In the midst of life - Slide-show-girl

It all started on a bench in a public park. I was in my mid-thirties and it was Summer.

Sitting on that bench, I was busy sorting out and inspecting color slides in order to put them in specific order for projection. A park bench is certainly not the best place to do this but I needed open air.

While doing this and fuzzing around with the slides a girl came and sat down near me and started to read a book. From time to time she stopped and looked into the distance and we came to talk. We talked a lot, probably more than an hour and before leaving I had an invitation for the next day to come to her place and show her my slides.

This I did - I mean the coming - but, as far I can remember, I never really showed her those slides. But I stayed there for the night and next morning at breakfast she told me her story.

Ten years ago she was going to be married. Everything was arranged, papers, the ceremonies at the town hall and in the church, dinner, everything. Three days before the fixed date her fiancé met her somewhere in town and told her that everything is off. No reason given, no explanation, just the statement, "I'll not see you again in this life" he told her.

Naturally, she tried this and that but to no avail. She never managed to find out what has happened and she had to face it alone.

This kind of broke her. For ten years her life was limited to her studio apartment, going out only for work and for buying food and other necessities. "What did you do all this time", I asked her. "Nothing, just sitting there or playing the piano for hours".

"Play something for me" I said, "Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, whatever you like. "No, she said, and then she added "I play only Dvorak". I asked why but there was no clear answer, as far as I remember.

During the week that followed we saw each other nearly every day. "You are the very first person that came here after my failed marriage", she told me. But she must have been ready for something else some time before. She had published an advertisement in a newspaper asking for someone ready to go with her to the USA for a months' holiday, on shared expenses. And she got a positive answer because there was a Dutchman ready to go with her. Departure next week.

"Don't worry, she told me, I'll be back in no time".

The first half of that month I was away, too, crossing Iceland with a bunch of backpackers. Coming home, I started waiting. At the appropriate time, probably a little too early, I made my first phone call. Nothing, not yet back. Some days later, I called again and was amazed to hear "no connection under this number". This same evening I went to her place: her name on the apartment was gone. Then I managed to talk to an old lady living next door. "Oh, she moved out some days ago."

She had vanished without leaving a trace. I was not broken but certainly shattered. I talked it over with some friends and she became "the slide-show-girl" whenever the subject was raised.

More than a year passed and one day, in an inner city street, I hear "Bonjour, Georges" : my slide-show-girl! She told me Part 2 of the story. During those holidays in the United State States they decided to live together and back in town she married right away. When I met her she was certainly six months pregnant.

Happy end.

Democracy - an export product?

Being a regular reader of Newsweek, I remember quite well those days and weeks right after the invasion of Iraq. Democracy will finally brought to the Middle East, I was reading. There was one argument brought up again and again. "We brought democracy to Germany after the war and it worked so well. Why shouldn't it be the same in Iraq".

Holy innocence. These journalists, professional line scribblers, just don't know what they are talking about. Could be, too, that they were simply repeating what they gathered "from well informed sources".

Six years later nothing has come out of those noble efforts but democracy is still very much on the official agenda.

Bringing democracy to a country like Afghanistan or Iraq is like trying to teach step dance to a paralytic in a one-week-crash-course. I don't wish to say this is bound to fail. No! It is downright crazy.

Democracy is a frail plant, it needs constant care from everybody and its main ingredient is the rule of law. And the rule of law is only possible if the vast majority of the people concerned is honest and law abiding and not only when a police officer is breathing down their neck.

When the US forces took Baghdad in 2003, for several weeks or months there was no authority in the town. Saddam's forces of evil were disbanded and the Americans did not care and did not bother. They only guarded the Oil Ministry (and the oil fields in the country side, sure). And what happened? Hell broke loose, thousands of citizen started to loot and steal wherever possible. Any object not solidly embedded in concrete, museums, shops, administrations were looted and gutted. With people like this democracy is impossible. They need a benevolent dictatorship and naturally, that's what they get and deserve.

Next stop Afghanistan. There is the saying that the quality and the seriousness of a democracy is not shown during voting but during counting.

