The Fake Mustache of Peter Sellers: (4) The Wrong Man Escaped

Then it is Lolita by Kubrick. Wikipedia says that Peter Sellers plays a small part but “proved a scene stealer”. The opening is the main character Humbert Humbert walks into a big house but it is quite a wreck. He shouts a name, and a chair covered by cloth squirms, a man comes out from the cloth and it is Peter Sellers, playing Clare Quilty.

Quilty was completely drunk. He was so friendly as to ask Humbert to play ping pong as if he didn’t know that Humbert walked in for revenge. Humbert ran out of patience and pulled out a gun, but Quilty didn’t take it seriously until he was shot on the leg. Quilty crawled on the stairs trying to find a place to hide, and found a painting as a shield. Not a good one, obviously. The camera stops at the painting, and we see that the painting is a portrayal of a young woman and the bullet hole was right on her forehead between the eyebrows.

Peter Sellers plays the writer who figured out what happened between Humbert and his stepdaughter. He created opportunities for Lolita to get away from Humbert by choosing her as the leading actress for his play. Humbert got jealous and forbade it. Quilty wore a disguise and pretended to be a German psychoanalyst from the school, threatening Humbert to conduct a survey about Lolita’s family life. Humbert was afraid that the relationship would come to people’s knowledge so he settled with permission for Lolita’s extracurricular activity. Because of this piece, when it came to Dr. Strangelove, the studio funded Kubrick under the condition that Peter Sellers plays multiple roles.

Kubrick is the director who knows how to use Peter Sellers and make him glow. In Lolita Sellers is funny even if it is just a simple dance, but he is able to remain funny without sacrificing a realistic touch. He doesn’t need to be kitsch to by funny.

At last I found After the Fox to recollect the start of the encounter with Peter Sellers. I again got a really good laugh. It’s so bizarre and entertaining! After the Fox didn’t do well on the Box Office, and is never listed as classic or must-see. But it amuses me tremendously a good 40 years later. Peter Sellers’ sister was chasing movie stars and someone in the crowd exclaimed, “Look at the nose, it’s just like Marlon Brando!” Someone asked Sellers who is in the car anyway, and he replied, “Marlon Brando’s nose.”

The next year after Being There, Peter Sellers died at the age of 54. He identifies with the void gardener and his life ended at this role, isn’t it something? No, he made another mediocre movie The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu and that becomes his last movie. Moreover, Blake Edwards used the outtakes and footage of the previous Pink Panther movies to make another one Trail of the Pink Panther. Peter Sellers who hates mediocrity ceases in utmost mediocrity.

His life is exactly the way he tried to avoid. The heritage goes the wrong way, the career ends at outtakes; he was most known for a character unworthy of the fame, and the prize he deserves does not come his way. His life requires a good sense of humor to look at, even his tomb. The inscription reads: “My Darling Husband: I will always love you.”

I like the ending of After the Fox. When it starts, Peter Sellers is a thief in jail. He decided to escape because he learned that his sister didn’t attend school as she should. There was a psychotherapist visiting the prisoners routinely. After the visit, Peter Sellers wore a disguise and tied himself to the bed pretending to be the therapist, and called for help. The guards were fooled and that’s how he was set loose.

At the end he was caught again. He designated a specific date and claimed that he would escape again. This time he tied the therapist in the bed and walked out, and the poor therapist was mocked when he cried for help. The gate closed behind Peter Sellers and he looked into the camera with a conceited smile. He tried to rip off the fake mustache but oops, it didn’t work. He tried again and it didn’t work. Peter Sellers panicked: “Oh my God! The wrong man escaped!”

One is real and the other is fake, one is tied up and the other escaped. “The wrong man escaped” is against logic, hence hilarious. But for Peter Sellers who couldn’t figure out who he is, it might be just the perfect metaphor. Perhaps there was no Peter Sellers ever; there was an evil doctor, stupid inspector, void gardener and Fox the thief, and it is impossible to integrate these fictional characters into a real person. There is only the fake mustache that refuses to go, and the grin under it.

“Some forms of reality are so horrible we refuse to face them, unless we are trapped into it by comedy. To label any subject unsuitable for comedy is to admit defeat.” —Peter Sellers.


Peter Sellers died on 24 July, 1980. The wrong man escaped.

