GOING TO ROMANIA IN MY MIND

constantin brancusi

It has been a two-week film festival at my house of Romanian films. Found six. Today's was a documentary of the Ceausescu years, The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu. I've known little to nothing about Romania. It was behind the Iron Curtain where the only news we heard of Soviet satellites was propaganda. I remember the name Ceausescu equated in my mind like Tito of (then) Yugoslavia, a tyrant dictator. Before seeing this film, I questioned self what I knew about Ceausescu, and all I could find was tyrant dictator overthrown for I did not know what reasons. Four films made in Romania gave me a sense of the culture, what the people look like, clothes, styles, the cities, the landscape, the architecture, the cars. The second film in my at home festival, The Way I Spent The End of The World, followed a family, kids in school, working people, Bucharest, showed a life of paranoia under Ceausescu, and the jubilation when he fell. Another, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, concerned a girl in college getting an illegal abortion in a hotel room, accompanied by her roommate in the dorm, her friend. I sometimes consult the Atlas during foreign films to get a sense of place. First clue to location was the desk clerk in a hotel saying they were full, people from Bucharest. It was not Bucharest. Later, I heard in a conversation at a dinner table, "Here in Roman." Went to the Atlas, looked up Roman, Romania, in the index. Found it. Went to the map of Romania and found Roman. It is north of Bucharest on a highway that looks like it follows a long valley, something like the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, between two rows of mountains. The Danube flows through Romania. 

constantin brancusi

I've learned from studying the Atlas, Romania is bordered on the north by Ukraine, on the west by Hungary and Serbia, on the south by Bulgaria, and on the east by the Black Sea and Moldova. I know nothing of Romania's history. Just now went to amazon and bought a history that had some good reviews and a good price, a hundred pictures with the text. Just what I want. The Autobiography of Ceausescu by documentary film showed me a great deal about Romania and the people, just by what I saw. It was composed of newsreel footage for television from Ceausescu's beginnings to his end. Some b&w, some color. Film footage of big Party gatherings, speeches, rallying people to his support, Ceausescu was a politician doing it well. I saw Khrushchev visit, Brezhnev, Gorbachev, Nixon, Ford, Carter, He  went to North Korea, the subject of a big celebration. In London he rode in the carriage with the Queen in a parade, waving. He was good at waving. He did it automatically in a way that looked like it was meant personally for anyone seeing it. He had a male charisma about him. Maybe what one would call a man's man. Men liked him. Or gave the appearance of it. He was a believer in Marx and Lenin. He studied while he ruled. I liked about the documentary of nothing but newsreel clips, no commentary, many of them with no sound. The ones with sound provided translation in subtitles. Mostly, it was in silence. Three hours. I saw it in three viewings. Came out of it with a sense for his period of Romania's history. And by the end, I had no more idea of why he was reviled as a tyrant than I did at the beginning. All the footage was State controlled. 

constantin brancusi

At the end of the documentary, his overthrow had something to do with what they called a "genocide at Timisoara," a large city in the western part of the country near Hungary and Serbia. I may want to google that. I looked it up. Turns out it was just as he said at the end when he was detained. He was accused of a massacre of thousands, 4,500 at Timisoara. Turns out it was exaggerated by the people of the rebellion for the press. Ceausescu said it was not like that, it was much less. Turns out, after the fog of misinformation cleared, it was a hundred. It was the crackdown on rebellion that got him executed. I knew there was a dark side to these bright side newsreel films, and appreciated that the makers of the film gave no hint of judgment. And it is apt as an autobiography as all of it was self-serving, adoring the great leader. He appeared to me to be a good leader. As age crept up on him, his walking was less firm, and his demeanor was only partially present. His mind was still sharp, but he was fading. Seems like he would have saved the country and himself a good measure of grief to turn his power over to someone else. But power was the thrill. It had a hook. Outliving a role of immense power, being a once-was, seeing your significance fade into irrelevance while you're living, is not easy to live with. I have the impression he hung on tight in his drifty years to the power his out of bounds ego could not let go. He outlived his significance and caused rebellion by the opposition. I'm looking forward now to the history of Romania. I've read a history of the Ottoman Empire, so I have the little I remember from it to make the first step. I've wondered about Romania for so long I don't remember when the curiosity began. 