Afghanistan is not really a country or a nation. It is a big tribal area called Afghanistan and its people are dedicated poppy growers. The smallest entity is the family and at its head is the husband. Women and children are kind of property and if they know their place and behave accordingly everything goes well like in all families. If the family gets desperately poor - as is happening now - the master sells a girl.

Next comes the tribal chief. This guy is something like God's representative on earth, he alone gives security and rule of law, the tribal law meaning Muslim Sharia, the religious law. You don't vote against the Chief. If the Chief decides for superior reasons that he opts for socialism, conservatism, liberalism or any other -ism for money or power, the tribe votes along those lines. And in case the Chief has a new inspiration and switches - for superior reasons - from one ism to another ism, or from friend to foe, the tribal members change, too. That is their duty and their honor.

So, in a nutshell, let's keep democracy at home. Let's improve it here because we are far from perfect, everybody knows that. We should always be ready to give advice and a lend a helping hand like training specialists, opening our universities, activities like that. But, please, no more voting in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia or elsewhere, sponsored by Western nations and paid by its tax payers.

Getting older - knowing less

Some days ago, the ARTE channel featured Wim Wender's movie "Paris,Texas". Wow, I said to myself, another one I better avoid.

Many years ago I saw "Wings of Desire" directed by WW and starring Peter Falk, you know this Colombo character. Well, I didn't like this movie. It is about my home town, Berlin, I was born there, lived there for many years, love the city, have been there in her darkest hours.

Young Wim made a modern art movie, lots of talking but saying not much relevant. Kind of abstract painting where you are invited to swoon without knowing why. So Wim landed on my black list "You got me once but it won't happen again".

Coming back to present-day telly, I thus by-passed "Paris-Texas ", told my wife "that's a bore" and chose "Bones", this good looking young doctor dissecting cheerfully dead bodies having been murdered. One session of "Bones" lasts about one hour, so when that came to an end I tried to find something else before going to bed (hitting the sack in good American).


While searching the channels, I passed Wim Wender's movie "Paris, Texas", had a moment's look and got stuck. Got stuck badly. It is a kind of road movie, and the roads in the USA are long, so it was near midnight when we reached "The End". In a nutshell, this is a masterpiece, exactly the kind of stuff I like.

In this special case I clearly jumped to conclusion. Nobody was hurt, one might say but that is not totally true. While looking at the movie I asked myself "how many occasions did I loose by prejudice, judging without knowing?" Getting older means I have to fight this tendency to narrow my views and to being less and less open to all those countless new possibilities.

There is a job waiting for me. But first, tomorrow morning, I am going for some days to the Pyla Dune at the Atlantic coast for some joyful flying. If weather permitting.



Have a look at this video, if you feel like it. Well made, showing some average pilots like me. I don't like the music, though. Would have preferred some less "teenager dum dum stuff" as Glenmed once said on YT to give his preferences.

TIBET - are these people really so poor and downtrodden?

We are living in surroundings where half-truths, omissions, or slight distortions of events have a fair chance to become the real thing. They might become fully confirmed facts and are thus supposed to make us salivate like well trained dogs seeing a bone............

Some months ago I saw a report on the telly regarding the fast disappearing Indian tiger. The animal was killed by poachers right in the Indian National Parks where it was supposed to live unmolested. But it remained unclear why and what happened to the furs.

Then the author of the report realized that the skins were smuggled to Tibet where they adorn wealthy Tibetans. And then I had the pleasure to look at those people wearing Indian Tiger skins. See for yourself, look at those photos in Belinda Wright's "The End of the Tiger trail"

Now that killed me. For years and years, whenever Tibet was mentioned, I saw those desperately poor, downtrodden people, living miserably at the feet of the cruel Chinese. Those photos just don't square with the general idea about that country. Each one of those skins fetch several thousand Euro (and a little more in US Dollars). Unlike those poor Tibetans I am unable to shell out that money for a weekend outfit and I don't know anybody around here who could and would do this and spend this amount.

