Lingering at the fork
A stony wall
Borrowed my shoes
To let me sleep
But I could not
Fearing old dreams
Like a name
Behind a curtain
Yet it has been a long while
Since I lost my shoes
At the fork of the road
When I could
Not
Reach
The lake
September 30, 2024
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2024
I do not watch modern movies. Rather, I prefer to sink in my old leather chair that has adopted the shape of my anatomy and have my 125 pound Akita sleep nearby, and somehow keep one ear up to listen to the B&W movies from the 1930s and 1950s. A time travel perhaps, but like in still photography, a movie in B&W lets me follow the story rather than being distracted by colour.
This changed yesterday when, as I was flipping through the channels, I saw scenery I had seen in Ireland before. Or at least close to it. So I stopped and checked the movie title. It read “The Banshees of Inisherin”. I did not recognise any of these words, so my curiosity kept me on that channel.
It is indeed a 2022 Irish film with Irish actors, in a most beautiful island setting during the end of the Irish Civil War in 1923. The main character Pádraic is a quiet man, who lives in a stone house with his sister, and has a miniature donkey as a pet. He and his sister Siobháome sleep in the same room, in separate beds. The plot revolves around the theme of sadness and loneliness, as Pádraic’s best friend, Colm, decided to reject the friendship and opt for being left alone to pursue his musical inspiration of writing a new violin composition. As such, the plot is simple, revolves around the feelings of three central characters, and explores the darkness of rejection, loneliness and ensuing violence. Indeed, Colm after finishing his new violin piece decides to “punish” Pádraic’s insistence to “be nice” again, by cutting his own left hand fingers and throwing them against Pádraic’s home front door. Unfortunately, the fourth central character, the miniature donkey named Jenny swallows one of Colm’s cut fingers and chokes to death on it. Pádraic’s revenge is to burn Colm’s home although Colm escapes from the fire.
The plot may be simple, but the acting, the scenery of the island and the dialogue are engaging and breathtaking. A few moments resonated in me intensely, in part because they spoke to my own beliefs and life experience, but also they reminded me of the attitude of Irish friends I have had. In one instance, Colm responds to Pádraic’s question as to why he sits alone in the pub, drinks his pint of Guinness and is obsessed with the goal of writing his last violin piece.
Colin says that being nice or
friendship) may not last “But will I tell
ya something that does last?”
“What? And don't say somethin' stupid like music” replies Pádraic.
“Music lasts. And paintings last. And poetry lasts.” states Colm.
Simple, yet it touches on universality, identity and purpose. Friendship is an individual need, but continuing the inherited responsibility of transmitting, often without knowing to whom, the panhuman need to have an identity through the arts is a much more worthy pursuit.
And after finishing his violin piece, Colin cuts his left hands fingers so he cannot play the violin again. But he throws these fingers at Pádraic’s house door; Jenny the donkey swallows one finger and chokes to death.
After burying Jenny in his yard, Pádraic goes to confront Colin.
“So, let's just call it quits and agree to go our separate ways, for
good this time” Colin proposes
“Your fat fingers killed me little donkey today. So, no, we won't call
it quits. We'll call it the start”
“You're jokin' me”
Yeah, no. I'm not jokin' ya. So tomorrow, Sunday, God's day, around
2:00, I'm going to call up to “your house and I'm gonna set fire to it, and
hopefully you'll still be inside it. But I won't be checkin' either way. Just
be sure and leave your dog outside. I've nothing against that gom. Or you can
do whatever's in your power to stop me. To our graves we're taking this. To one
of our graves, anyways” Pádraic gives the ultimatum.
.. I was delighted to spend 2 hours in my old leather seat, but my dog was not. In many ways, he is my Jenny, and he was hungry for dinner.
After feeding him, I checked the Internet about the movie. Here is a small sample of the recognition it has received:
The film had its world premiere on the 5th of September 2022 at the 79th Venice International Film Festival. It was theatrically released in Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States on October 21, 2022. It won four Academy Film Awards as Outstanding Film, Best Actor in Supporting Role, Best Actress in Supporting role, and Best Original Screenplay.
