Refugee (?)
Yes, I was born in Egypt in 1943 and lived there for the first fourteen years of my life…
and, other than my parents’ divorce when I was eleven, I lived a sheltered life…
After the divorce my mother (who worked in a travel agency in Alexandria), took me on a tour of Europe… little did I know that three years later I would be in Italy as a refugee…
I was fourteen years and a day old when we I embarked on the “Esperia” en route to Genova… We then stayed in Rome for a while... while looking for a school for me...
The problem was that in Italy I needed Italian literature - I could barely read a newspaper - and also I needed Latin... luckily we found a vocational school in Milan... and there was a "Pensionato"... so I went to ORT school studying electronics...
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Sunday, December 27, 2009
NINE
The other day I heard on NPR a critique on the movie NINE… It was late at night…(I usually fall asleep with the radio on…) so I only absorbed part of the critique… and it was bad, but it mentioned the fact that the film was inspired by Fellini’s film “8½” … Being of the opinion that Federico Fellini is the Grand Master of (Italian) Cinema… and “8½” on the top of the list… I decided to go and see it… and judge for myself on the quality of NINE…
So I emailed my friend Bill asking him if he wanted to go…knowing that he was a Fellini admirer…
Below is the email I wrote Bill a few hours after seeing NINE…(Taken from his blog…
www.costleybill7.blogspot.com)
The day after Xmas, I went with Ginny & Ivo, an Italian friend of ours who was a teenager in Milano in the early sixties, to see the new film "NINE" based on a newish play based on Fellini's film “8½” (1965):
Daniel Day-Lewis wonderfully plays an anguished, imaginatively burnt-out Fellini in his fifties; semi-clown Fellini would have envied looking as craggily anguished as Day-Lewis does. Ivo noted there are none of the usual Fellini clowns in it (unless, of course, you consider Day-Lewis a tragic one.) Here's Ivo's Italian take on the film:
I think the reason "pundits/experts" fail to appreciate NINE is that they are looking at it as a musical without considering its Italian character.. For a (non-Italian) critic, this movie is a musical which could be set in the South Pacific...or Chicago... but it's Italian Teatro Del'Arte...
When one sees Fellini, one sees a modern Goldoni, (Servitore di due Padroni)...rather than a "West Side Story"...
I am glad we went to see this parody...
And if you are curious enough and want to understand the meaning of Italian Neorealism… or just the beauty of Art in Cinema… go and enjoy seeing NINE…
So I emailed my friend Bill asking him if he wanted to go…knowing that he was a Fellini admirer…
Below is the email I wrote Bill a few hours after seeing NINE…(Taken from his blog…
www.costleybill7.blogspot.com)
The day after Xmas, I went with Ginny & Ivo, an Italian friend of ours who was a teenager in Milano in the early sixties, to see the new film "NINE" based on a newish play based on Fellini's film “8½” (1965):
Daniel Day-Lewis wonderfully plays an anguished, imaginatively burnt-out Fellini in his fifties; semi-clown Fellini would have envied looking as craggily anguished as Day-Lewis does. Ivo noted there are none of the usual Fellini clowns in it (unless, of course, you consider Day-Lewis a tragic one.) Here's Ivo's Italian take on the film:
I think the reason "pundits/experts" fail to appreciate NINE is that they are looking at it as a musical without considering its Italian character.. For a (non-Italian) critic, this movie is a musical which could be set in the South Pacific...or Chicago... but it's Italian Teatro Del'Arte...
When one sees Fellini, one sees a modern Goldoni, (Servitore di due Padroni)...rather than a "West Side Story"...
I am glad we went to see this parody...
And if you are curious enough and want to understand the meaning of Italian Neorealism… or just the beauty of Art in Cinema… go and enjoy seeing NINE…
Friday, December 4, 2009
Double Miracle
A Testimonial by Ivo Adam
Oncle Gustave
The first time I heard of, and met, Oncle Gustave I was four or five years old, I remember going, with my mother, directly from pre-school to see this important uncle. I learned later that Oncle Gustave was my grandmother’s favorite brother.
