The Mirror

I keep having the same dream.
It seems to be forcing me to return
to the bittersweet site
of my grandfather's house,
where I was born on the table
Forty years ago.

Something always prevents me from entering.
I keep having this dream.

When I dream of the log walls
and dark pantry
I sense that it's only a dream.

Then the joy is clouded
for I know I'll wake up.

Sometimes something happens
and I stop dreaming
of the house
and the pines by the house of my childhood.

Then I grieve
and wait for the dream
that will make me a child again
and I'll be happy again, knowing
that all still lies ahead
and nothing is impossible.

from The Mirror, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, written by Aleksandr Misharin and Andrei Tarkovsky

xo

BB

P.S. I'm on a quest. Perhaps I can plant its seed in your mind. Through Tarkovsky's films I've come to admire his father's poetry. But so far I haven't managed to find a book of Arseny Tarkovsky's poetry translated into English. If you're browsing in a used bookstore somewhere someday and see such a volume, do buy it for me.

P.P.S. My first experience of such a viral, vicarious quest was through a friend of mine, who asked me to keep an eye out for a frig magnet of a cow. Silly enough. But whenever I would see frig magnets for sale I would think of him and look for a magnet of a cow. His quest had become mine...

New York: Here and somewhere

Yesterday was my first full day back in New York. I'm not counting the previous day because I managed to sleep half of that (a one-shot cure to jet lag as it turned out). I was itching to do something - perhaps go to the cinema or even the opera - and so I did.

I began with Somewhere, which I had been excited to see since Lola's preview from the Venice Film Festival. It is one of those films that I have enjoyed thinking back on even more than I enjoyed watching it.  Which is not to say I didn't enjoy it in the cinema. In real time viewing I enjoyed the hazy Southern California light evoked beautifully by Coppola and cinematographer Harris Savides. I enjoyed how the shots were framed, as if by a curious, sympathetic, slightly-too-insistent observer. The first time around it was really about a mood, a slowly evolving feeling -- malaise stretching into unease, into perhaps a ray of hope. But then thinking back on it (which is my "second viewing"), behind the seemingly lazy amble of scenes and episodes there was more purpose than chance. And the eye / camera really stays in the mind as the main character in the film: not only what is observed, but how long, which how much attention, from what angle, in what light. In this the film reminds me a bit of Antonioni (many thanks to Tony Scott for making this connection). And I'm sure a real second viewing would be very rewarding.

Then I went off to the opera, which turned out to be a perfect pairing with the film: Pélleas et Mélisande by Debussy. It's also more about a feeling than very much happening (at least for much of the opera, by the end there's a murder, a birth, and a death -- after all it is opera). The orchestra takes us through a subtle, evolving shade of feelings, like a dark grotto lit up by reflections and refractions from the water. There are ambiguities, elisions, uncertainties, all of which the orchestra traverses steadily and mysteriously. The spoken and sung words never resolve anything; they only magnify and punctuate feelings. And when things happen - and they do - they too aren't climaxes or resolutions, only knots in the wood. And making the connection to film, Mélisande seems like a precursor to the impossible enigmatic heroines of French film: she never answers a question directly, doesn't hesitate to lie, causes men to fall in love, falls in love herself, all without really saying what she means. Yet she is irresistible in her shifting ambiguity.

Just to bring some certainty to my day, I ate a slice of pizza on the way home - a glorious, non-gourmet, stomach-filling New York slice. I've "known" the man behind the register for years -- we recognize each other, and he has seen me in every possible situation: with friends, parents, friends, exes, hungry, angry, funny, sad, silly, drunk, sober.... But after these two subtle works of art in one day, I felt wonderfully in balance, and of course so happy to be back in New York.

Wish you all a wonderful Christmas and New Years. Wherever you are, I hope you are with family, friends, loved ones, and surrounded by joy and beauty.

xo

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When the weather is grey (an afternoon indulgence)

When the weather is grey, and I've almost tamed the beast of work (or let's just say worked hard enough to put it to sleep for a few hours), and I've managed to elude guilt for an afternoon, I allow myself the occasional indulgence of an afternoon at the cinema. And one of the pleasures of New York is that you get to see things before almost anyone else (except of course your friends who frequent film festivals). Clint, Matt, here I come...

xo

bb

Some other uses of your time

I had a few extra hours to spare, so I was watching Masculin féminin and Alphaville by Godard.


