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The best part of Ellie Parker. She went for a walk with a friend of her. They chose the panoramic route, climbed one of the Hollywood Hills. Arriving at the top they turned towards the view for a rest, sitting down, gazing…”wow…!” And the camera was directed on houses as far as you could see beneath a cloud of smog.

is that it really?

By Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne.

I saw this remarkable, intense movie. A young couple, unemployed, he makes money with small crimes, they have a baby. It’s all her new sense of live and optimism, he is more distant concerned and focused on his business, the baby more of a burden and unresolved problem than an opportunity. As such he takes a chance one day to sell the baby for adoption on the black market before he realized what it means for his girlfriend and their relationship.

It’s a real life story with some dramatization, but very rich, sensitive, curious, precise, full of live and details. I had to see previous movies of the Dardenne brothers, i.e. ‘le fils’. A man working in a centre for psychological instable young boys. He’ s teaching them carpentry. It’s also a sort of retreat for himself. After his son was murdered his relationship with the mother broke, he’s struggling to find himself in this new situation. One day he realizes that one of the new applicants was the murder of his son, released from prison and on the way to reorganize his life. A tense relation between the two develops. Also a very moving, incredible wide facetted picture based on a rather simple story. The acting performances are outstanding.

So yesterday a saw another French movie, Ces jours heureux by Olivier Nakache/Eric Toledano. A journey of a school camp with everything you can think of: kids out of control with all their attitudes, misbehaviors, problems, fun etc., a group of young people organizing and managing the journey with their own interferences, intrigues, friendships etc. the authority in charge to supervise and of course complicated parents. It was a blockbuster, the smallest common sense. I thought it would be a quiet interesting subject, but there was too much of clichés at once to turn the film in a easy enjoyable comedy. At least there was a good actress, Marilou Berry which I remembered from ‘comme une image’, also an outstanding French movie (this one has no end).

I was wondering why I am hanging on these more than serious subjected films, some call them depressing. Sometimes I simply respond I am a cultural snob and I am proud of it. On the other side I truly believe the art of movie making is going out to the street, pick a handful of random bypassing people, learn about their lives and turn it into a film. I always try to read between the lines and I am disappointed if I can’t find anything.

Montana Ave, Santa Monica. Something typical for LA. I noticed this area for the first time only when I had to go to Pacific Palisades past the borders of Santa Monica and recently on the way to a friend’s place around there. In Santa Monica the focus is 3^rd Street promenade, a pedestrian zone hardly to escape. It’s like a magnet absorbing the entire locality, as it seems. It’s where on a Saturday afternoon hordes of people cross the street when red for traffic. But it only seems there’s nothing else. Force yourself to resist the crowd and pursue your way further past this area and suddenly you find yourself on Montana avenue. You notice neighborhood environment, shopping, meeting, dining, drinking etc. along the street, locals, no casual shopping tourists as on the promenade. It’s cultivated as seen on the web-page. And it’s Los Angeles. This very strong focus on a local place, a neighborhood, a specific identity. LA is a puzzle of these distinctive areas. Santa Monica’s promenade and right beside but totally separated Montana Ave. Normally you can’t identify it simply by a street name, it’s harder to define. Remember the Palms neighborhood council. Or a co-worker who lives in Hollywood and draws a line at Highland Ave: East of it is live, west of it the hype you don’t care. Small personal preferences. I remember the referent at the cornfield event who was talking about the characterization of LA as once clearly separated smaller scale cities and towns. When freeways and cars were introduced this constellation lost that scale and was transformed to new entity experienced in a very different way. So these relations to locality like Montana Ave can be understood as specific places in the sense of the origins of the city.

One former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush Administration, told me that the military planning was premised on a belief that “a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government.” He added, “I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, ‘What are they smoking?’ ”

SEYMOUR M. HERSH

in:

Issue of 2006-04-17

An der UCLA anlaesslich einer entsprechenden Austellung am dortigen Voelkerkundemuseum zelebrierten heute verschiedenste Gruppen aus allen Ecken der Welt ihre Fasnachtsbraeuche, unter anderem eine Clique aus Basel. Nachdem mich meine Mutter am Freitag extra anrief um mich darauf hinzuweisen, konnte ich mir das natuerlich nicht entgehen lassen. Es was ziemlich beschaulich, nebenan die Sportanlagen, welche die Massen anzogen. Und es war ein wildes, unuebersichtliches Gemisch aus all den Rhythmen, Klaengen, Kostuemen…ein wahres Kulturpatchwork, Voelkerverbindung. Die Basler waren vor allem auffallend, weil sie neben der Dominanz von Samba, karibischer Lebendigkeit, Tanz und Bewegung sehr beschaulich und gemaechlich daher kamen. Zwar nicht gerade das Klischee des Spiegelbilds der Mentalitaeten, aber ich hatte schon ein wenig den Eindruck zu spueren, woher ich kam. Zurueckhaltend und unaufdringlich aber praesent, vielleicht koennte man es so umschreiben. Und es war etwas entrueckt im califonischen Sommerklima und durch die Atmospahere auf dem Gelaende der UNI, wenn ich es vergleiche mit der Fasnacht in Basel. Aber das ist auch eher perseonlich, die nicht Eingeweihten werden solche Details nicht bemerkt haben. Ich habe, wie wahrscheinlich die meisten, vor allem das Nebenher und die bunte Mischung genossen. Wie vielfaeltig und unterschiedlich diese Welt, in der wir leben, doch ist. Auch aber nicht nur wenn man lediglich sieht, wie die Basler Fasnacht einen Sprung auf’s Gelaende der UCLA macht.

