زوج وزوجته

 انا اشاهد هذا الفيلم واشاهد وجوه الرجل والامراة.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06f146k/storyville-20142015-28-a-syrian-love-story

Disaster tourist in Oxford - Taste of Cherries by Abbas Kiarastami - Sitting on a kerb

Disaster tourist

I stood and looked up at the black burnt timbers of the one damaged section of the Randolph's roof. I wonder how long it will be before the structure is cool enough for a scaffolding roof to be put over it. When it rains the water will add to the water already poured in by the fire engines. I wouldn't like to be managing that building. Imagine the smell and the damp and the damage inside. My own house is quite complicated enough.

Taste of Cherries

Each time I watched further into the film, restarting from the beginning.

I found the pressurising attitude of the central character worrying. Was this representative of his internal problem? The soldier and even the birds rushed away from him. I don't know where to start with making comments. It's similar to engaging with a poem, the more I am in the zone of floating about with thoughts and memories, the more I could discuss any topic under the sun and relate it to or find it in the film. It would depend on the person I am talking with too and what they say.

I could give myself some sort of severe constraint in order to make myself write comments replying to my own self, based on and circling around the film. One small page of my note book, 3 words per line, fill each page, stick to one topic per page, keep going up til the tiny notebook is complete, then leave it, never to return. That sounds intransigent enough to produce results!

It's mulberries in the film anyway, so why put cherries in the title in English?

Kerb

I called my mother, she was in the car.

I told her 'I am your one and only daughter' when she wasn't quite sure who was calling her. Then she said I had sounded different, she hadn't recognised me, so I explained that I'd just finished work, so maybe that was it.

Then I sat down on a kerb, by a bike park. One or two people looked at me as if I were in trouble, but I wasn't, just chatting and listening carefully, blocking out the whole city.

My mother was looking on the bright side a little too much, so I said 'Things aren't 100%, are they?' which she agreed with. I could hear it in her voice.

Black Light Engine Room Press - Close-Up - 6 Breaths

A Press

https://theblacklightengineroom.wordpress.com/

Close-Up

Film: Close-Up by Abbas Kiarostami. Slow paced, peaceful, confusing. I pondered the need for people to tell their story. Lionel Blue described this aspect of his work as a rabbi approving or permitting divorces. I also pondered the role of a judge, much of my life as a mother is being a judge. Being a half-informed person in authority, learning from what I do see.

6 Breaths

If I want to, I can sit quietly and breathe 6 breaths as the easiest possible meditation. 6 being the date today. So a side effect will be knowing what day of the month it is.

Empty Roads - The Road from Damascus - Crickets - Giggling

Empty Road - The A34 is strangely empty this week. I think working people without children who are tied to school terms have gone abroad en masse.

The Road from Damascus - Very readable. One paragraph describes my home life to the letter. I didn't know my life was so much a classic case of whatever-it-is. The cause was different in the book, but the result is identical.

I think I need to start again from the beginning, to read about the father/mother/son/daughter relationships a second time. I skipped some sections, but that's ok.

This is getting to be a theme, I have just had a look at another book I want to write some notes on, and I realise I want to start again with that one too. One step forward and several steps sideways!

Crickets - Our latest film was The Lemon Tree. Out of nowhere came the crickets making their endless noises at night, just like they did in the South of France in the summers when I was little. I love it when something arrives from nowhere, a complete surprise, a reminder of something I'd forgotten I loved.

Giggling - Another film I went to recently surprised me even more with the giggling of the men in one section. I recognised their giggles... How can that happen? I don't know them, they are actors, from elsewhere. The film was very serious etc etc, but I came away with that instead.

Submitting - Austin Powers - That Country - Penchant

Submitting

Wonderful piece about how to send off poems to magazines in a systematic way: by Jo Bell. Is this the piece which mentions soft returns and hard returns in Word documents? I got that wrong only last week, so make sure you learn to close up the gaps between lines.

Austin Powers movies

We decided to slowly write out the best bit of the first film, a speech given my Dr Evil on his childhood and on his father. Here is one line:

'Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy.'

That Country/The Holy Land

We started with the dating systems, the 3 religions, each emerging from the previous one.

H has asked me to explain what is going on there. What a mess! My history lesson has covered pretty much everything, but using non-historically correct words and wildly simplified. I am now thrilled because H has got a map open and after even spontaneously found Mecca in English and Arabic. Guess what? I asked him if it started from the right with a little bobble and he said yes. So I told him that was the letter 'mim', ie 'm'.

Now he is searching for Jaw Prison in Manama, because I asked him to, like looking for an Arabic name in an Arabic haystack he says, not finding it! Gosh, wonders never cease.

