EXTRAORDINARY ORDINARY

Everything visible, no matter how familiar and ordinary, can suddenly seem miraculous when the eyes and consciousness home in and absorb a scene, drinking it in like a bee feasting on nectar. Astonishment - better expressed in French as emerveillement (making marvellous) is the key to creativity and maybe even to eternal youth. Forever amazed - that's my motto and goal. 

The movie option on my new camera gives me a perfect tool for recording random glimpses of activity that delight me by their rhythms and patterns. Here is a video-collage, combining the rain walkers in Trafalgar Square, a street performer below the National Gallery, and a magic instant in Salisbury Cathedral a few days ago.

I had a dental appointment in Salisbury last Thursday - why, you may well ask, make an hour and a half train journey to a dentist in another town when there are so many dentists in London? The reason is too boringly dentally technical to go into but anyway, I've never been to Salisbury. So, after my dentist appointment, I wandered through the charming town, ending up at the deservedly famous cathedral. Its serene majesty is enhanced by the tranquil bucolic surroundings in which it stands. The giant spire (123 metres/404 feet) is like an arrow straining to break free from the ground and zoom up to the stars.

Astonishing to me were the contemporary figures by Sean Henry unexpectedly scattered outside and inside the cathedral. This is a temporary event titled Conflux, a union of the sacred and the anonymous. I didn't know anything about his work and was impressed with it, although the shiny plasticky varnish that most of the sculptures are coated with is offputting. I took a few photos but there are better ones here.

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PRAGUE

That's where I was at Christmas. 

They say that Prague is a beautiful city and there is much to see. I'm sure this is true but the piercingly cold, wet, sleety, slippery, snowy, windy weather made it impossible for shivering chickens such as me and my sister to see anything much besides the foam on a cup of hot chocolate. I exaggerate: my sister is much braver and more of a sightseer than I am so I dragged along reluctantly to make sure I'd be there to pick her up if she slipped on the ice. That's how heroic I am. I know it's reprehensible but all I really wanted to do was to sit in a warm cafe or in the hotel room. 

Maybe some time, not in winter, I could go back and see all the interesting things I missed this time. Maybe in other seasons the people of Prague become more friendly and maybe they even smile or reply when you ask for directions. I've been to lots of cities and lots of countries and in some of those places I didn't speak the language but never, ever, have I encountered such ubiquitously unfriendly attitudes as in Prague - shopkeepers, tram conductors, ticket sellers, information people, passers-by, etc. etc. either did not respond or responded in a manner which can only be described as hostile. Very few people we came across spoke any language other than Czech - fair enough, but did they need to be so brusque and dismissive? Maybe some foreign tourists behave badly in Prague so the citizens have decided all foreigners are a nuisance. There were a few exceptions: the staff at our hotel and the taxi drivers booked to and from the airport. 

Anyway here are a few pictures I took in Prague. I wish you all whatever you most desire in your heart of hearts. Bonne Année, mes amis.

 

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IN PRAISE OF PEOPLE POWER

In many of the post-election reports and commentaries I've been reading, the initial celebratory euphoria is gradually being doused with expertly worded buts and ifs and maybes and don't forgets and so on and on. I am just as inclined as the most seen-it-all-before cynic to mistrust politics and politicians and to despair about the state of the planet in general. But not right now. Right now I only want to praise, to laud, to honour and to celebrate the two sides of one coin:

An individual: president-elect Barack Obama.
A very large crowd: the people who supported and elected him.

In his acceptance speech, Obama said:

But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to – it belongs to you.

I was never the likeliest candidate for this office. We didn’t start with much money or many endorsements. Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington – it began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston.

It was built by working men and women who dug into what little savings they had to give five dollars and ten dollars and twenty dollars to this cause. It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generation’s apathy; who left their homes and their families for jobs that offered little pay and less sleep; from the not-so-young people who braved the bitter cold and scorching heat to knock on the doors of perfect strangers.......

Clever political speechifying? Yes, of course. But above all, it is true. The Yes-We-Can slogan was actually experienced and acted upon by millions of people, energised by hope, inspired by a man who represents the possibility of change and who is totally unlike the current resident of the White House.

'Charisma' is a word which provokes instant suspicion among thinkers/observers, especially those of us who have been around the block a few times. We've seen too many feet of clay on the idols we ourselves raised up on pedestals when we were naive, or on other popular heroes we never believed in at all. So if someone mentions a leader's charisma our eyebrows are likely to shoot upwards, our lips to curl into the skeptic's sneer and we will say something like: "Well, Hitler had charisma. So did Attila the Hun and Charles Manson etc. etc." We will probably also bring up 'mass hysteria', recalling the terrible extremes to which a whipped-up crowd can go and, therefore, how you can never trust the emotions of a crowd in the grip of charismatic individuals, be they politicians, prophets, soldiers, football players or rock stars.

Well, yes and no. Whatever circuitry in the human brain is responsible for hero-worship and for mass movements, it surely does not always produce negative effects. Was it the same brain circuitry which inspired the followers of Ghandi to non-violence as whipped up the followers of Hitler (and other criminals) to unspeakable violence? And was it 'mass hysteria' when I and millions of others around the world took to the streets to march against the Iraq war? Or when we marched against nuclear weapons? We may not have succeeded in our immediate aims, but these were still victories for people-power. Major changes occur slowly and we may not live to see the results, but I believe that something extraordinary happens to human beings when they come together in large numbers united by good will, concern for each other and a powerful desire to end injustice and corruption. And yes, if a leader can reflect, embody that spirit and inspire people to believe that they themselves have the power to change things, then such a leader is needed. He, or she, is like an orchestra conductor whose skill is to get the best out of each individual player and out of their combined voices, at the service of the music.

Imagine for a moment the kind of radical changes which could happen in the world as a result of concerted people-power. Make a wish-list. Yes, it will look completely unrealistic, naive. Realists will tell you it can never happen.

Yes it can.

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