Midair

 This text is about Frank Conroy's short story Midair (notice the brilliantly imaginative title of my post).

 
The story introduces its readers a few moments of Sean's life that are somehow connected to each other. All these moments take place in high places and involve similar kinds of feelings in a way that our dear dr. Siegmund Freud would have liked.
 All the strong feelings connected to heights (an unexplainably great urge to climb to a steep roof, being afraid of flights etc.) are linked to an incident that took place in Sean's childhood. What caused this life long trauma was that Sean's father, who had some kind of mental disease or disorder, used him as a human shield by clinging him outside the window of of the fifth floor so that the doctor and the nurses of the asylum wouldn't take him back there. Though the incident was lifethreatening, nobody mentioned or explained it to Sean and he forgot it completely.
 Though Sean had no clue of what had happened, the experience of being held dangerously midair  had a tremendous effect on the way he used to behave and react to situations in his adult life. When Sean hears that a child of someone he doesn't personally know has fallen from the window of the eight floor he rushes home to his own children to protect them.
 The psychoanalytic tone isn't there only to claim that an unhappy childhood ruins one's whole life. Sean has had an unbalanced father-son-relationship but it doesn't make him a bad parent: on the contrary he feels great love towards his children and wants to protect them from what he himself fears. He also feels protective and fatherly towards the young man with whom he is stuck in an elevator. He is able to calm the man down because he has faced his own fears first.

 Only when he has handled the things on which the incident in his childhood had an effect on can he clearly remember what had happened.

Whichever cat in the rain

An essay I wrote after reading Ernest Hemingway's short story "Cat in the rain". You can read the very brief short story here.

I also wrote an ending to the story. If you know Italian, maybe you could help me correct the sentence I tried to write in Italian...

The short story "Cat in the Rain" tells about an American couple on a journey in Italy and how the wife wants to rescue a cat from the rainy courtyard.

 When the American girl wants something (and she always does) she needs to get it right away. She is easily pleased but the contentment never lasts very long.

 The story doesn't let the reader know if the cat that the maid brought even was the same cat that had sat outside in the rain. It's always referred to the animal as "a cat", never "the cat".

 When the girl gets what she wants she comes up with a new idea of what she would like to own.

 She has wanted a change. She has wanted to travel to Italy. She has wanted to cut her hair short and now she wants it to grow back. She is a carpe diem hedonist and she is it in a naïve way. Her husband treats her in a bit condescending way. Her naīveté is highlighted by referring to her as a girl, not as a woman.

Ending I wrote to the story:

 "Oh how sweet it is! Look how sweet the kitty is!" the American girl said. Her face glowed. She fetched the cat and held it like it like it was a baby, rocking it.
"Sono contenta che la signora è felice" said the maid and left the room.
 George lifted his eyebrow and frowned a little but then he smiled.
 George flinched. He had fallen asleep with the book on his chest. He looked around. It was still night. The light on the dressing table was on, lighting the face of the girl. She was sitting on the windowsill with the cat on her lap. Rain was pouring down on the public garden and the war monument and against the window. She talked quietly to herself, without noticing that her husband was awake. She was staring at the rainy, dark seashore wit her big, sad doll eyes.
 "Why does it have to be raining?" she murmured. "Look, kitty. I want to go to the beach. I want it to be sunny and nice. Why does it have to be raining?"

Paintings & drawings/Maalauksia ja piirroksia

Kuvasatoa viime kouluvuoden kuviksentunneilta. En omista skanneria, pahoitteluni. Osa näistä onkin jo nähty kortteina.

Elämän puu - The tree of life

(guassit, puukynät ja vahakynät/gouache paint, coloured pencils and crayons)

Geishan kuiskaus - The whisper of geisha

(puuvärit ja jonkinlainen tussi/coloured pencils and some kind of marker)

Nimetön/Untitled - Haimme ideoita Pakolainen -lehdistä. We were reading Pakolainen(refugee)-magazines to get inspiration.

(guassit/gouache)

 A little bit Warhol

guassit/gouaches

Haukka/Falcon

(guassit/gouaches)

 Japanilainen/Japanese

(guassit ja nestemäinen tussi/gouache and drawing ink. Käytin siveltimen sijasta puutikkua/I used a wooden stick instead of a brush)

Japanilainen2/Japanese2

(guassit ja nestemäinen tussi/gouache and drawing ink. Käytin siveltimen sijasta puutikkua/I used a wooden stick instead of a brush)

Tiikeri/Tiger

(guassit ja tussi/gouache and drawinkg ink)

Tiikeri2/Tiger2

(guassit/gouache)

Luokittelemattomuus

Filosofiankokeen esseevastaus.Olen hukannut tehtäväpaperin, en muista tarkkaa tehtävänantoa mutta tarkoituksena oli pohtia, voisiko yhteisö perustua jollekin muulle kuin identiteettien kategorisoinnille.

Ihmisellä on tarve luokitella kaikki näkemänsä ja kokemansa. Tämä helpottaa jäsentelemään ja hahmottamaan maailmaa ja yksinkertaistaa kommunikaatiota. Voidaan pohtia, onko tarve vaistomainen vai opittu. Mikäli päädytään tulokseen, että tarve on lajinomainen ja evoluution ohjaama, ei se liene kitkettävissä pois pitkälläkään aikavälillä. Jos tapa luokitella olisi opittu, se voitaisiin yrittää myös opettaa pois.
 Leikitelkäämme ajatuksella yhteisöstä, jossa kategorisoivan identiteetin mahdollistavat tekijät olisi minimoitu. Tähän vaadittaisiin muun muassa ulkonäköjen samankaltaistamista, sillä esimerkiksi ihon- tai hiustenväri aiheuttaa automaattisesti ennakko-oletuksia, jotka puolestaan vaikuttavat tapaamme kohdella kyseistä henkilöä. Harmaahiuksinen ja ryppyinen henkilö tulkitaan vanhaksi mikä aiheuttaa sen, että häntä kohdellaan vanhuksena.
 Johonkin muuhun kuin kategorisoivaan identiteettiin perustuva yhteisö on utopia, muttei koskaan täydellisesti toteutettavissa. Pienet, tiiviit yhteisöt voivat pohjautua keskinäiselle kunnioitukselle, mutta tällaistenkin yhteisöjen jäsenten toimintatapoja ohjailee identiteetin kategorisointi.
 Immanuel Kantin kategorisen imperatiivin sisällöllisen muodon mukaan ihmistä on aina kohdeltava päämääränä sinänsä. Todellisuudessa ihmisiin suhtautuminen ja heidän kohtelunsa perustuu usein utilitaristiseen tai egoistiseen laskelmointiin, jolloin ihmistä käytetään ikään kuin välineenä. Aiemmin tarkastellussa utopiassa olisi aina toimittava Kantin kategorisen imperatiivin mukaan.