A tent made up of 108 tiger skins


The poor downtrodden Tibetans: can't help thinking this to be another case were we are being force-fed another piece of crap and bullshit.

BEAUTIFUL HOUSES IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

Beauty is unfortunately an exception. Most houses here - like nearly everywhere else - are simply ordinary and some are downright ugly. Nevertheless, I made those photos just by cycling around, meaning there are plenty of good looking ones. And there are not necessarily hundreds of years old either.

The really ugly ones, those created by architects, poorly brained and raised in steel, glass, concrete worship do not abound over here: maybe the region is too rural , too austere.



This one here above is modern, as far as I can judge built ten or fifteen years ago in the style of the region.




This one has the bad luck to stand on a very busy road. That must be the reason why it is so frequently for sale or for rent.



Here we are in a tiny hamlet, about two kilometers from the village. It is a farmers' house.




Another farmers' house with his barn in the foreground. Do you see those columns, looking like chimneys? They belong to a hundreds of years old ruin, its stones served to restore the village church.




In bygone times the living quarters and the stable were frequently under the same roof. The round door on the ground and the stairs on its left testify for that.



This house surely belongs to some wealthy Parisians. The gate and the high well groomed hedge all say the same: do not enter, don't even look at us! The hedge must be cut with the help of a ruler.



In the foreground the round, wooden door: "I am a converted stable". In fact they sell antiquities over there, the stabble of old might be the store room for all that expensive trash they hope to sell to the grockels (UK English for tourists).





Another old style barn in another hamlet.






This house is one of my favorites. It's a converted barn, standing at the outskirts of the village. The people who made this did a great job here.



Couldn't refrain from showing this. It's the sore spot of our village. I wonder what will happen now. Keep tuned.




Another specialty of the region is the material they put on the roof. Sure, mostly you will see conventional tiles, used everywhere. But many houses still feature "lauzes" as shown on the two following photos. These "lauzes" are stones, thick and very heavy. A normal wooden roof structure would not be able to support them. Sturdy beams, generally made of chestnut trees are a must and you need a thick wallet, too, to pay for it. But living under it, no storm will be able to bother you and your family. The cosy comforts of stone age.

Rejoice, this is the last picture:Last not least, this is the town hall, though it should be said a village is not a town and a house is not a hall. In this house, the mayor has an office and he is present three times per week.

If you enlarge the photo, you'll see something strange: the wall is partly made of bricks, partly of stones. Till now, I have been unable to find out the history of this house and what happened there in the past.

Encounters during holidays

Frequently, when on holidays, you don't meet anyone, just grockeling around, sometimes talking to waiters, hotel personnel etc.

But I happen to be a camper whenever possible and the activity of paragliding makes it easier, too, to engage a conversation with strangers.



After grockeling around for a weekend in Pau (on video till 1.30) and deprived of sleep in the local camp side by a bunch of night-boozers and dedicated beer-singers we moved to Accous for more peaceful surroundings, the splendor of the mountains and for flying.

First encounter:Jean-Luc in his camping car. He was squatting near the glider landing patch, looking longingly at the sky. "Not today, he said to me, ceiling far too low". In the evening, after dinner, we had our first pow wow, no camp fire but a glass of Porto.

He had become a paraglider addict. Nothing else counted any more. He bought this camping car, kind of live-in truck and took a three-months-leave to travel from one flying site to another. He regretted his girl friend, met two months before, but that's life, he explained to us. Before hitting the Pyrenees, he had been to Greece, Spain, Morocco, Portugal. His son from an earlier marriage, living nearby, came to visit him for the week-end. "Papa has gone crazy", he told me. "What about visiting the Lescun mountain circus" (see also video, from 5.07 to 5.50), I suggested one day. "There is certainly no flying today". "No, no, thank you, he said, "the weather might turn at noon and then I am ready".

Second encounter: Pierre, the hard of hearing. He had booked a 5-day-session at the local flying school for about 450 € (about 500 US$) and camped right next to us. They start the real flying right on the second day but he didn't dare. On the third day he had a tandem flight but still was unable to do it alone. Did the instructor talk too fast? I don't know, I wasn't there.

