Out in the open

The story has it, that when God was distributing the riches, Switzerland was at the end of the list of countries :-), and there was nothing left to receive… God looked around sheepishly, and said “And you will have a beautiful nature!” Well, at least that’s an official version. I think it was a little different: “And you will have a beautiful nature and many open air festivals!”, He'd say.

Summers in Switzerland are great. Even the drama of the global warming (it does get hotter all over) seems cheerful and non-dramatic. People simply line up on the banks of Reus, Aare, Rein, and Limmat; they switch from “kafi lutz” to white wine spritzers and iced coffees (I am having a caramel flavored one this very moment), and they wait till the sun goes down so they could move to the next of many open air events.

Live at sunset. 14. to 25. July, Zurich

www.liveatsunset.ch

There are so many, it becomes a challenge: amusement is time consuming, and the tickets are not cheap either. The concert of the “Element of crime” last Saturday was worth every rappen.

Even though I couldn’t understand all the German texts, their sentimental music made be blink back the tears a couple of times. Here is one in English "Nervous and blue":

I'm out on the street, I stroll about town, and I don't know why

I find myself watching the ducks in this lake, and I don't know why

I don't wanna see you, I'm not in the mood, and I don't wanna talk to you either

I ain't got no food for the ducks and I ain't got no idea what to do

I'm just feeling so nervous and blue

Out of a snackbar, filled up with coffee, and worries 'bout me and you

I didn't expect them fighting in this very street

I'm suddenly mixed up with trouble I suddenly find myself down on my knees

Warm blood running down over my face and I wonder if a whisky would do

I'm just feeling so nervous and blue

I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you so

Whatever I do, I beg you to keep that in mind

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry that I can't be all yours all the time

But don't you ever, don't you ever think I was hiding from you

I'm just feeling so nervous and blue

I'm feeling so nervous and blue

And this song makes me miss the rain; everything is way too happy in summer, dont you think? (if you want to listen to the song, press the Pause button on the music player on the right side, otherwise two songs will overlap...)

My next open air destination - Blue Balls festival in Luzern next Friday.  From 18h to 20h in the Pavillon performs Peter Finc, Badener and my former neighbor. Here is a link to his music: http://www.peterfinc.com/  

And there is the 63rd Locarno Film Festival, of course

4-14/08/2010.

By the way, speaking of summer beverages. A friend brought me a curious present – a neat bottle of Absinth35. “For creativity”, as he put it. Does anyone know refreshing absinth recipes? Meanwhile I stick to my iced coffee and enjoy the creativity of others.

Have a great week and we see us out there in the open!

Love, Anna

Fortunes and fortune tellers

Ok, unpacking is boring. It might take days. Unless there are new exciting things waiting to come out of the suitcase. And this is always the case when I come back from my Silk road trips.

I like clean uncluttered interiors, and I am really happy that our new/old house still has a great capacity to welcome my little treasures. The newly acquired painting “Nostalgia ” is the queen of the evening, of course. I hung it the very same day, jet lag or no jet lag. It seems like I had it forever. I can’t hold myself from posting this photo. There is always a little space for nostalgia…

I am also a proud owner of an antique “suzane”. I still don’t know where to install it, but I am still a proud owner :)

Semi precious stones, ceramics and silver hand-crafted jewelry are something to consider bringing back as well.

Oh, and the (good) fortune telling. To be frank I am a little afraid of fortune tellers, but not this time. The mood was light, the price was fair, and the fortune lady looked nothing like one, it was rather a joke than adventure (ok, a little adventure). She told me a lot of good stuff (perhaps because I warned her NOT to tell me the bad stuff). I can’t tell what it was, otherwise it won’t come true :)

Oh, speaking of new interiors, Teatro Palino and the UnvermeidBar are re-opening this coming Friday. The second floor is available now and the brand new kitchen with fancy cocktails and delicious treats.

Have a great week everyone and only good news for all!

Love, Anna

P.S. And for those of you who hint I haven’t been posting much of my own works lately, I post a fragment of my new painting “Sleeping blackbirds”. For mosaic parts I am using motifs of early islamic tiles. I like this one, with lotus heads in cobalt-blue, turquoise and bole red...magical, almost hypnotic. 