constantin brancusi

I only knew of Romania that 20th Century sculptor, Constantin Brancusi went to Paris from Romania. I have a big picture book of his works. The text was written by his closest friends, husband and wife, Romanian, living in the apartment above him in Paris. I will read the text. Dadaists Tristan Tzara and Marcel Janco went to Zurich, Switzerland, draft dodgers during WW1. French playwright, Eugene Ionesco, was Romanian, writing in Paris in French. Historian, philosopher, Mircea Eliade, was born in Bucharest. These are not insignificant people in the chopping-block moment that cut off the progression of European art as it was evolving--the birth of the Modern, and the art that sprang from it. Eliade is one of the great minds of the 20th Century. Brancusi is the soul of the Modern. I've wondered for a long time without pursuing the question what it is about Romania that contributed so directly to the birth of the modern. The Absurd came out of the Balkans, too. WW1 was kicked off in the Balkans. Seems some powerful energy was tapped into something. The Balkans being behind the Iron Curtain so long as Yugoslavia, disappeared from my attention, having no idea about the Balkan nationalities. Then the Balkan wars, and now the different countries have their own identities again. The Soviet period brought progress for a time, while at the same time diminished the spirit of the population, put people into depression from suppressed anger and the impotence of frustrated initiative. I've learned from the film festival that Romania is pronounced with the accent on the i, the third syllable, Roman-ee-a, like Carolina has the accent on third syllable. I'm enjoying getting to know a country and its culture, how people live there. I knew nothing at all about Romania, except tyrant dictator, and didn't even know that.    

*

THE CASE POCKET KNIFE

alberto giacometti

The car is running now. I'm keeping the fuse out for awhile to see if it and the dead battery are related. The power antenna is on that fuse, no radio reception. I can live without the noise. It's odd at night with no interior lights. I keep a small flashlight in a pocket. It's like a pocket knife, so handy once I carried one that I take it every time I leave the house. Years ago my neighbor, Allen, mentioned that he never carried a pocket knife. I said something like, if you carry one for a short time, you'll carry one all the time, they're so handy. I noticed about a year ago he's carrying one. Must have tried it. The pocket knife is a good tool. I use it every day. It's a Case Sodbuster, single blade, black handle, stainless steel three-inch blade. For what I want in a pocket knife it's just right. The object itself is a memory of a friend I worked for several years, a true human being. He died by surprise, and I was given his pocket knife. When a friend dies, I ask for something small of no value, a memory. I'd had a few pocket knives up to that time. One was stolen by a guy who came back after taking it, carrying a pint of liquor for me to have a drink with him, I'm the best friend he ever had. I didn't learn til next day that I drank my pocket knife. He sold it and bought some cheap liquor. His brother who then lived in a trailer a short ways down the road told me his wife's wedding ring was missing from on top of the television where she left it. Brother came by to see him with a bottle of liquor to drink with him while praising him up and down as his best brother and best friend. He, too, didn't realize til the next day he drank his wife's wedding ring. Another knife I carried several years I found under the bed liner in a Toyota pickup I'd bought second-hand. It had a 2 3/4 inch blade and a bone handle. It was a good knife for a long time. Then this Case Sodbuster fell into my hand. 

alberto giacometti

I kept the blade sharp, though not razor sharp. A blade too sharp, I cut myself. I cut a finger less frequently using a dullish blade. Carving the bark from rhododendron branches to make walking sticks, I like it razor sharp. I sharpen it on the stone with meticulous care. Carving the bark away is easier with a sharp knife. It gives me insight into why people who work with wood like sharp tools. The sharp blade takes the effort out of carving. None of the walking sticks I carved before are what I want for self. I'm finding walking is simpler with a stick than without. Walked about a half mile today with a new stick carved for myself until it was relaxed in hand and flowed with the rhythm of my steps. Going up and down hills, it makes a third foot. I found the stick I wanted for my own and carved it to what I want in a walking stick. It is comfortable in hand, lightweight and strong as oak. I like the way it walks on the ground, on pavement and gravel. Having a good stick may inspire me to walk more. Walking is not fun anymore. I stay on the pavement, knowing what's in the woods. I don't want to go down the trail to the waterfall and come face to face with a bear, anything, coyote, coywolf, wolf or mountain lion. I have 99% confidence that if I were to come face to face with one of these, I'd be all right. I believe I could handle it, though with wobbly legs. My legs would be so rubbery, so boneless, I wouldn't be able to move. It would take all my focus to stay upright. I don't want the experience. The best way I know to avoid such a fright is to stay out of their territory. I'm happy to have them here, but I won't go in the woods anymore. Hunters I know will not go into the woods without some kind of stopping power, a hunting rifle or a pistol. They know what's in these woods. I've seen photographs of three different bears in the woods across the road. 

