paaaarrrtyyy..?

The last days in London were filled with the Notting Hill Carnival, a lively colorful street parade full of Caribbean music and sound systems, mixing anything from soul to drum and bass into their own festive music. And food everywhere, of course. Half London was on the streets, we felt, it was that busy. But these kind of festivals help integration, I am sure. I would be proud being from Caribbean origins, watching the parade and all the effort groups put into it. And pride, I feel, is one of the positive trade-offs we should let people have during their integration in society. So simple, but we don't seem te be able to give some of it to our own minorities.

Monday night we visited the Old Vic theatre, the one reopened by Kevin Spacey, the actor. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Vic). The fashion these days in London is to make plays on the basis of movies. Strange, it used to be the other way around. Have to think about the implications: nostalgia, of course, but there must be more to it; The Sound of Music, Footloose, Mary Poppins, etc. We went for All About My Mother, an adaptation from the movie by Pedro Almodovar, from 1999. Great play, with among the actors Diana Rigg, whose name most older TV fans will know (she once was Emma Peel in the Avengers!)

The Library Ultimatum

Another confirmation, always a high point of the day. Was reading a book on the sixties revolution, in which the writer, to his own surprise, found many similarities between the end of the sixties and the beginning of the nineties, when he was writing his book. Exactly my point, and always good to find a quote by someone else that supports my line of thinking. Was the last day in the British Library though/shame, liked it there. Today Marcel and I had a quiet day in the back garden and afterwards walked through Soho. Hot.
In the end we decided to go see The Bourne Ultimatum in a climate controlled theater. Good action movie, moving along like a roller coaster. And a lot of links with the current time frame. Bourne is searching for his identity, his true being he wants to restore, since it was once, years ago, stolen from him by the CIA. It was his 'winter' attitude of righteousness and putting things right, living up to his personal morals (again), against the nihilistic 'autumn' attitude of the powers that be. Interesting movie to discuss. Should be too. How do Londoners manage life? We payed more than 50 euro to watch the movie together.. Good seats though.

children of the moral revolution..?

While we were basically out shopping and briefly visiting London's Tate Modern for an excuse (good cappuchino on the 7th floor), Holland is busy embracing what in my book is a winter period. Morals, morals morals. The newest discussion is about the raising of children: we should be more stern and even raising a hand shouldn't be a problem.. The nineties suddenly seem far away, now:
NRC is having an interactive discussion about it at the moment:

Kinderen moeten weer strenger worden opgevoed, vinden Nederlandse ouders. Want ze zijn vaak brutaal, verwend en ze gedragen zich asociaal. Ook een corrigerende tik “moet kunnen”, blijkt uit een onderzoek onder 615 ouders door het ‘vaktijdschrift voor ouders’ J/M.

Driekwart van de ondervraagden stoort zich aan het gedrag van andermans kinderen, maar 82 procent is wel tevreden over de manier waarop ze hun eigen kinderen hebben opgevoed. Rust, reinheid en een corrigerende tik zijn daarbij de beste middelen om kinderen groot te brengen.

Soothing mornings

Strange start of the day, when I saw the fast train to Euston leaving before my eyes, had to take the tube, and took a wrong change at Baker Street, only arriving at the library at eleven-fifteen. Which didn’t matter, anyway, because about ten security men were just busy evacuating the building when I wanted to enter. I took my refuge in the coffeeshop on the premises, but after two minutes that also was cleared out (luckily I had already ordered my cappuchino). What’s one to do in such a situation? Keep calm, I guess, like always (I remember myself keeping calm when our restaurant was robbed in Rome by two guys with guns and we had to hand over our wallets; in true Dutch style I put 50 euro on the table, more than enough for a simple robbery, I decided, not wanting to give up on the 300 euro I had just cashed). Sipping my cappuchino behind the gates I thought about the changes I wanted to make to the first chapters of my book. Still, it feels strange sitting in the reading room, later, with no explanation being offered. Fire? Bomb-scare? An hour later the situation is explained after all: it was just a rehearsal. But this is London, 2007. Yesterday, my train station was also closed long enough for me to take a bus back home. No mentioning of that in the papers, today, so I guess Euston Road is just very busy rehearsing, these days.. Soothing, ain't it?

