A la recherche du temps perdu

Yesterday I came upon this beautiful article by Marianna Tziatzi in the Sunday edition of Kathimerini. For the unlucky who -due to the inherent complexity, peculiarity and sublime perfection of the greek language- cannot read it, I can only tell you that it talks about the extreme stress of Greek high-school students facing their final exams that can -under conditions of success of course- lead them to the university. And an interesting phenomenon, which might be as complex and uniquely Greek as our language.

It seems like that upon reaching the end of the school year, with spring -the greek spring, which is something like Germany's hot summer- blooming all around them, the students decide to ditch the last days of classes having saved this right throughout the year by attending every single one until late April. Then, as May kicks in and with the finals only a few weeks away, the classes suddenly empty. It would seem natural and upon a first thought it even reminded me of my school years when I simply could not resist taking off for some beach instead of suffering byzantine history or 20th century literature. But there is a catch here, since these poor fellas head for no beach or park, or bar. They simply stay at home studying their arses off! Thinking that they can make a wiser use of their precious time, they spend fifteen(or more)-hour days on their desks, with the blinds shutting out the buzzing of spring and with some neon lamp dimming the bright sunlight of May.

I was startled.

I have always been considered a good student, and yes not exactly the most hard-working one but in no case could I be described as a slacker. I made it to the University having survived this last year in high school as most of my friends of that generation did. And I made it by what I thought was reaching the limit of my strength and stamina. Reading this article made me realize that if I were to be trying now, I would be probably doomed to failure. You see I don't remember being careful not to miss classes so that I can ditch them towards the end of the year. Throughout the whole season I kept going to football practice (and probably reached the peak of my rather mediocre footballistic abilities exactly on that year). I also remember that it was the same year I learned how to play pool, not to mention setting my personal record for attendance of games of Panathinaikos (back in 1995 when we secured the league with a record of 25 straight games unbeaten, those were the days!!!). I may be digressing -and admitting I am getting a bit old- but the point is this. I don't feel I missed much during my final exams year and cannot but feel pity -pity and respect- for this youngsters who choose to skip the springtime of their seventeens only to devote themselves to algebra and ancient greek. It is beyond me.

There is one thing I can hope for them though. I hope they get to make it to the University only to realize all the things they miss now, will still be waiting for them. And perhaps a lot more. You see it may sound almost paradoxical, but the more you study, the more things you miss even when it comes to knowledge. I still remember my high school Greek Literature teacher of that last year. I hope she's well wherever she is, but I can only recall the most profound sense of disgust for both her and her class. I was just 17, interested in getting to study chemistry, getting to win the football school league and getting laid (the last two probably being connected). In any case, I could not care less about Greek poets of the post-war era and so I remember I came to achieve the lowest mark ever -in a 12 year school career- at the final exam (which by the way did not count for the University scores) when I was asked to comment on Kostis Palamas' "Twelve lays of the Gypsy". I scored a disgraceful 3/20 for filling a single page with scorn and mockery about literature and poetry in general.

And I then I went to the University. Only to realize, that the things I have been missing were still right there on the side of what I thought important and that they were probably even more important. At the side of quantum chemistry I started reading literature (you have to trust me I never read anything apart from Jules Verne and some Hemingway books before I was 18) and next to the pile of biochemistry notes I kept books about fascinating Byzantine emperors. Some five years after that legendary 3/20 in literature, already a graduate, while strolling down Panepistimiou Avenue in Athens I happened to glimpse on the bench of a street bookseller a copy of the "Twelve lays of the Gyspsy" by Kostis Palamas. I bought it for a mere 3 euros. Needless to say, I loved it.

Over the next two days (or I should better say nights, since by the time I was busy studying journalism) I completely devoured it, reading parts over and over again, learning passages of it by heart, reading about it on the web and thinking about subtle references spread around the text. Then, having suddenly realized that I was doing on my own, during my precious spare time, what my disgusting teacher had asked me to do for my final exam five years before, I felt I must have been the stupidest person to have ever lived. At the same time I felt I was delivered from some kind of spell that kept me in darkness for so many years. I felt I was finally making amends for the time lost.

And this is my only hope for these poor kids that spent sunny week-ends over their boring books. I can only hope that the spell cast upon them, gets lifted as soon as possible. And that the time that is being stolen from them is not lost forever.

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PS. The photo of this post (an excellent representation of the lost happiness of childhood) was taken by Anaïs Bardet and was kindly provided -upon request- by Sarah Bonnin.

We must believe in spring #2

We may still believe in spring, but it seems that this faith is passing in vain, unnoticed by the Gods, or whatever natural powers rule the meteorological micro-universe over Catalunya.

Yet we pass another dull, indoor Sunday afternoon as the wind whips the drizzle against the closed window, the balcony almost flooded.