alberto giacometti

I keep a box of band-aids readily accessible, though have not yet needed one. I take care with the knife. It has become my friend. Some years ago, I had a fright that I might have lost it. Couldn't find it for a few weeks. Finally, cleaning under the car seat, there it was. I was so happy I promised I'd never lose it again. I'm always aware of it while carrying it like I had $500 in my pocket. It's like my cat Caterpillar, I don't want to lose her either. The knife and I have been a lot of places together. It's been a handy tool hundreds of times. Cut some string, open a box that came in the mail, cut some rubber insulation around a wire, even a screwdriver for tiny screws. Italian/Swiss/French artist, Alberto Giacometti, only used a pocket knife making his sculptures. Before WW2, he was with the Surrealists in Paris. He went to Geneva during the war. All that went before was over. He wanted to find something to do as if no one had ever made any sculpted image before. He carved little one-inch human figures of soap and kept them in a match box. The war over, he returned to Paris and started making his elongated human figures with clay, and his brother, Diego, cast them in bronze. Whenever I see a Giacometti sculpture, I'm in awe that he did it with a pocket knife. He has inspired me in my own making of things, images or objects, to use the simplest method and tools possible. His studio was a small room with a table in the middle that he could walk all the way around. A little room with a small bed and a table lamp was his home. He was the same as a monk to his art. Constantin Brancusi kept his bed in his studio. He, too, was a monk to his art. They were the punk rockers of 20th Century art. Brancusi's studio has been moved to the Pompidou modern art museum in Paris. 

alberto giacometti

I'm discovering so much in my art forms during this time of my life that it really keeps me going when other people my age recline in front of Faux tv and gripe cause ever'thing's wrong and nothin aint right. I was pulled into negative thinking much of my life, until I caught on. It took surrounding self with negative-minded people to such an extent it was more than I could live with. I had to withdraw from that thinking. It's been a long time learning to allow. All the time I believed we had democracy, I felt like it was important to keep up. Now that all our media is propaganda, I don't know where to turn to find what's happening. I've come to take all the news as fiction. I don't care anymore. It's about time. The only place that is important is in here, within. Out there has no relevance to my life. What do I care if Lindsay Graham of South Carolina pledges his allegiance to Netanyahu? I'd rather carve the bark off a walking stick than worry my mind over our fickle "representatives." They turned against us, so I turn against them. The politicians are such huge disappointments, they don't rate my attention. Cops who kill somebody in USA every day don't like it when their one-way war turns into a two-way war. Then it's blame the victim time. Best place for me is to stay home. My home is my studio. I feel like my art is at its beginning. I've always felt like that, every step along the way. Carving walking sticks has been so much fun, I think about a couple of big rhododendron trunks on the ground that have been dead several years. It would take months to carve the bark off them. I see them in my mind's eye smooth white wood the tung oil finish turns to honey gold. Don't know what I'd do with them. They're about eight feet long. I think about bringing them home and leaving them on the ground near the house to study them walking by. I wouldn't want to make something functional of them. Home is where I belong, doing my art, carving my sticks and writing to you. 

alberto giacometti himself

*

GRUMPY OLD BASTARD RANT

constantin brancusi, sleeping muse

I've been in a spin all day, a minor rage, a backed into a corner rage and no recourse. A call that woke me up this morning telling me whatever BigPharma the doctor's office gets their blood-reading strips from has recalled them all over the country. Now I have to go to the hospital, pay I can't guess how much to have blood drawn. Do they take Medicare? Answer: Maybe. Should. Two of the most meaningless words in the language. The part that pist me off was the expectation. Somebody calls at 8 in the morning, tells me to go to hospital and pay them money I don't have and go to the doctor's office for a blood pressure test with money I don't have, the doctor's office an eight dollar round trip. This is happening too much. I get notification that some corporation wants my money because they say so and the announcement they want my money is wrapped in a very articulate threat. I could not say what I wanted to say, talking with the woman in the office I like and know she has no motive beyond what she's told to do. The one telling her what to do is saying it from somebody else, on down the unaccountable line of absence of interest in anything but getting the money. I've had so much of it, people expecting me to give them my money because they say so and I have no recourse. So I have made up my own recourse. I did everything else I planned to do on this trip to town and beyond, bank, drugstore, grocery store. Then came home and went to bed at the time of the doctor's appointment. Didn't even call to say I wouldn't make it. Took a three hour nap. Whatever the repercussions, I don't care. I'll take whatever comes my way like Jack the donkey, stand still like a tree and say, Is that all you got, punk?