The film was also named one of the Top Ten Films of 2022 by the National Board of Review. It has since been cited as among the best films of the 2020s and the 21st century so far.
But it is said that the film was not as well received in Ireland. Why?
It seems that it is not as much about the film but about the rather subjective definition of “irishness.” Although I have difficulty in fully understanding the argument, there have been suggestions that Martin McDonagh who wrote the script and directed the film does not understand “irishness” since he was born in London and raised by parents from the West of Ireland. Yet, for viewers like me, it is the film that attracts us as a work of art. It explores panhuman concepts of loneliness but recognises the need for personal space promoting creativity. It is dark and joyful, addresses the need for friendship, of being kind while at the same time lets the viewer vagabonding through questions about human nature. I found myself lending my eyes and ears to the movie, but in parallel, ponder on such concepts as “no one is a prophet in his own village” and “the wound is an opening through which light comes in.”
.. In the late 1970s I worked in Doha, Qatar as part of a group of multinational team in structuring Primary Care and developing a national health and epidemiology computerised information system. The country had embarked on adopting western models and technologies to healthcare information infrastructure, in parallel to new urban architecture and landscaping developments through expatriate institutions and professionals. The healthcare team comprised of professionals from Australia, Egypt, France, Ireland and Lebanon.
We soon realised that outside of professional work, all socialization was within that circle of expatriates in the desert environment that was new to most of us. And we discovered that many of us were there for a single personal reason – finding a space, for a couple of years, for themselves. It was a self-selected group that sometimes needed a break from their previous lives; sometimes escaped harsh times like civil wars; and, often needed the change of environment to be alone. The desert was perfect for that – in fact, it was an oasis of sorts.
The Irish team consisted of nurses. They worked in the health centers, and their leader, the “Matron”, worked at the Ministry of Health in advising the Ministry about the proper organization of Primary Care nursing. She was a colourful character, always joyful, and extremely competent. It was only after work hours, in social settings that she became what most of the team was – a person with a past who had found her space for a short period of time. Once, she admitted that there was some “lovely pretending” to keep all around her happy. “Pretending is like Cork gin” she put it, “cheap but still great for breakfast!”
Two decades later I received a letter informing me that she was diagnosed with neuroblastoma. “Why the frecken brain?” she asked, “What is wrong with uterine or breast cancer?” She lost her battle after a few months.
I thought about her while watching the movie. And, after almost half a century later, I recalled the first time I saw a report she had sent to the Director of Health at the Qatari Ministry that ended with:
“Eventually Yours”
And as I writing, I smiled remembering what she always said when an international expert was invited to evaluate our team’s goals. Specifically:
“An expert is anyone
from another country who wears a tie”
I do not know if that was “irishness” but it was the Irish way I knew. That was being the bon vivant in any environment. In just a few words.
PS/ there is a scene where Colm, unable to play his violin after self-mutilation, directs his fellow musicians to play his new work, in the pub. He was done playing his violin – he was done fiddling with his search for a tune that justifies his existence. Interestingly, although he was pleased to create a new musical piece, it did not sound a real departure from traditional Irish music for violin and balladeer. Perhaps when we look for change and new discovery, we sometimes cannot dissociate ourselves from who we are and from our heritage.
September 23, 2024
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2024
I may find again
The promise and the calm
We once thought
As a stormy story
It was an old
story
Yet poetry and ordinary
And lonesome walks
In smoky train stations
And, like after an August rain
Waves left the mossy rocks
And the beach dried in the sun
Still touching the bluest sea
And I found, in that respite,
The promise to walk on unmoon nights
Without leaving shadows behind
And it became my road
My way
September 8, 2024
Just before sunrise, when I was
walking my dog in a narrow street, I came face to face with Pietro Calvi’s
Othello. It was a bit surreal, and I blamed the vision to the weak coffee I had
brewed.
But it was real. There it was, outside
the house, on the concrete, Othello’s bust that made Calvi famous in 1870. It was homage
by Calvi to the African American actor Ira Aldridge, the first Black actor to
play Othello in England in 1825.
There were ten versions of the
marble and bronze bust and I had seen one of them in the Walters Art Museum in
Baltimore. Now, I was facing a plaster duplica, left on the ground, in
Prescott, Arizona. It was beautifully done though, although the desert weather
had taken its toll. But Desdemona’s handkerchief was there, so was the single
tear on Othello’s face.
