Some thoughts.

Abraham Lincoln issued a ‘Thanksgiving Proclamation’ on third October 1863 and officially set aside the last Thursday of November as the national day for Thanksgiving. Whereas earlier the presidents used to make an annual proclamation to specify the day when Thanksgiving was to be held.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt restored Thursday before last of November as Thanksgiving Day in the year 1939. He did so to make the Christmas shopping season longer and thus stimulate the economy of the state.

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To be good – many people think that they’ll achieve it by doing no harm – and that’s a lie, and you said yourself in the past that it was a lie. That leads to stagnation, to mediocrity. Just slap something on it when you see a blank canvas staring at you with a sort of imbecility.

You don’t know how paralysing it is, that stare from a blank canvas that says to the painter you can’t do anything. The canvas has an idiotic stare, and mesmerises some painters so that they turn into idiots themselves.

Many painters are afraid of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas is afraid of the truly passionate painter who dares – and who has once broken the spell of ‘you can’t.’

Life itself likewise always turns towards one an infinitely meaningless, discouraging, dispiriting blank side on which there is nothing, any more than on a blank canvas.

But however meaningless and vain, however dead life appears, the man of faith, of energy, of warmth, and who knows something, doesn’t let himself be fobbed off like that. He steps in and does something, and hangs onto that, in short, breaks, ‘violates’ – they say.

Let them talk, those cold theologians

“

—	Vincent Van Gogh

Homicide

I am finding myself in one of those rare bubbles of contentment. My work is surprisingly satisfying and lined with poetic musing throughout the day. When people don’t speak a language, when they are learning a foreign way of expression, they put together the most wonderful creations of words. As an English teacher, I’m supposed to correct them: “them” being a room full of French adolescents… however, lately I find it very hard to ruin such delightful imagery with the mundane, lackluster, “rules of grammar.” It would be like telling Pollack to go paint a still life. It’s is an artistic homicide. This afternoon, the assignment was to describe a picture of a man in a suit. The teenage, French, boy placed in front of me, in struggling in his quest for, “The man is well-dressed.” remarked that “The man has beautiful clothes.” When asking a girl if she “likes to cook?” She replied, fumbling for the words, “I like to be in the kitchen.” The honesty is refreshing. No hyperized declaration of “Adoring the Art of Cooking,” or some bullshit a native speaker would parade. Simply. The kitchen. And the Beautiful Clothes.

French and Italian

Two languages I have attempted to overtake. Seemingly alike. However, I have discovered that Italian is like a piano, you either hit a note or don’t. Ieri sono andata a…. chop chop chop. However, French is more akin to a violin, where with finesse and precision, once attempts to slowly slide that bow, lightly touching a few consonants, melodiously slipping through a plethora of notes….with the ever present possibility of falling flat. My hat goes off to those who maneuver their way around a violin.

“All Persons Shall Conduct Themselves In A Manner that is Consistent With the Intended Use of the Premises.”

The land of Beyonce and Hamburgers

After a stint back in America, the Tara tour continues to a small village in the north of France. St.Omer if we want to be specific…where the population is 15000, and the local attraction is a heated swimming pool. Coming from the montrosity of New York, I welcome the change and have enjoyed the tranquillty of being tucked away. My job here is as an English assistant which has proved, so far, to be more an anthropological study on my end, than anything else. French impressions of America…I was asked by a student if i ” euuu had euu met Beyonce?” Sadly no. No Beyonce. Then i was asked if “i eat hhamburgers everyday?” Yes, actually i do eat hamburgers morning noon and night while thanking the good George W. for blessing me with this food. Sarcasm employed.

The hamburger is a topic I am asked about frequently, and after some thought, and perspective, I realize the hamburger is absolutuly necessary in holding together american society. For the people in the US, I venture to say that working is one of our favorite pastimes. Work=Money….thus Time=Work=Money. The hamburger is cheap, fast, filling, and packed with protein, ….thus the hamburger, although unhealthy, provides americans with more time. And thus, more opportunity to work, meaning in the end more money! The beautful equation of capitalism…Thus hamburgers make the very wheels of this capitalism greasy enough to turn.

The Autumn Makes Me Want to Read Poems

Keeping Things Whole

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body’s been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

- Mark Strand

Charlie Chaplin and the Birth of Woody Allen

A few weeks ago while attending a film festival tucked into the lovely crevices of a small, Croatian, hilltop town…I had an epiphany. Woody Allen is Charlie Chaplin. Roll your eyes, of course my discovory has been already discovered, of course, Variety, Salon, have already placed these two miniature, puppy-eyed, adorably nervous comedians side by side. However. Whilst watching 1925, “Gold Rush,” I understood the nuances of my beloved Allen films..in a different light. I understood what both these men were trying to do in a revamping of American comedy. I think.

In the film, Chaplin, plays a lone prospector venturing to Alaska in the search for gold. Snow, avalanches, burly men tangle him in brilliant comedic situations…and the lovely Georgia, a local bar women, further annimates and ignites Chaplin’s foppish ways. Slapstick humor runs rampant. He falls, he gets back up, he falls down again. But something else happens too. There is in brief moments…what I shall call “intellectual humor.” It’s ironic, it’s smart, it’s a bit uncomfortable..it’s Woody Allen.

Let’s take the end of “Gold Rush.” Chaplin ends up rich, on a boat, embracing Georgia, who now has suddenly taken interest him…..It’s not a perfect ending. It has all the elements, Girl, Boat, Money, Kissing…its just arranged slightly…off. This is the same construction of “Annie Hall”, of “Manhattan”, of “Midsummer Night’s Dream”( Chaplin was an avid reader of Shakespeare).

And this moment in comedy you need not only your eyes, to see someone banging into a wall, to see the pieces, “man, girl, kiss”… you need judgment, a mind, to understand that the pieces are not in order.

Hipster in Zagreb.