I told him that to be afraid is normal. "Each time I decide to leave for a flight somewhere, I have to go to the toilet, every time. And this though I have now about 500 flights under the belt". He was afraid and I understand him. Each pupil carries a walkie talkie attached to his harness but Pierre did not fully understand the messages and probably only half of what the instructors told him. Who would dare to launch himself under these conditions?

Third encounter: Mister X, the smoker-boozer: He arrived during the bad weather period and was obliged to set up his tent when it was raining cats and dogs. We felt sorry for him. Next day he told us inside everything was dry. The first day he just sat inside his open tent on a low chair smoking cigars as thick as my middle finger and coughing from time to time. Late afternoon I met him again in the nearby little supermarket where he bought a bottle of rosé wine. When I came back to our tent he was already sitting on his chair, smoking, coughing, his bottle next to him.

Second day: no movement to report. Whenever we came back he was sitting there, steadfast.

Third day: no movement to report. Just smoking, coughing but the wine looked like red one.

Forth day: no movement to report. Just smoking, coughing but the bottle seemed to contain something else.

Fifth day: same as before. I was a bit uneasy having never met someone like that. We exchanged polite greetings plus some small talk remarks about the weather. In the late afternoon I took the shuttle that ferries the pilots to the paraglider launching pad (at 1.47 till 1.52 in my video). And who was standing there, red in the face and smoking a cigar: Mister X! I proposed him to take the shuttle down but he declined. Walking up there takes you about 3 hours and a little less to get you down.

But he had not finished to astonish us: one day in the late afternoon we suddenly heard a very loud, lousy gangsta rap coming from a house near the camp site. There was a bunch of teenagers sitting on the terrace and having a good time. After an hour or so it stopped. Next day, same time, same "melody". But as I walked past the car of Mister X I suddenly realized that he and not those youngsters had the rap stuff coming out of his car radio!

Fourth encounter: superman. We met him first while walking from the campsite to the village. A bus stopped at the main road, he got out carrying his huge paraglider on his back, a backpack in front and trailing a luggage caddy. Next day I met him in the shuttle going to the launching pad. There was no wind, so we all had to run as fast as possible to take off. He was the only one who managed to stay in the air. It was amazing. This guy was the best pilot I have ever met. One of the next days we were sitting at the launching pad, waiting for some wind coming out of the right direction. When you sit on the ground, your trouser pants come up a bit. This guy had only one leg and was wearing a prosthesis!

Another day, Luis the superman was sitting next to me in the shuttle. "Let's relax a bit" he said, took his wooden leg off and swallowed some pills. Pain killers I imagine.

Then came a five day stretch with very bad weather. Not the slightest chance to fly and thus we moved around to visit places. Luis told me his intention to leave for the Atlantic coast, flying at the Pyla dune. But when the weather cleared up, he was there, waiting for the shuttle. He did not leave at all but had remained inside his bed and breakfast house, all holed up, becoming invisible to the outside world. He had no car and could thus go nowhere.

Where did he loose his leg? He was vague about this "it was an accident" but living in Tel Aviv/Israel I can imagine what kind of accident that was.

PS: The last post had 185 visitors. Not bad for a shithole!

Shit hole rejuvenated

Sorry for this vulgar title but let's face it, sex and sh...., these are potent centers of human interest. Thus I thought to give it a try and let's count the number of readers between now and one month from here. Right now, on the counter, the score is 2045!

The wording taken apart, here is a serious subject.

Living outside of a tiny village, this house is not linked to a sewage treatment installation where the toilet and washing water disappear through a pipe to an unknown destination. No, we have to do the job locally and the system is called "septic tank".

Quite ingenious: the waste liquid goes into a huge underground tank where the stuff ferments and the solids separate a bit from the water. Even the toilet paper is totally digested. That not so clean but reasonably clean water runs then through a quite large underground gravel bed and what comes out - but never to the surface - is clean water.

