To begin with, do not forget that this Wednesday is the Manchester Blog Awards night. If you’ve been looking forward to joining us, make sure you’ve taken a note of the venue. The venue has changed, and the Blog Awards will now be at Matt&Phred’s in 64 Tib St. Here is where they are located, in case if you are not familiar with Manchester’s Northern Quarter.
So, we’re looking forward to see you there, from 7pm onwards. The nominees for this year include, apart from myself, Mancubist, Crinklybee, FictionBitch, Skipper, Normblog, A Free Man in Preston, and a plenty of others whom you can (and should, I may say) check out at Manchizzle. Unfortunately, Robin Hamman won’t be present at the awards this year, as he explained on the BBC Manchester Blog, but both Kate and Richard will be there. As a matter of fact, let me remind some of you that Richard is the author of this photo and this photo of Alan Rickman, so if you want to meet the man (Richard, that is) and shake his hand, make your way to Tib St in Manchester on October 10th.
By the way, if you wish to confirm your attendance via the now-ueber-popular Facebook, please look for BBC Manchester Blog project group there. That means you can also join either Facebook or the BMB (isn’t that a nice abbreviation?).
I was supposed to meet a friend, with whom we couldn’t meet for good two months, and the meeting is now delayed for another week. But I am not short of engagements. Right after publishing this post I am going to the online premiere of a great place for many a beer lover and a film connoisseur. Watch this space.
Last but not least, October 15th is our Blog Action Day when bloggers all over the world unite to say their word about the importance of the protection of environment. Since this blog is mostly about literature, cinema, art, and music, I thought writing up an entry a day starting on October 5th, to make it ten days worth of quoting, translating, and analysing the way our culture has embraced the problem of environmental protection. Unfortunately, this is already not happening, but even mentioning my plans made me envious of myself. This is a plan certainly worth of realising, and the only impediment I may face is the necessity to go to work every day. To Warrington. By bus and train.
It took me a little longer than I hoped to fulfil my promise, but here I am finally with the English translation of the interview with Marcel Marceau. I will not say anything more in this introduction, and as you read on you will probably agree with me that no words are necessary here.
This is not a mystery. How to do it? Well, the art of mime is that one needs a great concentration, one needs to have a vision of what to show; and one also needs emotion, the laughter, the comical, but not a caricature because when it is too much, it is too much. This is why one needs to learn to restrain oneself and to communicate the essential.
I was a picture, therefore I am an artist who often paints pantomimes.
When I was six years old I had a very profound look, but it wasn’t a caricature, I have always had this depth. Chaplin was very deep, and his profundity touched me when I was little.
I think it is true that an artist remains a child within himself, but when he has had a really great experience in life, he changes, too.
When it was the Second World War, I didn’t yet practise my art. I began to practise it. I started acting when Germany was occupied, and the war was over. Theatre is impossible during the war, for it is a terrible theatre. But I didn’t have yet the knowledge I have now. I was more naive, even if I had seen the unhappiness of life I was still naive, I didn’t have this experience, the experience of terror, hoping all the time that I wasn’t killed. And today when I watch the documentaries about the war that I myself lived through, I say: my God, what a courage they ever had being so young! But I don’t have this courage any longer because I want no more wars, I hate the war, and this is what I am trying to show in my manner at the theatre.
Often the young don’t like the old, it’s like “the old are nothing any longer”, it’s the youth, the future that counts. But they will grow very old one day, too, and so I am instilling the respect to their parents. The respect to a grandfather, a grandmother, the respect to the old, the respect to those who taught us.
I have even written a book on this subject: “The memoirs of a mime who let out a scream of silence”. And even now I am trying to write, in part about the painting, in part about the family. From time to time I visit my children who have grown up now, and I love playing chess. But sometimes I feel a great sadness when I say: what will happen if our world does not evolve so badly? Will one day the eternal piece really have arrived?
Russia was in the avant-garde of Space Science in the 20th c. Today’s Google homepage reminded us of the 50th anniversary of Sputnik, which was the first satellite sent into space (image is the courtesy of NASA website).
But space has many meanings. In the passage above it means “cosmos”. If I say “I need space” it will mean that I either crave for freedom or that I need to put something somewhere where there is little or no place. And when we say “virtual space”, we mean the web.
