience amoureuse par le biais d’internet. Tout au contraire, il cherche à illustrer l’aspect positif que peut représenter cette ouverture sur un marché décomplexé des relations amoureuses, un marché où l’on découvre avec attendrissement les désirs secrets d’une jeune commerçante à la recherche d’un compagnon pour la vie, et où l’on apprend que les androîdes rêvent aussi de moutons électriques. L’internet qui avait été inventé à des fins militaires et scientifiques a ainsi franchi le pas de nos chambres à coucher, et c’est une perspective pour le moins intéressante.

Tout comme Dean Martin dans Kiss Me Stupid! je pense que nous courons tous un danger en s’aventurant dans le royaume enchanté des mystères féminins. :-) A quand des jeux d’action en réseau pour rencontrer l’âme soeur et profiter à deux de l’odeur du napalm. You know, sweetheart, I really like the smell of napalm in the morning. So do I, honey!

- Frédéric W. Erk