I enjoyed both, but especially the former. Alphaville is, in the end, too much of a genre parody for me, and being a highly literate, referential, and genre-bending parody doesn't change this basic fact. Though it's clever, beautiful, and exhilarating, when Anna Karina utters the closing lines of the film and the music swells, the words "Je vous aime" seem to fall flat despite all that.


Masculin féminin is another matter altogether. It still feels like a fresh look at the youth of that generation with Chantal Goya as the self-consciously innocent yé-yé and Jean-Pierre Léaud as the idealistic, left-wing intellectual. It's got all the usual in there, discussions of love, sex, and politics, documentary-style interviews, and random shootouts. But in the end for me it was the young and awkward love that was most touching, and that made the ending hit home.

Now that I am beginning to appreciate, if not entirely love, some of the classic early Godard, it's probably time to venture into his films from the '70s, '80s, '90s...

xo

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Paris in the summertime

Perhaps, like me, you've visited Paris in all the wrong seasons. True, there is never a wrong season to visit any great city, but then there are certainly the right seasons to visit: the periods when all the people in the know suddenly descend like a flock of birds, peck at the seeds for a few days, before dispersing again (odd image that I plucked from my head... but the right people tend to have the right look, hence they tend I'm sure to peck at bird seeds whilst in Paris).

August is certainly one of those wrong seasons. Stylish Parisians and their friends are all sunning themselves in the south. Some (many?) of the more elegant spots not feeling the need to cater to hungry tourists board up for the month. But the one thing that keeps going, as I was reminded in this article by Tony Scott in the NY Times, are the little pocket cinemas where on any given day you have any kind of retrospective you might want: from silent Westerns of the 1920s to a 16 hour Rocky marathon.

"Love, sophistication, eroticism, danger, class struggle, violence, tenderness, political intrigue — any effect, theme or motif you can contemplate is likely to have a Paris address. You can recognize these local habitations even if you have never visited the city. When you do visit, you often have the uncanny feeling of walking through a movie..."



"The actual Louvre, imposing as it may be, comes alive when encountered in the sprint through its galleries undertaken by Arthur, Franz and Odile in Jean-Luc Godard’s “Band of Outsiders.”"

And every walk by every riverside in Paris is filled with cinematic possibilities...

If you'll pardon a bit of overreaching here. there was a book (Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human) by the critic Harold Bloom which argued that Shakespeare not only reflects that gamut of human emotions, but creates them. In the same way, Scott seems to argue, the cinema makes Paris Paris, and the Paris we see through our eyes is through the filmmakers lens.

xo

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New and old New York

I have this image in my mind of Woody Allen zooming around in a car, I'm thinking driven by Diane Keaton in Manhattan. I'm not sure, and Google is really letting me down on this one. Why do I mention it? Well, living in New York, and seeing the romanticized version of Manhattan, you immediately come face to face with some key facts. Most people I know cannot afford the kinds of apartments that the characters live in. And the people I do know who live in such apartments tend not to be working in the kinds of jobs Woody Allen's characters tend to favor. No matter, for me romanticized is good. Shot in gorgeous black and white, Woody Allen makes New York seem as romantic as Paris (and of course that means bittersweet heartbreak as well, a key to Parisian romance, no?) I love watching on a big screen where I am submerged in the image, and even the generic New York street backgrounds come alive with magic and, yes, seem so romantic...

Cut to colour, and me driving in my Mini around Manhattan. It's not only the stuff of cinema. I've been parking the car here for the summer, and so when the other day the Aged P was in town, I decided to pick him up at the airport. So there I was doing the crosstown on 125th and over the Triborough (now Robert Kennedy) bridge. And the journey back! Crossing the bridge, the skyline, and above all just driving along the street like a tracking shot (filmmakers, correct me here please!), except that you're not watching a screen, nor craning your neck from the backseat of a taxi, but watching the city unfold from the drivers seat. Delis, nail salons, pharmacies, hotels. apartment building marquees, glimmer and garbage each finding their place.