Recently it was Google’s 9th anniversary, of which again their homepage has reminded us. At Search Engine Land they contemplated on whether 9 is the correct number, but Google seems to have their own view, which they communicated with this logo (right) on September 27th.
And ten years ago, on September 23rd 1997, Yandex, Russia’s leading search warehouse, has set off their rocket into the virtual space. To mark the anniversary of intermittent work of their orbital station, they have sent a lovely gift. The gift consisted of a cylinder box, which contained: a message to other “space civilisations”, a flashy pen, a tube of cherry and apple juice, a can of meat in white sauce, a prunes and nuts flapjack, and a pack of 10 miniature bread loafs. As you undoubtedly notice, the word juice is spelt “cok” in Russian, which looks very familiar to the English speaker. I would like to repeat that it means juice, and not what it may seem to mean, judging by its spelling. 🙂
Yandex is obviously playing a deft joke on the word “space” and Russia’s history of delving into the cosmic vastnesses. All the food items are exactly what they eat (or definitely used to eat) in space. I had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to visit the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre at Starry Town (Zvezdniy Gorodok) in, if I am correct, 1993. I went with my classmates, and I vividly remember our sheer amazement at the size of those Lilliput chocolate bars and bread loafs on display at the museum. Well, now my present colleagues have shared this amazement, too, and in turn, I am sharing it with you.
2004 saw the first exhibition of Raphael in England. In November I happened to be in London, and my first visit to the National Gallery naturally included a voyage to the Sainsbury Wing. I had mere half an hour to enjoy some 40 works of one of the Titans of Renaissance. To see them, I had to gently if politely wriggle past some visitors, or queue up where it was impossible to squeeze through. Everyone who knows the Sainsbury Wing will recall its catacomb-like interior: low ceilings, dim light, rather small rooms with dark walls – hardly a backdrop for the rich Italian masterpieces.
At exactly the same time they were exhibiting Edgar Degas upstairs. The works of French artist resided in two or three well lit halls with tall ceilings and light pastel-colour walls, there were not many visitors (it was one of the first days of exhibition, I should note). Most paintings were of medium size, in front of every second or third of which there stood a Far-Eastern girl with a pad and some crayons, copying the works of one of the greatest Impressionists. To this day I cannot fathom why these two exhibitions could not be swapped places.
I wrote a lengthy text about it in Russian in the same 2004, contemplating on how these two exhibitions manifested our attitude to art. I was probably a bit harsh to suggest that it was easy to admire the classical art because then no-one would find a fault in your taste, but on second thoughts this is hardly far from the truth. Indeed, one would rather be ridiculed if they admitted liking pop music than if they admitted liking Mozart. Same with Raphael. As Henry James put it, Raphael was a happy genius, and by looking and admiring his Madonnas we seek to find happiness, too. Raphael is also easier to comprehend, unlike his contemporaries. Leonardo is very intellectual, to which La Gioconda is a good proof. Michelangelo’s devotion to the physique is sometimes baffling, as can be seen, for instance, in the figures on the Medici monument. Raphael, on the contrary, is always pleasant, always radiant, always rich in colour, and even if his end may not be as happy as his paintings, we probably shall still forget about it when we observe his work.
It is different with Degas. Degas was known for his perfectionism, and many times in his life he turned to rework his own paintings, as the examination of certain works, e.g. Portrait of Elena Carafa, shows. The name of the exhibition – “Art in the Making” – further highlights Degas’s critical, intellectual approach to his work. The British art historian Kenneth Clark in his book “The Nude: A Study in the Ideal Form” (N.Y., 1956) says, in particular, that Degas excelled at what the Florentine artists of the 16th c. would call “disegno” (i.e. a drawing, a sketch). He focused on a human figure as his main theme, but aimed to capture the ideal image of the movement of this figure, and especially the energy of this movement. Degas’s painting is more vigorous than Raphael’s, and his Madonnas are not only nude, they are also depicted in the poses or at such activity that many of us would still deem inappropriate. Still, again in the words of Clark, had the figures painted by Michelangelo come to life, they would have scared us to a far bigger extent than Degas’s naked women.
