Beautiful Funeral

I saw a funeral today. The cars, lining up in front of a Victorian house where a modest crowd assembled, were covered in flowers. Beautiful flowers. From the distance I stopped to observe. You can tell how people in funerals, despite their sad faces and their limited understanding, momentarily fathom the beauty of death. There they were these four impeccable black cars. They shined with such joy that you could almost hear the trumpets of heaven, blowing in all their glory. The first one, the hearse, was covered with the most amazing bouquet I have ever seen. So intense was the white of the flowers, so smooth their petals and so erect their stamens that its very sight put me straight away in a heavenly state. In contrast, the background of black and white smoking, weeping and murmuring narcissus, looking at their reflections on each other, dropped the image of a guillotine. I could hear the wooden structure creaking, slicing with its elegy right across the souls of a silent audience. There it came out of the house like an immense razor. The lustre of the ebony coffin somehow made it look lighter. When that procession crosses the town, I thought, the onlookers will turn their heads in awe and anguished confusion, and some will even silently wish they were the corpse. If you think about it, most of them are probably dead already. The elegance of that peculiar delegation brings them out of their miseries for the moment they hold on their breaths. There it was again, that unique sublime feeling you get when the stiffness of a dead cold body and the fiery bursting of a blossomed bouquet blend. There it was again the deep, immeasurable space and the exploding supernova. Life and death. Death covered with the most exquisite example of life. They cry because they cannot hold in their chest their immense joy. Their eyelids, clamped wide open, expose the corneas, pupils and irises to the flames of a pleasure they never though of this world. No priest has enough holy water to put that fire out. No verse, parable, proverb, oracle, theorem or prophecy can ever render in words that blow of pure ecstasy, that mystical orgasm, which momentarily shakes their entire existence. Because it is at that very moment, when words or thoughts have no meaning, that they feel most alive.

I love this world and the people in it. I want them to feel alive. It requires some sacrifice. But it is worth it. It is a million times worth it.

Faded reflection

I sit and see the people pass by. Then I see their reflection on the shop window and they are faded. I wish they could stay like that, semi-transparent and dull, because when they are in their full colour, shape and form they exhaust me. I want them to stop. I want them to shut up and read a book, read a thousand books. All the books I never managed to read. So maybe they can explain them all to me. Maybe then, they can explain everything to me.

YKK (revisited)

How many zippers must one man unzip
before he realises it's YKK?

Grey Matter, The Moon

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain. You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today and then one day you find ten years have got behind you. No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun. So you run and you run to catch up with a sun that is sinking. Racing around to come up behind you again. The sun and the earth look exactly the same but you're older, shorter of breath and one day closer to death.

Pink Floyd - Time (Adapted by H. Dubrovsky)

La Haine (1995) by Mathieu Kassovitz

Senselessness. This film transmits rather well the results of a very common and dangerous mix: ignorance and frustration. Ignorance due to a partial and limited understanding of social dynamics and frustration due to being in the oppressed side. They both result in an aimless rage, an untargeted and random attack to defend against an invisible enemy.
Technically interesting but too often indulging in pretentious camera tricks and transitions, which are unlinked with the purpose of both the scene and the film, standing undecided between Cinéma vérité and a hardboiled heist film. Attacking violence with stylised irony and grim realism at the same is a hard one to pull and ‘La Heine’ fails to do so.
Nevertheless, 'La Heine' is an interesting trip, the characters are subjugated to a society that treats them as scum and hopes of them to just disappear, and one cannot help but to empathise with their self-destructive desperation, their anger and their resentment.

Funeral (draft)

I saw a funeral today. The cars, parked in front of a humble Victorian house where a modest crowd assembled, were covered in flowers. Beautiful flowers. Despite their sad faces and limited understanding, you can tell how in funerals people momentarily fathom the beauty of death. There they were these four impeccable black cars. They shined with such joy that you could almost hear the trumpets of heaven, blowing in all their glory. The first one, the hearse, was covered with the most amazing bouquet I have ever seen. So intense was the white of the flowers, so smooth their petals and so erect their stamens that its very sight put me straight away in a rather lecherous mood. Simultaneously, the background of black and white murmuring narcissus, looking at their reflections on each other, dropped the image of a hangman in my head. I could hear the gallows creaking, slicing with their elegy right across the souls of a silent audience. There it came out of the house like an immense razor. The lustre of the ebony coffin somehow made it look lighter. When that procession crosses the town, I thought, the onlookers will turn their heads in awe and anguished confusion, and some will even silently wish they were the corpse. If you think about it, most of them are probably dead already. The elegance of that peculiar delegation brings them out of their miseries for the moment they hold on their breaths. There it was again, that sublime feeling you get when the stiffness of a dead cold body and the fiery bursting of a blossomed bouquet blend. There it was again the deep, immeasurable space seizing our fat juicy brains and squeezing them dry of understanding. The tears of the mourning are of incomprehension, they are of fear of the unknown. A day ago, their little blue cage was all they ever knew and all they ever wanted from life and suddenly, out of nowhere, a black hole opens in it without warning, and they are forced to gaze upon it. Their eyelids clamped wide open, exposing their corneas, pupils and irises to the flames of a hell they never though of this world. No priest has enough holy water to put that fire out. No verse, parable, proverb, oracle, theorem or prophecy can ever render in words that blow that momentarily shakes their entire existence. And it is at that very moment, when words or thoughts have no meaning, that they feel most alive.

Thought I'd open with a quote...

...or two.