That Time of the Month

Time it was and what a time it was...
This month of January 2008.
A month of illnesses; a month of desperations.
I sincerely hope you are faring better than me, coping enjoying, staring down whatever life and the elements are chucking at you.
Even when I have felt less able than ever before to do what I think I do best (communicate), wonderful people keep coming to pierce the iron bars and platinum walls to shine shards of brilliant light into the darkness that has grown in this hole.
Our backs are up against this wall. For almost 2 weeks, it has been a totally new scare to Ana's health.
On that Friday morning May 4th last, when the news broke that Maddie McCann had disappeared, my first observation out loud was: "Now they are going to find that they have been on holiday in a land invented by Franz Kafka. Where it is paradise, until you have a problem, above all involving the police or the "health" service".
Nothing that has happened, or not happened, since in the McCann case has made me change my mind. I know too well how it can be here, unless you have a lot of money, or a bunch of well-placed, highly influential friends in the elite. There is an abyss, on the edge of which most of the population lives, passively, hoping for miracles, moaning, but doing nothing.
That's how it is. Government by the elite, for the elite, but never OF the elite.
I will only say that Ana will have a colonoscopy on Thursday morning because, with our friendly next-door neighbour's help, we were finally able to break through Kafka's labyrinth and because we could pay for it to be done privately. Our conception of the word "urgent" does not seem to correspond to most of local society's conception of it.
It is tense. Who knows?
So, that's enough of my bulletin. I have a kind of computer/internet sickness - physical and mental.
I work when I have to. I am trying to write, but it is much more complex than I had expected, besides the sheer difficulty posed by my state of mind. Today, I made progress on it, though.
This last year has eaten into my being, ripped chunks out of me.
If we don't have peace of mind, we have nothing.
As for photography, it has stopped absorbing me, stopped making sense. No new subjects. No new camera. It came close, I got really confused with which camera. Finally I took a reality check, realised that I don't need one as things are, but want one because of the consumerist pressure on myself to buy something "therapeutically". And I have lost my confidence.
Nowe, there are other priorities.
So, here are strange forms, shot between 24 December and 19 January on a few sorties into the city.
24 Dec: Strong midday sunlight/Lamp-post/Its shadow/Diagonal

 

28 Dec: Strong midday sunlight/Staircase at Carcavelos Beach/Après-surf/Diagonal & horizontal.

 

4 Jan: Bright midday sunlight/Iron staircase of Santa Justa Tower/Girl on stairs/minerals and shapes

 

19 Jan: Strong, low, end-of-day sunlight/Almost-full moon rising above Lisboa in the harbour/horizontal

 

I am sorry for not writing, not replying, not visiting you. You understand.

Here's to 2008!

To you, dear reader, and to all yours, I wish you a smooth, safe passage through 2008.
May each day be sweet and kind to you;
May it bring you fulfilment and growth;
May you be blessed by its smiles, its fruits, its joys great and small;
And may you be able to look back down the hill, after the climb and say:
"That was a good journey.
I have given more than I have taken.
I have peace of mind, which is essential to this journey.
I look for no more than to do the same in 2009"

 

Facebook

Geddit?
Face...Book...Face....Book...Face....Am I bovvered?

 

And Margarida wants you to see her face and the book she just got for Christmas. What sublime, consummate taste that cat has got! "Great Photographers". Still almost 2 weeks to go, but she just couldn't wait to dress up & open her present.

 

How Do You Want To Live Tomorrow?

A year ago today, to mark the first anniversary of taking it, I published this photo on Time & A Word.
It generated a wide discussion and expressions of emotions, from sympathy to anger to guilt.
I feel I have to publish it today again, not least because I am wondering if he is still alive, 2 years on.
It makes me react exactly as the first time I saw it.
If you haven't seen it before, can I invite you to go to the "Time & A Word" blog (link from top, left of here)and look in the archive, 10th December 2006 and subsequent days and read about this photo.

Plus ça change, plus c'est même chose, as the French say.
One last piece of info: Remember that the Municipality of Siberia-on-Tejo invited me to do a one-man photo exhibition?
Well, what gives me the greatest satisfaction, if not pride, was that they contacted me after looking at a bunch of my photos, including this one. And it was this one that led them to invite me. They were all so impressed and moved by it that they insist that it appears in the exhibition.
That means that it is an image that communicates, conveys a message. Here in Blogland, we already know that, but that is global. The fact that it is a Lisbon street has a far deeper resonance on a Portuguese audience. That advert in the blank window makes it so much more immediately powerful. And it is precisely that kind of achievement that satisfies me.
Keep on Rockin' in the Free World.