Thanks to his colour palette, techniques, and themes, Degas appears more disturbing, almost revolutionary, compared to Raphael.I noted in my text that in the three centuries, from Raphael to Degas, the very attitude to art had changed. As far as Madonnas are concerned, after the European revolutions of the 19th c. and on the eve of the First World War they became more emancipated, they drank absinthe and spent evenings in the Parisian cafes. Their blurred faces, loose hair and outrageous nudity were the symbols of their time, the sign of the fear of changes and of the vulnerability in the face of the outer world. Their movement and individuality were more prominently expressed in comparison to their Renaissance predecessors. Like many other Impressionists, Degas is much more “relevant” to our time, but as it happens we prefer to turn to what gives us hope and faith, and Raphael seemed to be a perfect saviour. Apparently, I concluded, when people turn to the classical art, they seek peace; and when they find peace, they’ll think of a revolution.
Nevertheless, I bought a wonderful CD at the Raphael’s exhibition, The Music of the Courtier, which contained several beautifully performed pieces by the late 15th – 16th cc. composers. One of this, Dilla da l’acqua, by Francesco Patavino (1497?-1556?), performed by I Fagiolini, has become an instant favourite, and I hope you enjoy it too.
The paintings used (from top, left to right, clockwise):
Raphael, La Donna Velata (c. 1514-1516) Edgar Degas, Portrait of Elena Carafa (c. 1875) Raphael, Madonna of the Pinks (c. 1506-1507) Michelangelo, The Tomb of Giuliano de’ Medici (1526-1531) Leonardo da Vinci, La Gioconda (c. 1503-1506) Raphael, Madonna Connestabile (c. 1502) Edgar Degas, La Coiffure (Combing Her Hair) (c. 1896) Edgar Degas, Russian Dancers (c. 1899) Raphael, Ansidei Madonna (1505) Raphael, Lady with a Unicorn (c. 1505-1506) Edgar Degas, Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando (c. 1879) Edgar Degas, Young Spartans Exercising (c. 1860) Edgar Degas, After the Bath (c. 1890-1895) Raphael, St Catherine (c. 1507)
In the recent years we’ve heard a lot about Last Supper – a large mural by Leonardo created for his patron, which can be seen at Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. Cenacolo (Last Supper) featured prominently in The Da Vinci Code and in many subsequent publications and TV programmes that aimed at “decoding” the novel by Dan Brown.
I wanted to quote, however, two passages from the works of Henry James, in which he contemplates on this work by the great painter. As we know, the mural has been in the state of decay for centuries, but James seems to have interpreted the reason for its survival in beautiful and passionate narrative. There is much more to one of Da Vinci’s great works than a quasi-female head, and the two passages below explain this.
“… the prime treasure of Milan at the present hour is the beautiful, tragical Leonardo. The cathedral is good for another thousand years, but we ask whether our children will find in the most majestic and most luckless of frescoes much more than the shadow of a shadow. Its fame has been for a century or two that, as one may say, of an illustrious invalid whom people visit to see how he lasts, with leave-taking sighs and almost death-bed or tiptoe precautions. The picture needs not another scar or stain, now, to be the saddest work of art in the world; and battered, defaced, ruined as it is, it remains one of the greatest. We may really compare its anguish of decay to the slow conscious ebb of life in a human organism. The production of the prodigy was a breath from the infinite, and the painter’s conception not immeasurably less complex than the scheme, say, of his own mortal constitution. There has been much talk lately of the irony of fate, but I suspect fate was never more ironical than when she led the most scientific, the most calculating of all painters to spend fifteen long years in building his goodly house upon the sand. And yet, after all, may not the playing of that trick represent but a deeper wisdom, since if the thing enjoyed the immortal health and bloom of a first-rate Titian we should have lost one of the most pertinent lessons in the history of art? We know it as hearsay, but here is the plain proof, that there is no limit to the amount of “stuff” an artist may put into his work. Every painter ought once in his life to stand before the Cenacolo and decipher its moral. Mix with your colours and mess on your palette every particle of the very substance of your soul, and this lest perchance your “prepared surface” shall play you a trick! Then, and only then, it will fight to the last – it will resist even in death” (Henry James, Italian Hours: From Chambery to Milan, 1872).
