A recording (and transcript) of a restaurant conversation in which two Romanian journalists, ex-Gandul editor-in-chief Bogdan Chirieac and ex-Ziua general manager Sorin Rosca Stanescu blackmail National Integrity Authority (ANI) chief Catalin Macovei. And impart their wisdom on extra-marital affairs, on the side.
Shocking.
*****Puncte din oficiu pentru literatura romana tînără I
*****Puncte din oficiu pentru literatura română tînără II
Paul CERNAT
Observator Cultural , august 2009
*****Campania Geoana: Culisele internationale
de Dragos Paul Aligica
*****PNL: Momentul adevarului
de Dragos Paul Aligica
*****PNL, Crin Antonescu si deriva liberala
de Mihail Neamtu
HotNews.ro Duminică, 18 octombrie 2009, 13:18
***Despre manipularea prin sondaje
de Dragos Paul Aligica)
HotNews.ro Sâmbătă, 17 Oct 2009
Romania Paralela (RP) este inclusa in Romania Reala (RR).
In faza initiala, RP va fi un portal pentru romanii grabiti care vor sa se tina intrucatva la curent cu ce se intampla in patrie, dar nu cu orice pret, ci parcurgand numai materiale ingrijit realizate, materiale asupra carora autorii lor au petrecut timp, avand habar despre subiect si fiind calificati sa isi dea cu parerea. Publicistica luminata, care merita citita.
Desigur, sunt sanse mici ca portalul astfel inchegat sa cuprinda toate domeniile sau sa fie "reinnoit" cu regularitate. Asta e situatia... RP nu este RR, e doar bucatica palatabila din ea. Va veti forma prin RP o imagine partiala si incompleta despre Romania in care traiti sau pe care ati lasat-o in urma.
RP este o forma de refuz prin filtrare incapatanata. Este RR distilata la maxim.
Enjoy!
That would be about 144 days, right?
Anyway...
Mungiu got my attention from the moment I noticed Gabita was waxing her legs. 144 days pregnant, in deep shit, therefore, and the woman was WAXING HER LEGS! I sank in my chair. This had got to be good. Her play with the stupid plasticized table cover (Oriental sounding "mushama" in Romanian, an ubiquitous object that some have come to integrate into the Romanian quirkiness of being) was also gripping. Then Otilia took over and started to show us what it meant to find your way in Communist Romania, to fly under the radar, like most people did, as it had become their second nature.
So I knew I was in for a treat if the entire movie would be generous with such insights into the darkness of Romanian communism and the curses it had bestowed on people's approach to sexuality and reproduction.
Come to think of it, the curses still exist, only they have metamorphosed. For instance, check out the reaction of some regular American fellas upon discovering "Libertatea" online. And remember that "Libertatea" is the top selling daily newspaper in Romania, at quite a distance from its "normal" follower, "Jurnalul National".
Another intriguing possibility is that these curses had less to do with communism and more with the way Romanians relate to sexuality and its...well, consequences. This may have brought them into those depths of cynicism when abortion was forbidden. The fact that a law passed there, be it by the Communists, restricted both contraceptive methods and abortion may be an indication that all is not kosher in this domain. The brimming orphanages that brought Romania to worldwide attention may slap the same cynical accusation on Romanians. If all truth be told, even the chilling statistics showing that so many women still consider abortion an OK contraceptive method in that country deserves its own movie, but hey, that would be even more painful to watch, right?
Yes, it is a movie about how cynical people can become. True, the system has its part in it. But then again, it takes people to build the system, etc. And people who think they can mess with entire communities' bodies and life-giving decisions grow everywhere, even as we speak, right? Which gives this movie its instant and indisputable universal appeal. It cuts to the bone, it goes where no movie has gone before, it takes upon itself to show us a story about abortion as up close and personal as it can get (while still keeping its PG ratings, and this is, I think, why the camera stops following Otilia, for the first and only time during the movie, and sticks demurely with Gabita during the sex scene between Otilia and Bebe)
They say that Bebe was a monster in the movie. He could have been tons more monstrous. For instance, he was downright considerate when he chose to have sex with each of the women, I mean, separately. I disagree with CTP's assessment that "a nice looking fellow" like Bebe could have found willing sexual partners for a fistful of lei in any student dorm. I don't know where he got that from, he is way too jaded! But indeed, the enticement could have been a lot more serious had he gone to the bottom of male fantasies on the subject. Maybe the real life Bebe had, back then, who knows... But what would have Mutu's camera done in that case? Good point. And how about the ratings? Okay...
To me, the biggest, most offensive monster was off-screen, all the time, and was never even referred to. He was the Unspeakable, Unmentionable one. Very cool. I refer, of course, to the co-author of Gabita's pregnancy. Now, if he were "unknown", that would shorten the distance between him and the occupant of the second place in monstruosity, Gabita herself. But she was the empathetic kind, a female Hannibal, minus the intelligence. Then came Mr. Bebe, a monster by vocation and choice, and finally Otilia, who was initiated to being a monster during the events pictured. We could safely state that this is the theme of the movie -- how a woman is turned into a monster, slowly but surely, given the "right" constraints and a series of choices "between two evils" she needs to assume.
I'm sick of hearing everyone what a hero Otilia was and how grand her gesture, her self-sacrifice. She was a flawed human being herself. She couldn't have been otherwise, monsters need soft moral tissue to develop... But we can't help but empathize with her because of her good side, as she is so selflessly taking action to help out her friend in need.
She's a great main character, that I'll give her. However, she DID HAVE CHOICES when it came right down to the aforesaid sacrifice. Mungiu didn't close off her every exit, and he didn't because he obviously couldn't have. Yes, they had paid in advance some nights at the hotel, so money would have been lost there. Not a great fortune, but a considerable amount, let's say, the amount a Romanian student would have needed for food for a month, back then. There WERE other possibilities to be explored in terms of potential abortionists -- not to mention the idea that the pregnancy should have been kept at that point, never mind that... Otilia, finding out herself under pressure about the real advancement of the pregnancy, doesn't even think to ask -- "Hey, are you sure?". However, she does decide to commit "the sacrifice".
Hers was therefore a cold and calculated management decision. Otilia struck me as a great manager, by the way. She is DRIVEN. We like these people in today's pressed for time world. She takes action. She is astute, too, as she negotiates the hotel room, her way out of the bus crisis. (By the way, why be dishonest there? I told you, she's not perfect. Bus tickets cost next to nothing back then and students had reduced fares, etc. Busted, Otilia!) She tries telling Mr. Bebe that she is having her period to extract herself from the situation. However, she might have told the truth there, as testified later by her boyfriend, Monster No.5, who had not protected her during their latest lovemaking session, even under the "menace" of fertility... Which makes Otilia safe from "perpetuating the cycle of unwanted childbearing" by saying yes to Bebe, with a chance of having been already pregnant by her boyfriend. So it was, after all, the immediate way out (and time was of the essence) IF ONE COULD LIVE WITH IT.
Thus, Otilia chooses to prostitute herself to minimize the hassle and improve the chances of success of the task at hand, which is helping Gabita get rid of her unwanted pregnancy. Her management abilities combined with an openness to moral compromise (undoubtedly honed by the system) pushed her to this NON-OBLIGATORY decision.
It's all relative, some people sleep their way to the top of corporate ladders, or to get a part in a movie, so this is quite heroic, by comparison, right?
Once you accept that, it's all good. The movie, I mean. But if you insist to imagine Otilia as a saintly, perfect woman, all dedicated to her friendship with the moronic Gabita, well, then good luck suspending your disbelief, because you'd have to...
In conclusion, this is a genre movie, a monster movie, with suspense and all that. :) Seriously now, in spirit and emotions stirred, it is the absolute opposite of a romantic comedy, if you will. A "romcom", as in "ROManian COMmunism" horror... It's also a "buddy love" act, with a hint of "dude in trouble". Well done!
Yes, it made me think about things. Yes, I applaud it and the scandal/discussions it aroused.
But when I came out of the cinema hall, I envied the people who were in line to see "The Bourne Etc."
"432" is not entertainment, it's truth and pain administered via a good story. A movie one pays to suffer through, while Mungiu delivers unwanted truths about human lows. Which, at some level, turns him into a kind of Mr. Bebe...
And if you think this is a cruel joke, I say it was my tiny revenge for the extra time endured by us all in front of the screens, as this film could have been shorter by 30 minutes at least, just like its Romanian predecessor in examining human bodies and minds dishonored by cruel systems, "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu" by Cristi Puiu.
I have this new theory: that Romanians are the greatest communicators on Earth.
I have spent a few weeks there this time around. And I am in love with the very people that originated ME. How lucky is that? What were the odds, I ask bombastically?
They have this saying that goes "Romania is a beautiful country, too bad it's inhabited". (Don't they say that about France, too?) Anyway, it makes me mad: no, Romania's natural beauty is not really that great. And, on the contrary, the people are so warm and friendly and funny and bizarre and crazy that they are indeed Romania's only claim to fame.
They have started to learn to put that on camera -- and they bagged the big prize in Cannes -- and kudos to that wonderful Mungiu for an important story, fantastically told. My take: this is only the beginning. This amazing people will be known for its quirky, bizarre and deeply disturbing human rawness and its unique way of coping-by-communication.
I remember being slightly amazed at how the Internet made its debut in Romania: at the Net Cafes everywhere, people were busy... chatting! IRC channels open, they were tirelessly meeting one another and yakking away. Or the mobile phone craze! Everyone has a few of those, and they keep chatting and chatting. They can't keep their mouths shut or their fingers still, they have to communicate to one another, day in, day out. A latin people, granted, but... There are no limits!