And the rain it raineth everyday...

The pale afternoon is filled with homely smells as the "small" family is having an unusual gathering. The clothes on the hangers of the living-room, avoiding the floating mists of the balcony with the familiar perfume of the softener, the sound of the week-end laundry being done in the kitchen and the smell of tomato sauce being prepared for a quick and easy Sunday meal. Those who don't have to study, are too lazy, or too tired or too hang-overed to cook anything fancier than pasta.

Sundays at home in May is a rare sight. We are no more students to be preparing for the exam period, neither family men to have to devote quality time to our beloved offspring. The usual Sunday afternoons do not involve activities of more advanced nature than reading the paper, watching a film, playing guitar or trumpet or chess and most of the times some of these activities are transferred outdoors, in a bar of Barceloneta, Bogatell beach or Montjuic's gardens. Alas, our faith in spring is still an orphan, waiting for its Messiah or an apocalypse.

We stayed in. Luigi stressed with his thesis project, due Tuesday, Giuseppe with his biochemistry essay slowly progressing, Rosa trying to translate a stupid American film script with more slang expressions than pronouns. Myself, lying on the counch with "The Sea" by John Banville and Ravel's "Pavane pour une infante defunte" to keep me company. Reading about some distant irish summers which can be even worse than this year's spring in Barcelona, made me feel the laziest of them all. And the least useful one except from when I could try answering some question Giu would have with biochemistry.

Then, we decided we all were in need of a break. The guys stopped working, I cooked and we shared a simple lunch while Giu had a nice idea of a game. The first three or four notes of known songs sounding from his computer and then us trying to recognize the tune. We were all in need of something, some of us in need of someone or both but all we could do is blame it on the rain and disguise our quest in the form of a game. That "something" became a song, that "someone" a forgotten rock star of the 80s.

Funny how simple things can sound fun but anything goes on Sundays like this. In the end, I found out about one or old Nirvana classics I did not know about. And I 'll hold on to them until the sun decides to show his disgraced face upon Barcelona.

today

They departed, the gods, on the day of the strange tide. All morning under a milky sky the waters in the bay had swelled and swelled, rising to unheard-of heights, the small waves creeping over parched sand that for years had known no wetting save for rain and lapping the very bases of the dunes. The rusted hulk of the freighter that had run aground at the far end of the bay longer ago than any of us could remember must have thought it was being granted a relaunch. I would not swim again, after that day. The seabirds mewled and swooped, unnerved, it seemed, by the spectacle of that vast bowl of water bulging like a blister, lead-blue and malignantly agleam. They looked unnaturally white, that day, those birds. The waves were depositing a fringe of soiled yellow foam along the waterline. No sail marred the high horizon. I would not swim, no, not ever again.

Someone has just walked over my grave. Someone.

John Banville,
The Sea

You must believe in spring

The greatest sort of irony is the one directed by nature. It was only yesterday I was talking about "Thursdays in the sun" and here I am now, looking at the storm outside my office window. Barcelona has suddenly become Galicia and according to the forecast we should expect worse weather than Glasgow over the next long weekend. We may be bored but the meteorological phenomena are doing their best to keep us on the edge.

Rain is not necessarily bad for Catalunya, or Spain in general. Actually it's exactly the contrary as the continuing drought has forced local authorities to buy water from France or import it from other, less deprived regions of the country during the warm and busy summer months, when Barcelona is infested with tourists. So rain should be more of a blessing than a curse, even in the middle of May.

Nonetheless, a long weekend seems like it's going to be ruined by rain, wind and cloudy skies. Hopes for sunbathing, climbing or trumpet playing in the parks are slowly dissolving and until the sun makes a shy appearance from behind these clouds we can only hope that the light is somewhere over there.

We -simply- must believe spring.

los jueves al sol

The film "Los lunes al sol" is centered around a group of friends, recently unemployed after the closing down of a shipyard in the town of Vigo, who meet every day in a bar for drinks, small talk and nostalgia of an unaccomplished future. One of them is obsessed with going to Australia, another is depressed with an inferiority complex to his wife who has become the sole provider for the family, a third one simply misses his own significant other who has left him, while a more obstinate one keeps filling in application forms in constant search of a new job. Everyday seems the same, and although it is not so sunny in Vigo, every Monday (lunes), as well as any other day, looks like Sunday.