“…I have seen all great art treasures in Italy;… but I have looked at no other picture with an emotion equal to that which rose within me as this great creation of Leonardo slowly began to dawn upon my intelligence from the tragical twilight of its ruin. A work so nobly conceived can never utterly die, so long as the half-dozen lines of its design remain. Neglect and malice are less cunning than the genius of the great painter. It has stored away with masterly skill such a wealth of beauty as only perfect love and sympathy can fully detect. So, under my eyes, the restless ghost of the dead fresco returned to its mortal abode. From the beautiful central image of Christ I perceived its radiation right and left along the sadly broken line of the disciples. One by one, out of the depths of their grim dismemberment, the figures trembled into meaning and life, and the vast, serious beauty of the work stood revealed. What is the ruling force of this magnificent design? Is it art? is it science? is it sentiment? is it knowledge? I’m sure I can’t say; but in moments of doubt and depression I find it of excellent use to recall the great work with all possible distinctness. Of all the works of man’s hand it is the least superficial” (Henry James, Complete Tales: Travelling Companions, 1870).
Citation is from Henry James, Italian Hours. Penguin Classics, 1992.
Personally, I wouldn’t use either word, and this is not just because the word “ambitious” is being used both to encourage and to dismiss one’s aspirations. I would rather say children should be encouraged to have goals in life that serve to realise their creative, physical, mental, etc. potential. Parents should, on the other hand, be able to recognise such potential in their children and help them realise it, help them formulate and achieve their goals. I feel, judging by the use of the word, “ambition” is often linked to politics, and when we say “ambitious” we picture a ruler who drives the entire nations to wars before dying rather disgracefully during the Ides of March. And because we don’t want to end like this, we often use “ambitious” in a negative sense.
However, having a goal in life is crucial, and setting a goal for yourself early in life is twice as important. It is possible to change goals, it is possible to abandon them, but the process of attaining experience and knowledge of achieving the goals takes years, and time is something we haven’t yet learnt to turn back.
The study has shown that children from the middle-class families had higher aspirations and did better than those from the working-class families. This made me remember about my own experience of going to the Moscow State University straight from school in 1997. Before I tell you this story though, I have to say a few words about Soviet/Russian social classes. Unfortunately, I cannot quite draw analogy between the Russian and British types of what is essentially one system. Nowadays, looking at my country since the fall of the Iron Curtain, I realise that we’ve always had classes there. Any attempt by the Communist government to erase the class differences wasn’t really successful. Perhaps, forming groups is proper to a man, and therefore the Soviet society had established its own classes instead of throwing the idea away completely. But when I was at school I was hardly aware of the class differences, to the point that even now I cannot categorise my classmates to suggest their belonging to the Soviet middle-class or Soviet working-class.
So, the story I want to tell is exactly about the importance of setting those high goals and the possibility of achieving them. At school I’d always been an excellent pupil and eventually graduated with distinction and a medal. I don’t remember when and who first suggested that I should go to study at the Lomonosov Moscow State University (MGU/MSU), Russia’s biggest, oldest and one of the world’s most respected universities. Time went by, the “Yulia will go to the MSU” became practically a figure of speech, so often was it used. I, however, began to feel that I did indeed want to go to the MSU, and nothing but the MSU. I wanted excellent education, I was happy to work hard to get it, so the MSU became my choice.
But it was thought to be extremely corrupt; they said it was impossible to enter the MSU without private tuition or public courses; in addition, it was thought to be extremely elitist. My family didn’t have money to bribe anyone, and was quite far from the elite. Finally, after attending a few public lectures I realised it was a loss of time and money (there was a small fee for each lecture), so I just continued to study on my own.
By all accounts, I shouldn’t have succeeded; against the social, financial and other possible odds, I did. When I was already in England, I watched Madonna talking to Michael Parkinson, who asked her how she’d been living in New York, and if she’d ever thought what she would do if she hadn’t succeeded. She said something along the lines of: “This wasn’t an option”. I can inscribe these words on the file in my head that has got the memories of my becoming an MSU student. The MSU was the only uni where I wanted to be. There was absolutely no option for not entering it. I suppose you can say I had considered myself the MSU student long before I got my student card. I wouldn’t call this “ambition”. It was a dream, and I also loved the place where I was going to study, and they say that when you love something with all your heart, you do eventually get rewarded.