Yes, I might as well confess it...

[cue the Gershwin]

I adore New York City. 
Idolize it all out of proportion. "
                 
Uh, no. Make that "Romanticize it
all out of proportion. "
                 
"To me, 
no matter what the season was, 
           
this is still a town
that exists in black and white
        
and pulsates to the great tunes
of George Gershwin. "
                
Uh... no. Let me start this over. 

bb

Little Dieter needs to fly

Watched a while back, but never posted on it (could it be? Am I repeating myself?) It's shocking, inspirational. (I know, this sounds like a movie blurb, but it's true....) You watch an older man, with a slight German accent, recounting his horrifying experiences as a prisoner, even reenacting them, with an incredible energy and determination. Even putting his feet into stocks, his hands into handcuffs. It's only a film he says, but you are wondering, inside him, it must revive a learned fear.

Only once do we see him - not break down but - pause to gather himself, to describe how alone he was in the jungle after his fellow escapee was killed. There was only this bear that would follow him around:

"When I think about it, this bear meant death to me, and it is really ironic that's the only friend I had at the end was death."

The only friend I had at the end was death. And hovering above it all is Werner Herzog, with his dry probing narration: "How Dieter Dengler has been able to cope with all this remains a mystery. He hides behind the casual remark that this was the fun part of his life."

Dieter took early retirement and became a test pilot. He survived four more crashes. "Death did not want him."

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The American Look

Many thanks to our friends at Mid-Century Modernist for bringing this short film to attention. It's a mesmerizing paean to modern design. Without any voice over or apparent plot, it feels like idealized, voyeuristic time-travel, tinged with melancholy because we are looking to the past and the present isn't as optimistic.




After you've seen the video, you may want to view the full segment (which is about 30 minutes) here:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9118785157777261461

I love seeing my dining chairs around 5'25". The voice over changes the entire tone. While the designs have stood the test of time, the words seem dated ("Improved styling constantly adds to the ease and grace and gaiety of American living..."), though beautiful as such, and seem to elide the fact that while some of the designs featured are American some are not. Nonetheless, I'm hypnotized by this melange of the nostalgia for forward-looking optimism (if that makes any sense).

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* A confession. I first intended to write about this way back in November 2008. But better late than never. I would never foist the "I've been busy" excuse on you... No, for you gentle reader, only the truth. I'm down with a case of the late-March, topsy-turvy weather blahs... And then I helped two friends move. And then I decided to clean out my closet. And then I began to wonder, might I really be a shopaholic? I'm not ready to confess that yet, but more some other time...

Autumn Sonata, Ingmar Bergman

I worried that you wouldn't like my appearance.
I was ugly.
Skinny and angular, with big, round eyes and fat lips.
No eyebrows.
My arms were too thin and my feet too big.
I thought I looked disgusting.
Once you said, "You should have been a boy."
Then you laughed, so I wouldn't be upset. But I was, of course.

from Autumn Sonata, Ingmar Bergman

P.S. Bergman has a way of finding the universal - pain - in any relationship, but also the universal beauty.

P.P.S. I believe this was the only time Liv Ullmann and Ingrid Bergman worked together, and certainly the only time that Ingrid worked with Ingmar Bermgan.

L'avventura

bb

P.S. It is dificult to add much to this... The almost-final frame of L'avventura... And the sequence leading up to it... breathtaking.

7 things I love... (free-style tag)

We've all done a tag or two (or n, n large) tags in our days, but Marion has invented a new form, which I picked up over at Jane's place and which I'm going to call free-style tag. In this version, rather than tagging 7 specific people, you just let anyone who feels like it join in. Think of it as a big jam session, or even better those drummers in the park (bring your drum and join in!), rather than a symphony orchestra.

So my version of it, like Marion and Jane, will be 7 things I love right now... If you're inspired, please do join in!

