Mandara Mountains, Cameroon

Today I finished watching "Chocolat" 1988 by Claire Denis, a movie about the life of a family in northernn Cameroon during the last years of French colonial rule. The film is no doubt complex, well-done, captivating, controversial and very very beautiful.

What I cannot get out of my mind are the landscapes, the scenery surrounding the characters. This film has pherhaps the most beautiful shots of mountains that I have ever seen. It is my kind of place: dry, flat yellow fields and then, mountains. Pieces of rock one could marvel at for a life-time, to try to figure out the secret the monolith seems to keep. To try to understand how did such greatness come into existence. The landscape of peaceful comtemplation, of tension and of beauty. The film could not have a better location.



After some reseach I discovered the mountains are the Mandara Mountains, a volcanic range between Northern Cameroon and Nigeria. They are off the tourist track (which does not include Cameroon for a start) and are well known for their rich cultural and environmental value.

It takes less than 600 euros to fly from Lisbon to Cameroon and back, by Marroc Air. I think one could probably get around with a working knowledge of French (at least in the bigger centers).

Some day, some day soon, I am going to the Mandara Mountains. I will go to Cameroon.

Portrait of a junkie

When you describe yourself in the first day of class as a "Political junkie", when you stutter apparently out of excitement, tremble enought to take you half an hour to turn a page, have your eyes open (no blinking) for over 5 minutes, gesticulate in discordinated manner, jump in the direction of the people you are speaking to and cannot stop shaking,

... maybe Politics is not the only thing you are getting high on.

Knitting is sexy!

Knitting and crochet : associated with grandmothers and unnatractive middle aged women with nothing better to do.

I say: wrong! And I ask: cna knitting be sexy?
You bet!

If not, take a look at the designs I found on a Brazilian website:


And it comes with instructions....

More patterns:




Take that, stereotype!

Bring back the Spice Girls

So, let us skip over Christmas, NEw Years and all that.

Over the last weeks I have gathered a number of concerns. Here they come then.

First, PLEASE bring back the Spice Girls. Let me contextualize the claim.

Some weeks ago I came accross a channel airing "Hannah Montana", the show. After 3 minutes I felt itchy all over and had a small "ihhhhhh" sound on my head. It was that annoying. Then, after some days I get "Party in the USA" the viodeclip, thrown at me on another channel. That is when I decided to by the vintage radio that is now my company and joy. Back to topic, I had a chance to share a couple of days of the holiday celebration with a lovely little girl that I've known for a while. She is quite bright. I thaught her how to knit and told her about Charles Darwin and the theory of natural selection. You can imagine my surprise when she tells me how Hannah Montana is her idol, the highest exponent of her world, values, wishes and desires.

Troubled I cmae home and asked myself (and my mom, who has a better memory) what silly pop songs did I like when I was 6. One answer: the Spice Girls. We loved them back then. The ice-breaker in kindergarden was: "Which of the Spice Girls would you like to be?". Time for a comparative study. I watched numerous videoclips, listened to interviews, etc. Then I put "Party in the USA" on. Seriously: bring back the Spice Girls!!!

1 - They had awesome clothes, outrageous, creative. The platform shoes.... We dreamed of those shoes! This other character/person dresses like she is either going to the super maket, or she is going to work at some dubious bar where old truck drivers stare at the waitresses.

2- Her dad! Always everywhere ... it is weird, and disturbing. The Spice Girls were those independent grown up people.

3- The Spice Girls didn't just sing on stage, they shocked, they challenged, they were loud, they were eccentric, they were theatrical . Myley Cryus is boring and the example of american teen conformity....

4- The Spice Girls were sexy and they were old enough to drink. They had short skirts and thight outfits and they were totally in charge of what was going on. This other comtemporary pseudo-star is so little, fragile, YOUNG, and slutty.

5 - Spice Girls imagine = "girl power", friendship, originality, different personalities (their alter-egos were the embodiment of that diversity). Hannah Montana: mid west America, being nice, friendly, "dreams can come true"... give a break.

6 - the ultimate argument: what kind of name is Hannah Montana???????


So, please, bring back the SPICE GIRLS, so that this new generation of little girls can look up to some slightly more interesting pop singers.

And, by the way, Geri was my favourite.

From Denver, with love - reflections on a week in Minnesota and random memories from the late 1990's

Here I am again, in an airport. It is 4:20 p.m. 2 hours more 'till my flight starts boarding, if on time.

And, judging by the snow outside this one of those times I should be wishing and hoping and praying for my flight not to be delayed (or cancelled... uhm... stick with the other scenario). Too bad, I have little faith in any attempt to change or better the mysterious ways in which airplanes, airways and related stuff works. Just get me to the place as fast as possible all in one piece. That's good enough.

But I don't mind, this was such a goooood week. I got to hang out with friends, very good ones. Ex- 2nd years, co-years and first years from the UWC era. Amazing beautiful people that I had not seen in years. Yet, it seemed that was just a couple of days. And just saying hi to people who went to school with me in Norway... They always have a great smile for you, a couple of minutes to chat, to ask how are you and mean it. Even if they were not your closets friends, they were there, they know, and they were part of it. And there is this bond....