And then I found out that those early predictions were indeed a figure of speech for many people. And although I cannot account for any instances of corruption, I have to admit that the MSU is elitist, but then so is Oxbridge. However, I’m sure I’m not the only person whose drive and passion overturned mountains.
Ambition, ambition… Nothing ever can protect anyone from failure, but usually we don’t know we are to fail until we actually do. To be afraid to realise our potential is the biggest disservice we can do ourselves. And why to think of the worst outcome? There’s a saying in Russia: “if you tell someone they’re a pig, they’ll start oinking”. So why not work hard and believe in success instead?
Let’s face it, we keep talking about one’s private goals, whereas the whole mankind should be our example. How on Earth did the Egyptians erect those pyramids? How did Columbus discover America? How did Magellan circumnavigate the Earth? How did we end up flying not only from country to country, but into space? We are people, we cannot fly, and the law of gravitation is against the whole concept of flying. Yet in the 20th c. we’ve finally got wings, figuratively speaking. There is a burning desire, a dream behind each of these achievements to which we should be looking up, without doubt.
For my part, I’ve always queued, when and where it was necessary. Even when there is no queue-like chain of people but a few individuals wandering around, I still usually ask if any of them is queuing up. At the very least, it saves having an argument.
Anyway, what was interesting about Yahoo! article is this passage:
Orderly queuing — as seen during the recent Northern Rock banking crisis — is seen as a quintessentially British convention. One social anthropologist believes Britons are even capable of forming one-person queues at bus stops.
Hang on a second, I thought, I have read this before, and surely it wasn’t an academic study. You see, many years ago when I was preparing for my entrance exams to the University, I wanted to hone my translation skills from English into Russian while reading something entertaining. This is how I came across and fell in love with George Mikes’s How to be an Alien. As a matter of fact, last year’s seen 60 years since the book was first published.
A chapter called A National Passion is dedicated to the art of queuing, and, like with many other chapters, the observations are pretty much valid until this day. As Mikes said in the preface to his book, he expected a scandal to happen, but instead was showered with much praise. I highlighted the phrase that Yahoo! article seemingly alludes to. It is still possible of course that a social anthropologist could use this phrase in their study, but it looks like Mikes is our primary source for such comparison.
Queueing is the national passion of an otherwise dispassionate race. The English are rather shy about it, and deny that they adore it. On the Continent, if people are waiting at a bus-stop they loiter around in a seemingly vague fashion. When the bus arrives they make a dash for it; most of them leave by the bus and a lucky minority is taken away by an elegant black ambulance car. An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one. The biggest and most attractive advertisements in front of cinemas tell people: Queue here for 4s 6d; Queue here for 9s 3d; Queue here for 16s 8d (inclusive of tax). Those cinemas which do not put out these queueing signs do not do good business at all. At week-ends an Englishman queues up at the bus-stop, travels out to Richmond, queues up for a boat, then queues up for tea, then queues up for ice cream, then joins a few more odd queues just for the sake of the fun of it, then queues up at the bus-stop and has the time of his life. Many English families spend lovely evenings at home just by queueing up for a few hours, and the parents are very sad when the children leave them and queue up for going to bed.
Looking back at the names of all those great people who have left us this year, including Vonnegut, Pavarotti, Bergman, and Antonioni, 2007 seems to have taken away too much of the incredible talent that had made the 20th c. And now Marcel Marceau, the man who not only revived the art of mime, but also, we are told, inspired Michael Jackson to create his famous moonwalk.
I have just found this interview with Marcel Marceau, but unfortunately I am still not well enough to transcribe and translate it. However, it is in French and has got Spanish subtitles, and I hope some of you will know either one or another. And I will endeavour to update this post soon with the English translation.
Alternatively, – and this would be wonderful if it happened, – if there are any Francophones or native French speakers reading this blog, please feel free to lend a helping hand at transcribing and/or translating.
English translation (2007)
This is not a mystery. How to do it? Well, the art of mime is that one needs a great concentration, one needs to have a vision of what to show; and one also needs emotion, the laughter, the comical, but not a caricature because when it is too much, it is too much. This is why one needs to learn to restrain oneself and to communicate the essential.