I remember being proudly dressed in my school uniform, I was sitting down shaking my leg to the point of having my aunt Nelly to tell me to stop shaking… was that the first sign of Parkinson?
It was some three decades later that I saw Oncle Gustave again, I was in Paris on business and Nonna Clemy asked me to come with her and see Gustave.
What I saw was an older man sitting on a chair in the living room of this classy apartment where pieces of art were hanging on every wall.
Oncle Gustave, I learned later, was afflicted with Parkinson Disease, could barely move his legs and had extreme difficulty talking. None of the art pieces or other fortunes could make this man walk and talk again. He died a few years later.
It is with this knowledge of Parkinson Disease that I found myself, a decade later, outside Stanford Hospital in my car crying like a baby…
I had just found out that I had Parkinson’s, like Oncle Gustave. But he was in his seventies, I was only 44 years old. Shall I end up in a chair like my uncle…
The optimist in me forced me to refuse to look at such a bleak future and understand my options, I remember asking my doctor what was I to expect and his answer was “Well, there are certain things you will not be able do in five to ten years.”
So I decided to start playing tennis, and I found a partner and played every week for some ten years.
I allowed myself to forget my condition and focus on the pleasures of life.
I achieved this while remembering my responsibilities and obligations of fatherhood. I was very lucky to have two daughters who were very understanding and rewarding.
I ignore if there is anything more satisfying for a father than go to his daughters’ graduation. Thank you Gal and Sharon.
Maybe I am being sentimental but I really enjoyed the times I was discussing things with my daughters’ classmates and see them grow up.
Spending numerous hours on the air, or in airports, gave me time to read; and since I found interest in history, I spent my free time visiting museums or churches when traveling in Europe. I always admired the beauty that surrounds us, whether it is the Pantheon in Athens, the four thousand year old cuneiform tablets in the British Museum, the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, or some ancient temple in Seoul, Korea.
As time went by my Parkinson required me to increase the dosage of artificial dopamine for me to feel and function “as I was before”. But it was an illusion, I knew that my shaking and tremors would continue, and I had to keep my positive outlook, not withstanding the terminal nature this Illness on my future, hoping for a new development in finding a cure for this illness.
As I look back, I noticed that I was becoming more and more defiantly assertive. I was trying to live with, and have several behaviors which I never before would have dreamed of, the most severe was my propensity to smoke crack cocaine.
In all the past years, living a very active cosmopolitan life style, I never found the need to ever try taking drugs, even growing up a Beatles fan in the sixties in no way gave me the compulsion to look beyond Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds… never requiring a little help from my friends.
But as I took more and more crack, I entered a life style which I never dreamt I would participate in, and culminating in my going to jail for ninety days, because the judge did not believe I was serious about quitting the cocaine habit…
Over the past years, I have tried seriously to stop smoking crack, but every time I would tell myself with all sincerity, no more, I would turn around and go buy some more… I had a sincere desire to stop… but something was impeding me to do it.
I tried going to several programs, but after a couple of weeks outside, I would do it again… all the promises I made to myself, and others, I was unable to keep… and my tremors and shakes increased, so I would increase the dosage of medication, never dreaming that there was a link between them.
A few months back I tried, through my neurologist at Valley Medical, to register in Stanford Hospital’s Deep Brain Surgery program... hoping for some miracle.
Luckily, I received a letter from Stanford Hospital, inviting me to go and test for DBS. During the long six hour session the doctor asked me if I had any compulsive behavior, like gambling. Having read about compulsive behavior as being a form of addiction, I said yes… and it is not gambling, it is cocaine…
Apparently, the Parkinson medications I was taking for many years (Requip and Mirapex) had a side effect of giving a compulsive behavior, The medication gave a dopamine punch so strong that it had the brain go for compulsive behavior.
When the doctor heard that, she immediately took me off Requip, in a two day phase-out plan… and that is when the miracle occurred… as I stopped the Requip my craving for cocaine disappeared… that desire I had every morning, and was fighting daily for drugs, disappeared…
I just found it unbelievable, all the desires I had “for living on the wild side” are all gone. It is as if it is a very distant memory of someone else. Today, it is hard for me to believe that I craved for such things as picking cigarette butts in bus stops and going to sleep in shelters.