Proust/Penchant

H heard me say the word 'penchant' and once we agreed what it meant he said he'd read it but hadn't known it was pronounced like that.

I confessed to my awful moment with my Serbian grandmother when I was about 19. I mentioned Proust, but since no one in my family had ever used that name in my presence I assumed my way was correct. What a put down to be told the correct way, with no intro, just a deliberate 'Proust' spoken at me. She was the kindest person, so it wasn't nasty, just an instant correction.

Films about families

Here's another one for our small Arabic Film Club: Ghadi, reviewed on Blog Biladi. When will it be out on dvd?

Yet another film seemingly including parts of my life - The Separation

I wanted to relax and have a helpful nap in front of a soothing film. Instead I chose a difficult one I paid attention to. How does this happen?

The terrifying consequences of a wife refusing, for her own unspecified reasons, to continue to play the game. Even I decided she was in the wrong for wanting to separate while the father in law was living with the family.

I couldn't believe how they were able to actually talk/shout even while splitting up. Surely there would be a deadly silence?

And how come she went while he was right there, surely she'd wait until he was asleep or something? Or go for lunch at her parents' house and just happen to have all her financial paperwork and favourite clothes and books in the boot of the car.

I found it unbelievable that the wife was welcomed back by her own parents. How kind is that? That doesn't seem very realistic.

Early July 2014 new blogs

http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2014/07/02/radical-middle/ Because it quoted John Ashbery and I read it out loud to myself, without actually making a sound.

Because of that I could sense his particular changes of rhythm and choices of words. Everyone makes their own choices and shares their nature via these choices.

An email, an assignment for modpo or a Facebook update, they can all be read as hand prints. So gaze between and through the words to see how it is for the writer and how they are made internally.

Every line break and change of topic, slight error of grammar or letter missing is like a breath or a whisper in my ear.

http://www.theislandreview.com/ Because of the 7 minute short film from the Faeroes, which I haven't watched yet, but it's one of those things that I know I will like.

Now I have seen it. Filming is like choosing the right words, that action can make something beautiful.

If you *had* to learn something new, what would it be? - Films - Elia Suleiman

I was out at a party this evening. We asked each other this question. One person wanted to learn to play the piano and I confessed to wanting a structured group working on taking photos. Then I realised I adore watching film of people talking about their passions. So learning to make short films would be wonderful.

A few weeks ago H and I filmed each other being ourselves in the kitchen late at night. It runs for 10 minutes and is exactly what goes on. I am washing up and half listening to him, then he says something which gets my attention and I immediately pay close attention! Then he sits leaning right back at the table and we chat idly for a while. It's such a lovely glimpse of something which is normally transitory, beyond precious and never captured.

The film I have been watching has a long interview with the director Elia Suleiman. I have watched it twice now. I am fascinated with being able to just gaze at a person sharing their love for what they do and sharing their thinking. By searching for good links I have found out about his latest film 'The Time That Remains' and have ordered it.

Where am I? End May 2014 - 4 new blogs added

http://nacimpakshiraz.wordpress.com/blog/ Lecturer on Iranian films at Edinburgh University. Useful because I am in a little Middle Eastern Film club of 3. We post dvds to each other and watch them in turn.

http://backroompoets.blogspot.co.uk/ Because I have been along to one meeting so far. It is remarkable to be with a dozen people all reading out their own work, then analysing and making suggestions for improvements while the writer sits in a receptive silence. Will I dare to take anything more personal next time? Will there be a next time?

http://pro-lernen.ch/blog/ German language autonomous home education blog. Home ed is legal in Switzerland, but illegal in Germany, remember that.

http://murielecamac.blogspot.co.uk/ French language poetry blog. I want to restart reading French since it is available to me, even if it seems utterly unfamiliar somehow, like something I used to do many years ago.

Human Rights Film Festival in New York

human-rights-watch-festival

There is a list of the films, divided into categories. It is a good way of knowing what to look out for.

I go onto Amazon and add to my wish list. Then I always have good options to choose from in my late night weak moments.

If I have to buy something for T or H, that is when I add a couple of good things for myself too. Or rather 'for the household' for general learning purposes.

Films with my son - rows

Our home education is taking another turn. We are watching early 60's films. La Dolce Vita so far.

I was shocked to see a screen re-run of one of my own horrendous rows. Earlier in the week I saw another film with some friends. Lo and behold, there was another fearsome row from my past.

I think I had assumed that such rows were somehow my fault and that I had to ensure they weren't provoked again. In fact they are warning signs and return every so often conveying a simple message.

Films

H told me this afternoon how much he enjoys watching really good films from all eras. So that's our focus for the next however long. I look forward to sitting up for some great films.