And every eight to ten years I have to order a tank truck to suck the stuff up, pay 200 € (about 250 US $), fill it with clean water and the cycle starts again.

Now it is well known that not all houses over here and elsewhere in rural France are thus equipped. Many farmers have simply a covered-up shit hole like their forefathers and are happy with this. But not the administration. So they voted a new law obliging every rural household to equip themselves with an up to date septic tank.

In order to win over the reluctant bone heads, the local administration organized meetings. Rough going. There was this old peasant yelling "I won't install your shit tank, only over my dead body". And adding, for good measure: "what we have is perfect and satisfied my family for 50 years. It works perfectly! Perfectly I tell you!!"





The last words were probably a mistake. There were catcalls. "Hey, Marcel, don't you remember the postman, some years ago? He fell into your shit hole with a letter for you and he couldn't even come out by himself. There was laughter, everybody roared. Even old Marcel joined in, at least he was in the center of interest. He'll do the job like everybody else and shell out the money.

So much for the basics.

The next step was to send an inspector to every house in the realm. The guy comes, you show him what you have, he makes an analysis of your system and gives you four year for upgrading. Here at home, I just had to upgrade by installing a ventilation and this I did.







On the last photo, you see the red-brown pipe chimney right above the gutter. That's me, I did it. And believe me, IT DOES NOT STINK. Halleluja!!

The European Union

Some years ago, there were referendums in every country belonging to the European Union to adopt a common constitution.

This project went down the drain because the French and Dutch voters posted a majority of NO.

Some months later my brother in law told me he had voted against it. "Why did you do this", I asked him. "Well", he said, "I voted against it because I did not know what they were up to".



This guy is a very decent chap, good family man, very friendly. Nevertheless, he rejected a project only because he was too lazy to find out what was going on.

It's a fact: far too many people do not seem to know what a united Europe has done to them. At every election for the European Parliament voters' participation goes down. Now it was 42 % in Germany, 33 % in France and 25% in Poland. Just to give an example.

Before the creation of the EU, there were not even a dozen years without a war, in any century. That fact alone should make all of us sturdy supporters of the idea.

But no!

On this planet, nothing is permanent. And it could well be that in fifty years from now, the EU is only a souvenir. Thanks to its lukewarm citizen who let it happen.

It might be useful to quote here Albert Einstein: Only human stupidity gives us an idea what infinity really means.

FLOWERS AND MUSIC

This is truly "le joli mois de Mai", everything is so colorful, especially here in the countryside.

This post has two aims. First, I would like to pay a little homage to two bloggers, Berenice and Betmo, who published beautiful pictures of flowers and nature in general. So this video is dedicated to both of them.




Like everybody, or nearly, I like very different kinds of music. But very much on top is the wonderful warm and clear voice of Lucia Popp. She was above all an accomplished and beautiful opera singer. But I have also recordings of children's songs and operetta arias. Here is her photo



The song on the video is "Du mein Schönbrunn". A very melodious, beautiful but nostalgic aria about Empress Maria-Theresia's love for the castle and garden of Schönbrunn. Here are two photos of the place.






Don't miss to pay a visit to Castle Schönbrunn when in Vienna/Austria. That's Old Europe.

People and faces

A fortnight ago my wife told me we need a break. So we took off for a long weekend in Périgord, just 2 1/2 hours' drive from here.

Instead of making photos as I did during all my life, I am trying to get the same thing done per video. Life is movement - at least for most of us - and thus a photo is something artificial, same as those black and white pictures made 25 years ago.

It must be said however, making a good video is darn difficult. So, please, look at this with leniency.

The part of the young woman sitting in the grass smoking and reading near her little dog is endearing though. And near the end, there is that Arab woman who looks quite forlorn, somehow lost in a strange country. The little beautiful girl munching a sandwich. At the end yours truly.





My camera has an optical zoom of 12 and a digital zoom of 48. That is a lot and I can look at people without being seen. I don't bother them and they don't bother me. I am not a peeping Tom, kind of voyeur. It's just I like to see people go through their everyday life. So there is nothing special here, just life. Your life, my life.