I should add something smart and creative to my writings. Somehow I’m disconnected. I always feel like there is plenty of reflection, but now I am sitting here and don’t know where to start. I like the Culver Hotel. It’s a flatiron building, totally isolated in the refurbished downtown center of Culver City. A landmark. Washington and Culver Blvds are crossing there. Once, they really just crossed in a sharp angle, that’s generated the buildings form. Meanwhile one side is transformed in a pedestrian plaza with a cinema adjacent, beside the Hotel. And Washington Blvd was relocated around the Hotel, through the Culver side. A very strange street constellation. And the Hotel exposed, you can’t miss it. 19^th century urban, brick, maybe 6 stories high, from the time when Culver City started to get on the map, I guess. The lobby serves as a bar, but it is a hotel. A pretty high space without a recognizable concept to furnish it. Acoustically very loud since there is nothing really absorbing noise. Crowded earlier in the evening, less the later it gets. An old guy cruising around serving cheese. A piano that can be played, as witnessed once and the only source of music. The people: young, urban, filmish I guess although not too exciting since there is not much else around. It’s one of these places where you feel slightly detached and you can’t figure out why exactly. An ordinary place with it’s friendly mistakes.

I just realized yesterday: LA, aka the second largest Mexican city, is actually a divided city.

Max offered me a ride home two weeks ago after the cornfield event and he and Sabrina were concerned about my bike I left on the street at a downtown bar. I went back the day after, Saturday, to pick it up. As I arrived in downtown I noticed a crowed of people. First I was thinking about an event at the convention center, but as closer I moved towards the bar where I left the bike as more packed were the streets, with Latinos, obviously on a rally against some immigration issues as it seemed when you read all there panels, flags, shirt-imprints etc. I was concerned about the bike. I didn’t expect anything like that and I was just hoping that the bike was still there, should I finally find my way…It was. Later I learned that the crowed was a 500’000 people strong demonstration against restrictive immigration laws just passed the house and about to be on the senate’s schedule. It was the strongest manifestation since the black movement in the 50-ies. I was surprised I didn’t know anything about it in advance. Normally when there is another anti-war or anti-bush or the like protest, you would know. Ads, comments, reports in newspapers, announcements through radio, internet, wallpapers – you would just see or hear something, sometimes, somewhere. Not this time. As far as I can tell: nothing. I didn’t see or hear anything at all. And then, suddenly, 500’000 (officially) demonstrating, the massive rally since generations. The only conclusion: Latinos are socialized in a world completely apart from mine, although they live next door. Obviously they have recourses of information and are organized totally separated from my connections. A world not accessible for me – at least to a fully comprehensive extend. I thought that was the most remarkable effect of this demonstration. How is it possible that the one ethnic group does know only so little about the other, event though they live in a dense environment of a 20mio metropolitan city? Divided.

I was in the bus on my way home on this rainy evening when susan called me. She will visit new york in two weeks. I believe she has strange feelings about it. We don’t see each other anymore on regular basis, only occasionally and only quick. And every time she’s telling me afterwards about arguments she had with her boyfriend about it. Her boyfriend doesn’t show any respect for our friendship whatsoever. He seems to live in a very patriarchal world. Every time when susan complains about her restricted liberty on his side I feel very strong about it. It’s like a matter of course that a woman has to follow order of the strong gender, the man. I have a hard time to accept understanding for women either limiting themselves to such relations or, worse, accepting their position that way without questioning or developing any critical sense about it. Not to mention the other part. It makes me even more nervous that exactly susan put herself in such a relationship. If she complains that she can’t go out without him – hard to believe, I don’t really know how strict he is about this, but possible – I am glad I have arrived in the 21^st century. Can he limit to a minimum or even end our friendship, ruthless, just to protect his feelings which in my opinion are completely retarded? On daily-basis-circumstances I will never met susan’s friends here, and she will never met my friends. What kind of person is he??I really don’t know where I am. I am not in a position to judge all this, I am kind of prejudiced. But on the other side, this is so awkward and awful, I don’t know how to keep enough distance. It’s very, very hard to keep my mind clear on this.

I thought I need to write something reasonable today, but I don’t feel like.
Personal, very comlicated, maybe not, I don’t know, I don’t know anything anymore about it, I don’t know what to think about, I don’t know if this is some sort of nightmare…I need to come back later.

Good night, and good luck.