Remember those TV channels I was upset about? Now I GET them better. People chatting, everywhere you turn, they can't help themselves. I suppose there are TV channels that nobody tunes into, but still those TV talk shows will be on because those people have to express themselves, and they'd do it anyway, so who cares how many cameras are on them, and if you pay them to talk to each other, sure, they'll take it! That's the spirit of many, many TV stations. It's a non-stop, non-alcoholic (although I can't be 100% sure) happy hour on air.
And the level of detail and intimacy! Californians have a way to go before they touch this! Any taxi driver will dive right into their heart and souls and pour their private life stories if only you make a slight remark they can latch on to -- or, alternatively, you can bare yours for them, they'll listen intently. And then repeat it to the next customer. Everyone is everyone else's shrink there. Total therapy -- or an exasperating madhouse, it depends on one's mood.
I love it how the terraces are full of people. I hadn't realized that, since for quite a few years I had come there in winter. People seem to have quite a bit of money in Bucharest. And the restaurants have improved vastly. Atmosphere, service, everything is quite alright. Almost as good as Prague, only the beauty is missing and some extra traffic and pollution occur. But hey, then... There are the Romanians! The big Communicators! English everywhere, French quite often, Italian understood, and now even Spanish is no longer that uncommon. You can't find that in Prague, you can't compare the two!
So, to the accidental tourist who may happen upon my words: if you're moved by beauty and loftiness, and the party life is secondary or has to happen in such surroundings, by all means, do Prague and be happy. But if you're looking for quite possibly the coolest people, the warmest, funniest, bend-over-backwardest for their guests and really happy to talk to you about themselves, yourself, their country, your country, other people's countries, selves, TV series, whatever -- come to Romania and you'll be sure to have a blast! Just make sure to do your homework right -- a few good addresses, and you'll be set for meeting the COMMUNICATORS!
What matters most these days, what will make history and what must be hurting all those political and media hacks to no end is... love! The love between a president and the people who chose him.
Mind you, Romanian people are not very used to expressing themselves. They are used to pretending to like the one they applaud. But now they genuinely like a political leader! It took a long time, but it is happening! Nobody asks them to get out in the streets, however, they will. Because for the first time in their Romanian lives, they can stand up and shout out their approval, and not be ashamed of it. This is really potent stuff, folks, and not many Europeans enjoy it. The simple act of rallying around a flag and a person with such shared glee is not a common occurrence on the Old Continent. They only get somewhat close to that with soccer.
To me, the most hair-rising moment in Romania's recent history just occurred on the day the President was suspended.
The President had just uttered his improvised speech in front of the crowd that had gathered at Piata Universitatii. They had been awkward in sustaining him, he had been awkward in talking to them. And then, the crowd started to shout, in the same funny and stubborn intonation they hit most often, that monotonous incantation on three syllables "Da-Da-Da!". It had been "Ba-ses-cu! Ba-ses-cu!". Well, this time it came out as: "Va iu-bim! Va iu-bim!" ("We love you! We love you!") Basescu was obviously moved, tears welled up in his eyes, he answered back, riding the moment, the way it's done in a couple: "Si eu va iubesc!" ("I love you too!")
Now, crowds don't shout "We love you" even in the States, where people are the most likely to profess their positive feelings "in your face". In Romania, people (especially men) wouldn't be caught dead saying "I love you" to their mothers, let alone to a political leader!
It's pretty hot. This also means that the hatred against the other guys has risen to some serious levels.
In his trademark dramatic silliness, Andrei Gheorghe was trying to capture these unprecedented heights of passion, but he simmered the entire phenomenon instead to some wacky, unfitted Russian-style potency when he said that Basescu didn't look like someone who was going to die peacefully in his bed. Can you picture a political analyst saying that on air about a president, in the civilized world? Nor could I.
I didn't think the list of media hacks included such names as Dragotescu, Alistar, Tanase. (I had already demoted Gheorghe.) Basically, the list of believable public figures boils down to those who show up tonight in Piata Constitutiei. Who knew that the President of Romania polarized so well...
Funny how everyone jumped to discuss the "five minutes" issue, as if that were the grand news item! The President of Romania had just been suspended in a manner that deserved ample comments, and everything hacks kept talking about was his change of mind. What a fine manipulation -- so gross it became astute.
There is no television to be trusted. Time for Radio Free Europe, again! Does that even exist anymore? Could someone please turn it into an el-cheapo TV channel, OTV style, as these audiences care nothing for frills?
J'accuse the rest of the world IF they didn't give Basescu enough credit. I blame the leaders who didn't hold out their hand, the counsellors who didn't do their homework right and didn't push meetings with this President on their agendas sooner, moving along to legitimize him ASAP.
Geoana, the black-hole-gazer, is out of this world. After a dignified "It would be no shame, really, if Basescu changed his mind and decided to not resign anymore", to a rabid "E un razgandac!" a few hours later, the man can say anything with impunity, or so he imagines. The press will not take notice. His inconsistency will not matter, he can revel in it, the time is now his and his party's. Again. Well, I have news for you, buddy -- the fact that you own the press has stopped being of the essence. Your people have tuned out. They know what you know. How scary is THAT?
Romania is finally taking charge of its fate.
This time the message goes from Liiceanu to the last peasant. This gang of leaders is finished, nobody wants them there and this time they went too far in challenging public opinion. Maybe people don't approve of Basescu 100%, but no one else even comes close to what he can do for this country.
Plus, he is extremely lovable. With all his drawbacks, or precisely because of them, he reaches out in all corners of Romania. Tariceanu, Geoana, Voiculescu, Orban, Antonescu cannot even dream that one day they would be applauded heartily. And if that's not happening, what else is there? Life sucks for these folks, no matter how much money they made or stole, how many hours they concocted their speeches, how many media heads and channels they bought. They will never be *loved* by the people they desperately want to lead.
Romania has become Romania 2.0 a few years sooner than the 20 years Brucan predicted it would take. Romanians are no longer easy to manipulate, and they LOVE their President!
Like the sleep of reason that abides it, Romanian media produces monsters. They don't take long in the making... One year of heavy exposure, and voilà! You've got your custom made Romanian TV star or political analyst.
Realitatea TV, the "news" TV channel owned by shady, transition-spawned "self-made-against-all-odds-millionaire", Sorin Ovidiu Vantu, (vantu translates as the wind) is fast becoming an expert at fashioning these media entities. It's a simple recipe Realitatea TV borrowed from ProTV. It involves, (besides other below-the-belt branding ingredients such as overexposure), outrageous promos featuring these simple folks as demi-gods in a world of pygmies. They are postured as helping poor audiences cross the street, make sense of the surrounding chaos, reach for the moon, make everyone's dreams come true, etc... Then these sick promos are looped on air like there's no tomorrow. As a direct result, the overly critical members of the audience quit watching (no problem, they are not wanted anyway) and the remaining inert couch potatoes give up resistance and just buy into it. Thus, the filtered down audience watch the "stars" they deserve.
One of these hastily manufactured media creatures, Andreea Cretulescu, hosts talk shows on the hot items of the day. Despite her unpleasant ways and her annoying pitch her guests are weirdly obedient and seem to think her job is to be loud and cheeky...
So what if she is *occasionally*... unprofessional? Nothing, rejoice! Her bosses must have promoted her knowing that her personal opinions are on the right side of the tracks. Shamelessly seamless.
A few days ago I watched Cretulescu handle a threesome of elderly analysts. I was aghast to hear her refer to the president elect of Romania as "this man in Cotroceni" ("acest om de la Cotroceni".) Moreover, she did so in a dismissive manner that she probably thought befitted the underlying issue of these days -- the president's (less than constitutional) impeachment. The gist of her intervention was "Why is this...(pause for lack of words) man in Cotroceni looking for more power than he is entitled to?" She sounded bloody irritated and impatient, like she was sick of even having to utter his name or function one more time on air. (Yeah, I mean you, the man in Cotroceni! You're just the president of this country, get it?! Whatcha doin' lookin' to mess things up? Who do you think YOU are? I'm the newly anointed "opinion maker", so I know these things! By the way, you're so right to target a job in television when you're done "ruling the country", because that's where the real power is, baby! Until then, just stay put behind that door, receive your guests and quit creating havoc, you... unspeakable, despicable man in Cotroceni!)
Her interlocutors didn't do a thing about it although they were all seasoned public figures. It gets even better: one of them was former Romanian president Constantinescu. A not so successful "man in Cotroceni" in timid search of the Holy Media Grail. (Andreea should explain: as a polite guest, he doesn't stand a chance. He needs to negotiate his own show and learn how to b-e a-g-g-r-e-s-s-i-v-e -- great FNM song, btw...) It was almost his duty to have taken offense at a president's being so scornfully handled by "objective" media. But then again, correcting her lack of civility might have been inelegant and, hey, it might have cut him off from further invitations to drag down President Basescu, which unfortunately has become his latest hobby / money making device. Plus, the old school gentleman might have considered Cretulescu a lady... (Nah, Mr. President, she's just Andreea from the block, can't you tell, "yo"!)