-1962 Lolita
-1964 Dr. Strangelove
-1966 After the Fox
-1968 I Love You, Alice B. Toklas
-1976 Murder by Death
-1979 Being There

Technorati Tags:peter sellers, stanley kubrick, lolita, clare qulity, after the fox

Read More......

The Fake Mustache of Peter Sellers: (3) or How I Learn to Stop Picking on Him

In 2004 BBC and HBO collaborated to bring the true Peter Sellers to the audiences. The Life and Death of Peter Sellers starred Geoffrey Rush as Peter Sellers and other 39 roles, mostly people in Sellers’ life, and some fictional characters played by Sellers.

Suffering from frustration before the stardom and indulging in sex, drugs and alcohol after; marrying, divorcing, and ignoring his family; big temper, high pressure and low self-esteem; aren’t these the standardized equipment for all movie stars? The Life and Death of Peter Sellers offers nothing new in this respect.

There are creative bits in the style of the film. Geoffrey Rush plays Peter Sellers arguing with Kubrick, and the next take he plays Kubrick talking to the audiences. On this end of the telephone line Peter Sellers refused to visit his mother in the hospital, and on the other end “she” lifted her head from sadness and it’s Geoffrey Rush wearing a wig playing the sick lady, talking when walking to her coffin, lying down and dying. The change of roles creates a surreal atmosphere but the style contradicts the message, in my opinion. Peter Sellers was known to be immature and selfish, while the style implies that he was insightful of people’s secret thoughts.

Geoffrey Rush is a good actor. I am impressed by his performance in The Quill. But it is a pity that in The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, no matter which role he plays he looks just like himself, Geoffrey Rush. What is worse, he plays the famous roles Sellers played too, Inspector Clouseau, the President of the U.S., Dr. Strangelove and Chance the gardener, and still they all are just himself, Geoffrey Rush! The way The Life and Death of Peter Sellers salutes the great comedian is to use Geoffrey Rush as sacrifice. Watching Rush makes me realize how difficult it is to copy Sellers. Rush only manages to make Dr. Strangelove look evil, but not funny; Chance looks dull and dumb but not void.

Rush’s pathetic mimicry of Sellers shows that the riddle of Sellers is bigger and deeper than I know. How did he do it then, if Rush fails miserably? Those roles vary to such an extent and those personalities contain such complexity; how could Sellers put it off as if it is the most natural thing for him to do? What is the true, natural Peter Sellers?

Obviously somebody asked the question. One of Seller’s famous quotes is, “There is no me. I do not exist. There used to be a me, but I had it surgically removed.”

The Life and Death of Peter Sellers does not help much in the answer. Maybe it is a question that can not possibly be answered; maybe Sellers was honest in that quote: there is no Peter Sellers. He identifies deeply with Chance in Being There and that is a subject of the void. It is doomed that Geoffrey Rush could only do so much. Peter Sellers describes himself, “I feel ghostly unreal until I become somebody else again on the screen.” As good as Geoffrey Rush is, how can he possibly portray someone “ghostly unreal”?

The Life and Death of Peter Sellers has a beautiful ending. Peter Sellers stood in the snow without a word, the flakes sank and titles rose, and we learn that he was down because he did not win the Oscar for Being There. At the tender moment it was Blake Edwards, the director of The Pink Panther that Sellers despised, witnessed Sellers’ defeat. The titles tell the death of Sellers. The take zoomed out and it became the footage played in the shooting scene, the audience turned around and it is Rush as young Sellers. Young Sellers watched his whole life and gave us a “what the heck” smile. He walked to his trailer and shut the camera out: “No, you can not come in.” On the door, it says, “Peter Sellers”.

His death is actually comic if you know how to laugh. He was about to go to his lawyer to sign a document to exclude his current wife of his will. (Another quote from Peter Sellers: “You only know what happiness is once you're married. But then it's too late.”) He didn’t get to see the lawyer before he was taken by a severe heart attack. In his funeral the song In the Mood was played as Sellers wanted. That’s his last humor because it’s a song he hates. He has a son and two daughters and he decides to give them £800 each. His son didn’t appreciate the “humor”: “Even the lawyers blushed when they came to tell me.” The rest of the gigantic inheritance went to his wife, which Sellers tried to prevent.