I took a quick picture and I move
on. My dog did not seem to appreciate Shakespeare interfering with his morning
walk.
A mile or so in to the walk,
somehow, I thought of Leonard Cohen. Perhaps it was the tortured soul of Othello;
or the influence L. Cohen’s poetry has had on my youth. It was a fond memory,
and I did not mind letting my dog extend his morning promenade longer than
usual.
… It was 1976 and I was a college
student in Montreal. We were francophone then, but L. Cohen was already a rebel
troubadour for my generation. I recall going to one of his concerts in
Vancouver, even though we did not understand all his words – but we did
associate with his persona and outlook.
The last time I saw L. Cohen was in
2009, at the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia Maryland. He was an old man
now, and it was one of his last concerts. Now his voice had given way to all
the wisdom his life had allowed him to keep.
For me, it was like turning the last
page of a book, knowing the ending, but still hoping for a surprise.
When I came back home and fed my
dog, I brewed a stronger pot of coffee and let my experience and feelings of
the morning walk find their war in and into words.
Here is what came out – not surprisingly
Cohenesque lines within that single tear on Othello’s face:
Life
is designed to overthrow you
While
you write to clear your mind
About
what can be
On
blank paper that once was a proud tree
And
it wasn't an offering
But
was offered, anyhow
And
your words
Looked
like a wooden bowl
Tasting
of honey
And
your song sounded like a newborn
Learning
from you
About
you
Knowing
he will become you
One
day
After
his first heartbreak
Life
is designed to overthrow you
Even
when you're at the foothills
Of
where sunsets burn the clouds
To
shade names
And
bathe sad brown eyes
In
offering
August 17, 2024
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2024
Around the bend
There were naked trees
Letting the breeze through
Shading their own roots
In snow and
Greeting lonesome souls
But I walked by
To follow the road
And when I reached the meadows
Where in rocks I once covered
A name I had given
To those I had not yet met
I looked back.
The road was following me
July 21, 2024
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2024
The summer heat has settled upon Arizona’s desert,
and I have to minimize my outdoor activities for a short while. My dog agrees, and takes only two long walks these days – one before sunrise, and another two
hours after sunset.
So, this morning I found refuge in thoughts
especially about seas and lakes.
The Mediterranean, the bluest of seas, shaped my
youth. As an adult I have traveled on and around all the oceans of our planet
and countless lakes. Yet, when I think of the Mediterranean, the origin of the
Greek words nostos and algos always come to mind. The western
combination of these words is nostalgia, translated as “acute homesickness”, or
returning home (nostos) and pain (algos).
As a healthcare professional, I spent many years in
Italy, especially Bari, Bologna and Ferrara. At the University of Bologna I
learned about Giovanni Pascoli, a 19th century poet and homme des letters.
His poetry was a celebration of the quotidian, written simply but with a touch
of mysticism. One of his poems, title “Mare”
(Sea) is a classic.
I had not read that poem for decades, and this
morning’s nostalgia lead me to a search for “Mare”.
I found a lovely literary blog site by Matilda
Colarossi, a writer who translates in English classic and modern fiction Italian
works. Her translation of Pascoli’s “Mare”
is beautifully done and can be found via this link: https://paralleltexts.blog/2022/06/08/giovanni-pascoli-mare-sea/
Here is the
poem, in its original language and the translation to English by Colarossi:
|
Mare
|
Sea |
Celebrating the daily moments many of us take for
granted or find ordinary has been the impetus of the expression genres I have pursued
in the past half a century. As a photographer, I have looked for stories in
streets of four continents, and captured them in B&W. My first book was a
novella, and the half a dozen that followed were travel stories about people
and places. My poetry was published in anthologies and British medical journals
always dealing with people’s attitudes to the basic joys, fears and hopes, no
matter their cultural inheritance, language they spoke or history they never
forget.
As such, it has always been about “returning home”,
the pain of that return never shadowing the joy of each return. It has been
about nostalgia, which I have renamed as “The
Salmon Syndrome” – we return home to give a chance for the next generations
to return home, at their own time, for one last time.