Talking of Retaliatea, ops, Realitatea's sickening ways of manipulating public opinion, notice the images they loop whenever the talk in the studio turns to President Basescu. Lately, they feature him as he places himself by an open door, in an desolate marble hallway of the Cotroceni palace. Through the door we see a big sedan slowly pulling over to drop someone the President is presumably receiving. Basescu is alone and unsure whether the guests have indeed arrived. It is an obvious moment of indecision, loneliness and, in a way, submissive posturing in the name of protocol. You know that feeling of waiting by the door, attending on guests. And on Realitatea TV they keep looping these images, over and over again, hundreds of times a day. I wish I were exaggerating here. An empty, awkward moment which some shithead decided must become representative of the Romanian President these days.
Little hints like that occur on most channels, on most shows... The "Ziua" newspaper (part of the same media trust that owns Realitatea TV) uses the President's image in an ad that pictures the latter in a presumed crisis over the return of Romanian emigrants, diminishing his chances at re-election! Pestilential attempt to engineer the minds of Romanians at home into thinking "the strawberry pickers" aka "the frustrated" (terms of endearment applied to us en masse back "home") would not back Basescu, or would even return massively just to end his rule...
And the list of abominations continues. But it's all so gripping, like a solid movie, with the bad guys and the good guys, the mafia that owns the media, the people who love their hero... I only wish there were a TV channel that would reflect it all properly, so I can eat my popcorn in awe and stop second guessing and googling who's paying whom for what.
I guess I'm just being lazy here since I don't dig this "interactive" part of the reality show.
***
Pinocchio declared he doesn't watch TV anymore, he just does TV, get it? As in, he's not breathing in the polluted air, he just poisons it for others. I saw his face in a promo for Andrei Gheorghe's show. Yep. Cammo dude, a true warrior...
The simple, hygienic polarization rule applies: if you champion Pinocchio, you're a hack, so I'm neither watching, nor trusting you. So much for the Andrei Gheorghe media creature... "You ARE the weakest link, good bye!"
***
In this rhythm, maybe I finish off everybody so I can FINALLY stop watching...
Why is there nobody in the Romanian streets, these days? As in "protesting"?
Yes, yes, I've read the news. Several weeks' worth. That's why I am addressing rhetorical questions here.
I was blissfully clueless regarding the current political situation, while still keeping in contact with a lot of friends over in Romania, until one of them asked:
"How does all this new Romanian shit reflect over there?"
"What happened?"
"You don't know?"
No, I didn't know. And yes, I do now. And no, it fucking makes absolutely no sense to me why nobody told me earlier or how faint and scarce are the voices raised against this outrageous state of events. Are you all mad?
Tariceanu? Geoana? Patriciu? Orban? Antonescu? HELLO! It is a considerable shame that these people ever reached a modicum of success under your watch -- but for them and countless others like them to have become your lords and masters, whether you voted them or not... Excuse me, your eyes were wide shut a little too long.
How do you people just live your lives as if nothing were the matter? You are being successful, you're making money, you're going places, you're having a ball while everything crumbles around you, in that country. How can you let it all happen? You don't even TALK about it anymore! You all have blogs and you are like, la-la-la... Oh, read my witty thoughts, check out this tidbit of cool stuff I just dug out from the net trenches because I'm so in the thick of things and I know where the supremely intriguing images/videos/snippets are, so of course they will all reflect on ME, they identify ME and my bloggin' brand! Or, let's fucking talk about clothes, cuz that's where Romanians suck, man... What a wonderful world this would be if they were all wearing (insert favorite labels here...)
OK.
So, dear Romanians-oblivious-to-Romanian-realities, you all left your country while physically there, as it were. Thanks to the Internet and those TV stations (so heavy with entertainment and commercials, who cares how biased the news are!) you are currently enjoying "out-of-country" experiences and cannot give a shit on what's going on in the real world. Panem et circensis galore, so... Wow... Look at you! Just like your parents and grandparents under Communism, only bubblier and happier! See, they only had books and a few old movies to escape into, not to mention the scarce panem at some point... So maybe they're proud of you now, as they watch you grow fat and ignorant to your surroundings, while your country disappears from under your feet, no longer a relevant item for you, able consumers of the world and the world wide web. Why shouldn't they be? Why, why, why?
I just thought I'd meet some of you here and ask you ominously, as in Pink Floyd's "The Wall"...
"IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THERE?"
From now on I will concentrate on the good things about Romania.
I will paint pretty, fabulospiritual pictures.
Yep.
Yessiree...
I'll do that.
Scriu si in romaneste, daca doriti.
ÜberKritik cel Bun
I never seriously considered the possibility that others might enjoy my writing under this rabid guise. There was no plan B, this was meant to be a temporary venting blog. I wanted to delete it a while ago, but Sunhunter had linked here and it felt awkward to close the virtual door in people's faces, so i thought I'd wait it out. And then Unimportant added his bloody link and now I'm nailed here if I wanna stay polite. (Does this make Unimportant a winner in this online branding war? He basically accosted the pirate's ship, annexing it to his friggin' branding fleet! Damn! It just might!)
I have nothing to write about in this übervein unless I look behind, or sideways (TwitterVision) towards Romania... Only then do I grow venomous fangs. One look at Romanian TV or even hotnews.ro and I instantly turn into the Incredible Hü(be)lk(ritik), all green with rage. Otherwise, in the real world where action can be taken, I'd rather act than write against what I dislike. You see, ÜberKritik is fatally Romanian, and an estranged Romanian, to boot. You get into that kind of overdrive when you feel that regular size political and ecological activism would be irrelevant, and when you're not on the ground, so what can you do?
But you, The Hobbesian, must know what I'm talking about. You seem to have done exactly what I did -- open a blog just as a gut reaction to horrible Romanian happenings. Actually, you did more; you wrote to EVZ. But hey, those are mostly a bunch of media whores, peddling populist views. I've seen them weed out perfectly reasonable comments on their so-called "forums" and others have confirmed that they do that A LOT, so I never bothered again to let them know what I thought. As a matter of fact, I stopped reading them after that: I voted with my mouse.
As many of my Romanian friends did a long time ago. Seriously, most have no clue as to who Unimportant or Teo are, and they couldn't give a damn! Some of these "celebrities" are more obvious to us, remotely watching that country, than they are to insiders who couldn't be bothered. So, yes, without realizing it, I was building their brands here, rather than dismantling them. Boy, am I glad I didn't tell anyone about this blog...
Where voting with one's mouse is concerned: maybe, rather than writing EVZ we could start a campaign against their brand by inviting people to stop reading them, to stop talking back on those forums, to coordinate a don quixotic effort of "sinking" their virtual ship via low traffic reports? That's measurable, we could see it go down. I'm laughing as I write this, so don't worry about my sanity. I doubt we could even convince visitors who are not his fans to stop clicking on Unimportant's blog, there is this "love to hate" thing at play too. Maybe Romanians are addicted to that and they are doomed to have a crappy public life, so they can indulge in their love... of hating? Intriguing.
***
I think Romanians grew up learning to ignore, in communism, or they emulated that attitude from their folks, and I also think that this is SO wrong if you're an intelligent, educated person who lives there...
Because, let's face it, not many do, not anymore... :)))
And the silly people are very noisy and active. It's basically a game of the limp & intelligent vs. the active & silly, while the masses of limp & silly mind their own business and a tiny number of active & intelligent suffer considerably. Just like communism was once, the only difference being that the percentage of the active & intelligent (& therefore very miserable) was higher then, because the borders were closed. They did open selectively in '59 when some hundreds of thousands of Jewish people left. And, in the 90's, then trickling out until today, another huge batch of intelligent & active folks took off, preferring to enjoy and contribute to the ready-civilized rest of the world. (What, I just equated intelligent & active with Jewish? Go figure! I must be biased or something. Or maybe history did the equation, when that exodus happened... )
Bastards and bitches! (Here you go, feeling better now?). Active and intelligent BAD Romanians! BAD!!! Oh, you're not even Romanians anymore? And you only have one life to live? Boo hooo! Sure, then do your thing, ignore your native country. What? You can't even stand to see it on TV nowadays, after getting used to functional countries where it's easy to feel respected and to respect? Oh, you find the Romanian scene REPULSIVE, dontcha now?
Well, maybe if you hadn't DESERTED IT, it wouldn't have gotten that bad! I guess you'll never know...
THIS explains a lot of the Romanian current pitiful lineup of "celebrities" and "political figures".
IT actually explains a whole lot more.
Sure, some active & intelligent (A&I) Romanians are still in that country and most are doing pretty good for themselves, like in being famous and/or wealthy. On that scene, they are an ailing, struggling minority, sharing the limelight with tons of active & silly (A&S) fellows. But still, let's face it, there is no way around it: those who chose to sacrifice and put up with the Romanian lot either HAVE HIT THE JACKPOT there, or WILL soon enough. There is so much room left, and more and more A&I people are choosing to stay... So if you are willing to pay the price and you enjoy the benefits of a strong stomach, do not leave that country where opportunities abound.
Yes, it is getting better. But whether one leaves or stays is basically a matter of personal style. I surprised even myself with my bluntness (do you know how fucking RARE that is?) when, exhausted after a long and insane argument, I recently told a rebellious, unhappy 19 year old Romanian: man, let's face it, Romania is NOT going to become a cool country during your lifetime, no matter how politically engaged you became and how many waters you troubled! So, either you make your peace with this fact right now (which doesn't mean you should become limp and withdraw from public life, on the contrary), or get the hell out of there and stop suffering like a moron because, for instance, too many of your countrymen listen to manele... OK, so maybe you're not cut out to be a Romanian if you AGONIZE like that over your countrymen's musical/fashion/philosophical/literary/media/political/whatever choices. Get the fuck outta there! Go West! Or East!