Nostalgia

My little niece Lidia is born under the constellation Aquarius and she is a water freak. She was promised a trip Tashkent when I come to visit, to Aquapark, the famous aquatic fantasy of my childhood.

We are back this afternoon and today is the hottest day that I can remember. As our heated beyond all limits taxi rolled on melting asphalt away from blurry from the heat border, I looked out of the car window at the sun-burned steppe, and only one thought could console me: I've got Nostalgia.

Here is the story. Stealing a few hours from our amusement program (amusement takes a lot of energy and time!) I took a taxi to “Broadway” street; in my student years it was the center of art, culture, and night life of Tashkent. Things have changed since then.

The area close to the presidential palace is cleaned up, reconstructed, and…fenced. Wide, clean, and empty streets; monumental, well-lit buildings create an impression of one endless mausoleum.

I miss the noisy, kitschy Broadway; but marching along unrecognizable quiet streets I find a few art dealers. Looking through hundreds of canvases I notice a small painting which is standing out among the others, or rather it looks a little lonely there. Something in it touches me deeply, but I can’t quite place it… Perhaps it makes me think of me and my sister (I would have been the half-headed one…). Or the sad fox on the background reminds me of the little prince. I pick it up and guess what? The author is born and grew up in Tajikistan. All become even clearer to me when I find out the title... “Nostalgia”.

I want to know the artist.  The very next day I steal few more hours from our amusement program, and meet Bakhtiyor Umarov. We talk. He shows me a catalog of his works: canvases radiate humor and optimism; his personages are grotesque, naïve, and full of life.

He explains: "“Nostalgia” is somewhat different, experimental..." He exposed in London and Paris. And he is extremely modest. I want to see more of his work. Bakhtiyor gives me addresses of galleries I can visit. He signs “Nostalgia” for me, we say “Goodbye”, and I hail another taxi to dart across the city to Art Gallery Caravan One to have a look at this painting.

Time rolls a few centuries back as I step inside the Caravan One. Tasteful design, hand-made fabrics and tableware, beautiful paintings on the walls - inevitablly with Oriental aura - everything breathes history and tradition.

I am fifteen minutes early for a vernissage; I am invited and I stay. Airy and detailed graphic drawings hung in the courtyard are by Khilola Shermatova, it is her vernissage tonight. She is beautiful and radiant; Peri is the first word which comes to mind...

People arrive. Even the shower doesn’t seem to spoil the magic, on the contrary, it feels like a good omen.

I feel a little emotional all of a sudden; my freedom, my “rootlessness” doesn’t seem like an advantage anymore, it feels, well, lonely. Perhaps it is only nostalgia; perhaps it is time to go home…

3000 miles away

3023 miles to be precise. I am lying on a comfy sofa, clicking away on my computer; Fashion TV is murmuring on the background (good motivation technique not to eat in the evening :-), yet everything feels different, everything IS different. I am in some other dimension, another era, a different planet.

I am in Alexandria Eschate (English meaning "Alexandria the Farthest"), the final destination of Alexander the Great. Alexandria Eskhata was founded by Alexander III of Macedon in August 329 BCE as his most northerly base in Central Asia. Alexander built a 6 kilometer brick wall around the city which, according to the ancient authors, was completed in only about twenty days.

Nowadays Khojent is a modern city, but it’s history continues to live in folk tales, in the architecture, and, of course, on the markets.

Here I am, at one of the biggest markets of Sogdian region - "Panjshanbe" (The name translates from Farsi as "Thursday").

Ground floor is occupied by food merchants. Here one can buy warm bread, vegetables and fruit, meat, flour, nuts, honey and oils.

Arches of the first floor are thousands of little shops where I got lost immediately. Carpets, iPods (for 20 USD), real and fake diamonds, hairproducts and DVD players…you can find almost anything here.  

I don't need diamonds today; I am here to look at people. Tajiks are full of life, even in the midst of the heat (which is rather impressive- the heat, I mean). They are curious and willing to strike a conversation, they laugh and make jokes. Women are more reserved and shy. 

