An Angel

The time of angles is coming.
In the photo: It is not Christmas Angel. I’ve found it in my hometown Rzeszów. It looks a bit ghostly, doesn’t it?

A Chinese pencil box

When I was a child it was very up-to-date and modern to have a Chinese pencil box. At that time it was really difficult to buy such a thing. My parents were not adjusted for living in our communistic country and didn’t have skills to organize anything illegally, how it used to be in those times. Because of that, my pencil box was reminding a dream. One day, in my favorite stationary shop I found such a pencil box with squirrels. It was hidden under the desk. I asked my father to buy it for me. He, who new the reality of the time, didn’t believe me, that it was available, but finally he decided to go with me there. Unfortunately, a shop attendant said that she had the pencil box, but it wasn’t for sale. I got depressed. But my father said to the shop attendant to show him a book for making complains (that was funny but useful in that strange reality). She got scared and decided to sell this pencil box. I thought then, that my father was the bravest man in the world.

Aarhus some month ago

Everything everywhere here is simple and modest. Buildings and furniture is perfectly adjusted to a user need. Beauty comes form this simplicity. Simple walls made of bricks are covered by grapevine. When you look through the window whilst working at university, you can see the green space which looks like an endless meadow. It is useful, isn’t it? You can have a while of rest. It improves your concentration on the work if you can look at green surface for a moment. I like art around us. On the hotel walls hang pictures with dishes in abstract form. On streets there are sculptures showing scenes of everyday life. Also murals are simple and close to the people. I love this flower in a flowers pot.

llull

According to my private tradition I went to The Aboa Vetus & Ars Nowa Museum to look again for my favorite showpiece. This time it was a graphic of Antoni Tapies, from the series “Llull”. It was generally white. On cardboard there was embossed big rectangle like a frame. In corners of the rectangle there were small squares each one with a dot in the middle. Those squares were painted with gray color. There was a cross or a plus sign in the middle of the composition. It was also white, however shadows were underlined by black. It was nice, but after all I preferred the museum itself. It was like a Russian Matrioszka: in one doll there is a second doll, and so on and so on… The remains of medieval city – an archeological exhibition was like the smallest one doll. The medium doll was the main building of the museum. It protected the remains and other exhibitions halls. The building was buddle up by gardens and patios with additional things like shop and restaurant. So sitting in the restaurant you could, being inside, look for the museums wall from outside.
In the photo: a mural on the on the most external wall, probably referring to medieval part of the exhibition.

to breake ice

So we are in Turku now. The first meeting we had yesterday morning. It took place in the old part of the University. In a meeting room we spotted a big technical construction – some kind of device. We of course were curious what it was, but we didn’t ask. We started to talk about, usual in such situation, things: what is common for us, where we are coming from and what we would like to do during the meeting. The question about the device was asked in the end.
The host smiled and said to as that we had been very patient. Usually a conversation about the device breaks ice between strange people and helps to start a conversation. So what it was? It was an electron microscope. It was left in that place when a university museum was moved to a new place. It also will be taken there one day. Today it is extravagant decoration of usual university office. In the photo: Helsinki… last look at the city…

black, black and white

I was observing a woman during today’s meeting. She was wearing white shirt, black waistcoat with pearl bottoms, black skirt with plants motives in ecru color and a black pullover. In her ears she had silver earrings in modern style. I think she was doing during the meeting some notes not on a subject. I usually do the same during boring meetings. Her notes were not very important I think: she was earising them very quickly after making them.
Around me there are things I like so much in northern countries: modest and comfortable things. I like this stile so much. In the photo: bathroom in my hotel… black and white… black and white…

Filifionka and clouds

I have a cold so I was really afraid of this journey. Consequences of changing pressure in a plain are always terrible for my ears when I’m ill even a bit. Thanks God I’ve survived. I can hear almost normal now, so I can tell that I fill very well. A terrible headache is nothing in comparison to problems I was expecting today morning.
I’m in some hotel somewhere in Helsinki. It seems to be dark and magic place – this opinion comes form the first impression I have been arriving here. When my plane was landing I was observing a view form a window. There was a lot of small clouds above airport and it was raining. I saw the clouds and drops of rain in lights of the plane. The lights made them ominous and mysterious. It was like the world from the visions of Filifionka from Tove Janson books.
Unfortunately I don’t know how we call in English this female Troll. She was very lonely, she was always tiding everything up and she was afraid of everything. In her imagination the world was full of terrible beings. Each of them very dangerous for her.

the Witcher

I have never played any RPG games. I’m afraid that this is the highest time to buy the first such game and to play it. This is The Witcher, based on the idea of A. Sapkowski with marvelous graphic of T. Bagiński. The story of the game is lasting after the time of novels. I very curious what would happened later on. Of course I have my own imagination and I can think about that in different ways, but it is very exciting to compare your conception with the truth which in this case is the conception of the writer. For example I have my own pictures of the death in my mind, but the death described by A. Sapkowski in one novel is really attractive. The death is a young lady in linen dress, who is coming to a person and taking him to a fog. She is sent to people to be with them, because nobody could be alone in this difficult moment.

a ladle

Joan gave me a CD for my birthday. There was the CD I rally had dreamed about, so when I took it out from a bag with colorful tulips, I was really happy. Joan was happy too. She smiled and gave me her best regards. She didn’t show me any sign that there is something more in the bag. I think she didn’t know that there was something in there. It was a very, very small ladle. I think that the ladle was lost by former owner of the bag… Maybe Joan got a present from someone in the bag and missed a part of it? How do you think, should I tell Joan that I discovered the bag’s secret and give her back the ladle? The ladle is not mine, but if I do that Joan will be so ashamed… I’m not going to make her sad… the colorful bag with tulips is not a very serious thing as well as the ladle…

a ghost? a cat?

I went to the Office on Saturday, because I had some work I hadn’t done during previous week. The University building was completely empty. I went to my room and I opened one side of a window. When I was looking through documents I felt that someone is staring at me. It was a cat. He was sitting behind a window (this closed part). He looked as a sculpture. He was gray, classical alley cat. I decided not to move, because I didn’t want to scare him and I went back to my work. After about 10 minutes I looked at the window again. The cat sat in the same position but he moved to a part of the window which was opened. He was observing me rally carefully. It provoke a question "WHY wasn’t the cat afraid of me?". The answer might be, for example that, in a body of the cat there was incarnated a soul of some student from middle ages, who illegally was playing dice whilst studying at University… And his goal was to threaten a university employee… I decided not to take this line of thought. I’m not afraid of cats or ghosts. My irrational fears are much more sophisticated (and funny: fortunately for my friends and unfortunately for me). I’m afraid of aliens sitting in bushes at night… After half an hour the cat disappeared, leaving me with my bureaucracy. The cat was really beautiful. He didn’t look as a homeless cat. I think that it was a kind of rascal looking for adventures in his safe live in some good family.