(Actually, this particular friend is a desperately Americanized kid. And I doubt if he's the only youngster who grew up that way, speaking better English than Romanian and listening to all that rap and reading all those books and well, then getting out in the street to hear manele and feel like howling at the moon in horror... Oh, I doubt that very much indeed. What, you thought I wrote in English for, I dunno, the occasional international visitor who stumbled upon this blog googling for info on "bears"?)
Just go if the pain is acute, I say to such folks, it's the only way to insulate yourself from those particular evils, from the Romanian-weirdness-of-being itself! It may be that you, my friend, cannot be at ease in your environment and have a low level of tolerance for your own people. Just because one was born and raised in a country doesn't make one talented at being its citizen. Queen Marie was born in England, but she was unbelievably talented at being the Romanian Queen! The reverse may hold true too: you were born in Romania but in you lies a very talented American, or Italian, or French, or Japan... I dunno about that. Although I've met a very talented Japanese Romanian, so... It may suck for a year, or two, or three, but after three years anywhere you CHOOSE, you'll be home, Mr. or Ms. Ugly Duckling. And no unwanted quacked manele will trouble your existence.
Of course, you will also have to leave behind a ton of opportunities: you will NOT become an overnight sensation in your new country's media, your first attempt at writing will NOT be published by Gallimard or Bantam Books, you will NOT become a young political brand after just a few years of rubbing shoulders in a party, NOR will you be considered a Kierkegaard for publishing your high school diaries and a really bad series of presumptuous essays in which you cast your anathema on the world that spawned those US academics who saw through your flimsy work and thus failed to recognize your philosophical genius. No, you will live a normal life. If you wanna be Romanianly (!) larger than life, my friend, an instant celebrity courted by glossy magazines, you have to put up with manele and the rest. It's almost a fair trade, if you think about it...
But now! Hey, you! (I mean "me", as in self-überkriticism) Once you've decided manele&shit are too much for you, and then took off, and then embraced another country's life and style and lifestyle, and your immunity to Ro-shit got even lower because it's "use it or lose it" when it comes to these defenses, there is only one bad thing you can do to yourself, and that's allowing to be visited by either guilt or nostalgia and make the mistake of looking back, clicking on some online newspaper or turning your satellite dish towards a certain lineup of programs...
Good bye, Normal! Hello, ÜberKritik! Hey there, The Hobbesian! Sorin Adam Matei got to the next level, he wrote a whole BOOK about his discontents. What can I say...
Good luck! Godspeed and endurance to you all!
***
So... *Some of us* try to take action from wherever we're *stranded*. Sure people back there will cast a doubtful look and think we're "frustrated", or "couldn't make it into the media" or other such intriguing scenarios to which we can relate just as little as they can grasp our (painful) endeavor.
Or they will plainly not understand a word we're sayin'. Unimportant is "too intelligent for his own good", what r u talking about? What the hell, Teo is A-OK while Patapievici is da man! And women don't have a problem in Romania, r u kidding? It's a wonderful world for 'em bitches, they get to sleep their way to whatever top they're after; it's men who are experiencing problems and nowadays have to make a ton of money to attract the attention of the young and gorgeous ho's they deserve.
When it comes to attitudes towards women, there's a shorter distance from educated Romanian men (and even some women) to talibans than from the former to educated Americans, wouldn't you say?
***
I was about to write a clever post about TwitterVision's discontents. However, this is a lose-lose situation. I shouldn't discuss general interest issues here if I'm to play this blogging game right. "ÜberKritik" wasn't designed for a generic, international readership to begin with and I don't want to get entangled again into the Romanian scene, I just broke that addiction.
One has to choose one's battles. It's all about "the wisdom to know the difference".
...at the hands of TwitterVision.
RIP
P.S. I realized what TwitterVision reminds me of: Jake Scott's video for R.E.M.'s "Everybody Hurts". The "camera" movement is there, doing crazy global travelling shots this time and focusing on assorted mug shots with a few words providing unexpected insights into folks' minds -- like the video's "subtitles" did.
The scripted hurting part is missing of course, because people mostly chirp away, they don't get too personal.
Which is good.
And it is REAL, and it is in real time...
Of course it's fascinating.
ÜberKritik Missing In Action
Web traffic agents are investigating today the strange circumstances under which ÜberKritik, a lesser known blogger of Romanian origin, was reported missing from his virtual domicile on 25448411684 Blogger Avenue.
He was last seen at Teo's, arguing that the host had proven bad taste when making fun of the late music critic Iosif Sava and when he had displayed a prominent link to someone we refer to here as "Unimportant" (because he's already ahead of Liiceanu in Google, plus he has admitted to suffer from a severe case of self-googling compulsion.)
However, a few weeks have elapsed since. Occasional blog visitors think that it is highly unlikely that a voice so reactive to the dark forces of stupidity as Übi-Wan Kanübi's would not have found anything or anybody to argue against during this time. There is a remote possibility that the latter may have stopped inflicting pain upon himself by following the addictive Romanian media, but investigators say they do not count on such miracles.
Hence, suspicions loom upon the two last targets of Übi's virtual wrath: Teo and Unimportant. Investigators were tipped to suspect Unimportant by the fact that the latter, in a show of total in-your-face insouciance and showing a hefty dose of tongue-in-cheek self-branding know-how, has recently displayed a link in his blogroll to the missing critic's lair. Thus, hordes of readers were attracted to this otherwise quaint, quiet blog (just kidding, you were two or three curious minds, Unimportant's blog isn't such a circulated place as you might think, look it up in trafic.ro.)
This might have been Unimportant's own way of pointing out that ÜberKritik had miscalculated his moves and had unwittingly attracted more attention to Unimportant's name by discussing it so thoroughly. Finally, his linking here may have been a playful attempt to resuscitate ÜberKritik while getting on his nerves. The man has been known to be inconsistent in his messages and send a bunch of contradictory signals at once, like in the recent "Liicheanu" piece.
Following the RoBlogFest Rabbit
This just in! Detectives unearthed a most intriguing piece of evidence, indicating that ÜberKritik had submitted Teo's blog in the Cultural Category at RoBlogFest.
"Why do that, and then criticize his nominee?" is the question tormenting everyone.
Experts speculate that a subsequent feeling of überremorse may have prompted ÜberKritik's withdrawal, and may have even pushed him to commit virtual übersuicide, since ÜberKritik realized that, no matter what one did online, one was branding, and no matter how good an intuition one thought one had, when it came to Romanian fucking (self-made) brands, this just couldn't apply normally.
One day Teo was a nice guy who educated the Romanian masses on the stand up comedy genre, a nice talented fella who liked Louis CK , the next he turned into an idiot trying to emulate the great comedian while totally lacking both good taste and common sense. Yes, common sense IS very important for a stand-up comedian, because taboos are meant to be broken in the process of comedy, but not all of them, not anyhow, and boy, was the direction taken in the CS piece wrong and hurtful for the poor kid! How can anyone erase that?
"Übi's Back, Tell a Friend!"
Nope, it cannot be taken back, you moron! Yeah, I mean you, Teo! It is now all over the media, it belongs to the real life history of a little girl who really had no harm on her mind. And no, it bears no comparison to Louis CK's adoringly making (shameless) fun of his own daughter.
And now, if we think about it, wasn't Louis CK a bit turning his five year old girl's cute shenanigans into gold himself? Eh? Just like you argue CS' dad shouldn't have done? And now you, Teo, made a bit of a living off of a three year old too, only she wasn't even your daughter, so you weren't entitled to decide anything about her future (memories) at all! You have no way of explaining to her "why Daddy was saying those things" (although, let's be fair, no Daddy would ever say those particular things about their own daughter, let alone someone of Louis CK's caliber)
Play those CK tapes again and look at the man's eyes, watch carefully his face as he says those HARMLESS-in-their-essence things about his kid. They totally contradict his nasty words. He can barely suppress a loving smile all the time. Or, don't look, OK. Just write down his words and read them carefully. Try then translating them into non-violent parlance. What is the message there? Then read your stupid lines regarding CS. Do their "non-violent" translation. Hell, your words weren't even brutal, see? You were kinda... nice, weren't you now? No "shameless" words there, but boy, did your MESSAGE suck! Someone mentioned pedophilia, and well, I can't blame that someone too much, ya know? You slipped that low, you moron!
Analyze closely everything CK says and you will see what "pitch perfect" means, in both words and delivery!
You have such a long way to go I'm beginning to doubt it is even worth trying, man! You don't deserve to "stand up" in the near future, you should say all your numbers on your knees. Take that from someone who nominated your friggin' blog for an award!
Moreover, Teo, you freak, you didn't even have the excuse of using that (pesky) money for the "misused" kid's future or something -- you were just throwing mud in the face of a child, while pretending to aim at her parents! What did you think, that she'll stay a three year old forever? That Google will go away, and your insanity will be buried before she ever finds out what an ugly world she lives in? What she was abjectly subjected to, just because you needed to make fun of someone and to emulate CK, and, heck, since you didn't have your own kids to use, why not pick on somebody else's!
You were a totally irresponsible, insensitive dick!
And by the way, were you able to even buy yourself a box of... chocolates for the money you got attaching filth forever to that little girl's name?
"It's a Friggin' Miracle!!!"
There ya go, Dragos, I'm back, are you happy now? Send people my way, I'll show them a good time. Only it won't be about you anymore, I'm easily bored. Plus, you were a fun target while there was noone aiming at you, as I said. Now that your star is hopefully descending and everyone is taking shots at you, I'm naturally put off. Plus, this recent overkill makes it easy for me to ignore you, just like I do Iri, Becali, Teo now...