After The Life and Death of Peter Sellers I stop picking on him and start to watch whatever I can find with him. The Pink Panther. Casino Royale. I don’t care their notoriety for being boring; I just want to watch how this man wasted his talents. He once said, “I have a name of being very difficult, I'm not difficult at all, I just cannot take mediocrity, I just cannot take it on any level.” These movies are nothing but mediocrity.

On the list of his works there is I Love You Alice B. Toklas. That’s interesting! Alice B. Toklas is a lesbian, whose girlfriend is Gertrude Stein. Peter Sellers plays an American lawyer with a stable but predictable life. His brother is a hippie with a hippie girlfriend. Peter Sellers was enchanted by the free lifestyle of hippies, so he ran away from the wedding, got rid of his belongings and opened his house for everyone. The soul searching journey started from the hashish brownie the hippie girlfriend made—the hippie girlfriend of his brother’s and then of his but of course she is of no one’s, she’s a hippie—that was too liberating to resist, even for the hardcore conservatives. I didn’t know that Alice B. Toklas is famous for two things: One is Gertrude Stein, and the other is the cookbook she published with the recipe of hashish brownie. The theme of the movie sings, “I love you Alice B. Toklas! So is Gertrude Stein…” The movie presents the encounter of the values of middle class and hippies. It’s interesting to see the lesbian reference be used naturally in a movie which did not target specifically lesbian audiences.

Another one is titled Murder by Death. Peter Sellers plays a Chinese detective. It is so racist. Peter Sellers’ costume is only seen on zombies in Chinese movies. Who else would dress like that other than those who lie in tombs! He paints his eyes slanted, wears snaggletooth and fakes Chinese accent. At some point he was ridiculed for not being able to use articles and prepositions correctly.

Since it was made 30 years ago and they don’t do it anymore, I didn’t allow it to bother me too much. What is for ridicule and what is not is delicate. In Dr. Strangelove the German is portrayed as Nazi, pervert, dangerously ambitious; and people laugh. Germans didn’t complain and such portrayal is never judged as politically incorrect. In The Pink Panther the French accent is exaggerated and ridiculed too. If Germans and French don’t need special care, do Chinese need it?

Aside from falling for stereotype, Peter Sellers’ efforts in acting like a Chinese is very much visible. Or maybe I don’t care. I think I am officially a fan of Peter Sellers.

Technorati Tags:peter sellers, the life and death of peter sellers, geoffrey rush, alice b. toklas, murder by death, dr. strangelove, pink panther, being there

Read More......

The Fake Mustache of Peter Sellers: (2) Dr. Strangelove, Why Pink Panther?

Dr. Strangelove is adapted from a novel Red Alert. It was a hype of the Cold War as well as the weaponry competition between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R in the 1960s. The story is about how a right wing extremist commander of the U.S. decides to send planes to attack the U.S.S.R. in order to force the U.S. to declare an all-out war against communism. The mainstream strategic thinking at that time is MAD, mutual assured destruction: Peace is maintained by the balance of terror based on the knowledge that the other side has all the capacity and the determination to mutual destruction if attacked.

Stanley Kubrick decided that MAD is simply mad so he was going to make the thriller novel into a hilarious satire. The topic and the timing are way too sensitive, so when Dr. Strangelove was screened, a title card was added and it goes like this: “It is the stated position of the U.S. Air Force that their safeguards would prevent the occurrence of such events as are depicted in this film. Furthermore, it should be noted that none of the characters portrayed in this film are meant to represent any real persons in living or dead.” The audiences burst into laughter even before the movie began.

There are several story lines in Dr. Strangelove. The extremist commander sent out the planes and shut down all communication of the military base. He is not for negotiation; he wants a war! A British exchange officer was trapped together with the commander, and all he could do is to try to calm down the commander and get the code to recall the planes. The British officer is Peter Sellers.

In the War Room, high ranking politicians and generals have an emergency meeting to discuss about the solution. General Turgidson tried to persuade the President of the U.S. to declare a war. “Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops! Uh, depending on the breaks.”

Contrary to the bold and reckless general, the President is bald and patient. “I find this very difficult to understand. I was under the impression that I was the only one in authority to order the use of nuclear weapons.” “That's right, sir, you are the only person authorized to do so. And although I, uh, hate to judge before all the facts are in, it's beginning to look like, uh, General Ripper exceeded his authority.” “When you instituted the human reliability tests, you assured me there was no possibility of such a thing ever occurring!” “Well, I, uh, don't think it's quite fair to condemn a whole program because of a single slip-up, sir.”

