Where’s Warner?

Where to begin? Top left corner.
Hidden somewhere in this noisy,
chaotic morass of society
is our fellow traveller, Waldo,
a man unstuck from place and time.

He travels the world on foot, his
only lifeline to his friends and
family a litany of dreary
picture postcards sent from arbitrary
locations the world over. His
postcards do nothing to convey
the humanity, the madness
of Waldo’s adventures. For that,
we must go find him. Waldo leaves
trinkets scattered behind him, shedding
a wake of objects as he goes.
What story do these leavings tell?
They are a series of transmissions
from the past, sent in a code we
cannot decipher. Is that a
scroll, or merely a rolled up towel?
After trying so hard to find
the scroll, are we sure we can handle
the real answer?

Occasionally, Waldo is all
but impossible to ferret
out; sometimes it seems like he’s barely
trying. At the ski slopes, I find
him almost immediately. At the
sea, I hunt until I am mad,
yet Waldo does not reveal himself
to me. Oh, there he is. Hello,
my little friend. Wait a moment.
Who is that man with the beard? I
have seen him before. Is he pursuing
Waldo from place to place, country to
country? Someone must warn our hero.

What is everyone so preoccupied
with at the airport that they miss
the man of the hour right before
them? Perhaps they are experiencing
a collective nightmare of
impending disaster. Who is
Waldo’s pursuer meeting with
at the museum? If only
I could warn Waldo of this conspiracy.
His naϊveté will be his
undoing, as it will be for
each of us in turn.

Why all this travel? We search for
Waldo; but what is Waldo searching
for? Perhaps he is not searching
at all, but running from something.
Does this man even want to be
found? Or, in searching for Waldo,
did we really find ourselves? No,
probably not.

From Warner Herzog Reads Where’s Waldo, 22 April 2010. Submitted by Marika Rose.

For Love

It is a restless moment
She has kept her head lowered,
To give him a chance to come close.
But he could not, for lack of courage,
She turns and walks away.

He remembers those vanished years.
As though looking through a dusty windowpane,
The past is something he could see, but not touch.
And everything he sees is blurred and indistinct.

The subtitle translations of the text at the beginning and end of the Hong Kong film In the Mood for Love, directed by Kar Wai Wong, 2000. Submitted by Marika Rose.

Be mine

Why’ve you got so many pictures of Maria –
she your girlfriend or summat?
Yes, she is.
So have you had sex with her?
No.
Have you felt her bazookas?
No.
Well obviously, it being your girlfriend
you’ve kissed her, yeah?
Not yet.
Well mate, in England
it’s sorta like a tradition
for, like, a girlfriend to kiss her boyfriend
so it sounds to me like you’re not actually with her
you just like her.

In Poland you mustn’t kiss to be together
and to think only about one thing.

But mate, we’re not in Poland:
this is England.

From dialogue in the film Somers Town, 15th June 2010. Submitted by Marika Rose.

NOOMA is there for us

We can get anything we want,
from anywhere in the world,
whenever we want it.
That’s how it is
and that’s how we want it to be.
Still, our lives aren’t any different
than other generations before us.
Our time is.

We want spiritual direction,
but it has to be real for us
and available when we need it.
We want a new format
for getting Christian perspectives.

NOOMA is the new format.
It’s short films with communicators
that really speak to us.
Compact, portable, and concise.

Each NOOMA touches on issues
that we care about,
that we want to talk about,
and it comes in a way
that fits our world.
It’s a format that’s there for us
when we need it,
as we need it,
how we need it.

From the blurb on a series of short films. Submitted by Marika Rose.

Seriously

Please, I need help.
I’ve had marital problems
– Honey, I think it’s time that we start talking about a divorce.
Larry, we’re gonna be fine.
…professional, you name it
– Larry, we’ve received a number of letters denigrating you
and, er, urging us not to grant you tenure
I need help
We’re gonna be fine.
I’ve tried to be a serious man
We’re gonna be fine.
I’ve tried to do right, be a member of the community
We’re gonna be fine.
Please, just tell him I need help, please?
We’re gonna be fine.
I need help.
We’re gonna be fine.

The rabbi is busy.
He didn’t look busy.
He’s thinking.

From the trailer for A Serious Man, 11th May 2010. Submitted by Marika Rose.

In the Vegetable Orchestra

Then, let’s introduce the vegetable musical
instruments that can have been done this time.

It is a carrot ocarina first.

And, it is an ocarina of a white radish
in Japan that can have done this time.

The broccoli ocarina was made.

A good sound was not heard because only
such a broccoli was obtained this time.

And, a carrot ocarina of the slide type
and this carrot ocarina is different
the sound hole. When the breath is put here,
something is heard. It shaped … so …

The paprika was punctured.
When the breath is put here,
such a sound is heard.
It is an owl.

Similarly asparagus panpipe was made.
However, a good sound is not heard.
It is a trumpet of the cucumber
and the paprika in the end.

There were musical instruments that looked
alike also in the vegetable orchestra.

Suggested by Jason Davies. Composed from the subtitles on a YouTube clip in which a man demonstrates musical instruments made from vegetables. Submitted by Gabriel Smy.

Because

That’s why I hit you today,
for the first time in my life.

Because you opened the letter,
because I wanted you to…
because of mother,
because she told you something she didn’t tell me,
because I love you and you are not my daughter,
because everything could have been different,
because the past will never return…

Because of the times you caressed my back
when I cried
candy king

gingerbread page
marzipan princess.

Just watched Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Dekalog, episode four. These are the English subtitles from a key scene towards the end (it’s in Polish). Submitted by Gabriel Smy.