Most women wear calf-long colorful dresses and matching pants underneath. Hair is normally covered with a scarf (or two, depending on the degree of religiousness). Many young and middle age women dress in “European” clothes, skirts and business suits. 98 % of population is very tolerent, something to learn and copy from, perhaps?.. 

Everyone can find something for the soul here. I found beautiful mosaics. I have seen them many times as a child, but now they have a special meaning to me…

"...Flat baskets full of fruit and vegetables arranged with a fine sense of design, of decorative art and harmonies. Strings of chili hang from the rafters. The scent of saffron, and rythmes of Chagall-colored laundry hanging like banners from windows, and in gardens. Warmth falls from the sky like the fleeciest blanket. Even the night comes without a change of temperature or alteration in the softless of the air. You can trust the night." (Anais Nin)

Good night and good Sunday, everyone.

Departures and Arrivals

"I never travel without my diary. One should always
 have something  sensational to read in the train".

Oscar Wilde

There is always something very exciting about departures. I have a feeling of thrill invariably at every train station, every airport. Illusion of a new beginning, of a new venture. People, connected strictly by one purpose – to go someplace else, to leave - for a day, a week or for good. Change is the only constant.

This time I am travelling by plane and the diary I am holding is not mine, but of Anais Nin, her Vth volume with the trip to Mexico (I thought it was a suitable occasion to reread it)… While she is floating in the hand-carved canoe near Acapulco, I am being checked for drugs and explosive materials; I am changing terminals, cities, countries. I am waiting. The sun is shining through the glass walls of the airport café in Riga (a pleasant change). Soft trumpet music is pouring out of the speakers. It’s a near-perfect transit experience…The power sockets are different and I cannot plug my laptop.

“I had a recurrent dream always of a boat, sometimes small, sometimes large, but invariably caught in a waterless place, in a street, in a city, in a jungle or a desert. When it was large it appeared in city streets, and the deck reached to the upper windows of houses. I was always in this boat and aware it could not sail unless I pushed it, so I would get off and seek to push it along so it might move and finally reach water. The effort of pushing the boat along the street was immense and I never accomplished my aim. Whether I pushed it along cobblestones or over asphalt, it moved very little, and no matter how much I strained I always felt I could never reach the sea” (Anais Nin).

I cannot push the plane nor change its course when it lands in Samarkand instead of Dushanbe due to thunderstorms. More waiting. More Nin’s diaries: “I took delight in the market. There mere arrangement of ribbons women wore in their hair, the decorative way fruit was laid out in huge round baskets, the birdcages, the smell of melons and oranges, the playfulness of the children. I took delight in the animated and crowded square, in the jetty where the fishing boats returned with their colored pennants flying. I loved to watch the fisherman pulling in their nets at sundown.”

Finally arriving to Dushanbe at daybreak. The air is warm and fresh from the storm. Crowds of people outside of the airport, many of which are taxi drivers offering their services. The young driver of a shared cab I took starts racing with another taxi on the busy morning street…he is grinning in the back mirror. City overflowing with fountains. Breakfast of sweet cherries and apricots and green tea. I am so far away from home and yet this is home.

Somebody

They are everywhere if you know what you are looking for. I found them in Haiti, in Tajikistan, Paris (of course), Normandy, Russia, Uzbekistan, Zurich… It's flea markets I am talking about. Yep, I am a flea market girl. Last Saturday was a perfect day to spend it on the Bürkliplatz in Zurich. The sun was shining; the lake was sparkling, people were happy to finally embrace summer (or at least a sunny weekend).

For me going to a flea market/brocante/garage sale is almost like reading or traveling. There is a bit voyeurism thrown into it as well, I am suspecting. Peeping into other people's past, reading their life's stories, trying on their hats, leafing through their books, touching their artifacts, walking in their shoes, guessing their secrets…

I love to watch and to listen people negotiating. How different the reactions and ways to find mutual understanding! I grew up in a country where buying without negotiating is an insult to a merchant, as if you were too busy or too arrogant to enter a conversation with him. I spoke shortly with an Afgan family selling jewelries, I know a little bit of Farsi and it was so curious to hear familiar words while they have been discussing their matters. I told them I lived in Tajikistan; they looked pleased and were genuinely friendly. How many language did I count while walking among the rows of antiques and trivia?..Italian, Serbian, Farsi, Spanish, French, English, Russian, German, African dialects, Turkish… It’s like a little model of the world where everybody is getting (most of the times) along.