 

I can't leave without a terrible, disgusting, hurtful PS regarding this man & the whole question.
It's Christmas time, as the famous Bandaid song so eloquently begins.
The NGOs and church organisations are far advanced in their preparations to give the homeless a few days of comparative well-being. Thanks to volunteers, private and corporate donors, there are fresh stockpiles of food, blankets, medicines, hygiene products, toys, shampoo, etc. etc. Portugal is no different.
A few days ago, I saw a TV news report on one voluntary organisation, "Paz e Vida" (Peace and Life)at their warehouse in Lisbon. A good report.
Yesterday, I saw another one on the same people. On Saturday morning, they arrived at the warehouse to discover that there had been a break-in. Practically EVERYTHING had been stolen. They are expecting 2,500 homeless and needy from next Saturday.
It just broke my heart. It breaks my heart that I am not in a position to do one thing to help. They are praying for a miracle, or just a huge wave of solidarity.
What sort of people could do that? I have never heard of such a thing. What Christmas spirit? Wickedness incarnate.
Pray for "Paz e Vida".

The Grand Prix, Lap 58 Starts Today

It has been a peaceful, calm, simple birthday today.
Even uplifting, thanks to words of all kinds, from all corners in a variety of languages. Notably those of one very special friend, whose words took my breath away and managed to give direction to my own thinking as I try to come to terms and face what I am, who I am, where I am.
I want to give my sincere thanks to all my friends who have wished me well for today.
I am, however, distressed that my dear Ruth and Audrey are both experiencing technical difficulties and are unavailable.
Ruth, if you get to see this, yes, you beauty, it arrived today. Those words.....My, oh my!

I took this photo a week before last Christmas. The gull was absolutely enormous and I wanted to make it dominate the Lisbon skyline across the river.

 

A few weeks ago, I had an idea and have been experimenting with taking photos of my photos on the pc screen. So, almost one year on, the gull becomes this:

 

Symbolic of something? I am not thinking about it.
This is my self-portrait for 29 November 2007, taken this lunchtime. No birds at all. It looks very grounded, homely, cosy in fact. Queen Margot sitting on her/my throne, all peaceful. Just as well no birds.
After all these months, I have decided that this is not the place to tell my story after all.
First, I just couldn't find a way to pull the words out of me, though I know them all. Then, I am truly feeling older. See that missing tooth? It is a time of reckoning and to try and accept how things are. I am living much like Robinson Crusoe. I risk being Humpty Dumpty.
I still intend to write the story, but I will file it and make it available on request. I will not publish it here, simply because I have come to to feel that that is wrong. I do not want it on the internet, where it could only serve any useful purpose for those who could relate to the story.
There are other ways of dealing with that.

 

And that was how my world looked (in my office) on 29 November 2007.
Biggest love to all.

Le Grand Départ de Maurice Béjart

Last night, my all-time favourite ballet choeographer died in Lausanne, Switzerland, aged 80.
I have mentioned Béjart several times on my blogs, the most recent being in connection with the song "Il Surdatto Inammoratto" a couple of months back.
I have just found this photo in a gallery posted by the French daily, "Libération". My acknowledgements to Libé for using it here.
One of the eternal differences between the French (and others) and the Brits is that they will always have a sense of priorities, when it comes to the arts & culture, whereas the English are in sack-cloth & ashes today because of the national football team's failure to qualify for next summer's Euro Championship Finals.
The kind of distinction that has always made it impossible to call me a typical Brit. And why I am a life-long francophile.
This photo was the first I could find to pay hommage to Béjart & his wonderful dancers. There must be 10s of thousands, like the black & white posters I returned to London with from my Paris studies.
It is, however, quintessential.
Tonight, I will watch a video of the stupendous "Ballet for Life/Presbytère", 1998.

 

Gonna Make You SING!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey, is your Monday dark, wet, 100% grey like mine?
Wanna lift up?
Are you gonna singalong?
Well, this song defies you not to join in and not to feel better!
Oh, it takes me back. This was Dec. 1971, I'd first found Elton John 12 months before. Can you believe this? I bought an album ("Your Song")without having heard one track. That wasn't strange. But the fact that I bought it because the guy was wearing the identical glasses to my new pair that month, same shade, not glam, just very cool. And what an album!
Then this song, 4 years later, '75. I was livng in Paris, it came on the radio, (I recorded it, sang along forever more. Very easy to play on my guitar (I was working in a recording studio at the time & was always playing). So I was always getting everyone to singalong.
I know it has been revived this year, related to Princess Diana, but that isn't it. Late last night, I watched the film "Almost Famous" - brilliant soundtrack - and this song was used to absolute perfection. You can see what I mean, if you don't know the movie, by seeing a clip on Youtube.
Now, tune in, key of C....ready? Here comes the sun!