Back to Pascoli’s poem.
The first stanza’s imagery is elegant yet simple. We all have experienced the waves and stars
when near a sea. What breaks that usual scenery is poet’s description of the
sea suddenly sighing, winds exhaling and the waters acquiring a human
expression. And, there is the mysticism – a silver bridge appears out of that
transformation. More, that bridge is not only in or above the sea, but the poet
has also seen it over “silent lakes”, bodies of water that perhaps do not sigh,
and winds do not exhale. And Pascoli suggests that silver bridges are made for
lakes, even when he sees one in the sea.
Those four short lines make us think. Not about the
poet, but about ourselves. Where do these bridges lead? Is the sea, home of
rivers, also home of lakes? Are those bridges even more transcendent as paths
to our own consciousness? Do they make us homesick, be that of a terrestrial or
a mystic home?
… And, I recalled a moment in Trento, next to Lago
Di Caldonazzo, with a friend. We looked at the calm lake but somehow she
thought of bridges too, and used a charming Italian saying to bring her own
thoughtful mysticism to the apparent serenity surrounding us:
“Ma, l’aqua cheta la butta giú I ponti” –
our best bridges can be destroyed by calm waters.
I wrote about that moment here: https://vahezen.blogspot.com/2023/04/i-muri-hanno-orecchi-ma-aqua-in-bocca.html
I am glad it is 102F degrees outside and that my dog
is snoring under my desk as I write. It was a refreshing, memories journey back to
Bologna and re-reading Pascoli’s “Mare”.
PS/ The photo of the bridge is one I took in Paris,
over the Seine. The man on the river wall is pensive. The bridge is not made of silver. And the ducks are listening to the water sigh.
July 4, 2024
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2024
Metamorphosis. Every artist dreams of transforming a sheep skin, a papyrus, a stone or a petrified drift wood into a story to share. And in the process, to become what she or he always was.
… The heat is back to the desert and I found a cool corner to think, with my dog gently snoring under my desk.
And I recalled how for decades, at medical and public health conferences, I was introduced as a “storyteller” not a man who may have ideas about epidemics and human behaviour. Or human behaviour and epidemics. In a way, I had become who I always was – one who observes and finds a story to tell. By writing, photography, or mixing colours on whatever I could find to call a canvas.
Telling a story goes beyond reporting, though. It is a search that involves those shaping that story. It is how we transform a casual observation into becoming personal, for each reader or listener. In that sense, an artist is a chemist, mixing substances and elements in search of that transformation into a new one.
Interestingly, the oldest definition of chemistry is “Al Chemia” in Arabic, and the Western term Alchemy derived from it but took on a new meaning vis à vis the scientific patina of chemistry. Alchemy became that search for transforming lead to gold; common materials to precious ones; and, the analysis of the inner flow as secrets rivers run in each one of us.
It became synonymous with the obstinate search of the Philosopher’s Stone, a term cornered by a French bookseller in 1382.
And the world rediscovered the Greek word for changing shape from metamorphoum to metamorphösis and became the Latin equivalent of transformation. Centuries later, using the observation of a moth becoming a butterfly, social and clinical psychoanalysis was born when Jung and Freud found their way to tell a story based on the behaviour of those they observed.
… As a health care professional, I visualised psychoanalysis as a psychiatrist, holding a fishing rod, casting into those inner secrets rivers. A simple image yet a comforting one. Not in that the fisherman was allowed to have access to our secret rivers, but because of the fact that we all have those rivers.
However, and over time, I learned to wonder if those rivers know (or knew) where to flow. If the butterfly still has the moth in it. Hence if we just see a transformation in shape but not in nature and identity. In other words, that we discover the Philosopher’s Stone only when we realise that lead will remain lead even if we can transform its appearance to a shiny yellow.
In a less grandiose way, I came to believe that the Philosopher’s Stone can be bone, metal, cloud or water. That the wisdom we may discover in telling the story of our search, the alchemy of our own intellectual or emotional metamorphosis is in celebrating the heritage of the moth.
… The heat is back to the desert and my dog is snoring under my desk.
June 15, 2024
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2024