I was a picture, therefore I am an artist who often paints pantomimes.
When I was six years old I had a very profound look, but it wasn’t a caricature, I have always had this depth. Chaplin was very deep, and his profundity touched me when I was little.
I think it is true that an artist remains a child within himself, but when he has had a really great experience in life, he changes, too.
When it was the Second World War, I wasn’t practising my art yet. I began to practise it. I started acting when Germany was occupied, and the war was over. Theatre is impossible during the war, for it is a terrible theatre. But I hadn’t had yet the knowledge I have now. I was more naive, even if I had seen the unhappiness of life I was still naive, I didn’t have this experience, the experience of terror, hoping all the time that I wouldn’t be killed. And today when I watch the documentaries about the war that I myself had lived through, I say: my God, what a courage they had ever had being so young! But I don’t have this courage any longer because I want no more wars, I hate the war, and this is what I am trying to show in my manner at the theatre.
Often the young don’t like the old, it’s like “the old are nothing any longer”, it’s the youth, the future that counts. But they will grow very old one day, too, and so I am instilling the respect to their parents. The respect to a grandfather, a grandmother, the respect to the old, the respect to those who taught us.
I have even written a book on this subject: “The memoirs of a mime who let out a scream of silence”. And even now I am trying to write, in part about the painting, in part about the family. From time to time I visit my children who have grown up now, and I love playing chess. But sometimes I feel great sadness when I say: what will happen if our world does not evolve so badly? Will one day the eternal piece really have arrived?
Russian translation (2007)
В этом нет никакой тайны. Как это делается? Искусство пантомимы в том, что нужно обладать огромной силой концентрации, нужно иметь перед глазами образ, который хочешь передать. И, конечно, нужна эмоция, смех, чувство комичного, но не карикатура, потому что слишком – это слишком. Поэтому нужно учиться сдерживать себя и передавать самое основное.
Я – это картина, поэтому я художник, который рисует пантомимы.
Когда мне было шесть лет, у меня был очень глубокий взгляд, но в этом не было ничего карикатурного, у меня всегда была эта глубина. Чаплин был очень глубок, и его глубина тронула меня, когда я был ребенком.
Я думаю, это верно, что художник остается ребенком, но когда он пережил сильный опыт, он меняется.
Во время Второй мировой я еще не занимался искусством. Я начал им заниматься, начал выступать, когда Германию оккупировали, и война закончилась. Во время войны театр невозможен, ибо это ужасный театр. Но у меня тогда еще и не было знания, которое есть сейчас. Я был наивнее, и даже если я видел несчастье жизни, я все равно был наивен, у меня не было этого опыта ужаса, когда ты боишься, как бы тебя не убили. Сегодня, когда я смотрю документальные фильмы о войне, которую и я пережил, я говорю: боже мой, как же смелы эти молодые люди! У меня нет больше этой смелости, потому что я больше не хочу войны, я ненавижу войну, и в театре я по-своему стараюсь это передать.
Часто молодые не любят старых, знаете, “старики ничего не значат”, это молодость, будущее, что имеет значение. Но ведь и они тоже однажды станут очень старыми, поэтому я воспитываю в них уважение к родителям. Уважение к дедушкам, к бабушкам, уважение к старикам, уважением к тем, кто нас учил.
Я даже написал книгу об этом: “Воспоминания мима, который кричал молча”. Даже сейчас я пытаюсь писать, что-то о живописи, что-то о семье. Время от времени я навещаю детей, которые уже выросли, и я люблю играть в шахматы. Но иногда мне становится очень грустно, когда я говорю: что произойдет, если наш мир не будет меняться так ужасно? Настанет ли когда-нибудь день, когда придет вечный мир?
I have only recently joined BlogCatalog, which the majority of you may already have discovered and exploited ages ago. So far I have been finding a lot of interesting blogs and discussions there. In particular, they’re inviting all BlogCatalog people to join Bloggers Against Abuse on September 27th. The conditions are simple:
On Sept. 27th, blog about putting an end to some sort of Abuse (you decide what kind of abuse to blog about).