It appears that I totally killed this Albatros away from the realm of my existence.
With crack cocaine behind me, I now focused on getting ready for my surgery, remembering that I had just switched from Requip and was taking a much weaker medication… which allowed me much less mobility.
The surgery was performed in two phases, the first one was to implant a couple of probes deep in my brain (making me a cyborg), a week later a pacemaker/generator was implanted in my thorax and connected to the probes. Apparently both these surgeries were positive.
The probe was not connected to the generator, and would not be for another week, so I had to wait for the results…
During that week, even though everyone was telling me that all was OK, I was very restless, praying that everything was really going to be all right.
Then, I went to connect and calibrate my generator… and it works!!! My shakes (after twenty years) are gone.
For those who have known me for a while… Ivo is now free of drug addiction and free of any tremor and shake…
Can this be called a double miracle I guess it is…
And to praise the surgical team in Stanford… I reduced my medicine intake to zero after a year…
Oncle Gustave
The first time I heard of, and met, Oncle Gustave I was four or five years old, I remember going, with my mother, directly from pre-school to see this important uncle. I learned later that Oncle Gustave was my grandmother’s favorite brother.
I remember being proudly dressed in my school uniform, I was sitting down shaking my leg to the point of having my aunt Nelly to tell me to stop shaking… was that the first sign of Parkinson?
It was some three decades later that I saw Oncle Gustave again, I was in Paris on business and Nonna Clemy asked me to come with her and see Gustave.
What I saw was an older man sitting on a chair in the living room of this classy apartment where pieces of art were hanging on every wall.
Oncle Gustave, I learned later, was afflicted with Parkinson Disease, could barely move his legs and had extreme difficulty talking. None of the art pieces or other fortunes could make this man walk and talk again. He died a few years later.
It is with this knowledge of Parkinson Disease that I found myself, a decade later, outside Stanford Hospital in my car crying like a baby…
I had just found out that I had Parkinson’s, like Oncle Gustave. But he was in his seventies, I was only 44 years old. Shall I end up in a chair like my uncle…
The optimist in me forced me to refuse to look at such a bleak future and understand my options, I remember asking my doctor what was I to expect and his answer was “Well, there are certain things you will not be able do in five to ten years.”
So I decided to start playing tennis, and I found a partner and played every week for some ten years.
I allowed myself to forget my condition and focus on the pleasures of life.
I achieved this while remembering my responsibilities and obligations of fatherhood. I was very lucky to have two daughters who were very understanding and rewarding.
I ignore if there is anything more satisfying for a father than go to his daughters’ graduation. Thank you Gal and Sharon.
Maybe I am being sentimental but I really enjoyed the times I was discussing things with my daughters’ classmates and see them grow up.
Spending numerous hours on the air, or in airports, gave me time to read; and since I found interest in history, I spent my free time visiting museums or churches when traveling in Europe. I always admired the beauty that surrounds us, whether it is the Pantheon in Athens, the four thousand year old cuneiform tablets in the British Museum, the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, or some ancient temple in Seoul, Korea.
As time went by my Parkinson required me to increase the dosage of artificial dopamine for me to feel and function “as I was before”. But it was an illusion, I knew that my shaking and tremors would continue, and I had to keep my positive outlook, not withstanding the terminal nature this Illness on my future, hoping for a new development in finding a cure for this illness.
As I look back, I noticed that I was becoming more and more defiantly assertive. I was trying to live with, and have several behaviors which I never before would have dreamed of, the most severe was my propensity to smoke crack cocaine.
In all the past years, living a very active cosmopolitan life style, I never found the need to ever try taking drugs, even growing up a Beatles fan in the sixties in no way gave me the compulsion to look beyond Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds… never requiring a little help from my friends.
But as I took more and more crack, I entered a life style which I never dreamt I would participate in, and culminating in my going to jail for ninety days, because the judge did not believe I was serious about quitting the cocaine habit…
Over the past years, I have tried seriously to stop smoking crack, but every time I would tell myself with all sincerity, no more, I would turn around and go buy some more… I had a sincere desire to stop… but something was impeding me to do it.