1. Kurosawa's Ran. No surprise given my last post, but I was waiting to be transported back into a world of heightened feeling and sound (I've probably been missing going to the opera), and this film did it.
2. Gorgonzola cheese. These days I can't get enough of it (which is why I take care to buy very little -- you know, little cheese.)
3. The art of my friend Lee Etheredge. I'm lucky enough to own a few of his pieces (and so are MoMA and the Whitney!) But I caught up with my friend recently and was delighted to see him doing new and exciting work (not yet on his blog, but keep an eye on it!)
4. Cappuccino. (You can see there is no order to this list.) Of course we all love a good cappuccino. Italics here will mystify our Italian friends who are used to a good coffee from a bar no more than 100m from where they stand, but in these parts you have to go looking for one. (But this takes me back to a young bb discovers the world anecdote. When I first began drinking the stuff at Italian restaurants outside Italy, I would enjoy the foam but then find the coffee just too bitter. Some years later I discovered the coffee I was having was too bitter, not that perfect marriage of coffee and foamed milk. And can I get one more pet peeve off my chest? If the president of Starbucks or any other chain is reading, please not that it is coffee and foamed milk not coffee, milk, and foam. The problem here is you get coffee with warm milk and mound of topiary foam on top. Done right the milk itself takes on a light foaminess...) Anyway, I 've had a decent espresso machine at home for about 8 years, but recently I have begun using it to make myself a cappucino every morning. As good as my favorite coffee bars? No. But better than 95% of most others? Yes.
5. The laptop computer. OK, I guess this really dates me. But even though I had a laptop, my "real" computer until 3 years ago was a desktop to which I was tethered. But now everything is on my laptop (don't worry, duly backed up), and I can roam free. And you know good ol' bb likes to roam!
6. Semi-fictional, semi-history. The writing is formulaic, but I couldn't put it down.
7. And finally this picture:

I suppose most of you are asking yourselves: who? It's Roger Federer who just won his 16th Grandslam Championship, with his father. (Just to be clear, since I sense most of my readers aren't sports type, I'm talking about tennis). Some of you may be shocked to discover that I watch any sports at all. The truth is not often, but sometimes tennis. I think this is because we watched it growing up (unlimited television during Wimbledon!) And some of you may be shocked then to discover that I admire a sportsman. But friends, there is much to admire here. First, how he plays. It's more like ballet than today's physically grinding game. Second, there is the impossibility of it. He sees angles and openings no else can. In that sense, I think he is like an artist, creating and orchestrating movement and visual possibilities. And also if you look at his tall, slim frame and his muscle-bound opponents, you can't understand how this man can stand a chance. Third, he has been doing this for about 6 years. Six sports years are like 30 normal years. He has somehow operated at a the highest level that long, maintaining his body, his mind, and above all his freshness of spirit -- the desire to excel, to win, and the pleasure of doing what you do. And finally, you've got to love this picture! Look at his delight, and look at the father's delight. And look how delighted they are to be sharing the moment. Even the greatest champion, artist, scientist must have these moments, when he or she is a child again basking in his or her parent's love and admiration.

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Kurosawa's Ran: A Master's Take on a Master

Usually I recommend a film to others after I've finished watching it (and the way things are usually after everyone else has already seen it, possibly decades ago...)

Though I'm only part way through Kurosawa's Ran (unfortunate English association with this word, which translates as chaos from Japanese), I feel myself keeping the DVD a week longer to see it again. It is Kurosawa's adaptation of King Lear. There are so few instances in which the master of one medium successfully adapts a masterpiece from another medium. Verdi and Otello come to mind. In that case, some have argued that Verdi even slightly improves on the original. I wouldn't go that far. But I would say that when one master hold's another gem in his or her hands, he may shine light on some facets of the original that were in the shadow (Iago in the case of Otello / Othello.)

To modern eyes, watching Kurosawa is both easy and challenging. The easiest way in is through your eyes, but the the style of acting and story telling, particularly in the epics, takes some time to adjust to. (Many rewards to doing so, of course.) But here the very operatic quality of the subject matter makes this intuitive. We are ready for stylization and heightened reality.

