Words and Pictures (and Music)

It happened again. First, days are passing by unhurriedly like a slow river and then - all of a sudden - an avalanche of emotions and events come over you; there must be some kind of a physical law about it… 

Completely surprising evening yesterday in a company of John Buttrick. John performed at the Zurich's Jecklin Musikhaus  - Mozart, Brahms, and Schubert - the atmosphere was intimate and magic. Then more magic happened when I found myself drinking wine in a company of this brilliant person and his friends. Inspiring music, inspiring people. 

And inspiring movies. "Words and pictures" is the best film I have seen in months (even that it got poor critics), and no, not because it was Clive Owen who played a leading role of an English teacher with a serious alcohol problem. Although to be honest, Clive Owen can just lie on a sofa for an hour and a half I ll still watch :-).   Juliette Binoche was brilliant too playing an artist suffering from a severe rheumatoid arthritis. 

And books. I came across several good books lately. It has been ages since I read fiction in Russian, and for Christmas I got a novel by Lyudmila Ulitskaya, a successful Russian author and activist. 

photo: The New Yorker

"A book can be an inspiration or a murder weapon. Ulitskaya is fascinated by these transformations, but even more so by the peculiar trajectories that create fate—the travels of a person, a picture, a book. If there is a strange journey to be traced, she cannot resist the retelling." ( The New Yorker) 

I am reading her novel “Daniel Stein, Interpreter,” based on the life of Oswald Rufeisen, Holocaust survivor turned Carmelite monk. This book is a journey in time and space, the plot takes you from Belorussian woods, occupied by fascists in the 1940s, to Palestine in the 60es and America of the 80s. Each page is punctured with reflections on politics and religion, and destiny. 

So this is what I wanted to share with you before the slow river of boredom takes over me again. Until the next tsunami. 

Good night and good morning.

Love,

AB