And of course there is always a hope to find something special, something out of ordinary. Many people don’t know what they are having and what they are selling (Dear Mr. Freeble, I am expecting you to contribute to that thought in the comment section, since I know you had quite a few staggering experiences in that department).

My catch of the day? Two pairs of retro Italian sunglasses in (almost) mint condition. Together they cost me CHF 20.- ; and they were absolutely irreplaceable on Sunday since I spent it in a chaise lounge on the sun (yes, I am very much behind my assignment now...) 

Spotting the second great pair I had a lovely exchange with two elderly (hope they are not reading this) Italian men which insisted on a kiss on a chick if I buy something from them, but they quickly withdrew after my dramatically staged shock and embarrassment ( We settled on an air kiss afterwards). Seeing both pairs in my hand one made a very logical “manly” remark (in German with an absolutely charming Italian accent): “But they look almost identical…?... ” I had to say in my bad German with no charm whatsoever: “To YOU they look identical, but to any woman you ask, they look ABSOLUTELY different”. They laughed and shook their heads. You wouldn’t have this conversation in a Cartier shop, would you?

The biggest luck I ever had while browsing flea markets of the world? My discovery of Anais Nin, of course. It was some years ago in Haiti, I walked down the dusty unasphalted Rue 2, the only foreigner in sight (only I wasn’t a foreigner, they all knew my name and if I didn’t come there two weeks on a row they have been worrying about me, the merchants), and among second hand jeans and tableware from Miami I saw her face.

I picked up this book because it was in English and I had nothing to read, and I never let it go, not from the heart, anyway. I bought all other volumes of her diaries afterwards, but this one stays my favorite. Maybe because it was my first experience on Anais Nin, or because of the period covered in it (1934 – 1939, prewar Paris and “new” New York). I reread it once and again, opening on any page, starting from any line.

Page 27: “Limitations of life. Doors closing as one walks forward. Curtains of silence. Inertia. Obstacles like walls. Then to discover that the limitation is within oneself. A malformation, wanting the impossible. In all of them the imagination is the trap. Evasion is possible by reunification of life and creation of art. Or by accepting limitations….Many creators, romantics, neurotics are tragic figures in life. They are absolutists. They tire of struggling against of limitations of life. In art there are none”.

Page 34: “I love the world so much, it moves me deeply, even the ordinary world, the daily world, even the bar table, the tinkling ice in the glasses, the waiter, the dog tied in the coat room”.

Page 278: “Renata asked Jean: “What is your occupation?”

Jean answered: “My occupation is to learn to walk through all of them in a state of transcendentalism, to live only in the essence, and within the frame of none.”

That makes me think of one episode that took place nearly three years ago, when we just moved to Switzerland. A neighbor, a young woman, asked me what my occupation was, so I told her my story. She looked at me, puzzled, and said: “But you look like…somebody”... Perhaps I am not a great storyteller afterwards.

I wish you to spend this week looking like somebody happy and loved; somebody who is oneself.  

P.S.

I wasn’t going to write more this week: too many things to do and too little to say; but I couldn’t resist not to share.

“A single man”, the new film of Tom Ford. Here is an extract from the official movie description: “It's November 30, 1962. Native Brit George Falconer, an English professor at a Los Angeles area college, is finding it difficult to cope with life. Jim, his personal partner of sixteen years, died in a car accident eight months earlier when he was visiting with family. As he routinely and fastidiously prepares for the suicide and post suicide, George reminisces about his life with Jim. But George spends this day with various people, who see a man sadder than usual and who affect his own thoughts about what he is going to do…”

The official movie trailer is a little weak, I think, apart from the music. Go and see the film, it’s in the theaters now. Go and watch it with someone you love.