OK, to be perfectly honest, I have stopped following Romanian media altogether and I only make rounds on a few select blogs. And you know what else? From now on, if someone links to your blog, I just won't even bother reading their lines. I've said it before and I regret bitterly having made an exception in Teo's case: you are the perfect test. You polarize just right. Those who dig you can never be trusted by someone like me. Because you & those who appreciate you all seem to share some common characteristic here: under an apparent smart and trendy package, there looms an appalling and dangerous lack of education.
Otherwise, I dunno... Is Tariceanu still your Prime Minister?
I remember a time when I used to click on the shortcut icon of hotnews.ro and be taken directly to a quick and wholesome digest of the latest and greatest articles to be found in the Romanian press. A Romanian friend had recommended this site and I never questioned who was behind this venture, as it had the look and feel of something a bunch of efficient programmers without an agenda would do. Just a neat news aggregator-like site, very cool and practical, in which articles were listed, with links to the respective publications at their bottom.
Lately, I noticed that most featured articles lacked that link which led to their original location. And that they were signed, mysteriously enough, "Hotnews". Hmm. I thought this must have been a temporary bug occurring during some kind of content migration, so I went on reading as usual -- especially the first two screens of Hotnews. Until one day I realized that, if you had enough time to scroll and scroll, there were articles at the bottom with "real authors" and links to other online publications, like in the old days. Only then did I figure it out: the "premium real estate" of the site had been taken over by a team of Hotnews' very own journalists. Nobody asked us, the users, by then surely a quite sizable amount, if that was what we wanted. Stealthily, "they" (who ever "they" were) just went ahead and did it anyway.
Then I saw all kinds of weird non-news items littering those precious few first screens -- and many announced... blogs that were rolled out by team members of the formerly transparent news aggregator, Hotnews! Holy shit, one moment you read about Saddam's death, the next (and in the same order of importance, given the way Hotnews works) you read that there is a new blog under the "Hotnews" umbrella, written by some obscure journalist! Or shameless plugs -- like the one in the picture above -- parachuted in the middle of the news stream, pestering us about small individual ventures belonging to... "them" or "their friends".
One of these is particularly aggressive -- Iulian Comanescu. This guy keeps a blog and he interviews miscellaneous figures of Romanian mass media via Yahoo Messenger!(naming the insufficiently edited YM logs "ymterviews".) He uses the latter to prominently highlight himself as this fast-typing, cheeky media guru in pixel diapers.
Comanescu is not famous as a journalist. As to his skills as a manager -- I neither know nor care. However, he takes a keen interest in what's going on in the Romanian media, keeping a eye on all the movers and shakers. It is an insider's perspective, to be sure -- but one that fails to interest readers at large. I'm sure he has his niche, but advertising for those ymterviews and blogs in such a visible spot is a lousy idea, to say the least.
As a consultant for Hotnews, Comanescu tirelessly peddles his budding "media empire" under the name of "Comanescu's Media". He also teamed up with author/professor/blogger Sorin Adam Matei, and together with a bunch of other journalists they are trying to create some momentum around their "alternative" online media outlet, represented by a bunch of blogs. It's romantic, if you think about it, this dream of theirs that one day they'll be rich and famous on their own taking advantage of the recent flood of (mostly dubious) cash that submerged the Romanian media. In the process, Comanescu daydreamed (while interviewing someone, obviously, because nobody ever interviews him) that their current common springboard, poor hijacked Hotnews, would be bought out in the near future by some hungry-for-content media conglomerate for a few dozen million Euros. Or who knows, maybe they are all connected to Hotnews and their product is the whole enchilada.
However that may be, it beats me why, before "they" put it on the market, "they" decided to tear Hotnews down. Compare a lean and mean "before" edition (December 31, 2004) to a recent never-ending, bloated and self-promoting version (January 31, 2007).
All we're left with now is My Press (http://www.my-press.ro/), before some smartass(es) decide(s) to smoothly hijack its "captive audience" and cajole it into reading yet another publication by a bunch of people who want to make it big.
Since my last post, reality squeezed inside my blog in a shapely narrative arch, as the most fascinating turn of events occurred: Liiceanu and Plesu turned against Bucurenci and "executed" him on prime time TV - slowly and methodically, making it plenty obvious that they had planned it all along and were now enjoying it -- during fifteen minutes on their TV show. They were so ruthless and thorough that even I felt sorry for the guy. Okay, no I didn't, I had a great time.
Back story: Bucurenci, having recently been offered the too-big-for-his-background position of op-ed columnist, thought it wise to set the record straight where communism was concerned. Yeah, he is that misguided. In a country so scarred by it, he spoke of communism as a "slightly Utopian", lofty ideology that didn't deserve all the bad press.
This caused Plesu a sleepless night -- and I say he deserved it fully. Now, wasn't Bucurenci basking recently in his approval? Didn't he make his debut in "Dilema Veche", on his turf? Wasn't Liiceanu teaching him how to enjoy fine wine and cheese, thanks to the same network of cronies they helped set up, via Erisma? Wasn't "the Romanian Kierkegaard Also Known As Patapievici" seen in his vicinity too many times to count? As an outside observer, I had come to believe that he was fully backed by the Paltinis group! It's their negligence if their "brand" was so easily hijacked by Bucurenci's manipulating ways, he's their Frankenstein, they should deal with him.
And deal with him they did. They called him on his lack of cultural horizon, on his scarce reading, on his impatience, even on his hypocrisy. And then all the "bucurenci's" of the world were exhorted to the library, while the Daddy Bears laughed bitterly at their own chagrin.
Nice, and thank you guys, but... it might already be too late.
In this day and age, one cannot be too careful when branding around.
Now, the P&L chastisement might severely diminish, if not put an end to all the hugging and hand-holding and freebies from the cultural establishment. The monster which Bucurenci used to rely upon is now the monster he should fight. Or tame. This will give our "hero" a chance to ponder on the rightfulness of this concentration of cultural branding powers that he had formerly used to his advantage.
Bucurenci was already on a downward spiral when this happened: his "Cultura Libre" show on national public television had been cancelled. Mercifully, now no taxpayer's money is wasted on him. And if the "Evenimentul" folks are looking for a semi-educated kamikaze revolting enough to fuel tons of comments on their web site, it's their right to hang on to Bucurenci at their own expense and peril.
So, problem solved, eh? Ain't Romania great?
The End
P.S. I couldn't have dreamed up a more spectacular and even philosophical denouement for my previous posts. This blog looks like carefully plotted fiction: I only talked about these three (+1) characters all along, set up the background, foreshadowed some things then... Ka-phooow!
Genius.
But now I have to find another idea for a blog.
For the first time I watched the P&L show (called "Altfel" -- which would translate as "Otherwise", "Different") - the December 17 edition.
As it progressed, I was sinking deeper and deeper in my chair, recoiling in horror as I realized that this might very well be the first good Romanian talk show I'd ever seen.
Does it take the two most famous local intellectuals to get to this level of... normality, where Liiceanu aptly placed their broadcast interaction? And by the way, especially since they agree that what they are doing there is "only normal", they should have called their show exactly that, "Normal", instead of the elitist and, given the context, depressing "Otherwise".
The problem is the VOID around them. Their own "normality", because such a rare commodity on Romanian screens, at least, becomes "otherwise", becomes the top of the crop, becomes excellence and their "normal" opinions become... well, "the norm". After 17 years, people of their gamut (or close to it, because honestly, they may be overqualified for the jobs of talk show hosts), people of different convictions and backgrounds, holding all kinds of different views should have filled all Romanian TV screens; theirs should have been only two names of the many competing in the same class.
It is obvious that Liiceanu, who plays host, prepares before coming in front of the nation, unlike so many of the TV "professionals" in Romania. Plesu doesn't, but that's comfortably on purpose, he is the "interviewed" one, he reacts to what Liiceanu draws from the hat, thus preserving a spontaneous quality to their interaction. Liiceanu is ready to improvise as well, he's flexible and excellent in conversation. Plus, he has that masculine velvet in his voice which he modulates with flawless intonation and diction, on a par with a Iures or Caramitru. So maybe he would have made a great actor too, not only an excellent fiction writer. But he had to go and try to become a philosopher first, then an editor! Plesu's presence isn't too bad either -- although I personally dislike the "da" and "pa" pronunciation for "de" and "pe". He should control better his body language (he tends to rub his ear and touch his face in the heat of the conversation) and get his glasses fitted maybe, if all truth be told.
I enjoyed the minimalist set, but then again, their charismatic strong presences can endure and even benefit from being set up against a stark black background, whereas a Stelian Tanase & Mircea Dinescu or CTP & Hurezeanu do need something going on on the set to distract the eye from their fidgety and unimposing posturing. (What's with all these male couples formulas for shows? Intriguing...)
However, yes, that was television!
I'm beginning to get gloomy here. Maybe, after all, finding Romanian talent is not easy. Maybe too many have left. Or maybe the common sense of most "normal" people prevents them from competing with aggressive self-promoters in politics as well as in media, filled with the likes of CTP, Turcescu, Dinescu, Gheorghe, now Bucurenci.
(Eminem, in a distant voice, echoes in my head here: "So won't the normal Romanians please stand up, please stand up, please stand up?!")