I tried going to several programs, but after a couple of weeks outside, I would do it again… all the promises I made to myself, and others, I was unable to keep… and my tremors and shakes increased, so I would increase the dosage of medication, never dreaming that there was a link between them.
A few months back I tried, through my neurologist at Valley Medical, to register in Stanford Hospital’s Deep Brain Surgery program... hoping for some miracle.
Luckily, I received a letter from Stanford Hospital, inviting me to go and test for DBS. During the long six hour session the doctor asked me if I had any compulsive behavior, like gambling. Having read about compulsive behavior as being a form of addiction, I said yes… and it is not gambling, it is cocaine…
Apparently, the Parkinson medications I was taking for many years (Requip and Mirapex) had a side effect of giving a compulsive behavior, The medication gave a dopamine punch so strong that it had the brain go for compulsive behavior.
When the doctor heard that, she immediately took me off Requip, in a two day phase-out plan… and that is when the miracle occurred… as I stopped the Requip my craving for cocaine disappeared… that desire I had every morning, and was fighting daily for drugs, disappeared…
I just found it unbelievable, all the desires I had “for living on the wild side” are all gone. It is as if it is a very distant memory of someone else. Today, it is hard for me to believe that I craved for such things as picking cigarette butts in bus stops and going to sleep in shelters.
It appears that I totally killed this Albatros away from the realm of my existence.
With crack cocaine behind me, I now focused on getting ready for my surgery, remembering that I had just switched from Requip and was taking a much weaker medication… which allowed me much less mobility.
The surgery was performed in two phases, the first one was to implant a couple of probes deep in my brain (making me a cyborg), a week later a pacemaker/generator was implanted in my thorax and connected to the probes. Apparently both these surgeries were positive.
The probe was not connected to the generator, and would not be for another week, so I had to wait for the results…
During that week, even though everyone was telling me that all was OK, I was very restless, praying that everything was really going to be all right.
Then, I went to connect and calibrate my generator… and it works!!! My shakes (after twenty years) are gone.
For those who have known me for a while… Ivo is now free of drug addiction and free of any tremor and shake…
Can this be called a double miracle I guess it is…
And to praise the surgical team in Stanford… I reduced my medicine intake to zero after a year…
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Ship
Ship
Yesterday (or was it today)… in the news I read about the Iranian cargo ship caught by Israel… it was full of arms to be delivered in Lebanon to Hezbollah…
This shows the insincerity of the Iranian and the Syrians…
On the Syrian issue we are told that Syria wants to sign a separate with Israel… or maybe in their mind they want the Golan Heights back so they can shoot these missiles to Haifa and Tel Aviv…
We should all in unison say to Mr. Assad “NICE TRY”… and for us to remember… like father like son…
With regards to the Iranians… enough has been said and written… we are smart enough to see insincerity…
On the Palestinians… Arafat, their supreme leader… refused the most generous offer by Ehud Barak … because that would lead to peace… and Arafat wanted to continue the struggle for the annihilation of the Jews…
My answer to them is “Tough”
Yesterday (or was it today)… in the news I read about the Iranian cargo ship caught by Israel… it was full of arms to be delivered in Lebanon to Hezbollah…
This shows the insincerity of the Iranian and the Syrians…
On the Syrian issue we are told that Syria wants to sign a separate with Israel… or maybe in their mind they want the Golan Heights back so they can shoot these missiles to Haifa and Tel Aviv…
We should all in unison say to Mr. Assad “NICE TRY”… and for us to remember… like father like son…
With regards to the Iranians… enough has been said and written… we are smart enough to see insincerity…
On the Palestinians… Arafat, their supreme leader… refused the most generous offer by Ehud Barak … because that would lead to peace… and Arafat wanted to continue the struggle for the annihilation of the Jews…
My answer to them is “Tough”
Africa - Zimbabwe today...