And on Oct. 15th we’re invited to take part in the Blog Action Day. Bloggers from all over the world, in whatever language they write, are invited to blog about environment. Go to the Blog Action Day’s homepage to read about how you can participate.
You have obviously noticed the title of this post. The organisers of both days offer to their potential participants an opportunity to make history as a kind of incentive for joining the cause. Looking back, we had One Day in History project which accumulated blog entries from all over Britain; we had a similar project with emails. As far as various blog action days go, my favourite is still the last year’s Global Orgasm Day.
I very much like the fact that the blogging community is realising more and more that with every bit of writing they put on the web they’re making history. On one of the discussion boards on BlogCatalog I suggested that a couple of years down the line we’ll be using blogs as historical sources for all sorts of studies. I didn’t expand on this in that thread, but let’s consider for a minute an average blog. It combines writing with photos from Flickr, music from Last.fm, and videos from YouTube. All four – the written word, photos, audio, and video – are historical sources. So, not only will we soon stumble upon “The History of Blogging” in our nearest bookshop, but we will also begin to find links to blog posts in the academic and semi-academic studies.
And when this happens, the issue of privacy will probably be forgotten completely. For, if a leading academic approaches a blogger asking to use their musings about national economy, a recent war, or sex, in their research, will the blogger’s vanity be too weak to withstand a temptation of being quoted in a thick book? However much time we’ve begun to spend in the virtual world, being able to hold in your hands a tangible record of your stardom is still something we all crave.
Update:
I’ve had a comment from Pelf at The Giving Hands. This young woman who is a biologist and veterinarian (apart from many other things from A to Z she’s been in her life) has started a blog to write specifically on the issues of saving and protecting the environment. Her own blogging challenge has been to blog about environment for the whole month, from Sept 15th to October 15th. As she is inviting us to read and comment on her blog, I found this post about green gifts particularly interesting. A few of my colleagues at work are getting married next year, so I might start thinking of something “green” for them. Read 10 ways to green your gifts.
A year ago Richard Fair wrote this evocative and thought-provoking post “Is it OK to blog while off sick?” Unfortunately, it’s absolutely not OK for me, not even because I’m afraid at work they may be reading my blog, but because I feel too bad to be sitting in front of the monitor. So, here is this unplanned pause, and apologies for any comments that I might not answer in the meantime.
In short, I’ve caught this cold. I had a family member having a bit of a temp last weekend, and on Tuesday at work I was shivering with cold inside. On Tuesday night I had high temperature myself, which I seem to have managed to stop. But my throat is so sore that I cannot fall asleep at night, and as from this morning I’m also coughing, and now I’m dreading going to the doctors.
I commend all the good health professionals for the job they do, and my gratitude to some of them is as deeper as they saved my life a couple of times. But there were other situations.
Several years ago, during my first year in England, I required an urgent X-ray in the stomach area. This happened on the first weekend after the New Year. At first, there was no GP available. Then there was no ambulance car. In excruciating pain, I went to the hospital in a family car, a Ford Mondeo. At the hospital, I had to wait for X-ray for three and a half hours. During this time, five or six people came in, told me about the drawbacks of X-ray (as if I didn’t know myself!), and then asked this question.
“Are you sure you’re not pregnant?“
Yes, I was totally sure. But again and again they kept asking me, as if the previous group didn’t communicate my answer to the next. Eventually I received my treatment, but the sheer amount of time that was spent dangerously in vain is staggering.
And now I’m trying to book in with my GP. Yesterday when I felt really bad and could barely leave the bed, I phoned the surgery asking if the doctor could visit me at home. It was very cold, windy, and exactly at the time of my call it’s been raining cats and dogs. Going out to see a doc in such weather would only make things worse for me.
Upon finishing listening to my symptoms, the receptionist said:
“I’m afraid we only visit the patients at home in the case of emergency“.
Oh good, at least there was a confirmation that mine wasn’t the case of emergency (surely I didn’t expect it to be). That was a relief. But if it was such emergency case, surely I’d be dialling a three-digit number, wouldn’t I?
I wholeheartedly believe that education and healthcare are the two “luxuries” that must be available to everyone for free. At the same time, as we know through experience, a lot of “freebies” are often of average quality. It’s sad and alarming when the rule of freebies extends to at least one of the fields that help to build and to protect the society.