The moment (thus far) when it dawned on me that Kurosawa had done more than adapt Shakespeare, and create his own masterpiece, deals with the fool. In Lear, he is a central figure, but never quite becomes a character. Indeed, would I be going too far to say that is true of many of the characters in King Lear? They are striking, violent, moving, piteous, heartbreaking, but more stylized than human. This probably applies to the Lear character in Ran, Hidetora. But many of the others are built up out of human impulses, even the fool, who wonders at one point whether he should stay with Hidetora, whose nurse says he has been his entire life. Moving to see behind the fool's mask, a moment that Shakespeare doesn't give us.

This film is both an epic and a closeup -- the tragedy both large scale and tragic/heroic and very personal.

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Passion may be

the subject,

but the method

is reason.

{A.O. Scott on Eric Rohmer in the New York Times}

Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Louis Kahn

And before I lose my wifi connection, a few pics of the the IIM campus designed by Louis Kahn. I haven't seen too many of his buildings. I had mixed feelings about the film My Architect, a documentary made by Kahn's son in which he comes to terms with his father's architecture and personal life (turns out that Kahn had two families and that neither knew of the other until Louis Kahn died...) Leaaving the personal angle aside, the buildings were lovely. It's a modernism that rises from the earth rather than being like a UFO landing from outerspace... It fits its place and purpose without needing any shallow tokens of Indianism or modernism. Must make it a point to see more of Kahn's work...

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Friday the 20th Movie Marathon

I was flying back from Tel Aviv to New York today. It's a 12 hour flight. Wait, let me try that again. It's a 12 hour flight. You can guess what I was thinking. Perhaps you're thinking it too. Twelve divided by 2 equals 6. But of course no one can watch 6 films in a row, but I did make it up to four. Of course you might recall my New Year's Eve Movie Marathon...

But first a digression. I do feel a little bad about not reading a good book. I had a good one with me, some short stories by Roberto Bolano and some poetry by William Merwin. Regular readers might recall I was reading the same two writers over Christmas in India. But I had spent five full days working 12 hours a day with almost no going out. I had woken up at 6.30 and had been grilled by airport securuity for a full hour.

A brief digression within the digression. For reasons I have never fully grasped, they grill you even more thoroughly when you leave Israel than when you leave from this end or arrive. I've done this before and don't really mind too much, since the people questioning you are young and lively college students or recent graduates. But at some point they asked me to turn on my computer and actually show them the work I had been doing. Needless to say, they couldn't make much of the flugelbindery (either)...

But getting back to it, I was ready for a break so I set aside the book and turned on the screen.

I wonder whether I should try to justify my choices somehow -- by explaining that although there were many choices there weren't that many good films. Actually, the selection was strongest among Hollywood classics.

So without further prevarication here is the list:

1. Quantum of Solace. I had missed it in the cinema. It wasn't ideal for the small screen, but Daniel Craig is growing on me.
2. All About Eve. One of those true Hollywood classics that I had never seen. It's not light viewing at all -- all about ambition and age. A fantastic set of performances.
3. Bullitt with Steve McQueen. McQueen is growing on me as well. There are these names that were huge stars in their day, but some aged well and not others. Elliott Gould for example I don't quite get. But Steve McQueen I certainly get, laconic, steely, and cool. The film is famous for the classic car chase of cinema, and the original San Francisco car chase sequence that all others are trying to best.
4. Pillow Talk with Doris Day and Rock Hudson. Another pair of big stars from their day that I'm still coming to terms with. This will seem unfair, but when I see Rock Hudson, I cannot but think of Silvester Stallone. I think Doris Day was perfect in this role. And as I've mentioned before I love films set in New York where you can really get a sense of the city in a different ere. I must watch this on my projector when I'm back in Boston.