The irony was that Liiceanu and Plesu were, in their turn, in awe while evoking the "normalcy" of a Dr. Sinescu whom they had both briefly seen on TV as a guest on a show.
Gee. So it's not only my imagination, or that I don't watch enough Romanian TV, it really is an event when one detects "normal", huh?
The key question is: did P&L contribute to the void around them? Because "good people" (italics in this text to be interpreted in a whisper, with the fixed look in the eyes of the kid from "The Sixth Sense", you know, the famous "I see dead people!"), "normal people" do exist in Romania! They just don't make it to the top for some reason.
Well, since nothing else seemed to work, why don't Liiceanu and Plesu go and use their freaky influence and start branding like crazy. Go detect the normal people, like they did that Dr. Sinescu, and bring them out of the darkness, and whisper subliminally to their hordes of admirers: "We see normal people"!
Oh, wait. They already did that and it wasn't quite right: Plesu just called Bucurenci "a very talented moderator" in an article (written precisely because he hadn't been given the chance to speak during the Bucurenci show) and then graced him with a "one on one" showdown. Not to mention Liiceanu with his "Romanian Kierkegaard"... So, being normal themselves, they're far from infallible and they did do all those branding errors in the past, so no, this is not a good idea. In a normal society, nobody should be in the position of dictating brands like they could, period.
Whatever the reasons, under this light, distancing oneself from the Daddy Bears acquires new dimensions. It's not like people hold on to them as a matter of pride, but as a matter of identity, of defining normality. It's really complicated to replace them when not enough normal people are being naturally brought to the public arena by the market selection process.
And maybe that's where the problem lies. Liiceanu mentioned that the need for ratings pushes the plethora of private TV stations to give air time to all those exotic creatures who then become dangerous role models via the gained popularity. In this case, public television should step to the plate, setting the standards and maintaining them.
Instead of being in the business of building them, the Romanian (Public) Television has adopted the practice of "stealing" ready-made TV personalities from private stations. They did, however, strike popular gold with Andreea Marin, but we were looking for "normal" here... Maybe there's something wrong with the selection process of "serious" TV stars?
The RTV director, Tudor Giurgiu, if one is to judge from his past organizational success with the Transylvania Film Festival, should know NORMAL. But no, Bucurenci wasn't "it".
I just realized that I'm doing it again, getting "soft" on the Daddy Bears, being a wuss... What can I do, they're cute and I'm only human here...
You must be thinking: "This UberKritik guy really exaggerates. Why, we have Gigi Becali growing in polls like a tumor, we have OTV and DDTV and everybody they dig out, we have so many hacks in politics, and there he is, complaining about the few people in our public arena who are just... well, maybe not perfect."
It's true, it may look like perfectionism from that perspective. But think of it this way: I have nobody in my entourage who admires Becali or would join his party. And there are sufficient voices in Romanian media arguing about OTV and "manele" and other annoying populist private media catering. As to politics, surely no additional analysts are required.
But the Plesu & Liiceanu (+ Patapievici) - P&L(+P) cult strikes close to home. I have friends who swear by them, I get emails with quotes from or links to articles they wrote, I get asked whether I've watched the latest P&L show, I have family members who step into "Humanitas" libraries as if they were temples of wisdom and who regard the "H" logo as a token of value bestowed upon authors and the "H" books as compulsory reading. For some lazy intellectuals, the "H" is almost the equivalent of a literary prize, not just the result of a publishing decision by a private enterprise that has to survive in a market system.
Liiceanu and Plesu are very charming people and sometimes their words fall upon this nation like drops of nectar. Liiceanu is an outstanding writer, and Romanian fiction has lost a great voice to... I can't say "philosophy", to "non-fiction". They deserve admiration. Any country could take pride in them. However, they'd be two of many comparable figures in France, or Germany, or the United States, to name but a few places where cultural life is, well, normal. But in Romania they are some kind of "godfathers" and their long term hegemony is upsetting, while the general regard they have been enjoying for over 20 years is way, way exaggerated. Someone argued that it's not their fault if people need to look up to some fatherly figures to that degree. But I say these two are too intelligent to not have seen this cult of personalities happening and, instead of stepping back, they quite aggressively went on promoting themselves and their clique -- which is damaging to Romanian culture in the long run.
(Patapievici, their first protégé, the "Romanian Kierkegaard" according to Liiceanu, I never even liked. But most of my friends just accepted him, 'cuz highly recommended, and nowadays he's enjoying comparable demi-god status on even less merit than P&L, and he can also "show them the money" -- as head of the Romanian Cultural Institute. Convenient.)
I wonder how many of my otherwise intelligent and educated friends bothered to open the file of the "Humanitas" editorial choices throughout the years and analyze them. Liiceanu and his editorial team did a below average job selecting whom to project first on the Romanian readers' mind screens, after all those communist years of restricted reading. They had the world of literature wide open to them, and they came back with such slim pickings!
Of course there were some "restitutions" to do, but they left the rest of the field wide open for Polirom and the other publishing houses to actually take over and do the job (although it wasn't precisely the same "job", as they didn't enjoy the influential clout of the "H"). So, despite the initial departure advantage given by the infusion of assets from the state and Liiceanu's fame on the intellectual arena, or should I say his "already made cultural brand", their mission failed, I think. It must have been hubris. They were never big on literature, and I doubt they bothered to seek sufficient counseling at this level, quite crucial to any publishing house.
I have no idea whether the Humanitas Publishing House is at least blossoming financially. The Humanitas libraries now carry other publishers' books, so those must be doing well -- and in a way, it was a good thing to allow the "H" temples to be permeated by the market offer, what a relief! They have a faithful following, they did populist moves, such as publishing Paolo Coelho. Although Liiceanu, in virtue of his own cultural brand and mission accepted from the state -- when offered the assets of the former Political Publishing House -- is the last publisher in Romania who should have endorsed Coelho. He may have done it for survival, but I say it would have been less "damaging", from an educational point of view, if big "H" chose instead to make money by publishing someone like Stephen King or John Grisham. These guys sell like hot cakes and they don't provide the pretense of "elevated reading"; just honest, skillfully built thrills, sometimes with anti-establishment undertones. No pseudo-culture, just entertainment.
And I'm not even beginning to discuss the "serious fiction" books that "H" missed. Or the Romanian major authors whom they never promoted. Or the debuts they never encouraged.
As a result, I don't have a basis of discussion with my friends who pick their books following the "H" trail. And the most sickening part of it is that, whenever I try to talk to them about these things, the look in their eyes softens me up and I end up changing the subject, like a wuss. Their list of undisputed national pride items runs so short that taking away Plesu and Liiceanu from them is as cruel as taking away a kid's teddy bear. But it's precisely this fixation that prevents them from accepting other values and expanding their horizons, even in terms of national pride! It's "Plesu forever!" while they have no clue as to who's the Romanian who got the Médicis prize this year...
But there comes a time in a child's development when they say a parent should do exactly that, hide away the teddy bear from their own toddler if he/she is hooked to it to the point of obsession. A friend of mine pretended to have lost his daughter's teddy bear recently. She was sad for a few days, but now I don't think she even remembers that cute little thing. They're meant to be outgrown.
The only problem is that you guys are adults and I'm not your daddy. Chances are, your precious national intellectual "teddy bears" are "your daddies" - they walk, talk, wear cute neck accoutrements, maintain brands that look very patriarchal and are in your face constantly. So, I dunno. Run away from home, culturally speaking, hide in the thick net woods, read reviews on Amazon.com and choose your books carefully... And whenever a "daddy bear" shows up in your range, turn your inner critic "on", set it on "highest expectations", then set the comparison scale to "international", and see what gives. I occasionally take virtual shots at them, but hey, you don't have to.
Let the NIDB sirens blare, looking for your precious ratings. If you're smart enough, you can always watch them from a safe distance, enjoy their bearish charm, but stay free and demanding, out of their reach.
According to the media, every day STUFF (initially called "shit" throughout this article) happens during these never-ending transition times. That is, unless Romanian teams are involved in international football games, when "stuff", like a huge djinny looming large over us, suddenly enters the game and all the imaginable details that surround it, as if it were sucked back into its proverbial bottle. If the international football leagues were re-designed so as to have non-stop competitions and if a sizable portion of the coming European structural funds were poured into Romanian soccer teams, then the whole country might sink into -- or rise to -- some Scandinavian-type daily blissful routine in the running of its other affairs. That would be an excellent excessive-latin-spirit-sucking-device; I might patent it under the brand "Latirin" (from Ritalin, for those who don't get enough pharmaceutical spam.)
Anyway, so every day stuff happens, and on all TV channels the usual media heads are chatting about it. I'm not sure to this day why in Romania, which is an OK country in terms of human potential, just a handful of individuals get rotated like mad on all locally produced TV programs.
This may be an effect of the communist era when, in the 80's, people had access to a single TV channel during as little as two hours of programming every night. Under those circumstances, there was no chance to develop a considerable pool of TV stars. So maybe the Romanian collective TV consciousness was molded around a tight number of people whom it can accept on its screens. That would be my noble, idealistic and compassionate view.
So it's either that, or... Could it be cheaper for the TV stations that way? Because I forgot to mention the huge number of hours that each channel's "anchors" are supposed to be spending every day facing the nation.
As a result, watching Romanian TV is like watching a bunch of hamsters doing their... thing. Hamsters don't get very creative. We look at them because they're cute, strangely hypnotic and mildly therapeutic with their exercise wheel routines. So it is with Romanian TV, minus the cuteness and the therapeutic effect. Actually, little do I know about the secret lives of hamsters, maybe they do compete for the "eyeballs", or the "hearts and minds" of innocent humans and they make statistics and ratings and calculate their brand power in their sick itty-bitty brains. It's hard to trust anyone these days, let alone a rodent.