I post this little monolog of the professor Falconer. Colin Firth is brilliant, and this monologue sums up pretty much what I have been preoccupied with these last several weeks:

“Fear is the cause. Minorities are just people, people like us… Fear after all is our real enemy. Fear is taking over our world. Fear is being used as a tool of manipulation in our society. It’s our politicians peddle policy; it on Madison Avenue sells us things you don’t need. Think about it. The fear of being attacked. The fear that there are communists lurking around the corner. The fear that some little Caribbean country that doesn’t believe in our way of life poses a threat to us. Fear that black culture may take over the world. Fear of Elvis Presley’s hips!..Actually that one maybe is a real fear…. Fear that our bad breath may ruin our friendships. Fear of growing old and being alone. Fear that we are useless and no one cares what we have to say… Have a good weekend.”

"Жизнь - Любовь" ("Life - Love")

It’s been a long Monday… All of a sudden minutes stretched into hours, hours crawled soundlessly and unhurriedly like summer days on the beach. Not that I haven’t done anything today, on the contrary, it was a productive day, but the more I did, more time I seemed to be offered by someone invisible… A very unusual experience. Yes, probably some of the substances of John Giorno had their effect on me… And perhaps on any other occasion I would happily embrace this transformation of reality, but not today… Maybe because I was waiting?.. Or because time was making up for space and it simply wasn’t enough?..

Anyway, at some point I decided to arrange all my photographs in “My photos” folder. Normally I just dump them there hoping that one day they will somehow self-archive, and shrink, and give themselves nice names…but it never happens. So, rummaging through the years of frozen memories I found this photo made in Rome nearly 50 years ago (NOT by me, obviously)…

I made a picture of this old photograph several months ago while visiting an extraordinary person. A tiny frail woman opened the door to her apartment, and the next moment it wasn’t an apartment at all, but a Pandora’s box, or rather a magician trickbox, full of white rabbits, and paper flowers, and endless scarves, and lucky cards, and sadness, always (for some or the other reason) sadness...

I have to start from the beginning to make sense to you, don’t I? Her name is Valeria Dauwalder. She is equally articulated in Russian and French, and at her age of 92 she is sharper than anyone I know. A sculptor, a theologian, an illustrator, a writer, a philosopher…she is simply too much to be one person… but she is absolutely unintimidating in her greatness. Born in Russia in 1918 into a family of Russian aristocrats and Swiss entrepreneurs, Valeria moved back to Switzerland in the 30s to study art, to explore life, to find love...

Illustration by Valeria Dauwalder  

I am holding her book "Жизнь - Любовь" ("Life - Love") and looking through old archive photos. She brought part of her archives to the tea table where she made her tea “Russian style” (it’s when you have a little teapot with a very strongly brewed tea and next to it there is a “samovar” with hot water, so one makes his own mixture of various strength. For me, who grew up in Asia, it’s a funny way to drink tea, but Valeria dismissed all my attempts of a joke. Yes, I wanted that piece of cake, so I shut up :-)…

The book with dedications and autographs… Here is one of Fernandel…

Her archives are the most precious thing that have left in her life. She lost her children to diabetes and neurosis, her beloved husband is long gone. I look around with a mixture of feelings. 400-hundred year old furniture in this modest apartment in Oerlikon on the outskirts of Zurich looks almost metaphorical and out of place. Paintings and Russian icons on the walls and the smell of mold… cold tea, a big bruise on the side of her face (she lost balance and fell a few days before), her veined hands and feet, all this makes me want to run, and all this makes me want to stay… Where did the rabbits go? Whatever happened to multicolored scarves?...

All of a sudden Mme. Dauwalder's voice brings me back from my hypnotic state: “He had a great vision, but no talent!” She spoke of Marc Chagall, my beloved Marc Chagall!, how could I resist? – so the battle resumed. And there was more tea, and more Sprüngli cakes, and many more memories…

Vesna. Illustration by Valeria Dauwalder

PS I never went back. I promised to and I never did. I am even afraid to call. I think I am afraid of aging (even the aging of others). And loneliness... It's something new. Not a great ending for a post (I am no good at ending things, beginning is so much more fun), but I haven't got another one. I even added a second fish to my virtual fish tank this evening; no one should be lonely without one's consent, even the virtual fish deserves to be happy... It was a long day after all, maybe tomorrow I will be squeezed between short uncatchable minutes and be missing the endlessness of today?...or maybe I won't.

Swimming in a blue light of my computer screen in the middle of the night I came across this song... Yes, why can't we just rewind?... Would you if you had an opportunity?