A digression again -- Aren't you simultaneously annoyed and enchanted at the musical interludes in older films? These changed over the decades. For example, Doris day always had to get her bit of singing in from what I can gather. But by the early 1970s, you have these films where the characters go to a restaurant or club and all dialogue stops for about 5 minutes while the music plays on. In Bullitt the music was by Lalo Schifrin, with jazz flute. Now there's another wonderful throwback, the jazz flute. Actually one of my favorite jazz musicians was a master both on saxophone and flute, Eric Dolphy, and one of my favorite tracks of his is where he is backing up John Coltrane on a version of My Favorite Things, except that at some point he switches to the flute. (Not quite it, but take a look at this and this. Wait! Just found it: here.)

After all of this my brain was a bit fried, so I didn't do too much in the 3 hours of the flight that remained. All right, I'll admit it. I watched an episode of NYPD Blue...

I feel a little embarrassed admitting my binge behavior... I'm not much of a binger in other things, but there are times when there is nothing better than a movie binge.

Now I'm back in New York, trying to keep up so I can adjust to the jet lag... Hmmm, perhaps what I need is another movie marathon.

BB

Another weekend

I am on the train. Sitting by myself. I am next to a noisy group of 4 co-workers, who are telling rude jokes and laughing. One of them has a wheezy laugh.

Which inner BB should I channel? The stoic or the feisty?

They are now checking their Blackberries. Hmm… Blackberry=BB (though I myself don’t have one…)

I’m going to let them off tonight… (though they don’t know it….)

* * *

I've just made it back to my apartment in NYC! (10 second pause)

That was the sigh heard across the world.

* * *

Just had dinner at my usual neighborhood spot. I was sitting next to a very severe woman who looked liked she didn't want to talk. But this is NY... Eventually we were chatting away.

I had the same experience in Boston recently, sitting next to a severe woman. But after I tried to speak with her, she took out a crossword! I know you Europeans don't talk to strangers while eating your dinner at bars, because you don't eat your dinner at a bar and you don't talk to strangers! But it's one of the pleasures of New York. I have my "bar buddies" -- who I know by first name and nothing else: Mark, the gay food stylist for Gourmet magazine; Yvette, the Texan woman who loves to have weekends in New York (but she emphasizes, and I quote her, "New York is just fun and nothing else. There's no choca-laca going on while I'm here"); Sam my Hawaiian bartender; Amy, the aspiring actress who has sadly moved on to other gigs.

Bar buddies aren't a substitute for well-loved friends, of whom I have a number in New York, but they are their own wonderful thing. And in a place like Boston where I don't know too many people, it could have been a nice way to get to know some locals. Could have been...

But I've got a weekend in NYC ahead of me!

* * *

I saw a film, Revolutionary Road, and went to a concert (the now venerable Italian maestro Ricardo Muti), which we followed by two glasses of champagne and slightly dizzy conversation. It was wonderful.

* * *

I'm back in Boston now, Sunday evening, watching Renoir's The River. An imperfect but wonderful film. As Renoir says in his introduction to the film, "[India] is one of the least mysterious countries there are. For a Frenchman, India is very easy to understand. People there have just about the same reactions as people here do." So profoundly true, and so profoundly wrong. Exoticism is what most filmmakers want to find when the look abroad for their stories. But exoticism is exactly the failure to see oneself in others. At the same time, there are real differences in how different countries look at the world. The irony and beauty of the film is that Renoir both succeeds in rendering India utterly exotic and utterly quotidian at the same time. It is beautifully observed (in the background -- the village scenes) and above all the colours, so intense! characters, both English and Indian, are more than a little cliched, but it didn't matter..

I am also enjoying a risotto I just made with a vulgarization of a procedure the Mia passed on to me a while ago. I added oven-roasted curried acorn squash and tomatoes, and adapted it to a red-wine risotto recipe. Truth be told, I over cooked it by just two ladles of stock, but nonetheless it turned out very nicely.

Hope you've all had a wonderful weekend.

BB!