Normally, these overworked TV hosts call to their rescue "guests": journalists, political figures and miscellaneous... let's call them (as they actually might even call themselves) "media consultants". But you'd think that at least at this level you get some variety. Nope. The same professional guests (PGs) do the rounds. I mean, as you zap, you see PG1 on TV1, while PG2 is on TV2, PG3 on TV3, etc. One hour later, PG3 is on TV1, PG1 is on TV2, etc. And sometimes TV hosts do extra time as guests on each other's shows.
Thus, in theory, it is quite possible for someone who wants to spend a doubtful quality evening watching several talk shows on different topics, to see the same four hamster-people all afternoon and evening -- while ZAPPING! Ain't that something? Then the viewer gets to feel like a hamster, too, his or her remote powering the exercise wheel. It's an endearing picture, really: hamsters looking at each other, through the wheel rungs, in stroboscopic redundancy, each thinking he/she is smarter. It keeps people off the streets all over the globe, if you think about it. (But I digress, thought the typing hamster and pressed "enter")
There is a problem with this system of scarcity and recycling, and in winter it becomes supremely obnoxious: with bad weather, traffic in Bucharest often grinds to a halt... And the guests who couldn't make it from one TV station to another are being called in on their mobile phones, and in between the issues at stake we get real time traffic reports, complete with traffic noises and frequent interruptions - very dramatic indeed. While some think it's just frustrating and unprofessional.
And that's because TV stations have not foreseen the problems raised by their "frequent guest programs". (By the way, do PGs get some type of mileage? They definitely should be issued magnetic fidelity cards by each TV station.) Otherwise, you'd think they would have huddled together in the same building, or at least the same neighborhood. But it's not to late: if they were to move their tiny talk show studios into the enormous House of Parliament, that would solve everything, because then all political guests would be just a few steps away, too. Plus, how bad can traffic get on those marble corridors? I say huddle all media hamsters in the same cage, it saves energy and reduces pollution.
If you think that kind of television might as well be called visual radio, you're right. I have friends who record the TV shows they're interested in as MP3s. Why bother with talking heads one sees more often than their friends and family, and moreover, who might not even be in the studio for viewers to admire their new shirts or hairstyles?
But let's get back to the issue of stuff happening. Now we may define several types of stuff:
- regular stuff (RS)-- your daily helping, matters over which people have strong opinions and uphold them, and on TV your usual hamsters are doing just fine debating them over and over again;
- important stuff (IS)-- this kind might even make one want to read a newspaper online the next day, because one's usual opinions may be slightly challenged. The usual hamsters get into heated arguments, and international examples get quoted a lot -- we try to learn from others' experience how to deal with this, when there are no downright European commandments that may be invoked, which would graciously end all discussion.
- very weird stuff (VWS)-- this is the worst kind -- this is the kind of stuff people are not sure what to think about, and it's so localized, so... Romanian in its essence that watching what people do in other countries is futile -- just trying to find similar circumstances is a headache. The overarching topic of my article (because there is one, trust me) is precisely this type of very weird stuff, of accidental, random, if any universal value. In a VWS case, the nation is on its own. The stuff in itself may be more or less important, per se, but its occurrence marks a turning point, or at least defines a trend... It is, in short, the kind of stuff that makes Romanians be Romanians, the stuff that defines the nation and shapes the very "Romanian weirdness of being", to paraphrase Kundera quite creatively, if I may say so myself.
VWS is quite exciting on Romanian media and I'd venture to say that it happens quite often. Romanians have a talent to bring it up. And they are becoming experts and manufacturing it themselves, they no longer wait for chance or the European integration-related issues to spark it up.
They are actually hooked on this VWS, as a nation. They love to define themselves, to gaze at the national navel, to compare notes occasionally, to re-read into their own past things that might have escaped them during the communist period. They are indeed a very narcissistic people and they indulge in this pastime maybe more than the healthy amount, but while I'm writing these very words, I'm falling into the national sin, and I love every minute of it.
Well, what do you think that 90% of this nation's educated people over 40 do when faced with VWS moments?
Because, believe it or not, sadly, these guys have a cookie-cutter SOLUTION!
(Hint: yeaH, tHey turn to someone (or his close friends). And if it sounds like a cult, wHy, tHere are plenty of elements of tHat in tHere, built and maintained carefully over tHe years.)
With Tchipsy's help I realized that I was mistakenly taking for reckless self-promotion a potential media push of major magnitude. Otherwise, indeed, one cannot explain the new dimension which Bucurenci's notoriety acquired today: a major Romanian newspaper will feature him as a weekly editorial writer. ("The Daily Event" is rumored to be the "official" paper nowadays in Romania, siding with the President and the Democratic Party.)
So. Let's get things straight: this guy is now on the payroll of the national public television and the mainstream newspaper. His previous career stints: webmaster at the British Council. Writer of a blog/novel. Oh, director of an environmental association set up with pals from "Catavencu". Even if we stopped considering the fact that his only formal education is high school, again, how would such a background turn one into a "member of the new Romanian elites"?
Oh, just for you to know: Norman Manea, Romanian author, winner of the Médicis prize this very year for "The Hooligan's Return", had nowhere near a tenth of the exposure given this Bucurenci person lately. Nobody in Romania interviewed him extensively. Nobody wrote heady introductions to his work. Nobody featured him as a member of any elites. He wasn't offered to do a TV show. The President didn't honor him (but he did bestow yet another honor on Liiceanu, of course. Read Manea's bio and his books and compare them, not to Bucurenci's, but to Liiceanu's, and then go explain Mr. President about the unfairness of his advisers' choices so far, I'm sure he'll hear you.) No half-page portraits of Manea's appeared in any magazine or newspaper and most people have no idea he exists.
But we do have Bucurenci as a "member of the new Romanian elites", everyone!
Pushed forward by the old elites, on the principle that "polenta doesn't explode", maybe.
This is getting VERY serious here.
At this point I might, of course, congratulate myself for my superior intuition, but as Tchipsy elegantly pointed out, I already proved enough hubris for a blog by not really doing a good job of endorsing my critique with a more serious literary analysis of the man's "work" -- I was THAT confident that I'm beyond any suspicion of jealousy. (Mea culpa, but I can't fix that right now, it will have to wait.) So, I sensed that this was MAJOR, that it was worth taking some action against, and now history rushes to prove me right (that was quick, about ten days).
I want to find a way to oppose this. Fight the Bucurenci brand and expose the system that pushes it.
My comment was rejected today on the "Evenimentul Zilei" site. Here it is (with an added link):
"Check out a sample of the man's writing, a proof of his limited intellectual quality and his disgusting posturing:
"Într-o civilizaţie dezvoltată armonios inginerii îşi cunosc foarte bine locul, dar cultura românească a ajuns într-un hal de minorat deplorabil în care clasa intelectualilor e compusă, faute de mieux, din doctori, avocaţi şi ingineri. Adică din tot felul de meşteşugari, oameni cărora, prin natura profesiei lor, le este interzis accesul la idee."
It's not that he didn't get a degree, as much as that he's just a crony, a "cultural brand" built and inflated to the point where some serious culture jamming is needed in order to free up room for more legitimate voices in that country.
If he's forced on you via EVZ too, you'd better snipe at every silly thing he puts out. He's not taking his time when writing, so in every piece there is some blatant bullshit, such as:
"Când nu e bântuit de platitudini absolute, inginerul e frământat de curiozităţi meschine."
"Votează cu Mircea Eliade pentru că:
“Până şi pentru Adrian Mutu viaţa acestui tocilar de geniu care a fost Mircea Eliade are numai subiecte tari: cum să-ţi refaci viaţa după ce ţi-ai dat singur foc la valiză şi cum să ajungi cel mai cunoscut român din întreaga lume. În materie de celebritate, fotbaliştii ar face bine să înveţe de la profesionişti!”.
"Vote for Mircea Eliade because:
Even for Adrian Mutu the life of the nerdy genius who was Mircea Eliade is full of hot topics: how to start your life over after shooting yourself in the leg and how to become the most famous Romanian in the whole world. When it comes to celebrity, soccer players had better learn from the professionals!"
I was beginning to wonder why nobody else seemed to mind Dragos Bucurenci's rise to fame. I can understand that TV audiences prefer to watch men who are easier on the eye than the current TV lineup. Even Romanian soap operas feature males whose only physical claim to fame may be the absence of a beer belly. Or what if 99% of Romania's gorgeous men (not very many to begin with, see the beer problem) got into the music industry or the modelling business? Here we had someone who couldn't sing or dance, didn't have a model's appeal, was articulate enough and "somehow" got loose in the cultural circuit where he made an easy kill? Or maybe Romania came to a point of such boiling excitement and giddiness before its European ascension that nobody can sit still long enough to read a book anymore, therefore he's perfectly fit for the job? In short, I was imagining apocalyptic scenarios that might explain the apparent insularity of my anger.
Just as I was almost ready to accept that his tricks had worked sad wonders (plenty of those in Romania, unfortunately!) and that this guy with very skimpy formal education had indeed become the uncontested cultural choice of "a new generation", I came across the site of Kiki Vasilescu.
Actually, another blog pushed me there. Its author, tausance, had pitched in a poll Vasilescu against Bucurenci under the headline: "Who is the young hope of Romanian literature?". Wow. Had it come to that? Bucurenci is leading, needless to say.