The President had no choice but to call Soviet Premier Dimitri. “You know how we've always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the bomb... Well now, what happened is... ahm... one of our base commanders, he had a sort of... well, he went a little funny in the head... you know... just a little... funny. And, ah... he went and did a silly thing... Well, I'll tell you what he did. He ordered his planes... to attack your country... Ah... Well, let me finish, Dmitri... Let me finish, Dmitri... Well listen, how do you think I feel about it?” The image and voice of Dimitri was not shown in the movie so it’s a one-man show of the President, who is also played by Peter Sellers.

Since it was not feasible to recall the planes, the President offered details to the Soviet Premier to make sure that the planes would be taken down before they make any damage. The front-line flight officers were easily sold out. Unfortunately one flight survived and was loyally on the way to complete the mission. The U.S.S.R. ambassador revealed the existence of the “doomsday machine”, which will activate automatically and can not be deactivated. The President had enough of warlike General Turgidson, so he turned to Dr. Strangelove for advice.

Dr. Strangelove is an ex-Nazi scientist, who is naturalized as a U.S. citizen after WW2. He sits on a wheel chair, blond, wears sunglasses and leather gloves, and talks with a wicked smirk. He said that the doomsday machine is unstoppable so the only solution is to build an underground shelter and pick healthy, intelligent, fertile people moving in to reproduce. Dr. Strangelove suggested that all government officers should be admitted, and that the male/female ratio should be 1:10 to ensure productive breeding. General Turgidson was so excited by the idea and only on this matter the U.S.S.R. ambassador agrees with Turgidson; two sides of the Cold War found common ground on the priority of male fantasy.

Dr. Strangelove has trouble controlling his right hand. It was not explained in the movie but it is a rare disorder called alien hand syndrome. Due to stroke or brain surgery, the patient can not control one of his hands and it tends to contradict the normal hand, so the patient perceives it as a hand of someone else’s. Dr. Strangelove’s alien hand exercised its own will when he talked about eugenics: Salute to Hitler! He addressed to the President as “Mein Führer” as a slip of tongue. The portrayal of ex-Nazi scientists has reference to reality, for there were strategists with Nazi background among high ranking U.S. consultants, and the alien hand reveals that Dr. Strangelove is no less a Nazi. Dr. Strangelove is, again, played by Peter Sellers.

British accent on a nervous officer, Mid-west American accent on a serious politician, and German accent on a crazy scientist: Peter Sellers didn’t count on magical cosmetology or computerized special effect as we have today to perform multiple roles, but mainly build them on the ability to mimic different accent and to construct a personality.

George C. Scott is equally impressive as General Turgidson. As an advocate of war, General Turgidson has the hawk-like look in the eyes, and George C. Scott plays it in a serious way delivering those most absurd lines. There was a scene that General Turgidson disagreeing with the U.S.S.R. ambassador. He was rude enough to interrupt the ambassador, walked backwards and tripped himself, rolled over on the ground and got back on his feet and resumed talking as if nothing bothers him.

George C. Scott was tricked into to do this. Reportedly he preferred to do it in a more reserved way but Kubrick asked him to do an “over the top” acting just to warm up. In the final cut it is the “over the top” version that Kubrick uses. George C. Scott said he’ll never work with Kubrick again. He later played General Patton with a lot of authorities; maybe he considers General Turgidson to be distorted? I have no access to the reserved takes but I have to say that I enjoy his “over the top” performance so much and I think it is just adequate for Dr. Strangelove. I replay the tripping scene several times and it never stops to amaze me.

After Dr. Strangelove, it is impossible to think of Peter Sellers in the same way I did. He becomes a riddle. As someone capable of what he did in Dr. Strangelove, why did he do the Pink Panther?

Technorati Tags:peter sellers, dr.strangelove, stanley kubrick, george c.scott, pink panther, cold war

Read More......

The Fake Mustache of Peter Sellers: (1) Being There and That's All?

Years ago I bumped into a funny movie on TV and got a good laugh. I checked the program and it is called After the Fox. A friend told me it’s an old movie with Peter Sellers. Peter Sellers? I’ve heard the name but have no idea who he is.

Months ago I started to watch movies in the fashion of taking a stroll. Lack of admiration for masters, loyalty to stars, and the determination to exhaust classics, I play a movie when I have a meal and all too often the first 20 minutes I don’t understand a thing because I am too hungry.

