Odd Helix of Sound

Guilty day of non-gym attendance.  I didn’t make it to the gym.  One thing led to another.  I dove into all the open email matters and before long it was noon.  I spent quite some time with my book in the bathroom.  A call or three were unavoidable.  Suddenly there was no time left for the gym.  Pick up the kids, now. 

Odd helix of sound between my room where Sonny Rollins is darting about, majestically.  In the other room, from the kitchen, The Clash’ “Police and Thieves’ is ringing out, demanding attention.  Upstairs, my daughter says it’s time to tuck her in. 

I wrote a few days back about a meeting with a woman from Romania.  She was one of the staff at the American Club in Tokyo.  She’d mentioned Nicolae Ceaușescu.  I know he met a violent end, but I didn’t recall just how it all came to pass.  Youtube has a clip entitled  “Ceausescu's Last Day” and I dove in.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBrHOg2Ih4w

There is the remarkable speech where the “Genius of the Carpathian's” is droning on with the same speech he’s probably made a dozen times, till his eyes are drawn towards a disturbance in the crowd.  He completely looses his train of thought.  People behind him begin fleeing and darting in the door.  It becomes clear that something very serious is happening. 

Within hours he has fled the capital.  He’s on the run and the nation knows it.  We travel with him and his wife and hear his conversation in one city and then another, traveling along in the back of his car with his wife.  “Look at all I did for them.  Before me there was nothing here.”  Eventually he is betrayed by a driver.  The couple is tried quickly. And then they are taken back shot repeatedly.  It’s all quite graphic.  Unfiltered perhaps unavoidable revenge, tearing the otherwise “velvet” revolution.

Amidst this Shakespearean descent to comeuppance, I found myself drawn to listening to this “other” Romance language with great interest.  Turns of phrase that sound Spanish, or French.  As one gets older its probably best to focus on languages where one has a fighting chance with some familiarity.