I love Paris

I spent a couple of days in Paris on account of a medical congress - which I confess I wouldn't have attended if it wasn't in Paris; I just grabbed the opportunity to go there again. Paris is one of those places you can go again and again and there's always plenty to see, it's such a beautiful city just walking through it feels exhilarating. Having been there a few times, I feel free from the "obligation" of going to the "obligatory" places, and I can enjoy just walking its streets, en flaneur, reading at cafés terraces, follow my fancy.

So I enjoyed the view over the Eiffel Tower from my room, walked several kilometers, visited the superb exhibitions of Matisse at the Pompidou, about the times of Debussy at the Oragerie and Degas and the nude at the Musée d'Orsay (where I looked again at some of my favorite paintings by Cézanne - the Card Players - and Monet), discovered the collection of the Musée de l'Orangerie and the fabulous Musée Cluny, enjoyed cappucinos and beers at several café terraces, listened to the music of French speaking...

As usual, I had to run away from the Gibert Joseph bookstore keeping my eyes away from its shelves after buying a dozen of books - mostly livres de poche, the cheapest and lightest, my suitcase is small...

The weather was wonderful, sunny and even hotter than here in Lisbon. People were sunbathing by the Seine and in the Place des Vosges, my favorite place in Paris a par with Saint Germain des Prés. And the Île Saint Louis.

Traveling is really my greatest pleasure, and it feels wonderful not just to discover new places but to go back to the ones I love, and Paris certainly belongs in that category. I hope I go there again, and again.

Debussy, la musique et les arts, at the Orangerie

Another superb exhibition I saw in Paris! The exhibition about the times of Claude Debussy is an extraordinary gathering of art works from a period I'm particularly fond of, with paintings, photographs, sculptures and designs related to and contemporaneous of the composer. I love his music, though far from being a connoisseur. And the works are all great and splendidly exhibited, from the impressionists and Hokusai to the Pabst figurines, Nijinsky's photos and Kandinsky.

And I finally visited the Musée de l'Orangerie, with its superb collection - the beautiful Monet Nymphées rooms, but also an impressive ensemble of works by Cézanne, Derain, Picasso.

Matisse at the Pompidou

I absolutely loved the Matisse exhibition at the Pompidou Center. I came to admire Matisse more and more ever since I saw some of his paintings at the Musée Picasso the first time I went to Paris. He's undoubtedly one of the fathers of modern art, in some ways greater than Picasso. I love the art of the early 20th century, when our way to look at beauty changed so radically. And this exhibition is superb, not only the works are many and excellent, but they're extremely well arranged, the way the paintings are shown in pairs or series of the same motives is very interesting and insightful, we "look" at the themes with the eyes of the artist. And the chronological order makes us aware of his evolution, which was the evolution of modern art, from post-impressionism to an ever more simplified and schematic take on the subjects, until near-abstractionism. Watching the work of these geniuses of modernism, like Matisse himself, Klee, Kandinsky, Malevich, Picasso, is always fascinating, they really changed the way we perceive the world, they tried it all. And it makes us painfully aware of how poor and unoriginal most of painting is since the 50s.

The Crisis of Islam - Holy War and Unholy Terror, by Bernard Lewis

Like What Went Wrong?, by the same author, this is an interesting and informative book about the causes of islamic fundamentalism and terrorism. Elegantly written, it depicts in a clear and intelligible way the tenets of Islamism and how they have been used - and distorted - by the fundamentalists to comply with their agenda. Like other religions, Islamism can be and is used and interpreted according to the wishes of the interpreter. So, you could argue that Islamism is no worse than Christianity, with its long list of religious wars and atrocities. And in that way it isn't, actually I usually say that Islamism, being seven centuries "younger" than Christianity, is now where we were in the Middle Ages. The big difference, and by no way negligible, is that we're not living in the Middle Ages, but right now, in the 21st century, and right now Christianity, apart from the right wing evangelicals in the United States and the pernicious influence of Catholicism in Africa - and those are certainly big problems - is not much of a threat, and the former christian countries are christian mostly in name only. In my opinion, only real education and probably economic improvement will free the Muslim peoples from their present stagnation and backwardness, and religion will go then the same way it did in the West. But I'm sure it's not easy, and maybe it will take a long time. I don't know how the West should deal with this problem, there are no easy recipes, but I believe we must defend our way of life, with no misguided feelings of guilt or condescension, keeping in mind that these peoples are as human as we are, so with basically the same goals and yearnings in life. And they are indisputably much farther from those objectives than we are.

Friends

Why am I writing about friendship? I'm not the best of friends, I have a bad temper and am too demanding, and even if I had /have some very fulfilling and intense friendships, I seem to not be able to keep them for long. Maybe that's because of my relying on the circumstances of life, I always thought we shouldn't force things too much. But maybe that's just another way of being emotionally lazy? Whatever.

Five years ago, I wrote this. I totally forgot the movie, but I didn't forget the friends I talked about. Where are they now? Or should I say, where are our friendships now?

I haven't seen my old friend Athena for a few years. I don't blame her, she got scared at a time when I was seriously disturbed, when things at home were a mess, and I was a real mess. She was building her family life at the time, and I think my tempestuous domestic situation made her anxious, and it was probably too much for her to deal with. I hope she's alright, and I know one day we'll meet again and we'll resume our friendship as if no time has passed, because ours is the kind of friendship it can resume anytime, we can be apart for years but we'll be as close as always the moment we meet again.

The second friend I talked about is as close as always; we haven't seen much of each other lately, but I know he's there and that I can count on him anytime. Again, it's a very close friendship, even if we don't see each other much lately.

As for the third friend I mentioned, we're as close as ever. She is my closest friend now, my chosen sister, the one who puts up with me every day. I don't know how I'd do without her. We're working together for 20 years now, we've gone through a lot together - work, exams, marriages, children, loss of loved ones... My temper is famously difficult, we've had a few rows, but never was our friendship and closeness menaced. We share so many private jokes - including several pet names, like calling her my hyena #1 and me the little moor, or being both called the old men from the Muppet show. If I had to name a single best friend, it would surely be her. Sometimes I really don't know how she puts up with me.

I'm losing the fourth friend. It's no use to blame him, or me, for it. It's just the way it is. Maybe I'm too high-maintenance, or he is. Anyway, I feel sad about our drifting apart, but I don't think I could do differently. We've had very good times together anyway. And I'm not closing any doors.

No new friends though. Maybe the common wisdom that says one does not make great friends after 40 is partly true. There are a few people I met through facebook, that I like very much and feel close to, but it's not the same as a live relationship. Even so, they have been - and are - a great company. I like to think of facebook as a kind of virtual cafe where we meet friends from different parts of the world, discuss small and big issues, share experiences; it actually reminds me of my college days, when I used to spend a lot of time in cafes and had several interesting and funny friendships there, chatting on the pauses of the study. I'm very glad I know these people, and will always be thankful to the technology that makes it possible.

I have several other friends, some from college, or work, or family - and with some of these I connected again through facebook after years of rarely seeing them. And then there are my children; I've made a lot of mistakes with them, but we get along pretty well and as they get older I like to think of them as my friends too.