In Search of a Midnight Kiss or New Year's Eve Movie Marathon

My New Year's eve was spent flying back from Bombay to New York. I left at 1.30 pm on the 31st, changed planes in London, and flew into Newark. In Mumbai, I was told that my outgoing flight was delayed and that I would miss my connection. The airline, Virgin, transferred me to an earlier flight on Jet Airways, which would allow me to make my connection in London. One thing that Virgin and Jet Airways (India's second international airline, and the first private airline from India to fly internationally) share in common is an excellent on-demand video system in all classes of service. So I had a lot of films to choose from. The flight was 9 hours and 20 minutes. As they say in the movies, "you do the math": 9 hours / 2 hours = 4 films.

First up was, "Vicky, Christina, Barcelona", by Woody Allen that I had missed in the cinema. It's as good a Woody Allen film as you'll see these days. Next up, "Mes amis, mes amours", a fine illustration of the fact that French cinema can be as clichéd as Hollywood, yet be more stylish. Number 3 was "How to Marry a Millionaire" -- a classic, not much more need be said (though as an aside, I love films set in New York where I get to see street scenes). By then I had exhausted all the films I really wanted to see, so opted for "Hellboy 2". I can hear the eyes rolling out there (if you'll permit me to mix my metaphors). In my defense, it is directed by Guillermo del Toro, but that's pretty much all I can say. Indeed, I fell asleep at some point and didn't bother to try to see the rest of it.

I landed in Heathrow and sprinted through security to make my connection. Fortunately, I'm well trained in the 2k terminal dash and had time to spare. Even more fortunately, I discovered an upgrade, a warm shower, two glasses of champagne, and a friendly bartender waiting for me. (I like to believe it was the dignity with which I conducted myself at Mumbai while negotiating my rebooking that led them to upgrade me -- more realistically I think it was the miles I logged last year on my London-New York runs -- no matter, take the upgrade and run).

I had hoped to see at least two more films on the second flight, and with 7 hours it should have been possible. But I was so tired. But I didn't want to sleep (all part of the anti-jetlag strategy). I spent most of the flight dozing and fighting sleep. I did manage to watch "In Search of a Midnight Kiss", a charming, low-budget black and white film from last year. It's about a down-and-out would-be screenwriter looking for a spark of hope on New Year's Eve. He puts up a personal ad under the heading "Misanthrope looking for misanthrope". A girl calls in, and, well, it goes from there.

This was tricky viewing matter for me, given that I was probably going to spend my New Year's in the airport at Newark or in a cab on the way to Manhattan. But we landed 40 minutes early at 10.50 pm (winds be praised!) I had exchanged e-mails with my friend Till from Bombay and knew that he and his girlfriend were planning a quiet New Year's -- hoping to catch the fireworks from an uptown office building where Till works -- and had kindly invited me along -- if I could make it. I was out by 11 pm. My car service took only two minutes to arrive. At 11.15, I was entering the Holland Tunnel. At 11.30, I was at my apartment dropping off my computer and picking up a hat, because it was -7C outside. At 11.54, I met up with Till and Julia, and at 11.59 we were on the roof in blistering wind, with a half-bottle of ice-cold champagne, and in excellent company. The fireworks in the distance were wonderful.

There’s something magical about seeing fireworks but not hearing them. It makes you feel like you're in space looking down on earth - you can feel the cold, you can see, but you can't hear. But also (yes Till -- here goes my attempt at greeting-card philosophizing) it makes you feel like you are looking at arm's length on your life. You too are now a witness to the year's trials, tribulations, joys, and triumphs. You are a character in a play that you co-wrote, but where there were other actors reading from their own script. I would say that all in all 2008 was a good year; it had many surprises, many transitions, but I would have to say that it was also a year in which I was reacting to events as they occurred. There was no grand plan, no resolutions, no roadmap. It's not that I have any of those for this year. But having aged another year, it's not that I feel old, but I do feel that I have glimpsed the curvature of life. The earth is not flat, nor is life, nor is time, though it is easy from moment to moment, from step to step to feel that it is.

So for 2009, I have no grand plan, but in addition to living well, thinking well, and feeling well, I hope to find some hint of the path ahead.

Wish you all the very best for 2009!

BB

A year!