Back to Barcelona in the year 2008, it is mostly sunny and there is a clear distinction between week-ends and week-days. Apart from that, though, I sometimes wonder if the inertia of a daily working routine is to be indistinguishable from the one of unemployment in the same way a stable speed cannot be distinguished from immobility. "Los jueves al sol", like today, I find myself on the terrace of the institute, staring at the sun and talking with my colleagues, which suddenly assume their distinct roles. There is the rebel, optimistic one, who is not thinking about Australia (yet), but has a different plan every day. There is the slightly depressive one, who is getting too anxious about his work being published by others and over there stands his alter-ego, who disgusted with the scientific community altogether, is depreciating everything relevant to biology and the such. Strolling by, with a cup of coffee in his hands, passes by the persistent type, the one who keeps doing the same experiment over and over, with his hope for success unconsciously blending with the acceptance of irrevocable failure. There I see myself, carrying a little bit of everyone of them.

We all meet there, day in, day out, up on the sunny terraces of our institute, with our hopes and motivation for a bright future succumbed under the dense flow of routine and its boring seminars and fruitless meetings. The plans are still there, but there is simply no time for them on the margin of all that. And so time goes by and the days feel the same and nothing seems interesting enough to shake the stagnating waters.

Barcelone s' ennuie...

today

Comme un mythe, un masque nie autant qu' il affirme.

Claude Lévi-Strauss
La voie des masques

Trumpeter on the balcony

This is my latest asset, a luxury I have always promised to allow myself once I had some extra money (to throw away). Thanks to Valentina's persistence and her volunteering to act as trumpet-bearer, I received my instrument two weeks ago.

Before we start, some clear facts so that you don't rush into erroneous conclusions. I have no idea about music, I consider myself extremely lazy and rather enthusiastic, a combination which most of the times leads me to take up a new task every week only to leave it aside the next one. This is exactly why I am still a mediocre climber, a rather sloppy skater and to my bosses' (both of them) disappointment I 'll go nowhere close to publishing my results in Nature. And that is only mentioning the activities I have undertaken while in Barcelona.

Nonetheless, I have great fun with all of the above and I intend to do the same with music. Filipe has assumed the difficult role of introducing me to some basics of musical theory and I can sense he's already getting frustrated with my lack of progress (which should not be qualified as such, since progress -or its absence- is only to be defined as in reference to a previously existing condition). The truth is that I still have a lot of trouble distinguishing a C from a D on a musical staff (which makes me appreciate so much the human mind at the age of 6 when "C" and "D" as letters should have seemed equally indistinguishable) and I have adopted a primitive way which includes counting with my fingers when I am asked to built the E-major scale. But despite all that, I am having a lot of fun when at it. It looks like I am learning a sort of arithmetics, starting all over again, although sadly lacking the special abilities of 6-year-old.

When it comes to practicing though, a major inconvenience suddenly rises. If you have ever tried to blow through a trumpet, you 'll probably know what I mean. After the first desperate attempts which lead to nothing more than a stream of air flowing through the pipes, you may manage (if you are lucky) to produce the low squeaky tune of an elephant farting. And only after a lot of effort will you make the instrument sound like something that remotely resembles a trumpet. In all cases though, be it an eerie, otherwordly voice or the natural sound of a dying animal, there is one common thing and that is that it is simply too loud! Hence the obvious inconvenience, when trying to practice in a flat, which you share with two more -non deaf- people and whose walls -although not exactly with the susceptibility of those of Jericho- are thin enough to test the neighbours' acoustical stamina.

This left me no option but my balcony. Last Saturday night, with my flatmates dining out, assuming that the neighbours were doing the same and hoping that the noise of the cars rushing down Passeig de Colom would cover my unbearable, hearing-damaging squeaks and tweets, I practiced playing the trumpet. Of course at my level -to which the word "beginner" would make absolutely no justice- this meant that I only managed to get only three consecutive notes right. And even though I went on for a good half hour the fourth note of the first measure of the "Autumn Leaves", an E-flat, for which my lips should stress more than my cheeks can handle, would only sound right one out of ten times.

Still, one out of ten times, it felt really good. I would then take a small pause, look at the people walking down the road from the hight of my third floor, hoping they had heard it right this time, and I thought that even if I was not exactly the "fiddler on the roof" I could one day become the "trumpeter on the balcony".

PS. The sleepless "eye" of my tutor (really "sleepless" since he posted a comment at 2.30 am) spotted one more mistake. Namely, that this E-flat is not the last note of the first measure. The piece starts off tune, therefore the hard E-flat is simply the first note of the second measure. Am I saying it right, master?

today

Durante años no pudimos hablar de otra cosa. Nuestra conducta diaria, dominada hasta entonces por tantos hábitos lineales, había empezado a girar de golpe en torno de una misma ansiedad común. Nos sorprendían los gallos del amanecer tratando de ordenar las numerosas casualidades encadenadas que habían hecho posible el absurdo, y era evidente que no lo hacíamos por un anhelo de esclarecer misterios, sino porque ninguno de nosotros podía seguir viviendo sin saber con exactitud cuál era el sitio y la misión que le había asignado la fatalidad.

Gabriel García Márquez
Crónica de una muerte anunciada