Africa – Zimbabwe today… tomorrow another place…
We are shown on television how people are mal nourished… and yet on the day fertilizers are distributed… the population of that village stand in line and… start dancing…just to celebrate the receipt of the fertilizers… and, probably, to celebrate life…
Throughout the literature we read about “Lucy” and other primate-like ancestors… all of them started their trek in Africa… I always wondered how come our ancestors were so primitive… one would expect that our ancestors would be the most developed “homo…”
When seeing these people dancing and singing while waiting for their portion of fertilizers… it led me to wonder who is the cultured and who is the educated… can we state with contempt that we are superior because we can count our money and goods to make more money… or are the people who take their famine with a song and dance the more mature of species…
We are shown on television how people are mal nourished… and yet on the day fertilizers are distributed… the population of that village stand in line and… start dancing…just to celebrate the receipt of the fertilizers… and, probably, to celebrate life…
Throughout the literature we read about “Lucy” and other primate-like ancestors… all of them started their trek in Africa… I always wondered how come our ancestors were so primitive… one would expect that our ancestors would be the most developed “homo…”
When seeing these people dancing and singing while waiting for their portion of fertilizers… it led me to wonder who is the cultured and who is the educated… can we state with contempt that we are superior because we can count our money and goods to make more money… or are the people who take their famine with a song and dance the more mature of species…
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
A Little Bit Of Love
A little bit of Love
This morning I was watching an old silent movie… made in 1922… very dramatic… the camera was focusing mainly on the faces of the actors… one statement struck me…
”with a little bit of love… nobody shall have to suffer and be lost”…
I guess that is how cinema started… facial expressions and a few statements by the main actors… It is curious how the art of cinema developed…
First the development of the camera… from still photos to the movement of actors on a stage… and a few lines of text…
Then the actors were on the outdoors… creating scenes and special effects… and noises on a few lines of text…
Then came the vocal film… followed by Technicolor… making mega effects and focusing on everything…
In watching this film… I realized that Aldous Huxley was writing Brave New World in that same period… in the “Belle Époque”… after the War that will end all Wars… and before the Holocaust…
I guess we forgot these old silent movies… we even forgot Brave New World…
”with a little bit of love… nobody shall have to suffer and be lost”…
This morning I was watching an old silent movie… made in 1922… very dramatic… the camera was focusing mainly on the faces of the actors… one statement struck me…
”with a little bit of love… nobody shall have to suffer and be lost”…
I guess that is how cinema started… facial expressions and a few statements by the main actors… It is curious how the art of cinema developed…
First the development of the camera… from still photos to the movement of actors on a stage… and a few lines of text…
Then the actors were on the outdoors… creating scenes and special effects… and noises on a few lines of text…
Then came the vocal film… followed by Technicolor… making mega effects and focusing on everything…
In watching this film… I realized that Aldous Huxley was writing Brave New World in that same period… in the “Belle Époque”… after the War that will end all Wars… and before the Holocaust…
I guess we forgot these old silent movies… we even forgot Brave New World…
”with a little bit of love… nobody shall have to suffer and be lost”…
Friday, October 2, 2009
Quake
Quake…
As I watch the various disasters… I try and list them to understand what is going on…
- Tsunami in Samoa and Tonga
- Earthquakes in Indonesia
- Mudslide in Messina, Sicily
- Typhoon in the Philippine
Then we have… unemployment at 9.5%… and other “bad news”…
We then have the debate(s) on Health for all Americans…
what is there to debate… I thought that the well being of its citizens was part of the Constitution… how can you have pursuit of happiness without well being…
On the good news side… let us go to Rio de Janeiro and celebrate the 2016 Olympics… the one thing that the Brazilians excel is to celebrate…
Peace
As I watch the various disasters… I try and list them to understand what is going on…
- Tsunami in Samoa and Tonga
- Earthquakes in Indonesia
- Mudslide in Messina, Sicily
- Typhoon in the Philippine
Then we have… unemployment at 9.5%… and other “bad news”…
We then have the debate(s) on Health for all Americans…
what is there to debate… I thought that the well being of its citizens was part of the Constitution… how can you have pursuit of happiness without well being…
On the good news side… let us go to Rio de Janeiro and celebrate the 2016 Olympics… the one thing that the Brazilians excel is to celebrate…
Peace
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