That’s how I watched Being There. A middle-aged gardener is hired and confined in a mansion since he was a kid. He is not allowed to leave the mansion so he watches TV all day and tries to make sense of the reality out of it. One day the employer died and the lawyers informed him that the mansion is shut down and he’s got to go. Chance, the name of the gardener, walks the streets of Washington D.C. He has no last name, no family, no money, no friends, no skills other than gardening, and no common sense about city life except what he sees on TV. His simplicity in the complexity of the city discloses the menace of everyday life.

Being There is slow. Peter Sellers is so void in the face. When in the mansion there was a black maid bringing meals to him, so he walks to a random black woman in the street and asks, without a trace of emotion, “Can you bring my lunch? I am very hungry.”

When leaving the mansion the lawyers asked Chance if he has any claim, he said no with a blank face. Having been hit by a car then brought to examination he was asked again if he has any claim, he said no, with a blank face. He appears to be modest but when the rich family invited him for dinner he didn’t hesitate for a second, “Yes, yes, please, I am very hungry.”

Being There is classified as a comedy but I didn’t laugh a lot. I am so worried and concerned that for a person with no claim the world is so much a jungle. Each time he said “I am very hungry” my heart aches. Why can’t it be just plain and simple.

Chance is so much an empty mirror that people see what they want to see. He is defenseless to any interpretation and that earns him the reputation of a guru. He introduces himself as “a gardener” and people take that his last name is Gardiner. He comments on the elevator to be “a very small room” and it is perceived as a good sense of humor. He talks about plants in the garden and the President takes it as a metaphor for the national economy. The journalists and securities couldn’t figure why they are not able to find anything about the background of this celebrity, not even a driver’s license or credit card.

The rich family is a loving couple. The husband is considerably older than the wife and he is so ill. There is an unspoken agreement between the couple that Chance will be an ideal candidate as a successor. But Chance has no idea about such delicacy. He asked the wife, Shirley MacLaine, “Are you going to leave and close the place when Ben dies?”

Ben died. Chance strolled away from the funeral and came to a pond in the woods. He bent over to try the depth of the water with his umbrella and the whole umbrella submerged in. He walked on the water, leaving a few ripples behind and nothing more.

The director Hal Ashby fought hard against the studio for the ending. The original ending is Peter Sellers and Shirley MacLaine meeting in the woods, but before the scene was shot Hal Ashby came up with the idea of having Chance walk on the water. The ending was shot on a flat land with a thin layer of water and the total cost is no more than $10,000. Aside from the improvised ending, Hal Ashby wanted to add outtakes at the end but the studio prohibited. Ashby went to every theater and said, “I'm Hal Ashby, the director of the film. The studio put in the wrong ending, but I've got the right one with me. How about if we edit it in?”

Peter Sellers was nominated for the Oscar for Being There but lost to Dustin Hoffman in Kramer vs. Kramer. Hal Ashby was never paid for the directing for the studio charged him with violating the contract.

Peter Sellers is best known as the French Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther Series. The series was meant to be a story of a smart thief played by David Niven, but the Inspector Clouseau received such wide popularity, as a result the series was stolen from the thief and became the story of the incredibly stupid inspector. The series also gave life to the animated figure the Pink Panther.

Other than that the Pink Panther series doesn't have much to talk about. I mutter to myself, is this all, the legend of Peter Sellers? I watched The Party in which he plays an Indian guy who is naïve, friendly but always out of context. The opening is very funny but still I mutter, is this all?

Technorati Tags:being there, peter sellers, hal ashby, the party, pink panther, inspector clouseau

Read More......

No Willy Wonka: "The Take"

The Take, a documentary made by Naomi Klein (the author of No Logo) and her husband Avi Lewis (the former host of CBC now works for Al Jazeera), tells a story about how Argentine workers take over the closed factories and make them productive again. The bosses are fired.

In the late 80s Argentina was expected to be counted among the arising countries, but in the 90s the economy model failed and the country was in trouble. Multinational companies withdrew everything in cash, in time. Many owners of factories filed bankruptcy but walked away with money. The workers left unemployed, in awe of the mobility of money and the immobility of themselves.

Activists come up with the three-phase strategy: Occupy, resist, produce. The plant is under the court's seal. Workers break in, resist the police, and try to make the factory function and produce. A boss is the only thing missing in the picture but workers wonder if a boss is really a necessity.

