Just a short final shot at blog diarism in the New Year...

Two days ago I serendipitously visited the Berlinale - something I rarely do, probably because you have to book tickets in advance - and saw the Philipino documentary entry MOTHERLAND (cf. YT trailer) in the Forum category of the festival. It was a very honest portrait of just one of the overfull maternity wards of a big Manila hospital. It was very well prepped/edited, because the camera gets very close to the women about to give birth, or staying in the ward until the new-born are healthy & constantly gaining weight. I - single man in middle age - learnt a lot, i.a. what K.M.C. stands for!

What I thought really great about taking in the movie, as well as noticing how much I was learning, is that it prods at the potential of what one might pick up when one actually visits a place elsewhere on the planet, that is utterly new, in person. Picking up not only the audiovisual, but all of what a new corner of reality has to offer. If I have the means to go to such places, everyday boredom seems foolish.

I also started to read the docutainment "novel" OONA & SALINGER, written by a French Canadian author, about the dalliance between the famous author named in the title, who wrote little but has become cult, and the later wife of Charlie Chaplin, mother of i.a. Geraldine. She was the daughter of famous Irish-American playwright Eugene O' Neill, who apparently didn't treat her particularly well. Oona & J.D. met at around the time she became one of the first-ever It Girls, very young, but hanging around the (in?)famous Stork Club in New York. It promises to be a very interesting read, even though it starts very introspectively on the side of the "novel"'s author. A typically french-language writing affectation?

Interesting reading/seeing/hearing times! Vivat!

We had some real snow a few days ago in Berlin! I loved it. It didn't stay for long... (Boohoo.)

A few days ago the great British "everyman" actor John Hurt died. He got some fame in s.f. films, but more so in classic roles, e.g. as Caligula in the I, Claudius series, and as the non-hero Winston Smith in 1984. I greatly respected his work, although he seemed to be a bit of an arrogant guy, from interviews (an example, on NPR).

Which is why he seemed perfectly cast for the role of an intellectual macho in one of David E. Kelley's - of i.a. Ally McBeal fame - earliest writing jobs: FROM THE HIP, the story of a "stormy" young lawyer, who is so ambitious that his antics land him the defense of an indefensible murder case. One of my favourite films, partly because of the great Hurt performance in it. R.I.P.!

Bookwise, I have just started reading my first ever s.f. book for the umpteenth time, 2001, A SPACE ODYSSEY - one of the most well-known s.f. authors, another Brit, Arthur C. Clarke, wrote it for i.a. the director of the same-named film, the iconic Mr. Kubrick, from his original manuscript. Clarke is only the 2nd-greatest s.f. stylist - his author friend Asimov once indicated - but I like his style tremendously, because it's dry, short and factually "hard". He was a royally acclaimed astronomer & technical guru, who i.a. predicted the prodigious use of geo-stationary satellite networks in future (our present). He wrote many, many short stories and some novellas, his real métier - which may explain his unusually "short" style in the eyes of novel readers.

I like his ending a lot more than Kubrick's somewhat muddled one. (Kubrick & his art department didn't always stick too closely to Clarke's script...) To have read the book helped me see - as an astounded teenager - and love the film the first time I saw it.

After an emergency visit to a new dentist today - the current one's mini clinic is on holiday the whole week - I took my horsey-feeling jaw 'n lips home to have a quiet evening.

First, I decided to launch into the supermarket catch from yesterday. I only go on a hunt-with-trolley less than once a week, on average, and the days that follow are always great fun as I ravish a week's supply in, mostly, two days. Today I tried a long baguette for the first time, instead of ever more chemically tasting bread rolls, and with i.a. camembert & honey added, 't was a joy.

Then, I watched the rented DVD I picked up yesterday: Jacques Cousteau's first long film, LE MONDE DU SILENCE, and got the old warm feeling of remembering when I'd first seen these as a young teen. But only for about half an hour, until the Calypso crew started misbehaving with a group of sperm whales; perhaps my growing misgivings are explained by my admitting that these whales have been my favourite of all cetacean species since about a decade: First the ship rammed an adult, and, then, instead of being more careful, like slowing down & following them, they basically broke the back of a baby whale, finally harpooning (!) it, catching it by the tail, tying this to the side of the ship, "mercifully" (!) shooting the baby in the head and then watching it being torn apart by sharks, which they then also proceeded to spear/pummel/hook & generally mistreat. ("All men at sea hate sharks.") Perhaps I never saw this film?

But I finally found some respite in a book I'd started a while ago, and now want to finish by the weekend: Levithan's BOY MEETS BOY. An astounding entry in the U.S. American race for cutest or most romantic high-school "diary" novel! Written in a well-executed easy-going style, with memorable characters like Infinite Darlene, the school's best footballer. Astounding - because it's about a homosexual romance between the protagonist, a young guy surrounded by his best friends, like Darlene & (female hetero) Joni, and handsome/mysterious newcomer, Noah. And all written in a classic-laid-out suburban setting in an alternate USA. A decade-and-a-half old, almost, and currently highly relevant... Wow!

Gute Nacht.