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oana_uiorean
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Name: Oana
Birthday: 1/5/1979
Gender: Female
Interests: writing (fiction, theatre, screen); improvisation; chaos; jazz; photography; Samuel Beckett; skiing; dogs; psychoanalysis; fear.
Expertise: Only the things that don't make any sense make any sense to me.
Occupation: Storyteller
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
5/19/2006
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| I'm sorryBut happy people are really boring.
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| DemosDue to popular demand, and command, this experiment will now be haltingly resumed. Actually, it is no longer an experiment. It's a record of magical thinking. As seen in Joan Didion.*
Da Book is finished, the last chapters are in my heart, now slowly leaking onto paper. It no longer seems laden with urgency, it's just a game I play to make sure I never forget. In life, I am now living the sequel.
I am the living proof that the limit to infinity exists.
We are.
* Do you think when they gave it all to her 40 years ago or so, they told her they'd take it
away in 40 years or so? Do you think she consciously said, ok, I'll
take it, for 40 years or so, then you can take it all back? Because I'd
do the same. I'm doing the same.
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| This experiment is now overIt started because I needed to make my very private form of exhibitionism more exhibitionist. In other words, to help me get used to the idea of strangers having access to the glimpse of a private universe I choose to reveal.
It worked to some extent, I'm more relaxed about sending my work for publication and I actually get some sleep while it's being considered or if it's being published. I no longer feel like someone is trespassing. The unknown audience is no longer in my nightmares.
It also didn't really work, because the unknown audience still exercises its censorship over my real writing, even in the case of the stupid, oh-so-hated script. They tell me it will never really go away, it will just diminish with time. So, I'll live with it.
But this experiment is also starting to have a negative effect. I find that in a DIY system in which publication is only one click away, my own critical sense is waning. I catch myself applying the same condoning attitude to the book I'm writing that I apply to any random blog entry. On top of the latter actually cannibalising the emotional resources initially put aside for the former.
For these reasons, this experiment is now over.
Besides, I'm tired of virtuality, and oh so ready for reality. If you want to know how I am, consider actually asking me. It's true, in flesh, I have scars. But they've turned really beautiful lately.
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| This is my allusionIt was with the greatest skepticism, because that's how we are, first we doubt each other, then everybody else, and unfortunately only in very rare cases our own selves, that I went to see the Romanian film that won this year's Palme d'Or. I haven't read any of the director's statements in its regard, but I expected yet another one of those endless whining odes to the one national trauma that almost nobody is yet too young to remember. Pretty much everything that has come out of our post-1989 cinematography that is worth noting in any way looks more like group therapy than storytelling. Instead, I crashed the least-talked about coming-of-age party. My country's.
This is a film that tells the story of an illegal abortion, but it is not about illegal abortions.
This is a film set in the Communist era, but it is not about the Communist era.
This is a film that shows males as heartless, but it is not about heartless males.
This is a film that is centred around a selfless friendship, but it is not about selfless friendships.
This is a film that has opportunities for moralistic statements at every step, yet elegantly refrains from making any.
This is simply a film about being Romanian. The story excels in finesse, at no point does it take the easy way of the
caricature, as many have before and I'm sure many will after. It is a sensitive, at times ironic, at times bitter, at times plain funny, at times heartbreaking, but, underneath its apparent cruelty, a sober fresque of what it means to be us, with everything that makes us just like everybody else and everything that makes us just like nobody else.
Many have speculated that the prize in Cannes was given for political
reasons, a deferent gesture to welcome us into the club and encourage
us to go artsy. After seeing the movie, and despite being in awe over
it, I am inclined to agree. Because, besides being about Romanians,
this is essentially a film for Romanians. Precisely because no particular statement was sought, there is no simplification, no exaggeration, no emphasis, and no mitigation. This is what we are. There is an infinity of details that a foreigner might miss underneath the details. You will not, however, if you will look at this film the way people on the verge of love should look at each other. Very closely, beaming with anticipation, but with nothing yet concluded. Instead, with everything alluded.
Please do.
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| Swing me a conclusionYesterday, on an early evening walk down to the fries place on Flagey, I was sufficiently inattentive to stop by the Infopoint they discreetly set up in the corner across from Cafe Belga and get the real low-down on the plans they have for my homely building site. It is much worse than an ordinary ruse between language camps, and, had I not lost my head some time ago, I would have probably guessed the imminent tragedy when they started replacing the cobble stone with wannabe marble, which is already way too forward-thinking for my country girl's heart. In any case, the long-term plan is to turn the square into one of those ambitious urban art projects, carefully feng-shuied, oppressive in their over-controlled quest for balance and inner&outer peace (now!), and certainly harbouring the secret ambition of being visible from at least the moon. I hope it's just that I didn't get it, my mind at that point somewhere NE of Belgium, but anyway, what happened to a pinch of hazard? Chance? Anyone?
The night before there was music, a sax player who sounded as Coltrane may have had he not found God, but sex. Awakening suddenly acquired a decidedly new connotation. The friend I was with was ready to throw her bra at him, and that is a compliment supreme. I on the other hand was busy dodging the 193-195 people stepping on me from left and right. I need to see that place again when the sex in the air is less of a conclusion and more of an allusion. As all good things in life. Well, at least for starters. | | |
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