(I'm listening to stuff that remind me of when I was little. Things from this naive age of radios and bad school days

e.g.

)

This break was really like food for the soul. Good conversations, familiar faces, strange faces, a completely crazy dried up arctic-like climate, buses, planes, sleepless nights, colleges, breaksfasts and dinners and lunches, random encounters, Christmas shopping with friends, laughs. It was a reassuring week. It told me the world is still a marvelous place, in all the ways I thought it was. It showed me love is still around, friends are still there and the smiles still express genuine feelings.

(More childhood memories: )


On to more universally serious business:
Why did every pop singer in the nineties have short platinium blonde hair??

I was still in oblivion regarding social trends in hairstyle at that point in life, but a coherent attempt of explanantion by some more enlightened soul would be appreciated.

A flight at 3 Am

I am at Vanocuver International Airport and I am blessed by the gift of free wireless and my laptop actually being with me.

I had to take the opportunity to write a post truly in the spirit, or original spirit, of this blog. It is now 3:30 am and I have been here since midnight roughly. My flight is not untill 7. The perfect mental conditions are created for me to write on the most random tone. Or pherhaps not so random. It is hard to predict what the natural high of long hours without sleeping can do.

All around, cleaning staff, the occasional traveler, in fact, not much. This is a dull airport. Plus, it's hard to find a place to plug-in your latptop.

I just watched "Oscar and Lucinda". The first question that comes to mind is Why does everyone die? But that is too easy... The other is, what about a glass church? I think it is a splendorous idea. I once read a book by Aldous Huxley in which he explained the psychadelic, so to call it, properties of stained glass. He said that it works in the same way some drugs do: if you stare at it long enough you might just visit parts of your counsciousness that you never imagined could exist. I have a project based on this idea. A sort of meditative project, if you would call it so. I plan to choose the most beautiful vitrals in Europe, buy a train ticket and spend a month going from church to church to stare instensely at this glass. I might bring some precious and semi-precious stones along, Aldous said they help too. It requires work, it is not like just some pill you can take. Altering counsciousness with vitrals must be extremely tough. But it is an art I hope to acquire, even if only on a small and initial degree.

I just finished re-reading a paper a friend sent me on the difference between Dao and Nirvana in a Chan interpretation. I discovered that, even if teh topic is new, it is widely refreshing and engaging just because it is not Anglo-saxonic philosophy. I mean, it might be in method, but not in theme. Having come accross the brutal fact of Philosophical life that is the regional division of teh subject. I feel it is important to try to put things together, to be able to be fluent in a number of subjects but also a number of prespectives. Obviously I am neither. But I hope to approach such a state someday. We can only hope to understand a significant part of the endless films, books and ideas around us. I myself wish I could pause time, read, see and feel everything there is in this world, then resume. Foolish, yet indicative of an overwhelming feeling of ignorance. The human condition or the sleepless condition?

No more of this non-sense. Let's fill out some US customs paperwork.

On Vampires

There are vampires all over the place.

For someone who was terrified of even switching the channel to "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" in her younger years, had nightmares after hearing a small plot summary of "Interview with the Vampire" and did not like goign to attic because of some vampire story.... this could be a problem. Except! Vampires now are sexy, sweet and not really that ... terrifying anymore!

So, finding the balance: How do we get back to the sensual attractive yet mortally scary and macabre vampire figure back? How do we keep the allure and charm without going "American highschoolish"?

(yes, these are the great questions of existence that come to mind while writing 3 essays in a week...)

A role model must be found. An actual being we can just stare at and have some sort of adoration for. I propose we go back to the 80's. not my favourite decade, for sure. But I must admit... there was Peter Murphy. Probably the sexy yet macabre figure my imagination needs right now.

´

I love listening to Bauhaus. I know.. I know... they were sort of the beggining of the Goth scene and all that. No contradiction: still love them. And specially Peter Murphy. The sort of epic tone, the whole body-language and dramatism... And he is the embodiment of the vampire figure: the light eyes, the elegantly thin face and the slender floating posture. But nothing sweet about him, nothing boyish, nothing particularly tamed. He had that wild energy, and the perfectly calm face, that surprise element about him.



So, just because we are talking about vampires I will take the opportunity to leave a small note. Two movies everyone that goes to see those new vampire stories in the cinmea should see beforehand. Just helps judging what is going on. By this I do not mean the comtemporary stuff is totally a waste of time. What I believe, is that one must see it in perspective and contextualise. Then the actual beauty and message of such comtemporary releases might actually be properly appreciated. So, besides reading "Romeo and Juliet" again and some assorted ultra-romantic 19th century European literature, people should look this up.




1. Nosferatu : YEs, the 1920's version. First vampire movie ever. Important, amazing. Probably the 1979 Werner Herzog version is as good (haven't had a chance to see it). But ntohing beats the 20's when it comes to special effects and terror movies.





2. The Hunger. Tony Scott directing Susan Sarandon, Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie in the 1980's. It's perfect. Every little scene of it. And it starts with Bauhaus performing "Bela Lugosi's dead". In my opinion, probably the best vampire movie ever.