Materialised Before My Eyes

Coming back from the school play’s matinee this afternoon.  My daughter and what seemed like fifty other students were all wonderful.  It was a teacher-written production that blended Aesop and Qin Shi Huangdi, Elsa from ‘Frozen’ and a sabre swinging Lord Vader in a way that seemed to have everyone involved, energized and delighted.  They’d all worked so hard and this was their final performance. 

I came home and sent off a few emails and considered the day’s entry.  I’d finished a book the day before and was now beginning another.  But I’d already written about the prior and I’m not in deep enough in to say much about the latter.  I went to have a look at the Times on-line, which I’ve already considered two or three times already today.  I knew I wasn’t in the mood to discuss Trump’s cabinet or his daughter’s conflict’s of interest.  I wasn’t particularly motivated to explore the quixotic effort to have an electoral recount in three key states either.  The Times’ home page materialised before my eyes and I noticed immediately that Fidel Castro had died. 

Today we respond to death differently than we might have years ago.  Today, in a case like this my first impulse is to go to Youtube.  I’d like to see the man.  The Times references an anecdote about his inauguration speech when a dove settled somehow on his shoulder and I want to see this.  See him in his prime, before I dive into an obit.  Have I ever loaded up a clip of Fidel speaking?  I know that he waved his arms and was flamboyant and incessant when he spoke. I’m digging in now to consider him in Spanish and in broken English, on video.  He reigned longer than any other living ruler, save Queen Elizabeth. 

How does one explain the Cuban Revolution to a generation born in the naughts?  I will labor to say something balanced as there is good and bad in this tale.  I feel like I need to see the man speak, and speak again before I can really weigh-in.  And I soak up the clips.  One of the things I hadn't expected, is to confront how funny and undeniably charismatic he was, as he mocks the U.S. press in his broken English, with his wry smile.   

This has me thinking of the remarkable Russian Movie “I Am Cuba.”  I can remember watching Mikhail Kalatozov’s poignant 1964 movie in Manhattan, I believe in late 80's or early 90's.  I recall the audience applauding at the camera work during opening pool scene, which had camera’s moving with divers and swimmers in the pool, at impossible angles.  Later there is the unforgettable scene father who takes his last savings and gives it to his kids and tells them to go into town and have fun for the evening.  They are unaware and they are thrilled.  Yes.  Have fun this evening, as if it were your last. Then sets his cane farm alight rather than allow it be expropriated by the Yankee expropriators. 

I must consider how to explain the man, the country and that time.