Hanging in there...

With the advent of new media and the mushrooming of phone apps, pen and paper have become almost obsolete. We witness a world gradually disappearing before our eyes by being swallowed by hi tech gadgets that seem so cool, yet they are so hollow. Although I am totally head over heels (in love) with my Blackberry which has become my remote computer, old habits die hard. I love the feel of wearing my watch even though my Blackberry can tell me the time.  I still have a moleskine and a diary although my Memo Pad & Calendar can easily replace them.  I keep on buying paperbacks in spite of the invasive expansion of ebooks.

I am not a gadget-phobe by any means, but how can I consent to the end of beauty so easily? I love the smell of newly printed books as well as the old yellowish paperbacks resting on the shelves of second-hand book shops waiting for a booklover owner.

source: pintrest.com/http://www.behance.net/Gallery/my-moleskine/133252

 But at the end of the day, there is hope. And hopefully, in an ideal world, we will be able to accept and accomodate with both touch screen devices and old-school memorabilia. I would like to hope, if nothing else, that the likes of filofax won't disappear in the mists of the future. Next time we jot down a date, a note or a number, the elegant gesture will be seen as an effortless step towards normality.

 I came across an interesting article on the return of filofax which I will paste below. It was written by Harry Wallop for The Telegraph co.uk.

The Filofax is back

The Filofax, one of the ultimate symbols of yuppie aspiration, is back, according to retailers who reported sales of the personal organiser have taken off after finding favour with women.

source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/7299814/The-Filofax-is-back.html

It is the latest relic of the 1980s to enjoy a resurgence, following big hair, shoulder pads and a disagreement over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands.

Selfridges said sales of Filofax personal organisers had increased by 25 per cent during January and February compared with the same period last year. Other organisers, including those made by upmarket stationery company Smythson were selling equally well, it said.

The retailer put the revival down women shunning iPhones and other electronic organisers, in favour of solid, easy-to-use stationery, which were more personal and distinctive.

A spokesman for Selfridges said: "Women now consider it as a fashion accessory. Blackberries and iPhones are quite masculine products, when you take them out of your bag and put them on the table.

"Taking out a Filofax is quite a fashion statement."

Filofax, a British company, enjoyed enormous success during the 1980s, when the products were considered a crucial accessory for any up and coming merchant banker, along with braces, a brick-sized mobile phone and an invitation Annabel's nightclub.

However, according to the company it sold about half a million of its products last year, far in excess of the 150,000 it sold during its peak year in the 1980s, when the most upmarket versions cost in excess of £100.

The modern Filofax organiser, which starts at about £25, still uses a ring binder allowing customers to collect a diary, address book, maps, restaurant guides, note paper, business card holders and other stationery in one folder, usually leather-bound.

A spokesman for the company said: "We've seen a real swing to the female market. In the 1980s about a quarter of our sales were to females, it is now about 65 per cent. It used to be for City boys; many of our customers now use it to juggle their home and work life."

  

                                                           

In spite of the price, vintage diaries hang in there on the market offering an alternative to techology. We can't discard the past so easily. The stories, the drama and the lessons to be learned from the past shape our collective phyche & build up our character.

Les Roses sur une toile

The Rose Painting has been in my family for generations- two, or maybe three.  Always hanging against the east wall, reminding me of a distant past that I can only imagine intangibly.  Bucharest at the turn of the century was beautiful, polished, dashing, with busy streets and markets, shops full of happy customers and artists meeting in literary cafes discussing world affairs.  This is why it was known as the Paris of the East, le Petit Paris. Hemingway and TS Eliot wouldn’t have been out of place at a sidewalk cafe on Victoriei Boulevard.

It’s hard to imagine Bucharest as it was before the war. Time and history scarred the city to such an extent that reconstruction is possible only by reading memoirs, looking at photos in sepia, and vivid artistry.

What do I really know about my hometown at the time when it had a life of its own? About its stories and about its sagas? How did people cope with life, with love, with despair, with injustice, with death? Did they hope for a better future?  How did they deal with the fall of everything they held dear (freedom, ownership) and the accession to power of a new regime of state ownership and totalitarianism?

So, all I have is a painting from the era I love the most, though I can’t put my finger on it and say why I love it so much.  I guess we all, collectively, love the old and the vintage, the pristine, virgin beauty of a distant past that is now deeply set in our hearts.

I remember I was a merely six or seven and my mother and I visited a distant aunt, the daughter of the painter whose canvas is now displayed as my background. She lived in an old, pre-war block of flats in Brasov, the traditional gateway to Transylvania.  We paid her a short visit one hot summer afternoon. Tanti Lizica was old and a vegetarian.  Her flat was covered in canvas, all painted by her father, S. (Starvu) Tarasov.  The etching on the right bottom of the canvas had been blurred by the merciless passage of time.

I don’t know what happened to her, nor to her heritage.  Her father, although exceptionally talented, had never found the fame he sought and deserved, either in life or in death. However,  I remember her as the Young Woman Playing the Violin. I glance at her every time I visit my parents’ house.  Then, all the memories come back to me: my holidays in Brasov, or my childhood when I would play Doll’s House under the dining table.  I would get all romantic and sentimental thinking about the old time and wondering “what if…?”

What if that golden age had never ended?

What if the war had never happened?

What if the forest fire of Communism hadn’t engulfed half of Europe?

What if the disease of corruption and petty greed, euphemistically known as ‘the transition’, hadn’t infected our already scarred nation two decades ago, just as the Ceausescu cancer was excised?

Would we have become something different? Something better? Something worse?

We shall never know, and it is as well that we won’t.  The reality is that history cannot be altered, we can never go back and there is no point in trying.  Looking back would simply cause us to trip and stumble as we walk forward.

All we can do is look towards the future with the memory of past glories and the experience of past mistakes to guide us.