constantin brancusi, sleeping muse

The laugh on me is that I'm taking the situation personally and there's nothing personal about it. Except me, and I don't figure. I'm the one paying. And it's wrong of me to take it personally, because it's not. It's about money, not me. They want my money, I give them my money. I don't give them my money, they get all shittin. Threats. The Law. Individually, they don't get it that it is a constant assault of this attitude: I want your money--give it to me now or you'll REALLY pay. And it's not like debt money. A BigPharma corp screws up, has to recall their product, then I'm told to go pay a hundred dollars I don't have for something I don't want to do. Asked why I didn't want to do it, Because I don't want to. That's not a legitimate answer to anyone, but it is the most valid answer I can give. I'm not looking to pass a test, but to answer a question. If you don't want to hear the answer, don't ask the question. It was the expectation that got to me. It's never a matter of it will wait until next day when I can get some money together. It has to be now, or whatever constitutes else. Else, in the case of the electric corporation is cutting off electricity and charging $40 to turn it back on. Same morning, before leaving, I wrote some checks, one of them to the electric corporation, Blue Ridge. I saw on the bill I'm being charged $40 for being late plus $5 for being late. Everything was fine between us until winter came and my electric bill quadrupled due to electrical use increasing and rates raised. It threw me a month behind getting that first one paid, then the next one the same, on and on through winter. I pay first day I'm able the month before last hoping to catch up when rates recede somewhat in summer. I'm being threatened they'll cut off my power and charge me $40 more to have it turned back on. What do I do? I talked with the man at the desk when it started, Oh that's ok. Evidently, he's the only one that thought so.  

 

constantin brancusi, sleeping muse

 

Here's where the grumpy old bastard that I am kicks in. It was not like this thirty years ago. In that time, the "membership co-op" treated us like "members." Now they treat us like a corporation does. Zero tolerance. Then, the co-op gave evidence it liked its people, its members. Now, give us your money. Straight face. Understanding not an option. Listening not an option. Caring, don't even go there. I will pay the damn bill, and I will not forget this experience. It will be an anecdote in many a conversation from now on until everybody I know has heard it at least once, and you know how old people are; they'll tell you a dozen times. The power corporation has turned off my trust and turned on my anger. Believe it or not, there is community here. The people that work for the co-op like that we are a community. The office acts now like they're headquartered in Houston. Today I broke. Too much. It's worse here now than it was in the city when I left urban existence 35+ years ago. My very first Sparta experience popped into mind and gave me the needed laugh. I was brand new, first days. Did not know the road to town. Old man Tom told me how to get to town and told me to go to Wilco for gas. OK. Whatever. I went to Wilco. Then, the fall of 1976, Wilco was only pumps and a little island among the pumps with a white closet-sized space standing, an opening in the Plexiglas window to pay through. I didn't even see the man. A hand came out, took my money and went away. I thought of the black box bank with the slot for a coin and a white plastic hand that snatches it. I had thought I was going to a rural place where everyday life would be a little more personal than in the city. I never saw anything like that in a city. Never returned to Wilco. I can't really say the anti-personal attitude toward money is new in Sparta.

 

constantin brancusi, sleeping muse

 

Another one of my first experiences in Sparta, my friend Pat was visiting, we went to town to get some things. Ran out of what money we had and still needed a skillet. Oliver Sidden, then manager at Smithey's told me to take it and pay him when I'm able. He'd never seen me before. Of course, I took the money to him first day I had it. Some years later, I came to know Oliver, the man, and have a great respect for Oliver Sidden. He was a good man, good as they get. People said of him, Oliver likes to drink. So what. I respect a man that likes a drink. It means to me he likes to take his head out of his ass and look around every now and again. Sure, it's addictive. Ignorance is addictive too, and nobody has a problem with that. Of course, I'm talking about people of sensible behavior. People who destroy themselves on liquor would destroy themselves some other way if necessary. Everybody has their own way. And that's the beauty of an earth experience. The world around me grows increasingly anti-personal when I have sought all my life to live personally with the people around me, to regard the other as a valid human being and to be regarded same in turn. The people I spend time with are people I have such personal relationships with, like know them all their lives, whose parents and grandparents were my friends. The people I call my friends, I have deep personal associations with them where trust, respect and backup are concerned. My hillbilly family of friends are not guided by corporate-think, one of the many aspects of them I love. They don't think about the stock market. An exurbanite I used to know told me I was a fool for not following the stock market. I saw in my mind's eye three fingers pointing back at him. And I remembered what Jesus said about don't be calling somebody a fool. Not that I'm holding him to Jesus, just that I see the sense in it. It told me this is not my friend. In the first place, it was stupid. I have urban friends who followed the stock market and got ripped off big-time without recourse by the Bank. I trust former friend lost a fair amount too. I didn't get ripped off. But I do get ripped off by my own membership co-op at home. Gloryland looks better every day.

 

constantin brancusi himself

 

 

*