Workers/managers in The Take were busy. They had to deal with the court, the judge was not happy about the breaking-in; they had to deal with the police, they got orders from the judge to clear up the plant; so they had to build up solidarity of the community for a stronger defense against legal authorities.

And they had to handle the whole production, but somehow that's easy. They know how to operate the machines; that's the only thing they were trained to do. They had to do accounting but they shrugged: "You buy materials, and you sell products; you just add and subtract. I don't know why it is so difficult to the bosses."

There were tears wiped in silence when they returned to the closed factory for first time after being unemployed, when they failed, and when they won. The teary eyes remind me of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory".

I was so terrified by the cruelty of the movie and its indifference. Willy Wonka fired everyone in the factory and replaced them with machines and immigrant workers. Charlie's grandmas and grandpas remain in bed all day, awake or asleep, because there is simply no space; but the biggest dream of the formerly-employed grandpa is to return to the factory and take a look. As poor as that, they spent money on the chocolate which they can't possibly afford, because Willy Wonka is rich enough to create a global dream and make everyone drooling over the tickets for the game. The game is about moral commandments: Thou shalt not be greedy, willful and selfish; but isn't Willy Wonka the most greedy, willful, and selfish person in the movie?

Naomi Klein was challenged by TV hosts that she fails to propose an "alternative" for capitalism. Activists are familiar with this argument: "I don't want you to tell me what's wrong unless you can FIX IT! If you say you can you better PROVE IT! And buzz me when you are done." The Take is the alternative she finds. Of the worker, by the worker, for the worker; and no Willy Wonka.


1. To buy The Take, and the products made by Argentine workers' factories, please go to The Working World.

2. A Taiwanese filmmaker Chao-Ti Ho made a documentary on a similar situation titled El Salvador Journal and just won an award in Taipei Film Festival. The owner intending to shut down the factory is a Taiwanese, and a Taiwanese activist helped the local workers to fight against the entrepreneur and take over the plant. I look forward to watching it!

Technorati Tags:the take, naomi klein, avi lewis, anti-globalization, globalization, the working world, charlie and the chocolate factory

Read More......

Two Less People in Hamburg

Two less people in Hamburg tonight. Nandu and Thao.

Starting from a group of 36 people from 19 different countries, the Erasmus Mundus Journalism 2006-2008 is now dispersed as we were before this program. Dust to dust and ashes to ashes. If life is a series of coincidences and rendezvous then what is left when people depart after a short encounter?

When leaving Aarhus I felt sentimental standing in front of the train station knowing that the 36 of us had or would enter the building and would never exit from it again. I might visit this little town after 20 years for nostalgic reasons but the life I had was impossible to be recreated. No one will be there except the boy in ARoS. The train station is like a giant mouth that devours us, one by one, spiced up with our memories.

When leaving Amsterdam I was heading for Scandinavia for my summer vacation knowing that this is it. For many of us. We’ll be divided as three groups and although the distance between them is next to nothing, for now, the group came to an end. This April I passed by Amsterdam and walked in the city knowing that this is it. We used to rule this city, didn’t we? The Prinsengracht was under the sovereignty of Al, Jeff, Nandu and Juliet; the north part went to Maren and Mia. The most popular windmill in Amsterdam was famous because Emily, Ruta, Priya, Pati and Zhanna lived close by. On my way back home I would came across Cuckoo’s room on the ground floor at the corner, though I seldom knocked to bother her. I remember she left early. The next day I saw a black guy sitting there with the window wide open. I was shouting inside, “No! That is Cuckoo’s room!!” Not anymore, obviously.

Sooner or later we all left. I didn’t even keep a map of Amsterdam.

Then how many of us met again in Hamburg, 13? Now we have 5. The next will be leaving in two months and that will be me. I start to think about what to buy as gifts for my friends and family. In the era of globalization it’s a headache for everything is attainable everywhere.

We are simultaneously here and there, scholars say, for the communication is in real time now.

True. But it’s a small piece of me here and another piece of me there; adding them altogether it is only one, but not multiplied, me. We are torn apart.

What is left is just the memory. A walk in the park, a dish on the table, when the map is ditched and the recipe is unknown. The unsaid words are appreciated; the look in the eyes is understood and returned. So, farewell.

Technorati Tags:erasmus mundus

Read More......