Gentle reader,

It passed quietly, without a cake or champagne, but it's been a year and counting now for this little blog. I feel that I should provide some grand overview, some vision of life, and actually I have some long overdue, big (big!) announcements. I'll postpone the last, and don't really have the others, but then I'll mark a year this way.

These are the films I watched at home this year, an unedited list. You'll notice the list starts in August, that's when I started my Love Film subscription (like Netflix for you Americans). Yes, I'm willing to confess that I rented The 40 Year-Old Virgin. Yes, I'm a little embarrassed. Does this list prove that I've wasted my evenings when I could have been doing something more productive, e.g., saving the world, stopping global warming? Yes, perhaps. But the list embodies growth and expansion for me: growth of my aesthetic horizons, each film is like a tree ring, in itself meaningless but important to mark the passage of time.

I hope we, you and I, blogger and reader, have more journeys and growth together over the next year.

xoxo

BB

A year in film
The Decalogue, Volume 1, June 12 2008.
All that Jazz, 11th June 2008
The Seventh Seal 29th May 2008
The Wind That Shakes The Barley 29th May 2008
Ivan's Childhood 21st May 2008
Dirty Pretty Things 3rd May 2008
Last Year At Marienbad 30th Apr 2008
Autumn Sonata 18th Apr 2008
Little Dieter Needs to Fly 15th Apr 2008
Ikiru 26th Mar 2008
The Silence 12th Mar 2008
Wild Strawberries 27th Feb 2008
That Obscure Object of Desire 2nd Feb 2008
Secret Ceremony 2.5 19th Jan 2008
Yojimbo 17th Jan 2008
Dirk Bogarde - Accident 15th Jan 2008
Dirk Bogarde - The Sleeping Tiger 1st Apr 2008
Dirk Bogarde - The Servant 14th Feb 2008
Fanny And Alexander 10th Dec 2007
The Final Days Documentary - Marilyn Monroe 21st Nov 2007
Days Of Heaven 17th Nov 2007
Scenes From A Marriage 16th Nov 2007
Easy Rider 7th Nov 2007
Sanjuro 6th Nov 2007
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang 26th Oct 2007
L'Eclisse 23rd Oct 2007
Raging Bull 23rd Oct 2007
Persona 17th Oct 2007
Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets 16th Oct 2007
Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban 21st Sept 2007
Jules Et Jim 20th Sept 2007
Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire 18th Sept 2007
Some Like It Hot 12th Sept 2007
Seven Samurai 10th Sept 2007
Blow Up 28th Aug 2007
Children Of Men 21st Aug 2007
La Dolce Vita 21st Aug 2007
40 Year-Old Virgin 16th Aug 2007

Trouble sleeping

I've been having trouble sleeping lately, which is just the nearest excuse at hand for my lack of posts over the last week. Normally I'm a good sleeper: 6 hours needed and usually achieved with 6-7 hours in bed. Solidly through the night, into a light sleep early in the morning so I wake up without an alarm most of the time. Isn't life wonderful?

I've already mentioned the birds. Well that singing bird is back, big time. He (she?) is Sinatra (Celine Deon) in Vegas. Really, such sweet song, but at 4.45 am every morning? The other day 4.30!

But what happens these days is that I wake up and look at the clock with those is-it-morning-yet eyes and find it is only 2.00 am! But it seems very bright outside. And when that bird sings, it again seems pretty sunny outside. Does the sun not set in London? Am I being transported to the Arctic Circle while I sleep? Woody Allen couldn't film any late night strolls through London, as he has in New York, at least in this season.

Of course the irony is that in New York, even if it's dark, there are so many things to do at all times of the night. You can sleep, but you don't have to. Here instead, it seems I can't sleep, but wish I could because there's nothing to do after 11 pm. OK, I could go clubbing - but when it's so bright out?

One of these nights I'm just going to get up at 2, dress, and head out for a stroll, and see what it's like. Await future posts.

ZZzzzzzzz

BB



Manhattan, 59th Street Bridge, 6 am. In Allen's forthcoming Central London this scene will be filmed at 2 am.