London

Small London observations. Walking down the street and looking at the back of a woman walking before me, with her husband. Both look like 65 or something. But the hair of that poor woman! It's painted bright red, but it looks like straw. Very thin straw. What has she done to make it look this thin? She must have tortured it to death for years and years. I even see a tiny bald spot shining through. And I have time enough to look at it, since they use the whole pavement. Poor soul, trying to look beautiful and ending up like this. Finally I pass them and can't keep myself from looking at her face. Ah, only in England. It's a transvestite. I don't know why this is a relieve. Her hair remains thin, but now I see it's the best she can get anyway. They look very satisfied together, walking arm in arm.
Less satisfied are the protesters outside of Harrod's. They carry signs against the fur coats Harrod's sells (the nice picture I took I can't show, because in a strange spasm I seemed to be able to delete it while trying to copy it..) Strange how the fur-subject has been carefully pushed under the carpet in Holland. During the eighties it was the easy cause for everyone needing to add some goodness to his character. Easy, to have the same opinion as everyone else and still feel opiniated! How different it is today.. But I feel with the loud protesters, so I skip Harrod's and walk on to a second hand bookstore. Another four books about popular culture. Tomorrow Marcel is arriving.

history as fantasy

Spent half a day at the library yesterday, contemplating the thought that different groups fight for the 'correct' interpretation of history. Like some Christian groups have their own interpretation of evolution, historians struggle with different views on more recent history. If we say that at the moment the fifties are once again our frame of reference, what part of that decade do we mean?

Fifties, part 1..?

In Holland we now discuss the fifties as a decade of clear values and a society in peace with itself. I already wrote that in doing so we tend to selectively forget the cold war, the loss of Indonesia and the fear of economic downturn that brought, as well as the migration towards the bigger cities, not to mention the youth movements like 'nozem' and existentialism and the hard treatment of some groups (castration of gays wasn't unheard of).

Conservative parties always seem to be able to get the strongest grip on 'our' history. The book I read mentioned the American situation, where presidents like Reagan monopolized the American history to their advantage. The only one able to break through this conservative historic hegemony was Bill Clinton.

Fifties, part 2..?

They analyzed his use of the Kennedy legacy and his very public running campaign theme 'Elvis', playing out Clinton's love for the 'fifties' Elvis, 'because that was a time of hope and optimism, full of energy and pride'. A slight bend of history: not clear values and strict living standards, but optimism and the feeling that everything is possible. Same fifties, totally different implication. And Bush Senior just couldn't answer to this new 'history': his 'fifties' views suddenly were old-fashioned and irrelevant. To which Clinton played his trump card: he started calling his contender Ol'Bush. Granddaddy Bush lost..

turn on and tune in

Have been wondering since yesterday why they never made a movie out of the life story of Timothy Leary. Born into a catholic family 1920, he dropped out of catholic university (being too obstinate), joining a military academy only to be be punished with 9 months silent treatment (he was not even allowed to speak himself) for smuggling liquor, but in the end he majored in psychology. First I heard of him was Leary's 'rose' (http://www.2reflect.nl/roosvanleary.htm), a very useful methodology to understand interpersonal communication. His first wife (out of 5) committed suicide, Leary got into consciousness altering drugs (mostly LSD) which he used successfully on schizophrenics. For Leary LSD was “one of the best and healthiest tools available for the examination of the consciousness”.
But his subject was controversial, the man was stubborn and Harvard University fired him. After living in a commune for a few years he got arrested in a set-up by the Mexican border in 1965 for carrying two joints and was sentenced to 10 years and a fine in 1969.. He escaped in 1970, probably (without him knowing) with help from a terrorist group called the Weathermen. But before he went to prison he was the one calling out to the world 'turn on, tune in, drop out', propagating LSD as a tool to better yourself and the world and living in a tepee (indian tent), playing guru to all hippies. After his escape from prison he traveled through Europe and Algeria, before being caught and serving three years of his sentence. In the Eighties he even darted into stand-up comedy, cyberspace, with interactive personality tests and the colonizing of real space. And in between joining the Hollywood stars in their jet-set parties. His daughter killed herself after being accused of shooting her boyfriend. Quite a life. He died from prostate cancer in 1996 and his ashes, to compliment the storyline, were sent into space.

Today I tuned in to London and walked around Notting Hill, dropped out of work for a day. And got turned on by the athmosphere. Dived into the pool, joining Out To Swim for practice, about time..