But closer scrutiny raised some major questions. If you understand Romanian, you're better off reading tausance's entry for yourself. If you don't, I'll summarize it for you:
-- it's not the quality of their literary output that tausance is interested in (they both seem to be bluffing "here and there")
-- what is being weighed and discussed is each writer's BRAND, "their image and their notoriety".
-- tausance would choose DB over Kiki, because he wears cool clothes and his blog is "rather clean", as opposed to Kiki's "doubtful taste" in clothing and messed up respective website.
In the end, tausance sums it up: the suggested poll is about "absolute cultural value". "Let there be justice!", the author exhorts, then exits blog post.
I'm taking a break. Like, I need to mourn for a few seconds here.
*****************
This is Bucurenci's audience thinking out loud, "make no mistake about it"... But I can't get into the OBVIOUS issues this attitude poses right now, I have to stick to my topic.
*****************
I don't know about the clothing, but the author may be A BIT right in snobbing Vasilescu's web presence. It's not just a blog, it's a regular custom-made site, so theoretically more difficult to put up and maintain than a run-of-the-mill blog, which takes minutes to set up and maybe a few hours to tweak in order to customize, complete with one's own graphics. But Vasilescu's site doesn't look that great, the information is all over the place, and one has to subscribe to his phpBB forum in order to leave feedback -- and that's oh so 2003-ish! So if he wants to stand a chance against aggressive brand builders with decent blogs like Bucurenci, I would advise him to migrate his content into a blog and get with the program...
I'm sure tausance would advise getting another wardrobe, too.
I will now briefly refer to the writing. You may skip the next paragraph if you don't think it matters.
I am not familiar with Vasilescu's debut novel, but since he touted that he wrote it almost entirely in 30 days, I'm not holding my breath. While it has been done before, it is exceedingly rare to pull off a very good book in that manner. And then I understand that he's not being original, he's just re-writing an old classic, updating it creatively, using today's language, etc. It might be a worthwhile practice for his future writing career, but anyway, as I said, with so many excellent & original (i.e. "from scratch" :)) books on my nightstand, I'm not looking forward to the experience.
Now I talk branding shit again:
What shocked me was his video blog (vlog), "Episode no. 6". The very same elements in Bucurenci's interview for "Suplimentul de cultura" that enraged me had Kiki go berserk! So there is at least one other person in that country who thinks that DB's guts are utterly despicable. So alike were our objections that I'd have thought he predated me, had he not pre-dated me (well, not really, I just couldn't resist the pun.) And it was on this occasion that I had a glimpse of the "Suplimentul" paper version, which Kiki was exasperatedly waving about, after having washed, dried and ironed it.
The horror!!! Obscenely spread on half a page, A HUMONGOUS Bucurenci head shot, I kid you not: the black-and-white photo which is pushed on all the channels and is featured on his blog too, you know, the one where he pensively emerges from behind a dark object (a tire?), unshaved, his huge left eye fixated on YOU, the reader. (Shudder...) Speaking of which, he's peddling a series of beauty shots, like a real self-marketing pro, what the heck. My "favorite" is a warm-toned, flooded in back light photograph, cheesy to the point of disaster. (You may admire this masterpiece, together with some real bad Photoshop experiments signed by Alex Leo Serban, at Atelier LiterNet. If you want to see how a writer/critic tries to do a favor to a beginner but manages instead to embarrass himself to the point of losing credibility, read Florin Iaru's intro. But that's about writing too... Or, is it? I just can't tell anymore when people are doing their jobs of writing/criticizing and when they're just being hacks and... branding.
That awful back-lit image may be for the down market, or whatchamacallit, he's working the field... What do I know about the intricacies of "building a strong cultural brand". Quickly tired with all this, for restful old style I cry. (Forgiveness, Shakespeare!) Like, people write great stuff and editors are happy to publish it and then other people read it and talk about it and recommend it to each other and then the people who wrote the great stuff become famous, and nobody would dare to call them "cultural brands", let alone themselves calling themselves that dirty b-word. (I just channelled Gertrude Stein, must stop NOW!)
Lately, many Romanians took advantage of the dismal talented-people-to-TV-stations ratio and became overnight sensations. If you thought Paris Hilton was a silly occurrence on the global celebrity map, wait till you see and understand the Becali anomaly or the "Iri and Moni" show on the Romanian celebrities arena.
But these unsavory characters have been widely discussed. There are other, more insidious examples of sudden stardom that deserve a critical stance. Take Dragos Bucurenci, a young Romanian metrosexual on the rise who got to "defend" Mircea Eliade in the infamous "Great Romanians" TV contest.
In what might appear to some as a fit of painful clarity, Mr. Bucurenci introduces himself on his blog as "an unsympathetic product of consumer society". Alas, he's not lucid there, he's just playful. In a recent interview he defines himself as "one of the best built brands of the young cultural market in Romania". Is he cynical, or what! Happily and clinically cynical.
Granted, he has been working/partying hard and has committed quite a slew of sinful sacrifices to achieve this commercially viable status. As a result, his CV plainly states the sorry state of his education: at 25, the man is a college dropout, period. Therefore, he managed somehow to position himself as some prodigy of contemporary culture without even going through the motions of acquiring the elementary skills needed for the role. And a Raymond Radiguet he is not, I assure you.
But all this philistine diploma stuff will be remedied in half a decade or so, some might argue, provided he doesn't drop out yet again. Dragos enrolled a few months ago in Art History studies. One may wonder when he has time for his curriculum, busy as he is publishing left and right, keeping up with all the cool stuff and preparing his weekly show, "Cultura libre". Well, in his case, "libre" of books and education, "Cultura libre of libris", so to speak. How does he juggle all this?
Very poorly, is the short answer. Because the Bucurenci brand currently stands for: a lame TV show, hastily written essays scattered in magazines and "trendy" publications, a really awful "novel", all coming at the price of a compromised academic start. Bucurenci's brand of culture is gleaned from extensive internet browsing, reading blogs, googling up a storm and wikipeding for the rest. When he's on his show, with a huge MacBook in front of him, with his lean figure clad in trendy clothing, he probably figures that this is good enough for his audience.
But to have a world famous scholar such as Mircea Eliade be advocated on national TV by a college dropout! What a bitter hoax indeed! Luckily, the documentary that introduced Eliade was professionally made by Andrei Morosanu (director) and a team of outstanding screenwriters. Bucurenci himself just vogued with some natural class in front of the cameras, but nobody denies his passably good looks here, just his insufficiently trained brains. During the open debate that followed, the man came up with the crushing proof of Eliade's superiority over his contender, Brancusi: the sheer number of Google results that the scholar's name elicits during a simple search! Ya-ba-da-ba-DOH!
On his most recent "Cultura libre" installment, DB brought in three buddies to discuss Web 2.0. (Mr. Bucurenci's "cultura" is "libre" of women as well, for some unfathomable reason -- only two women were invited to his show so far.) A lengthy babble ensued, making it obvious that these young stars "of the young cultural market" had spent zero time preparing for the show and were no experts on the topic to begin with. A poor excuse to hold up audiences at night, and bloggers everywhere didn't fail to notice.
Another appalling recent faux pas of Bucurenci was an article published in the Catavencu almanac, proudly re-posted on his own blog. There he took to belittling engineers, which our unlikely academic hero viewed as some kind of a pest that had befallen Romania during the last few decades. Let's get this straight: people who had spent five years in Engineering studies of all kinds, irrespective of their other interests and endeavors, were to blame for the sorry state of Romanian culture and for numerous faults at all levels of society. Again, coming from someone with no university degree, this showed the same shameless guts that has become a prerequisite of contemporary Romanian TV/cultural stardom. The worst part was that the article itself was very carelessly written. It was plain to see that the author had taken no writing classes of any kind and that the art of composition eluded him -- just like it had in his so-called "novel", published a while ago.
This "novel", "RealK" by its oh-so-cool name, is just an outpouring of words, a bloggy affair of no substance that some friends in the cultural arena endorsed (notably Florin Iaru, who may have paved the young "prodigy's" way to Romanian National TV stardom, incidentally). Check out DB's buddy Miron Ghiu (yes, the Web 2.0 guest) pitching the blog/book compulsively on a forum, quoting from it ecstatically. The "novel" soon littered the bookstore shelves all over the country and even, some say, became a bestseller, thanks to the gullibility of the young "internationally minded" Bucurenci fans. Many critics were soon to point out that "RealK" had no business with literature, but apparently to this day Dragos is slow to comprehend why. However, he did promise himself and the world that one day (before he is 40, to be more precise, which leaves him 15 years of thinking time, in my opinion, hardly enough) he will come up with an offering pertaining without a doubt to that art form.
Meanwhile, he's cashing in on the proceeds of his easily mustered fame, while "internationally minded young Romanians" who happen to fall for his style will get the idea that intellectual glory in today's world is much easier to attain than they originally may have envisaged. All it takes is some luck, a bit of charisma, friends in high places, and that's about it, even the otherwise easily available and ubiquitous college degree has become optional in today's Romania...
Such "internationally minded" Romanians would be well advised to keep only their minds "international" and otherwise maintain firm contact with Romanian ground. That's the ONLY place where they can aspire to intellectual success, even stardom while ignoring genuine education. Why, they'd only mirror their less cultured brothers, the "becalized" masses and they'd become their natural elites. Because that's where "Cultura Libre" and its strong "young cultural brand" are headed...
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